This is the fourth in the series about Sociopathy based on the book by Dr. Martha Stout, The Sociopath Next Door.
The previous posts are here:
Sociopathy: What is a Sociopath?
Sociopathy Part 2: The Traits of a Sociopath
Sociopathy Part 3: The Creation of “Its”
“Very simply, we are programmed to obey authority even against our own conscience.”
Dr. Stout describes the famous experiment done by Yale professor Stanley Milgram and correlates it to the world of sociopathy. If you are not familiar with his experiment, Milgram had “authorities” telling people to administer electric shocks in increasing voltage to subjects when they failed to perform a task adequately. The subjects were actors who pretended to receive the increasingly painful shocks. The willingness of normal people to torture others because an authority instructed them to do so is shocking.
The many-times-replicated outcome of his obedience study led Milgram to make the famous pronouncement that has haunted, and also motivated, so many students of human nature: “A substantial proportion of people do what they are told to do, irrespective of the content of the act and without limitations of conscience, so long as they perceive that the command comes from a legitimate authority.”
Hubbard of course was very intent on being the ONLY authority for Scientologists. All one need do is read KEEPING SCIENTOLOGY WORKING — there is no doubt that there is only ONE person who called the shots in scientology. And he called the shots about literally everything to the point where every scientologist operates on a mantra for all decisions in their lives “what would Ron do.” He is the ultimate authority.
Today, L. Ron Hubbard’s place has been taken by David Miscavige. He cannot be questioned or challenged in any way. His word is law. Every person is obliged to kiss his ring and shower him with praise in order to remain in good graces in scientology.
Milgram believed that authority could put conscience to sleep mainly because the obedient person makes an “adjustment of thought,” which is to see himself as not responsible for his own actions. In his mind, he is no longer a person who must act in a morally accountable way, but the agent of an external authority to whom he attributes all responsibility and all initiative. This “adjustment of thought” makes it much easier for benign leadership to establish order and control, but by the same psychological mechanism, it has countless times rolled out the red carpet for self-serving, malevolent, and sociopathic “authorities.”
We see this in scientology (and many examples in the world around us) every day. People abuse others, dismiss them from their lives, begin treating those they called friends one day as enemies the next, solely because they are told this is what they should do by “authority.” It is the phenomenon of the “overnight SP” — one day the international spokesperson for scientology and the next a wife-beater who couldn’t live up to the ethical standards of the organization. People you have known for 40 years, even family members, suddenly do a 180, switching from your best allies to your harshest detractors. You haven’t changed. But they’ve now been told you are bad by the most important authority in their lives.
Some of us may resist a person who looks like we do, but most of us will obey someone who looks, like an authority.
So, maintaining the appearance of superiority is important to a sociopath if he or she hopes to continue to control people around them. They dress better. Drive a faster car. Make clear they are the smartest person in the room always and are surrounded by sycophants who hang on their every word, proving they are real authorities.
One final word on the difficulties of standing up to such authorities, and why so few do so:
Often a person who disobeys finds himself at odds with the social order, and may find it hard to shake the feeling that he has been faithless to someone or something to whom he pledged allegiance.
We finally finished reading this in psychology and all the points you have made on these blog posts are excellent I mentioned these posts to my professor and he found them very helpful for the class to understand more about sociopaths. He pulled me aside after class and said your blog posts will be very helpful for our next unit in class. So I am pretty thrilled to see what is next for that class.
Correct spelling: “NureMberg”.
Very interesting article packing a powerful punch of truth. Piggybacking off of it (like, what’s up with all this alliteration all of sudden, its not intentional) I strongly recommend watching the film “Judgement At Nurenberg” to gain further insight into why/how decent, aware and well educated people can be persueded to accept, support and defend human rights abuses, crimes and atrocities. This is a powerful film. I hope you take my suggestion to watch it but even if you don’t PLEASE don’t form the preconceived idea that I am in any way likening David Miscavige to Adolph Hitler, or defining the human rights abuses rampant in Scienology with the Holocaust which exterminated 6 million people. I am NOT doing that!
They are NOT similar crimes!
But…BUT! What caused highly educated and knowledgeable German JUDGES to carry out Hilter’s monstrous policies with regard to Jews (which is the subject of the movie, i.e., the trials of these judges in Nurenberg in 1948), in brief, what worked on the MINDS of these judges, who KNEW BETTER, who KNEW right from wrong to carry out and administer these atrocious policies in their capacities as jurists – on this point, I believe can a striking parallel be drawn between Scientology and Nazi Germany 1933 – 1945, aka the Third Reich.
Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Maximillian Schell, Mongomery Clift, Marlene Dietrich, Judy Garland (yes, and she was amazing, but then they were all amazing, no kidding). Treat yourself!
Personal Responsibility always opposes X.
What I’ve always seen in DM is the ability to exercise power based on the position one holds and what they can do to you. Nothing ever related to empathy or interest in others. On the contrary.
In other words: now that you believe scn is the means to your “freedom,” I can prevent it if you don’t do as I say. So, scn is fascism. Fascism and sociopathy have always gone hand in hand, just look at history. Fascism is totalitarianism, a mandatory one-way street. Scn wants to be spiritual, social, and mental totalitarianism.
The fact that a person needs an authority to tell them what is right and wrong and where to go is a condition present in a certain percentage of the human race. It’s a condition of trust induced by an individual’s inability to have self-awareness and believing that someone else can do it for you. The real problem in the end is that this also influences the others.
In scny, you are “educated” to believe that you are in the true and only truth and that everything hubbard said is pure gold. Therefore, the leader is always right.
Oh boy, doesn’t this separate the chaff from the seed. It takes a brave soul to grasp and use this sort of information in life. As I see it and experience this sort of life analysis, the path to understanding and then applying this info can indeed be oh so lonely, albeit enlightening – but it can lead to heralding new and better beginnings if one can handle the initial heat in the kitchen.
I often wondered at my military and then Scientology experience just what sort of and how much of a robot I had been. But it actually made it easier in a weird sort of way to later see this “rank & file obedience’ everywhere. I gasp at politics, but one little aspect I made sense out of the insanity of it was a lot of so-called leaders come out of school, go to university, pop out of that with a head full of ‘know best’ installed by professors who can’t make it out in life themselves and embark on a political career (or follow family traditions/money). They have zero (can also be defined as negative) life experience but become seasoned in the game of politics for politics sake & how to survive in it. Very few if any make it without being “the chosen ones” by ‘authority’s acceptance.’ I guess it’s the natural home of the sociopathicly inclined. Having a conscience can be a dangerous liability except for the extremely strong willed. There are well meaning exceptions of course but there’s also things like those that own/run the banks & the CIA and other things that go bump in the night too.
The mass exodus of students and the declaring of many senior tech terminals from Saint Hill around the time Hubbard wrote KSW1 is an indicative example of what Martha is explaining. With the introduction of the SO and then a sociopath like Miscavige eventually taking over & following Hubbard’s lead, (sigh) and here we are…
Haha, Hubbard had the sheer audacity to lecture about ‘PTS to the middle class’ when he himself was a major part of the problem for so many. He also obsessively pointed blame to psychiatry and Govt’s to mask his gross incompetence of never understanding, or worse, destroying what workable technology actually is, so he lied and became an authority – the ultimate mask to wear to shift attention off failure.
I love the book “The Sociopath Next Door.” Read it twice. Thanks for posting about it. On a different but related subject, where are the Thursday Funnies? We used to get a new Thursday Funny cartoon every week, but I haven’t seen them for a long time now. Is the author of them alive? What’s up?
Tampa Bay Times story about two Scientologists having been found to have stolen many of Mark Bunker’s re-election yard signs in Clearwater:
https://www.tampabay.com/news/clearwater/2024/03/07/scientologists-stole-clearwater-council-members-campaign-signs-police-say/
Here is what Mark Bunker says about the theft and why he did not want to have them charged:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=br6Z6d1_pgE
I think it is noteworthy here because he does not blame the two Scientologists but points the spotlight onto the sociopath, “…the ruthless leader David Miscavige who is holding our downtown hostage and all the abuses which target primarily the Scientologists themselves.”