How to Create a Sociopath

In her book Unholy Hungers, Hort uses the metaphor of the vampire to explore the ways in which psychopaths drain energy from the rest of us. The metaphor is extremely apt. She hypothesizes that the vampire is a metaphor of a common (though well hidden) archetype in the human psyche. I suggest that it is this archetype that rules the psychopath. Having no emotional connection to the world (because of their lack of conscience) they must feed on the emotional energy of others.

From the book, speaking of the prevalance of the vampire myth around the world:

So many, many names, and among them lies a hard truth. The vampire stalks the living in every corner of the human world. Dracula is only a single vampire among a global horde, and what's more, he is a young member of the clan, for he was born in the mind of Bram Stoker only one hundred years ago, and he was based on a warlord who lived less than six hundred years ago–a mere breath of time, considering it was more than three thousand years ago that the Assyrians and Babylonians described the monster ekimmu, an undead corpse who preyed upon the blood and flesh of the living in an effort to evade its own death. So it is between the vampire and us. Wherever we have lived, whenever we have lived, the beast has always been with us.

A little meditation on the vampire mythos goes a long way toward putting the psychopath question in perspective. One of the key aspects of the myth is that not all who suffer the bite of the vampire die. Many become vampires themselves. Considering how long this myth has haunted the mind of mankind and how it exists in virtually every culture on the planet, it seems curious that this archetype still roams freely amongst us, creating new vampires (aka, sociopaths) at will.

How is this done? Maybe another quote from the book will help to make it clear?

The difference between love and exploitation is often obscured, and it is easy to understand how we might be duped into seeking the power of exploitation when we can’t find the potency of love. Exploitation is only an imitation of love, however, just as some nonnutritive chemicals are imitations of real food. They may look and taste like food, but they provide no sustaining nourishment. Likewise, the power of exploitation may initially feel like the potency of love, but it cannot provide love's nourishing, self renewing energy. What's more, although the life force stolen in the process of exploitation appears to empower the exploiter, it inevitably does so at a cost to both the exploiter and the victim. Because stolen goods decay quickly in matters of personal energy, exploiters must constantly embezzle more energy from others in order to sustain their illusion of empowerment-a crusade that is ever we relate in this way, we are savoring the true sustenance of our souls, which we experience in this plane of existence as love.

As we journey through life, we seek love passionately, but not invincibly. If we are met with lovelessness too often, we begin to fear that we will perish emotionally. The prospect of emotional annihilation is terrifying to all human beings, and in order to escape it, we grasp at any lifeline that presents itself, no matter how deceitful its redemptive promise may be. As Bolen suggests, when we sense our impending emotional death, the lifeline to which we most often cling is power, or more precisely, exploitation-the pursuit of self-enhancement at another's expense. Sometimes we exploit others by coercing them with our demonstrations of unassailable dominance, sometimes by manipulating them with our displays of submissive vulnerability. Either way, we are engaging in exploitation, a profane relationship to the life force in others and ourselves in which both parties are dehumanized and objectified. In contrast, love is a relationship wherein we cherish the sacred humanity of another person while simultaneously cherishing the sacred humanity in ourselves.

It appears that if we are starved for love consistently enough, we willing run to the arms of the vampire/psychopath. Of course, starving an entire culture of love by means of denial would be impossible. But, notice what she says about the power of exploitation—that it may initially feel like the potency of love. That, I believe is the key.

Increasingly, global communications technology is used to flood our minds and senses with imitations of real love. Even more, media is used to glorify all those who give in to the imitation of love (exploitation and power) by parading them before us with cameras flashing and crowds cheering. We give special awards to people who live lives devoid of real love but whose images are used to feed us the imitation (the Academy Awards, Emmy's, etc.). Over and over again, we are shown the imitation, then throw a parade for those who buy it.

Who can stand up to such an assault, unless they are already aware of the truth and on their guard? No one. The moment we bought into the idea of television without understanding its potential to lead us away from real love and life, we pretty much sealed our fate. I have nothing against television, per se, but any technology that allows a few individuals to bombard everyone else with images of prescripted imitation life, then stage realistic dramas in which everyone is celebrating those who accept the imitation as real is a technology that will absolutely be exploited.

We can begin to see more clearly how this technique leads to a self-perpetuating cycle once begun:

Most people resort to exploitation only in situations where they are met with lovelessness. A person who seeks love, only to be rebuffed again and again, eventually slides toward the terrifying pit of emotional starvation. Undergoing an emotional death is like being the swimmer in Jaws-all of existence is reduced to a scream, without echo or answer, into a black, inhuman void. Every unloved person slides to the brink of this awful pit and teeters there, writhing in terror on the precipice of emotional oblivion. The loneliness of this place seems absolute, but then a new entity slithers up alongside. The newcomer whispers to the despairing soul about a way of life in which love will no longer be needed. It swirls the dark cape of exploitation and weaves for the unloved person a tantalizing yarn of triumph over agony and annihilation. The person takes hold of the glittering bait and embarks on the pursuit of exploitive power, rather than elusive love.

As more and more people accept the imitation, more and more people are also left in a state of lovelessness. Those people now begin a descent into the pit of emotional starvation, eventually joining the ranks of the exploiters who once left them loveless. As in any sort of "chain reaction" it doesn't take long before virtually an entire culture has given up on real love and spends all their time feeding off one another parasitically to maintain the imitation.

And that, boys and girls, seems to be the state we find ourselves in, today. Real love, of the giving without expectation sort, has beencome a quaint notion...even a foolish one. The legalities of marriage have overcome devotion. Everyone cries and declares the bride so beautiful in her dress, despite the fact that they all know she is a stark raving bitch. The groom looks so handsome and is perceived as such a great guy for the day of the wedding, despite the fact that everyone in the audience knows he is a philandering asshole who will be sleeping with other women within a few months, at most.

It is all a sham, but we keep it up because we are all looking for someone to con, ourselves; someone we can feed off of. That isn't love, that is an empty shell of a person looking to tank up at someone else's expense. Is it any wonder that so many marriages end in divorce these days? It has nothing to do with lack of religious faith or allowing gays to get married (the goofiest argument I've ever heard, I think), it has to do with the fact that once one partner has bled the other dry, they need to find fresh meat to fill up on.

You might read this as me being cynical about love. I'm not. I'm cynical about the imitation, and that seems to be about all anyone kind find these days.