33 Comments

Some friends of mine went to a Taylor Swift concert and streamed a bit from their phones. I thought that it looked like a fun time even though her music does nothing for me.

Definitely a lot of sour grapes in that article.

As for whether or not she has any particular state of the brain it really doesn’t matter. As you pointed out numerous times there are teams of people doing everything from wardrobe design to actual songwriting for most Country artists.

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Edit: LAMINGTON. Curses to spell-correct.....

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Jan 18Edited

Wow, I'm no Taylor Swift fan, but that's possibly the weakest argument I've ever read, for anything, ever. And I've been known to spend time in the comments sections of Facebook flat earther pages! (because they're hilarious, not because I'm a flat earther). At least those guys have some semblance of logic to some of their arguments, even if they have a major problem conceiving of anything outside of their own personal experience. I didn't really see any logic in that Taylor Swift nonsense at all. All it really proves is that psychopath = narcissist in some people's minds....

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Indeed, and it's unfortunate

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I completely agree with you Athena. This whole article is offensive nonsense.

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But it is funny... so there's that

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What you made out of it is really funny, Athena. Thanks one more time for the good read.

I also think the article cannot be meant other than humorous. But I don’t know the author, the journal, so we can’t say for sure what it was meant to be.

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How did it even make it to publishing?

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I really don't know.

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Didn't expect anyone would.

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LOL. It is funny!!

Also funny: The most popular USA artist and her genre is country.

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Definitely.

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This, to me, is precisely the correct usage of the word psychopath from many neurotypicals perspective. Comrade Swift has made business decisions that don't go along with the corporates and group mind. She has made independent decisions against Apple and such.

Which is what defines a psychopath for these people.

Any boundaries at all.

Swiftly onward I say! Let the owners of the means of production tremble.

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Doesn't AsPD now have a specifier called "Psychopathy" (and DSM uses the term "Psychopathy" in this context as a synonym for "Primary Psychopathy")? So you can be diagnosed with AsPD [Specifier: Psychopathy]?

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It has "with psychopathic features"

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It seems fine for diagnosing an antisocial primary psychopath.

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No, it isn't. Psychopathy in the psychology world is behavioral diagnosis, not a physical diagnosis. In other words, anyone can behave in the way that they are describing, so that person can be called a "psychopath", when in reality they are nothing at all like one. This is why you have such conflicting understandings of what "psychopathy" is, despite there being a clear difference in the brain structure and chemical processing of actual psychopaths. Psychology seems to have little interest in describing something factually. Instead, the rely on, "because I say so".

Even many doctors that I like their other work otherwise have this habit, and therefore, in psychology, the definition of psychopathy is so ridiculously broad and vague, it shouldn't exist, and logically, if they thought about it without emotional bias and ego about expertise, I think many would agree with that estimation,

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I just remembered this, and I think you're right and its why psychologists often confuse malignant narcissists and antisocial primary psychopaths: they look at external behaviours, but not at the physiology and internal state of the individual.

Both malignant narcissists and antisocial primary psychopaths tend to behave similarly on the surface, but their internal and physiological state couldn't be more different.

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Indeed true

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I find it hilarious that they use Blank Space as an example of her coming out as a psychopath, because the song was inspired by the media scrutinizing her love life.

Ah yes, a choreographed performance she did portraying this character that the media has made her out to be, is obviously evidence of her psychopathy. How can it not be? She's obviously the CrAzY eX gIrLfRiEnD and not a celebrity creating relatable songs for her audience.

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I wasn't even familiar with the context of the song, but that makes sense. How silly that she makes it a point to play a character as the point for a video, and that point goes right over the head of the writer of this article.

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There was a notorious example in the 80s where a famous singer used a sexual-orientation slur in a song because the lyrics were quoting an offensively dumbass conversation he had overheard. A lot of people didn't get that either.

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Easy now. The article is manifestly clickbaity, and has done its job, because you are covering it. But thanks for the response anyway.

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I'm not sure the article is actual satire but the tone suggests the author is not taking it seriously and has no concern about how much of a stretch their 'arguments' are. It reminds me very much of how cheeky, s__t-talking students would try to survive a tutorial or seminar for which they had not prepared. Next week's headline: "Is Brad Pitt actually a lamination?". It would make about as much sense.

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As far as I can tell, it is not satire. I think it was written with inflammatory notions to trade on Taylor Swift's fame

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Agreed

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Lamington.

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This is a very old article, judging from the references, but I could not imagine what the author would say if she listened to one of the newer songs “Mastermind”. She’d 100000% use this as proof. Stupid proof, just like all this BS.

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Yes, it is an older article, and I imagine that anything new would just add fuel to the fire as you suggest.

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Sounds like the author is using a pen name, as in Jamie Lee Curtis, and do I hope so, because this whole article is awful! You ‘debunked’ it very well, although it isn’t too hard to do for someone with even half a brain. I fear that may not be too many, alas. Great article. Correct (and a lot of logic and common sense) on all points.

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I agree! Must be frustrating to see how much psychopathy is confused with aspd; completely different thanks to your posts Athena.

I don't listen to Tay Tay either. I've always thought her to be a narcissist. Most of the really super famous probably are (I'm from LA so yeah it's rife).

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Jan 19
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There is a lot of Athena's educational writing on Quora, if you haven't ploughed through it all yet. Many of us are searching and trying to overcome our troubles and there are numerous sources other than this substack. I enjoy it for what it is, whatever the topic. The dreadful Taylor Swift article reminded me of people and situations I had long forgotten and this had value. It's an example of thr tone people write in when knowingly arguing something implausible.

It's pot luck what people will enjoy. I'm sorry you are so desperate, I've been there too, but it won't work to put all your hopes just in this substack. Athena writes what interests her at the time.

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Quite true

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