The Psychopath Test

David had, like I had, walked down Tottenham Court Road a million times. It is unremarkable: discount electrical shops and Time Out magazine. The last thing you’d expect is some parallel spook universe unfolding just behind some unmarked door.

“So should we define him by his psychopathy or by his sanity?” I said. “Well, the people who say that kind of thing,” Bob said, “and I don’t use this in a pejorative way, are very left-wing, left-leaning academics. Who don’t like labels. Who don’t like talking about differences between people.”

“I’ve got a list of personality traits written down here that define psychopathy,” I said, pointing at my pocket. “Who the hell are the people who make the list?” said Al. “What are their names? I bet I never heard of them!”

“Who is the unfeeling one?” I thought. “I only came here to hone my psychopath-spotting skills and this poor guy borrowed a special shirt.”

“It’s as if both Midas and also the Queen of Narnia were here,” I said, “and the Queen of Narnia flew above a particularly fierce zoo and turned everything there to stone and then transported everything here.”

“Ooh!” I thought, unexpectedly pleased to hear that there really was something identifiably wrong with me. Then I said, “I suppose it probably isn’t a great idea for a man like me who suffers from excessive anxiety to chase after people who have a pathological deficit of anxiety.”

(You may be wondering what the difference is between a psychopath and a sociopath, and the answer is, there really isn’t one. Psychologists and psychiatrists around the world tend to use the terms interchangeably.)

“You have to feel sorry for psychopaths, right? If it’s all because of their amygdalae? If it’s not their fault?” “Why should we feel sorry for them?” he replied. “They don’t give a shit about us.”

system, wasn’t functioning as it should.