10-31-2016, 09:44 AM
Superficial charm is one of the hallmarks of a sociopath. Sociopaths need it. Good people can be honest about themselves even if such honesty is embarrassing. If I dated a woman I would have to warn her of my involuntary and permanent affair with Madame Asperger. No, that's not Ahs-pair-zhay. Newt Gingrich can put on a professorial show.
Did anyone think that honest-to-Quasimodo ogres do the real harm to us? No. The con artist must use some glib talent to convince us that his absurd business deal is a wise course of action. The child molester typically shows his victim some attention ("Oh, tell me about your Little League team!" -- real adults don't care about such when they can watch professional sports) and show him a little fun at first instead of telling the child that he is going to experience unimaginable pain and shame that no children should ever know. We dread the ogre but not the slimy character with a theatrical semblance of unreal goodness.
We know about Newt Gingrich and his questionable loyalty to women. When he tires of her he will ditch her as I might trade in a nine-year-old used car. But cars have no feelings; people do.
Did anyone think that honest-to-Quasimodo ogres do the real harm to us? No. The con artist must use some glib talent to convince us that his absurd business deal is a wise course of action. The child molester typically shows his victim some attention ("Oh, tell me about your Little League team!" -- real adults don't care about such when they can watch professional sports) and show him a little fun at first instead of telling the child that he is going to experience unimaginable pain and shame that no children should ever know. We dread the ogre but not the slimy character with a theatrical semblance of unreal goodness.
We know about Newt Gingrich and his questionable loyalty to women. When he tires of her he will ditch her as I might trade in a nine-year-old used car. But cars have no feelings; people do.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.