Recipe for a Unabomber

[Cyborg Girl]

Read this, please:

http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/is ... /chase.htm

And tell me what you think.

My take:
- Henry Murray should have been brought to court for running abusive, destructive experiments on his students (yes seriously).
- Kaczinsky's ends-justify-the-means rationalization is perfectly bloody understandable given what he went through. An experience like that is guaranteed to induce PTSD with a side of misanthropy.
- The "ethics of the day" haven't changed much, actually; we're still doing this brainwashing shit in the name of national security.
- We need specific laws against brainwashing, gaslighting, and emotional torture, not just physical violence. This includes prohibiting the state from doing such things. Yeah, I know; good luck with that...
- Violence, even purely emotional violence, tends to beget more violence. Well, duh.

But I think Chase misses the point towards the end. The truly evil person here was Murray, not Kaczinsky. Kaczinsky was lashing out because he was angry and damaged; he was broken, as broken as any schizophrenic. He did evil because he'd been destroyed as a personality. Whereas Murray orchestrated the deliberate, calculated destruction of others, to satisfy his curiosity and (ultimately) out of selfish reasons. That is a much greater kind of evil, IMO, and also IMO not explicable by intellectual arrogance alone.

Still, I hope Chase's book embeds itself in the popular consciousness. These times call for a good dose of skepticism towards authority figures, and authority in general.

[The Supreme Canuck]

Well, no, see... just because Kaczinsky's acts were caused by something (and it's important to note that correlation does not imply causation - he was mistreated, but so were others who didn't go on a bombing spree) doesn't absolve him of responsibility. Just having a reason for doing something doesn't make an evil act less evil.

Maybe my wife cheats on me. This causes me to choose to hit her. I have a reason for acting wrongly. Am I absolved because she did something to cause me to choose to act?
Maybe my neighbour parks in front of my house, annoying me. This causes me to choose to set the car on fire. I have a reason for acting wrongly. Am I absolved because he did something to cause me to choose to act?
Maybe I was abused as a child. This causes me to choose to mistreat my own child when I'm an adult. I have a reason for acting wrongly. Am I absolved because my abuser did something to cause me to choose to act?

Now apply that to Kaczinsky.

He did those things. He chose to do them. He, therefore, is the morally culpable party.

Yes, maybe his mistreatment contributed to why he did it... but he still did it. To suggest otherwise is to suggest that all people who have suffered serious mental trauma or are mentally ill are not moral agents. That they are not responsible for any of the evil -- or good -- that they do, ever. I can't accept that. It's patent nonsense.

The article is interesting in that it allows us to understand what happened. But it does nothing at all to convince me that I should absolve Kaczinsky of anything.

Yes, Murray acted wrongly. Criminally, even. But so did Kaczinsky. Why can't we accept that both are culpable for their own misdeeds?

(Before you object that he wasn't morally culpable, and thus did not "choose" to act as he did, because, perhaps, he was mentally ill... no. The court determined otherwise. If he was incapable of moral culpability due to mental illness, he would have been found not guilty on those grounds, and committed to a mental institution until he was no longer a threat to others. That's the "insanity defence." That this didn't happen indicates he was entirely capable of being a moral agent and thus did in fact choose to act as he did.)

[Cyborg Girl]

Re what the court found, courts find approximations. Legally they did not consider him insane. That does not mean he was definitively in a sane frame of mind.

In any case I do think he was morally culpable - but more in a "crime of passion" way, even if his bombings were premeditated. Whereas Murray was inflicting psychological pain on people in a very calculated fashion. In both cases we're talking about serious crimes, but IMO the latter is the worse by far.

Then again, you know me; I tend to sympathize with people who have been fucked over by The System. So it's not like I'm looking at this without biases.

Edit: looking at this post, my use of the words "by far" strikes me as perhaps a little extreme; seeing as Murray didn't, you know, actually murder anyone. But for now I'll stand by what I've said. What can I say, at heart I'm not a consequentialist.

[The Supreme Canuck]

Yeah, we're going to have to disagree, here. I'm no consequentialist, either. My point is that, no matter what happened to Kaczinsky, he was still in control of his actions. He chose to do what he did. That's on him, not Murray, because Murray didn't make those choices. He didn't even do anything that could be reasonably be foreseen to cause Kaczinsky to make those choices. Hell, what he did may not have caused Kaczinsky to do anything - what about all those other people in Murray's "study," eh? They didn't go on a bombing spree.

Kaczinsky is responsible for his own actions.

[Cyborg Girl]

Yeah, IMO "free will" and "responsibility" are not real things. Useful but not real.

To quote George E.P. Box: "Essentially all models are wrong, but some are useful."

Some people consider free will to be a lie, an absolute self-deception. I'd take a less nihilistic view, and say it's to psychology what Newtonian mechanics is to physics. You need it if you want to get anything useful done, but as an approximation it's fundamentally wrong, and breaks down visibly under extreme conditions (such as torture and brainwashing).

[The Supreme Canuck]

...uh huh. Well then. As I said: we'll need to disagree.

[Cyborg Girl]

Fine by me. Peaceable disagreement is what keeps civilization from collapsing.

[SciFiFisher]

Well,Maybe my neighbour parks in front of my house, annoying me. This causes me to choose to set the car on fire. I have a reason for acting wrongly. Am I absolved because he did something to cause me to choose to act?

Completely justified. The Wanker should have known not to park in your spot.

[The Supreme Canuck]

There's a reason I chose that example. Frickin' neighbours...

[SciFi Chick]

I'm with TSC on this. I, and many of my friends and relatives have been through extreme abuse. I'd say the abuse my mother went through was far worse than what my father went through, but my father turned into an asshole who abused me as badly as he was abused, while my mother turned into a fierce protector that raised me with good morals and love. My husband has also been through abuse, and while he will certainly indulge in a great amount of hyperbole, he is one of the most gentle men I've ever met. He's far bigger and stronger than I am, and yet he has never hurt me physically, even as an accident.

I'm perfectly okay with saying that what my father went through broke him, but he still bears responsibility for his actions. Otherwise, the good that my mother and husband have done are meaningless, because it means no one is responsible or able to choose their actions. I know for a fact that I've chosen to change my behavior on more than one occasion. FWIS is a fine example. I used to be downright trigger happy when someone said something that offended me. I ended up hurting friends on more than one occasion, until the day I realized that I was causing pain to people I care about. Now, I work harder on communication in this format because I don't have the benefit of body language or tone of voice cues. It was a choice I made - to be a better person.

I've wanted to do violence to people before, but I don't. Because even though I believe there are places for violence (self defense and protecting those I love), unless I'm literally being threatened, it doesn't matter how big an asshole someone is. Even if Kaczinsky snapped, his method was both cowardly and risked the lives of innocent (read not his target) people.

I'll say again that I agree with TSC. The idea that we can't make any choices, that everything is predestined, is abhorrent to me, and very not believable.

I guaran-damn-tee you I wasn't predestined to take this crazy trip across the Pacific.

[Cyborg Girl]

@SFC: you got me there, I'm not willing to let your father off the hook. Which probably means my thoughts on Kaczinsky have more to do with my own biases than any logic.

Re predestination, I don't believe in it. What I do believe is that humans are fundamentally pretty maleable, at least on a physiological level. A brain tumor in the wrong place can turn anyone into a psychopath. And seeing as psychological trauma also generates structural changes in the brain...

Like I said, free will and responsibility are very useful concepts, but that doesn't make them any more real than Newtonian mechanics. These are models we use, and they're helpful if we treat them as such, but treating them as objective facts can be hazardous. IMO anyway.

I guess the point I'm getting at is that there's a threshold beyond which you can't say a person is fully culpable. We can all agree that gross physical changes to the brain are beyond that threshold, but the line is blurrier for psychological trauma. My view of where the threshold lies seems to be a bit different than yours and TSC's.

[FZR1KG]

TDWTD

[Cyborg Girl]

I'm afraid I don't understand.

(Maybe that's your point? )

[Cyborg Girl]

BTW I have to point out that, at least by my standards, any criminal who bothers to loudly proclaim "I am not morally culpable!" is pretty much guaranteed to be morally culpable...

[SciFi Chick]

BTW I have to point out that, at least by my standards, any criminal who bothers to loudly proclaim "I am not morally culpable!" is pretty much guaranteed to be morally culpable...

Oh yeah. That reminds me of one of my biggest pet peeves in fiction: the villain who blames the hero for what's about to happen. I have no patience with that, WHATSOEVER!!!

[FZR1KG]

I'm afraid I don't understand.

(Maybe that's your point? )

TooDrunkWayTooDeep

It's a bit like debating the merits of masturbating with ribbed vs non ribbed condoms.
If you're debating it, you've totally missed the point of condoms.

Such is this topic. People need to take more personal responsibility, not be given free passes for whatever reason seems trending.

I know I shot 40 people officer, but, they played Eminem at the Subway and then gave me Swiss cheese instead of American cheese and I just lost it!
Ok , I understand son, that must have been unbelievably traumatic. Just go home and enjoy your day and listen to some Enya, we'll send a pizza your way complements of the Po-lice department. We'll take care of this mess. Would you like fries with that?

[Cyborg Girl]

... Yeah, that is not what I'm arguing for at all, and honestly I'm kind of annoyed you're taking it that way.

The reason I use the Newtonian mechanics analogy is that Newton's laws are "real enough", insofar as they apply in everyday situations. But see again what I said about things breaking down under extremes.

The techniques used in Murray's experiments, BTW, were basically psychoanalytic techniques - only applied the opposite way, to deliberately break a person instead of helping them. That is pretty much as extreme as you can get in assaulting another person without getting physical about it.

That's not "mitigating circumstances," it doesn't make Kaczinsky's actions less wrong, but I damn well guarantee you that some people will invariably do horrible things if treated that way; in exactly the same way that you or I would do horrible things if someone surgically removed all the inhibitory stuff in our forebrains.

Edit: tl;dr I'm not calling for abandonment of the concept of responsibility, that would be stupid. I'm calling for a) recognition that it's a useful model, not an inherent law of nature; and b) more to the point, not letting people like Murray get away with evil shit just because they're smart/famous/powerful/whatever.

[Cyborg Girl]

Speaking of smart, BTW, take a look at part 4 of the Atlantic article.

The real story of Ted Kaczynski is one of the nature of modern evil -- evil that results from the corrosive powers of intellect itself, and its arrogant tendency to put ideas above common humanity.

Maybe my bias again, but this vexes the hell out of me.

Chase makes a very good point about the attraction of revolutionary, violent solutions here - I was exposed to some of this crap myself in college, in left-leaning sociology classes no less.

But that random quote about "the corrosive powers of intellect itself" leaves a foul taste in my mouth. Really smart people do a lot more damage when they go bad, but pinning the blame on being too smart in and of itself seems like a great way to bring out the torch-and-pitchfork crowd - and believe me, that crowd is pretty big in America. I know from experience that people needn't be exceptionally smart to be exceptionally brutal on a personal level.

Edit: ... which is kind of ironic when you think about it, because Kaczinsky's whole schtick basically involved the destruction of all works of the human intellect.

Some of the most brilliant people I know are also just really great people, on a personal and social level. And they would have been targets for Kaczynski if he were still at large... And Chase seems to be delivering implicit criticism of all such intellectuals, on the basis that intellect begets evil.

I don't know, something about Chase's take on things isn't making sense to me. Suffice to say I'm not interested in seeing any of my friends get murdered, be it done by rogue intellectuals like Kaczynski or crowds of raging idiots with truncheons.

[FZR1KG]

Don't get annoyed GJ, drunks are always annoying

As for psychological shit, had that from my father.
If he felt I needed punishing it was either an electrical cord or pour dry beans on the floor and make me kneel on them for hours.
If I moved, I got a beating.
Ever hear me complain about my knees? Know you know why.

Every now and then, he would just yell, "shhht", we all had to go silent and not move or said beating would come.
He had me hold a pipe while he soldered it in summer and I was kneeling wearing shorts.
The molten lead poured onto my legs and if I moved , said beating would follow.

So yeah, sorry if I don't give a shit about some guy weak pathetic individual being poked a little psychologically but I've seen far worse and I don't need to blow things up.
I also know many good people that made my life seem like a picnic and they didn't have to resort to bombing people. They don't even seek revenge.

Here's my take on it, if you're already they type that what's to do something like that but needs someone to validate those urges to see them to fruition, don't blame the other person.
Someone like that would take silence as approval and others I've met treat disapproval as confirmation that they need to do something because I'm the one that has been brain washed by the system.

Just like a rabid dog, some people just need killin.
It's just the way it is and I really hope you don't meet these type of fuckers because you are a soft target for their exploits because of your kind nature.

While I disapprove of testing people like that and they need to be restrained and held liable to some extent, the individual who does the deed is more responsible.

As an example, if I were basically told the plan is to murder a whole bunch of people to make a some dumb assed point, I would, but it wouldn't be the intended victims let me assure you. No innocents would be harmed. Can't say how the intended perpetrators would come out but it wouldn't be pretty.

There is a line that no moral person would cross regardless of the pressure.
Knowing that I'm not the exception to this is what makes this world worth fighting for.
The idea that anyone can be made into a killer would just mean the human species has no right to exist and I can't abide that.
Seen too much evidence first hand to know it's not like that.

[Cyborg Girl]

By your logic above, since someone like Kaczinsky could turn me into a killer, I have no right to exist. Just thought I ought to point that out.

I used to be as confident about retribution as you, BTW. There was a time when I had a laundry list of people I knew, who I worried about a lot; people who I thought for some reason or another might be in danger, at some point. I told myself that, if anyone harmed such a person whom I held dear, I would find the offending party and do one hell of a number on them.

These days that list is pretty short (and the people on it aren't the ones you think). I'm not sure if that's because I've grown up a bit or because I've lost my way.

Anyway, please be mindful that "they needed killin'" can easily become the logic of a monster. Some people are certainly better off dead, but when a person takes justice into his or her own hands, it gets very easy to harm the innocent as well as the guilty.

[FZR1KG]

What makes you think you could be turned into a killer?
You aren't exactly impressionable anymore. You now have a good moral code and understand why.

If you were locked up for years and tortured and brainwashed, but, that's not what happened here.
He still lived in the free world and was not removed from things he knows.

I draw the distinction there. Anyone can be broken, that's been proved time and again but the effort to do so is relentless and involves stripping you of everything you know as part of the process. Can't happen on a part time basis. We've tortured you enough for today, see you for next weeks appointment, have a great day!
That's just garbage. The only people that would break then are the already broken.

If you want to blame the person doing the experiments then blame them for not filtering the people with already unstable minds.
Just blaming them for the events makes no sense.

In a sort of twist of irony, I do blame media, movies and record companies that put out stuff that depict wanton violence and glorify it.
It's not hypocritical, it's that there is no way to filter the audience and thus no way to know how it will affect certain people.
We all know Mozart won't affect someone to a rampage but also know it's quite possible with a deluded mind to do so with the right type of music for example.

The laws and freedom of speech standards don't agree with my view.
They should. Because I'm right because I'm awesome and getting quite tipsy, and the laws suck.
There are words that are considered fighting words.
There should likewise be standards for public media as well.

[The Supreme Canuck]

I disagree, FZ. Because a disturbed mind can react to anything. Charles Manson said that The Beatles' Helter Skelter is what drove him to violence and murder. He thought the song predicted an apocalyptic race war. Have you heard the song? Hardly a blood-soaked, race-baiting anthem.

Point being, if we restricted what you wanted to restrict, this song wouldn't have been included on the restricted list. Point further being, as you yourself have been arguing, people predisposed to serious or mass violence can be triggered by anything. Therefore the only way to prevent such people from being exposed to triggers is to ban everything. And I don't think you're advocating that.

Now, if we take the discussion away from obviously disturbed outliers and instead consider the norms a society holds... then, yeah, I can see a point to what you're saying. The insane glorification and fetishization of guns in US culture, for example, is unhealthy in the extreme. Something should be done about that. Not sure censorship is the answer, though, since up here in Canada we do fine on that front while still being exposed to exactly the same media, but something is fuckbusted.

[FZR1KG]

Now, if we take the discussion away from obviously disturbed outliers and instead consider the norms a society holds... then, yeah, I can see a point to what you're saying. The insane glorification and fetishization of guns in US culture, for example, is unhealthy in the extreme. Something should be done about that. Not sure censorship is the answer, though, since up here in Canada we do fine on that front while still being exposed to exactly the same media, but something is fuckbusted.

That's pretty much what I'm saying. While anything can trigger a truly sick mind we can't base things on that alone.
The thing I'm talking about is songs that promote killing police, women, other nationalities, anyone really.
That's not art to me, nor is it musical licence. it's an incite to commit crime and using the protections of freedom of speech to do it.

If you want to know what type of garbage I'm talking about, check out ICP.
if I was a serial killer lyrics
The sociopath that worked for us loved this band, he also admitted it made him want to try some of the things they sang about.
Wait till you meet someone that is a juggalo (a groupie of ICP) they all seem to revel in this shit.
It's just a question of time imho before someone decides to live that life.