War Is Hell: Vietnam, Social Turmoil & the Serial Killer

[Deleted]

Sept 11, 2014 17:14:37 GMT pendleton said:

Sept 11, 2014 16:38:36 GMT tmacchallenger said:

Blaming 'social turmoil,' sounds like a convient excuse for these serial killer rapists to use instead of admitting they came from abusive households or were born with a sickness that they can't explain.

I'm not talking about "blaming" anyone. In order to blame someone, they need to have done something wrong. I'm trying to focus on stopping that "wrong" from ever happening. I'm not denying that there is a genetic factor at play here but what's to be done about that? How can you point to your finger at a baby and say "this child has the potential to be a serial killer"? We as a society enable these killers. We celebrate them and obsessive over them. This board is an example of that. So much thought, time, effort and money is spent trying to figure out who committed these crimes but so little is put into preventing them.  We call these killers animals, as if we're not,  but it's the same 'knee-jerk reaction' animal instinct that makes us take notice of them. 

I'm more with Agatha on this, but I think your research and thoughts on social turmoil are good and are another avenue to societal problems in general concerning violence.

I feel very strongly that psychopathology (any of the cluster B personality disorders whether they're a psychopath or not) is formed in childhood and that there has to be trauma to the child to trigger it - another factor whether it be genetic or harm to the brain during birth is probably at play, too, but it has to be triggered by another factor, imo. If we prevented that trauma, then we'd prevent psychopaths. The problem is how to do that. We know abuse/trauma is very damaging to a child, but how do we realistically prevent that from taking place? How do we make sure a child in infancy has their emotional and physical needs met and bonds? That bonding is enormously important to emotional health for the rest of their lives and goes a long way in preventing the narcissism necessary to form psychopathology. We could do a lot culturally and as a society to help, but we can't be in every home to prevent it.

[agatha]

PC, I agree. We can't expect, realistically, to avoid anti-social behavior. There are too many uncontrollable variables driving it. We can, however, make a far greater effort to re-engineer social values so that violence against women is unacceptable and absolutely not tolerated. Witness the latest circus around that football player who slugged his then-fiancé, and the reprehensible lack of appropriate response on the part of the NFL. And I won't even begin to go into the statements made by his NOW WIFE(??!!). This situation is symptomatic of our society's disregard for women and willingness to entertain any behavior in the interests of profit. Disgusting and shameful. If a woman can be knocked cold on camera and the perpetrator barely gets a slap on the wrist, how can we hope to address the issue of serial predators?

[tmacchallenger]

Sept 11, 2014 17:14:37 GMT pendleton said:

Sept 11, 2014 16:38:36 GMT tmacchallenger said:

Blaming 'social turmoil,' sounds like a convient excuse for these serial killer rapists to use instead of admitting they came from abusive households or were born with a sickness that they can't explain.

I'm not talking about "blaming" anyone. In order to blame someone, they need to have done something wrong. I'm trying to focus on stopping that "wrong" from ever happening. I'm not denying that there is a genetic factor at play here but what's to be done about that? How can you point to your finger at a baby and say "this child has the potential to be a serial killer"? We as a society enable these killers. We celebrate them and obsessive over them. This board is an example of that. So much thought, time, effort and money is spent trying to figure out who committed these crimes but so little is put into preventing them.  We call these killers animals, as if we're not,  but it's the same 'knee-jerk reaction' animal instinct that makes us take notice of them. 

Building more mental wards and keeping them there would be a good start. If a child is torturing and killing animals like someone like BTK, then I don't think there is another way to prevent them from further moving on to human prey. Nor do I see how society as a whole is responsible for their mental problems except for ignoring them or foolishly believing that they can be cured by some couch talk.