On the Conscience of Psychopaths

 

This video goes into more depth, but I want to note their lede: psychopaths and narcissists do not do well on polygraph tests. This disproves the common claim that they have no conscience. Everyone does. They know perfectly well that they are lying or doing harm to others. Rather than not feeling guilt, they experience a high level of ambient guilt at all times. They are jumpy about it, and liable to explode in a tantrum or melt into self-pity if challenged. This is one reason why they are prone to alcoholism or drug use, and prone to complain of symptoms often diagnosed as “depression” or “chronic anxiety.” And then often put on SSRIs that, like alcohol, allow them to commit their crimes with greater alacrity.

This also explains something I have noticed for a long time, and been unable to really account for: you can commonly recognize a psychopath by smell. They stink; Mao Zedong famously did. This might have something to do with their corporeal self-love—they love the smell of themselves, and assume that others would too. So they do not shower or bathe as often as they might. But I’ve known narcissists who did shower and bathe, and still smelled. It might also be because they tend to sweat more than others, an anxiety response.

Another sign of narcissism or psychopathy, touched on in the video, is that they lack spontaneity. This too is anxiety; they must always guard their words. They tend therefore to seem robotic, their responses predictable, “NPC.” The unexpected or unfamiliar is to them threatening. As a result, narcissists and psychopaths lack a sense of humour, and rarely laugh in a natural way. This is also the source of the celebrated narcissistic smirk: their smiles are never sunny or spontaneous, but calculated.

The Greeks believed in the Erinyes, which would pursue malefactors to their death. Christians call it conscience. It is real.