Of Course You Know, This Means War

I have written many times about the psychopathy checklist and made reference to how I believe that a strong argument can be made that Sarah Palin scores high on the checklist. The checklist is a continuum and to become a psychopath one must cross over a threshold. For men that the threshold for crossing is set at thirty out of a potential forty points. For women, because the condition manifest itself differently, that threshold is set lower. By the nineties, Robert Hare, after studying and rating psychopaths for decades, had only meet one who had a perfect score of forty. That was Clifford Olson.

The checklist is divided into two sections. Half are inherent traits that people can have - this is where the genetic component of the spectrum lies. The other half are lifestyle choices, to put a rather genteel term on what can turn out to be horrendous outcomes, and this is where the environmental factors play a significant role.

So to recap: to be on the psychopathy checklist one needs to have certain traits that are intrinsic parts of the person's personality. These traits alone will not make you a psychopath or even close to the threshold. Many of the people born with these traits lead productive lives, but may appear slightly 'off' to the people close to them. However, to gain more points on the checklist - enough to move into the zone of the ten percent of the population who cause significant problems to those around them, but have not crossed the threshold, and for those that have crossed that line - requires certain life style choices to be made. Here is where environment, which includes flukes of fate, can result in someone crossing the threshold to being a true psychopath.

No one is born a psychopath, they become one over time. It is a designation that is acquired over the course of a person's lifetime based on the actions taken. If one was inclined to think in certain terms, one could even describe it as a 'calling.' (Although I would argue that it is not a higher one, instead it is more similar to a siren's call.) The intrinsic (genetic) traits make it easier for the individual to move in the direction of making the checklist lifestyle choices and moving them up the checklist. Environment can either push them towards crossing the threshold or guide them away.

As a society, we can choose to help these individuals not answer the siren's call to cross the threshold or achieve even high scores on the checklist. It means having strong boundaries for them and making sure that there are consequences when they cross those boundaries. Part of those boundaries that we need to maintain for them is the law. People on the checklist need to know that they will be held accountable. Research has shown that they do not respond to appeals to their emotions to do the right thing - they respond to consequences and repercussions (although they will always try to manipulate their way out if they can).

As a society, we can also start to discuss the implications of this condition and how we humanely coexist with them. We need to ask ourselves if we should allow people who, by definition, exploit others and have no empathy, which makes them unaffected by others' suffering, to be in positions of power. There is plenty of historical precedent to show us that, when these individuals do obtain power, it does not end well.

I can not definitively state whether Sarah Palin has crossed over the threshold of the checklist at this time. She is, however, on the road to do so, if the current course of events is left to go unchecked. Over the last year and a half, I have watched Sarah Palin opportunistically cruise on the crest of a perfect storm that has taken a small time grifter to potential and real positions of great power.

Palin, when speaking, constantly uses the metaphor of doors opening and closing to her when she describes her opportunistic leaps. It is an apt description in this case. We must work to make sure that the door is closed to her, before she crosses an irrevocable threshold to the detriment of all of us.

Photomontage by John Heartfield