Posted on 08/12/2004 10:30:46 AM PDT by Helms
bump
Your basic terrorist - say Mohammed Atta, Carlos the Jackal, the guy that beheaded the American in Saudi Arabia and kept the head in FREEZER. Well they are psychopaths and, if they lived in American, would have to content themselves with being serial killers.
But in the Islamic world - with its religious ideology - they are martyrs, great heroes.
My theory is that societies produce a given number of pychos. In some - like ours - they are marginalized and reduced to being the "killer on the road." In others - like Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russian and today's Islam - they find institutions and organizations where they are welcomed and allowed to practice their dark arts.
The reason I stick with good old fashioned pessimism is that in my religious pilgrimage (Fundamentalist Protestantism to Catholicism to investigation of Eastern chr*stianity to Noachism) I was greeted at each step with an allegedly more "optimistic" view of human nature than was warranted by either personal or historical experience.
Catholicism says that Protestantism is needlessly pessimistic about human nature. Eastern Orthodoxy says the same about Catholicism and Judaism/Noachism says the same about chr*stianity per se. Yet each religion has certainly been around long enough to know about human nature, has it not?
My own opinion is that the "we're more optimistic than you" line is a mistaken way of differentiating among the religions. The fact that devout Jews deal with sin by going to HaShem for forgiveness and making atonement isn't really that different from devout Catholic/Orthodox chr*stians who go to J*sus and do pennances (other than to add J*sus to the mix and insist that J*sus' "sacrifice" is what makes human effort of any effect, which to any Protestant or former Protestant is a purely theoretical difference). And as for radical Calvinistic Protestants, while their view of human nature may be truly more pessimistic than the others, even they insist on man's duty to obey a moral code, even if it has nothing to do with where one goes when he dies.
I guess what I'm saying is that the "we're optimists!" line was a real obstacle to my own religious progress and so I don't stress optimism about human nature (Judaism in fact says that man is born with his evil inclination but only receives his good one when he turns thirteen!). Certain aspects of Eastern Orthodox anthropology, for example, seem on the surface to clash with its insistent rejection of original sin. So maybe the rejection of original sin shouldn't be described as evidence of greater optimism at all, but should be explained some other way.
I don't suppose I'm making any sense. I suppose you'd have had to walked my path to understand what I'm saying here.
The famous philosopher Schopenhauer was proclaimed a pessimist and in his philosophy there are a multitude of references to Christianity.
My personal agnostic viewpoint is that Christianity is a highly realistic view of man and his animal nature, his suffering and inevitable death.
If you believe in our evolution through natural selection, we are indeed heroic and miraculous.
The staggering odds of existence and sentience is astonomical and pain and suffering are the wages we pay.
Agreed and Wahabbism is a great recruiting ground as are the Palestinian territories. Those hijacker's were cultivated psychopaths.
Radical Islam is a "meme" as well as a psychopathology.
I am aware of that. The point of my post was to challenge that facile assumption and to point out that the "optimistic"/"pessimistic" dichotomy also exists among the various forms of chr*stianity. Evidently I didn't make my point very well.
The famous philosopher Schopenhauer was proclaimed a pessimist and in his philosophy there are a multitude of references to Christianity.
My personal agnostic viewpoint is that Christianity is a highly realistic view of man and his animal nature, his suffering and inevitable death.
Judaism held this view before chr*stianity existed, though there are holy people such as Elijah who passed from the earth without actually dying ("`od 'Eliyahu chai"). The story of Adam's and Eve's sin in the Garden and the reduction of man from immortal to mortal (as well as his evil inclination becoming so much stronger than his good one) is from the Jewish Bible, not the "new testament." However, the idea that after a long historical descent an apocalypse will take place that will perfect the world is found also in the most "pessimistic" versions of chr*stianity.
If you believe in our evolution through natural selection, we are indeed heroic and miraculous.
If the universe is a random, meaningless coincidence, then nothing can be called either heroic or miraculous (except the initial existence of any sort of reality to begin with, which no form of scientism can pretend to explain). Why is the suffering of humans any different than one ant colony wiping out another or a "meteorite" killing off the "dinosaurs" or the explosion of some piece of rock in outer space? (As you can see, I interpret the Bible quite literally, especially the Torah).
Far be it for to say that there is no ultimate meaning in all this or even a supreme being/entity or force. But you cannot deny the dumb luck, chance and indeterminacy around us.
No matter how you cut it I believe that since we wandered out of the Serengeti and traveled throughout the world we have attained great things including the unlocking of natures secrets.
Man is heroic because we have transcended the animal world. Religion has been the beacon out of the darkness.
On an aside, didn't Jack Nicholson's character recognize that he was wound too tight?
While the psychopath has likes and dislikes and fondness for the pleasures that human company can bring, analysis shows that he is completely egocentric, valuing others only for their enhancement of his own pleasure or status. While he gives no real love, he is quite capable of inspiring love of sometimes fanatical degree in others. He is generally superficially charming and often makes a striking impression as possessed of the noblest of human qualities. He makes friends easily, and is very manipulative, using his ability with words to talk his way out of trouble. Many psychopaths love to be admired and bask in the adulation of others. With the lack of love, there is also a lack of empathy. The psychopath is unable to feel sorry for others in unfortunate situations or put himself in another's place, whether or not they have been harmed by him.
This identically parallels the symptoms of "attachment disorder", a disorder common in orphanage babies and children of parents with "attachment disorder". Experiments with monkeys in the early seventies showed that baby monkeys deprived of maternal nurturing in their infancy developed severe anti-social behaviors. (FWIW)
Bump for later reading.
Perhaps its my own shortcoming, but I've always thought of Liberals as sincere, and well intentioned. But that they view life and its participants through a 'utopia-is-possible' prism. For all their ballyhooed intellect, I would not expect to hear such analysis as this from them.
Long but worthwhile.
A wonderful read. Thank you so much for posting this.
Yes it does. In fact children with reactive attachment disorder are nothing more than child psychopaths. Having parented one, I can speak personally for this.
And Kerry is next in line. (McGreevy in NJ is another great example of an egocentric narcissist).
Notice that there is no real mention of Satanism as a possible cause, and he completely misses the whole "infant bonding/attachment disorder issue".
The psychopath personality profile also reminds me of most of the flagrant homosexuals that I know.
Did the child "grow out of it"?
'A Clockwork Orange' warmed my heart once. I had "adult relations" at 16 for the first time the next day. At HER house, while cutting school, and nobody was home:) LOL! But she bragged to her little girlfriends and everybody knew within short time. I think her dad spanked her:)
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