react | Psychopath Resistance

There are reasons for our failure to act when action is appropriate.

We don’t acknowledge, or even recognize, that evil exists. We’re told that “there’s good in everyone,” “deep down we’re all the same,” “everyone makes mistakes,” “everyone deserves a second chance,” or “we all just need to be loved.” We are not told that there are exceptions to these platitudes. As many as 12 percent of the population are sociopaths—social predators who live their lives exploiting others—and another chunk of the population are almost sociopaths. Typically, their aggression is covert and most of us don’t know anything about sociopaths until we are personally targeted.

Taking action against bad behavior usually requires confrontation. Confrontation is uncomfortable, at best, and at worst, dangerous. Most of us try to avoid confrontation. In fact, probably the only people who enjoy confrontation are sociopaths. They, of course, are the ones causing the problems.

There are other reasons why we don’t act. We may feel that the problem is too big, and we’re too small to change anything. We may believe that someone else ought to take action. We may fear—legitimately—repercussions or retaliation. We may believe that the problem will “go away” or not impact us if we ignore it and focus on the positive.

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