Nazis and the Nature of Evil

[Jonathan101]

You're welcome.

EDIT: That should have read "prescriptive", not "perspective", by the way.

[Yukaphile]

@Riedquat Well, some people put their own political slant into an area they really should not.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

EDIT: That should have read "prescriptive", not "perspective", by the way.

Actually I almost did a double take on that, but subtly determined it consistent when thinking about how we assess arguably cognitive conditions as (I believe?) ADHD etc. In other words, it's just kind of a matter of perceived traits, with more of a soft determination.

[Jonathan101]

EDIT: That should have read "prescriptive", not "perspective", by the way.

Actually I almost did a double take on that, but subtly determined it consistent when thinking about how we assess arguably cognitive conditions as (I believe?) ADHD etc. In other words, it's just kind of a matter of perceived traits, with more of a soft determination.

Perspective works, but it wasn't 100% what I meant.

By "Prescriptive" I meant that some psychologists are more concerned with behaviour and test results than what actually goes on in your head, so whether or not Hitler was Paranoid would depend more on if he matched a set of pre-existing symptoms (he would though) than making assumptions about what was going on in his head, the problem with that approach being that things WERE going on in his head even if, objectively, we could only guesstimate what that was by listening to what other paranoids have reported in interviews about the own inner world over the decades.

ADHD is somewhat cognitive yes, although many psychologists are open to the idea that isn't really a "condition" at all but simply a cognitive style or styles, and it is almost certainly over-diagnosed at the very least. This, also, is where the Prescriptive / Descriptive conflict plays out, and it's about whether or not there is a baseline "normal" personality or instead several different personalities.

If we are taking a hard science approach, we would assess conditions and personality by taking that Perspective / Prescriptive approach to psychology, as academia generally does, by looking at behaviour and test results, but then again that is less "scientific" and more "hard empirical" and it tends to frown on theory, and it's the sort of thing that leads to mixed results and also why, ironically, the hard sciences frown on psychology in the first place- it's shallow and more like the "tip of the iceberg", since there IS an inner world going on and for those to whom that isn't self-evident (usually, those lacking in imagination- I mean that literally, not as an insult), there is neuroscience and genetics / epigenetic to back it up.

Self-reporting, depth psychology, interviews etc all still have a part to play, in other words...I may be rambling a little at this point.

A lot of this is the complex, messy history of psychology at play.

[Dragon Ball Fan]

Okay guys- I think we need to clear up some terminology here. You all seem to be confused about what certain terms mean. I actually study all of this stuff so it's getting a bit irksome seeing people argue over subjects I know inside out.

Firstly, there are different types of empathy, which leads to confusion as people define empathy in different ways. There is Cognitive Empathy, Emotional Empathy, Somatic Empathy, Imaginative Empathy etc.

Secondly, empathy is not compassion or sympathy. You can be empathic but uncaring, and you can care without empathising.

Thirdly, some people are naturally more empathic than others, although environment obviously plays a role too.

Fourthly, everyone naturally prefers or is inclined towards particular types of empathy, although empathy can be trained, which leads to more confusion between people.

Fifthly, lacking empathy alone does not make you a sociopath or a psychopath or whatever.

And sixthly, sociopath and psychopath also have multiple different meanings and definitions, depending on which system you are using or which psychologists you are listening to, which in turn means that whether or not either is capable of empathy or to what degree varys a lot. The terms are not just synonymous with evil and being evil doesn't automatically mean you are either one of them or vice-versa.

As far as Nazism specifically goes, their psychology has been studied for decades and you'd really be looking at things like paranoia as much as psychopathy to get a proper understanding of it, as well as the history and culture of Germany of course. Most mass movements have paranoid features mind.

I still don't get it. I have never heard of someone who was called a sociopath who wasn't a serial killer, genocidal dictator or otherwise, someone who hurts others for their own gain or amusement. and I think the clinical definition is too broad anyway, lacking empathy should be the only factor in sociapathy or at least, the only one that really matters. and no, I don't buy that empathy, sympath¥ and compassion are not connected.

[Yukaphile]

I know a lot of people today who do that. That's why I've termed it "psychology culture." An attempt to psychoanalyze everything, when in truth, there's much of the human psyche that remains a mystery to us. I saw people who tried to claim the YouTube shooter was mentally ill. It's becoming sadly cliche every time a crime happens and hits the news and I hate it. She wasn't a victim of some innocent brain dysfunction, she was petty and vengeful and vindictive, the worst of our base emotions. The irony here is that the people I saw doing that were right of center. No psychologist will agree 100% on the same thing, and more often than not they're just guessing. Without knowing the full mechanics of how the brain/consciousness works, which even if we do discover we won't find out in this century, it's really just a pseudo-science.

[Jonathan101]

I still don't get it. I have never heard of someone who was called a sociopath who wasn't a serial killer, genocidal dictator or otherwise, someone who hurts others for their own gain or amusement. and I think the clinical definition is too broad anyway, lacking empathy should be the only factor in sociapathy or at least, the only one that really matters. and no, I don't buy that empathy, sympath¥ and compassion are not connected.

I'm not saying they aren't "connected" per say, but they aren't synonymous.

Empathy is about understanding people.

Cognitive Empathy is about reading people

Emotional Empathy is about emotionally relating to people.

Somatic Empathy is about physically feeling what another person is experiencing (eg. seeing someone stub their toe and faintly "feeling" it in your own toe).

Compassion and sympathy are about caring about people.

If you've only heard sociopathy talked about in association with dictators and serial killers then you simply haven't read very widely on the subject- in fact most sociopaths and psychopaths (whether you treat them as different or synonymous) are NOT killers at all, although many might be con artists or have criminal lifestyles. Many live perfectly legal (or mostly legal) lives and get their jollies from extreme sports or business etc

https://www.quora.com/Do-you-think-that ... ent-things

Every personality disorder has lack of empathy as a feature, and empathy is not an "all or nothing" thing, so no making lack of empathy the sole defining feature of sociopathy or psychopathy is not helpful at all, nor was it ever intended to be true.

Since we're on the subject of Nazi's, of all the ones put on trial at Nuremberg, only one- Herman Goring- was actually diagnosed as a sociopath. The rest were found to be relatively normal.

[Dragon Ball Fan]

I still don't buy it at all, you didn't give me a specific example of a sociopath who doesn't hurt other people for their own gain or pleasure, give me an example of a sociopath who never did or said anything even the slightest bit intentionally callus or malicious and I might believe you. and empathy is all or nothing for me and my father and from what I can tell, everyone else in my life.

and for the last part of your post, I'm pretty sure sociopaths are perfectly normal, they just don't have a conscience.

[Yukaphile]

How about Soviet criminals, huh? Please don't tell me you subscribe to that bullshit theory their sins were the result of being "traumatized" by war. War has a lot of hardships, sure, but that feels disingenuous to their actual victims, who were left permanently afraid and doubly traumatized despite attempts to misrepresent them, downplaying their lifelong pain, and assassinating their character, while those who were guilty of such crimes likely never thought back to their conquests, and if they ever did, it was in the vein of "boy, that woman was sure such a good fuck, and she totally wanted me!" Hell, how about that confessed war criminal who paints himself as the victim here? Admits they hunted down numerous women, but when they couldn't find them, would prey on girls and stuff something in their mouth when they cried out, that he thought it was good fun, and "now it seems hard to believe that I could have ever done that, a good boy from a good home. But that was me." He's not giving us his name as a matter of public record. He's not turning himself in. He admitted to this anonymously in a book, in front of a woman doing interviews, apparently. It's similar to the rape apologia thread on Reddit, that got an actual psychologist to call it out. He won't let us fairly judge him except as an anonymous war criminal, and I doubt he was ever celibate to try and make up for his evil acts. What would you diagnose him as?

[Jonathan101]

I still don't buy it at all, you didn't give me a specific example of a sociopath who doesn't hurt other people for their own gain or pleasure. and empathy is all or nothing for me and my father and from what I can tell, everyone else in my life.

I never claimed that sociopaths don't- I was arguing that there is a spectrum to hurting people for pleasure or gain, and on that spectrum are a whole bunch of people who are not sociopaths.

But then, you rejected the clinical definition (insofar as their is one) in favour of your own, so you are basically taking it upon yourself to decide who is a sociopath and who isn't. You like the sound of the term because you think it is useful, but you don't want to know about it in any real depth.

And with all do respect, you do not get to decide what sociopathy or empathy are. Just because you think it is all or nothing for you does not mean that it actually is, for you or anyone else, and "from what you can tell" is meaningless anecdotal evidence versus decades of scientific research from various schools of thought.