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Location: where you sip the tea of the breasts of the spinsters of Utica
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H. Sapiens is naturally quite murderous species, but also prone to forming alliances in tribes and clans (before civilization) and showing empathy and compassion within those tribes. Judging by historical and anthropological evidence, we were far more murderous throughout most of history and pre-history than we are now ...... cultural and sociological pressures have gentled us.
Chimpanzees and bonobos are our closest evolutionary cousins. The chimps are like us, their males dominate and form into alliances, even entering into wars with other tribes and murdering each other. The bonobos are like some of us also, they are a "make love not war" species.
It's entirely natural for some human males, especially young ones, to display great aggression even to the point of murder, whether it be legal in an army or illegal in a personal way. It's only recently in evolutionary terms that we have gotten the idea that wars of conquest and murder of weaker people are bad, a few thousand years ago, that they're counter-productive, which is a very good thing since we have developed nuclear weapons.
On the other hand, there are genuine mental illnesses (such as Jared Loughner with his schizophrenia), but the mentally ill actually commit a lower percentage of violent crimes than "normals". Such people really don't understand what they are doing for the most part, and really should be treated differently from other murderers - that was even the case in the harsh British law system.
On the other hand, there is the opinion of a woman on TV that I saw: "We here in Alabama know that some murderers are crazy. We still want them to die."
I don't see that at all. I think the trend in recent years is to assume anyone who's done a horrible thing is a completely evil person who will never change no matter what. Our love affair with throwing millions of people in prison for decades or even their whole life illustrates that.
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No it doesn't. The justice system is so biased against people of color that any criminal offense committed by a person of color is going to result in years of jail time. Only the most depraved of white criminals get really long prison sentences, and even they can sometimes be paroled and back on the street in less time (lots less) than some black kid who had a joint (one joint) in his possession, when some cop popped him for taking a leak behind the dumpster at a fast food joint at 2:00am.
No it doesn't. The justice system is so biased against people of color that any criminal offense committed by a person of color is going to result in years of jail time. Only the most depraved of white criminals get really long prison sentences, and even they can sometimes be paroled and back on the street in less time (lots less) than some black kid who had a joint (one joint) in his possession, when some cop popped him for taking a leak behind the dumpster at a fast food joint at 2:00am.
Lordy, Lordy, Lordy ... the race card. This crap gets old.
H. Sapiens is naturally quite murderous species, but also prone to forming alliances in tribes and clans (before civilization) and showing empathy and compassion within those tribes. Judging by historical and anthropological evidence, we were far more murderous throughout most of history and pre-history than we are now ...... cultural and sociological pressures have gentled us.
Chimpanzees and bonobos are our closest evolutionary cousins. The chimps are like us, their males dominate and form into alliances, even entering into wars with other tribes and murdering each other. The bonobos are like some of us also, they are a "make love not war" species.
It's entirely natural for some human males, especially young ones, to display great aggression even to the point of murder, whether it be legal in an army or illegal in a personal way. It's only recently in evolutionary terms that we have gotten the idea that wars of conquest and murder of weaker people are bad, a few thousand years ago, that they're counter-productive, which is a very good thing since we have developed nuclear weapons.
On the other hand, there are genuine mental illnesses (such as Jared Loughner with his schizophrenia), but the mentally ill actually commit a lower percentage of violent crimes than "normals". Such people really don't understand what they are doing for the most part, and really should be treated differently from other murderers - that was even the case in the harsh British law system.
On the other hand, there is the opinion of a woman on TV that I saw: "We here in Alabama know that some murderers are crazy. We still want them to die."
Humans beings are only a moderately violent species I would say....I think alot of people don't realize how naturally violent much of the animal kingdom (especially predatory animals) is so they try to make it look like Humans are one of the worst species in that regard which is nonsense....Humans are not a particularly violent species at all. It's just we have the capacity to do it on a huge and organized scale so when we do occasionally get violent it can result in dramatic conclusions that are unseen in the animal kingdom (World War 2 etc).
I would say that Chimps are a more violent species on average than Humans....But Humans are more naturally violent than Bonobos....Humans are in the middle of those 2.
Haven't been following Hinckley in the news lately, have you?
El Nox
Or Chapman, apparently. Mark David Chapman is currently at Attica; my friend, a NYS prison guard, has met him and reports back to me (perhaps to the surprise of few) that he still seems mentally ill (crazy was the word my friend used). Despite this observation, a local(ish; I live a county away from Attica, and this pastor IIRC was located in a different nearby county) pastor was recently lobbying to have Chapman freed from Attica so that he could work for said pastor, on a farm if memory serves. How the reported friendship originated between those two, I have no idea. Anyway, although my recollection of the details of that news story is a bit hazy, it was certainly something that caught my attention at the time
Your reversing the analogy. Mental illness is defined as a disorder that militates against a person behaving in a manner that is consistent with settled social order. It's not like we define sanity first, and then everybody acts like sane people. We define desired behavior, and then call undesired behavior insanity, for those who can't or won't behave.
I'm not saying it should be this way, but only that our handlers have decided that this is the way it is.
Location: where you sip the tea of the breasts of the spinsters of Utica
8,297 posts, read 14,169,902 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jtur88
Your reversing the analogy. Mental illness is defined as a disorder that militates against a person behaving in a manner that is consistent with settled social order. It's not like we define sanity first, and then everybody acts like sane people. We define desired behavior, and then call undesired behavior insanity, for those who can't or won't behave.
I'm not saying it should be this way, but only that our handlers have decided that this is the way it is.
Well, if you look at the criteria for mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, it's not mostly about behavior but about what is happening mentally - such as hearing hallucinatory voices or suffer from delusions of persecution, etc.
Even the criminal system diagnosis of insanity focuses on internal criteria, whether the person knows the difference between good and evil actions.
Despite this observation, a local(ish; I live a county away from Attica, and this pastor IIRC was located in a different nearby county) pastor was recently lobbying to have Chapman freed from Attica so that he could work for said pastor, on a farm if memory serves.
All of this shows that in our criminal justice system all you have to do is wait a while until the public furor goes down and then some liberal (whether a do-gooder or lawyer) will either get you out now or a reduced sentence.
Now, to preface: I do of course realize mental illness does exist and CAN lead to deplorable acts, but sometimes I think it gets tossed around far to much when the person in question has done some truly horrible things, even things that most of us would consider downright evil. For example, from everything I have read, neither Hitler or Stalin or Mao had any "mental illness" they were simply bad people doing bad things. Yet had they done them today and were put on trial they could possibly get off with "reason of insanity" despite them being 100% "sane" in the sense that they knew full well what they were doing was wrong.
Sure I agree that it's important to have such people evaluated, but I really don't like how so often when people do something bad it's almost always blamed on "mental illness" when it's just that they are bad people, no ands its or buts about it!
I think your perception that deplorable acts are "always" blamed on mental illness is just inaccurate.
Insanity pleas are actually used far less often than people think, and they rarely ever work. For example, only a handful of serial killers have ever successfully pleaded insanity in the U.S. Far from being an easy out, pleading insanity is one of the least successful defenses used in courts today.
Even the criminal system diagnosis of insanity focuses on internal criteria, whether the person knows the difference between good and evil actions.
Would you say that Dr. Kavorkian must have been "insane", by internal criteria, because he did not know the difference between good and evil? And was incapable of feeling remorse about his "crimes"?
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