I’ve been on a reading kick lately. Just finished Barbara Corcoran’s “Shark Tales.” (Brilliantly written.) And immediately started on Jon Ronson’s “The Psychopath Test.”
Holy shit.
I’m already halfway through Ronson’s work and I only just started it a couple hours ago. The first half of the book finally provides me with a diagnosis for the often-charming, always-criminally insane creature with whom I associated myself for too many years. It is downright amazing what behaviors a psychopath can influence a perfectly normal human to engage in. But, alas, true empathy always wins over in the general populace, and we have to extricate ourselves from the clutches of these soulless societal dregs.
I’m about to start the second half, where Ronson gets into Wall Street psychopaths and others in leadership in the corporate world. All I have to say is, I SHOULD HAVE WRITTEN THIS BOOK. Sure, I couldn’t have done it BETTER, but match-making the psychopaths from my personal and professional lives would be like shooting fish in a friggin’ barrel, yo.
See, I was right to shrug off my “Atlas Shrugged” reading assignment in favor of brushing up on my Machiavelli. “The Psychopath Test” should be required reading for all humans, although I imagine my pet psychopath will probably pick up a copy as a finishing school of sorts, just like my favorite self-proclaimed and professionally diagnosed paranoid narcissist wears his condition like a badge of honor.
Just like 2% of the population controls 80% of the world’s wealth, the 1% of the (non-incarcerated) psychopath population does its damnest to cause mayhem for 90% of the regular people who just want to live and let live. Sad.
Anyway, I’ve already made a personal recommendation to all of us touched (more like molested at gunpoint) by someone else’s madness, and if you too have met someone in that 1% (probably at work), you need this book.