THE PRICE OF A PEDESTAL - THE ROBERT W. WHITAKER ARCHIVE

THE PRICE OF A PEDESTAL | 2007-01-05

A commenter said that I was no longer on his pedestal. I said that was great. I meant it.

This made me think about the whole business of being "liked." For a psychopathic, and in a society totally run by psychopaths as ours is, everybody wants to be liked. Everybody liked Ted Bundy, including the judge who sentenced him to death.

For Ted Bundy, being liked was a hundred percent benefit. The only real downside of being liked is that you can hurt someone who likes you, and Bundy was incapable of caring if he did.

Now let's look at the other end of this spectrum. First, let me point once again at this psychological wheelchair I am sitting in. I had to beat the Feds big time to prove I deserved nine years of BACK disability pay. It's on the record. But you can't SEE it.

But since this whole blog is my psychology dealing with your psychology, it is critical to me that you recognize this problem I have. It is as humiliating for me to keep pointing to it as it would be for a person in a wheelchair to have to REPEATEDLY point out that he cannot sprint.

And this is EXACTLY why being liked has a big downside for me that a society where all advice is sociopathic would never describe. I miss birthdays. I miss making compliments I should make, all because of attention deficit and a slew of other problems. And I am cursed with eight or ten times the empathy a normal person should have, much less a sociopath. So I ALWAYS hurt people who like me.

On the other hand, after a lifetime of the sort I have had, dealing with enemies or people who hate me is duck soup. I don't have to hold back. I am cursed with such a load of empathy that I even hate to whip up on my enemies too much, but it beats hell out of one more deeply disappointed person who genuinely wished me well and whom I have, inevitably, hurt.

You have the same problem to some extent, which makes this worth mentioning. When someone tells YOU they like you, it is not an unalloyed pleasure. But I have never heard anybody else mention this.

Our society goes along the lines of Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People." I am not being cynical here. The reason you read my stuff is to get a DIFFERENT perspective on things. So while I am not the late Dr. Carnegie's enemy, it would be silly for me to do nothing but add onto the heaps of praise he has received. So in a lot of cases where someone has received nothing but praise, I tend to sound cynical because a different perspective is GOING to mean that I see a downside to them. That is not cynicism. That is just not being a bore.

So in my mind Carnegie's HWFIP was the sociopath's cookbook. He made it clear that people want you to remember their NAMES. I have seen congressman with a talent for remembering their constituents' names reelected again and again, and that congressman had as much empathy as any other sociopath. A constituent who was charmed by Ole Bill's concern for him and secure in the knowledge that Old Congressman Bill, his Buddy, remembered his name, would be astonished when the found out that Ole Bill had screwed him to the wall decade after decade.

But remembering somebody's name is not a sign of affection. The time a person spends concentrating on your name and face is time he is NOT spending on your interests. Carnegie taught that people don't really give a damn about their own interests as long as you remember their names. I have seen the truth in this all my life. The cost of getting your name remembered is staggering.

Ted Bundy was marvelous at remembering names.

I do not think I have read anyone else say that being liked has a downside. It is like being trusted. Being trusted is extra responsibility. They PAY you to take on extra responsibility. If extra responsibility is not an unalloyed joy, why should being liked be an unalloyed benefit?

The answer is that, for a sociopath, extra responsibility is fine as long as it does not involved extra RISK. A sociopath would demand more money if his extra responsibility meant he stood a better chance of the IRS going after him, but the sort of responsibility that wore me down, taking other people's lives and fortunes into my hands because I happened to be the best there was to do it, would not bother a sociopath, or a society advised entirely by sociopaths, in the slightest.

Being complimented has a downside for me. It means that whoever is doing the complimenting will soon tell me how "disappointed" they are. I find an outright insulter much easier to deal with than someone who puts me on a pedestal and expects me to stay there.

So I can do very well without admirers. Any normal human being finds admirers a bit disconcerting. But MY PSYCHOLOGICAL WHEELCHAIR makes them a burden. It is humiliating having to remind people of one's disability. That's heavy enough. But to have to remember just what to say to each person you don't want to hurt is a monstrous burden for me. I have spent a lifetime getting sick beyond measure of the constant, "Oh, Bob, I USED to think so much of you but ..."

I am here to give you ideas, concepts, basics. If you like THEM, that is what maters.

That reminds me of why I go queasy every time somebody announces to me he is a "Christian." It means that he thinks I am on God's side but any day he can go bananas because I have Betrayed the Doctrine.

I want to influence IDEAS, not people. I do not aim to "win friends" because I have had too much experience with people who say they are your "friends." If someone asks me "is he/she a friend of yours?" I answer, "Well. I am a friend of his/hers. I'm not inside their head, and their mind will change any minute."

Once again, people think I am being cynical or trying to sound smart. I'm not. It just sixty-five years of a very hard life talking.

COMMENTS (7)

#1 shari | 2007-01-05 11:02

Not Spam

This is what I have learned here. I was flipping through chanels on the TV. Every single station shows a cleaned up version of diversity. And then there is EWTN. It shows the same thing and declares it to be the rock solid teaching of the church. There is a black african bishop saying how much he likes New York city because everyone is from somewhere else. The smiling American priest of Polish decent agrees. A woman speaking to a group in Minnesota. says that "social Justice", an oxymoron I think, will lead to peace for the whole world, and this is what Christ thinks too.

I would not have seen these things so clearly without this blog, although I have had problems with "christians" for years for other reasons. This is the reason I don't like to be greeted with hugs from "christians," They are assuming that I am one of them and I am not, although I am a christian and pray all the time. I am more sure all the time that you are right and that's what matters to me. Shari

#2 Dave | 2007-01-05 13:03

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What gets lost in how people currently associate with one another as exemplified by Date Carnegie's HWFIP advice is what happened to us once we become an urban (versus rural) society.

Remember, Dale Carnegie was advising a newly urbanized people (folks freshly off the farm) on how to successfully navigate (diplomacy and etiquette wise) urban society, a society where you are constantly interacting with strangers from differing backgrounds and origins.

It has completely been forgotten that rural America was a sharing society, like all rural societies. Everyone in the rural situation shared the same burdens, knew one another, and took care of one another; consequently, if you were down on your luck, you went to live with your neighbor.

This was about a shared interest in surviving.

No such thing exists in the urban situation. Accordingly, skills in etiquette and diplomacy become paramount, furnishing a window for sociopaths to thrive.

It is ironic that the most moral struggle with etiquette and diplomacy, where it is no problem for the sociopath. That is because for truly aware people, etiquette and diplomacy are the world's trickiest subjects.

There could never be a successful curriculum in etiquette and diplomacy, nor can it be learned from books or essays. Etiquette and diplomacy are deeply bound to issues of personal moral character, as there is a time to forbear and a time to be rude.

Sociopaths are entirely given to being clever and using others, therefore they never really understand etiquette and diplomacy, subjects no different than strategy and tactics in war and conflict. Persons of low moral character can't do either successfully, yet they regularly fool others into believing they can.

BW is a man high moral character; his work contributes to important issues of etiquette and diplomacy. That is why BW is upfront about the issues of etiquette and diplomacy in running this blog.

It isn't easy.

But is it to be expected that a man like BW, whose real orientation is to advise on political conflict, would also be deeply aware and burdened by issues of etiquette and diplomacy.

#3 dave | 2007-01-05 13:35

NOT SPAM

And I am not Peter either, this is Lord Nelson talking, (I don't now why but it seems I can only comment on this blog as Peter)

Let me say that I don't understand what some peoples problem is here.

I come here to pick the things I find useful, and hopefully point things out that maybe

of use.

I always ignore what I don't find important.

In 4 years of posting on Stormfront I never once used a racist insult and certainly NEVER in reall life.

I only felt mad at a program of GENOCIDE against my race and used to feel so disheartened by people who acted like puppets and spewed out all the hate filled crap our enemies wanted us to.

Then I first heard Bobs mantra on one of Bobs audios and realised that it pretty much summed what I myself had been thinking but had not put into words.

That is why I am here (YOU SEE I AM BEING SELFISH) I find things that I believe can be usefull in a cause that means a lot to me, I ignore the rest.

I suggest others do the same.

If you want to do hero worship then I am sure there are other places and they will give you badges to wear and other great stuff.

Me, I will scavenge anything that I think maybe of use in this fight.

You are fine by me Bob, and now I hope we can all talk about the things that matter.

This comment is by LORD NELSON.

#4 Pain | 2007-01-05 17:55

NOT SPAM

To extend this further:

Being liked can be as much a liability as it is a benefit.

Being liked can be seen as property, property that somebody else wants.

Being liked means you are the enemy to someone who envies it.

Being liked brings attention on to yourself and feeds the gossip mill. (Have you seen the nasty gossip about celebrities?)

Being liked can take you down.

#5 Anonymous | 2007-01-05 17:56

I won't even bother to log in, log out or log anything else. I will speak as if I am Peter. What difference does it make? Thought is thought. Ideation is ideation. Who's looking for credit? Not me. I'll bet you know who I am. But even that is not important.

I have said on this blog at a previous time (months ago) that it is not important to be liked. I am not concerned with being liked. I will be respected. That is enough.

Bob Whitaker knows that I am not a sycophant. I tell it like it is. He knows that. I think he ultimately appreciates that.

I cannot say that I like Bob or dislike Bob because I do not know him personally. I respect him. That's enough. I respect what he has done with his life. That's enough.

All I have to do is write. Bob knows who is writing this. I can call myself Peter but he should know who I am. Who I am is of no consequence. A man is not his name. A man is not some number or other identifying criteria.

Bob Whitaker has nothing to apologize for in this life in my opinion. What Bob Whitaker has done and is doing is far more important than what Nancy Pelosi is about to do. There's a million Pelosis floating around out there. They come and they go. There aren't many Bob Whitakers.

#6 Peter | 2007-01-05 21:21

Not Spam

This is CL, not Peter.

Bob, you're an asshole, but you're our asshole.

-CL

#7 Bob | 2007-01-05 21:30

Gee, CL, you got me all choked up.