Chapter 7 Summary!

In this chapter Ronson meets a lady named Charlotte who has a job with TV corporations and finds people who are mad/crazy for shows such as Extreme Makeover and Jerry Springer. She goes on to explain how she has found a way to figure out if people are crazy/mad and a way to talk with them without forming sentimental attachments by making fun of them. In this way, she is dehumanizing them and separating herself from the notion that the person on the other end is an actual human being and has emotions.

I find this chapter very interesting in that it exposes the wicked and manipulative ways in which the media uses people for their entertainment. And I find that very intriguing in that the media has a way to take what a person is saying, and spin it into a whole other story, or at least give a different perspective. However, I do think that what the producers of Extreme Makeover did to Deleese was wrong. If they selected her to have a makeover and went through the trouble (or not I guess) of having her family speak bad of her, they should have had the common to sense to realize that it would have negative effects on her if she did not get the makeover that she was expecting.

Has China committed human rights violations and should they be punished for it? Or, has China committed cultural genocide of the Tibetan people and if so why has the United Nations stayed silent?

These possible questions seem to be full of information because they are issues that are very controversial. I have no doubt that there will be a lot of information pertaining to these topics as well as plausible evidence to support or disprove one claim or the other. However, I believe that China has indeed committed human rights violations as well as cultural genocide. A great example being Tibet. Tibet itself is a controversial issue in which many many world leaders are hesitant to talk about because of pressure from the Chinese. My paper, of course, will be centered around Tibet.

Chapters 4 and 5 Summary

Chapter 4 dealt with Ronson learning what the psychopath test was. He was trying to get in contact with a famous psychologist who told him if that he could come to one of his workshops and meet him there. Provided that he pay for the workshop itself. The psychologist presented people with traits that people expressed that would define them as a psychopath ie: feeling no remorse and being manipulative. Ronson was intrigued by the test and set out to try it for himself. In chapter 5 Ronson met with an war criminal, Toto, living in the U.S. and found that he displayed much of the traits that were listed in the psychopath test, thus reinforcing the validity of the test itself.

I was very intrigued by the psychopath test and found myself wondering if I was a psychopath as well. But, I was relieved to learn that I wasn't when the one of the doctors in the book made a comment to the reader that if they were questioning where they were a psychopath or not, then it means that you are no. Boy was I worried! I thought it was pretty hilarious to read that an ex war criminal who had committed countless number of crimes were forced to stay at home with their mother in the United States.

Blog Assignment 1!

In chapter three of The Psychopath Test by Ronson, the main point is the story of Elliot Barker and his facility. Elliot was a Canadian psychiatrist who visited many countries such as Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, East Germany, Turkey, etc and tried out different methods of psychological therapy. He began his work after being hired at Oak Ridge. His therapy sessions consisted of selecting a group of psychopaths and locking them up in a room called the Total Encounter Capsule after being given LSD. His sessions seemed to be working out perfectly well; the offenders were becoming socially correct and engaging in non threatening means. However, after being released for a short time, they soon reverted back to their old ways.

I think that the tests that were done by Elliot were very, interesting, I guess I would say. Interesting because not many people, if there are any, would ever think of pumping up a bunch of psychopaths with LSD and hope that whatever they are doing will turn out all right. Too me it just seems like they are throwing everything up to chance. Someone must have realized that giving them so much LSD would make the users addicted to it, and once they were off of the drug they would go into withdrawal and revert back to their own selves. I guess they found out the hard way that their experiments didn't work when some of the released psychopaths went out and committed more crimes.

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