There are more than 26, 262 sociopaths in Austin, Texas
According to Martha Stout's book The Sociopath Next Door, approximately one in 25 of us is a sociopath. So we figure here in Austin we have around 26,000, but since Austin is a rapidly growing city, there are probably a lot more. Of course, this may come as no surprise to Austinites. One weekday drive down I-35 is enough to convince anyone of a plague of sociopathy.
Martha Stout, Ph.d has written this book to inform us of the alarmingly high number of those without conscience living among us. A few of them are celebrities (Rush Limbaugh, Anne Coulter, those Enron guys, Pol Pot, Scott Peterson, etc.), but most are not. Most are people we run into every day--the mean losers, animal torturers, and backstabbing social climbers among us.
Sociopaths aren't always serial killers or even slick, scheming CEOs. Sometimes they are our neighbors, suggests the book. Sometimes they fool us into liking them and supporting them, until we don't know what hit us. Stout is on a mission to show us what they are made of and more specifically what they aren't made of--empathy, the ability to love, a conscience. It makes us ponder our own history with suspicious people. How many sociopaths have we come across? That crazy, vindictive boss? The neighborhood kid who threw rocks at us? We must have known someone. 1 out of 25 people is a lot of people.
We learn that socipaths are often manipulative, power hungry, and controlling. That they like to play games. Sometimes they just want a free ride. Stout outlines thirteen rules for dealing with sociopaths in everyday life (handy!). Some of them are: accept that some people have no conscience; use your instincts; question authority (hear that, Ollie North?); and--one that we need to take to heart--question your tendency to pity too easily.
It's an interesting book, but we do wish it were just a little bit more juicy, a little bit more full of real life tales of sociopathy. We don't know any rich businessmen or murderers or fake psychiatrists out to ruin their patients (at least we hope not). We do know some real jerks. We want more stories of everyday jerks! Knowing this bit of information--the huge number of conscienceless, perhaps evil, folks among us--makes us think we've been slinging the wrong names. How effective would it be to call that asshole who butts in line at the coffee shop a sociopath instead of just an asshole. "Hey, you, sociopath. I don't pity you!" They're probably called names everyday, but calling them a sociopath to their face gives them a bonafide diagnosis! It could be fun. Perhaps we can branch out into other psychological disorders. "Honey, your Borderline Personality Disorder isn't going to work this time, time to pay rent." "Sarah, I know you have narcissitic tendencies, but would it kill you to listen for once!" "I'm sorry, Doug, but your rapid cycling is really bumming me out. Call me when you take your meds." Or "No way am I voting for Rick Perry. His policies of leaving kids, the poor, and mentally ill in the lurch out of greed and for political gain just proves he's a total sociopath!"
