Neuroscientist James Fallon, who some time
ago delivered on stage a striking self-revelation, has a new book out, The Psychopath Inside. I haven’t read
the book, but I did revisit the online talk which preceded it. In his routine,
Fallows describes how a few years back he got around to doing a neuroimaging
study of the brains of psychopathic serial killers; how he recruited himself
and family member as controls; and how he found out that the brain which showed
the most obvious lack of activity in its empathetic regions turned out to be –
his own.
Naturally, Fallon was taken aback. So he
underwent some genetic testing, and found out that he had all the risk genes
for violence and aggression. He also “scored a little too high on the
psychopath test” developed by psychologists. Still a bit incredulous, he turned
to his family (whose test results were all within the normal range), friends,
and colleagues and asked them what they though of him. They did not try to
spare his feelings. Everyone of them told him something like: “Oh, we’ve always known you are kind of a sociopath.”
Surprised, Fallon asked a follow-up question: “What?” And they elaborated: “You
don’t connect to people, you are kind of cold, and you are kind of
superficially glib, and you are great at parties, and you love strangers, and
you love world piece and hunger and do all these things generally, but in terms
of being the person really close to you … it ain’t such a fun ride.”
Initially, Fallon had been in denial. But faced with
the truth, he also discovered that he “really didn’t care” – which he took as
“proof that what they were saying was true.” So Fallon came to recognize that
while he bonded well with strangers, he was – indeed – “low on the kind of
empathy that underlies bonding with loved ones.” He came to accept the
diagnosis he had received, and even make fun of it. And he turned it all into a
book – which I am sure is even more informative and funny than his original
talk.
Since he hadn’t committed any crime or done anything
else that was horrible – other than being a bit callous and Machiavellian on a
daily basis, and not letting his grandkids beat him at various games – Fallon
decided his psychopathy was qualitatively different from that of hardened
recidivists. So he decided to call himself a “pro-social,” or successful, psychopath.
He also came to reason that since such psychopaths existed in all societies,
and had not been culled by evolution, maybe they performed some necessary
social functions. To illustrate this idea, Fallon asks: “Do we want our
surgeons to be really empathetic when doing the surgery?” The answer to this is
obvious, but then Fallon goes on to conclude that the same goes for our special
forces; but also for “our CEOs and investment people” – we don’t want such
individuals “to be really heart-felt”; just to make us as much money as humanly
possible – and even more. This means we really need such people in our midst,
and “sometimes it just gets out of hand”.
At this point, I began to have some doubts about the
“pro-social” part of the neuropsychological tag Fallon had appropriated for his
kind. Yes, he may have the neural profile typical of many highly successful
economic leaders, investment bankers, and brokers (which, by the way, looks
like an exaggerated version of the detached and egocentric “weird” mindset
exposed by the Heinrich, Heine & Norenzayan trio). But, as the
global financial crisis should have demonstrated, not having committed
prosecutable crimes does not necessarily make you “pro-social.” Perhaps
“non-criminal” should be the most Fallon can credibly claim here.
By the way, the Neurocritic questioned Fallon's self-dagnosis through "reverse inference," too.
