Do cold hearted aspies admire political "monsters"

Post Reply New Topic

Do you think there is more chance for aspies, in their robotic, logical, unemotional way, to admire leaders who do evil as a means to their end. For instance I liked reading about Saddam Hussien and I know a few aspies who like Stalin. I also liked crime lords like Pablo Escobar who was very evil and had hundreds of cops killed but was still loved by many in South Americas who thought he improved things.

I did admire Saddam Hussien for taking his medicine like a man, defiant to the end, thats not to say that I admire the atrocities he's guilty of.

I think aspies are more likely to follow their personal code of ethics than any accepted 'norm', so there is definitely more chance of admiring the actions of a 'monster' in isolation to the man (or woman) themself.

My heart is not cold, it just beats at a different tempo to everyone else.

I think there's even more of a chance for AS people to become those leaders, like hitler............(at least before Mass-media._

Where you get that idea, are you saying aspies are all narcissistic megalomaniacs with god complexes, or are you implying you have these issues

Well some say you need people skills and charisma, but maybe you just need the cunning and ruthlessness.



finally a realistic and simple description of AS on this site.

I think that some of us have the analytical capacity to look beyond the actions to see the end that is sought to be achieved.

But just because I can see that Mussolini was trying to keep the trains running on time does not mean that I admire him for the means that he used to accomplish it. After all, if one of the goals of political power is to retain power, then you had better be damn sure that you are not setting yourself up for a fall.

Well...as for murderous sociopaths....i'd say Ted Bundy "improved things" for many people when he worked at a suicide hotline. Stalin made the Soviet Union into a more or less modern industrialized society. Hitler got many Germans working again and made the "trains run on time". People often only judge leaders strictly in terms of the benefits (real or imagined) these leaders bestowed upon them. I can't say I admire "political monsters", but much like serial killers, I am fascinated by them.


This is simply because their actions are so alien to me. I truly don't understand how people can be so murderous and sadistic. I am fascinated by what makes such people "tick". If I was younger....I would go back to school and try to get a PhD in psychology with a concentration in forensic psychology.


For example....i've been fascinated by the recent suicide of "Craigslist" killer Philip Markoff. I find his case particularily fascinating because of what seems like a gross incongruity between his obvious academic/intellectual talents and his utterly idiotic crimes which many far less "intelligent" criminals would know they could never get away with. I have to wonder if Markoff wanted to be caught on some subconscious level or something.

Markoff's case reminds me of how Dennis Rader, the so-called "BTK" serial killer, got caught. He was communicating with the police and he asked them if it would possible to trace his information from a floppy disk he wanted to send them. Naturally....the police lied and told him that there was no way of knowing what computer the disk had been used on. He sent in the disk and later after his arrest, expressed disappointment in the officers who told him this. He actually seemed to believe he had developed a rapport with them and that he could trust their every word.

Last edited by Horus on 17 Aug 2010, 4:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I admire most criminal masterminds, though were I their partner in crime I'd probably be trying to talk them out of offenses as simple as stealing gum at a gas station.

Well with some mob bosses I admire their cunning and machinations while still seeing them as bad people.

Al Capone is a great example of this. The fact that his brain was rotting, leading to some insanely aggressive behaviour, should not detract from the way that he did a better job of policing the streets than the police had managed before his rise to power.

I would not characterize people with Asperger's syndrome as "cold hearted" or "unemotional." Mutate, you may be, but don't generalize yourself to all people with AS.

+1 QFT.
is it my imagination, or do many of the [AS] posters on this site tend more often than not, to generalize their own essential traits to everybody else? just wondering. forgive my ignorance -but is this a bona fide adult AS trait? or it is just commonly attributed to AS but that in fact many NTs think like this as well?

Yes. Its a double edged sword. NTs apply it to aspies, and aspies assume everyone thinks like them too.

For example my psychologist repeatedly acted as if I held religious beliefs similar to his(as an AS specialist he should have been particularly perceptive about cognitive differences). He also made poor assumptions about my emotional connections with others. I outlined to him that I dated briefly at the end of high school and when the novelty wore off I lost interest. Though I stated quite firmly that I never felt lonely, he assumed I desired a girlfriend and tried to arrange a meeting with an AS woman(or a blind date? I dont know). I know what it feels like to be alone, and I assume that loneliness is somehow related to that. Nor do I feel romantic, whatever the heck that is. Nobodies ever been able to codify it for me.

So yes, I generalize back. I always assumed that couples that are spewing platitudes about each other are pretending and over exaggerating. Its hard to imagine that they are feeling something I do not. But apparently its true.

Likewise I assume(incorrectly of course) that people wont care if I am blunt with them, because I certainly dont take offense at their occasional brusk words.

I think that Hitler had AS, at least until his WWI experience traumatized him/gave him confidence and he morphed into something else.

His whole life until 1914 reads almost like an AS autobiography.

I agree especialy his monologing about the jews.