Facebook flog - Jan 6 2014

[blogfloggery.livejournal.com]

Link: Jan 6 2014, 4:44
Disclaimer: This blog entry is verbatim, as originally posted on LKH's Facebook. Copyright belongs to Ma Petite Enterprises.

One of the joys of editing small stuff for mass market is I get to reread the parts that make me smile. Still one of my favorite bits of dialogue from Affliction. "What part of sociopath didn't you understand?"

Comments

[ramlatch.livejournal.com]

I am always so bothered by this thing. LKH doesn't seem to understand that a sociopath does not love a person like an equal. A sociopath MIGHT love you the way someone fondly glances at a pretty bookshelf ornament, but that's about as much as you're going to get. That she has Anita loving this guy like he's a real person just ... no. Sociopathy (easier to type than the official terms) makes you broken, and there isn't anything that will change my mind about that. That sense of morality that says hey, throwing that puppy in the garbage bin is bad? They don't have that. A person like that isn't a person. I really don't care what any bleeding heart says. That is half of a person, and someone to run the hell away from. That LKH thinks it's cute and funny or something, to have Anita being some "lol lol awww lol lol look at Anita with her ickle snuggle bunny sociopath" just gives me the creeps. It's not cute. It's not funny. It's cuddling a shark and then going "hey it likes me! we're totally besties!".

Also, I would almost bet money that actual sociopaths don't really care about labeling themselves. They are too busy being sociopaths to be all like "omg I'm a sociopath! Hi! I'm a sociopath! Did I mention I'm a sociopath?!"

[suzycat.livejournal.com]

But Anita is SPECIAL. So special that she can HANDLE a sociopath. Other women, especially blonder, thinner ones, can't, of course.

[lliira (from livejournal.com)]

Anita doesn't love anyone as an equal, and doesn't understand even being polite to someone you don't want to fuck, let alone "loving" them. People talk about how she defeated the MOAD with the power of love, but she didn't; she defeated the MOAD with the power of enjoying sex with her various walking dildos. Since the MOAD did not understand enjoying sex, Anita won through that. It wasn't love. And she's very clear about thinking "love" is based purely on appearance.

This is LKH's self-insert.

[wanderingworlds.livejournal.com]

No, sociopaths have that morality. Because they've more than likely learned "throwing this puppy in the garbage bin will get me in trouble, and that is not good in terms of me getting to do what I want". But you're right in that they don't have the empathetic morality. They won't put the puppy in the garbage bin and walk away, hearing the puppy cry, and FEEL BAD about it. Unless by acting as if they feel bad they can get something they want out of another person.

Then again, the difference between a sociopath and a psychopath (as taught by my professor who studies them in prison on a regular basis), is that sociopaths can be corrected. Their behavior is learned, and they can be re-taught to feel empathy for the puppy that's crying. A psychopath's lack of empathy is a genetic disability. He will never be taught, and any attempt to try and rehabilitate the psychopath will not only do no good what-so-ever, but will make things worse. It will give him (or her) more tools to use against other people. Because that's what they do.

At least Laurell has stopped switching terms for the most part. I get tired of them flip-flopping. Are you calling him a sociopath, or a psychopath? Which is it? And you're right, a sociopath calling himself that is just as likely as someone with narcissism saying he's a narcissist. 0%. (Although the sociopath might to get something out of you.)