12:11pm July 12, 2013

➸ Trying to find the right words: survivorwaver: Just to be clear for myself and others. For what I can...

Just to be clear for myself and others. For what I can understand the word sociopath for me is like the word allistic for other people on Tumblr, I don’t judge those who use it and I can understand why that word is easily available in someone’s vocabulary, I still can’t stop…

Oh yeah I have no problem with people looking at the meaning of words. I do it too. But there were two posts, one about how someone would totally judge anyone who uses the word sociopath, and another whose friend uses the word on themselves in a highly unusual way, and would be offended if people used it in the usual way we’ve been taught. And it was that, and especially the list that explicitly talked about judging anyone who used it, and talking about oppressing sociopaths, that made me go WTF.

For what it’s worth, I’m uncomfortable with psychiatric uses of the word, and only use it the way most people do, as a colloquial term for lacking a conscience, a sense of right and wrong. I know no better term and have no ability or interest in inventing new ones. I don’t think most sociopaths are serial killers, I think most aren’t. And I think most actually get ahead in our society, because of lacking the ethical constraints most of us have, combined with the way capitalism and corporate culture favors such people. Which is the opposite of oppression.

So I’m not too worried that having a word for people who lack a conscience is oppressive. Although I do have a problem with trying to medicalize ethics. And so I dislike the way people want to put bigotry into the DSM too.

Although I think that’s another example of how just because a group of people has a name for them, has been looked down upon, and had been studied by psychiatry and considered for inclusion in the DSM, does not make them necessarily an oppressed group.

Sociopaths aren’t oppressed. And aren’t even in the DSM, because they’re not the same as ASPD even if the concepts are somewhat related.

Narcissists aren’t oppressed, and the concept of narcissism isn’t the same as NPD, even though they’re extremely closely related.

Bigots aren’t oppressed, and wouldn’t become oppressed if psychiatry came up with a vaguely related personality disorder (which some psychiatrists have actively tried to do).

And the general ideas of sociopathy, narcissism, and bigotry aren’t the same as the things psychiatry makes of them, even if some of the terms originally came from psychiatry.

Sociopath has come to be a term people use for someone without a conscience. Whatever psychiatry originally made of it. Narcissist has come to be a term for someone who thinks too much of themselves, like Gilderoy Lockhart. Whatever psychiatry originally made of it. And bigot means someone who hates our is strongly prejudiced about certain kinds of oppressed people. Whatever psychiatry is trying to make of it. And those are meanings the words have regardless of their original or continuing ties to psychiatry.

And in those meanings, they are not names for oppressed people. And given the way all three types of people tend to have so much power in our society, it’s offensive to me that anyone would make blanket statements that such people are oppressed. I actually seriously thought that talking about any such people as oppressed, or of non sociopath privilege and the like, was just something anti SJ people thought up as hyperbole. I never thought anyone would actually seriously say those things.

But recently I’ve actually seen people say those things in all seriousness. People I know are not trolls. (Not you, josiahd or survivorwaver, or anyone else who just has problems with using those words. Only people who have actually used the words oppression and privilege here.) And that troubles me deeply. But I still don’t think most people will ever see anti sociopath oppression as real, just as white people who actually use the word “transethnic"to describe themselves and are not trolls, are much rarer than trolls would have you believe. But apparently this point of view does exist and it does bother me that it’s for real.

Because to me… Sociopathy, narcissism, and bigotry… these are ethical and moral problems. Not psychiatric problems. Not medical problems. Oh and narcissism is different from narcissist, and is a trait most prior have to some degree, and need to fight against in ourselves, not see as oppressed and needing protection. Narcissist would just be a term for someone with way too much narcissism, and is also not a wholly fixed trait, narcissists can become less narcissistic. And bigotry likewise can change. Not so sure whether sociopaths can change, because to want a conscience may require a conscience to begin with. But it’s still ethical, not medical, because a conscience is a sense of ethics, sense of right and wrong. And I don’t think ethics ought to be medicalized, even if the term comes from a somewhat medical background.

So I understand analyzing these things. I just can’t handle someone judging me for using these words, or claiming people without ethics are in any way oppressed in this society.

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