by Richard Smith
Psychopaths can be incredibly creative in the ways they manipulate, and scheme in order to hurt and undermine people. They can, on a whim, be fascinated and very creative in destructive or negative behaviour. They can be very creative in their scams e.g. financial scams. They can be incredibly creative in the stories (i.e. truths, half-truths and lies) that they weave.
They can be born with a talent – e.g. painting, dance, music – and appear to be creative. However, it’s highly likely that an expert in their artistic field would view them as lacking real creativity, since psychopaths have little or no emotions and no insight into their own nature, though they can talk and write VERY convincingly as if they have self-insight. It’s highly likely that their ‘creativity’ is mimicry, just as the mask that they wear is mimicry. That said, I have read it suggested (by non-experts) that a medium such as music might somehow tap into a deep-seated part of their brain that responds despite their psychopathy.
Though remarkably lazy and unpersevering, he showed at this time what appeared to be a slight interest and an astonishing talent in tinkering with radios. His parents, who throughout his whole life have shown exceptional patience and gone to no little expense and trouble with him, sent him to New York to study radio work. He was very eager to go and urged this plan on the family. His older brother, the physician, was a house officer in a New York hospital at the time and agreed to keep in touch with him and try to exercise any necessary supervision. From the very beginning, it became apparent that the venture was useless. Chester could not be induced to attend classes. He showed no interest whatsoever in his work or in anything else, lying about his room much of the time and going out alone on adventures without much purpose or content on missions to borrow a dollar through solemn-faced fraud or, by cheating or some sort of chicanery, to pick up a little extra change or to beat the game by getting a free ride on the bus or the subway and, perhaps, to climax the day by slipping out of a restaurant without paying for his meal.
(‘The Mask of Sanity’, Hervey Cleckley, p 131)
Whatever he [the psychopath] might [artistically] express would probably be as spurious, as little representative of authentic human experience, as his convincing but empty promises, his eloquent protestations of a love he does not feel. His production, however brilliant technically, would be a valid rendering of neither health nor disease but a counterfeit.
(‘The Mask of Sanity’, Hervey Cleckley, p 305)
Another young psychopath who had never encountered liquor of any sort did many things that would not attract the ordinary mischievous teenager. Finding time a little heavy on his hands (and his parents out of the house for a few hours), he took tools from the cellar and, working with no little skill and dispatch, got the connections of the bathroom toilet apart, put into the outlet pipe a small electric motor, and then carefully reconnected the fixture. The subsequent flooding, mess, trouble, and expense did not seem to give him hilarious mirth or vindictive satisfaction. Certainly, he showed no evidence of such feeling in a degree to warrant his risking the punishment he received.
(‘The Mask of Sanity’, Hervey Cleckley, p 358)
Their often theatrical, yet convincing stories and entertaining explanations reinforce an environment of trust, acceptance, and genuine delight, leading most people to accept them exactly as whom they appear to be—and almost unconsciously excuse any inconsistencies they might have noted. If challenged or caught in a lie, psychopaths are not embarrassed. They simply change or elaborate on the storyline to weave together all the misarranged details into a believable fabric. Well-practiced oral communication skills make this endless stream of disinformation seem believable, sensible, and logical. Some psychopaths are so good at this that they can create a veritable Shangri-la view of their world in the minds of others; a view that they almost seem to believe themselves.
(‘Snakes in Suits’, Babiak and Hare, pps 50, 51)
However, many psychopaths never go to prison or any other facility. They appear to function reasonably well— as lawyers, doctors, psychiatrists, academics, mercenaries, police officers, cult leaders, military personnel, businesspeople, writers, artists, entertainers, and so forth— without breaking the law, or at least without being caught and convicted. These individuals are every bit as egocentric, callous, and manipulative as the average criminal psychopath; however, their intelligence, family background, social skills, and circumstances permit them to construct a facade of normalcy and to get what they want with relative impunity. …
Just as they are able to ignore society’s rules, the argument goes, intelligent psychopaths are able to transcend the bounds of conventional thought, providing a creative spark for the arts, the theater, design, and so on. Whatever the merits of this argument, they are more than offset— in my view— by the broken hearts, shattered careers, and used-up people left in their wake as they cut a zigzag route through society, driven by a remorseless need to “express themselves.” Rather than refer to these individuals as successful psychopaths— after all, their success is often illusory and always at someone else’s expense— I prefer to call them subcriminal psychopaths. Their conduct, although technically not illegal, typically violates conventional ethical standards, hovering just on the shady side of the law.
(Hare, Robert D.. Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us (p. 113). Guilford Publications.)