A few thoughts after reading a textbook for article research. Also posted on my blog (shameless plug - http://jonrees.wordpress.com/) , but thought I'd share it here:
Today I would like to share the following with you:
Taken from “Bad men do what good men dream: A Forensic Psychiatrist illunimated the darker side of human behaviour” by Robert I. Simon M.D.
Time for some pop-culture philosophy:
Thoughts? Comments?
Today I would like to share the following with you:
Taken from “Bad men do what good men dream: A Forensic Psychiatrist illunimated the darker side of human behaviour” by Robert I. Simon M.D.
“But for the genetic and parental luck of the draw, might you or I have become a serial killer? Yet as a practising psychiatrist, I have been greatly impressed by patients who have been dealt a very difficul, not impossible, hand by life. Nevertheless, these people have assumed full responsability and have led productive and meaningful lives. A patient with a severe manic-depressive illness, who was married and ran a successful business once told me, “Doc, it’s not the cards you’re dealt, it’s how you play them.” Becoming a serial killer, to some extent at least, is exercising a choice.”
So do we have that choice? Are all of us capable of doing great evil? Of killing for our own perverted pleasure? Are you capable of that? You’d probably say no.“Perhaps Heraclitus had it right when he stated that character is destiny. The serial sexual killer’s character is one so firmly formed that it fashions his destiny. We who live with a few of these killers in our midst can only hope that our destinies do not cross. But we cannot escape our human destinty. There is a bit of the sadist, the psychopath, the killer in all of us. The basic difference is that the character-driven destiny of bad man is to consciously do what good men are destined to unconsciously dream.”
Nature alone cannot explain the evil that men do. Nurture alone cannot explain it. A combination of the two must be why people can commit evil acts that make us retch in disgust. But then they’re fixed in their destiny, a luck of the draw. Fate is inevitable. Free will does not exist for the evil among us. That would be such an easy explanation.Time for some pop-culture philosophy:
“Bottom line is, even if you see ‘em coming, you’re not ready for the big moments. No one asks for their life to change, not really. But it does. So what are we, helpless? Puppets? No. The big moments are gonna come. You can’t help that. It’s what you do afterwards that counts. That’s when you find out who you are. You’ll see what I mean.”
Though not quite spot on, I like the quote so I’m going to apply it. The big moment is the act of nurture, the childhood trauma that drives those who already have some form of psychopathology to kill, torture or mutilate. I like to think that even after the mental illness, even after the triggering trauma, we can still choose to be good. We are not dominated by the fate of our birth and upbringing. We can spread our proverbial wings and leave the proverbial nest of pain and anger, emigrating to the proverbial south of warmth, kindness and good acts.Thoughts? Comments?
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