Snake and scorpion beauty Lao Rongzhi killed 7 lives in a row in the 90s, and then went into exile in anonymity for 20 years, and when he was arrested, no one around him believed that this kind elder sister would be a murderer.
Even in court, Lao Rongzhi also "sophistry": "It can be said that I am not excellent, but it cannot be said that I am not kind." I have never killed a chicken in my life. ”
Gao Chengyong, the murderer of the Silver Murders, brutally killed 11 women in 14 years, but no one in the town said he was dishonest. After Gao Chengyong committed the crime, he worked and lived as usual, and after being arrested, he calmly recalled the details of each case, so calm that people were afraid. Killing people doesn't seem like a big deal for him.
The Korean movie "Memories of Killing" has this scene:
The policeman played by Song Kanghao walked to the field where the crime occurred, and the little girl in the memory appeared in front of his eyes, perhaps she had seen the murderer, and when he asked "Did you see his face, what did he look like", the little girl replied "It is the usual kind, very ordinary".
Have you ever wondered: What's the difference between an ordinary person and a perverted murderer? What made these human demons?
Today, on the road, reading and sharing a book "Born Perverted", may give us the answer.
James Fallon, the author of the book, is a neuroscientist who has seen scans of the brains of a psychopathic killer and summarized the brain pattern characteristics of serial killers.
Until one day, he was surprised to find that he had a brain scan similar to that of a psychopathic killer, which meant that the author himself was a psychopath.
1. Amazing discovery: I have a perverted brain
A sample from the Fallon study came from 70 homicides in prisons. Judging from their methods of killing, it is definitely not just a simple crime of passion, but a psychopathy of its own category. After ten years of collecting and researching, Faron found that some murderers had brain scans that were somewhat different from those of the average person.
That is, the ventral level of the frontal orbital cortex and prefrontal cortex is low, the anterior part of the temporal lobe includes amygdala injury, and there is a brain function defect in the cingulate gyrus area. According to existing scientific research, these areas are closely related to our self-control, empathy, and moral cognition.
Fallon speculated that damage and defects in brain function would make these people lack empathy and morality, and they would not be able to reasonably control their behavior, and they would be more likely to commit heinous crimes than other murderers.
The brain scans of fallons and their families, the arrows pointed to the fallons
By chance, he saw a scan of his own brain. And this picture tells him clearly and plainly: his brain looks exactly like the brains of psychopaths!
Fallon has always believed that humans have little control over their actions. 80% of the control of behavior is determined by nature, and only 20% depends on the acquired growth environment. But now, he wondered. He summed up a theory to explain the neuroanatomical basis of psychopathy, and as a result, his brain looked exactly like a psychopath. So, is his theory wrong?
One day, his mother pulled him aside and said, "There's something you have to see," and it was a family history from his father's side.
In the patrilineal bloodline of the grandparents, there was a team that produced seven murderers in hundreds of years, and several notorious villains. The men in the other branch are always cold-blooded and ruthless, abandoning their wives and lovers for no reason.
"Devil's disciple" Richard Ramirez, killed at least 16 people from March 17 to August 30, 1985
These findings shocked Faron, who quickly arranged for a comprehensive genetic test for himself and his family, which showed that he had so-called "fighting genes" in his entire family.
The "fighting gene" is a product of a genetic mutation. It inhibits the production of monoamine oxidase A, which breaks down serotonin. Serotonin is one of the most common neurotransmitters in our bodies and helps our brains work properly. People with fighting genes tend to be more aggressive than the average person.
Other scholars have found that the fighting genes change, and the size of the amygdala. These brain regions are closely related to psychopathy.
However, Faron still did not understand. Although he had so many disgraceful ancestors, after his father's generation, the situation was reversed. During World War II, his father and two uncles both refused to perform military service and appeared on the battlefield as paramedics to save lives. Not to mention himself, it is completely different from the psychopathic murderer he has been studying all along.
2. The formation of metamorphosis: brain, genes, and childhood
Fallon has a perverted brain and genes, why didn't he become a perverted killer?
One day, Faron was lying in the jacuzzi, soaking in the sun, staring at a three-legged stool in the backyard in a daze, when suddenly inspiration came.
He suspects that defects in relevant brain areas, high-risk mutations in genes, and traumas experienced in childhood may be like the three feet of a three-legged stool, supporting and interacting with each other, and eventually creating psychopathy.
It seems that Faron has found a reasonable way to explain the pathology of psychopathy and has also found a comforting reason for himself. After all, he had a very happy childhood, and without one of the three elements, he would not become a psychopath.
However, in the process, he also began to pay attention to the negative evaluation of him by some colleagues and friends. After he took to various podiums and made public his research and family situation, most people's attitude toward him did not change. They felt that Fallon might be a psychopath, and it was no surprise to them.
3. Self-analysis: different manifestations of perversion
Faron has always felt that he is happily married, has a happy family, is kind, has many close friends, and should not be the kind of person who lacks empathy. But if you think about it, it's hard for a person to find a lack of empathy because he doesn't know anything about empathy.
With such a new mindset and cognition, he recollected his previous experiences and found that he probably didn't really have any empathy.
For example, when he was working in medical school, one day he walked into the morgue, and on the tin board lay a little girl in a white dress. He looked at the girl and said, "What a beautiful dress." At the time, he didn't think that sentence was strange, but now, he noticed.
For example, one day he witnessed a serious car accident. The elderly driver gulped down blood and looked like he was going to die. He hurried forward and gave the old man twenty minutes of artificial respiration, although in the end he could not save this life, but the good villain was called a brave deed, which was a bit humane. However, after taking notes at the police station, he immediately went to a friend's house for a party, forgot all about the car accident, and did not even mention a word to others. Thinking about it now, he felt cold in his bones.
He also realized that some of his words and actions would hurt others, but he could not foresee such harm, and only after the harm occurred could he realize that he was wrong. All this shows that he is really different from most people. He, like psychopaths, lacks empathy.
And there is more than one fallon and psychopath in common. Many psychopaths are lies, up and down the lips touch began to talk nonsense, and he is the same, often deliberately say some small lies to make himself happier. For example, if you ask him what he does, he will answer: he used to be a bartender, then worked as a truck driver, and now he is semi-retired.
Why didn't he honestly say that he was a medical school professor? Because he wants to make the other party feel amazing: as a truck driver, he can have such a high IQ!
There are also many psychopaths who like to manipulate the situation, such as killing someone, putting the victim in a strange position, sending some provocative letters to the police station, and so on. And he, although not to this extent, but also like to play with others in the palm of the hand, especially in the love field, he is like a well-prepared hunter, like to watch the prey fall into the trap he has laid out step by step, as to whether to eat the prey in the end, it is not important.
In the end, he thought he had some degree of manic-depressive disorder. He was always full of energy and able to speak, sometimes lying in the bathtub at home and drinking until midnight, then on a whim to find a good brother and drive for hours to Las Vegas to gamble all night. But every once in a while, he would spend half an hour in the midst of thoughts about death and morality, drowning in negative emotions. According to the research of some scholars, about one-third of patients with mild manic depression will show and borderline personality disorder and so on.
Most importantly, these are not the only things that Faron alone feels. He asked his friends what they thought of him. The conclusion is that most of the time, he is still good, but he will always do something from time to time to make others think that he does not really care about others. The descriptors they give include, "narcissistic," "cold," "no shame," "cunning liar," "having a moral standard of their own," "needing continuous stimulation," and so on.
All in all, in short, a thousand words converged into one sentence, and Farlong felt that even if he was not a psychopath, he probably had a lot of social pathological personalities.
The author made a cameo appearance in Criminal Minds
Fallon gave himself a definition: a prosocial psychopath.
What does that mean? Psychopathy is not terrible, a normal society, there will always be some people who are psychopaths, and the terrible ones are those antisocial psychopaths.
And Faron was lucky enough. He had a good pair of parents, especially his mother, who gave him enough love and a warm environment to grow up in his childhood. So, although he still inevitably became a psychopath, lacked empathy, sometimes selfish, indifferent, but in general, he was a good person who attracted people.
The "Book List" public account evaluates the book as:
The author uses his own story to let more people know about the world of psychopaths, and once again let us know the importance of the family environment:
In this world, no "Satan" is completely born, even if he has a perverted brain, with a violent gene, if there is a kind and kind father, an understanding mother, then even if these perverted personalities can not become "angels", at least not "demons".
Edited | Liangshan
Typography | Liangshan
Reading on the road: PhDs from world-famous universities read a good book in 30 minutes.