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.

Psychopaths Dream in Black and White..

In this chapter, Jon Ronson researched and reviewed all of the ways psychopaths could be "cured," mainly under the care of Elliot Baker. Elliot Barker used Paul Bindrim's concept of nude psychotherapy to strip the psychopaths both physically and emotionally. Baker used LSD in the first marathon nude psychotherapy session, where the patients became each others psychiatrists. When Baker took a leave of absence, a hippie named Gary Maier came in and took over, but was eventually asked to leave. It was believed that they were gentle psychopaths conspiring to spoil everything, while the psychiatrists were conspiring to spoil everything. Psychopaths are born the way they are, they dream in black and white, and generally they can't truly be cured.
I was very bewildered by this chapter. It confused me, but at the same time I found it to be quite interesting. Although I find the idea of naked psychotherapy very bizarre, I think it has really makes sense. If someone can be stripped down, it makes them a lot more vulnerable. I also found it pretty crazy to know Gary Maier now lives somewhere in Madison! A quote I saw in the reading caught my attention, "They're your personal property and you make them dance for you." This quote was about Elliot Barker's involvement in his treatment of the psychopath, but I think it struck me because of how true it is. It angered me a bit to see that these rapists and killers were let back into society after being "cured," as most of them went out to re-offend. I think if they're going to be let back out, they should all go to a place like Elliot's farm where they're able to live normal healthy lives without affecting others. Overall, I really liked this chapter! :)

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