Sarah's Law...

Originally posted by krizon@Apr 23 2007, 11:45 AM
You have a great deal more insight into paedophilia than I have, since I've no idea how sad, or pathetic, they are.
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A friend of my wife's was a social worker who spent a long time working in the prisons with such people. Her opinion was that most regretted their actions and hated being that way but there were those among them who she described as unrepentant and evil b@stards. Not that what I've written above is her opinion. IMO anyone thinking about it has to come to the conclusion that someone who would risk universal loathing on top of a heavy prison sentence for the sake of a few minutes tickle cannot be thinking rationally.


If I were a battered child, which I wasn't, why would I want to inflict the same suffering on my own children? Surely my understanding of how awful it was should bring me out in a rash of sympathy, not a desire to perpetuate the cruelty?
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You would think so but, maybe a lifetime of being unable to form relationships and knowing that only a thin veil seperated you from universal loathing would make you an entirely different person. It kinda begs the question, why don't vampires drive wooden stakes through their own hearts? To be honest, I'm not sure we have a free will. I sometimes think if I had been born Hitler, had Hitler's genes, upbringing and experiences, what would've been different that would've compelled me NOT to kill 6 million jews? If Hitler had been born jewish would he have killed 6 million of his own? If my daughter was brutalised by someone, I daresay I'd be clubbing the ###### out of them one dark night but, I wonder if it's a case of "there but for the grace of God ....". Maybe the first person to say "somebody's got to do it" unwittingly summed up the human race.
 
Thanks for the useful insights, HT. I'm sure that whatever makes us compulsively drawn towards harm, whether harming others or ourselves, is something the majority of sufferers would rather not experience. I guess in the latter case, one gets onto the question of 'evil' - nurture/nature, etc. and there don't seem to be any pat answers. And of course there are always degrees of compulsion and 'evil' acts. One person may know that if they gamble one more time, the chances are that their family loses their home, the kids are destabilised, and everyone is financially ruined. Yet their compulsion draws them inexorably to call one more time...

I wonder why the human brain can send out so many signals which conflict with wellbeing? I've never heard of schizoid dogs, obsessive/compulsive elephants, and so on. Humans can reduce animals to unnatural behaviours through subjecting them to unnatural conditions, but why, in its natural state, does the human wiring so often get out of kilter, when animals' brains remain on track, I wonder? What is it in the human brain's make-up that sees so many owners veer off the norm?
 
Originally posted by krizon@Apr 23 2007, 07:25 PM
One person may know that if they gamble one more time, the chances are that their family loses their home, the kids are destabilised, and everyone is financially ruined. Yet their compulsion draws them inexorably to call one more time...
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I've kinda been there Kri. Worked in betting shops and was put in charge of one when I was still only 18. Started placing bets at the bookmakers up the road using the float. For ages I got away with it but, the inevitable long losing run came and I ended up on remand, causing my parents no end of worry. Thing was, I wasn't making anything out of it worthwhile. It was all down to the excitement. I once read an article on compulsive gambling by a psychologist. Her take on it was that compulsive gambling was not about the winning, it was about not losing. I could identify with that. The excitement came not out of the buttons I would pick up, it was more to do with avoiding the dire consequences of losing.
 
Even more complex than one thinks, isn't it? It's possible that people setting out to thieve or defraud, on a tiny or a massive corporate scale, have the same sort of mindset. Not so much the acquiring of the goodies, but not getting caught at acquiring them? Since so many times the dice are not loaded in their favour, and the clanging of prison doors sounds almost inevitably, you have to wonder at their nerve, or willingness to risk all. Maybe the adrenaline notion is a very good one - people can become fascinated by thrill-seeking in its own right, and the OTT gambling or other behaviour (risk-taking with stolen cars, random sex, etc.) is merely the hook to reel in the excitement? Then we get to ask why some people crave excitement, while others love entirely risk-free, quiet lives. Interesting stuff.
 
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