Jerry Rivard asked why the interest in psychopaths. The initial catalyst was a new film I have yet to see: “We need to talk about Kevin” starring Tilda Swinton as the shattered mother of a psychopath who commits a massacre at his school. Extreme events like that narrated in the film are rare. But psychopaths […]
psychopathy
The psychopath’s condition: a truly tasteless analogy
If we are to think correctly about the challenge of psychopathy we should seek as close an analogy of the condition as we can to illumine it from the inside. Yesterday I considered the illustration of colorblindness. But as I have reflected on the inadequacies of that analogy it now seems to me that a […]
The moral blindness of the psychopath
Robert Hare is one of the world’s leading experts on psychopathy. In his book Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us (New York: Pocket Books, 1993), he provides an in-depth profile of the psychopathic personality based on thirty years of clinical study. In the next couple posts I’m going to springboard off of his […]
Can psychopaths be saved?
Three years ago I was interviewed by “Christian Cinema” about my then new book Finding God in the Shack. At one point in the interview I talked about the way that grace could even break through the hardened shell of a pyschopathic serial killer: When I was growing up, I lived near the Pacific Northwest, […]
