Sociopathy and the Social Sciences

David P. Goldman wrote of Barack Obama, in the Asia Times, “He has the empathetic skill set of an anthropologist who lives with his subjects, learns their language, and elicits their hopes and fears while remaining at emotional distance. That is, he is the political equivalent of a sociopath. The difference is that he is practicing not on a primitive tribe but on the population of the United States.”

This statement says more than may at first be apparent, and about the social sciences, not about Obama. Never mind Obama. If it is wrong to view the population of the United States at an emotional distance, it is equally wrong to view a primitive tribe at an emotional distance, for they are equally human. Nor are anthropologists the only ones who do this: it is equally true of sociologists, psychologists, and anyone else who seeks to reduce the study of humans to a “science”—in a nutshell, the social sciences.

If the attitude and talents of the social scientist are those of the sociopath, then, to call a spade a spade, social scientists are sociopaths. Anyone who looks at other humans beings as legitimate objects of objective, scientific, dispassionate study, is viewing all other human beings as objects.

This is hardly something that should be acceptable in a moral society, much less something lauded, respected, and government funded.

And it is hardly surprising, given this basic bent, that the social sciences in the academy end up in general opposition to the common people and their aims. Their interests are antithetical by the nature of their endeavour.

And here’s another cheery thought: given that the social sciences have completely taken over the field of education, your own children spend five hours every day, give or take, quite possibly in the hands of such sociopaths. Not all teachers, of course, are sociopaths; but when they are, this is not an anomaly. This is exactly what the system is built to produce.