NERDS AND PSYCHOPATHS | 2006-02-02
On Stormfront someone said that Bush could not be a psychopath because psychopaths are smart.
Having worked in prisons and other less desirable places ( for someon working there, not prisoners), I have known many, many dumb psychopaths. But they are not seen as psychopaths. They are seen as nasty, vicious little people.
We make a distinction between these dumb, vicious, horrible little people and the coat-and-tie psychopaths like Ted Bundy or Pat Robertson because the smart psychopaths are seen as entirely different from CONGENITALLY tiny, nasty, inhuman creatures.
If you could ask one of the women Ted Bundy tortured to death you would find that, when he stopped acting, Bundy was just like any other hunk of horrible, vicious, merciless trash.
In other words, this division exists only in our own minds. The coat-and-tie psychopath could throw hot coals into a baby's eyes without a qualm. But he has spent his entire life learning how to behave in our society, so he would better shock and horror at seeing acid thrown in a child's face than you would.
People's real reactions do not meet expectations. A truly horrific scene may leave you dazed or even laughing. The psychopath would react perfectly.
So it is real shock when you find that a Ted Bundy is torture-killer or that Pat Robertson or Jim Bakker are able to say anything and act any way they find opportunistic. They have no real emotions to get in the way.
So our idea that psychopaths are intelligent comes from the fact that the intelligent ones are discovered late, if at all, and people realize they have a special label called "psychopath." But the stupid little sadist in prison is the same person, and vice-versa. We just call them a hunk of trash or nasty and little, we do not think of a big word like psychopath to explain them.
We have the same sort of misconception when it comes to "nerds." We tend to think of smart people as physically underdeveloped.
My doctor brother and I did a lot of research together about the correlation of intelligence and physical qualities.
The brain is a part of the body. If you have a good brain that probably means the rest of your body works well, too. Smart people have brains that develop quickly. They also TEND, and I hope I don't have to explain the difference between correlation and an absolute rule, smart people TEND to be taller, healthier, better looking.
If the brain is better developed the rest of the body TENDS to be better developed, too.
Political Correctness tells us that the brain is entirely a product of environment, meaning education. So the theory is that anybody who happens to get a good education or O'Reilly's family upbringing obsession will be smart.
Meanwhile, back on earth, if you're smart you were born with it.
There is a VERY important lesson here. The Politically Correct idea of "smart" seems to meet our observations. We all remember the little nerd who was scrawny but very, very smart. The reason for that is that we do not remember the guy who was student body president, athlete, and had an all-A average as "smart."
The people we remember as "smart," the nerds, are the ones who are ONLY smart. So we get the impression that you have to be tiny and ugly to be intelligent.
People in general can afford this mistake, and Political Correctness encourages it. Good-looking blond women have a much higher average IQ than the average, but we make "dumb blond" jokes because we only remember the ones who act dumb and look good.
Jayne Mansfield and Julie Newmar had VERY high IQs, for instance. Marilyn Monroe probably did, too. It's just that when one is looking at them one doesn't think a lot about IQ. Very few people saw a pinup of Rita Hayworth and thought, "I wonder how good she is at Calculus?"
I believe it was Heddi Lamar, another famous actress, who developed an effective variation on radar.
But if a girl is ugly her genius at math is what you remember about her.
I do not make this mistake, but I can't AFFORD to. If your job depends on judging people, you really do have to know rules like this.