this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2023
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Sure, society as a whole is much more individualistic and sociopathic compared to human nature (as shown by anthropologists, where people just shared things in the past) as a direct result of capitalism. I just don't think on the individual level that capitalism can change the nature of an individual to become sociopathic if they weren't already.
With human nature, "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need" rings true.
Also mass industrialization and urbanization caused people to not know their communities nearly as well, if at all, leading to an even more individualistic culture.
Mental health is derived from biology, psychology, and sociology. Capitalism influences all three but especially the sociological aspect.
In other words, capitalism encourages anti-social behavior by rewarding it.
Or are you arguing that sociopaths are born that way? Because epigenetics has basically killed the nature vs. nurture debate (it was always a combination of both.)
I was indeed arguing that some people are born that way. Can you link me to some research saying otherwise?
I'm thinking of those types of people who hurt animals as a child and grew up to be serial killers.
Or to put my longer post another way, there's never a point in your hypothetical born a sociopath argument where capitalism wasn't exercising an influence on that organism's mental health and how it's expressed.
Capitalism changes us before we even hit the crib. Check out Gabor Mate M.D.'s book the Myth of Normal. It's all about this stuff.
Mate's work is like a poultice on our souls capitalist infection.
Listening to him speaking some of his work on YouTube has literally brought me to tears.
Like the phrase, "feeling good is good enough", just being told it's ok to simply exist, that existing for existence sake is good enough. Something so simple, but capitalism whittles that away from you before you even hit your 20s.
Sounds like a fascinating book!
Our culture teaches children that animals are there to serve us, even to the point of hurting them (food, medical research, hunting, etc). I believe compassion is something that can be taught to children, but I think our culture and many families within it tend to teach cruelty instead. And most of us aren't capabable of the self reflection needed to change our disposition in regards to empathy until the prefrontal cortex develops.
Environmental factors, many of which capitalism produces as negative externalities, affect how the prefrontal cortex develops in addition to how it socializes us towards antisocial behavior. To name some of the less obvious factors: trauma, substance use, and financial stress/insecurity.
Additionally, the gene expression for anti-social behavior surely is adapted to turn on when most beneficial to the survival of the organism.
I don't have a study handy as most of this is stuff I learned taking human services classes. I can look for a paper on nature vs nurture and antisocial behavior specifically if you'd like. Or epigenetics and antisocial behavior. If my comment wasn't enough.
My evidence is extremely anecdotal, but generally speaking, the people I meet whi care more about other people make less money, and the people who care less about people make more money.
Children (at least in the US) are generally taught that "sharing is caring," and yet you still see children who don't share, along with children who do share. Regardless of this, though, I think that sharing is in our nature as humans, since what set humans apart from neanderthals is our comradery and need for socialization. There's a reason that sociopathy is considered a disorder in our society (even though I think the term disorder is overused).
Genetic expressions can certainly change due to environmental factors, but only so much. There are probably a decent amount of people who were affected by capitalistic nurture into having more sociopathic tendencies (like, they were on some kind of line where it could've gone either way), but I also think that there are many people who regardless of nurture, still care about other people.
In a theoretical society that rewards caring about people, I think there would be a number of people who have purely selfish intentions who would do good things for other people purely to get ahead in life, just like those same people in capitalism would step on top of other people to get ahead in life. In this specific case, I think intentions speak more than actions.
Of course, intentions aren't exactly something that can be measured, especially if people are dishonest about them.
I tried finding a study but everything I found was paywalled. I did find an article with numerous citations. The tldr is that genes only contribute 50%. Epigenetics, social conditioning, and environmental factors (brain damage for instance) take up the other 50%. In other words, without outside factors the antisocial personality genes don't manifest as antisocial personality disorder. They don't alone have enough influence.
https://www.geneticlifehacks.com/psychopath-genes-born-not-made/
"I tried finding a study but everything I found was paywalled."
Fucking priceless. The entire conversation in a single throw away line. Well done. 👏
To be fair the article I linked is probably more accessible than the studies it cites.
But yeah, I pecked around trying to get a few promising papers to open. And forgot about sci hub so shared the article instead.
Use sci-hub for paywalled research articles.
Fascinating that smoking while pregnant and heavy metal poisoning can lead to psychopathy. I wonder if that 50% number is true for all humans.
I think some of us have less of those genes.
Going back to your original argument. If you don't have a genetic tendency towards antisocial personality disorder, it's less likely capitalism will make you callous.
However, if you do have those genes, they're more likely to express as antisocial in a culture like ours.
So it's both the individual biology and the environmental factors.
I used to use sci-hub. I forgot about it today. A lot of stuff has become more available. I think studies done by or funded by the government are all open access now. I might be wrong though.
I was trying to find a study they did on Netherlands criminals vs U.S. criminals. They found the former more rogueish and the later more callous. Could be genetic or environmental causes to this. Maybe Danish people are genetically less callous. Or maybe it's the culture. Probably a combination of both.
How do we know that people with those genes who behave in a less/not-sociopathic way are not masking their intentions? Just because they don't behave in a sociopathic way doesn't mean they don't potentially want to.
Here's one study if you want to take a look at it.
https://sci-hub.st/10.1111/j.1469-8986.2005.00279.x
Bruno Verschuere is the researcher who did the comparison between U.S. and Netherlands prisoners. I can only find a reference to that study in an article though, and haven't been able to find it published online. He seems to do a lot of research in this area (he's one of the researchers in the linked article).
Anyway the link should give you an idea on controls they're using. The linked study is actually about lie detector tests and if they're less accurate on antisocial people as they have less autonomic reaponse when lieing.
They are hard to spot though. I did some time in prison for growing psilocybin. I wanted to believe my celley was a good person because he was easy to get along with and seemed kind. Looked him up when I got out, fucker had a taste for little girls and I had pictures of my young son up in our cell the whole time...
But you can sorta learn to spot it. If you watch the documentary on the Nexium cult or other cult leaders you might see what I mean. They don't seem to have the same fear response about hurting others and it's visible in the eye movements.
That's my hot take at least. And I've been enjoying this conversation btw.