Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Toto & Night of the Living Dead

Throughout chapter 5, Ronson continues his quest to determine what makes up a psychopath while constantly analyzing items on the Bob Hare Checklist, and also interviews Toto Constant. Chapter 5 begins place at Coxsackie Correctional Facility, a perplexing prison with no visible guards, no signs. Home to only one thousand prisoners, Ronson intends to interview just one, Emmanuel "Toto" Constant. As a back story, Ronson explains that in 1997, Toto was leader of a far right paramilitary group in Haiti, the FRAPH. The FRAPH terrorized supporters of left-wing president, Jean Bertrand Aristide. FRAPH was a vicious group, and as Toto as their leader, they killed hundreds of people ranging from ten to eighty years old. But then in October 1994, as Aristide was restored back into power, Toto fled to America. But soon after he was arrested and deported back to Haiti, Toto claimed that the CIA funded FRAPH. Out of fear, the U.S. released Toto and he was given a green card. Ronson remembers Toto fake crying in a past interview, and found it strange that he had to force remorse. During their Coxsackie interview, Ronson proposes to Toto that perhaps he is a psychopath. He ponders the question, was it because of malfunctioning relationship between the amygdala and the central nervous system? At the end of the chapter, Ronson comes up with the conclusion that maybe psychopaths don't understand whats going on emotionally, but they understand something important has happened.
Chapter four was a bit confusing as Ronson provided so much information on Bob Hare and his checklist, but the info was a nice background to the test and what it determines. Chapter five on the other hand was a different view of psychopaths as Ronson conducted an interview with Toto. I wonder though, is Ronson so preoccupied with who else is a psychopath because maybe his a psychopath himself? I also think Ronson and his fellow psychiatrists are too critical of the other people and constantly scrutinizing people to determine whether or not they're psychopaths.

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