N and Eugene,
Have you read Dr Robert D. Hare's fascinating book "Without Conscience, the
disturbing world of the psychopaths among us"? ( psychopath and sociopath
are interchangeable terms)
Some interesting points, according to his studies:
- There may be lots of psychopaths, many of whom never do anything too
monstrous, (they just become politicians)
- Psychopath's EEG's show certain irregularties (weird-wiring)
- Psychopaths fail to recognize pain in other beings, in fact, they aren't
conscience of the reality of other beings, period.
(as I recall, genetic markers were not identified but I will check)
If Psychopaths are born and not made, can they be held responsible for
their crimes? Should children be screend for 'weird wiring'?
>QueeneMUSE@aol.com writes:
> It is a small percentage of killers who are psychotic in ways that are
> genetically predisposed. That behavior is predominately germinated, usually
> in seriously abusive home life. Actually, by the time they are "serial
> killers" it's too late to chat about why, rehabilition is pretty much
> pointless.
Eugene responded in part:
|Yeah, essentially one has to screen for them, and isolate them from
|the society, humanely, of course. (The old-testamentary type of
|justice would demand to kill such people on the spot, as soon as they
|manifest their pathological symptoms, but we're too civilized for that).
> IMO the laws today treat children as property - making it difficult to
> intervene in abuse situations. For purely selfish reasons (I'd like less
> violent offenders and predators) I would prefer if children were NOT
treated
> as property but rather as human beings with rights.
So, are you saying that one learns respect by being respected? How would
you describe the worst parenting mistakes? Treating kids like 'property'
that is, as things?
Someone mentioned having a 'childhood in hell' - What things did your
parents do? Fail to do?
~ankara
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