Sociopaths are pervasive in contemporary television, from high-brow drama all the way down to cartoons -- and of course the news as well. From the scheming Eric Cartman of South Parkto the seductive imposter Don Draper of Mad Men, cold and ruthless characters captivate us, making us wish that we could be so effective and successful. Yet why should we admire characters who get ahead by being amoral and uncaring? In his follow-up to Awkwardness, Adam Kotsko argues that the popularity of the ruthless sociopath reflects our dissatisfaction with a failed social contract, showing that we believe that the world rewards the evil and uncaring rather than the good. By analyzing characters like the serial killer star of Dexter and the cynical Dr. House, Kotsko shows that the fantasy of the sociopath distracts us from our real problems -- but that we still might benefit from being a little more sociopathic. , Adam Kotsko is Assistant Professor of Humanities at Shimer College, Chicago. He is the author of Žižek and Theology (2008), Politics of Redemption (2010), and Why We Love Sociopaths: A Guide to Late Capitalist Television (2012). He is the translator of Agamben’s The Sacrament of Language (2010), The Highest Poverty (2013), Opus Dei (2013), Pilate and Jesus (forthcoming) and The Use of Bodies (forthcoming). He blogs at An und für sich (itself.wordpress.com). Why We Love Sociopaths A Guide to Late Capitalist Television By Adam Kotsko Zero Books Copyright © 2010 Adam Kotsko All right reserved. ISBN: 978-1-78099-091-0 Contents Acknowledgments....................................................viIntroduction: On the desire to be a sociopath......................1Sociopathy as reverse awkwardness..................................4Love and other market forces.......................................9The varieties of sociopathic experience............................14Chapter 1: The Schemers............................................19The decline of the lovable scamp...................................21Enabling mothers, MILFs, and negative feminism.....................27A show about nihilism..............................................32Childish games: Adult edition......................................38Chapter 2: The Climbers............................................42From reality television to "realism"...............................45The paradoxes of sociopathic social climbing.......................49The perils of changing "the game"..................................58Chapter 3: The Enforcers...........................................65The lawless lawman.................................................69Serial murder as community service.................................78The inhuman humanitarian...........................................84Conclusion: Redeeming the fantasy sociopath........................94 Chapter One The Schemers In a two-part episode of South Park , the show's star, Eric Cartman, joins forces with Bart Simpson against a common enemy: their new-found competitor in the realm of irreverent, adult-oriented cartoon shows, Family Guy . After a brief debate over which child is more of a trouble-maker and should thus take the lead, Cartman triumphs when he reveals that he once fed chili made from the flesh of a classmate's own parents to him for revenge. What's so remarkable about this incident is that Cartman's cannibalistic chili isn't the only trump card he could've used against Bart. This fourth grader has had a remarkable career in mayhem. One episode has him stumbling across dead fetuses, which inspires him to start his own business selling fetuses for their stem cells. In another, he starts a wildly successful Christian band on a bet, substituting the name "Jesus" into popular love songs and writing similarly-themed originals (such as "I Want to Get Down on My Knees and Start Pleasing Jesus"), and then, finding that the Christian music industry gives out Myrrh Albums instead of the Gold Album necessary to win his bet, Cartman exclaims to a horrified audience of Christians: "Fuck Jesus!" Yet another finds him somehow installed as a teacher of at-risk urban youth and serving as an inspirational teacher like Jaime Escalante of the film Stand and Deliver —except that Cartman teaches them cheating (the white person's path to success!) instead of calculus. Even when he's not engaged in large-scale evil plots, Cartman is personally abrasive. Based on the classic TV character Archie Bunker, he indulges in every possible form of bigotry. He is sexist, as when he laughs at the idea of breast cancer, asking to be shown these fantastical "killer boobies." He is racist, persistently referring to the one black student in his class (subtly named Token) as "you black asshole." Above all, however, he is anti-Semitic, leading him to continually torment and distrust his Jewish friend Kyle—and in one episode, inspired by a viewing of Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ , he goes