• intrepid@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    I don’t think you understand the psychology of sociopaths like him. They care neither for anyone’s suffering nor for anyone’s opinion about them. They care only for the pleasure they derive from the pain they inflict. He probably spent his last waking hours reminiscing over the glory days of the massacres he started.

    • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      It’s not about the pain and and misery they inflict - that’s just the Hollywood portrayal of sociopathy and psychopathy, which is really just the literary Badie who is evil for the sake of being evil - which isn’t real except in some exceptionally unusual cases who have other problems and are way too ill adjusted to stay out of jail long.

      No, the usual psychopath and sociopath (and apparently they add up to around 3% of peole), including all of the so-called “well adjusted” ones (which Kissinger definitelly was) couldn’t care less about how others feel, either way, as they have no empathy and thus will not feel inside themselves through empathy what others are feeling, be that joy or pain.

      (Actually, they do “care”, intellectually: for a “well adjusted” sociopath making others feel positive or negative emotions is nothing more than a tool for manipulating them, whose effects they intellectually understand whilst themselves being unaffected by it, hence why it’s so common for them to be highly manipulative)

      And if you read the article you’ll see inklings of that about Kissinger - such as his obsequiousness to those in power and quite different treatment of those not in power - which is actually a pretty standard display of multiple faces towards different people of those whose relation to others is entirelly an intellectual construct because they have no empathy and hence not emotional-level reception of the feelings of others.

      Kissinger did what he thought was better for himself with no care at all for the impact of his actions on those who couldn’t hurt him back for that (as you can see from how he climbed into the top circle of power through advice that prollonged the Vietnam was for years and killed hundreds of thousands more than would otherwise have died) and hence why in his own experience as he felt it, he had a wonderful long life as he pretty much got all that he wanted and didn’t care about the loathing of those who couldn’t negativelly impact his interests.