I think that Willimon adds enough "brakes," ie., examples of the despicable depravity of Frank Underwood and his equally psychopathic wife to prevent people from getting too enthusiastic. But I'm sure there are those ten percent of the population-- the psychopaths, sociopaths, narcissists, etc., who are emboldened, inspired and perhaps even encouraged by characters like Frank and Clair Underwood and Walter White.
Even good-hearted, non-pathological people, as they watch these incredibly engaging stories, fall into the hypnotic trance of the story world the writers create. They start thinking like psychopaths would think, anticipating the next moves.
I'm a lefty. When I see politicians talking about cutting the safety net, aiming to cut medicare, reduce social security benefits, take away food stamps, I start seeing psychopathic, heartless behavior. But even I, in anticipating the last episode of the second season of House of Cards, started thinking about who Frank would kill or destroy.
If there's anything that I'd like to come out of these kinds of series it is a heightened public awareness of how powerful and destructive AND EVIL psychopaths can be, that they can be incredibly charismatic and attractive and can get people to like them, and that they can ascend to the highest levels of power, whether in elected office or as plutocratic billionaires using their money and power to profoundly influence and buy elections and whole segments of congress.
We have a terrible disease afflicting humanity. Just going by the one percent estimate, there are three million psychopaths in the US and seventy million of them worldwide. They are predators who don't care who they hurt. Many actually enjoy the hurting, the dominating, the destruction of lives. It makes sense that fictional characters like Underwood and White are so intriguing and make for great entertainment. But let's use the stories and the characters to raise public awareness.
I've spoken to researchers who have led me to believe that the investment in research to understand and deal with psychopaths in ways that protect the public while protecting psychopaths rights is less than twenty million dollars a year. Yet one study, by Kent A. Kiehl and Morris B. Hoffman, THE CRIMINAL PSYCHOPATH: HISTORY, NEUROSCIENCE, TREATMENT, AND ECONOMICS, estimated in 2011 that the cost of dealing with just the identified criminal psychopaths is at least $460 BILLION dollars a year, stating," psychopaths alone are responsible for approximately $460 billion per year in criminal social costs. Note that this $460 billion number does not include the costs of the psychopath's similar overrepresentation in psychiatric hospitals. Nor does it include indirect costs such as treatment for victims and their nonquantifiable emotional suffering"The article also reports the costs for other "conditions high in the public consciousness:"
"The annual societal cost for alcohol/substance abuse is estimated to be $329 billion, obesity $200 billion, smoking $172 billion... And each of these numbers, unlike our $460 billion for psychopathy, include other institutional costs beside the criminal justice system, primarily hospitalization and treatment, though none include any costs suffered by the victims."
Add the costs of treatment, the costs to the estimated 60 million Americans every year who are victims of psychopaths, sociopaths and narcissists they are in relationships with, throw in the costs of corruption in business and government and it's easy to see the cost of psychopaths every year exceeding the costs of the department of defense-- easily more than a trillion dollars a year.
It would be great if these TV series that feature psychopaths would help to wake the public to the need for a massive campaign-- a project, like the Apollo Moon Landing and the Manhattan project, aimed at doing something about psychopaths-- identifying them and preventing them from their predations, from doing the damage and hurt they do to individuals, corporations, government, our culture, while at the same time treating them in as fair and ethical a way as possible. If we're spending hundreds of millions on diseases we should also be spending proportionate amounts on dealing with the costs to society of psychopathy. I think that should be 50 or 100 times what the current estimate is-- one or two billion dollars a year. It's a tiny investment compared to the potential good it could do. Perhaps the problem is there are too many Frank Underwoods in positions of political power who would block any such funding.
Meanwhile, thank goodness for brilliant actors like Kevin Spacey, Robin Wright and Bryan Cranston for doing such a great job of portraying such charming monsters.
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I've been covering psychopaths and sociopaths in articles and interviews for several years. Here's a link to the series.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
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