Could a "High Functioning Psychopath" Be Elected US President?

Psychopaths usually don’t want to commit themselves to a long course of study. They want to get results quick. So we could wonder – would they be attracted to politics? You can be a career politician without much preparation. And you can promise your consituents what they want to hear. And once in power, you have power over where large quantities of money goes – and some of that power can direct money to you. _Snakes in Suits

Psychopaths do not have to be serial killers. In fact, most of them have probably never killed anyone, and live lives that to an outside observer may seem rather normal. And some psychopaths function well enough to reach high levels of management in government, the private sector, and in other organisations such as labour unions and quasi-criminal groups -- some of which may not be particularly violent.

Psychopaths seem to have in abundance the very traits most desired by normal persons. The untroubled self-confidence of the psychopath seems almost like an impossible dream and is generally what "normal" people seek to acquire when they attend assertiveness training classes.

...Cleckley (Mask of Sanity PDF download) ... gives grounds for the view that psychopathy is quite common in the community at large. He has collected some cases of psychopaths who generally function normally in the community as businessmen, doctors, and even psychiatrists. Some researchers see criminal psychopathy - often referred to as anti-social personality disorder - as an extreme of a "normal" personality dimension (or dimensions). _Psychopath

It is possible to identify psychopaths, using a number of different tests and probes.

Hare and his colleagues continued this research to learn more about the brain's involvement in psychopathic behaviors. They used whole brain functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to see if there were neurological manifestations of the way psychopaths process different types of words. When non-psychopaths processed negative emotional words (e.g., rape, death, cancer), activity in the limbic regions of the brain increased. For psychopaths there was little or no increased activity in these regions. Curiously, however, there was increased activity in other areas. In short, the emotional word does not have the same limbic implication for psychopaths that it does for normal people. _Studies in Psychopathy

It is often difficult to see past the mask of sanity which many psychopaths have learned to wear. Here are some things to look for to determine if someone is a psychopath:

...Psychopathy is characterized by such traits as

• lack of remorse or empathy
• shallow emotions
• manipulativeness
• lying
• egocentricity
• glibness
• low frustration tolerance
• episodic relationships
• parasitic lifestyle
• persistent violation of social norms

_Studies in Psychopathy

From the outside, a psychopath may not display all -- or even most -- of these traits. But the more you learn about such persons, the more of the traits they tend to reveal over time.

The high incidence of sociopathy in human society has a profound effect on the rest of us who must live on this planet, too, even those of us who have not been clinically traumatized. The individuals who constitute this 4 percent drain our relationships, our bank accounts, our accomplishments, our self-esteem, our very peace on earth. _The Psychopath

It would be bad enough to be working for someone like this. Imagine having them as your chief of police, or even president. Imagine being married to a psychopath, but being afraid to tell anyone.

If he really feels anything at all, they are emotions of only the shallowest kind. He does bizarre and self-destructive things because consequences that would fill the ordinary man with shame, self-loathing, and embarrassment simply do not affect the psychopath at all. What to others would be a disaster is to him merely a fleeting inconvenience.

...they can imitate feelings, but the only real feelings they seem to have - the thing that drives them and causes them to act out different dramas for effect - is a sort of "predatorial hunger" for what they want. That is to say, they "feel" need/want as love, and not having their needs/wants met is described as "not being loved" by them. What is more, this "need/want" perspective posits that only the "hunger" of the psychopath is valid, and anything and everything "out there," outside of the psychopath, is not real except insofar as it has the capability of being assimilated to the psychopath as a sort of "food." "Can it be used or can it provide something?" is the only issue about which the psychopath seems to be concerned. All else - all activity - is subsumed to this drive.

In short, the psychopath - and the narcissist to a lesser extent - is a predator. If we think about the interactions of predators with their prey in the animal kingdom, we can come to some idea of what is behind the "mask of sanity" of the psychopath. Just as an animal predator will adopt all kinds of stealthy functions in order to stalk their prey, cut them out of the herd, get close to them and reduce their resistance, so does the psychopath construct all kinds of elaborate camoflage composed of words and appearances - lies and manipulations - in order to "assimilate" their prey. _The Psychopath

A psychopath who wanted to be president of a country might without hesitation break many of the rules that ordinarily govern a campaign or an election. His own predatory need for power would provide him all the excuse he needed to violate any laws or customs standing in his way.

And if such a person had the support of the country's news media sure to give him a good public face, and the less public support of a solid and unscrupulous political machine willing to work behind the scenes to do whatever it takes -- he has a good chance of winning the prize.

It should be emphasized that psychopaths are interesting as all get out - even exciting! They exude a captivating energy that keeps their listeners on the edge of their seats...

...psychopaths DO have .... an ability to give their undivided attention to something that interests them intensely. Some clinicians have compared this to the concentration with which a predator stalks his prey. _The Psychopath

Much more information is available in the free PDF download of Hervey Cleckley's seminal work on psychopathy, The Mask of Sanity.

In many ways, a high functioning psychopath would be "made to order" as president for today's news media -- like an actor who is perfect for a role, from a particular point of view.

And as long as powerful interests felt as if they could get what they wanted from such a psychopathic president -- without being hurt themselves -- they might be prone to support such a person, regardless of the costs to others.

Eric Hoffer: An Authentic Life For a Change

Eric Hoffer was an intelligent man who worked with his hands as a California migratory farm worker, as a Forest Service worker, as a longshoreman. Temporarily blinded as an infant, he recovered his sight at age 15, learned to read, and was a voracious devourer of human knowledge from that point on. He began his adult life with $300 from his late father's craftsman's guild. After retiring from a life of hard labour, Hoffer was appointed an adjunct professor at UC Berkeley, as probably one of the few authentic and personally competent social science professors on the faculty.

At age 53, publication of "The True Believer" thrust Hoffer into the public eye. Over the years, several other books followed. But most of Hoffer's works remain in unpublished notebooks in the Hoover Archives.

"Absolute power corrupts even when exercised for humane purposes. The benevolent despot who sees himself as a shepherd of the people still demands from others the submissiveness of sheep." _Hoffer

A preoccupation with the future not only prevents us from seeing the present as it is but often prompts us to rearrange the past.

Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind, 1954 _QuotationPage

Authenticity is the difference between a person who is true to himself and others, and a person whose chameleon-like changeability allows him to be all things to all people--temporarily. There are actually persons in the world where "what you see is what you get." Hoffer was a good example of such a person. He was a stark contrast to the "Mr. Changeables" who populate American politics, media, and popular culture. Hoffer was all grit and no flash. Certainly he was not a person today's child-journalists could relate to.

In a 1941 letter to Anderson, Hoffer had written: “My writing is done in railroad yards while waiting for a freight, in the fields while waiting for a truck, and at noon after lunch. Towns are too distracting.” In 1949, he wrote to Anderson that, “by working [as a longshoreman] only Saturday and Sunday (18 hours at pay and a half) I earn 40–50 dollars a week. This to me is rolling in dough. I have no expensive tastes in food, clothing or pleasure. Above all, I have no taste for property.”....

When not on the waterfront, Hoffer would take a regular three-mile walk in Golden Gate Park toward the Pacific Ocean, working out ideas in his head and writing down the completed thoughts in his notebooks. For perhaps 30 years, Hoffer took the same walk, returning to the center of the city by bus. “The words, the ideas, come to me in the park,” he said in a 1967 interview. “I shape them in my head there, and I write them in my notebook. Blind people [his sight had returned in adolescence] write full sentences in their head. Sentences they can see. I still do.” But 10 years later, when he was approaching 80, he wrote: “In the past I could carry a train of thought in my head for days, formulating and revising, without writing down a word until the thinking was done. At present I cannot write without pen in hand. . . . The old must break with the past and learn anew.”

About Eric Hoffer there is an element of mystery that the material in the Hoover Archives never dispels. He appears, with his talent fully developed, in his first work. Nothing is really explained. The roots from which his genius grew remain concealed. Some scraps of information seem more mythical than real (“My writing is done in railroad yards while waiting for a freight, in the fields while waiting for a truck”) and suggest a budding Jack Kerouac more than an Eric Hoffer—two writers who could not have been more different. Perhaps in his index cards more than anywhere else we see traces of the struggle, labor, and self-discipline that went into his writing.

Hoffer was always identified with the honorific “philosopher,” and he was one; but he more resembles the philosophers and prophets of old, especially in the high valuation that he always placed on his own independence. He saw himself as one who was free to tell the truth without fear of patron, publisher, department head, or tenure committee. _Hoover

Hoffer spent most of his adult life in San Francisco. But he was far too authentic and sincere to be accepted by the San Francisco elite and intelligentsia. The city on the peninsula remained oddly ashamed of its longshoreman-philosopher until his death. Were Hoffer alive and writing today, fashionable San Franciscans would probably stone the man--with the first stones cast by Pelosi and Gavin Newsom.

The news media of today would never fall for someone as authentic as Hoffer, naturally. Instead, today's media feels "leg tingles" from political tap dancers with radical pasts and mob ties. For such a changeable modern day political Bojangles, the media would do almost anything. You would think that at least a few investigative reporters would want to pore through BO's background, sift through the dust of his past?

Certainly if B.O. were an authentic and hard-working governor of a backwoods state, seeking to challenge the dominance of an inauthentic elite and media to control the destiny of America, the investigative reporters would be on the case. But since B.O. is perceived as one of the gang--just as inauthentic as the rest--he is protected from any and all meaningful inquiries.

It is when power is wedded to chronic fear that it becomes formidable.

Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind, 1954

Yes, and very dangerous. A narcissist such as BO, is full of fear. Fear of discovery. Whether such a person can ever become integrated is a moot question, since all motivation presses relentlessly in the opposite direction. As long as the narcissist is adored, pampered, protected, his experience is pleasant enough. It is those who fall under the narcissist's spell who suffer. And those who fall under his policies.

Prefrontal Cortex Needs Time--Maturation to Cognitive Richness

Younger brains lack the prefrontal function for good judgment and rich memory. If the prefrontal cortex is damaged in infancy or later in life, sensitivity to future consequences and social/moral behaviour is compromised. Drinking alcohol in adolescence leads to smaller prefrontal cortex.

A recent MIT study demonstrates that a mature pre-frontal cortex facilitates richer memories.

In the August 5 advance online edition of Nature Neuroscience, the MIT team reports that children rival adults in forming basic memories, but adults do better at remembering the rich, contextual details of that information. The MIT study provides new insights into how children learn that are not only theoretically important, but could also inform practical learning in everyday settings.

The ability to remember factual information - who, what, where, when - emerges gradually during childhood, and plays a critical role in education. The brain systems underlying it have been extensively studied in adults, but until now little was known about how they mature during child development.

The MIT study indicates that a more developed prefrontal cortex (PFC) - an area of the brain long associated with higher-order thinking, planning, and reasoning -- may be responsible for creating richer memories in adults.

“Activation in the PFC follows an upward slope with age in contextual memories. The older the subjects, the more powerful the activation in that area,” explains senior author John Gabrieli of MIT's McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, and Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology.

“That makes sense, because there's been a convergence of evidence that the PFC develops later than other brain regions, both functionally and structurally.... But this is the first study that asks how this area matures and contributes to learning.”

For the study, Noa Ofen, a postdoctoral associate in Gabrieli's lab, forewarned 49 healthy volunteers ranging in age from eight to 24 that they would be tested on their recognition of 250 common scenes, such as a kitchen, shown to them as they lay in a functional magnetic resonance imaging scanner. She recorded their brain responses as the volunteers tried to commit each picture to memory. Shortly after the volunteers left the scanner, she showed them twice as many scenes. Had they seen each one before, and if so, how vividly did they recall the scene"

Ofen then went back to the brain activation patterns. In both children and adults, several areas in the PFC and the medial temporal lobe (MTL) showed higher activation at the time when subjects studied a scene they would later remember. No age-related differences showed up in the activation patterns of the MTL regions in children and adults, but differences did appear in the PFC when looking at pictures that were later correctly recognized.

Those age-related differences related to the quality of the volunteers' memories.

Source

The poor judgment exhibited in adolescence and early adulthood is generally accompanied by immature prefrontal cortex. The inability to anticipate future consequences of current actions is a hallmark of youth. Poor planning, poor judgment, and other limitations in function associated with poor functioning of PFC are stereotypical characteristics of most high school and college aged youth.

The MIT finding that rich contextual memories are also functions of maturity help to further round out the picture of mental maturation.

In the arab world, PFC-immature youth are prone to joining jihadi movements. In the western worlds, most radical political movements center around universities, and recruit their most devoted adherents in university. These are all different versions of youth gangs. If not for youth, militaries would have far fewer members.

High testosterone levels of young males combined with slow maturation of their PFCs makes for a lot of excitement. No doubt that is one reason why young females are drawn to young males--for this unpredictable excitement.

The problem that I see with current western child-raising methods, is that the PFCs of youth may never truly mature, when held in a the neotenous environment of educational institutions, segregated from the responsibilities of the adult world, confined with only their PFC-immature peers during these formative years. No meaningful rites of passage. Thanks to the ideological straightjackets of most universities, these neotenised youth are isolated from a diversity of ideas and viewpoints. This makes them academically lobotomised.

Being raised in smaller families often with only one sibling--or no siblings at all--leads to narcissism, an unwarranted, unearned feeling of entitlement and specialness.

Narcissism, psychological neoteny, and academic lobotomy. The magic modern trio of decadent child-raising. Leading to an opposite society from the next level. We need to do something about this.

Husbands for Rent: Not a Gigolo Service

What do you do when your "Honey-do" list is long, but your honey doesn't have the time or the skills to do what needs doing? You rent a husband.

The Husbands for Rent handyman service is available to perform all those little and big jobs around the house like putting dry wall or plumbing kitchen and bathrooms.

Owner Anthony Storelli’s crew of husbands is currently rehabbing a house that realtor Margaret Zecher will then sell. Zecher, who is single, first hired the company work at her own house.

"I love it! I know I can call Husbands for Rent and they will be there within 24 to 48 hours and the job will be done," she said

Storelli said no job is too big or too small and their clientele runs the gamut.

Source

This concept seems to be catching on across the continent--in fact it is being franchised extensively.

Todd Recknagel, brand president of Mr. Handyman, headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, announced the opening of the 250th Mr. Handyman franchise unit.

"We're celebrating this milestone because it validates the market opportunity, our franchise model, and the passion that's shared by our entire Mr. Handyman team," said Recknagel.

According to the U. S. Census Bureau, six out of ten homeowners have home improvement to do's, and most Americans have an eye on seven or more projects at any given time. For millions of homeowners, tending to these nagging repairs while balancing work and family has created a thriving demand for professional, reliable and reasonable home-repair services.

The Mr. Handyman concept is squarely positioned to capitalize on this critical market need and is recognized as one of America's fastest-growing, service-oriented franchise systems. Entrepreneur magazine ranked Mr. Handyman the #1 handyman service in their January 2007, issue.

Source

The question of whether men across North America are becoming "less handy" was tossed around here.

Are men getting less capable when it comes to traditional male skills? We’ve debated about outsourcing household chores before on the Juggle. In this case, I’m talking about traditional “dad” tasks, such as replacing a light switch or resodding the lawn.

...Readers, have you noticed a decline in the level of handiness? If so, why do you think it’s happening? Alternatively, do you see more women handling these tasks, or are these chores getting outsourced to professionals?

More at the Source, including fascinating comments

In modern day North America, society stresses university education and professional level jobs, but rarely do we see the important message that "it is good to be handy." No matter how high your salary, if you are employed by someone else, you can be fired or laid off. While you are "between jobs" it might be nice if you could deal with unexpected expenses, rather than having to dip into your savings time and again.

On a recent trip to a region where I once lived, I found myself helping a friend remodel a rental property, helping with landscaping at another place, and doing several household repairs for another friend. There is something satisfying about being of use, when you are not particularly expected to be.

Personally, I think men are becoming less handy, overall. It goes along with the trends toward narcissism, psychological neoteny, and academic lobotomy--for the university educated.

I suspect that much of the problem with drug addiction, depression, and illegal immigration, derives from the unholy trio of incompetent helplessness mentioned above. Remember--if you are a worthless incompetent fool, you are not supposed to feel good about yourself.
;-)

Academic Lobotomy: The Public Slowly Becomes Aware

Freedom of speech has grown rare on university campuses, over the past two or three decades. Until recently, however, the general public seemed unaware of the academic crusade against intellectual freedom. The secret scandal of widespread academic lobotomy may finally be leaking to the public at large.

a majority of Americans believe the political bias of college professors is a serious problem, a new Zogby Interactive poll shows.

Nearly six in 10 - 58% - said they see it as a serious problem, with 39% saying it was a "very serious" problem.

....Men were much more likely than women to see the bias of professors as a problem - 64% of men agreed, while 53% of women said the same.

Whites were twice as likely to call it a "serious problem" as African Americans, the survey showed.

The survey also showed that an overwhelming majority also believe that job security for college professors leaves them less motivated to do a good job than those professors who do not enjoy a tenured status - 65% said they believe non-tenured professors are more motivated to do a good job in the classroom.

Asked whether they think the quality of a college education today is better or worse than it was 25 years ago, 46% said they think it is worse, while 29% said it is better. Another 16% said the quality now is about the same as it was a generation ago.

Source

When you combine psychological neoteny, academic lobotomy, and runaway narcissism, today's university student has hardly a chance to learn to think for him/herself, and mature into an independent person of solid judgment. It is a shame to lose an entire generation. But if members of the public--including parents and financial supporters of academia--can wise up at last, intellectual freedom may be allowed back on campus.

Swarming and Flocking--Learning from Natural Behaviours

Swarming behaviour is typical of animal populations--from insects to fish to birds to mammals. But is it possible for humans in the developed world to learn something from the swarming behaviours of animals?

"Ants aren't smart," Gordon says. "Ant colonies are." A colony can solve problems unthinkable for individual ants, such as finding the shortest path to the best food source, allocating workers to different tasks, or defending a territory from neighbors. As individuals, ants might be tiny dummies, but as colonies they respond quickly and effectively to their environment. They do it with something called swarm intelligence.

Where this intelligence comes from raises a fundamental question in nature: How do the simple actions of individuals add up to the complex behavior of a group? How do hundreds of honeybees make a critical decision about their hive if many of them disagree? What enables a school of herring to coordinate its movements so precisely it can change direction in a flash, like a single, silvery organism? The collective abilities of such animals—none of which grasps the big picture, but each of which contributes to the group's success—seem miraculous even to the biologists who know them best. Yet during the past few decades, researchers have come up with intriguing insights.

One key to an ant colony, for example, is that no one's in charge. No generals command ant warriors. No managers boss ant workers. The queen plays no role except to lay eggs. Even with half a million ants, a colony functions just fine with no management at all—at least none that we would recognize. It relies instead upon countless interactions between individual ants, each of which is following simple rules of thumb. Scientists describe such a system as self-organizing.

Source

People are indeed learning from the swarming behaviours of ants, bees, birds, caribou, and other animals. The article above has the details.

Another fascinating look at how humans can learn from swarming and flocking behaviour is the book "Out of Control" by Kevin Kelly. You can read Kelly's excellent book online at the above link. If you have been feeding your mind mostly on either junk food or dry scholarly work, consider taking regular recreational breaks to read portions of Kelly's entertaining and provocative work.

Information scientists and engineers are looking at swarms as models for artifical intelligences and robotics controllers. This is a form of biomimetics, from the bottom up. Rodney Brooks and Hod Lipson typify this bottom up research for robotics and AI.

One of the key points to draw from the effectiveness of swarm behaviour in the animal world for predator and prey, is that it depends upon the individual competence of the members of the swarm. If too many of the individual members are incompetent, the swarm cannot function.

This is the danger of dysfunctional institutions of education, for human society--which has its own swarm-like behaviour. Dysfunctional schools and universities ruled by dysfunctional ideologies, create dysfunctional and vulnerable societies. That is the problem with an excessively narcissistic, psychologically neotenous, and academically lobotomised society. It is incompetent on such a large scale that it can no longer defend itself from either internal or external threats.

3-6 Year Olds: More Competence Than the Average College Freshman?

The 3-6 Year Old Montessori training is all about developing basic competencies. The more competent the child, the more confident. Children who are both confident and competent--while taught to work both independently and with others--earn their self-esteem.

The narcissism that is so typical of the modern university student is often an ego defense, created to protect the hollow core of incompetence from exposure. No wonder most students are so susceptible to the indoctrination they face at most universities. It is no wonder that students sign the consent form for their own academic lobotomies. What is surprising is the complicity of their parents.

"Then What the Hell Good Are You, Anyway?"

If you hear the words in the title, the next thing that happens to you may not be pleasant. Most people have the absurd idea that other persons should be "good for something." For example, a woman expects her man to either provide well financially, or be very, very good at other things she values almost as much. A man expects his woman to be sexually available, to keep an attractive appearance and a clean living environment. If the expectations are not met, then "what the hell good are you, anyway?"

A boss expects the worker to provide value to the business at least as great as the salary and benefits package provided by the job, hopefully more. A parent expects the college student to return good grades in exchange for support. Those people sitting down below expect you up on the stage to put on a good show. A driver in the oncoming lane expects you to stay in your own damned lane. If not, "what the hell good are you?"

Social expectations prop up the greater part of the world in which we live. While we want to believe we are valued by others for our inner selves--our "intrinsic" value as people--deep down we know that is not true. True, there are political and religious ideologies that dwell on the intrinsic value of each living person, but in reality people who claim to believe that are the worst form of hypocrite. Give them that excuse they are waiting for to hold you in contempt, and they will happily do so.

"What have you done for me lately?" If the answer is nothing, or worse than nothing, the relationship is in danger of coming to a bad end. People expect you to "hold up your end." What is "your end?" It depends. But you should probably figure that out before your end starts to droop. In personal relationships, things are not spelled out as clearly as in a business or legal contract. The terms of the contract are implied, but still very close to ironclad. Get the picture clear in your mind, in detail. Otherwise, unhappy surprises await you.

Usually the sole exception to the rule is "home." Home is the place where when you go there they have to take you in, said Robert Frost. Something about home can make a hard person soft. The contractual calculus of home is somehow different.

So if you really want to be valued for your "intrinsic worth" in a relationship, you need to make it home. If your boyfriend doesn't see you as "home", you need to understand what he expects from the "contract", or you may be in default, in his mind. But if your hard-hearted boss sees you as "home" somehow, she will do everything she can before firing you, no matter how incompetent you may be. But that's not likely to be the case. More likely, you're on a hair-trigger in most of your relationships. Learn to size up the territory, and tread carefully.

Normally, there would be no need to spell things out so bluntly, but society has taken a very narcissistic, psychologically neotenous direction. Such a society, like a fallen Rome, is ripe for the plucking by more reality driven populations. It either wakes in time to save itself, or it goes the way of most complacent cultures that have rotted from within.

Narcissistic, Psychologically Neotenous, Academically Lobotomised

Most modern college students in North America have been sheltered from challenge and responsibility their entire lives. Compared to the upbringing of most children through history, modern college aged youth are pampered, and assured of their own specialness.

Today's college students are more narcissistic and self-centered than their predecessors, according to a comprehensive new study by five psychologists who worry that the trend could be harmful to personal relationships and American society.

"We need to stop endlessly repeating 'You're special' and having children repeat that back," said the study's lead author, Professor Jean Twenge of San Diego State University. "Kids are self-centered enough already."

Twenge and her colleagues, in findings to be presented at a workshop Tuesday in San Diego on the generation gap, examined the responses of 16,475 college students nationwide who completed an evaluation called the Narcissistic Personality Inventory between 1982 and 2006.

The researchers describe their study as the largest ever of its type and say students' NPI scores have risen steadily since the current test was introduced in 1982. By 2006, they said, two-thirds of the students had above-average scores, 30 percent more than in 1982.

..."Unfortunately, narcissism can also have very negative consequences for society, including the breakdown of close relationships with others," he said.

The study asserts that narcissists "are more likely to have romantic relationships that are short-lived, at risk for infidelity, lack emotional warmth, and to exhibit game-playing, dishonesty, and over-controlling and violent behaviors."

Twenge, the author of "Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled - and More Miserable Than Ever Before," said narcissists tend to lack empathy, react aggressively to criticism and favor self-promotion over helping others.

Source.

Modern child-rearing in North America lacks meaningful challenges, and rites of passage--to provide a clear demarcation between self-centered childhood and a more competent and responsible adulthood.

In Science Fiction author Alexei Panshin's novel "Rite of Passage", 14 year olds underwent "The Challenge", a necessary rite of transition which some of them did not survive. Of course this idea was drawn from many earth examples of aboriginal and other cultures that require the child to undergo a rite of passage that sometimes results in the child's death.

For boys, the ritual often involved surviving in the wilderness--perhaps hunting a dangerous animal such as a lion. For girls, rites surrounding the onset of menses were common. Certainly giving birth for the first time was a sufficiently life threatening and altering experience to qualify as a rite of passage for girls.

Going to college for many years, and perhaps graduate school for many more, can often be a way to simply avoid one rite of passage--a full time job leading to economic self-sufficiency. If a youth considers himself too "special" to undertake most forms of work, the rite may be postponed indefinitely. For a young woman, school and long preparation for a career can postpone the childbirth rite so late in her life, that the biological clock eventually obviates the issue permanently.

Psychologically neotenous youth are typically narcissistic as well. If they also open themselves to indoctrination at a typical university or college, they have scored the magic hat trick--narcissism, psychological neoteny, and academic lobotomy. When that occurs, there is little reason to expect adult behaviour or responsible attitudes and participation in the society at large.

There are, however, some areas of North American society where the rite of passage occurs in all its historical potency. That would be in much of the military, fire departments, EMS, rescue units, and better trained and disciplined law enforcement personnel.

The idea of a rite of passage is a powerful one, as old as humanity. You can see how easily it is perverted in the muslim culture, where violent murder by martyrdom is too often celebrated as a rite of passage--although a rather grotesque and pointless one in my opinion.

But rites of passage need not be so perverse. An enlightened society has to understand that lifelong pampering and protection from challenge and responsibility is no way to raise productive adults who willingly contribute to their communities in all facets of living. Until North Americans understand the problem they have created for themselves, the ride will be bumpy and more than a little precarious.