03-Mutants, Part 2

            In Mutants [Pencils 2022-2025 09-Mutants] I considered whether or not sociopathy is adaptive or not, whether sociopaths can out-compete and out-reproduce other humans and become a dominant personality form. I found the arguments inconclusive from an evolutionary perspective. I have realized there is another mechanism at work that could tip the balance in their favor.

            Perhaps a handful of sociopaths—maybe only a few—could gain enough power to alter the social context of human actions. If enough non-sociopathic humans become convinced that the only way to survive/succeed is through amoral zero-sum transactional behavior, we could all learn to behave as sociopaths. This process would be self-reinforcing and would tend to create more such behavior. It could become habitual and normal.

            In other words, sociopathy could become contagious like zombiism in a film.

            We may have actually seen this before in Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Mussolini and Hitler and some other leaders may have qualified as sociopaths. Certainly, the majority of German Nazis and Italian Fascists didn’t. Maybe more and more of them learned the behavior as a survival/success mechanism until it became normalized socially.

            I have heard it said that if something is wrong, it’s wrong no matter how many people are doing it, and if something is right, it’s right no matter how few people are doing it. Very few of us can live up to this ideal, not because we are bad people, but because we have a strong survival instinct that kicks in to rationalize any behavior that will get us and our loved ones through the day, the week, the month, until enough time goes by and we accept as normal actions of ours that would have horrified us a few years earlier.

            This is something to take seriously. A few sociopaths in power may be able to force our personal choices into narrow bands of black/white, us/them, “fur us or agin’ us”, kill or be killed. Much faster than the evolutionary process, this could turn us into a society built on sociopathic behavior.

            To resist, we need to gather and talk about it and solidify groups that support each other in denying this power. It can’t be done alone. We have to discuss and try out processes and exercises that combat this. It has happened already in the organized nonviolent responses to ICE intimidation. Can we nurture this enough to keep humane behavior dominant? 

Hugh Moffatt
Nashville, Tennessee
May 21, 2026