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Post by NuSapiens on Jun 11, 2005 13:04:32 GMT -5
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Post by nockwasright on Jun 13, 2005 4:51:08 GMT -5
Sincerely, without need of any evidence, I never doubted that psychopaths, and to a great degree criminals, are born and not made. Not that there is lack of evidence of this, actually there is plenty.
The thought that criminals are a product of society in Western history of thought is a very recent acquisition as it is one of the sad gifts of the Enlightement and the French Revolution, then borrowed by Marxism and kept by lefties all aroud the world. Such thought has done and is doing enormous damages.
It would be nice if someone could offer a far Eastern perspective on this issue.
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Post by Melnorme on Jun 13, 2005 6:06:07 GMT -5
Hmm...I doubt most people have a problem with the fact that some people are just born 'crazy'. The problem is in the gradient - some people being more prone to aggression/criminality than others. This is harder to accept than a binary "normal/crazy" model, since it means that we all have a bit of the loon in us.  |
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Post by Ponto Hardbottle on Jun 13, 2005 6:41:36 GMT -5
Most of our characteristics are genetic. If you don't have the immunity to measles you will get sick, but if you never meet the measles virus it won't really matter. It is the same with mental disorders like schizophrenia which is very common, if you don't have the genetic indicators for it you will never get it but even if you have it, the genes may never be expressed. There is an environmental component even to psychoses.
The article mentioned fraternal and identical twin studies. Identical twin studies are important to show the action of genetic effects to environmental effects but those raised in the same environment are not that useful. It is better to use twins raised apart in different environments.
I think the article was really mentioning personality disorders. Being cold and unemotional or undemonstrative are personality disorders not psychoses. Personality disorders are very common. Who do you know who is not a flawed human with perverse and irrational behaviors? I don't know many.
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Post by nockwasright on Jun 13, 2005 9:11:35 GMT -5
The problem is in the gradient - some people being more prone to aggression/criminality than others. This is harder to accept than a binary "normal/crazy" model, since it means that we all have a bit of the loon in us. Not that I was hinting that criminal behaviour is loony. Would you say Al Capone was a lunatic? Most of the times the more striking carachteristic of the criminals is to be incapable of giving up an immediate pleasure to avoid a future superior pain. As Bunker, the USA novelist and criminal (S. Quentin inmate) put it, "every day I was born in a new world. I couldn't think about tomorrow". All the things that constitute anti social behaviour are human, and everybody possess them in some degree. It' just a matter of degrees. As we have a bell curve to represent IQ in a population we could trace bell curves for the inclination to violence, the impulsiveness, inability to restrain desires etc ... with the people on the left of the peak doomed to commit crimes. He who has experience with children usually can tell that tendency to anti social behaviour reveal itself immediately. |
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Post by NuSapiens on Jun 13, 2005 11:19:59 GMT -5
Psychologists confuse mental health with social normalcy. What they are finding is that psychopathy intersects with traits that are considered highly desirable in modern Western societies. I'd not be surprised to find that business, political, and even religious leaders have many more psychopaths in their ranks than common folk or even criminals.
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Post by nockwasright on Jun 13, 2005 11:42:39 GMT -5
Psychologists confuse mental health with social normalcy. What they are finding is that psychopathy intersects with traits that are considered highly desirable in modern Western societies. I'd not be surprised to find that business, political, and even religious leaders have many more psychopaths in their ranks than common folk or even criminals. If you define psychopats as in the article ("psychopaths are not defined by violence, but by a lack of direct feeling or compassion for other human beings"), then psychopaty is an advantageous trait, as long as the bearer has the ability to conceal it. However it takes more than lack of compassion to make a criminal, it takes also lack of fear for the punishment. I don't think that politicians have a particular lack of compassion, though. My skin deep take on them is they are more a combine of great narcisism, ambition, some manipulative verbal intelligence but not enough to make a real intellectual job, and the patologic inability to be ashamed (as in an absence of super ego). |
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Post by OdinofOssetia on Jun 14, 2005 15:22:42 GMT -5
 Yup, psychopaths are born, they're even born wearing SS uniforms, wielding sticks spiked with nails, and believing that they're a Nordic master-race... which just happens to have worshipped in their distant past a bunch of ordinary Gypsie-looking people from Ossetia. wolnapolska.boom.ru/index-Gdansk.html 
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Post by hs on Jun 14, 2005 16:16:27 GMT -5
Psychologists confuse mental health with social normalcy. What they are finding is that psychopathy intersects with traits that are considered highly desirable in modern Western societies. I'd not be surprised to find that business, political, and even religious leaders have many more psychopaths in their ranks than common folk or even criminals. If you define psychopats as in the article ("psychopaths are not defined by violence, but by a lack of direct feeling or compassion for other human beings"), then psychopaty is an advantageous trait, as long as the bearer has the ability to conceal it. However it takes more than lack of compassion to make a criminal, it takes also lack of fear for the punishment. I don't think that politicians have a particular lack of compassion, though. My skin deep take on them is they are more a combine of great narcisism, ambition, some manipulative verbal intelligence but not enough to make a real intellectual job, and the patologic inability to be ashamed (as in an absence of super ego). I agree that politics is not an intellectual job. Rarely one will find exceptionally intelligent people amongst famous politicians. Some politicians are lucky to be born at upper class elites. Others are gifted with a great deal of manipulative ability (which is often related to an abnormal degree of psychotic personality). Ive become a very skeptical person when it comes to politicians, religious leaders, and alike. |
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Post by polygonwindow on Jul 1, 2005 19:47:17 GMT -5
Most of our characteristics are genetic. If you don't have the immunity to measles you will get sick, but if you never meet the measles virus it won't really matter. It is the same with mental disorders like schizophrenia which is very common, if you don't have the genetic indicators for it you will never get it but even if you have it, the genes may never be expressed. There is an environmental component even to psychoses. The article mentioned fraternal and identical twin studies. Identical twin studies are important to show the action of genetic effects to environmental effects but those raised in the same environment are not that useful. It is better to use twins raised apart in different environments. I think the article was really mentioning personality disorders. Being cold and unemotional or undemonstrative are personality disorders not psychoses. Personality disorders are very common. Who do you know who is not a flawed human with perverse and irrational behaviors? I don't know many. *edited out* |
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Post by polygonwindow on Jul 1, 2005 19:49:49 GMT -5
*edited out*
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