Part of their brains have been affected in ways I've only partially got figured out. Basically a percentage of the population has been affected by "something" which makes the individuals completely incapable of thinking. The reality of it is that the government conditioned these people. But what I need is an explanation that the government could use (brief, concise, and in somewhat layman's terms please) for a chemical imbalance that must occur for a person to become completely enraged, or generally having no sense of conscience or goodness? Just a way to explain what chemicals have to be missing or altered for a person to become a reject of their own society. From that, I'm pretty sure I'll be able to come up with an explanation for why those occurrences took place. (This is eventually going to be the "justification" for these people's "extermination" so it needs to be convincing to the rest of the non-thinking or general population who have not been "affected" in this way yet and accept mostly anything as truth.) Conditioning could be the cause for something like that, right? Or is there something different?
Impossible. Without a sense of conscience you cannot be enraged at all. Anger is an emotion that is a result of conscience and an understanding of self. Without this the emotion of anger is impossible. If you mean, conciseness, or the ability to think out thoughts with a level of understanding necessary for problem solving, then why not just screw a chemical imbalance and go with brain washing? Or Say it's a chemical but don't say what (I doubt your character who are being effected by this imbalance will be able to comprehend it. Brain chemistry is the quantum physics of the human body and there are only so many people who will understand anyway if you go into specifics). Brian Neurology is some pretty complex crap and your readers won't get what your talking about anyway unless they're a surgeon or something.
Given all the factors noted, I think it would be best to just put this story aside until you have collected more data. Work on something else and keep the story in mind. A good story is sort of like an infection--it will grow by itself. A bad story will not stay in your thoughts; its characters might act up, and you might use them in another story, or part of the idea may end up budding off into a new story, but eventually, if the story is really bad ("bad" meaning "something that you wouldn't read for entertainment yourself") it will just sort of fade away. After a period of a few days, weeks, or months, I would bet that suddenly your story will have sprouted a workable premise or two. I hope this was helpful. yours in Chaos, Scarlett
loh, you seem to be ignoring the kind of rage that is triggered by hate, which doesn't need a conscience to exist and most often won't... as for 'conditioning' causing your needed prob, billy, i don't see how it could... needs to be some 'interferant'... some sort of chemical agent or other method of affecting the brain that will do the deed...
Actually, there's this thing that always interested me. There's a part of your brain that controls inhibitions, called the prefrontal cortex (sure you knew that). There's been several cases where people who've been in car accidents, or otherwise received a hard blow to the head have damaged this part of their brain, so that they don't filter their thoughts or actions. The result in one case was an everyday average normal guy, wraps his car around a tree, and the next week he starts getting into fights and raping his teenage daughter. It's really interesting to think that no matter how noble or good somebody is, if they get hit in the head the wrong way they'll turn into animals. In the not-too-distant future it'd probably be a fairly simple surgical procedure... Edit: Found a link explaining it a bit better - http://www.dana.org/news/brainhealth/detail.aspx?id=10046
Perhaps make it so the government people put something in their water affecting their brains. And on top of that conditioned them. I doubt conditioning alone could cause it.
I have decided to do this. Thank you for your input. Everyone else, thanks for your ideas, I'm going to consider them all. Billy
