[hmm. I just noticed this note in my “Draft” folder from this morning. I
thought I posted it, but apparently not. LH]
Adriano,
It sounds as though you know more about Breivik than I do. I have been
thinking from the little I’ve read about psychiatric epidemiology, assuming
that individual psychoses only get the attention of the Social Epidemiologist
if the psychosis is endemic in a given society, but perhaps I have gone too.
On the other hand, you are saying, I think, that differences of a political
nature are not psychoses, and I agree; so perhaps (and here I am not quite
ready to agree) if individuals carry out a doctrine to a logical conclusion (as
they see it) and murder people opposed to the doctrine, they are being
political; which I agree with, but I also think I see psychotic element in the
implementation of certain of these beliefs.
Years ago I was in a debate about abortion. There were individuals who were
taking opposition to abortion to a logical extreme and killing doctors who
performed abortions. I was arguing with a seminary professor from the East
Coast (in a forum the name of which I can’t remember). I argued that
Christians ought to police themselves in accordance with their own doctrines.
If one of their doctrines was opposition to abortion and one of their members
had an abortion, she should be disciplined and possibly removed from the church
roles, but Christians had no business killing abortion doctors. The seminary
professor surprised me by saying, “but someone has to protect the children.”
If I remember correctly, this seminary professor had one of the individuals
that subsequently killed a doctor who performed abortions in some of his
classes. I wondered at the time, but didn’t ask, whether any of the
professor’s teachings might have been stressors that contributed to this
seminary student killing a doctor.
I have been inclined to think that those who believe that individuals who hold
opposing views should be killed have a psychological pathology. Modern
psychiatry hedges its definition of this trait: “Antisocial personality
disorder is a mental condition in which a person has a long-term pattern of
manipulating, exploiting, or violating the rights of others without any
remorse. This behavior may cause problems in relationships or at work and is
often criminal. [from <https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/000921.htm>
https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/000921.htm]
And I have wondered whether this “antisocial personality disorder” isn’t at
least partially caused by poor teaching when the individual was a child. We
are a species with few instincts and need to be taught how to behave when we
are children. If we are raised by wolves, we will behave (to some extent) like
a wolf when we grow older.
Lawrence
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On ;
Behalf Of adriano paolo shaul gershom palma
Sent: Sunday, April 07, 2019 7:45 AM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Examples of pathological epidemiology and their
stressors
for the record, Breivik on Utoya killed some5 scores of people who were
members of teh youth league of the labour organizations.
that Breivik is far more cretinous than 'unabomber' I have seldom any doubt.
his killing was a political act,in standard terminology the usual nazi thug
killing people of the left. I fail to see why that is
psychopathological, unless one thinks that any political fight is
psychopathology which defeates the argument's bones. Albeit for some difficult
to swallow, this is the form of political combat in europe now, from Donbass to
oslo
(Breivik also killed many by bombing the government wing in Oslo, quite like
McVeigh who bombed the federal building of Oklahoma city)
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
palma, a paolo shaul םֹשׁ ְרֵגּ
Er selbst bevorzugte undurchdringlich Klarheit
On Sun, Apr 7, 2019 at 6:12 AM Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> > wrote:
In regard to Anders Breivik, he said a lot of things about his motives, but
what he did was kill a bunch of people, most of whom, if looking at their
photos means anything, were Norwegian, or at least Northern Europeans. He
didn’t seek out just the people whose ethnicity or immigration status he was
opposed to. He killed people indiscriminately in order to publicize his
manifesto . . . which is what Ted Kaczynski did as well although Kaczynski
killed or tried to kill people involved in the technology he was opposed to.
“Two teams of court-appointed forensic psychiatrists
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forensic_psychiatrist> examined Breivik before
his trial <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Anders_Behring_Breivik> . The
first team diagnosed Breivik with paranoid schizophrenia
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoid_schizophrenia>
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Behring_Breivik#cite_note-20> [20] but
after this initial finding was criticized,
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Behring_Breivik#cite_note-21> [21] a
second evaluation concluded that he was not psychotic during the attacks but
did have narcissistic personality disorder
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disorder> .
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Behring_Breivik#cite_note-BBC100412-22>
[2 [from <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Behring_Breivik>
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Behring_Breivik]
Like Kaczynski, Breivik believed he knew best what his nation needed to do.
Can you believe you are smarter than everyone else and not be narcissistic?
Perhaps you can if you really are. Milton at an early age believed that he
could write an epic that would be the greatest of his age. In the opinion of
critics, he achieved his goal; so was he narcissistic? Does believing that you
are the greatest poet of your age by definition mean that you must be
narcissistic?
I didn’t read Breivik’s manifesto, but I did read Ted Kaczynski’s, and didn’t
think Kaczynski was narcissistic. What he believed didn’t sound so very
different from the arguments of Al Gore. . . but of course Al Gore may have
been . . .
“Since his imprisonment, Breivik has identified himself as a fascist
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascist>
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Behring_Breivik#cite_note-29> [29] and a
Nazi <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi> ,
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Behring_Breivik#cite_note-Dagen191115-30>
[30] who practices Odinism <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odinism>
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Behring_Breivik#cite_note-Dagen191115-30>
[30]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Behring_Breivik#cite_note-autogeneratedvl-31>
[31] and uses counterjihadist <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterjihad>
rhetoric to support ethno-nationalists
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethno-nationalists> .”
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Behring_Breivik#cite_note-Expo14-32>
[ibid]
Perhaps we could be permitted to say that in these modern times a lot of people
have spent a lot of time putting names to the activities of people who kill
other people indiscriminately in order to get a population at large to harken
to their ideas; which ideas when you read them seem fairly mundane. I’m sure
there are many Norwegians who object to non-integrating immigrants, but if any
of these Norwegians feel murderous, one might think they would choose as their
victims, these non-integrating immigrants and not an indiscriminate number of
their well-integrated fellow citizens.
General Sherman’s “march to the sea” was innovative when he did it. While U.
S. Grant and Robert E. Lee were killing each other’s forces by the thousands,
Sherman took his army into the south in order to destroy, not its people, but
the resources the South needed to continue fighting.
Since that time, various nations during wars have attempted to do the same
thing through bombing, e.g., “During World War II, it was believed by many
military strategists of air power <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_power>
that major victories could be won by attacking industrial and political
infrastructure, rather than purely military targets.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World_War_II#cite_note-15>
[15] Strategic bombing often involved bombing areas inhabited by civilians and
some campaigns were deliberately designed to target civilian populations in
order to terrorize and disrupt their usual activities. . . The effect of
strategic bombing was highly debated during and after the war.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World_War_II#cite_note-anesi.com-23>
[23]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World_War_II#cite_note-J.K._Galbraith_1958-24>
[24]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World_War_II#cite_note-Williamson_Murray_p._319-25>
[25]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World_War_II#cite_note-econ.yale.edu-26>
[26] Both the Luftwaffe and RAF failed to deliver a knockout blow by
destroying enemy morale. However some argued that strategic bombing of
non-military targets could significantly reduce enemy industrial capacity and
production
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World_War_II#cite_note-Buckley_1998,_p._165-27>
[27]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World_War_II#cite_note-Murray_1983,_p._253-28>
[28] and in the opinion of its interwar period
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interwar_period> proponents, the surrender of
Japan <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_of_Japan> vindicated strategic
bombing.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World_War_II#cite_note-29>
[29 [from
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World_War_II>
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World_War_II]
With these as examples, can we apply terms to individuals and applicable
national leaders who engage in this sort of killing in such a way as to exclude
it as a pathological social epidemic? Suicide, when there was a rash of them
triggered by such stressors as The Sorrows of young Werther, has been termed an
example of psychiatric epidemiology. So why not see indiscriminate killing of
others as another form of psychiatric epidemiology?
John Berryman’s father committed suicide and years later John did the same
thing: ‘In "Dream Song #143", he wrote, "That mad drive [to commit suicide]
wiped out my childhood. I put him down/while all the same on forty years I love
him/stashed in Oklahoma/besides his brother Will". In "Dream Song #145", he
also wrote the following lines about his father:
he only, very early in the morning,
rose with his gun and went outdoors by my window
and did what was needed.
I cannot read that wretched mind, so strong
& so undone. I've always tried. I–I'm
trying to forgive
whose frantic passage, when he could not live
an instant longer, in the summer dawn
left Henry to live on.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Berryman#cite_note-2> [2][from
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Berryman>
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Berryman]
Might we perhaps conclude that we are a species with very few instincts and so
need to be taught all that we need to know to function in society. If we are
taught as John Berryman, that suicide is an acceptable way to solve one’s
problems, then we are at the very least influenced by this teaching and some
percentage of people so taught will sometime later on use this method.
Lawrence
