Asperger vs. sociopathy

shock_the_monkey wrote:

Sh3ld0n wrote:Perhaps I am being too simplistic but I see it like this:
I have a conscience.

yes, i do think that's too simplistic. i think this is varying degress of theory of mind. and it isn't a matter of whether one thinks one has a social conscience, as this is self-determined, but rather whether society does. i'm reluctant to make an extreme parallel but hitler was a vegetarian and an animal lover. i rather doubt he thought he lacked a social conscience, and based on the aforementioned it certainly appears that he had some sort of concern for animals. even humans, as he did marry eva braun before they both committed suicide. but history hasn't judged him too kindly.

Fair enough. Only difference is, when I say "I have a conscience", it's not just my own opinion but people who know me would say that too. Not true for Hitler.
That is the problem with simplistic sayings though, there are always going to be lots of holes in it. But, as Sh3ld0n always maintains, it's just a general idea and was only meant as such. It's not black and white, we aspies always know that!

Thank you all, very much. It seems the problem of good vs. bad is quite strong among Asperger people, or it can be conscious vs. unconscious, I don't know.

You know, the thing is, I know several people with Aspeger outside of the family, and they never stand on the opinion of an absolute, natural and unchangeable rightness of them in every situation, as weel as they are not so often totally furious as he is. In fact I have almost the opposite experience with them all, same as me, that there is an apparent ability of gaining SOMETHING from any new experience (which is every dialogue and every encounter with another person), despite the fact the process of GAINING the experience is not easy. In practice, when somebody is not OK with me because of my unsocial or unusual behavior in a particular situation, it is not problem for me to analyze the situation, especially after some years, I am familiar with them and I am able to APOLOGIZE or at least to consider clearly, that there was something in MY behavior leading to the unpleasant reaction of surrounding people. Yes of course it does not necessary mean I am always able to CHANGE it, or change it IMMEDIATELY, but I made a big progress even in it, just with regards to the EXPERIENCE and my age. After years, I see it much quicker, so my reaction is faster then any before and very often so fast than it precludes the problem to happen.

He is quite old and he is not, or he pretends he is not, which I am almost convinced is the case, and that's why I consider it as conscious and manipulative, and it literally confuses me. He had experienced many situations when people were totally caught off-guard by him, and he is not mostly regarded as the pleasant person, among people who know him for some time already. He is usually very charming for people, especially women, at the first sight, because he is talkative (really too much! ), but after the second or third longer conversation (let's say monologue more precisely), full of lies what he knows and where he was (still interesting for them) they fall into doubts and then usually some conflict appears quite quickly, when he attacks something the person likes to do etc. There is no any sign of the good will or something like being aware of his own problem, even I can't absolutely tell he is the EVIL person, it is not so simple, but he is - literally, in his opinion and his view of the world - the only person in the world who is right in everything, the only important person in the world, he as the only one knows everything the best - so logically, there could'nt be any better way than the best which is his. And with combination with his lying, it creates terrible hybrid situations.

Yes, you're perhaps right, the more I write about him here and now it seems, it will be probably "only" Asperger, but let's say the really dark side of it, although I am still confused I haven't observed it so much in other Asperger people... He does not do anything deviant in the proper sense, if for example the violence on the pregnant woman is not regarded as deviant, which I don't think so, in the proper sense, it is brutal of course, but I would no say "deviant" like with sexual or similar subtext, neither he does have any really strange habits like in Silence of the lambs or tearing away the legs of insect and so on Yes, perhaps it could be the difference, because this is perhaps the behavior specific for sociopaths and necessary for their diagnosis. But still it seems to me, there is too much "conscious "evil" ", to my opinion, possibly an egoism tax.

slugger wrote:

shock_the_monkey wrote:i'm reluctant to make an extreme parallel but hitler was a vegetarian and an animal lover. i rather doubt he thought he lacked a social conscience, and based on the aforementioned it certainly appears that he had some sort of concern for animals. even humans, as he did marry eva braun before they both committed suicide. but history hasn't judged him too kindly.

Fair enough. Only difference is, when I say "I have a conscience", it's not just my own opinion but people who know me would say that too. Not true for Hitler.

very few poeple alive today actually knew hitler, including myself. so, i can't possibly judge him on my own personal experience of him. IMO hitler was a product of his time. he resented the humiliation of germany in the defeat they suffered in WW1. he also saw the benefits of empire, as the british, french and spanish had at this time, and wanted this for germany too. and he might have succeeded if he hadn't committed germany to a war on both the eastern and western fronts. even the jewish issue was not unique. jews had been persecuted in europe well before hitler. so, we like to condemn him for all these things. that's very easy when the party being condemned was roundly defeated. i'm not saying i approve of his actions but they do need to be taken in their historical context. and within that context, i do rather imagine there were those that thought him an amiably sort of peron. indeed, i've seen a number of interviews with people that actually did know him. we could call this the banality of evil. but people are complex and history is written by the victors. so, i think that to say hitler didn't have a conscience is a little bit too simplistic too. this was, as i stated, an extreme parallel, but i do nevertheless think it serves the purpose of demonstrating how issues like sociopathy are not particularly objective or suseptible to self-examination, or even examination by others. it is one of those lamentable facts that society as a general rule places its trust in the psychiatric profession to diagnose such conditions. and they, themselves, are not the least bit infalible.

shock_the_monkey wrote:

Sh3ld0n wrote:Perhaps I am being too simplistic but I see it like this:
I have a conscience.

yes, i do think that's too simplistic. i think this is varying degress of theory of mind. and it isn't a matter of whether one thinks one has a social conscience, as this is self-determined, but rather whether society does. i'm reluctant to make an extreme parallel but hitler was a vegetarian and an animal lover. i rather doubt he thought he lacked a social conscience, and based on the aforementioned it certainly appears that he had some sort of concern for animals. even humans, as he did marry eva braun before they both committed suicide. but history hasn't judged him too kindly.

Interesting argument but I think it is an argument suggesting Hitler wasn't a sociopath...

I haven't studied sociopathy/psychopathy in depth, but it is my understanding a sociopath doesn't have any concerns at all about people's feelings. They work more on a pragmatic level which doesn't necessarily use an antisocial behavioural system.

I may be another Hitler, but I am definitely not a sociopath since I do consider other people's feelings...

-- Tue Oct 09, 2012 11:57 am --

slugger wrote:
That is the problem with simplistic sayings though, there are always going to be lots of holes in it. But, as Sh3ld0n always maintains, it's just a general idea and was only meant as such. It's not black and white, we aspies always know that!

Would you feel more comfortable if I said:
"If you have a conscience, you can't be, by definition, a sociopath..."?

Sh3ld0n wrote:Interesting argument but I think it is an argument suggesting Hitler wasn't a sociopath...

in an age where, as a soldier, if you didn't go over the top of the trench during an attack you were taken out and executed by firing squad, can anyone really appreciate what affect WW1 had on those that participated in trench warefare, as hitler did. i don't feel it appropriate to say catagorically one way or the other. superficially, it would be easy to say yes. and there are certainly aspects of his life and political career that would support such a conclusion. but the fact is that most of the people that knew him were not of that opinion. now, if we were talking about stalin, i would have far less qualms about this. he was known by all that knew him to be positively tyranical.

edit: i'll just add here that i suspect that hitler may have had AS. i'm not going to defend this to the hilt for reasons already stated elsewhere. but his comments to speer at the end of WW2 may have been telling. he believed that the fete of the german people was determined by them having failed in terms of the process of natural selection. it wasn't that he was sadistic or indifferent. it seems to me that such a cool analytical viewpoint is all too AS in its nature.

Sh3ld0n wrote:Would you feel more comfortable if I said:
"If you have a conscience, you can't be, by definition, a sociopath..."?

social conscience. last time i knew, only 6% of the population of the UK were vegetarian. it is a social norm for people not to extend their conscience to animals, only other people. and let me point out another anomaly. the issue of whether people have a 'right to die' has consistently resulted in such a notion being rejected. yet people are quite willing to have animals put down to 'end their suffering'. on balance, i believe that such a right could be open to abuse. but i have a nagging suspicion that there's a less charitable reason for this rejection, namely no one wants the responsibility for ending another persons suffering. it's all too common for people to focus on the actions of others but their inactions are equally, if not more, telling. but no one would use the lable of 'sociopath' to describe such attitudes. social conscience and social norms are so inter-related that lables like sociopath are not absolute but change with the societies that use them. perhaps the most obvious example is slavery, which was once thought to be an acceptable practice, even an economic necessity. any notion that this might be sociopathic took a considerable time to prevail. indeed, the american civil war was ostensible fought over this issue.

There is a HUGE difference between a sociopath and a person with Asperger's. There are many sociopaths misdiagnosed with Asperger's. The people you describe are sociopaths.

A person with Asperger's hates lying and will not use manipulation. A person with Asperger's avoids lying at all costs because it eats at him so badly, he can't live with it. We try to be fair and obey the rules because we hate conflicts. They are a huge pain to us. We will do anything to live in peace and harmony.

Sociopaths are INCAPABLE of feeling guilt so they are free to lie, manipulate and disregard other's feelings all the time. They don't have the preventive mechanism.

ZoomOut wrote: We will do anything to live in peace and harmony.

I agree with everything except that...

Asperians are known to very, very, very....very stubborn...
We tend to be OC about accuracy which annoys the hell of most people, including some asperians...
We also tend to be very obsessive about truth, fair play and justice in general.
Studies have shown that a high proportion of "whistle blowers" are on the spectrum...

Does this make us "better"?
Personally I don't think so, because this trait is obviously the result of a genetic/neurological configuration that we have no control over...

Are we an asset to a society/community?
IMO, indubitably, since we tend to expose corrupt practices in a society we must all endure...
But this assumes that communities do in fact respect a decent, humane society...

Sh3ld0n wrote:

ZoomOut wrote: We will do anything to live in peace and harmony.

I agree with everything except that...

Asperians are known to very, very, very....very stubborn...
We tend to be OC about accuracy which annoys the hell of most people, including some asperians...
We also tend to be very obsessive about truth, fair play and justice in general.
Studies have shown that a high proportion of "whistle blowers" are on the spectrum...

Does this make us "better"?
Personally I don't think so, because this trait is obviously the result of a genetic/neurological configuration that we have no control over...

Are we an asset to a society/community?
IMO, indubitably, since we tend to expose corrupt practices in a society we must all endure...
But this assumes that communities do in fact respect a decent, humane society...

Stubborn, yes, but I think also many Aspies (or at least myself maybe?) have learned to sometimes bite my tongue when it comes to wanting to speak what's exactly on my mind.

I'm pretty stubborn, too...but I've also got myself in trouble too much for being too stubborn so I learned to just say "okay" and continue doing my own thing.

Sh3ld0n wrote:Studies have shown that a high proportion of "whistle blowers" are on the spectrum...

one doesn't have to actually blow said whistle. it's quite enough just to point out that said whistle is there for one to be discriminated against.

TDT wrote:Stubborn, yes, but I think also many Aspies (or at least myself maybe?) have learned to sometimes bite my tongue when it comes to wanting to speak what's exactly on my mind.

I'm pretty stubborn, too...but I've also got myself in trouble too much for being too stubborn so I learned to just say "okay" and continue doing my own thing.

if i can't understand something or i don't agree with it, i won't say i do just to be socially accepted. but i have learnt to ask myself 'is this worth fighting over' and 'does it really matter to me' before i dig my heels in. basically, if the ansewer to either of those questions is 'no', i try to remember to just let it go. but that doesn't mean i agree. i just means that it isn't worth my time and effort to disagree.