No Ordinary Violence

[rug]

October 11, 2013
Sam Harris

A young man enters a public place—a school, a shopping mall, an airport—carrying a small arsenal. He begins killing people at random. He has no demands, and no one is spared. Eventually, the police arrive, and after an excruciating delay as they marshal their forces, the young man is brought down.

This has happened many times, and it will happen again. After each of these crimes, we lose our innocence—but then innocence magically returns. In the aftermath of horror, grief, and disbelief, we seem to learn nothing of value. Indeed, many of us remain committed to denying the one thing of value that is there to be learned.

After the Boston Marathon bombing, a journalist asked me, “Why is it always angry young men who do these terrible things?” She then sought to connect the behavior of the Tsarnaev brothers with that of Jared Loughner, James Holmes, and Adam Lanza. Like many people, she believed that similar actions must have similar causes.

But there are many sources of human evil. And if we want to protect ourselves and our societies, we must understand this. To that end we should differentiate at least four types of violent actor.

http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/no-ordinary-violence

A neuroscientist categorizes evil.

[gopiscrap]

1. I forgot what social scientist/research agency said that

7 months from the shooting a 38 year old unmarried white male will kill 7 people in Spokane WA

[cbayer]

2. First of all, there is great overlap in the 4 categories he outlines

and he bases it on absolutely no data that I can see. As far as I'm concerned, that's just more pop psychology - not interested.

I get the feeling that he wrote the first part just so he could get to the religion part.

So he eviscerates religion in general, then says he has a message for moderate Muslims? I suspect they stopped reading when they got to #4.

[Jim__]

3. I am so relieved to learn that I need not be concerned about drones killing innocent people.

I was concerned. I can relax now. A self-proclaimed expert has assured me that it's OK, or, at the very least, no fault lies with us - the Muslims made us do it.

[dimbear]

4. Men may feel somewhat self conscious that their sex is so deeply involved in violent actions.

The article reminds us that Islam is one of the few organizations seeking actively to spread the responsibility over both sexes, and indeed to involve children too. I suppose that's at least one area where equality is growing.