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I believe some people are just bad/evil, not mentally ill. And you can't cure evil. I know it's not politically correct, but I also believe we should have the right to protect ourselves from such people by any means necessary.
Where does this so called "evil" originate from? It sounds like some archaic genetic theory, or some religious conspiracy?
Nurture wins over nature. How we are brought up determines who we will become, over powering any ancestral roots of cave man/primate.
Once adults, it is OUR responsibility to overcome our biases, prejudices, and black/white splitting thinking. Many fail to do so.
Look at WWII and the Nazis. The majority of the entire German society bought what they were sold that Jews were BAD. The entire society was mentally ill, imho. Every case of a lack of basic compassion, empathy, is a sign of a mentally ill society. Humans have only come so far, there's a long way to go yet.
#1 most important thing I believe must be said in any such conversation:
The vast, VAST majority of mentally ill people are not dangerous to others, and are not criminals.
Secondly, I think that it depends. As one poster mentioned slavery, there have been times in history where entire cultures have embraced and perpetuated norms that were evil and harmful to their core, as "the way things are" ...and we still do that. And plenty of people who seem pretty ordinary still defend it.
Are they all "mentally ill?" No.
Is a lack of understanding of ethics and morality that IS part of the normative social culture, in ways that lead to harm, probably a rare and serious symptom of a few particular kinds of mental illness? I would say so. Is it possible for someone to commit serious harm or crime because a voice told them to or some other kind of (again, RARE and SERIOUS) symptom of a mental illness...yeah. Is it possible for a soldier with severe depression and PTSD to become what they call a "family annihilator"? Yeah. To what extent does mental illness play a role? And to what extent does it change their culpability for their actions? I'll let the doctors and lawyers hash that out case by case.
But if you believe as I do, that sentencing for criminals should have more to do with protecting society than it does with punishment, then it hardly matters much. What matters most is that a danger is removed from society, in my opinion. Not whether they've got a good excuse or reason.
And finally, what exactly do we mean when we say, "mentally ill" anyways? Big difference between a schizophrenic person, someone with depression/anxiety, someone with a personality disorder like BPD or NPD, someone with an addiction, someone with autism or ADHD. We all it all "mental illness" but it's not remotely all the same. It is pretty rare for a person's mental illness to make it so that they don't understand their obligations under the social contract enough to bear responsibility to uphold them.
Where does this so called "evil" originate from? It sounds like some archaic genetic theory, or some religious conspiracy?
Nurture wins over nature. How we are brought up determines who we will become, over powering any ancestral roots of cave man/primate.
Once adults, it is OUR responsibility to overcome our biases, prejudices, and black/white splitting thinking. Many fail to do so.
Look at WWII and the Nazis. The majority of the entire German society bought what they were sold that Jews were BAD. The entire society was mentally ill, imho. Every case of a lack of basic compassion, empathy, is a sign of a mentally ill society. Humans have only come so far, there's a long way to go yet.
I am not religious, nor a genetic theorist. Evil is as evil does. If someone does horrible things, and they are not mentally ill, they are evil or, if you prefer, a bad person. And I don't believe upbringing should be used as an excuse for horrible behavior. We all make our own choices and are responsible for those choices. I am sick of "his parents spanked him" or "he didn't have a daddy" being used as justification for horrific acts. If those situations caused criminal acts, everyone with the same background would be a criminal.
As for Germany, you are wrong. The majority of people were so afraid of the consequences of standing up to nazi rule that they just kept quiet and tried to keep their heads down. Those who were caught in anti-government activities were dealt with swiftly and deadly. There were still quite a few underground activists who helped Jewish people and tried to covertly work against the government.
Unless one is so mentally ill that they do not even try to hide their behavior from others, including law enforcement, I don't think mental illness is an excuse for murder or abuse.
I am not religious, nor a genetic theorist. Evil is as evil does. If someone does horrible things, and they are not mentally ill, they are evil or, if you prefer, a bad person. And I don't believe upbringing should be used as an excuse for horrible behavior. We all make our own choices and are responsible for those choices. I am sick of "his parents spanked him" or "he didn't have a daddy" being used as justification for horrific acts. If those situations caused criminal acts, everyone with the same background would be a criminal.
As for Germany, you are wrong. The majority of people were so afraid of the consequences of standing up to nazi rule that they just kept quiet and tried to keep their heads down. Those who were caught in anti-government activities were dealt with swiftly and deadly. There were still quite a few underground activists who helped Jewish people and tried to covertly work against the government.
I think it's a little bit of both: nurture and nature. At the end of the day, human beings are emotional creatures. Some impulse control might be at fault. But a lot of crime committed in the world are crimes of passion. Brian Laundrie, as far as we can tell, lived quite a boring, middle class life with his parents in FL. He still killed his fiancee, Gabby Petito, in what probably started out as a squabble between partners. Throughout his life, was he evil? His background suggests not. However, he did commit a very evil and heinous act that resulted in her death, as well as his more recently. If you allow your emotions to get out of control, then each and every one of us can become lethal killing machines. I don't care who you are, what your past has been up until now, we are all more than capable of heinous, evil acts. Under the right amount of pressures or difficult circumstances, we can snap and do evil things. People without criminal background or evil origins do it all the time, most of the time after succumbing to some sort of mental or psychological breakdown from dealing with a barrage of daily pressures over time.
I think it's a little bit of both: nurture and nature. At the end of the day, human beings are emotional creatures. Some impulse control might be at fault. But a lot of crime committed in the world are crimes of passion. Brian Laundrie, as far as we can tell, lived quite a boring, middle class life with his parents in FL. He still killed his fiancee, Gabby Petito, in what probably started out as a squabble between partners. Throughout his life, was he evil? His background suggests not. However, he did commit a very evil and heinous act that resulted in her death, as well as his more recently. If you allow your emotions to get out of control, then each and every one of us can become lethal killing machines. I don't care who you are, what your past has been up until now, we are all more than capable of heinous, evil acts. Under the right amount of pressures or difficult circumstances, we can snap and do evil things. People without criminal background or evil origins do it all the time, most of the time after succumbing to some sort of mental or psychological breakdown from dealing with a barrage of daily pressures over time.
Yes, everyone can snap, but I interpreted the OP's question as being about people who are just bad and consistently do bad stuff. As for Laundrie, I haven't followed the story very closely and may well be wrong, but I seem to remember reading that he and Petito both had mental health issues.
Yes, everyone can snap, but I interpreted the OP's question as being about people who are just bad and consistently do bad stuff. As for Laundrie, I haven't followed the story very closely and may well be wrong, but I seem to remember reading that he and Petito both had mental health issues.
Just goes to show you how easily something like that can be twisted around and made the narrative. They didn't have any diagnosed mental health issues that have been publicly noted.
On the police bodycam footage, Petito had mentioned she was "OCD" about the cleanliness of the vehicle, which was at the root of one of their arguments. Her parents (father maybe?) came out and said that she was not diagnosed OCD, but rather used the phrasing as a lot of people do to describe that they are tidy or anal retentive about details.
But no, at least to my knowledge, neither of them had any diagnosed mental heath issues other than the run-of-the mill emotions that we all feel at times (stress, anxiety, depressed, etc.).
Just goes to show you how easily something like that can be twisted around and made the narrative. They didn't have any diagnosed mental health issues that have been publicly noted.
On the police bodycam footage, Petito had mentioned she was "OCD" about the cleanliness of the vehicle, which was at the root of one of their arguments. Her parents (father maybe?) came out and said that she was not diagnosed OCD, but rather used the phrasing as a lot of people do to describe that they are tidy or anal retentive about details.
But no, at least to my knowledge, neither of them had any diagnosed mental heath issues other than the run-of-the mill emotions that we all feel at times (stress, anxiety, depressed, etc.).
However, the headline is kind of misleading because the medication was for anxiety.
Right, anxiety isn't always a mental illness, it can be a symptom of pressures going on in life at a given point. Millions of people are treated for anxiety and aren't out killing people. People with anxiety are generally harmless to the general public and may avoid them altogether because of the anxiety.
The media needs to be careful with how they're going about characterizing these sorts of things, because it's going to create a negative stigma around addressing mental health. They're going to create a narrative in people's minds that people with anxiety are dangerous and looking for their next murder victim. And frankly, I don't have faith that the general public will be smart enough to know the difference.
But they probably won't, because clickbaity titles bring in viewership and ad revenues.
Right, anxiety isn't always a mental illness, it can be a symptom of pressures going on in life at a given point. Millions of people are treated for anxiety and aren't out killing people. People with anxiety are generally harmless to the general public and may avoid them altogether because of the anxiety.
The media needs to be careful with how they're going about characterizing these sorts of things, because it's going to create a negative stigma around addressing mental health. They're going to create a narrative in people's minds that people with anxiety are dangerous and looking for their next murder victim. And frankly, I don't have faith that the general public will be smart enough to know the difference.
But they probably won't, because clickbaity titles bring in viewership and ad revenues.
I could not agree more!!
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