I’ve often thought that I would have liked to be a psychiatrist. Not the psychologist, that just seems like the second class. But then, I’ve often thought I would like to have been a theologian or a paleontologist too. Those are other stories, which though fascinating, no doubt, have little to do with this post.
The trouble with being a psychiatrist, is that they are all pretty much nuts, and I have enough issues as it is, I don’t need to be professionally deranged. So, I’ve never seriously investigated that career path.
By now of course, you are wildly curious about what the picture above has to do with psychiatry, but patience is a virtue, and you’ll have to continue reading.
I took one course in undergrad that had to do with “abnormal” psychology, which perhaps begs the question, since if one is seeing a shrink, there is something abnormal going on by definition I would assume. I found the whole thing fascinating actually, which probably means I would have been a great candidate for psychiatry school.
The reasons why folks do what they do has always fascinated me. I figure, if I can determine why someone acts they way they do, I can be more compassionate, or at least put them in some perspective that allows me to catalog them in my personal universe. I like a certain amount of order.
The Contrarian and I were discussing murder the other day. Neither of us is so inclined, in case you are wondering, but we got to thinking about the legal definition of insanity and how that relates to the mind that kills in the premeditated format. The Contrarian would argue that anyone who kills in any but the legally sanctioned manner, is nuts by definition.
Of course, that in no way conforms to the legal definitions of insanity. One has to be either unable to understand the nature of the act, or that it is wrong, or unable to conform their behavior to what they know to be right and wrong. Most every state has some version of that.
My thinking is that most murders who are not stark raving mad, so as to be obvious to the world, know they are doing wrong, and in most cases know they will either have to commit suicide or spend their life in prison/or die in the chair. They know this, but the pain caused by the victim apparently supersedes this knowledge, so they don’t care. At least until after the killing. Then they may do a lot to “get away with it.”
Anyway, you get my drift. I need to understand. I really do. It’s a bit too frightening to see people as sane and unpredictable at the same time. Logic should have been my middle name I guess. I like it, I need it, and I want more of it in the world.
Okay, now let me get to the point here, before you run off in disgust to dust the furniture or walk the dog.
I was watching GMA this morning, sipping my coffee, when a lady came on to tell about her encounter with Bernie Madoff. She knows him well, considered him a friend, and had invested substantial amounts with him. All of it is gone of course. She was surprising not really all that angry. She is 78 by her admission, and lives within her general means of social security, pension and her still active modeling career. She gave her excess to Bernie, so her life is still intact.
She was not, as I said, especially angry, neither obviously so, or with that calm exterior covering a seething interior kind of facade. Her main point was that she was angry with herself because she thought the man “smarter than this, smart enough not to do this to himself.”
While, I like everyone else has marveled at the sheer chutzpah of the man, and felt oh so sorry for the victims, many of whom find themselves retired with no nothing but a social security check, I hadn’t really thought a good deal about Mr. Madoff himself.
What do we know? We know that he stole from people who were his social friends, he stole from little old ladies who he must have known could not take the loss. He stole from the rich and famous. He stole BILLIONS. His wife now claims she had nothing to do with the scheme and wants to keep some 60 MILLIONS as her own private loot.
What is in the brain of this man? What makes him tick? What happened to him as a child, young adult, that rewired what was otherwise a human brain and turned it into this alien thing?
Surely Mr. Madoff could not begin to spend this money, if he shopped at Mercedes Benz and Tiffany each day. He could buy homes in three dozen countries and not spend it all. He could by yachts for every ocean and not spend it all.
Was it all to stand, as above, in the room with it? Was it some sexual like rush of orgasmic delight at puttin’ it over that just made him shiver in sick delight? I don’t know and I would like to. I surely would. I have to file Bernie somewhere in my head and I can’t find the right folder in my file drawer of a mind. And frankly it irks me.
I have to laugh a bit. Cameras are trained on his penthouse, where apparently there are no curtains and Bernie doesn’t care that we peek in. We watch him on the internet, watching TV, ordering food, fluffing pillows. People stare, and anger bubbles up in the minds of some. How dare they let him live like this while his victims are selling off their homes and assets, moving into efficiency apartments and the like.
I wonder what it’s like to look down and see this:
I’m waiting for the diagnosis. Asocial, sociopathic, or whatever. What goes through your mind Bernie? Are you finding ways to justify and minimize what you did? Excuse it? I really need to know. I like things neat and tidy. When I shake my head, I don’t like stuff flying around unfiled and laying around undesignated.
Maybe that should be the punishment. Undergo a full diagnostic and then have to see it published on every front page, read on every news cast across the land. But then, stocks are still no doubt available in some New England towns. I’m sure they would be willing to rent out that sightseeing delight for a few days. We could all go down and watch ya Bernie.
I just want to know, ya know? You can understand that can’t ya Bernie?
It is almost impossible for me to understand anyone having a sense of entitlement so strong that he could justify on *any level* stealing from others. It’s not just stealing money. It’s stealing a sense of trust.. a sense of safety in the world at all.
The seventh rung of hell is for people like Bernie Madoff.
My education wasn’t in psychology.. but sociology. Just the same, I can still recognize a sociopath when I see one.
The issue of redemption for someone like him? Yeah… but I’m not wise enough to know what it would take.
~*
There have always been these “Robber Barons” who have no sense of empathy with others, or something. I don’t understand them, either.
I agree with Chani – sociopath. Born without a sense of right or wrong. Looked at the whole thing as a game and had to keep playing. Didn’t consider the consequences either to the people he was scamming or his own family or even himself. These people just don’t care about others, there is something missing from their psyches. I don’t think it is redeemable.
Definitely a game, with humans as the pieces. The problem is, this ‘the entire world revolves around me’ doesn’t come 100% from a place of hatred, but of entitlement, and it’s filtering down through society. Sure, not everyone has access to such wealth and power, but the everyday yokel, it’s me me me, why can’t you see that I matter more than you?
There’s a disconnect.
Chani, I think sociopath is perhaps apt. I don’t think they are wired to feel beyond their own needs. They can look at a dead puppy and not feel anything. Worse they wouldn’t lift a finger to save a puppy when they could.
Kedda, I tend to agree. These types have always been with us. Sad to say, perhaps they always will, but I very much hope not.
Maui, I suspect you too are right. I’m not sure it can be fixed ever. It’s just genetic erratic wiring I guess. Would be nice to figure it out, so maybe we can prevent it in the future.
Randal, I so very agree. It does seem to be filtering down to those who don’t have the means, but want that avenue left open so they or their kids might take advantage in some future time. I’ve never seen such a large segment of the population so totally uninterested in the poor. It’s all about “i got mine, and too bad about you.” And worse, they don’t even think in terms of too bad, they actively blame the poor for being so.
madoff deserves the worst society can give him – but that being said – madoff and bush have a lot in common – both do things and act upon things without a care to what the greater consequences are – the definition of a sociopath. in their worlds (hard for me to relate to) – nothing else much matters other than themselves — the definition of egocentric.
i would be (psychologically speaking) that Bernie’s mom and old bag Babs the Impaler are very similar – and that the relationship bernie had with his ‘rent is not all that dis-similar that Georgie had with his.
and when you throw some charm on the ego-driven sociopath — (face it, bush had charm – disgustinglyh annoying, but charm) – you get men in power doing the incredibly evil things they did
call me whatever – i dont think a woman would do what these two guys did.
DC, well, that’s an interesting point. You might be right. I hadn’t thought of Madoff in regards to Bush. I think of Bush more as a slightly under minded human who was kinda led down the path by those who rightly assumed they could use him. Just a bit dull and easily manipulated by those who would pat him on the head and rave about his talents. But, entitlement is something no doubt Bush takes for granted, and I suspect that the dead of these wars haven’t concerned him overmuch, at least when he made the initial decisions. The realities might have, it’s a bit hard to tell, but surely he didn’t change course did he?
Surely women are capable of this, as we know, but it is more rare to find a sociopathic woman.
Are you sure Bernie is such an usual sociopath? In the first place, there are plenty of people in Manhattan who seem to have no particular care for their supposed family and friends, judging from the rate at which they express concern about them. The city is a citadel of selfishness, built by it, in fact. Many do care, of course, but not a large proportion, I would say. Selfishness is the way of New York City and its capitaalism. At least it redeems itself with what goes hand in hand with it, asnd that is tolerance for others. Not too many people want to tell others what to do, one notable except being our mayors.
Be that as it may, however, what exactly did Madoff do? he didnt invest anything. He seems merely to have robbed Peter to pay Paul -the new investors money got moved to the older investor in generous annual amounts. So if the legal clawback which is meant to happen takes place and is thorough and stretches back in time, everyone will; be made whole except for interest. Even all his houses etc are being sold off for the big pot.
So why does Madoff deserve all this thoughtless hostility? Maybe because the big boys are resisting the payback and the little guys are left holding the bag. Maybe the hedge funds who are keeping quiet about how much they benefited, and the influential people who profited, are the bigger louses. Maybe that is why we still know so little about what actually happened. Maybe that is one reason why they allowed Bernie to sit in his Lexington Avenue apartment on East 64St. He is not the big thief!
Just a thought,
Criticnyc…There is undoubted more than enough blame to go around. The world seems tipped with greedy monsters everywhere, but I think basically that is false really. Most people are decent, we don’t hear about them as a consequence.
And I think Madoff fair game. He scammed to his own benefit thousands of people. Many won’t recover a dime. His wife and kids will continue to live well, and then undoubtedly knew. They, (his wife at least) made off with millions before his arrest.
I don’t buy that NYC is some babylon. It is no better nor worse than most any place. The scale may allow for greater effect, and Madoff would be an example of that. But I think good is pretty darn evenly distributed around the world. Thanks for the thoughtful comment!
Well, as I tried to make clear, we don’t know yet that most people won’t recover a dime, and we cant be sure how much was kept from his wife and family, perhaps all till the end.
I agree that good is pretty well evenly distributed throughout humanity, but that is a fact of human nature, not culture. The culture of NYC, partly a result of the kind of people that are attracted to it, is rather self centered relative to that of other places which the selfishly ambitious tend to leave, not go to. It is the magnet of North America and the world when it comes to money, as well as other things (not politics, which would be more Washington).
However, judging from your feathery title to your peaceable blog you are not yourself tormented by such drives so perhaps you do not live in NYC or if you do you have a bunch of friends as advanced in nature as yourself. If so it is natural you should despise Madoff who has a more primitive nature, one much more sociopathic, it is clear, since he abused so much trust.
But I am inclined to think that it all grew inadvertently from a small bit of cheating and doubt he ever intended it to grow into a global monster. He got caught by his no exit position, where the only way to avoid exposure was to go on doing it, don’t you think?
Hmmm, well cynic, I must say, that you make a pretty good case. I have been to NYC a couple of times, but never lived there. Closest I was was Hamden CT for a couple of years, so I might be close to the beastie I guess.
It is not so much that I despise Madoff and folks of that ilk, so much as I truly don’t understand them. We all, at various points in life, young or old, or in between have found ourselves doing wrongly. Most of us I trust, realize that this can only get worse, and fess up and pay our penalties and mend our fences. I don’t understand the mind that continues to get in deeper, figuring somehow to find a way out. There is none, and when it falls apart and it inevitably must, the penalty is oh so much more severe.
We see this in the criminal, of which I have much knowledge. So very often, they could have gotten out early with little pain, but they can’t seem to get there, and end up locked up for the better part of a life.
If one operates on the basis that every single decision is made with self-interest however defined as the critical factor, then I am at a loss how these choices seem the “best for me.” Wow, that should make a good blog post. ..Look for it tomorrow, if I can flesh it out enough. I gotta look up something I recall from Depak Chopra!
I am not cynicnyc but criticnyc !:-)
Bernie Madoff is intelligible to me as one of the vast horde of people who play the money game, and have very little other reality going on in their lives except family, grandchildren etc. Wouldn’t be surprised if he had no real avocation or other interest, except for getting positions on committees, charities etc. He wasn’t a very educated person and he didn’t have a college degree, I don’t believe.
These people play the money game like bridge players on a cruise liner who don’t even bother to get off the ship at the tourist ports. He was one and surrounded by them all day.
Not sure where you are going with the last paragraph but as I say I dont believe Madoff planned to be a great crook, he had kleptomaniac tendencies like most people on Wall Street and he started early as a kind of petty thief and it ballooned from there. The problem was that he used it to keep his firm in business, according to the prosecutor, who said at times it would not have otherwise survived.
That got him in deeper and deeper whereas I suspect his plan was probably to get out of his predicament as soon as his firm flourished enough. He seems too little a man in his habits and obsessions with straightening the carpet etc to have planned a grand scale crime let alone the biggest Ponzi scheme ever.
Just a petty liar whose beast grew elephantine under him.
Not sure what good it does to put him in jail to earn 80c an hour sewing or whatever it is. They should make the guy do something useful to society, though I cant think what. But to me he is more a sad little nobody rather than a grand schemer.
He didn’t even dare update his computer in case they found out, it seems.
But if you have experience with criminals you probably put me down as a bleeding heart who doesn’t know when to lock people up, and you may be right. I view most bad guys as missing limbs inside their bodies, as cripples, not as evil Devil’s children.
Of course, if they kill my grandmother and boil her for soup I should probably demand the rope, sure. But with all the freed innocents in the Innocent Project I dont feel we can be sure that juries are right in any particular case. And it seems clear to me that nature creates the crime as often as often as not.
Perhaps it is relevant to remember that Australia was found by transported criminals. They seemed to have turned out really well.
Rofl…now that is funny that my subconscience changed that to cynic…sorry..
I tend to agree with you, and your logic is rather convincing. First you mistake my posts I suspect in some sense. One of the things my readers enjoy is my wit, however that comes across. I tend to inflate things for the humor, while realizing that I’m doing so for effect.
I very much recognize the type who is kind of lost in their own world of compulsion whether it is making money, and playing with the system or picking lint off the carpet.
What I meant by the last paragraph is something Deepak Chopra said in a book: Everyone is doing the best they can from their own level of consciousness.
By conscienceness, he meant level of spiritual maturity. This means that everyone does what is in their own self-interest in every single action they take all day long. It doesn’t always appear that way to an outsider but it’s true. We simply can’t know the breadth of one’s “self-interest.” So Madoff does operate out of self-interest. My question always is, I find it hard to figure out the self-interest in digging the hole deeper, when as a logical person, you must conclude that you cannot escape. Cutting losses seems the best “self-interest” at some point.
As to my work with criminals. I would say you have me pegged exactly wrong. They are damaged, many if not most by not their own doing. We talk about rehabilitation and do nothing of the sort. We lock up the petty criminal much more than the seriously deranged type and we pay the price because they learn the trade in our jails and prisons.
I do agree that locking Madoff up serves no actual purpose but we “think” it will make us feel better knowing he got his. It works for a day or two I suspect, and then we feel our loss again. Do you think the Goldman family feels relief finally that OJ is in prison? I doubt it, that had become their very reason for existing. Now it’s gone. Where to place all teh pain and outrage now?
Thanks for a thoughtful discussion!
Well, it sure seems that Madoff is covering up who helped him run this thing, since there was enough to keep several people busy pumping out all this false paperwork. Maybe he should be hung out to dry until he fesses up. I assume they will nail everybody in the end though.
I guess I was just saying that there seem to be many people standing in the way of doing the right thing, ie a thorough clawback. And they seem to be getting away with it – judging from the news coverage the talk is only of a few years clawback. We need twenty or thirty years clawback, to get everytne repaid!
In other words, lots of people seem to have made off with the proceeds and no one is forcing them to hand them back. However, I admit that contemplating Madoff is somewhat disgusting partly because he seems such a little man in comparison to his enormous “achievement”, so petty, kneeling to straighten the carpet etc.
The only big positive thing is that it has we hope taught people to research and look into hings before they commit their life savings.
Of course most people avoid thinking as a stressful and unproductive activity so they should at least pay for a second opinion before handing over their cash. That wouldn’t be hard!
Yes I do see your point here. I wondered about all the top of the pyramid and that they must have money, and how much should they be allowed to keep? I’m sure it’s not easy to figure out all this, and will take many years before we know the entire story.
So you don’t think Madoff bright enough to have pulled this off alone? Perhaps some of his family? I would not be surprised at that for sure. Surely you may be right, that some folks have learned a lesson,but from what I heard, heck, nobody but a few actually saw it for what it was. I dunno.
Yes, it would be very useful to make a list of ll the people who saw it coming. Not just Markopolos but a lot of people seem to have avoided him for not answering any questions. I know someone (an artist called Ed Adler) whose brother was approached by Madoff since they were both founding members of a club in the Hamptons. Madoff said he should invest something $250,000 would be enough for him to get a taste. This guy said Oh yes, well tell me about your operation. Madoff talked and the guy started to think it was odd, it didnt add up. He asked more questions and Madoff backed away saying This is not or you Bob! and went off.
All you have to do is ask questions. Thats all. But people feel it is rude. And it is. You have to be rude. If the guy is on the level he wont mind.
I guess the interesting thing to ask a blog writer is Would you personally have asked questions, or not? I would but that is because I have heard too often of people running away with the money of someone they know very well eg a writer’s agent spent all the money a writer made etc
My problem would not be that I wouldn’t want to be rude, my money would be my first concern. My problem is that I am not sure I would recognize a scam like this one. I’m not at all sophisticated when it comes to these investment issues, so he could probably have made it sound quite acceptable to me. I’m sure plenty of people are like me, rather dull in the investment department.
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