On Mon, 3 Nov 2003, Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
> Miles
> >
> > Here's an anecdote from the "left coast" (Pacific NW): We were
> > discussing anti-social personality disorder in my Psych class,
> > and I emphasized that the major symptoms were
> > manipulating or hurting others, having no guilt or remorse
> > about it, and possessing above average intelligence.
> > One student said, "Like Saddam, right?" I pointed out that
> > casual psychological diagnoses of political leaders are often
> > dubious; for instance, many people around the world would
> > argue that Pres. Bush has the same "disorder". Without
> > missing a beat another student interjected: "Yeah, but
> > Bush isn't intelligent".
>
> What I find the most astonishing about this anecdote is that people came
> up with media characters rather than examples from their social
> environment. It shows two things: (1) how brainwashed the US population
> is, and (2) how prozac-like dull the social life in this country is.
>
> Wojtek
I've done academic and applied work in the field of psychology for about 15 years, and I couldn't provide a personal example of someone who has anti-social personality disorder. Granted, I'm not a therapist, but it's very rare (fortunately for the rest of us!). I appreciate the gist of Wojtek's criticism of social life here, but if not knowing anybody with anti-social personality disorder is an indicator of "dull" social life, I'll go with dull.
Miles