It was just a debate. Speaking for myself I was completely calm - and I am getting the impression Epsilon is the same way: he seems like an intelligent guy.
From what I've heard of this guy, I feel nothing but pity... We'll likely never know why he did it, unless he's like the last guy who did something like this. Can't remember his name... From what I heard on the news though he sounds schizophrenic.
I don't agree with, ""often there are few indications to suggest these people are clinically insane." There is nearly always alarms in these cases. Most of the murderers mentioned on this thread here had at some point been flagged by police or social services. Like in child neglect cases in the UK, social services didn't follow up properly, and so these tragedies occurred. The measure of how much a government cares about its people is correlative to how much it invests in social services. Go figure.
I disagree. My dictionary defines “hate” as an intense dislike. It’s seems perfectly rational to intensely dislike someone who has killed a dozen innocent people. Let’s assume, just as a thought experiment, that he didn’t have any control over what he did. Surely it would still be rational to have an intense dislike of him? If a wild animal killed half a dozen people, it would be reasonable to intensely dislike that animal—even though the animal was only acting on instinct.
The dictionary definition falls short. After all, hate crimes are muchmore than extreme dislike crimes. Using extreme dislike as a substitute for hate makes the above argument a strawman fallacy.
I'm not about to compare humans to animals. And, I would consider it irrational to hate a predator. It's doing what it was born to do. Hating a person who murders is more understandable than hating a natural predator, but is still unacceptable. And I agree with Cogito (this time! ) that "hate" and "intense dislike" have very different social meanings. And so what I'm saying is that it is pointless and hurtful to play blame-games and spread hatred, especially in the aftermath. Justified or not, it helps no one, and it only spreads. Have you ever lived in a prolonged state of hate? It's miserable. Instead of spending all our energy hating a person or a cause or an event (and saying insulting things), why not gather what we have learned and try to improve or fixit? That makes for a healthier state of mind and a safer world. Anyway, we're getting off topic... My original post was merely to protest the posts of tactlessness and / or misunderstanding, as it just leads to more problems. As well as to voice my sorrow over the subject.
Hate is simply a natural result coming from a fear of outsiders. That's all. This ties in to the topic - fear and sex (or rebirth, in my opinion) are at the heart of every process humans, and all animals by definition, commence into. Fear is the most basic of all dark emotions that trive in the Shadow, and when this grows too large, people snap. There are a number of different results of this, but I need not expand on these.
--Well said. Apparently, during an argument with some colleagues in a pub the night before, he warned that "there is going to be a massacre", before storming out. He also tried to check himself into a mental health unit a few weeks ago, according to one news station.
The motivation for someone to go out and murder a bunch of innocent people will remain a mystery simply due to how complicated human cognition is. Why did they do it? What were they thinking? You know, a clear explanation will never be offered to the public or the families and friends of the victims. We will never know if this act of mass murder was conscious or unconsciously done (presuming that clinically insane people are not aware of the magnitude of their actions/ unable to consolidate their actions/are unable to empathize). The fact of the matter is, innocent people are dead, and in my opinion, all the available focus and energy now needs to be placed in nursing the grief that has resulted, and trying to make sure this tragedy does not happen again. This is not to say that feelings towards the perpetrator are unfounded - I just think the focus should lay somewhere else.
I have suddenly lost what little respect I had left for you. People who pass judgement so quickly and have the power to do something are part of the problem. If hate corrodes the soul, I'd say yours is in trouble. You tell us to tone it down when your posts are some of the angriest and offensive? My brother was at risk of becoming like the kids who attacked Columbine. To call it a pure attention-seeking act is insulting and ignorant. You have no idea what some of these people have been through, how they have been treated to have all their suffering be ignored, to believe they can't do anything write. It's different for every case, but with school shootings, they all had a long history of serious abuse, at school or at home. Yes, they do want to be noticed, but it's not a simple, "Hey, look at me!" It's to gain attention to how the behaviour of others have hurt them, to teach a lesson about the way bullying effects people, and to punish the bullies. From a certain point of view, the people who stand by and do nothing are just as guilty, which is one reason why they will shoot anyone. Kimveer Gill said so himself just before he attacked Dawson College in 2006. He wanted to call attention to the abuse that goes on in society, especially at school. He wanted revenge. People claim that there were very few signs, if any, that there was something wrong. If anyone had given a ****, they would have found them. Kimveer Gill's blog and hand-written journal showed just how unstable he was. And don't you dare try to assume what someone is thinking when they commit suicide, or what motivates them to do so. That doesn't make what they did okay. I am a pacifist and would never even pinch someone unless I had no other choice. At the same time, it doesn't mean I can't think of what drove the person to that decision. If we ignore those factors and only hate them, it means we can never prevent it from happening again.
I agree with your opinions. I think people tend to forget that the perpetrator was also a victim. There was a loss of life on both sides.
Re Cog on hate: I disagree. This is the widely accepted meaning of “hate”. Accepted by both lexicographers and many philosophers alike. You can’t just change the meaning to suit. The straw man does not exist. Your “emotional acid that corrodes the soul” definition is simply your own personal definition. You’ve created the straw man. Many, such as me, would point out that there probably isn’t such thing as a soul, that we are simply conscious lumps of meat. Plus, even if one accepts that “hate” is an emotional acid, it is still a rational response in certain circumstances. Severe pain is horrendous, but perfectly rational if one loses a foot. Similarly, a destructive emotion such as hate is perfectly rational in certain circumstances. In fact, the absence of such an emotion may in itself indicate sociopathic tendencies. So to show hatred towards someone who has killed a large umber of people, should people chose to show it, can hardly be criticised. I think the danger with the “compassion for the perpetrator” type of argument is that, paradoxically, it shows a lack of human feeling generally. I understand why some feel the perpetrator is a victim. This is the rational response, the intelligent response. We live in a deterministic universe and therefore are not truly free to choose what we do. Therefore no one deserves to be punished. We are all victims of cause and effect. However, while rational and seemingly compassionate, this is a response that, when examined, lacks any sort of real human emotion. It is an appeal science and the philosophy of determinism. Taken to its logical conclusion, we wouldn’t punish anyone for a crime, because they were never truly free in the first place. What makes us human is our irrational compassion, a compassion that transcends science and logic and philosophy. Compassion based on science and determinism has very uncomfortable consequences, risking the destruction of what makes us caring human beings.
Don't worry Eternity, there is still good news around. The Rolling Stones haven't split up yet! Thank you. I was meaning to write that myself in my last post on this thread; I'm not sure why i didn't write it but I don't believe in souls either. As I said before, Hate is a natural emotion that is perfectly normal; coming from a fear of outsiders. I fully agree with your post - to go back to my first post on this thread, there are many reasons for someone doing this, only one of which is 'seeking attention'. I've been into a Psychiatric ward and have actually seen a fully grown man in his late 30s crawling on the floor and barking like a dog: kind of like in the film Jacob’s Ladder. The doctors told me that he would likely be 'a serious problem to society' if he was let out; and from the tone of his voice I could tell he wasn't just talking about keeping any neighbours awake.
This is under the assumption that determinism exists/ or that you believe in it - which I don't. Also, I wouldn't necessarily say that I feel compassion towards the perpetrator specifically, I am more compassionate towards the situation; and all those involved. I only assert that, (and this is my opinion), focusing on nursing those whom have been affected by this tragedy is more important than directing one's energy at condemning the perpetrator.
Regarding what others have said with there being two sides to every story: I agree. Depression and constant bullying drives you to think differently in more than one way. For one, it makes you perceive innocuous remarks as hurtful, and you might act to disarm these remarks in a way that makes you seem friendly to everyone else, despite the fact that in your mind you're waging a constant war against people trying to put you down. And then you hold it all inside, somewhat blinded to the fact that people's intents may be benevolent by the abuse you had to endure at some point, whether from classmates or at home -- either is just as bad. You think that the nice ones are mocking you and the slightly less nice ones deserve to DIE. You consider doing this for weeks, maybe months, but you don't have the guts. They'll just beat you down as usual, they always win. No way you could do something like this, it's immoral (or against God, or whatever). Then someone says something, and inside, like the sound of a triangle being flicked, something snaps. You don't say a word to that person but you remember that name. You make preparations. It is soon time. You have a weapon. They victimised you: now it's your turn. Life is pointless, you'll never escape being mocked. But there's one thing you can do, and that's to teach those bastards what they've done to you. Through practical demonstration. You're already dead in all but the physical sense.
Exactly - it's what Carl Jung called The Shadow. Your last paragraph describes what happens when The Shadow grows too powerful over the mind.
Wow, I started something here! But I love a good debate as long as it's conducted in the proper way, without personal abuse, and we attack the messages rather than the messengers. I'm somehow not entirely comfortable with "intense dislike" as a definition of "hate", no matter what the dictionary may say. For me, that equates to suggesting that being "in love" is nothing more than having a feeling of "intense like", and somehow, on an emotional level at least, it just doesn't begin to go far enough. There's an interesting sub-debate here on whether we should be entitled to feel hatred for this guy. I actually think it's perfectly natural, and therefore legitimate. The last indiscriminate mass murder on these shores, as I mentioned earlier, was the killing of the schoolchildren at Dunblane, Scotland, fourteen years ago. That incident truly resonated with me, perhaps because A) it happened in my homeland (I'm Scottish) and B) I have a son who at that time was the exact same age (almost 6) as the children who were massacred, and I had one of those "there but for the grace of God go I" moments. One thing is for sure. When I thought about those little children cowering in that cold gymnasium, then Thomas Hamilton cold bloodedly spraying the hall with bullets and ending those young lives (and traumatising those who were "lucky" enough to survive), I felt nothing but hatred for him, and time has barely diluted that emotion. Perhaps if I lived in a part of the world where gun crime was all-too-common, and where I turned on my TV to witness such massacres a couple of times every year, I would develop an emotional "immunity" of sorts, and I simply wouldn't have enough hatred to go around, but because of the (thankful) rarity of such incidents in the UK, they do provoke a very powerful emotional response. But I think that we're all entitled to deal with such incidents in our own way, without anyone else telling us that our reaction is somehow "wrong". Increase the peace.
I’m interested in your rejection of determinism. If one rejects determinism and concludes that humans do in fact have free will, surely those who carry out horrendous crimes deserve no compassion? Should there not be a point at which compassion stops and the reasonable/ moral reaction is punishment without any sort of rehabilitation?
I don't believe in determinism either - and yet. I can't help but feel that people who murder - in a society - do deserve an explanation on their half, if not pity. I don't know if I'd use the word 'compassion', but I do feel sorry for them.
