THE PSYCHOPATHS AMONG US --- SAMPLE OF RESPONSES

THE PSYCHOPATHS AMONG US – SAMPLE OF RESPONSES

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© July 22, 2009

FROM A NOVELIST

"The times have truly changed and not for the better!"

FROM A MANAGEMENT CONSULTANT

"Sounds like you recently had the joy of encounter.

" Sorry.

"Friends come and go; enemies accumulate. I take some solace in observing that the weasels of the generation before me end their lives alone, in a toxic, self-made sea of enemies. Pox be upon them."

FROM A PROFESSOR AN INTERNATIONAL OD CONSULTANT

"Most interesting insights. I reviewed a series of books a few years ago on the nature of evil in world of organizations.

"Two sources most influenced me, one was written by an old colleague from my graduate days at George Washington University. His name is Guy Adams and his book is” The Nature of Evil in Administrative Systems" a case story of NASA and its original leader Von Braun, an ex SS officer.

"Another favorite is author Scott Peck. He defines evil in his book "People of the Lie.” Peck show how easily it is for a community to shift to a cult and become evil when they put their faith and hope essentially in a lie, which they all have agreed to accept unconditionally.

"Lies or major distortions of reality flourish with psychopaths as you put it so well. It is as important to be aware, as it is to be sure not to rush to judgment. Otherwise, we can fall down that same slippery slope of accepting a lie by failing to challenge our own thinking.

"Those of us gifted with above average brains are often the most susceptible to believing our own press. A skeptical yet inquiring mind should be our default setting in figuring out our own selves. Some people are so believable because they believe totally everything they want and need to believe."

DR. FISHER RESPONDS

No, things – as a whole – have not turned out for the better because we have become increasingly slaves to our electronic systems, which when they crash, leave us paralyzed and literally in the dark.

The sad thing about this is that we are just on the lip of the change process, and are moving in the direction of "machines rule." Absurd! Pick up a copy of WIRE magazine if you have any doubts.

* * *

The second response made me smile. The writer knows my work and me and assumed I was having a bad day. Not true.

I'm still working on my novel of South Africa. The treachery of psychopaths is a continuing undercurrent to that story, and this missive came to me, as I walked and I wrote it down before I forgot it.

As I’ve mentioned before, missives come to me out of the blue without any prompting. They always, of course, have a kernel of thought generated by something else.

My novel of South Africa is about treachery, betrayal, and disclosure, but I sense that renting Patricia Highsmith's filming of her book, "Talented Mr. Ripley" pushed my mind into this particular type of reflection.

It is amazing how novelist are so much more perceptive than trained psychologists when it comes to understanding life’s drama. Highsmith is an anarchist of the grotesque comedy of life. She explores the human heart in the same vein as have Chester Himes and Flannery O’Connor. I suspect I am equally so inclined.

Then another factor walked with me. Novelist Frank McCourt died the other day. He, like me, struggled for years with his quintessential work -- his was a biography ("Angela's Ashes"), while mine is a biographical novel ("Green Island in a Black Sea”).

McCourt lived long enough to publish his work and become an international celebrity, and a wealthy man in his seventies, but without losing his charm and memory of the pathos and wrenching poverty of his youth.

McCourt knew he would hurt people by sharing his truth, yet he had the courage to do it. I know I will surprise people with my novel should it ever be published.

McCourt wrote from the perspective of a little boy in Limerick. I write as a young American executive in colonial splendor in South Africa.

McCourt sublimated his anger into art thus displaced his contempt for the Irish Catholic Church, and Irish society. Images of smothering poverty, a drunken father, a depressed mother and hungry siblings are presented with compassion and humor from the perspective of a little boy by a man in his dotage.

My story displays similar concerns but from a growing understanding of the corruption of corporate society and corpocracy. This is displayed in the context of the myths of a dying Western belief system. My protagonist does this as he leaves his innocence and superstitions behind in 1968 to find himself buried in oblivion and existential angst.

Be always well,

Jim