The Psychopath Test
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This book is described as 'comical' and full of 'belly laughs' - hmmm... - I have to admit that although there were many quite funny descriptions, the overall feeling I got from the tales that was told was one of concern about the "state of mind" of many of those written about - on both sides of the "psychopath" wall. The very Catch-22 situation that "Tony" found himself in I think typified the whole book's message. For me, it highlighted the danger of sticking labels on people on the basis of so-called "objective" and "quantifiable" checklists. No matter how thorough a job is done on capturing as many of the different aspects as possible it is still going to fall short of a holistic view of anyone's personality. It doesn't matter what trait you are measuring, no one is going to come out as completely "X" or completely "not-X" - rather we will have a certain amount of X. How that affects our character cannot be determined simply by looking at the level of "X" - it is necessary to also factor in the level of "A", "G", "K", "Z" and countless others things that we are unable to 'measure'. So - a thought provoking book - that did little to re-assure me that we are any good at identifying those who are really a "danger to society"!! |
