Is our Culture making killers?

[jlee562]

You assume the shooters are psychos, I do not. The ones captured... just listen to what they are saying and how they present themselves. They are heroes in their own pathetic little world

Right....which makes them "psychos" as it were. The fact that someone is able to justify violence to that degree means something is wrong in their head.

 

[Too Much Garlic]

Really? That's an oversimplification I'm afraid. There are many people who can justify that level of violence for various reasons and many/most of them are not psychos. Doesn't alter the fact that these shooters we are discussing here are cowards.

 

[Zuiun]

You assume the shooters are psychos, I do not. The ones captured... just listen to what they are saying and how they present themselves. They are heroes in their own pathetic little world.

Actually, you're confusing the two. Saying they aren't "psychos," but view themselves as heroes is kind of contradictory.

You are correct that most of these types of shooters are NOT psychopaths. True psychopaths aren't "crazy" in the sense that most people want to think -- their thoughts tend to be highly organized.

The psychopath mindset is often characterized by a huge sense of superiority and justification. The universe centers around them, and that sort of thing. These are the people that think they are doing the world a favor, or serving some higher purpose, or are just plain "right" in what they are doing.

But the traits that are generally associated with a psychopath often leads to serial killing, not mass shootings/killings.

In fact, the only diagnosed psychopath mass shooter that I can think of is Harris from the Columbine shooting. From reading his journals, web sites, and other sources, FBI criminologists are pretty certain Harris fit all the classic symptoms of a psychopath (and they are honestly surprised he went for a mass killing instead of the serial killer route).

He truly did see himself as a hero, superior to the world, and wanted to be immortalized.

It remains to be seen how the Aurora shooter will be classified. But from what I've read, the leaning is more toward signs of depression and rage, than psychopathy. Depressed people don't generally view themselves as the "hero in their own pathetic little world." Their self image is generally the exact opposite.

 

[charades]

The elements that contribute to someone becoming a rampage killer or serial killer are pretty much not directly related to entertainment. It's pretty unfair to put the onus on the entertainment industry and those of us who can enjoy these things without doing it ourselves. The media likes to point fingers and social conscience needs a scapegoat.

I think for most people who like action/violent movies and games, we can separate entertainment from real life. Unfortunately, there are those who can't. I think the thing that needs to be changed is not the content of entertainment, but social structures and institutions that damage these kinds of people so horrendously.

 

[Tan Djarka]

Sorry no. This is insulting to anyone who dedicates their life and professional career to science and the scientific method.

If you would like to post a specific methodological criticism, be my guest. Otherwise, this is simply unfounded speculation based on your own confirmation bias.

I'm not saying ALL studies start from the conclusion and work backwards, or are all for the purpose of supporting an agenda. But some are. Any study that establishes that spanking, across the board and without exception, is bad, is probably also wrong.

There is virually no statistical difference between crime and violence in a society that doesn't spank vs one that does. That's not comparing one that does vs. one that doesn't but one that transitions from doing it to not doing it.

Spanking has been the defacto standard for child rearing through most of history. It's only recently that spanking has become this horrible thing, and it's bred neither a more or less violent generation. About the only valid conclusion that's come from the studies is that a child that is not spanked is less likely to spank their children.

I was spanked and I'd guess a good percentage of those here were as well. I'd also venture to say that it's not made any of us worse people or parents than we would have been otherwise. Spanking is a parental choice. Perhaps it's not always the ideal choice, but sometimes it's a necessary one.

 

[Kerr Avon]

Psychology is hardly even a science. With science, in a testing situation if your theory is right you can reproduce a test and results every time. With psychology, it's a crap shoot at best. There's some odds things might land in a particular area, but you can't count on anything in psychology to be true every instance.

 

[jlee562]

Really? That's an oversimplification I'm afraid. There are many people who can justify that level of violence for various reasons and many/most of them are not psychos. Doesn't alter the fact that these shooters we are discussing here are cowards.

Ok wait, we need to clarify terms here.

The word "psychopath" does not actually refer to any specific mental condition in the DSM, it's a blanket term for personality disorders and distinct from anti-social personality disorder which is what most people associate with the word.

Y'all can debate cowardice or not, that's not something that particularly interests me, as I think that's far too subjective.

But in terms of whether or not folks who carry out mass killings and otherwise horrific violence, I would wager the incidence of mental illness is much higher among mass killers. And even a diagnosis as a psychopath is certainly NOT a guarantee that one will become violent.

The bottom line is that when someone is able to justify killing innocent people for their own grandiose schemes, something has gone wrong in their head because they - for whatever reason - don't grasp social norms such as normal people don't kill other people generally.

Here's some perspective on the Columbine killers from Slate:
At last we know why the Columbine killers did it. - Slate Magazine

Harris' pattern of grandiosity, glibness, contempt, lack of empathy, and superiority read like the bullet points on Hare's Psychopathy Checklist and convinced Fuselier and the other leading psychiatrists close to the case that Harris was a psychopath.

It begins to explain Harris' unbelievably callous behavior: his ability to shoot his classmates, then stop to taunt them while they writhed in pain, then finish them off. Because psychopaths are guided by such a different thought process than non-psychopathic humans, we tend to find their behavior inexplicable. But they're actually much easier to predict than the rest of us once you understand them. Psychopaths follow much stricter behavior patterns than the rest of us because they are unfettered by conscience, living solely for their own aggrandizement. (The difference is so striking that Fuselier trains hostage negotiators to identify psychopaths during a standoff, and immediately reverse tactics if they think they're facing one. It's like flipping a switch between two alternate brain-mechanisms.)

None of his victims means anything to the psychopath. He recognizes other people only as means to obtain what he desires. Not only does he feel no guilt for destroying their lives, he doesn't grasp what they feel. The truly hard-core psychopath doesn't quite comprehend emotions like love or hate or fear, because he has never experienced them directly.

"Because of their inability to appreciate the feelings of others, some psychopaths are capable of behavior that normal people find not only horrific but baffling," Hare writes. "For example, they can torture and mutilate their victims with about the same sense of concern that we feel when we carve a turkey for Thanksgiving dinner."

 

[jlee562]

I'm not saying ALL studies start from the conclusion and work backwards, or are all for the purpose of supporting an agenda. But some are. Any study that establishes that spanking, across the board and without exception, is bad, is probably also wrong.

Why? Because you believe spanking is ok?

As I said, if you have a specific methodological criticism, post it. If you have evidence to the contrary, post it.

But YOU are the one starting from a conclusion and working backwards, not the the studies I posted here.

There is virually no statistical difference between crime and violence in a society that doesn't spank vs one that does. That's not comparing one that does vs. one that doesn't but one that transitions from doing it to not doing it.

I'd like to see the statistics you used to make this conclusion and how you determined what countries transitioned from spanking to not spanking.

The other problem that you have here is that you assume a linear correlation between spanking and crime rates. While studies have shown that spanking can be a predictor of criminality, you can't necessarily carry over those conclusions to other societies, because, again, culture is an influence.

If you look at Sweden, who banned spanking about thirty years ago, come measures of crime have gone up. But is that due to a lack of spanking? Could it be due to better reporting of crime? Could be be better enforcement of crime?

That having been said, about 80% of Americans say that they spank their kids. And over the past few decades violent crime has dropped. And again, this conclusion flies in the face of what many of you have been asserting here. Which is that spanking has become some sort of outlawed practice (it hasn't), that nobody does it any more (they do), and that the rise of "new age parenting" is to blame for folks such as the Aurora shooter.

Everyone has ignored this point so far.

Point being, there is no linear correlation. Simply looking at crime rates and whether or not people spank their kids doesn't account for the myriad of variables that could effect those statistics.

Spanking has been the defacto standard for child rearing through most of history. It's only recently that spanking has become this horrible thing, and it's bred neither a more or less violent generation. About the only valid conclusion that's come from the studies is that a child that is not spanked is less likely to spank their children.

Again, present factual evidence for this claim. While I don't debate the fact that many cultures have used spanking, I don't think it is clear at all that it is a "de facto standard" for "most of history."

I was spanked and I'd guess a good percentage of those here were as well. I'd also venture to say that it's not made any of us worse people or parents than we would have been otherwise. Spanking is a parental choice. Perhaps it's not always the ideal choice, but sometimes it's a necessary one.

Right, but that's all anecdotal evidence.

Look, it's fine to disagree with my conclusions. Y'all don't have to agree with me. But you should understand that you actually haven't made a cogent argument backed up with facts and evidence. All you've done is engage in cognitive dissonance because of your own confirmation bias. You don't want to believe that spanking is bad because you turned out fine. Hey, that's all well and good, and I'm glad that you're a happy, well adjusted human being. But consider the fact that just because everything worked out well for you, doesn't mean that there can't be harm associated with spanking.

That's it, just consider the possibility with an open mind, instead of bringing your own prior conclusions to the table.

 

[Kerr Avon]

Right, but that's all anecdotal evidence.

All evidence is anecdotal until it's put in table, doesn't change the fact it's true.

 

[Too Much Garlic]

Actually, you're confusing the two. Saying they aren't "psychos," but view themselves as heroes is kind of contradictory.

So, people strapping bombs to themselves and blowing other people up for a cause, goal, whatever and landing them in eternal paradise is doing so because they are psychos? They absolutely believe they are heroes, but can you argue that they are psychos?

Nope. You cannot.

People have an uncanny ability to disconnect from those they target and do absolutely cruel and horrible things. Just look at what happened in WW2 and how people were able to disconnect from other human beings and basically not minding one bit whether they lived or died and used various methods of ending their lives. You call all those psychos too?

Just because that was war and the other is a religious war doesn't make it much different from the lone gunman doing his thing for his own cause.

You seem intent on wanting to label these people as something other than normal human beings. You simply cannot do that. Sure, there's something seriously wrong with them and its probably within them from the get-go and sometimes needing a trigger and sometimes not - I can't argue for or against that, 'cause the science isn't that far ahead to say either way. I'd love for science to be able to figure out what the cause is and it is possible to spot it early, so those people can be cared for before they become so angry at the world that they decide this is what they need to do. But seeing as we all have the capacity to disconnect and kill under the right circumstances it might prove very difficult to find exactly what makes these lone shooters go out and do their thing.

Sure.

But they are still cowards.

 

[NAZGÛL]

So, people strapping bombs to themselves and blowing other people up for a cause, goal, whatever and landing them in eternal paradise is doing so because they are psychos? They absolutely believe they are heroes, but can you argue that they are psychos?

Brainwashed. They have been told over and over its the right thing to do. That makes a big difference imo.

 

[jlee562]

All evidence is anecdotal until it's put in table, doesn't change the fact it's true.

:facepalm

But it doesn't make it generalizable. In which case it means very little.

And again Kerr, why can't you address the fact that your two central points contradict each other? If not spanking kids is so bad, then why has there been a drop in violent crime in the US? You can't square you beliefs with the evidence, so you attack the evidence instead of disproving it.

Like I said, you don't have to agree with my conclusions, but you shouldn't be under any illusions that you've actually disproved any of them.

 

[Too Much Garlic]

Brainwashed. They have been told over and over its the right thing to do. That makes a big difference imo.

Again, that's oversimplifying things and again making the distinction of those people somehow not being like everyone else. You are doing what they are doing... disconnecting them from being people, either to make yourself feel better, or to demonize them... or for some other reason.

But yes, there are differences, but also similarities, and it all adds to the complexities we know as the human condition.

But honestly, I think I've said my piece, so I'll leave you guys to all the fun... and will go enjoy my weekend after a week suffering from a slight fever... and I will start it by going to bed.

Laters.

 

[jlee562]

IMHO, chalking it up to cowardice is the over simplification.

 

[Too Much Garlic]

IMHO, chalking it up to cowardice is the over simplification.

They still are cowards, regardless of everything else.

I'm not saying it's the only thing they are... but they certainly are THAT!

 

[Kerr Avon]

And again Kerr, why can't you address the fact that your two central points contradict each other? If not spanking kids is so bad, then why has there been a drop in violent crime in the US? You can't square you beliefs with the evidence, so you attack the evidence instead of disproving it.

Maybe the fact we have millions of people in jail has something to do with it? You know, put enough people in jail, there's not enough to commit crimes? And besides, your premise that it has to be crime is nothing but crap. People who don't discipline their child raise little pieces of ****. They don't have to commit crimes to be little pieces of **** that cause other people problems. They're still little pieces of ****.

 

[jlee562]

Maybe the fact we have millions of people in jail has something to do with it? You know, put enough people in jail, there's not enough to commit crimes?

Great, at least you concede that you don't have an explanation.

Jailing people doesn't account for population growth.

And besides, your premise that it has to be crime is nothing but crap. People who don't discipline their child raise little pieces of ****. They don't have to commit crimes to be little pieces of **** that cause other people problems. They're still little pieces of ****.

All of which may be true, but has little relevance to the question at hand, which is does culture effect killers and if so in what ways.

 

[Kerr Avon]

Great, at least you concede that you don't have an explanation.

Jailing people doesn't account for population growth.

Jail enough people at a rate faster than the population growth, and looks like it can.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States

 

[jlee562]

But for the fact that the drastic increase in incarceration rates is due mostly to non-violent drug offenders.

From your wiki link:

In recent decades the U.S. has experienced a surge in its prison population, quadrupling since 1980, partially as a result of mandatory sentencing that came about during the "war on drugs." Violent crime and property crime have declined since the early 1990s.[17]

...

Violent crime was not responsible for the quadrupling of the incarcerated population in the United States from 1980 to 2003. Violent crime rates had been relatively constant or declining over those decades. The prison population was increased primarily by public policy changes causing more prison sentences and lengthening time served, e.g. through mandatory minimum sentencing, "three strikes" laws, and reductions in the availability of parole or early release. These policies were championed as protecting the public from serious and violent offenders, but instead yielded high rates of confinement for nonviolent offenders. Nearly three quarters of new admissions to state prison were convicted of nonviolent crimes. 49 percent of sentenced state inmates were held for violent offenses. Perhaps the single greatest force behind the growth of the prison population has been the national "war on drugs." The number of incarcerated drug offenders has increased twelvefold since 1980. In 2000, 22 percent of those in federal and state prisons were convicted on drug charges. [24][25]

Which is to not even mention the privatization of prisons....

 

[Kerr Avon]

So they were put in jail before they could become violent.