Psychopaths

by Alan Harrington

Genres: Nonfiction

Paperback

First published June 5, 1972

Reviews

[Benjamin Stahl · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was not what I was expecting. I went in pretty blindly, going off the title alone, and thought it would serve as one of my rare forays into true crime. Serial killer, sadists, lunatics, I don't know. In fact, it was actually a weird but increasingly fascinating sociological study about the rise of what once were actually known as psychopaths: narcissists, aggressive misfits, rebels, bullies, manipulators, zealots, stalkers.

Far from being an extremely outdated and politically incorrect alarm-call about mentally disabled people no longer being forced to fester miserably in asylums, it was an in-depth dissection of post-1960s society. It actually remains very relevant even fifty years later: the new men and women of a godless world seeking unrestrained pleasure, self-glorification, or self-immolation - whatever helps them to turn from the empty void of our apparently pointless existence.

It felt at times quite similar to the sort of stuff Christopher Lasch was writing about only shortly afterwards.