This book was drawn to a close yesterday. It proved to be another of those works that I truly enjoyed listening to. His view of himself against the background of those other writers who had put their thoughts on paper created a wonderful contrast. I especially enjoyed his references to Robert Hare, PhD. It was, though, his personalization of the issue and reframing of struggling with this that truly caught and held my attention. It was interesting to see a narcissistic psychopath write a book especially because he exhibits those traits so wonderfully in his writing style lol. In general though it was an interesting read and i like his use of anthropology and describing how genetics and the environment interact and play off each other to create a psychopath by affecting the prefontal and mainly orbital cortexes from trauma at an early age. Shows that even medically diagnosed psychopaths can in fact be culturally conditioned to not be a danger to society and that's wonderful news. He also utilizes some anthropological data on why they exist in the first place and what benefits there are to psychopathy in terms of passing on genes. As it turns out psychopaths are very succesful in chaotic war type environments in which such a lack of empathy is useful to defend against those who would seek to coerce or manipulate. He refers to it as a warrior gene where some are predisposed to psychopathy but it largely activates and becomes maladaptive with significant trauma. Thus there is a reason it still lurks in our genetics.
The book was really just public preening. Uncomfortable and probably completely dishonest.
—Fid
This is a perfect book to make hypomanic readers feel even better about themselves.
—ReadingOnlinePro
Interesting findings of nature vs nurture. Makes neuroscience come to life.
—larimalmeida
too scientific for the average reader. still very interesting to read.
—tianliz
ARC provided by Edelweiss--review to come soon
—Mea
