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12:31pm May 25, 2014
church-grim-deactivated20141124 asked: Sociopath = someone with aspd. A sociopath is not autimatically cruel or dangerous ?

No, not really.  ASPD is a medicalized DSM diagnosis.  Sociopath is a term that’s more moral than medical, and has to do with lacking a conscience.  ASPD is an attempt to medicalize it, but they are not the same thing, at all.  I don’t believe in the reality of most personality disorders, and I think ASPD is a particularly nasty one that’s basically an attempt to medicalize criminal behavior (and is often used in racist, classist ways).  I do think the world needs a word for someone who lacks a conscience, and sociopath is the general word for that.  Until there is a better word, I will use it.  And I’m well aware that sociopaths (as in, people who lack consciences, not as in, people with any specific medical diagnosis, because I don’t accept the idea that sociopath means anything medically about a person at all) don’t always do over-the-top awful things.  But lacking a conscience does make someone untrustworthy whether they’ve done anything criminal or not.

Notes:
  1. santorumsoakedpikachu reblogged this from withasmoothroundstone
  2. thetigerwasariver said: I will doubt the diagnostic value of Aspd forever. It’s horrid and it makes no sense. (I do like in criminology context, like a person that has a specific pattern of violent acts)
  3. alljustletters said: i can’t really say anything about aspd, but i grew up with a father who has a narcisstic personality disorder and there is definitely something very medical about the kind of cruelty that comes with it …
  4. perimyotis said: yes thank you.
  5. withasmoothroundstone posted this