pyschopaths and their evolutions

[KSagal]

Zorba is right. Prayers and condolences to the victims in Virginia...



With regard to Sal taking my "Blame" paragraph out of context, I was simply responding to Pam's direct assertion that the cause of the shooting was the fact that the criminal had been picked on by other people's children...

I said that I believed there was far more to it than that. I mentioned others who easily could have contributed as well. I do not say that any one of those listed are directly accountable, but they are all in the soup...

The one who is most accountable it the man himself, who killed those people, as he clearly had the intent to do it...

I have always had a problem the insanity defense...I have always considered it insane to think you could get away with killing someone. It just is not sane to think that it is acceptable behaviour...

Now, Let's just say that a person wants to kill another to collect on the insurance money. Pure greed is the motive, no consideration to result of the victim's death or it's impact on the victim's family...

In my mind, that killer is insane to think that society will allow them to get away with that... You do not need a degree in psychology to know that this killer is whacked... They may be smart, they may even get away with it, but they are not sane...

Now, cho was a heinous criminal, and off his nut, but that does not mean that he fell off it that morning... He may have had problems young, and they got worse, possibly exacerbated by the teasing of other children, and the ineffective or missing guidance from authoritative people in his life. He may or may not have gotten mental health counciling, but he clearly did not get enough or effective help...

It needs also be said that he may have gotten all that is reasonable, but his issues were too extream to end any other way than violence. Even with that pre-destined conclusion, there were things that could have been done to lessen the potential for this attrocity...

I believe there is little to be gained from this horrible event. What little can be learned, however, is what not to allow to happen again...

We must all be part of the solution, to what ever degree we can, or we will be part of the problem...

Many people will not agree to the solutions that I may come to. That is fine. I will not agree to the solutions that some others may come to. That is okay too. Even the discussion on what is really as solution is working in the right direction...

At this point, I don't have all the answers... But I do have some good questions....

Anyone else?

[pam]

Actually, all I said was

"We've been running our flag at half-mast at school for the last couple of days for the tragedy.

Please, please, please, parents - teach your children not to pick on other kids. I know the man was mentally ill, but he'd been picked on for years, which either caused or exacerbated the problem. "


I said it may have caused or exacerbated the problem (the mental illness).

You're the one who decided tragedy (which is the word that has been used through all the news media) was a misrepresentation and chose to use a word that was much more emotionally laden to support a particular belief system you espouse. It's a technique you've used in the past.

I personally see everyone involved as victims, Cho and the others, and their parents and the community. For various reasons, many of which have to do with research that I am well familiar with, given the area in which I teach. I'm not going to bore you with that now, because I know that it won't matter a hill of beans to you, or to anyone who has firmly entrenched belief systems.

I totally agree with you that we must all be part of the solution... which is what caused me to write the statement, asking parents to please teach their children not to pick on other children. This is simplistic, I agree and it may not cure the problem completely, but it will be ONE thing that we can all do to be part of the solution, and it may also prevent exacerbating an existing mental illness causing it to go over the edge.


Pam

[KSagal]

Here we can agree, as I said in response to Pam's original statement, there is blame enough to go around, if you look for it...

I must pick a nit again, as wordsmithing is very important...

In her original post she said "which either caused or exacerbated"

and even though she included her own quote, she changed it to "may have caused or exacerbated"

one is a firm statement of fact, the other is a statement of possibility...

In many people's world, the distinction is too minor to count. I notice and place value on such things.

That very well may be a cause for some of the confusion on many of these posts, where one person wants to be held accountable to their thought, and another is reacting to their words, and there is a difference that was not intended...

[KSagal]

As far as my using the word atrocity instead of tragedy, I wish I could claim authorship... I cannot. I got that from the media as well, I just agree with it, based on the definition of the two words...

From the perspective of the family of a student who was murdered, it may be a tragedy, especially if they did not know the gunman.

From the perspective of the actions of the gunman, as we were speaking of what caused him to do it, the definition of the words would tend to make atrocity more accurate...

I don't think anyone would consider Hitler and his plan to kill so many people a tragedy, as much as an atrocity, with all the torture and suffering he caused... This is not on that scale, but the emotions are the same...

My understanding is that an atrocity takes willful action of a person who does not regard the victim's value. My understanding of a tragedy is an unavoidable and unfortunate event that was unexpected and not controlled by the victim... It could be argued that this was not unexpected, was not an accident, and surely was avoidable.

[RAY-NER]

This post may constitute a very controversial viewpoint, but let us pause to consider the following. A) The Massacre at Wounded Knee, B) The victims of The Civil War, C) The heroic American Revolutionists, D) The Spanish-American War all of which occurred on the soil we now know as The United States of America. The tragedy at Virginia Tech has touched us all, but let us not forget the past victims of greater tragedies that left hundreds of thousands of good Americans dead as a result of WW1, WW2, Korean War, Vietnam War, Iraq War. etc., plus the others mentioned above. It was madness that perpetrated these historic disasters. There is insanity present everywhere amongst humankind as we speak. It's puzzling as to why we as a species kill our own kind. It is a fact that all other mammals besides human beings do not kill each other! Have you ever heard of the Giraffe war? The Chimpanzee War? No other warm blooded mammals strive to eradicate each other. They will fight for dominance, marking their territory, but never do they kill each other. What then is the missing gene in Humans that is prevalent in all other mammals? This has always been a mystery to me. RAY-NER

[RAG1247]

Originally Posted by RAY-NER

This post may constitute a very controversial viewpoint, but let us pause to consider the following. A) The Massacre at Wounded Knee, B) The victims of The Civil War, C) The heroic American Revolutionists, D) The Spanish-American War all of which occurred on the soil we now know as The United States of America. The tragedy at Virginia Tech has touched us all, but let us not forget the past victims of greater tragedies that left hundreds of thousands of good Americans dead as a result of WW1, WW2, Korean War, Vietnam War, Iraq War. etc., plus the others mentioned above. It was madness that perpetrated these historic disasters. There is insanity present everywhere amongst humankind as we speak. It's puzzling as to why we as a species kill our own kind. It is a fact that all other mammals besides human beings do not kill each other! Have you ever heard of the Giraffe war? The Chimpanzee War? No other warm blooded mammals strive to eradicate each other. They will fight for dominance, marking their territory, but never do they kill each other. What then is the missing gene in Humans that is prevalent in all other mammals? This has always been a mystery to me. RAY-NER

Jane Goodall and others proved years ago that in fact chimpanzees kill other chimpanzees and other monkeys, pigs, etc. info at numerous web sites plus

http://www.janegoodall.org/chimp_central/default.asp

[Zorba9]

.....tomato, I say tomatoe. Tragedy/atrocity that it was, Cho fell thru the cracks in the system early on, back with his High School teacher that was scared of him and warned her Principle of his disturbed behaviour. We are all so slow to learn and react. Guidelines started being implemented in school systems across the country after Columbine, to help recognize problem kids and to teach everyone how harmfull bullies are to a shy kids self esteem. We still have not come anywhere close to having an effective national/state agenda to deal with this problem. It takes another tragedy/atrocity to drive home this point and I'm sure every school district & college out there is reviewing their policies and revising them. Until kids learn to accept the odd kids in their classes and not tease/belittle them, but instead go out of their way, if only to be pleasent to them, things won't change and unfortunately this will probably happen again.

[pam]

Well, the college I work at is certainly reviewing their policies! I hope it means they'll get light bulbs in the lights after dark on parts of the campus where they've gone out.

Pam

[Sal]

Originally Posted by KSagal

I don't think anyone would consider Hitler and his plan to kill so many people a tragedy, as much as an atrocity, with all the torture and suffering he caused... This is not on that scale, but the emotions are the same...

Hitler was an atrocious individual. His plan to exterminate Jews was atrocious. But the fact that 6,000,000 Jews died during that terrible time was tragic.

Originally Posted by KSagal

My understanding is that an atrocity takes willful action of a person who does not regard the victim's value. My understanding of a tragedy is an unavoidable and unfortunate event that was unexpected and not controlled by the victim... It could be argued that this was not unexpected, was not an accident, and surely was avoidable.

Tragedy: an event causing great suffering, destruction, and distress, such as a serious accident, crime, or natural catastrophe

Atrocity: an extremely wicked or cruel act, typically one involving physical violence or injury

After reading those definitions, one can again see that atrocious acts can result in tragedy.

-Sal

[Sal]

Originally Posted by Zorba9

Until kids learn to accept the odd kids in their classes and not tease/belittle them, but instead go out of their way, if only to be pleasent to them, things won't change and unfortunately this will probably happen again.

Nothing more needs to be said. Bravo.

-Sal