to ask why we all have to live in a world shaped by sociopaths?

[nippiesweetie]

Either because the sociopaths are in charge or we have to have laws aimed at controlling them but endured by us all.

I'm thinking of people like careless employers or heedless industrialists, and everyone else who will not operate ethically unless there is a law forcing them to - and even then they will be looking for a way round it.

At the extreme are the terrorists, but there are also the more mundane like manipulative, unpleasant people in the workplace.

Are the rest of us too ready to settle for our own normal circle of friends, family and colleagues. When will the meek get a fair go?

I think a person has to be fairly ruthless to claw their way to the top. Nice guys finish last and all that whether that makes them all sociopaths (or would it be psychopaths?) is something I am not sure about.

You can be ruthless, calculating and willing to stab someone in the back to get ahead without meeting the clinical criteria for psycopathy.

Sociopath vs psychopath

I think many more deeply unpleasant people have sociopathic traits than we generally like to think about - that does not make them diagnosable sociopaths, mind.
Anyway, 'tis called Antisocial Personality Disorder now.

There was a documentary that looked at the invention (in American law) of the concept of a corporation, and asked the question, if a company is a "legal person", what sort of person is it psychologically? It then went through all the criteria in the medical handbook (I forget what it's called) and concluded that a (generic) company met every criterion necessary to be diagnosed as a psychopath.

(I think it was a Michael Moore documentary. I didn't take it too seriously, but it was amusing.)

The good thing about being raised by one is I can now spot another one pretty easily.

Or at least I think I can.

I always thought there was a difference between sociopaths and psychopaths, but a psych I met said that there actually isn't a difference at all.

According to that link my dad isn't a sociopath, but a psychopath.

I think it's more of an academic difference rather than a 'practical' one IYKWIM.

And I can believe that about corporations in an unfettered capitalist system

MrsMarcJacobs Yes, sociopaths in the workplace are very unpleasant. I don't mean people who are annoying or just not my type of people. I mean people with a significant personality disorder.

I have had the misfortune to encounter two sociopathic/narcissistic bosses. The harm they did was incredible. The first time I didn't understand why the individual was so weird, then I Googled their behaviour. The second one I spotted within two months.

Sociopathic traits is probably a better term but I am thinking of people from all parts of the sociopathic spectrum, including those with the full blown personality disorder.

Sociopaths have feelings too you know

Or maybe not

Oh, there are many many people who are highly 'functioning' sociopaths and even sociopaths who have a fair bit of insight and understand that they lack in what is normally expected levels of empathy. Often they try to behave accordingly and 'pass' as nice enough people.

Not all sociopaths are evil but many evil people are sociopaths.

Read Plato's Republic OP, and you will understand this better, why its important to respect the Rule of Law, and why nothing is new under the sun. And why communism never works, and never has done.

You have to think why we have evolved so this is acceptable

And why you think this cos the world I inhabit (took a journey to get here) I know none. Not one single person I would consider a sociopath.