Well there are more reasons than just mental illness. Certainly most of the random acts or even serial acts come at the hands of lunatics. But I would argue this is not the majority of cases. Certainly not all 16,000 yearly cases in the US. There are perfectly sane, rational people that have committed murder. They may have acted in a fit of rage, and had "temporary insanity." The husband who finds his wife in bed with his best friend, goes to the closet, pulls out his shotgun, and blasts the two lovers. Up to that point, the guy had no verifiable mental illness or violent past. The guy knows right from wrong, and the boundaries are very clear. Yet one act triggered something in his brain. Seeing his wife in bed with his friend released a wave of chemicals that overpowered the parts of his brain responsible for controlling behavior. Unable to control his anger over his knowledge that killing these people is wrong, he murders them. Once the chemicals have subsided, and reason replaces rage, he may "come to his senses" and realize just what he's done. It is then when he either turns himself in, kills himself, runs, or tries to hide it.
This is a chemical process in the brain, and there might be any number of different triggers that unleash this flood. Another one is embarassment. In high school, I recall watching a video about a gardener who was tending to some woman's house. This guy was shy, mild-mannered, and completely non-violent. The guy had to urinate, and he did so right there in the garden, thinking no one was around. The woman saw him doing this, and started yelling at him. Completely overwhelmed with embarassing emotions, his brain was not acting properly. He failed to understand the consequences of his actions and instead sought to eradicate the source of his embarassment. He took his tools and killed the woman, right there at her house. A perfectly normal person up to that point, one single act triggered an event that led to him murdering the woman.
Yet another case for reasons of murder can be made for those people who believe very strongly in a cause. Anti-abortion activists are willing to kill doctors and clinic employees to further their cause. These people understand right from wrong. They know that murder is illegal and they are perfectly aware of the consequences. Yet they feel their cause is so much more valuable and meaningful that they are willing to accept the consequences and essentially martyr themselves. Abortion is so despicable to them that they feel violence and murder is justified in response to what the clinic is doing.
There are yet more causes. People who think only about themselves and essentially don't care about human life. Another person's life is of zero value, and right/wrong are just human social constructs that they do not need to obey. The Mob defines its own rules, its own code of conduct. Every man for himself, essentially. They may be loyal to other mobsters, but in the end all they really care about is themselves. Mob killers have an understanding of what the society they live in deems right and wrong, and they are fully aware of the consequences if caught by said society. Yet this fact does not matter. They know they can probably get away with it. Look at Richard "The Iceman" Kuklinski. He is not a serial killer, by definition, as he did not derive any psycho-sexual thrill from what he was doing. He was a mob hitman, in addition to a cold-blooded business partner. He killed for any reason that was beneficial to himself. Tick him off, and you'll get it eventually. Mess up on a business deal, you're done.
Gang members are in this same category. They are the modern, albeit loosely organized and very de-centralized, Mob. They are willing to kill for selfish reasons, as well. Fights over territory, drug deals gone sour, historical disputes with a rival, or just out-and-out good for business. They are all fully aware of what they're doing and what the consequences are.
Murder is defined by society as something that is punishable. Kill another of your own kind and you are to be punished. This is a social construct, and not a biological one. Therefore as a social construct a person needs to be taught that murder is bad and that there is a punishment. Just like you have to teach children that they cannot just take items from a store without paying for them, as that is considered by society as stealing, you have to teach them that murder is wrong. Most children have no reason to kill, so this is not a hard lesson. Stealing is a more complex issue and requires liberal instruction.
We can look to nature for examples where murder... animals killing other animals of the same species... is done for selfish and biological reasons. The black widow spider is so named because after its eggs are fertilized by the male, the female spider kills and then eats the male. This provides additional nutrients for her young. Male African Lions when taking over a pride will kill the existing cubs in that pride. This ensures that his own offspring will have a better chance of surviving than those of the old male. Some would argue that this same biological tendency to refuse the existing offspring is what causes some stepchild abuses in human households after divorcees remarry.
In fact, there is a lot of study being done into the violent behaviors of animals in our ancestral family tree. Primates, in particular, are very violent. There is a book out titled <u>Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence.</u> Here is a snippet from a review of the book:
<i>"Of the five major primate groups in our family tree, four are rife with violent behavior and/or the sort of chauvinist social hierarchies we’ve seen in human beings over the course of history. Orangatans rape; chimpanzees raid and murder and kill infants, and force unwilling female chimps into sexual activity. Gorillas have a harem organization; baboons kill each other, fight over females and also force females into sexual activity. In fact, there are precious few of the things we might traditionally define as 'sin' or 'evil' that is not already prevalent somewhere in the primate world."</i> - <a href='http://tftb.com/deify/demonic.htm' target='_blank'>APES AND UZIS</a>
It seems that our biological make-up has a pre-disposition for violence. It is only our ability to think of other humans as something to cherish and sanctify that we are able to control ourselves and establish a social structure to punish those who actually partake in their primal instincts. Certainly sex is something that nature deems as a requirement to spread ones genes. Yet a human cannot just mate with anyone off the street. The human social construct says this is rape and punishable by imprisonment. Biologically speaking, it is only acting out upon an instinctual desire. Is it possible that murder too has biological reasons? Is it possible that certain people do not have the ability to control themselves at the same level as others do?
I want to kill everyone who has a "veteran" sig from that silly little NS quiz and thinks their leet, I can't be alone on that. This could be a cause for murder....
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Well there are more reasons than just mental illness. Certainly most of the random acts or even serial acts come at the hands of lunatics. But I would argue this is not the majority of cases. Certainly not all 16,000 yearly cases in the US. There are perfectly sane, rational people that have committed murder. They may have acted in a fit of rage, and had "temporary insanity." The husband who finds his wife in bed with his best friend, goes to the closet, pulls out his shotgun, and blasts the two lovers. Up to that point, the guy had no verifiable mental illness or violent past. The guy knows right from wrong, and the boundaries are very clear. Yet one act triggered something in his brain. Seeing his wife in bed with his friend released a wave of chemicals that overpowered the parts of his brain responsible for controlling behavior. Unable to control his anger over his knowledge that killing these people is wrong, he murders them. Once the chemicals have subsided, and reason replaces rage, he may "come to his senses" and realize just what he's done. It is then when he either turns himself in, kills himself, runs, or tries to hide it. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Now we boil down to the definition of "insane." What is insanity? It is defined <b>by society</b> to mean abnormal behavior. Abnormal behavior is a relative term. There are places in the world where they believe in multiple gods, and they wear little to no clothing throughout the year, yet a person wouldn't last 5 minutes like that on the streets of new york city without being put into the looney bin. There, that is perfectly normal behavior. I doubt they punish everybody in their tribe for not being this way. So you see, what some people consider "normal" in one society might be considered abnormal in another.
You can't say Joe is sane by the standards of the society, and then slaughters his wife and children because he was in a particularly bad mood that day. This is not normal behavior (in any society). At least I would like to think that not everyone in a particularly bad mood one day would kill their wife and kids like Joe. This is definitely positively abnormal behavior, thus making him INsane, not sane.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->This is a chemical process in the brain, and there might be any number of different triggers that unleash this flood. Another one is embarassment. In high school, I recall watching a video about a gardener who was tending to some woman's house. This guy was shy, mild-mannered, and completely non-violent. The guy had to urinate, and he did so right there in the garden, thinking no one was around. The woman saw him doing this, and started yelling at him. Completely overwhelmed with embarassing emotions, his brain was not acting properly. He failed to understand the consequences of his actions and instead sought to eradicate the source of his embarassment. He took his tools and killed the woman, right there at her house. A perfectly normal person up to that point, one single act triggered an event that led to him murdering the woman.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Again, an example of very abnormal behavior, thus making him INsane. You can say he was sane all you want, but to me, he would be quite insane for that action. If a person is born and raised perfectly normal, and then kills 50 people, I wouldn't say he was all so perfectly sane before the incident. He acted abnormally to a situation normal people would have acted normally upon. Whether it is 50 people or 1 person, it doesn't matter. Insane is insane is insane is insane. As far as i'm concerned, if you've killed a person ANY time during your life, you were insane your entire life, not at any one particular frame and then sane the next. Insanity isn't a state of mind, but a way of thinking. If Charles Manson was perfectly normal up to the point before he killed all those people, then everyone would be killing people at his age.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Now we boil down to the definition of "insane." What is insanity? It is defined <b>by society</b> to mean abnormal behavior. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well I think your definition of insane is a little off. Webster's defines insanity as "mentally unsound or deranged; demented; mad." This in clinical terms usually refers to someone who has suffered from dementia, as a result of some kind of trauma or disease to brain tissue. However this clinical definition does not coincide with a societal definition of "abnormal." A goth who pierces every piece of his/her body, dresses in solid black and wears white make-up might be considered as a person who exhibits abnormal behavior. Abnormal means atypical, not normal, not average, or unusual. This goth, however, is not insane.
By the same token, not all murderers are insane. If you want to treat all murderers as insane, then they will all get a trip to the mental hospital instead of death row, as they are not technically responsible for their actions. You may consider them abnormal, and I would agree with that, since the majority of people do not murder. And just to be clear, psychologically insane people suffering from dementia are fully capable of murder. However insanity... a deranged and demented person... is only one reason for why someone would murder. Insanity is not the same thing as abnormal. And I think insanity is only a small piece of the total number. There are many, many other reasons, and I've listed some of them out. I believe there are biological reasons for why a perfectly healthy, active, sane brain might be susceptible to provocation for murder.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->If Charles Manson was perfectly normal up to the point before he killed all those people, then everyone would be killing people at his age. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Making this kind of connection is not valid, for many reasons. A) You don't know what triggered Manson to kill other people, B) you don't know that it has anything to do with age, and C) you don't know how every person on this planet would react given the same set of circumstances. Every person on this planet is different. We are all wired a little bit differently. Even identical twins have differences. An event that triggers reaction in one person's brain will not do the same for 100% of the population.
You may classify a person as "normal" if they don't murder anyone. Your assumption is that if they do murder someone, they must have been abnormal and "insane" their entire life. This only works if you assume that people's brains are incapable of changing and are incapable of being influenced by other factors. This is simply not the case. The brain ages. The brain changes constantly. The brain can be influenced by foreign chemicals ingested by the person... illegal drugs, alchohol, medicine, you name it. The brain can get flooded with hormones as a result of a traumatic experience. The brain can suffer physical harm as the result of an injury. All of these things are capable of altering the mental state of a person. This person might also be characterized as 100% society-definition normal, up until the brain-altering event.
This brain-altering event can directly impact the brain's ability to perform logic and also its reaction to stimuli. The reaction to this stimuli might be to fly into a fit of rage and kill someone. This person, while completely normal up to that point, has suddenly been triggered to do something violent. The root cause could be any number of things I listed. The brain has changed, and it is no longer "normal."
That is the chemical and biological reason for how a normal, sane person might one day turn into a murderer. Again, there are numerous cases for where not even that is required. There are people capable of killing others purely for selfish reasons. They do not prescribe to society's rules. Are they insane, by clinical definition? No. Are they abnormal? Most certainly. Are you and I capable of one day having our brain's affected and thus end up capable of murder? Yes. No one can say that they won't ever go through a brain-altering event that turns them into a violent person. One car accident, one serious head trauma, a concussion, a brain disease, a reaction to a prescription drug (or an illegal one,) or even an emotionally traumatic event. Every person on this planet can fall victim to one of these things. Some people even have a genetic pre-disposition for their brain's susceptibility to chemical influences. Yet you have to consider all of these people as normal today.
Luckily brain-altering events are not as trivial as just a routine bad mood, so you don't have to worry (too much) about your girlfriend killing you every 28 days. Unless the bad mood persists for a long period of time and is joined by a host of other symptoms, like lack of energy, change in sleep patterns, change in diet, depression, abrupt mood swings, thoughts of suicide, etc. Then you might have something more on your hands and you should keep all sharp objects and weapons away from them.
I always found it funny that we gas the carefully planning killers, but not the insane killers.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I'll bet anything that while your watching the quiet one a noisy one will freaking kill you! - George Carlin <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Comments
it would be hard to put yourself in their position and try to figure out wot they are thinking.
This is a chemical process in the brain, and there might be any number of different triggers that unleash this flood. Another one is embarassment. In high school, I recall watching a video about a gardener who was tending to some woman's house. This guy was shy, mild-mannered, and completely non-violent. The guy had to urinate, and he did so right there in the garden, thinking no one was around. The woman saw him doing this, and started yelling at him. Completely overwhelmed with embarassing emotions, his brain was not acting properly. He failed to understand the consequences of his actions and instead sought to eradicate the source of his embarassment. He took his tools and killed the woman, right there at her house. A perfectly normal person up to that point, one single act triggered an event that led to him murdering the woman.
Yet another case for reasons of murder can be made for those people who believe very strongly in a cause. Anti-abortion activists are willing to kill doctors and clinic employees to further their cause. These people understand right from wrong. They know that murder is illegal and they are perfectly aware of the consequences. Yet they feel their cause is so much more valuable and meaningful that they are willing to accept the consequences and essentially martyr themselves. Abortion is so despicable to them that they feel violence and murder is justified in response to what the clinic is doing.
There are yet more causes. People who think only about themselves and essentially don't care about human life. Another person's life is of zero value, and right/wrong are just human social constructs that they do not need to obey. The Mob defines its own rules, its own code of conduct. Every man for himself, essentially. They may be loyal to other mobsters, but in the end all they really care about is themselves. Mob killers have an understanding of what the society they live in deems right and wrong, and they are fully aware of the consequences if caught by said society. Yet this fact does not matter. They know they can probably get away with it. Look at Richard "The Iceman" Kuklinski. He is not a serial killer, by definition, as he did not derive any psycho-sexual thrill from what he was doing. He was a mob hitman, in addition to a cold-blooded business partner. He killed for any reason that was beneficial to himself. Tick him off, and you'll get it eventually. Mess up on a business deal, you're done.
Gang members are in this same category. They are the modern, albeit loosely organized and very de-centralized, Mob. They are willing to kill for selfish reasons, as well. Fights over territory, drug deals gone sour, historical disputes with a rival, or just out-and-out good for business. They are all fully aware of what they're doing and what the consequences are.
Murder is defined by society as something that is punishable. Kill another of your own kind and you are to be punished. This is a social construct, and not a biological one. Therefore as a social construct a person needs to be taught that murder is bad and that there is a punishment. Just like you have to teach children that they cannot just take items from a store without paying for them, as that is considered by society as stealing, you have to teach them that murder is wrong. Most children have no reason to kill, so this is not a hard lesson. Stealing is a more complex issue and requires liberal instruction.
We can look to nature for examples where murder... animals killing other animals of the same species... is done for selfish and biological reasons. The black widow spider is so named because after its eggs are fertilized by the male, the female spider kills and then eats the male. This provides additional nutrients for her young. Male African Lions when taking over a pride will kill the existing cubs in that pride. This ensures that his own offspring will have a better chance of surviving than those of the old male. Some would argue that this same biological tendency to refuse the existing offspring is what causes some stepchild abuses in human households after divorcees remarry.
In fact, there is a lot of study being done into the violent behaviors of animals in our ancestral family tree. Primates, in particular, are very violent. There is a book out titled <u>Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence.</u> Here is a snippet from a review of the book:
<i>"Of the five major primate groups in our family tree, four are rife with violent behavior and/or the sort of chauvinist social hierarchies we’ve seen in human beings over the course of history. Orangatans rape; chimpanzees raid and murder and kill infants, and force unwilling female chimps into sexual activity. Gorillas have a harem organization; baboons kill each other, fight over females and also force females into sexual activity. In fact, there are precious few of the things we might traditionally define as 'sin' or 'evil' that is not already prevalent somewhere in the primate world."</i> - <a href='http://tftb.com/deify/demonic.htm' target='_blank'>APES AND UZIS</a>
It seems that our biological make-up has a pre-disposition for violence. It is only our ability to think of other humans as something to cherish and sanctify that we are able to control ourselves and establish a social structure to punish those who actually partake in their primal instincts. Certainly sex is something that nature deems as a requirement to spread ones genes. Yet a human cannot just mate with anyone off the street. The human social construct says this is rape and punishable by imprisonment. Biologically speaking, it is only acting out upon an instinctual desire. Is it possible that murder too has biological reasons? Is it possible that certain people do not have the ability to control themselves at the same level as others do?
Now we boil down to the definition of "insane." What is insanity? It is defined <b>by society</b> to mean abnormal behavior. Abnormal behavior is a relative term. There are places in the world where they believe in multiple gods, and they wear little to no clothing throughout the year, yet a person wouldn't last 5 minutes like that on the streets of new york city without being put into the looney bin. There, that is perfectly normal behavior. I doubt they punish everybody in their tribe for not being this way. So you see, what some people consider "normal" in one society might be considered abnormal in another.
You can't say Joe is sane by the standards of the society, and then slaughters his wife and children because he was in a particularly bad mood that day. This is not normal behavior (in any society). At least I would like to think that not everyone in a particularly bad mood one day would kill their wife and kids like Joe. This is definitely positively abnormal behavior, thus making him INsane, not sane.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->This is a chemical process in the brain, and there might be any number of different triggers that unleash this flood. Another one is embarassment. In high school, I recall watching a video about a gardener who was tending to some woman's house. This guy was shy, mild-mannered, and completely non-violent. The guy had to urinate, and he did so right there in the garden, thinking no one was around. The woman saw him doing this, and started yelling at him. Completely overwhelmed with embarassing emotions, his brain was not acting properly. He failed to understand the consequences of his actions and instead sought to eradicate the source of his embarassment. He took his tools and killed the woman, right there at her house. A perfectly normal person up to that point, one single act triggered an event that led to him murdering the woman.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Again, an example of very abnormal behavior, thus making him INsane. You can say he was sane all you want, but to me, he would be quite insane for that action. If a person is born and raised perfectly normal, and then kills 50 people, I wouldn't say he was all so perfectly sane before the incident. He acted abnormally to a situation normal people would have acted normally upon. Whether it is 50 people or 1 person, it doesn't matter. Insane is insane is insane is insane. As far as i'm concerned, if you've killed a person ANY time during your life, you were insane your entire life, not at any one particular frame and then sane the next. Insanity isn't a state of mind, but a way of thinking. If Charles Manson was perfectly normal up to the point before he killed all those people, then everyone would be killing people at his age.
Well I think your definition of insane is a little off. Webster's defines insanity as "mentally unsound or deranged; demented; mad." This in clinical terms usually refers to someone who has suffered from dementia, as a result of some kind of trauma or disease to brain tissue. However this clinical definition does not coincide with a societal definition of "abnormal." A goth who pierces every piece of his/her body, dresses in solid black and wears white make-up might be considered as a person who exhibits abnormal behavior. Abnormal means atypical, not normal, not average, or unusual. This goth, however, is not insane.
By the same token, not all murderers are insane. If you want to treat all murderers as insane, then they will all get a trip to the mental hospital instead of death row, as they are not technically responsible for their actions. You may consider them abnormal, and I would agree with that, since the majority of people do not murder. And just to be clear, psychologically insane people suffering from dementia are fully capable of murder. However insanity... a deranged and demented person... is only one reason for why someone would murder. Insanity is not the same thing as abnormal. And I think insanity is only a small piece of the total number. There are many, many other reasons, and I've listed some of them out. I believe there are biological reasons for why a perfectly healthy, active, sane brain might be susceptible to provocation for murder.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->If Charles Manson was perfectly normal up to the point before he killed all those people, then everyone would be killing people at his age. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Making this kind of connection is not valid, for many reasons. A) You don't know what triggered Manson to kill other people, B) you don't know that it has anything to do with age, and C) you don't know how every person on this planet would react given the same set of circumstances. Every person on this planet is different. We are all wired a little bit differently. Even identical twins have differences. An event that triggers reaction in one person's brain will not do the same for 100% of the population.
You may classify a person as "normal" if they don't murder anyone. Your assumption is that if they do murder someone, they must have been abnormal and "insane" their entire life. This only works if you assume that people's brains are incapable of changing and are incapable of being influenced by other factors. This is simply not the case. The brain ages. The brain changes constantly. The brain can be influenced by foreign chemicals ingested by the person... illegal drugs, alchohol, medicine, you name it. The brain can get flooded with hormones as a result of a traumatic experience. The brain can suffer physical harm as the result of an injury. All of these things are capable of altering the mental state of a person. This person might also be characterized as 100% society-definition normal, up until the brain-altering event.
This brain-altering event can directly impact the brain's ability to perform logic and also its reaction to stimuli. The reaction to this stimuli might be to fly into a fit of rage and kill someone. This person, while completely normal up to that point, has suddenly been triggered to do something violent. The root cause could be any number of things I listed. The brain has changed, and it is no longer "normal."
That is the chemical and biological reason for how a normal, sane person might one day turn into a murderer. Again, there are numerous cases for where not even that is required. There are people capable of killing others purely for selfish reasons. They do not prescribe to society's rules. Are they insane, by clinical definition? No. Are they abnormal? Most certainly. Are you and I capable of one day having our brain's affected and thus end up capable of murder? Yes. No one can say that they won't ever go through a brain-altering event that turns them into a violent person. One car accident, one serious head trauma, a concussion, a brain disease, a reaction to a prescription drug (or an illegal one,) or even an emotionally traumatic event. Every person on this planet can fall victim to one of these things. Some people even have a genetic pre-disposition for their brain's susceptibility to chemical influences. Yet you have to consider all of these people as normal today.
Luckily brain-altering events are not as trivial as just a routine bad mood, so you don't have to worry (too much) about your girlfriend killing you every 28 days. Unless the bad mood persists for a long period of time and is joined by a host of other symptoms, like lack of energy, change in sleep patterns, change in diet, depression, abrupt mood swings, thoughts of suicide, etc. Then you might have something more on your hands and you should keep all sharp objects and weapons away from them.
I always found it funny that we gas the carefully planning killers, but not the insane killers.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I'll bet anything that while your watching the quiet one a noisy one will freaking kill you! - George Carlin <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->