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How Sociopaths Infest Government 2010/01/25 (10)
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Jun 5, 2025
Jon Roland explains how sociopaths come to power more than normal people do. With Lela Pittenger. Austin Constitution Meetup Jan. 25, 2010.
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but it just goes to show how things work
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in
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Washington and I I'd have to say too
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that most of the gals weren't really
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that
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attractive they were kind of attractive
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in a uh certain sort of way a CD kind of
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way no CD is not really the word for it
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they were they tended to be very smart
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good
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conversationist they weren't cosmog
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glamorous right uh they were more
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um
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interesting I put
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it um but they could be very sexy when
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they wanted to be and I saw them turning
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it on and I said
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okay you know I don't know how far
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that's going to go but she's not leaving
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with me
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so it's going nowhere with you but
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someone went somewhere yeah I was just a
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convenient guy fair
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enough but it it it was it was really an
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interesting Social
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Scene uh disturbing kind of like a train
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wreck where you know you should look
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away but at the same time you
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can't well the fact is it was power MH
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and power attracts a certain kind of
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people I found a lot of
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sociopaths uh I've learned to recognize
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them uh fact I sort of learned to
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recognize them in that environment
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um sociopaths as you know are people
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with no
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conscience and yet they are fully
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functional they can get along with other
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people they can be very manipulative
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very Charming but they really don't care
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about where they hurt other
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people they're probably not sadists
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sadists are a different kind of so
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psychopath so they don't really enjoy
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hurting anybody but they don't care
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either
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a very very high proportion of the
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people who rise to public office in this
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country and other countries for that
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matter are
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sociopaths they are tend to be
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particularly good at making
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connections and they even appreciate
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other sociopaths I mean the sociopaths
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tend to flock
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together so uh they can be very
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effective once you know they flock and
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they form
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relationships to uh putting one another
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in key positions with mutual goals
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yeah now it's so these relationships
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tend to be unstable because you can't
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trust
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them uh no they can't trust one another
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right and so they might be bought but
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they don't stay bought as expression
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goes uh that I also found
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disturbing because I don't really didn't
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like the idea that our country and our
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the lives of our children were in the
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hands of people who really didn't care
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right about other human beings they
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could act the part they were often very
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convincing but there were little moments
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when their true nature came out right in
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conversation or in other ways and uh so
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I learned to spot
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them and to appreciate the the ones who
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the exceptions to
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that
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um but there weren't very
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many now contrary to popular impression
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sociopathy is not an onor yet either or
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proposition it's a matter of
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degree so most people who lack a
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conscience have a little bit of cons
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ience they're limits to how far they'll
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go to allow other people to be
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heard um what usually happens with most
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is they distance themselves from other
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human
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beings they might have a conscience for
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their immediate
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family their wife their kids their dog
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and so forth but once it gets beyond
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that immediate circle humans just become
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abstract
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actions and it's sort of like a lot of
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people might feel about a disaster in
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Haiti or elsewhere by the way try to
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help the poor people in
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ha
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um
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people can look at a suffering on a TV
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screen and it doesn't register with
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them it's just an
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abstraction whereas if they had it right
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in front of them they would respond to
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it so that's a kind of sociopathy too
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and let me ask you when you have studied
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this on your own would you say that our
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society over maybe the last 25
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years have we enabled or created more
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sociopaths through things like the vast
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amount of violence in television and
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entertainment the degradation of both
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sexes through music and entertainment do
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you think that Fosters an atmosphere
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that we will have a greater number of
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sociopaths because they've been so
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exposed to it and and pain and suffering
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of others doesn't seem to be a real
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concept I don't think we've probably
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increased the number of genetic
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sociopaths those who have you know
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neurological flaws cing it but I think
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we probably desensitized people and thus
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increased this uh
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uh partial
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sociopathy so of course that's problem
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itself the effect is the
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same
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um the
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solution is to get out and engage
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people in situations where your
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conscience can be
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developed uh when I was a kid growing
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up I didn't just intermingle with my
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uh immediate
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family uh the standard those days we
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didn't have you know Public
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Welfare so for example we had old people
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that we took care
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of they old people were kind of parceled
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Out Among younger
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families and if you of course they might
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be a
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relative uh a grandmother grandfather
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like you're doing with your with yours
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but sometimes they wouldn't be there are
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people who didn't have kids didn't have
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any relatives just were in need yeah so
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this tended to be organized by the
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churches but what they do is they say
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well this old person needs somebody to
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look after them and you know could you
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do you look after them and so in this
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process uh the whole Community tended to
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get the old people and infirm and
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another tended not just old
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people um uh s
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to somebody so they wouldn't be
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completely alone now in most cases they
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had uh you know pensions or social
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security or something to to pay the you
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know the bills but usually that wasn't
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enough you still had to look after them
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right make sure they were okay visit
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them say how they were doing that kind
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of thing which is not a culture we have
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today yeah and I watched that collapse
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what do you think was what do you think
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led to that collapse
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television okay I saw the onset of it
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starting by
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1952 before that on a typical evening
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people were out walking around visiting
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connecting yeah connecting you know at
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the social level uh everybody knew
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everybody small
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town uh once the tube got turned
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on people withdrew into their houses and
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the streets became deserted I've also
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heard someone say that we also became a
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garage Society where at one time when
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your car was parked in your driveway
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you'd get out and you'd interact with
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your neighbors but now we can pull into
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a garage close the door and shut the
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neighborhood out even in an even greater
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way well I don't know about that
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mechanism what I've generally observed
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is people who start with garages fill
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them with stuff that becomes storage
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sheds and and the car stays out
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well hopefully that would work in our
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favor right but definitely turning on
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the television and also maybe a society
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that has your mobile entertainment that
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you can put your earbuds in your ears
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and shut out everyone on the bus the
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train in your own family car in your own
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home we've become increasingly isolated
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thus leading to a cultivated
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sociopathy yeah and uh guy wrote a book
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about it a few years ago they call
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Bowling
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[Laughter]
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alone uh he he used a study of uh
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bowling leagues as a way of bringing out
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this
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sociological
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phenomena he examined the course over
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the course of history bowling leagues
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and how they declined in number of
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members until he got to the point where
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there were no more bowling leagues there
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were just a bunch of individuals bowling
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by themselves