Interesting column, and interesting and provocative formulation and comparison by Heather of Mr. Soprano with Dr. Kupferberg. Esteemed, helping professional on no higher moral ground than homicidal mobster? It’s true that therapy can be absurd and countertherapeutic, and not due to lack of effective interventions, but because those drawn to the field are often themselves disordered and driven by their own needs.

Apart from environment and development, there isn’t so much that differentiates the narcissist from the antisocial type. Both are driven largely by deep-seated fears related to status and safety and by underdeveloped capacity for empathy. Both are acutely aware of status, and they aggress in order to lower the status of others. Individuals with narcissistic/antisocial traits and who are helped along by post-secondary education, class, and social connections are able to aggress, command resources, and lower the status of others by virtue of credential, of conferred and inscrutable expertise, of title, etc. while those without similar social capital are left to aggress by means which tend to be criminalized and result in stays at correctional facilities, rather than positions at Fortune 500 firms. I have bemusedly thought about incarcerated males I have known: “If only they had ended up CEOs or with a Ph.D. or MBA, or had the breaks a Cowell or a Trump got, they could lower and use others and aggress in ways that entertain and impress us, and be admired and successful narcissists instead of ending up felons and “sociopaths”. What a difference opportunity makes!”

But those are crazy thoughts, because we all know that in life, just like on TV, there are losers and then there are winners; there are criminals, and then the decent, law-abiding citizens like our community, business, religious, and political leaders, like us. Part of the educational value of TV is that it teaches and instills these needed moral distinctions in us, as long as we stay plugged in.

is always afraid

The comfortably distracting red herrings here are law, guilt, evidence, legal system, prosecution, etc., which have nothing to do with what drove the antisocial and damaging behaviors in this or the Duke case or with what we need to do about them.

The behaviors result from the pathological introjects we provide young males from infancy about sex, gender, use of mood-altering substances, and aggression, and from the cowardice that keeps us from changing that.

won’t be going away because we need her around so much, just like the abusive family needs a misbehaving child, reacting to their dysfunction, to scapegoat and pathologize, and to distract attention from their weakness and failures.

Amanda got it right over at Pandagon. Whatever consequences Paris has earned, and however well or poorly she accepts them, doesn’t explain our fixation, anger and projection.

What we can’t stand is that she’s sexually free and unapologetic about it, and instead of finding the courage to ask ourselves why we can’t be as free as Paris, we punish her for reminding us that we aren’t. That’s a need that will keep her around indefinitely.

Thank you, Cintra, for a hit of insight into this unfortunate project-a-thon and comfortably distracting scapegoating that even some of the most astute (and my favorite) writers here at Salon can’t seem to escape.

When a starlet is enhanced by too many cocktails and breezy sexual sophistication, it makes her a target, because we get to regard her as indecent.

And in doing so, we get to projectively defend against self-awareness of our neurotic self-denial of healthy, free sexuality and healthy “fuck you” autonomy that Paris (damn that whore!) has the courage to embrace, and we don’t.

Lock her up, she’s reminding us of what we lock away.

Humiliation and reactive punishment work really well in helping individuals to adopt more prosocial behaviors.

Just try it with your kids.

Oh. That’s right, you already . . . . .