The Wisdom of Psychopaths (15 page)

Such an abomination had already occurred, a decade or so prior to Axelrod’s endeavors, to a young Harvard biologist by the name of Robert Trivers, who somewhat presciently had speculated that perhaps it was for precisely this reason that certain human attributes had evolved in the first place: to spray-paint on the side of consciousness an affective affirmation of such a brilliantly simple blueprint, such a neat mathematical mantra, as TIT FOR TAT—a mantra that had undoubtedly served its apprenticeship in the ranks of the lower animals before we got our hands on it. Perhaps, Trivers mused, it was for this very reason that we experienced, for the first time in the depths of our evolutionary history, those initial flushes of friendship and enmity, of affection and dislike, of trust and betrayal, that now, millions of years on, make us who we are.

The seventeenth-century British philosopher Thomas Hobbes would almost certainly have approved.
Some three hundred years
earlier, in
Leviathan
, Hobbes had anticipated precisely such a notion with his concept of “force and fraud”: the idea that violence and cunning constitute the primary, indeed the sole, instigators of outcomes. And that the only analgesic for “continual fear, and the danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short” is to be found in the sanctuary of agreement. The formation of alliances with others.

To be sure, the conditions of Axelrod’s tournament certainly reflected those of human, and prehuman, evolution. Several dozen regularly interacting “individuals” was just about the right number as far as early communities went. Similarly, each program was endowed with the capacity not only to remember previous encounters, but also to adjust its behavior accordingly. So it was an intriguing notion, this theory of moral evolution. In fact, it was more than that. Given what had initially gone into Axelrod’s mathematical sausage machine and what had come out the other end, it was an eminent possibility. “Survival of the fittest” now appeared not, as had been previously thought, to reward competition indiscriminately. But rather, to reward it discerningly. Under certain sets of circumstances, yes, aggression might open doors (one thinks of Jim and Buzz). But under others, in contrast, it might just as easily close them—as we saw with the saints and the shysters.

So the psychopaths, it transpires, have got it only half right. There’s no denying the harshness of existence, the brutal, sawn-off truth that it can, at times, be survival of the fittest out there. But this is not to say that it has to be that way. The meek, it turns out, really do inherit the earth. It’s just that along the way there are always going to be casualties. “Do unto others” has always been sound advice. But now, some two thousand years later, thanks to Robert Axelrod and Anatol Rapoport, we’ve finally got the math to prove it.

Of course, that there’s a bit of the psychopath in all of us—a spectral biological fugitive from the algebra of peace and love—is beyond doubt, as it is that our overlords from the bureau of natural selection have granted psychopaths ongoing evolutionary asylum down the years. Sure, the moral of the saints and the shysters might be set in
Darwinian stone: If everyone floors it, there’ll eventually be nobody left. But equally, there are times during the course of our everyday lives when we
all
need to pump the gas. When we all, rationally, legitimately, and in the interests of self-preservation, need to calmly “put our foot down.”

Let’s return to Axelrod’s virtual free-for-all one last time. The reason that TIT FOR TAT rose to the top of the heap in such remorseless, unstoppable fashion was because beneath the smiley exterior lurked a hidden inner steel. When the situation demanded it, it wasn’t in the least bit squeamish about putting its silicon foot on its rival’s neck. Quite the reverse, in fact. It evened the score as soon as the opportunity presented itself. The secret of TIT FOR TAT’s success lay as much in its ruthless dark side as it did in its default sunny side; in the fact that when the going got tough, it was able to step up to the plate and mix it up with the best of them.

The conclusions are as clear as perhaps they are unnerving. TIT FOR TAT’s blueprint for success certainly has psychopathic elements to it. There’s the surface charm on the one hand. And the ruthless quest for vengeance on the other. Then, of course, there’s the nerveless self-assurance to return to normal as if nothing had ever happened. The program is no Aryan Brotherhood, that’s for sure. But between the switches and the soulless synaptic twitches lurk echoes of their creed. Speak softly and carry a big stick, goes the phrase. Good advice, if you want to get ahead—in both the virtual and the real worlds. Which is why, to return to our question of earlier, psychopaths still walk the earth, and haven’t sunk without trace beneath the deadly Darwinian currents that terrorize the gene pool.

There will always be a need for risk takers in society, as there will for rule-breakers and heartbreakers. If there weren’t, ten-year-old boys would be falling into ponds and drowning all over the place. And who knows what would happen at sea? If First Mate Francis Rhodes and able seaman Alexander Holmes hadn’t dredged up the courage to set about doing the unthinkable, one wonders if there would have been any survivors of that fateful night in 1841, 250 miles off the icy coast of Newfoundland, in the raging North Atlantic.

My oldest friend is a psychopath. We go all the way back to nursery school. I remember one of the teachers taking me over to the sandbox and introducing me to this blond, roly-poly kid who was playing with one of those puzzles where you have to insert the right shape into the right hole. Anyway, I picked up a star, and tried to shove it through the hole that, with the benefit of hindsight, I can now clearly see was most definitely intended for the parrot. It wouldn’t fit. Worse, it got stuck. Johnny spent twenty seconds or so (an eternity in the life of a five-year-old) calmly working it free. And then he poked me in the eye with the damn thing. That callous, unprovoked, and, frankly, downright juvenile attack pretty much marked the high point of our friendship.

Fast-forward ten years or so and Johnny and I are in high school together. It’s recess, and he comes over to me and asks if he can borrow my history paper. He’s “left his at home.” And guess which class is next? “Don’t worry,” says Johnny. “There’ll be no way of telling. I’ll make it look completely different.”

I hand him the paper and catch up with him again at the beginning of class. “You got my paper, Johnny?” I whisper.

Johnny shakes his head. “Sorry,” he says. “No can do.”

I start to panic. This particular teacher isn’t the kind you mess with—no paper would mean no grade. Plus detention.

“What do you mean, no can do?” I hiss. “Where is it?”

Calm as you like, as if he’s narrating a bedtime story, Johnny spills the beans. “Well, Kev, it’s like this,” he explains. “You see, I didn’t have time to rewrite it, like I’d said. So I copied it out verbatim.”

“But,” I shriek as the teacher, who’s not exactly noted for his people skills, stomps into the classroom, “that doesn’t explain where mine is, does it?”

Johnny looks at me as if I’m utterly insane. “Well, we couldn’t both hand in the same piece of work, could we?” he says.

“No!” I exclaim, clearly still not getting it. “We couldn’t! So where the hell’s my paper?”

Johnny shrugs. And takes out “his” work for collection.

“It’s in the trash,” he says casually. “Behind the music building.”

Instinctively, I spring out of my chair. Maybe there’s time to retrieve it before the class kicks off.

“You asshole,” I snarl under my breath. “I’m going to fucking kill you.”

Johnny grabs my arm and yanks me back down by the sleeve. “Look,” he says with a concerned, paternalistic smile, gesturing over at the window. “It’s pissing rain out there, and you’re going to get soaked. You don’t want to ruin your chances of breaking that school mile record next week by coming down with something, do you?”

There’s not a hit of irony in Johnny’s tone. I’ve known him long enough to realize that, actually, he genuinely believes he’s looking out for me. He really does think he’s got my best interests at heart. Infuriatingly, in this instance, I have to agree with him. The bastard’s got a point. The record has stood since the early sixties. And the training’s been going well. Shame to ruin all the hard work by doing something stupid at the last minute.

I slump back down in my seat, resigned to my fate.

“Good man,” says Johnny. “After all, it’s only a paper. Life’s too short.”

I’m not listening. Already, I’m trying to come up with a plausible explanation as to why I don’t have the piece to hand in. And how, if the rain damage isn’t too extensive, I can dry it out—or, failing that, copy it out—and submit it later.

I don’t have long to engineer my cover story. The Grim Reaper is already on his rounds, and is now only a couple of rows in front of us, a sententious pile of crap on the Franco-Prussian War burning a fulsome little hole in his clutches.

Johnny scoops up his contribution and casts an admiring eye over it. Then he pats me on the back and, glancing out the window, screws up his face at the rain.

“Besides,” he adds, “you’d have been too late anyway, Kev. I guess I should qualify what I just said. What’s left of it is in the trash. Actually, I burned it, mate.”

You may be wondering why on earth I’ve remained friends with Johnny all these years. And sometimes, in my more reflective moments, I wonder the same thing myself. But don’t forget that Johnny is a psychopath.
¹
And, as we know, they often have saving graces. One of Johnny’s is his uncanny ability to turn virtually any situation to his own advantage—not uncommon among highly intelligent members of his species. He is, without doubt, one of the most persuasive people I’ve ever known (and I include in that brotherhood a number of the world’s top con artists). Not only that, but he is, I guess you could say, a persuasion prodigy.

When we were about five or six, Johnny’s folks had to attend a funeral in Canada. Johnny stayed behind and spent New Year’s Eve at my house. It got to around nine o’clock, and my parents started dropping hints that it was time to go to bed. Hints like “It’s time to go to bed.” Like any self-respecting six-year-old, I didn’t take it lying down.

“But, Mum,” I whined. “Johnny and I want to stay up until midnight. Please …!”

She wasn’t having any of it. But this, needless to say, didn’t stop me from coming up with a veritable catalogue of mitigating circumstances, ranging from the fact that all our friends were allowed to stay up late at New Year’s (original, huh?) to the rather profound observation that the New Year does indeed only come round once a year. Johnny, however, remained conspicuous by his silence. He just sat there, as I recall, listening to the drama play out. Taking it all in like some top city defense lawyer waiting for his moment to pounce.

Finally, Mum had had enough. “Come on!” she said. “That’s it! You know what you’re like when you stay up late. You get cranky and irritable, and the next day you don’t get out of bed until noon.”

Reluctantly, despondently, and with a creeping sense of end-stage resignation, I looked across at Johnny. The game was up. It was time to say good night. But no one had bargained for what happened next. With perfect timing, just as I was about to throw in the towel and start heading upstairs, Johnny broke his silence.

“But, Mrs. Dutton,” he said. “You don’t want us running around at the crack of dawn tomorrow morning while you’re lying in bed with a headache, do you?”

We went to bed at three.

Johnny’s ability to wheel and deal at life’s flipping points, to make the absolute most out of whatever situation he found himself in, eventually stood him in good stead. He joined the secret service.

“It’s not just the cream that rises to the top, Kev,” he would say. “It’s the scum, too. And you know what? I’m both. Depends on what takes my fancy.” It’s difficult to fault such coruscating insight.

Needless to say, the fact that Johnny went and got a job with MI5—the British equivalent of the FBI—didn’t surprise any of us. And, whatever it is that he does for them, he is, by all accounts, pretty good at it. Such is his coolness, charisma, and demonic power of persuasion, one of his colleagues once told me at a party, that even if he had a telephone cord wrapped around your neck, he’d be charming the bloody pants off you.