The Psychopath Inside (20 page)

The problem with inviting psychopaths to war, however, is that the military also wants soldiers to be team players who can connect with their unit and fight not only against the enemy but
for
their own.

Retired colonel Jack Pryor, an experienced warrior and a regular family guy, told me he can naturally turn on or off his fighting instinct. His last fight in Vietnam was a massacre. He and another guy, after their assassination mission, were yanked out in a chopper and taken back to Da Nang before flying home to San Francisco. He said he was having a meal on the plane and looked down and saw brain and blood all over him. This is a guy who can assassinate someone and then go have a burger, but he's not a psychopath.

Can such an effective emotionality on-off switch be found in fighters other than Royce Gracie and Jack, and applied to the recruitment and training of combat personnel? This can be determined, but probably at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars in
long-term research. One option is to artificially flip the switch using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). If you put a focused electromagnetic coil in the helmet you might be able to disrupt emotionality at the flip of a literal switch. Off: social mode. On: killer mode.

Often women will say that there is something adorable, attractive, and sexy about bad boys. The problem is that what is sexually attractive to a girl of mating age may later become the reason she wants a divorce. Some of us may, from time to time, want our own personal enforcer we can ultimately control and call our own. In a sense many of us ask for psychopaths, as absurd as this sounds. Some of us may want the excitement, the dangerous mayhem that psychopaths can offer. The near-lovable psychopath has almost become a romantic hero in our popular culture, from Robert De Niro in
Analyze This
, to Joe Pesci in
Goodfellas
, to Heath Ledger in
The Dark Knight.
Perhaps being able to fear and love these characters in a controlled, two-dimensional film environment helps us deal with the true terror of it all.

And sometimes we want a taste of that recklessness in our own lives. There is a deliciously wicked part of us that wants to be a tiger for a day. Maybe an old maid who's been good all her life wants to have that one super-wild fling so she can feel she's lived her life fully. People want to break away from the routine of safety, social or otherwise, so they can say they did it, like the person who climbs the mountain or overcomes a fear of swimming in the ocean. They want to feel that they can push through, and when they do they feel like a lion or a tiger, someone who's ferociously
independent and brave. That's one benefit of having a psychopath around. He'll afford opportunities for people to do that stuff. People tend to hang around with equally safe people. You can get a bunch of mountain climbers together, and they still have a socially safe routine. A psychopathic friend will help you get into all the trouble you want and cover up for you when you get caught. At least that's what I do.

I've already talked about how I have, on many occasions, put people in harm's way just to get a buzz. But I don't want to kill anybody or hurt anybody. And I don't like to steal things or lie. That's for losers. If you have to do that, you're a disappointment as a psychopath. Violence is crude and it destroys the fun. My concern is not moral but practical: I'm looking to get the most bang. I'm really not a badass, but if you said, “Hey, Jim, I want to drive to Mexico and get some coyotes and do this, that, and the other thing,” I could get you there.

And so my friends and colleagues will ask me to take them out to dive bars. Even a sweet fifty-year-old Goody Two-shoes National Academy of Sciences member wants to have a crazy night once in a while. I might get them to dance on a table, and they might feel embarrassed, but half the time they're glad they did it.

•   •   •

Inherent in human genetic variability—the high dimensionality of our genome and transcriptome—is the inevitable creation of people at the far ends of the genetic and behavioral spectrum. These people may have considerable personal weaknesses, such as susceptibility to disease, but also may simultaneously have great
intellectual skills. All combinations of strengths and weaknesses become manifest in humans, and this both helps and harms individuals, but also add to the group. They also add to group diversity, the ability for at least some of us to survive any extremes of plague, climate change, or total war. Within this outlying group are the psychopaths, who in peaceful times act as predators and opportunistic parasites in a society, but under times of tremendous danger may save the day and continue breeding, albeit at the cost of keeping their traits in the gene pool for as long as humans exist.

So, am I a psychopath? The categorical answer is no.

But a better answer is that I'm a prosocial psychopath. I display many of the items on the Hare Checklist, including interpersonal traits (I'm superficial, grandiose, and deceitful), affective traits (I lack remorse and empathy), and behavioral traits (I'm impulsive and irresponsible). But I'm missing the antisocial traits: I control my anger and have no criminal record. Beyond the checklist, I tend to use my powers of charm, manipulation, and hedonism for good, or at least not bad. I have fun and do good deeds, and any harm that comes is purely incidental.

Perhaps the best answer to the question, though, is that I'm a lucky psychopath. I'm lucky because of my nurturing family, with a kind and loving father and an insightful mother who saw a son in trouble early on and guided him gently. She kept her eye on me as I navigated an environment outside the family that did have its own share of bullies and predators. My avoidance of violence and abuse, coupled with the parental and extended family
support and love, probably saved me. In the late winter of 2013, my mother asked me, “How long does it take to write an autobiography, for God's sake?” I had to short-circuit this line of interrogation, so I responded, “I'm not writing my autobiography, Mums, I'm writing yours.” She got it immediately: this is a memoir, but a lot of who I am has to do with how she raised and treated me. My story is as much about motherhood and fatherhood and parenthood and how you raise kids as it is about me.

So I suppose the “luck” is not luck at all. It's a purposeful, nurturing environment that could be created in almost any family or neighborhood, including those seemingly destined to breed a life of underachievement, deviance, and criminality. What I discovered during this serendipitous pilgrimage beginning in my sixth decade of life is something I didn't believe in even five years ago: real nurture can overcome a lousy deck of cards dealt at birth by nature. There are good behavioral, genetic, epigenetic, psychiatric, and social reasons to clean up neighborhoods and to treat vulnerable children with an extra bit of love. It doesn't mean your kid will turn out to be perfect. I'm certainly no angel—as you've noticed if you've read this far. But I could have turned out a lot worse.

I don't think we should remove the psychopathy-related traits and genes from society. It would lead to passivity and wipe us out. We just need to identify those people with the traits early in their lives and keep them out of trouble. Individuals with low empathy and high aggression, if they're treated well, can have a positive impact. Of course, they put stress on their families and friends, as
I do, but on a macro level they're beneficial to society. Maybe this is my own narcissism speaking, but I believe there's a sweet spot on the psychopathy spectrum. People who are twenty-five or thirty on the Hare scale are dangerous, but we need a lot of twenties around—people with the chutzpah and brio and outrageousness to keep humanity vibrant and adaptable—and alive.

People like me.

I'd like to thank the following people:

Miriam Goderich, who put up with my mad rantings over incomprehensible and bizarre narratives I tried to slip into the first—and then second—drafts.

Tom Stephenson, a man's man, who has such a way with words.

Matt Hutson, who made rough spots in the final draft so comprehensible.

Adrian Zackheim, my publisher, who thought my ramblings might find a wise and interested audience.

Brooke Carey, my editor, who, after a rich life of editing perfectly rational beings, has now decided to retire to the Catskills and take up the creation of artisanal cheeses.

Margot Stamas, my publicist, who had no idea what she got herself into, yet remains steadfast and vigilant on my behalf.

Katie Coe, the editorial assistant who wished I hadn't discovered that DNA profile at the bottom of the pile those years ago.

Jane Dystel, my literary agent, who embraced the psychopath but kept a wise distance.

Lawrence Lorenzi, my buddy, for the use of his cabin in Lake Arrowhead, California.

Gastone Macciardi, the father of my genetics guru, Fabio
Macciardi, for the use of his mountain retreat above Magic Mountain in Lago d'Orta, Italy.

My children Shannon (Shann), Tara (Taz), and James (never Jim!), for loving me more than I thought was humanly possible.

My grandchildren Fallon, James, Cooper, Jackson, and Chloe, for tolerating my often closed office door during their visits.

My brothers: Jack, for showing the way; Pete, for providing the energy, and then some; Tom, who took the most interesting path; and Mark, so good, balanced, and the best dancer.

My dear angelic sister, Carol, who has almost forgiven me for things I don't even know about.

My cousins Dave Bohrer and Arnie Fallon, who, over the past thirty-five years, dug up both the interesting and relevant genealogical information, and then some.

My Friend—you know who you are.

My ever supportive, riotously fun-loving, quirky, and beautiful aunts and uncles, especially Florence Scoma Irwin, my dear aunt Flo, who guided me down the path and saved me from going down the drain—the actual kitchen drain.

And Diane, the love of my life, forever.

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For Further Viewing

Discovery Channel's
Curiosity
: “How Evil Are You?” (Eli Roth segment)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=En10bS_JW6Y

Discovery Channel's
Through the Wormhole
: “Can We Eliminate Evil?”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hqb8C9PTcoc

The Moth Radio Hour
: “Confessions of a Pro-Social Psychopath”

http://worldsciencefestival.com/videos/moth_confessions_of_a_pro_social_psychopath

NOVA
: “Can Science Stop Crime?”

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/can-science-stop-crime.html

Oslo Freedom Forum: “The Mind of a Dictator”

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/engineering-the-brain/201106/the-mind-dictator

ReasonTV: “Three Ingredients for Murder”

http://reason.com/blog/2010/08/19/reasontv-three-ingredients-for

TED: “Exploring the Mind of a Killer”

http://www.ted.com/talks/jim_fallon_exploring_the_mind_of_a_killer.html

World Science Festival: “Madness Redefined”

http://worldsciencefestival.com/webcasts/madness_redefined