[quote=zk][quote=njtosd]
He was just crazy (although that doesn’t make the situation any less tragic). This post makes me think of someone wanting revenge on a wild animal. Why does everyone think these lunatics make rational choices about their fixations? Lots of people are jackasses (sometimes). This, like Newton and Aurora, is the result of a deranged mind.
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Njtosd, I really like your posts, and I respect your ideas and your intelligence. I anticipate disagreement with at least some of what I write below, but I anticipate that it will be thoughtful and reasoned, and I look forward to it. If any of the below makes it sound like I’m dismissing what you are saying or being condescending, it’s because I can’t quite figure out how to disagree without sounding like that. I merely disagree. And my questions might sound pointy and/or rhetorical, but they’re not meant to be. I’m curious what your answers are.
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I see your point, but, for the most part, I don’t agree.
First, I would call the scenario I outlined justice rather than vengeance. If I had the capacity to make that scenario happen, and I did it regardless of what the law said, that might be vengeance. If it is my opinion that he deserves it, and that it would be a just punishment, that’s simply my opinion on what would be a just punishment. The fact that I would like it means that I like it when justice is done.
Justice vs. Vengeance is a tricky, nebulous subject that, I think, most people haven’t given much thought. An interesting article on the subject:
As for this case, I’m not all that sure he was deranged. I think he was gay, and like many gay people whose upbringing causes them to hate gays, he hated gays, and he hated himself for being gay.
If you hate somebody so much that you want to kill them, or kill 50 of them, and then you kill them, does that mean that, by definition, you’re deranged? It depends on your definition of deranged, I guess, but I don’t think it does mean you’re deranged. I think it means you’re an asshole.
Maybe he wasn’t a self-loathing gay, maybe he was a religious fanatic. If your religion says you should kill a certain group of people, and you do it, does that mean you’re deranged? Or does it mean you’re a self-righteous asshole? I’m not saying that islam says to kill gays. I’m saying that people interpret their religious texts in all kinds of different ways, and maybe this jackass interpreted islam to say he should kill gays. I’m sure it wouldn’t be the first time somebody interpreted a religion that way, and it definitely wouldn’t be the first time that mass murder was perpetrated in the name of some not-wildly-misinterpreted writings in a religious text.
But even if he was deranged, what he did, it seems to me, requires, in addition to possible derangement, most or all of the following (and probably some others I can’t think of right now): self-righteousness, bad intent, selfishness, self-importance, anger, lack of self control, thoughtlessness, and maybe self-loathing. All of those are just bad personality traits that aren’t necessarily connected to the derangement. If a person is a little bit disconnected from reality, but not a total asshole, it seems to me they’re generally not going to kill anybody. If a person has some weird ideas about life, and he has the bad personality traits above, and he kills a bunch of people, did he do it because he has some weird ideas about life, or because he’s an asshole? Maybe a little of the former and a lot of the latter. Do those weird ideas about life qualify him as deranged and thus not deserving of punishment? In the way that a wild animal is not deserving of punishment? Weird ideas about life run the gamut from believing in astrology all the way up to thinking you should kill all the jews. Both of those ideas, and all the ones in between, involve some detachment from reality. Is a person who believes in astrology deranged? If not, why not? If a person kills people based on a combination of believing in astrology and being a raging asshole, is he deserving of punishment? If so, why does he deserve punishment, but not the guy who kills 50 people because his religion tells him to do it or because he hates himself and all other gays? If not, why not?
Did this jackass beat his wife because he was deranged, or because he was an asshole? Is the punishment for his wife beating different because he’s “deranged?” If you think he deserves punishment for beating his wife, why do you think so? If he beat his wife because he was deranged, why should punishment be in order for beating his wife but not for killing 50 people? If you don’t think he beat his wife because he was deranged, why do you think his wife beating wasn’t the result of derangement but his shooting spree was? Really, other than degree, what’s the difference between beating an innocent, defenseless person and killing 50 of them? Why would one require derangement and the other not? Is there some level of cruelty, evil, badness, or criminality past which derangement by your definition would have to be present?[/quote]
Of course, there is part of me that agrees with you. Under American law, we put people in prison based on theories of both deterrence and vengeance. And there is the quote from Shakespeare – “the devil can cite scripture for his purpose”. Evildoers can always find something that makes them feel justified their bad acts. I think most run of the mill bad behavior (hitting someone, stealing money, etc.) can exist in the absence of mental illness. I guess I just can’t imagine anyone being able to slaughter a group of people unless they are completely nuts. And if he was incapable of stopping himself (and I don’t know that that is true) the whole idea of punishment doesn’t make a lot of sense. The whole heaven and hell idea is based on the ability to make choices (and the existence of such choice has come into question: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/mind-guest-blog/what-neuroscience-says-about-free-will/)
