A ramble through human nature …
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Mack. Smack that man. He had to have known — had to from all his years of experience — that this stupid and apparently completely untrue blat would not only be picked up by every enemy of freedom, but that it would be remembered, and exaggerated, for the next 20 years. (“Oh yeah, the Bundy Ranch militia people. They were the ones who used women and babies as human shields …”)
Whatever possessed him?
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Last week I read Kitty Genovese: The Murder, the Bystanders, the Crime that Changed America. Very touching, sad, terrible, well-written revealing book about the young woman whose 1964 stabbing death altered many things, from how we summon help to how we view our neighbors.
It was a New York Times article, two weeks after Kitty’s murder, that turned an otherwise obscure crime into a national self-examination. The paper claimed that Kitty was attacked three times while 38 people stood watching from their windows and did nothing. None of that is true. Kitty’s death was horrible enough, and several bystanders behaved damnably. But basically, a nation began beating its breast and examining its own conscience over lazy, manipulative journalism.
I poked around online after reading the book and found that, even 50 years later, here in this age of relentless reality-checking, the Times’ lazy lies still appear as “fact” on various crime sites. Disgraceful.
Yet ironic. If the Times hadn’t lied, many good things — from multitudes of psychological studies to Good Samaritan laws to development of the 911 emergency system — either wouldn’t have happened at all or would have happened much more slowly. And nobody beyond her family and friends would remember or care about the lonely death of Kitty Genovese.
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In my recent work-work I’ve been dealing with more people than I’ve been involved with for many hermit years.
Some are amazing, astounding, fantastic — the sort who have even my cynical self singing the praises of teamwork. The kind of people who remind me how good, how talented, how funny, and what excellent collaborators creative people can be.
A couple others are … the opposite. They’re people who believe that nothing good can be accomplished unless they’re stationed on the sidelines shouting orders and criticisms at those who are actually, you know, doing the work.
In the past, bossy bystanders have managed to get me rattled. I get intimidated. Or so upset that I pop off at them. Or I feel the constant urge to explain the situation as I see it in hopes of getting them to lay off and let the doers do.
This time, thanks to some excellent support and the wonders of technology, I’m mostly able to tune them out. I’m aware but don’t have to engage.
What’s funny is how flapped such folks get over the simple act of being ignored, how helpless and vulnerable they feel. Turns out that not doing anything is an amazing tool.
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I have a friend — a good person — whose adult son is not such a good person. He’s been in and out of jail or prison nearly all his life. Mostly for petty stuff, but it’s always something.
Over the years, I’ve watched Mom go from, “He really seems to have turned his life around this time,” to, “I love him but I’ve washed my hands of him.”
After his latest arrest (his biggest offenses to date), she and her other family members were even hoping that he’d get a long prison sentence. Not because they wish him ill, but because he thrives in prison — the one place where all his big life decisions are made by somebody else.
Instead, it turned out that the most damning evidence was gathered illegally. So he’s in prison, but will be out in a year and will do something stupid and bad again. And again. My friend knows all this about her son.
The last two times he went to prison, he blamed his then-girlfriends. One “framed” him for burglary. The other “made” him deal meth and “made” him beat her up.
The story about the girlfriend “making” him deal drugs and get violent is particularly convoluted and implausible.
My friend believes it 100 percent. In both cases, while my friend says she doesn’t absolve him of responsibility — the women made him do it.
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Of course, I have my quirks, blind spots, illusions, and annoying traits just like anybody else. I just don’t know what they are.
That’s the strangest part. Humans. We are bizarre beasties.
O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
An’ foolish notion:
“Not because they wish him ill, but because he thrives in prison — the one place where all his big life decisions are made by somebody else.”
Interesting freedomista question: How could a society structure itself to take into account the number of people who need – sometimes even want – their lives to be controlled by someone else, but without hampering the lives of those who just want to be left alone? What would that look like?
(I may be phrasing that wrong.)
Ellendra — I think you phrased that very well, and it’s a good question. Hm. Maybe I should put it up as a freedom question for the blog.
Speaking of maybe not phrasing things well enough, I probably need to note that I’m (of course) not in favor of the drug war or of sending people to prison for meth. But this is definitely one guy who needs a keeper.
(I’m not in favor of stupid policing, either, and the cops around here have committed some real bloopers over the years — bloopers that left murderers walking around, free to kill again. You’d think they’d know by now about what’s kosher and not kosher in searches.)
Murderers, rapists, etc. do not wander around when they are shot by their intended victims… This would also have the effect of creating a disincentive for people to consider such attacks. A prison sentence simply removes the possibility of the aggressor paying compensation to the unseccessful victim, and forses everyone – including the victim – to pay his living expenses, regardless of how humble or terrible the prison.
As for those who would like to be slaves… maybe the would be masters could run ads saying “Slaves Wanted. Plantation under new management. Poor living conditions, frequent floggings and really hard work mandatory. No free stuff.”
Somehow, I suspect that without other people’s money they’d have a very hard time of it and few applicants.
A link I posted earlier http://benswann.com/exclusive-sources-inside-the-blm-and-las-vegas-metro-say-feds-are-planning-a-raid-on-bundy-home/ has an embedded video, which I embarrassingly hadn’t watched until now, with a longer interview with Sheriff Mack. He states, correctly, that it would be very provocative press if the feds shot women. He further noted that he was willing to have his family at risk and that he would be the next one to die. He explained that he didn’t get to the ranch in time to make the proposal, so nothing came of it. That kind of stuff does work, like with Rosa Parks, or perhaps with a suspicious (to me, at least) shoe throwing incident involving Hillary. I’m probably somewhat dense, but I can’t decide how hair-brained the idea is (although telling the media about it certainly may be), but I don’t believe it to be cowardly. Mack correctly attributes that type of behavior to the Nevada Governor.
I have a friend with two sons. One does everything right. The other is in jail again awaiting trial for yet another offense. His life story would be an excellent reality show; you just can’t make this s*** up. His first jail time was for failure to pay a fine for a seat belt violation. This frequent flyer status has been unsuccessful in convincing his mother that he won’t turn his life around someday, despite the fact that nobody else sees it like that. And yes, she also believes he was O.K. until so-and-so got involved. All I can do is watch and try to help when I can and not become too personally frustrated.
I should have said harebrained. http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-hai1.htm http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/42400.html
For your friend’s son, sounds like he needed a Drill Sargent and 2 or 3 years of rigid living. Sometimes, sometimes all a person need is a way to learn some disciplines if they didn’t learn it someplace else.
Then again some people abhor even the thought of freedom, for it also mean responsibilities, which obviously is one of the causes of the mess we find ourselves in now.
> How could a society structure itself to take into account the number of people who need – sometimes even want – their lives to be controlled by someone else, but without hampering the lives of those who just want to be left alone?
My pithy response to that is that those folks should just get themselves a job. But really, in a free market, perhaps such folks could find people willing to control them? I doubt it’d be difficult, since there seems no shortage of such types around these days.
Other than that, was just looking at this day in history. Happy Bicycle Day, everyone!
I have a friend — a good person — whose adult son is not such a good person.
There but for the grace of God…
I’ve known people with the attitude that if the child screws up the parents did something wrong. It’s bullshit. (But I didn’t figure that out until we raised our second daughter, who was…interesting
Over the years, I’ve watched Mom go from, “He really seems to have turned his life around this time,” to, “I love him but I’ve washed my hands of him.”
There’s still hope. And I say that as someone who has watched too many people flush themselves. Besides my two kids, I worked for years with survivors of some pretty wretched environments. A few of them, even after years of problems, managed to turn themselves around.
Unfortunately I don’t have any fixes that seem to work for different people. Every case was different. Many times it was the kids hitting something they couldn’t process the way they usually did, then having someone who could listen while they worked it out.
In one case it was connecting a boyfriend who made money “falling” in stores with the kind of man who would cheat on her, blame her, throw her out, and burn all her stuff. (That was about a three-hour phone call. We were at the “no more ‘loans’ or other such, you want to talk about your problems okay, you want to blame someone else I’m handing up” stage.) It gave her some new criteria for picking friends.
Interesting freedomista question: How could a society structure itself to take into account the number of people who need – sometimes even want – their lives to be controlled by someone else, but without hampering the lives of those who just want to be left alone?
That used to be one function of the military, back when it needed GRUNTs. (Ground Replacement, Usually Not Trained) Today’s high-tech force, notsomuch.
Unfortunately between public school, the WoD prison glut, and welfare, too many people are being trained to be helpless wards of the state.
Murderers, rapists, etc. do not wander around when they are shot by their intended victims
Unfortunately this always seems to happen just as the perps were turning their lives around and planning on going straight, according to the mom who is dismayed that you ventilated them. Not really a snark, as I’m circling back to the moms Claire and Shel referenced.
There but for the grace of God…
“Murderers, rapists, etc. do not wander around when they are shot by their intended victims… ” Epic quote, simply wise logic right there……
LOL at Claire and her not knowing her quirks, etc. All joking aside, what may be perceived as such things by one person will also be beloved by another. So maybe those things really aren’t problems after all.
As for mom’s with kids who grew up to become disasters – they “have to” say something good about the screwed up kid because they would break the mom code if they didn’t. Somehow, being truthful and accepting the reality of it AND acknowledging that out loud is worse than breaking the mom code.
Overall, looking at these topics, it all seems to come down to one root cause: Society. Society’s rules and expectations. Kinda why I’d rather stay a happy hermit.
@Jed:
“But really, in a free market, perhaps such folks could find people willing to control them? I doubt it’d be difficult, since there seems no shortage of such types around these days.”
We’ve got people who want to be told what to do and what to think in exchange for being absolved of personal responsibility. We’ve got people who have this visceral compulsion to micromanage other people’s lives, even complete strangers. And then we’ve got people who want nothing to do with either of the first two. It seems like there ought to be a way to get groups A and B to look after each other, so group C won’t have to keep dealing with them.
Maybe something like a privately owned barracks with a factory? I dunno.
Re people who are irresponsible….
I think we are turning those kind out by the hundreds, if not more. How? Look at out public school systems. Kids are not encouraged to think or show initiative. Oh no, that might offend others. Instead they are being brainwashed into being totally submissive. For years now our schools are nothing more than “The little red schoolhouse” that was nothing but communism. Lessee now…..yup…if I just sit there and don’t make waves. act dumb, why heck they will even graduate me. After all, they don’t want any child left behind.
Many people commenting here do not seem to understand that there are some people that are broken. They are called sociopaths, and they are about 4% of the population. They have no empathy.
They are bored easily, and will do anything for stimulation. They rise to the heights of companies, and get fired for making (deliberately) bad decisions, or for pilfering purses, or they cheat on their spouses, or do drugs, or another risky behavior, and no incentive or punishment is severe enough to make them not seek stimulation. To them, the risk is part of the thrill, and the punishment is just waiting in line for the next ride. Suicide is common, as are other forms of premature death – car crashes, overdoses, and the other consequences of pursuing risky behaviors.
These people are not abnormal or rare, and not insane. They look at the world through lone-wolf eyes that see other people as objects to be manipulated. They can be incredibly valuable in certain professions, like in combat, and in management when it is time to make tough decisions that will shatter peoples lives (no empathy, remember?).
They are all around us – the bitchy neighbor, the bullying cop, the abusive boss, the club president that nobody can stand, the criminal, etc. (Not all of these are sociopaths, and not all sociopaths are these, but there is a tendency toward positions of authority).
In short, THERE IS NO SOLUTION, THERE IS NO CURE. Get used to it. Deal with them. Defend yourself, and don’t just “trust everybody.”
I absolutely believe that the Hitlary shoe throwing incident was contrived in advance with her knowledge. In watching the incident, her voice inflections when commenting at the time it happened were obvious (to me) as being faked. Her voice went up in pitch several times at the end of sentences.
Not natural speaking.
As for the Sheriff Mac statement, if it was really true I don’t believe that those who came to stand up for the Bundy’s would have stuck around.
1. Looks to me in the pictures I’ve seen that the cowboys and horses are out front.
2. It needn’t be true or accurate for the MSM to repeat and embelish it.
Over the past six or eight months, I’ve had the chance to look into some of what you’re describing.
to try to put it into some sort of context, I’ll give some of the background to it, please excuse my long windedness…
1) a female friend (yes, she is an ex) has been getting strung allong by a guy who she has completely fallen for, despite her realizing that he’s probably a psychopath of some sort or other.
2) I discovered that the father of one of my circle of friends at school in the early 1970s, was one of the most prolific child rapists who has so far come to mainstream attention ( http://pieandmashfilms.com/films/adam-rickwood-the-medomsley-heroes/ unfortunately it’s very long winded but there are little nuggets all the way through, watch it after the Sam Vaknin links that I give later, also see “nightmare at elm house” for credible allegations of child rapists and links with Sinn Fein(political wing of the IRA), amongst the big names in Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet, for examples of those who haven’t come to mainstream attention, yet).
Who or rather what are the sorts of critters who take pleasure from such abuses?
My first thoughts were psychopaths,
and to an extent, a lot of these characters probably are. What Claire is describing of her friend’s son, certainly ties in with the case histories given by Hervey Cleckley, in his classic (and very readable) work “The mask of Sanity” http://cassiopaea.org/cass/sanity_1.PdF
whatever it is in our brains which allows us to empathize with others, either was never born, died at some stage, or got switched off in psychopaths. They appear sane and logical – perfectly normal, with no oddness or eccentricities, but lack the core of what makes us human.
The basics of Natural Law, and the categorical imperative mean no more to them than a prohibition on jaywalking (and vice versa). Some of them seem to become very good at acting to stupid rules – which probably equips a lot of them to become cops and lawyers, as well as politicians.
Lacking any emotions, they get bored incredibly easily, and go thrill seeking through otherwise unintelligably stupid actions (such as the one alleged here: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/uk.legal/YpTHTD1N_Q0 ) this doesn’t imply any long term lifestyle choices, or strong covictions, psychopaths are remarkably free from both, it just seems like they felt like it might be a good idea at the time.
It also reflects in their somewhat nihilistic ideas of truth; such and such may have been true then, but this is now and something else is true now…
Some, perhaps all, lack a startle reflex, and they don’t get at all stressed when lying, they enjoy it, oh, and if they really do want to get out of some bad consequences, they’ll happily grass up their accomplices, or blame any one else they can think of.
Psychopathy doesn’t explain all of it though, and I narcissism also plays a big role
I’ve gone on for too long, here’s a self described psychopathic narcissist explaining narcissim and the drug which narcissists crave – attention (“narcissistic supply”)
http://youtu.be/sU305NqXT94 and here he explains how to put a stake through a narcissist: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZxzRh7MwZU&feature=share&list=PL2CB712AE09C264EB
Between psychopaths and narcissists, and with a sound understanding of economics, we’ve probably got the rotten core of the state explained.
Sorry for rabbiting on for so long – especially as I’m only an occasional visitor. Thanks for your patience.
M Scott,
I respectfully disagree
I think that the situtions in which psychopaths are “valuable”, are so excedingly rare and unlikely, that we can probably disregard them.
Incidentally, please do not conflate psychopaths with “sociopaths” (anti social personality disorder) as previous American Psychiatric Association diagnostic and statistical manuals have – it only causes confusion. Which, I suspect was the APA DSM’s intention.
Psychopathic managers and commanders are prone to a totally callous disregard for costs, they thrill seek, take excessive risks, and I suspect also engineer crisis situations just for the hell of it, and then blame others for any failures. They don’t engender any loyalty.
In business, their rocket like climb through promotions is notable for the number of ticking time bombs they leave behind them, which are usually blamed on the normal person who got the job of clearing up the unholy mess they left in every position that they ever held. For every “successful” psychopath there are probably dozens of far more able, decent people who’s careers are destroyed along the way. The whizzkid MD of a company I used to work for once boasted to me:
“I don’t get heart attacks; I give them”
With hindsight, he was probably a psychopath, which
(also with hindsight) explains what we couldn’t work out at the time, why he tolerated an Ian Paisley like brute of a sexist and sectarian bully as his right hand man, that second guy was deffinitely a psychopath. Most Psychopaths are grandiose, if you stroke their egos you can get them to reveal a great deal in boasting and blurting.
Possibly the only example of psychopath as good guy I can think of is Oskar Schindler, and then only in the context of “his” Jews; before and after that situation (which he played a role in creating), he was just another parasitic psychopath, totally destructive of himself and others.
They’re parasitic oportunists. Anything good that you see in them is probably only a projection from yourself.
The son of Claire’s friend does not sound like a psychopath, just a messed up individual, although we really do not have enough information.
How could a society structure itself to take into account the number of people who need – sometimes even want – their lives to be controlled by someone else, but without hampering the lives of those who just want to be left alone?
I’d say monasteries and convents. Nice strict environment, vows of poverty, totally voluntary.
As for dealing with the psychopaths, sociopaths and others who cross “the line”, Mama called it.
He may not sound like the Hollywood version, but he certainly sounds a lot like the case studies provided in Cleckley.
If you get the oportunity, it’s well worth downloading and reading. http://cassiopaea.org/cass/sanity_1.PdF
an understanding of psychopathy explains so much about the critters who seek power.
Sorry, that link seems to mess up, this one seems to get the .pdf : https://scitechlab.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/cleckley-the-mask-of-sanity-1941-w-cover2.pdf
The link for the .pdf of the 1988 fifth edition of Cleckley’s “The mask of sanity” http://www.cassiopaea.com/cassiopaea/sanity_1.PdF
Sorry, Keith, but I take my psychiatry from Thomas Szasz’ “The Myth of Mental Illness”, who ― and which ― was not referenced at all in “Sanity”. In any case, psychopathy does not preclude knowledge of one’s action, or the consequences of that “psychopathic” action.
(And of course, Psychiatry itself takes no responsibility for its labeling of psychopaths, sociopaths, etc.! “Experts” in every field insist on defining those who don’t comply with their standard ― witness politicians, educators, medical authorities, religious leaders, as well as multitudes of exasperated teachers, inadequate business managers, and local bully-cops ― and God help the individual who fits into a different mold, for good OR evil.)
Szasz is on my reading list, haven’t got to him yet, but I certainly intend to. The work I was thinking of tackling first was his analysis of Virginia Wolfe.
I very much agree with Szasz on the mis use of “psychiatry” as a pseudo religious means of social control.
Unlike the majority of “psychiatric conditions” psychopaths do show up on scans as having very different brain activity, the timing of their processing of emotion laden words is identical to that for emotionally neutral words – very different to the normal population, they also frequently (?all) lack a startle reflex. In that respect, Szasz’ main criticism does not apply here; real physical characteristics and differences to the normal population can be demonstrated.
The area of psychopaths understanding the difference between good and evil actions is one of the key parts to the puzzle they present.
Intellectually, yes they do understand the difference, and can explain it very rationally, then almost immediately afterwards, contradict that understanding by their actions. They understand it, but they refuse to be bound by it.
Despite the frequent offending by many (not all) psychopaths
(Robert Hare, estimates apprx 1% of the total population is psychopathic, around 1:4 female : male, and around 1/3 of the prison population are psychopaths),
their abilities at lying ensure that for comparable offences, psychopaths are around a third as likely to be convicted, serve on average around a third of the sentence and are around two and a half times as likely to receive parole when compared to non psychopaths.
By contrast psychopaths almost always re-offend, and that re-offending rate is actually increased by supposed rehabilitation courses.
Policing, politics, medicine, finance and religious ministry (and trolling too) are all areas which attract disproportionate numbers of the individuals displaying the lack of empathy and emotion which is the central element in the construct of psychopathy.
Whether we use “psychiatric” or religious language to describe the phenomenon, the disruption which these individuals cause, whether at the level of street scum bag, n’ere-do-well family member or politician, is very real and very damaging.
Trying to understand it is a start in trying to better protect ourselves from it.
[Interesting freedomista question: How could a society structure itself to take into account the number of people who need – sometimes even want – their lives to be controlled by someone else, but without hampering the lives of those who just want to be left alone? What would that look like?]
It looks like Panarchy. That is what we should be aiming for.
Sheriff Mack goofed, but I don’t worry much about it. The flow of history is like the Columbia River; it hardly matters what individual swimmers are doing in it. We will have our Revolution, never fear.
I suspect most of the screwed up kids are boys without fathers. But we hardly control our kids either. Don’t know if that is good or bad; sometimes I think our spawn are determined to sink or swim on their own, and our own experience is of no use to them. In the old days, judges used to sentence n’er-do-wells to time in the military. I think that was a good idea, if you ignore the fact that the military is a tool for empire. Lots of young people need a kick in the pants. My wife got that when she was 12 yrs old and it really turned her around; she was kicked out of school and stuck in a factory job cutting threads off of newly manufactured shirts. After a while she decided she didn’t want to do that for the rest of her life, and she got serious.