Pieter Hintjens - The Psychopath Code - Cracking the Predators That Stalk Us

❂ Mallory looks after himself, and no-one else. His spouse and children get random, fragmented attention. He spares no expense on his own clothes, and expects his family to wear cast downs.

❂ Mallory keeps his finances opaque. His spouse has no view into these, which would tell a lot about his secret lives. If he must pay bills, he is neglectful.

❂ Mallory often disappears on trips. It may be one night, or a month. If he announces his departure or return in advance, it is for his own reasons.

❂ Mallory will plan family vacations, yet always with a personal motive. Often such travel is cover for one or other hunting trip. On a true getaway, Mallory is aggressive and irritable.

❂ Mallory is the star of the family. He enjoys taking photos of himself, his travels, and his possessions. He always looks great in these photos, and he shares them with others whenever he can.

❂ Mallory has no creative hobbies. He does not tend a garden, nor cook, paint, sculpt, compose music, or write for pleasure. He prefers to travel, meet new people, and shop.

❂ Mallory may buy or steal art, and collect others' work. He may learn the language of art appreciation. He may display his "love of art" with monumental extravagance.

❂ Mallory disdains pets. If he does have a pet, he treats it as an accessory, and a way to meet new people. He then takes bad care of his pet, who is often sick.

❂ Mallory cannot create comfortable order. He cannot tell the emotional value of an object. So he treats old, new, broken, used, and loved objects the same. He is often a hoarder.

❂ Mallory is expert at getting his spouse and extended family to take over house work. He does this using a mix of incompetence, neglect, and feigned invalidity. This lasts well into old age.

❂ Mallory divides his children into the "golden child" and the "scapegoat." He rewards and trains the golden child to be like him. Crime pays, he says. He bullies the scapegoat.

❂ Mallory’s spouse becomes an "enabler" who justifies Mallory’s behavior to the children. She shields him from criticism. She takes part in the winner/loser division of the children.

❂ Mallory’s spouse goes into a slow downwards spiral. She becomes poor. Her physical and mental health suffers. She becomes cut off from family and friends. She has professional problems.

❂ Mallory’s spouse becomes depressed and hurts herself in various ways. She may abuse alcohol or drugs. She may become suicidal. Mallory will blame her for being "crazy" and play the long-suffering victim.

Mallory may have a job, or may not. It is harder for male psychopaths to avoid work. That looks strange to outsiders. Few people ask questions about a mother who does not work. If he can, though, he will spend years in higher education, never quite working. If he works, he will always aim for easy money and opportunities to hunt.

The relationship between Mallory and his spouse is the abusive bond I already explained. If you speak to someone in a relationship with a psychopath, they may admit it. Yet they will often not accept it, and not act on it. It is like telling a smoker that they are damaging their lungs. They will nod, and continue to puff.

This is the strangest part of the psychopathic bond. Part of the mind knows the situation is abusive and wrong, and must end. Yet the rest of the mind continues to invest in it. It is a psychological addiction.

As with all addicts, there may come a point where the abused mind wakes up. It may decide, "I want out." It is at this point that others can help. The first step is diagnosis, to identify the source of their pain and misery. "It’s not you, it’s him" can be a shocking revelation.

In the family, Mallory has years to build a cage for his spouse and children. This slow timescale makes it almost impossible to see the process. You can see it when you compare "before" and "after." You can see it when you compare two families. For friends and relatives though, it tends to be too subtle to see.

Let me now come to the children. Mallory inflicts long slow mental torture on his children. He neglects them, and forces them to serve him. He dresses them like dolls, to parade in public. He never asks them how they feel or what they want, except to better disappoint them. Every promise he makes, he breaks without explanation. He is angry, and violent with them. Every chance he gets, he leaves them with someone else. He competes with his spouse to make them love him, and then he turns his back.

And then he divides them into winners and losers. This is perhaps the worst violence. It sets the children against each other for life. He treats the winners as if they can do no wrong. He encourages them to steal and lie. He shows them how to hunt. He lets them practice on their siblings. And the losers, they are to blame for everything. They ruined his life. He never wanted them as babies. Everything they do is wrong, and stupid.

It is hard to fit this behavior into the pragmatic selfishness that defines Mallory. Yet that golden child - scapegoat pattern seems universal in psychopaths' families. That means it helps psychopathic genes survive and spread. It is an evolved strategy.

Here is the goal of that strategy, I think. The golden children are those with the most psychopathic traits. Mallory grooms these to become psychopaths. The scapegoats are those with fewer psychopathic traits. Mallory grooms these to seek psychopaths as future partners. In both cases, his psychopathic genes maximize their chance of getting into his grandchildren.

It is a miserable story, yet with a positive aspect. Psychopathy is genetic, yet needs the right culture to develop in. It is like our language instinct. We can all learn foreign languages, at any age. Our first languages are special.

My hypothesis is that Mallory’s presence provides this culture of neglect and violence. His behavior is what pushes young talent to develop towards psychopathy. Once set on that path, they work hard to become the "best" psychopath they can. I call this process "differentiation." It starts young, before the age of ten.

I assume there are several groups of genes responsible for psychopathic traits. These genes work together, perhaps live on the same chromosome. They may express according to gender. Some of these genes delay the growth of empathy and social emotions. Others improve the talents for observation and mimicry. And so on.

If the environment is right, the young person starts to differentiate. It takes older psychopaths who encourage the anti-social behavior. It takes other young people to practice on. It takes opportunity, on the streets. Above all, it takes an anti-social environment devoid of affection and love.

Differentiation is not inevitable. Some people raised by psychopaths show many of the traits and yet are social. Some flutter between extremes, as if trying to be two different people at once.

This hypothesis is falsifiable. Look at the twin children of psychopaths, adopted by other families. In some cases those foster families will also be abusive. Observe the incidence of psychopathy in the orphans, when they are adults.

For Mallory to run this strategy on his children, he must stay around for years. I think this is one reason psychopaths stay in long marriages. Yet it is a precarious place to be. His own incentive is to abandon his family. He is leaving a hot trail of criminality and lies. His spouse may, and often does, rebel and take the children.

And if the children do grow up safe from him, there is much less chance they will be psychopaths. This is significant for those dealing with troubled families. Sometimes divorce is the best thing for the children. And sometimes they need protection from one parent. Mallory is as likely to be the mother, as the father. Social workers and judges should get training to see the difference.