If sociopaths are essentially hedonists or sybarites why are they so angry and cruel?

Answer 1

The primary source of a sociopath's infamous rage is frustration, of a sort so alien and so extreme that almost no one else can understand what it means. Once they start getting taken seriously, that frustration, and the wild rage it provokes, will lessen, and since it is a primary source of the constant distrust that makes regular therapy fail sociopaths, the defusing of that rage and its maddening causes will be a huge step in the right direction.

And that will benefit everyone involved.

That's basically the whole world!

Some newer studies indicate that the real total of psychopaths (for both genders) is FOUR percent of the population.

Two books just out, Martha Stout's "The Sociopath Next Door" and Robert Hare, PhD.'s "Without Conscience," are very informative and readable, if disturbing.

A sociopath is a person who, usually due to a congenital brain disorder but sometimes due to trauma to the brain suffered after birth, cannot process emotional information the way other people do. The resulting lack of connection to other people, and the terrible frustration this brings, are the reasons for the behavior of a sociopath.

The two books mentioned tell a lot, but they do not tell everything. On the Internet there are actually blogs by diagnosed sociopaths aimed at getting other people to try to grasp what is going on with them.

Sociopaths understand intellectually (cognitively) what they cannot understand emotionally. So, depending how you look at it, they do not KNOW the harm they do, but they are aware of it in the most detached and unemotional sense.