Power vs Morality (LV never knew love)

[tonks_op]

No: HPFGUIDX 110444

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "delwynmarch" 
<delwynmarch at y...> wrote:

> We know he could *pretend* to be a good person while at 
Hogwarts...  He seemed to have put up a 
> good pretence to be a good boy, when in fact he despised that role.
> But I find this quite scary, because it means that by the age of 
11 he
> was already so damaged that he could not enjoy the rewards that 
being
> a good boy can bring you : attention, favours, honours and so on. 
He
> seemed to have been past that already. It seems he was already
> thinking that the only thing that matters is *power*. This is
> something that his life at the orphanage undoubtedly taught him, 
but
> it seems to have been ingrained so deeply into him that even the
> discovery of a whole new world where he was offered a new clean 
start
> was not enough to change his mindset.
--------------------------------------
In reply:

First not every person with Anti-Social Personality disorder has the 
inability to bond. There are degrees. Some gang members bond with 
the members of their group.  However when we are talking about 
Voldemort, we are seeing the most extreme example. (The serial 
killer Jack Bundy was also like this.)  People with Voldemort's 
early life experience and the inability to bond or develop empathy 
can learn behaviors that make them appear to be normal. If they are 
very intelligent as Voldemort apparently is, they can watch others 
and learn to pretend to be like them. They do not know what love 
feels like and see it as a weakness in others.  They, like 
Voldemort, see love and compassion as a weakness that they can 
exploit for their own gain.  (Bundy pretended to be handicapped and 
asked his victims for help.) For Voldemort to say "there is no good 
or evil, only power and those too afraid to use it" makes perfect 
sense to a person who does not know love.  It is difficult for the 
majority of us who have experiences being loved and loving to truly 
understand what it must be like to be Voldemort.  Often we can put 
ourselves in another's place and try to imagine what it would be 
like.  It is almost impossible for us to imagine what it must be 
like to not feel love.  So Voldemort is in a place within himself 
and within society (although he is not really IN society because he 
really can not relate to the rest of us) that must be a very lonely 
place. But because he does not know love he is not even aware of his 
loneliness.  He would be aware that he is different.  He might even 
be aware of why he is different, in that it involved not having a 
family home to grow up in.  His awareness would contribute to his 
anger
 actually rage
 which is an even deeper emotion.  Rage is the 
emotion that cuts to the core of the person and can cause the most 
severe behaviors up to and including murder. A person like Voldemort 
can find pleasure in the pain of others. None of us would want to 
meet, even in the daylight in a crowded room, someone like 
Voldemort!!!  I actually had that experience once.  And I felt a 
cold pass through me as if I had been in the presence of the devil 
himself.
-----------------------------------


 So I'm asking you again : what makes people choose between right and
> wrong ? What could have make Tom change his priority from searching
> power to acting nice ? You say he was probably unable to bond and
> experience love and caring, so *why* should he have believed that
> being and doing good was more important than being powerful ?

Reply:

This is a very difficult question, especially from a spiritual 
perspective, isn't it? >From a mental health perspective there is 
no "cure" for Voldemort's type of personality disorder. It is called 
a "personality disorder" because it is part of the person's identity 
and is more serious that a "mental illness". People with a 
personality disorder can in some rare cases be helped to change, but 
the diagnosis of "antisocial personality disorder" is the only one 
that is basically hopeless.  The only thing that a therapist can do 
is to teach the person the consequences of their behavior on 
themselves.  For example:  "If you kill someone for his CD player 
you will go to jail, and you will not like being in jail, therefore 
it might be best not to kill anyone."

There are much deeper questions about Voldemort and his behavior. I 
don't like to think that he can't be redeemed, especially given that 
he is not wholly to blame for his situation.

Tonks_op