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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Is Extremism a mental illness?
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
Thinking on the recent murder of an MP by someone now known to have been influenced by neo-nazism. Is it fair to say, forgetting all the different tags and labels, that extremism is a mental state that can take up residence in any human mind?
I often think humans are fundamentally the same the a world over, and have been since the dawn of civilisation. So does hatred and extremism only enter certain vulnerable minds under certain circumstances, (accepting that those circumstances may be cultural and legitimised). And when this happens are the people affected in such a way to be regarded as mentally ill?
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Change is the only certainty of existence
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Garasu
Shipmate
# 17152
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Posted
Want to define extremism?
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"Could I believe in the doctrine without believing in the deity?". - Modesitt, L. E., Jr., 1943- Imager.
Posts: 889 | From: Surrey Heath (England) | Registered: Jun 2012
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
I think the argument that people only do really dreadful things because they have mental illnesses or are disturbed in some way is a well meaning cop-out. There are a few cases where this is so. But as a general assumption, 'O, they must be sick because no one could do that unless they were' is deeply disrespectful not just to their victims but also to their own integrity and responsibility as autonomous and answerable human beings.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
"... we did find a correlation between extremist sympathies and being young, in full-time education, relative social isolation, and having a tendency towards depressive symptoms." from this. 2/4 in Mair's case. Add group divergence, emotional addiction and Freudian reaction formation and off you go. Extremism is the effect not the cause. Been there. It's marginally normal. No illness required. Although, finger in the air, Mair, like Mateen, IS mentally ill.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
Is it fair to say, forgetting all the different tags and labels, that extremism is a mental state that can take up residence in any human mind?
Probably not, no.
And I say that because in order to end up being an extremist for some cause or other, you first have to be the kind of person that prefers to see the world in black and white and keep everything simple.
You probably also need to have an empathy deficiency.
I think both of those things have a significant component of personality. And while I don't think those traits are necessarily rare, I don't think those traits are universal.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Garasu:
Want to define extremism?
Was thinking of the form that has a potential to hatch actions which physically harm or kill others. Usually in a targeted and calculating way
There are of course forms of extremism which are entirely passive.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
The legal concept of mens rea (guilty mind) is explored pretty well in this Wiki link.
If one looks specifically at homicide as killing with malice aforethought, then the real issue for mental health is whether the person was sufficiently sane to have planned the whole thing and knowingly intended the harm. If there is prior evidence of mental illness, then in any specific case there needs to be some professional assessment of the guilt of the mind. That is probably a matter of degree. Whether mental health determines guilt or innocence, or is something to be taken into account in mitigation, depends on the specific case.
In general, I think folks with extreme opinions are wrong-headed but not necessarily mentally ill.
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Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
No - because you misunderstand both, I think.
Mental illness is something wrong with the way ones brain works. It is something that the sufferer usually wants to change.
Extremism is, by definition it would seem, just the extreme interpretation of ideas.
It may be that some people with distorted thinking patterns, or lacking empathy or people-skills embrace extreme views. This is not about their extremist views or about a mental health problem.
As someone who suffers from mental health problems I find the idea deeply offensive. I would ask - publically - that this thread is closed, because I think it is fundamentally flawed, and I am not sure how it can do anything other than become more offensive.
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Galloping Granny
Shipmate
# 13814
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Posted
I don't think we're looking at extremism as a mental illness.
We're talking about what happens if a person with extreme views is also affected by mental illness.
It would be interesting to see what these researchers would make of extremist violence.
GG
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The Kingdom of Heaven is spread upon the earth, and men do not see it. Gospel of Thomas, 113
Posts: 2629 | From: Matarangi | Registered: Jun 2008
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
@ Schroedinger's cat
We'll discuss your request on Host Board. Meanwhile I'd be grateful if other Shipmate's would leave the issue of the acceptability of the thread with Hosts and Admin.
Barnabas62
Purgatory Host
[ 18. June 2016, 09:46: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
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ThunderBunk
Stone cold idiot
# 15579
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Posted
I am by nature something of an anxious person, and have also suffered from my fair share of mental illness.
What strikes me about so much debate at the moment is that its primary purpose is to find an excuse to abandon empathy. Once it is established that a given group is the only group that deserves to be treated as fully functional human beings, endowed exclusively with the full range of human rights and dignities, it follows naturally that they feel entitled to enforce these rights and dignities by any means necessary, including murder.
This doesn't require mental illness; it requires a willing abandonment of one's humanity in pursuit of the apotheosis of the ego. This is a delirium, yes, but it is not an illness; it is an indulgence, a wicked, thoughtless, inhuman indulgence, and the ultimate willful separation from God.
This is not to say that it can't follow from the inadvertent suspension of critical faculties; in all but a few cases, I accept that this is indeed the process by which it occurs. Nevertheless, however, those who reach the end of the process are separated both from God and from their true selves, since the two are fundamentally identical.
None of this is mental illness.
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Currently mostly furious, and occasionally foolish. Normal service may resume eventually. Or it may not. And remember children, "feiern ist wichtig".
Foolish, potentially deranged witterings
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
Fascists are deluded. They're deluded to the extent that they believe that only their version of "truth" is correct and they're so convinced that anything is acceptable in order to make it happen. If that means violence over traitors and enemies, so be it.
Describing it as a mental illness is a natural thing, I think, because we want to try to get a handle on why people do this. We want to say that Hitler's crazed megalomania was due to some mental problem.
But as others have said, that's far too simple and runs the risk of painting all people with mental illnesses with the same brush.
Mad as a bag of spanners, yes. Mentally ill no.
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arse
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
It's a complicated, nuanced, multifactorial narrative:
Is Extreme Racism a Mental Illness?
... Extremism Or Insanity?
that needs a strong benevolent approach.
One offs like Mair, Brevik, Mateen are one thing, whole ethne are another.
[ 18. June 2016, 10:06: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
Schroedinger's cat
We've had a discussion on Host Board and the consensus is that this is an allowable Purgatory thread under Ship's Guidelines.
Shipmates are free as always to participate, or ignore, any discussion thread, or to call the Shipmate who started it to Hell if sufficiently pissed off by it.
And you are also free to challenge this ruling in the Styx if you want.
For all Shipmates
We would encourage Shipmates to avoid making facile connections between sufferers from mental illness and any tendency to criminality. This is by its nature a sensitive thread. This is also, intentionally, a robust discussion forum. So we remind you all of Commandment 5. "Don't offend easily, don't be easily offended."
Tread carefully now.
Barnabas62
Purgatory Host
[ 18. June 2016, 10:45: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
One offs like Mair, Brevik, Mateen are one thing, whole ethne are another.
Well, having just seen the most recent news reports about Mair, I am in fact reflecting on the whole notion of labelling him as "mentally ill".
I can't buy into that label. The man is declaring "death to traitors", and while the death part might be his own, the idea that people like Jo Cox are "traitors" is not, according to the evidence presented in the relevant Hell thread, his own unique idea.
That particular extreme idea - that people who support maintaining an arrangement that has been place for decades could be labelled "traitors" - is ludicrous to my ears but it's a piece of language that it seems a few people like using.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
It is well known most violence is not comitted by people with mental illness, and something like one in four people will experience mental health problems in their lifetimes.
That said, there is strong evidence that a certain specific type of crime is associated with a specific type of mental illness:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixated_Threat_Assessment_Centre
It is a specific type of paranoid obession, affecting a minority of people. In this context, the driving delusional grudge, can sometimes be political. But it could also be a belief that the person concerned was an alien lizard.
I think this is relevant, because these type of attacks get a huge amount of public attention and skew public perception both of extremism and mental illness.
As regarding extremism more generally, often positions called extremist now were mainstream once upon a time.
So we are either asking: a) whether holding views way outside the current norm is a sign of mental illness, or we are asking b) whether certain types of beliefs about the primacy of a given cultural/racial group to be protected with high levels of violence and control are a sign of mental illness.
I'd argue a) might be more arguable - though probably wrong.
Otherwise, for b), you have to argue most of white south africa was mentally ill for decades, likewise Saudi Arabia. (That and almost the entire species was mentally ill in the middle ages.) This makes a nonense of the idea of mental illness as a concept.
[ 18. June 2016, 11:12: Message edited by: Doublethink. ]
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink.:
It is a specific type of paranoid obession, affecting a minority of people. In this context, the driving delusional grudge, can sometimes be political. But it could also be a belief that the person concerned was an alien lizard.
In legal terms, I doubt that a political grudge that's based on actual policies would be accepted as being "delusional".
Mental incapacity for the law is about whether or not you understood what you were doing. Not understanding that the person you killed was a person, or not understanding that shooting people kills them, or not understanding that dead people stay dead: those are potential cases of a mental incapacity that prevents you from being guilty of murder.
Killing someone because you oppose their political views so strongly that you think they must be killed to be stopped: that's not delusion. That's what we call motive.
[ 18. June 2016, 11:19: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
It's a complicated, nuanced, multifactorial narrative:
Is Extreme Racism a Mental Illness?
... Extremism Or Insanity?
Well yes, but this begs the question of whether they've extended the definition of mental illness to include the person who has an unusual political/religious belief which is so strongly held that it can't be dislodged by psychiatrists (or anyone else). If that's true then every second person is mentally ill, surely.
Is it just saying "Oh, that Brevik must be mentally ill, otherwise how can you explain someone going to an island and murdering tens of people..?"
I'm not really convinced.
What is quite possibly true is that fascism in particular is particularly sticky with respect to certain character types, that like a parasite it infects the minds of people who are susceptible to it - which I'm sure includes (but are not exclusively) people with some kinds of mental disorder.
But then if that's true we're still in dangerous territory. If the fascist is mentally ill, is the violent political extremism an manifestation of the mental illness or has the extremism triggered it? Does he have a personality disorder because he is a fascist who wants to overthrow the democratic order (which is clearly a sign of a pretty extreme personality whichever way you look at it), or has a pre-existing personality disorder turned an ordinary person into Hitler?
As you might be able to tell, I'm just not convinced this is a helpful way to frame the question.
I'm convinced that the heads of many corporations are either psychopaths of sociopaths. They might well be able to be changed back into helpful members of society with sufficient therapy.
Does that make them mentally ill? Nope.
quote:
that needs a strong benevolent approach.
One offs like Mair, Brevik, Mateen are one thing, whole ethne are another.
I'm curious what this part means, can you expand?
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arse
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
When I was a youngster, I remember coming across the phrase tout comprendre c'est tout pardonner, 'to understand all is to forgive all'. As a naïve adolescent, I can remember I thought that was cool, really profound. After a lifetime, I no longer think it is true.
There are many, many, circumstances where we do need to comprendre rather than to make snap prejudiced assumptions. Nevertheless, for the reasons I've expressed above, there are some opinions that are not just objectively wrong, but so objectively wrong that there is moral turpitude in holding them. As I said above, saying someone can only think that if they are mentally ill, is a cop-out. All is not relative. Likewise, there are some actions, that however much we may comprendre, it is dehumanising the person who does them to say they are somehow let off moral responsibility for perpetrating them.
If a person adopts a collection of ideas that enables them to ignore or overrule the most basic moral obligations and sense of humanity that bind everyone else, that does not make them mad. It makes them wrong and, if they act on them, bad.
I've said before on these threads, that it is the fault neither of Haringey Social Services, however pressed, understaffed and possibly badly run it might have been, nor Sharon Shoosmith that Baby P died. The moral guilt rests upon and stays with the members of Baby P's immediate family who maltreated him so badly. The same applies to the Fees and to Huntley. We don't know all the facts yet, but it is very unlikely that the same will not turn out to apply to Mair.
I don't always find myself saying this on these threads, but here, I agree with ThunderBunk.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink.:
It is a specific type of paranoid obession, affecting a minority of people. In this context, the driving delusional grudge, can sometimes be political. But it could also be a belief that the person concerned was an alien lizard.
In legal terms, I doubt that a political grudge that's based on actual policies would be accepted as being "delusional".
Mental incapacity for the law is about whether or not you understood what you were doing. Not understanding that the person you killed was a person, or not understanding that shooting people kills them, or not understanding that dead people stay dead: those are potential cases of a mental incapacity that prevents you from being guilty of murder.
Killing someone because you oppose their political views so strongly that you think they must be killed to be stopped: that's not delusion. That's what we call motive.
The presence or absence of sanity/capacity is not the same as the presence/absence of mental illness or psychosis.
For example, you could be a neo-nazi and have paranoid psychosis. This might lead you to believe that your local mp was uniquely responsible for all your problems, because they are part of the vast teacherous jewish conspiracy cos they support the remain campaign etc, and to hold the belief in their personal responsibility for your fucked up life with delusional intensity. If you then kill them, you may well know you are killing someone, who they are, and that killing them is against uk law. That is all it is required for you to know to be found sane.
If your lawyers subsequently plead dimished responsibility owing to psychiatric findings, it might or might not be accepted.
[ 18. June 2016, 11:39: Message edited by: Doublethink. ]
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
No - because you misunderstand both, I think.
Mental illness is something wrong with the way ones brain works. It is something that the sufferer usually wants to change.
Extremism is, by definition it would seem, just the extreme interpretation of ideas.
It may be that some people with distorted thinking patterns, or lacking empathy or people-skills embrace extreme views. This is not about their extremist views or about a mental health problem.
As someone who suffers from mental health problems I find the idea deeply offensive.
As someone with Asperger's Syndrome I find the idea that lack of empathy and people skills, found in Asperger's and High Functioning Autism, and mental illness in the same short post somewhat jarring.
Asperger's and other Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) are not mental illnesses. Please do not refer to them as such
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Last ever sig ...
blog
Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
Legally, learning disablity, autistic spectrum disorder, personality disorder, mood disorders and illness with a psychotic component are all lumped together as impairment or disorder of mind.
What distinction are you wishing to draw ? That asd is a developmental disorder vs acquired in later life ?
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
The OP was in no way meant to cause offensive to anyone. If it has then I apologise.
I understand there is a legally a definition is made between someone acting as a result of psychological disturbance or in a sane manner. Defence counsels sometimes using the former to get reduced sentences for their clients.
The point I'm trying to make, no doubt badly, is -- can it be said that people who are drawn towards carrying out heinous acts, mainly off their own backs, suffering from something? Something other than that which we tend to automatically dismiss as evil. 'Evil' being a somewhat all-embracing, antiquated, and not very helpful concept in this day and age.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
If there is a condition that can lead to extreme beliefs and actions, it must be the desire to externalise all threats and faults. That's not a mental illness at all, just a symptom of authoritarianism, which (AFIAK) is an acquired trait. If you can characterise Britain First, UKIP and Brexit as a whole, they are all on the authoritarian scale with Britain First at the extreme.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
The point I'm trying to make, no doubt badly, is -- can it be said that people who are drawn towards carrying out heinous acts, mainly off their own backs, suffering from something?
There are people who enjoy causing pain to other people. Typically, they are the same people who enjoy causing pain to animals.
Is that a mental illness? Mental illness isn't such an easy thing to define - particularly if we're talking about long-term things that don't suddenly turn on and off.
But suppose we say that it is a mental illness. Does that make a difference? What's the difference between being an arsehole and suffering from Compulsive Arsehole Disorder? Is there one?
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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DOEPUBLIC
Shipmate
# 13042
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Posted
1. 'extreme' does not directly equate to 'illness'
2. 'illness' does not directly equate to 'extreme'
Physical
Emotional
Rational
Spiritual
Optional(Volitional)
Notional
Aspirational
Lingual
Psrameters within a personality that in varying ways(could easily suggest a variant for each of 9 measures) can contribute to the same outcome.
We are each unique. Not everything that fits in a box is a box.
[ 19. June 2016, 14:31: Message edited by: DOEPUBLIC ]
Posts: 2350 | Registered: Oct 2007
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
Are sociopathy and psychopathy counted as mental illnesses?
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
Those are really legal rather than psychiatric categories. Most people who would be described in that way would be seen as having some combination of personality disorder.
Arguably pd is a developmental problem, with multifactorial causes, that reaches fruition in adulthood.
I am unclear on what conceptual basis one distinguishes personality disorders from the broad category of mental illness, other than we have little in the way of effective treatment.
The vast majority of people I have met with pd (and I have met many such) have been abused and have had disrupted attachment patterns and disrupted ability to regulate their own emotions.
I have met very few people I would describe as psychopathic. Those I have met, seem to me to have learnt that way of relating to the world since childhood.
Similarly, if you read up on Fred West's childhod you will be entirely unsurprised at his growing up to be a serial killer. What is perhaps suprising, it those who go through similar experiences and do not.
[ 19. June 2016, 15:15: Message edited by: Doublethink. ]
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
It's a complicated, nuanced, multifactorial narrative:
Is Extreme Racism a Mental Illness?
... Extremism Or Insanity?
Well yes, but this begs the question of whether they've extended the definition of mental illness to include the person who has an unusual political/religious belief which is so strongly held that it can't be dislodged by psychiatrists (or anyone else). If that's true then every second person is mentally ill, surely.
I think we are. But yes, in a sense beyond the clinical. I've had the privilege of volunteering with paranoid schizophrenes, those with all manner of personality and mood disorders, all 'self medicators'. Just this week I was abseiling and canoeing and caving and cooking and sleeping with at least three, a sociopath and a bipolar, out of nine marginalized guys with less obvious issues mental health issues but often strong addictions. I was the extra-strength lager AKA 'medication' monitor for the three acute alcoholics. You don't tell a paranoid schizophrene he must live without cannabis for three days. Their politics are as chaotic as they are. None are "radicalized" (what a debasement of the word, I'm a radicalized Christian) and probably never will be. Our thinking and feeling is disordered, chaotic without us being clinically impaired, through genetic wiring or acquired impairment of any kind. Just conditioning in weakness and ignorance, deprivation. Chaotic narratives fill the emotional, intellectual, existential vacuum. I like the Roman Catholic phrase 'disordered passions'. Covers all of us some time or another. A low level of insanity is part of the human condition. We are one helplessly mad, innocently bad monkey.
quote:
Is it just saying "Oh, that Brevik must be mentally ill, otherwise how can you explain someone going to an island and murdering tens of people..?"
I'm not really convinced.
I'm 'happy' to believe that a mentally healthy person, a 'normal' person, can fecklessly do a job on themselves, but I always remember an episode of Colditz, an historically accurate dramatization, where an RAF pilot decided to pretend to be mad. You really don't want to do that. The wind changes and you're stuck with that face. It wasn't funny at all. Look in to any pit long enough and it swallows you.
quote:
What is quite possibly true is that fascism in particular is particularly sticky with respect to certain character types, that like a parasite it infects the minds of people who are susceptible to it - which I'm sure includes (but are not exclusively) people with some kinds of mental disorder.
Fascism, institutionalized selfishness is normative. Human. It infects us all to varying degrees. Love runs cold. When deprivation comes in the front door, charity flies out the window.
quote:
But then if that's true we're still in dangerous territory. If the fascist is mentally ill, is the violent political extremism an manifestation of the mental illness or has the extremism triggered it? Does he have a personality disorder because he is a fascist who wants to overthrow the democratic order (which is clearly a sign of a pretty extreme personality whichever way you look at it), or has a pre-existing personality disorder turned an ordinary person into Hitler?
ALL true. All. And none. For some. We need an x-y graph for a start, with a fascist-antifascist axis and a mental illness one. I'm sure we could populate every pixel of it. Some many times over.
quote:
As you might be able to tell, I'm just not convinced this is a helpful way to frame the question.
Me too! Let's frame a better way. If we can.
quote:
I'm convinced that the heads of many corporations are either psychopaths of sociopaths. They might well be able to be changed back into helpful members of society with sufficient therapy.
Agreed. Disagreed. You can only make them more cunning. Better actors. I don't think those particular poachers can turn gamekeeper. Look at Sir Philip Green.
quote:
Does that make them mentally ill? Nope.
It makes them socially impaired. But we select them. We prefer bosses who are ruthless bastards.
quote:
that needs a strong benevolent approach.
One offs like Mair, Brevik, Mateen are one thing, whole ethne are another. quote:
I'm curious what this part means, can you expand?
There are individuals who are obviously distinctly impaired, lacking in empathy, drunk on their egotistical narratives and there are whole communities collectively synergizing their otherizing. We have to swim round, with the former, in the latter. Embrace them, love them ALL.
As for socio/psychopathy not being an illness, shall we say it's a disability?
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
If you are interested, you could try reading the articles about Joanne Dennehy on the BBC news website:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-25669206
As a female serial killer she is quite unusual. But if you read the piece by her sister, you may note she was groomed and preyed upon sexually from age 13. But her sister doesn't identify this as sexual abuse in the article just 'running away' - I wonder if her parents saw it that way too ?
Either way she became unstable, misused drug & alcohol, used to self-harm etc. And her first attack was thought to be triggered by her landlord staring at her in the bath.
She grew up to be a murderer, her sister to be a soldier.
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
The excellent Michael Bryant played Wing Commander Marsh in the award winning episode.
IMDb:
"RAF officer George Marsh, who had worked in a psychiatric hospital prior to the war and is now a medical orderly, works out that if he pretends that he is mentally ill, he will be repatriated and returned to England. Ullmann, suspecting a deceit, assigns sympathetic Private Hartwig to befriend him, since Hartwig has a brother with a mental illness and is as aware of the genuine signs as Marsh is. Ultimately Marsh is indeed sent home but a letter received by Preston reveals that he got to live the part rather too well for his own sanity."
[ 19. June 2016, 15:33: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
Crosspoted with Martin.
Also Martin, please would you not talk about people as if they are a disorder. As in, would you please use 'person with bipolar disorder' or 'person with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder' rather than 'a bipolar'.
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Will Michael do?
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
Names are also good, provided those people are OK about being written about identifiably on an international internet bulletin board.
(Though I was mainly referring to your 16:24 post.)
[ 19. June 2016, 16:18: Message edited by: Doublethink. ]
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
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Fineline
Shipmate
# 12143
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Posted
An awful lot of ordinary, 'normal' people, who are quite capable of compassion and empathy, can contribute to 'extremism' when it is normalised in their community. Thinking about the Holocaust, for instance, and black slavery in America. And the Milgram experiment. I think anyone and everyone is capable of 'black and white' thinking in different ways, and it is dangerous to see oneself as immune - that in itself is a type of black and white thinking. The 'them and us' idea that there are these extremist, black and white people out there, and we are the good, balanced people who would never behave like this.
Where I think mental illness can come in, and autism too (as autism and Aspergers is another thing that is waved around in the media when there's been a killing, and people like to attribute 'black and white thinking' to autism) is that sometimes people with some mental illnesses, and also people on the autism spectrum, are less influenced by the norms of their communities. Maybe through not being accepted by these communities, or maybe from not picking up on the unspoken norms.
So if someone is inclined to kill/bully/oppress, perhaps mentally stable/neurotypical people are more likely to do it as part of a socially acceptable group thing, where it has become normalised. Which in a way makes it all the scarier, because then people more easily justify it to themselves, and more easily contribute.
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DOEPUBLIC
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# 13042
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
Are sociopathy and psychopathy counted as mental illnesses?
A 'social'or 'psycho' 'path' are not necessary rooted in 'mental' 'illness'. Clearly a spectrum of inputs and outputs exist, some of which resonate with legal boundaries.The tension in the discussion IMO being created by 'reality' and 'academic''observation. As Fineline implies, but for the grace of God .......
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Diagnoses are frequently merely descriptive, not reasons why people do things. Thus someone who is diagnosed with something, just like someone who isn't, needs intent and a situation to do their deed.
We do have a problem with various diagnoses being over represented in criminalized groups (by this I mean labelled and treated as criminal) in Canada because we don't provide access to any care. Being poor, homeless and not having supports are also associated with criminalization, and we don't see people blaming those the same way for specific evil acts.
So no, extremism is not a mental illness and mental illnesses do ot cause extremism, and I agree with the concern re conflation. Though people who are charged frequently try to use mental illness and other "poor me" explanations for their acts.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
Maybe these distinctions might help.
There is a difference between being mentally ill and being spiritually ill. I have known mentally ill people who were nevertheless in a very good place spiritually--kind, gentle, patient, etc. even under horrible circumstances. I have also known the reverse. I would classify extremism of the "shoot-em up" type as a spiritual illness. (And there is this difference between mental and spiritual illnesses too, that there is often a certain amount of culpability in the case of the latter--but not normally in the case of mental illness.)
There is also a difference between an illness and a condition or disability (please don't shoot me for not having the proper acceptable language at this moment, I'm having trouble keeping up). I have a physical disability that has been present since birth due to a collagen manufacturing error. It is not an "illness" as usually understood because it had no real beginning (except with my own beginning!), it will not end except by my death, and it is not communicable (except by reproduction, poor LL). Nor can it be cured. I just have to live with it. It sucks, but it is not an illness.
There are some mental situations which are illnesses, and some which are conditions. I have synesthesia (a condition) and episodes of depression (an illness). Asperger's etc. are conditions. Acute psychosis is an illness.
I suppose that if we extended these categories to the spiritual, all of us would be dealing with the condition "sinner" lifelong. But we would all be falling prey to various illnesses--attacks of greed, hatred, arrogance, and so forth. Extremism as defined upthread seems to me to be a combination illness characterized by hatred, arrogance, and perhaps fear. But since nobody is born extremist, it seems to me that there is hope of "curing" such people in at least a few cases--and better hope of preventing it in others.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
But, in so far as it is not voluntary, why do we see mental illness as a mitigation - but not personalty disorder ?
I am not claiming any specific illness or condition automatically means someone lacks culpability, these things are all on a spectrum, - but we seem to get hung up on the various categories as if they somehow carry default different levels of moral responsibility. People don't choose to have, say, emotionally unstable personality disorder any more than they choose to have schizophrenia or recurrent depression.
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink.:
Names are also good, provided those people are OK about being written about identifiably on an international internet bulletin board.
(Though I was mainly referring to your 16:24 post.)
15:24, and I realise that. And no, there's no way Michael can be identified. Or would mind if he were.
As Garasu said, what is extremism? As good a starting point as any. in which Coleman and Bartoli introduce their definitions with, "Extremism is a complex phenomenon, although its complexity is often hard to see. Most simply, it can be defined as activities (beliefs, attitudes, feelings, actions, strategies) of a character far removed from the ordinary. In conflict settings it manifests as a severe form of conflict engagement. However, the labeling of activities, people, and groups as "extremist", and the defining of what is "ordinary" in any setting is always a subjective and political matter.".
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink.:
But, in so far as it is not voluntary, why do we see mental illness as a mitigation - but not personalty disorder ?
I am sorry but at least legally in this country a "personality disorder" is a mitigating circumstance. It may not be in general conversation but it is legal proceedings. I know of a case where it has meant someone went free when it was acknowledged that they were a danger to others.
Jengie
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
Back to my blog
Posts: 20894 | From: city of steel, butterflies and rainbows | Registered: May 2001
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
It can be, but in general public discourse people seem unwilling to acknowledge it.
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
But suppose we say that it is a mental illness. Does that make a difference? What's the difference between being an arsehole and suffering from Compulsive Arsehole Disorder? Is there one?
A noun and adjective thing maybe.
Say a person has done a heinous action, the harming or killing of another(s).
The person is labelled evil, bad or whatever and becomes an object onto which society exacts it's retribution. Alternatively the person could be said to be suffering from an illness, or was vulnerable to a condition and succumbed to carrying out the act.
When it comes to the law I'm not advocating radicalised extremists getting reduced sentences by having their actions re-categorised. If you do it, you have to take what's coming.
What I was thinking was self-identification, people who feel themselves drawn to dark theology with the risk of acting on it, being able to seek help before it's too late.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
We want to say that Hitler's crazed megalomania was due to some mental problem.
The Third Reich In History And Memory, by Richard J. Evans (an academic famous for helping to expose David Irving's Holcaust denial), published last year, contains a collection of essays including Was Hitler Ill?.
Evans examines a number of rumours and assertions about htler's physical and mental health (including the extent and state of his genitalia!) and concludes: "He certainly was not mentally ill, not at least in any sense known to medicine or psychiatry..he was sane according to any reasonable definition of the term, and fully responsible for his actions".
The issue of sanity extends beyond Nazism of course, to communism, Islamism etc.
Were the Khmer Rouge sane? Are ISIS memebers?
The dangers of the political misuse of the concept of sanity were perhaps best illustrated by the Soviet Union's incarceration of dissidents in psychiatric institutions, but its abuse can also be illustrated from the US.
In 1964 there was a notorious attempt to use a dodgy pseudo-poll of psychiatrists, none of whom had interviewed him, to "prove" that presidential candidate Barry Goldwater was insane.
There was plenty of room to disagree violently with Goldwater's policies, especially on the use of nuclear weapons, but none on which to base a slur of clinical insanity.
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Huia
Shipmate
# 3473
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
There was plenty of room to disagree violently with Goldwater's policies, especially on the use of nuclear weapons, but none on which to base a slur of clinical insanity.
I'm having trouble expressing what seems wrong about this to me. I think it's the word slur . It sounds as though clinical insanity was a morally reprehensible choice the person made, rather than something beyond their control.
Whereas I see the advocating of the use of nuclear weapons morally suspect (to say the least).
Huia
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Charity gives food from the table, Justice gives a place at the table.
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Huia:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
There was plenty of room to disagree violently with Goldwater's policies, especially on the use of nuclear weapons, but none on which to base a slur of clinical insanity.
I'm having trouble expressing what seems wrong about this to me. I think it's the word slur . It sounds as though clinical insanity was a morally reprehensible choice the person made, rather than something beyond their control.
Whereas I see the advocating of the use of nuclear weapons morally suspect (to say the least).
Huia
Fair comment.
The point in the political context of the time is that it was intended as a slur.
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
If someone is running for political office, it is fair to categorise the accusation of insanity as a slur since if true, it renders, and should render, someone unsuitable to hold high office. That isn't an issue of disability discrimination.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Milgram and Zimbardo and Five Steps to Tyranny reviewed here, show that extremism is the downside to our anthropocene scale utilitarian co-operation. We are evil in the name of that good.
We must detach 'necessary evil' from doing good. Good and evil are inextricably linked in politics which religion, always present as part of the problem (ALWAYS, including in the Russian and Chinese Communist revolutions), completely intersects.
We are the enemy. Extremism-R-Us. Embrace it. Embrace the fear, our fear, shame, hate, inadequacy, violence with ... love.
[ 20. June 2016, 09:36: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
We must detach 'necessary evil' from doing good. Good and evil are inextricably linked in politics which religion, always present as part of the problem (ALWAYS, including in the Russian and Chinese Communist revolutions), completely intersects.
We are the enemy. Extremism-R-Us. Embrace it. Embrace the fear, our fear, shame, hate, inadequacy, violence with ... love.
Martin, I go a long way with you on this. On a fundamental level, I agree that we all have the roots of extremism within us and that Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn expressed a deep truth:
quote:
If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?
Who indeed.
The problem is how to enact the reality of that. How does one react with love to the empty rhetoric of (for example) Trump? How does one avoid demonising a politician whose words seem to drip with nullification and lies?
Loving someone who is saying something which is stupid and dangerous is a very hard thing to do, particularly if they're in a position of power. For one thing, they can often take the expressions of love and use it for their own nefarious ends.
Take the example in the last week of the tweets showing respect for MPs. Some may just be short political statements by people who support the political platform of their MP, but I believe there were genuinely people who wanted to show that they respected the democratic process and the willingness of their local MP to enter the public arena (and possibly put themselves in mortal danger) even whilst rejecting almost everything they've politically ever said on anything.
If Farage had been elected as my MP, it would have been very difficult to say anything positive to him, as it is the Tory pretend-Farage that we elected is not very much better.
How would one have showed love to an elected politician who was even more extreme than Farage?
In my view, we need a nuanced approach. First, we should be standing up against bigots, racists and xenophobes. As I said elsewhere, a useful tactic is humour - refusing to take these pricks seriously even whilst they're saying the most ridiculous things.
But at the same time we should be looking somewhere for their humanity. We should be offering them ways out from their stupidity. We should be hoping for better things from them.
I'm sorry I've gone off on a bit of a tangent.
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arse
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
mr cheesy. This is the right tangent, the point of departure for a higher, the highest, orbit we can achieve with our liberal privilege. We live in a more complex age than Jesus, where privilege is more cunning in cozying up to the people. Bush Jnr., Trump, Farage thrive/d by articulating for and LIKE the common, white, working class man and his fears. Any attack on the former was an attack on the latter. Thatcher did it for the aspirational working class. Blair did it for the middle class.
We MUST love our enemies. Because they have constituents. Even I baulk at Murdoch. But we MUST love his readers. Sun readers ARE easy to love, they're working class. But Daily Mail readers! Strewth. As for rags like The Star and The Express, their readership is to be pitied.
I see Corbyn as doing a great job with the working class, but he isn't reaching the middle class. Siddiq Khan is in London, which is easy to do. He could be our next or next but one prime minister. More likely with Brexit. Which must be embraced when it happens. Hate it though I do. It is the will of the people.
We have to find ways to subvert the working class, and more difficultly the middle class away from the ruling class by embracing all their fears. We have to therefore embrace those who are seducing them to the dark side, declare them our brothers, acknowledge their fears too, by acknowledging our own. Our ignorance, our weakness, our failure, our inadequacy. And including them, inviting them to do the same.
The test will come when they DO implement the next four of the Five Steps to Tyranny:
1) upholding an us versus them attitude
2) unquestioningly obeying authority
3) dehumanizing others as a precursor to harm
4) standing by as harm occurs, and finally
5) exterminating the identified “other.”
We recapitulate this all the time. We MUST not do (1). At all.
When WE fail to embrace those sowing and being reaped by (1) the rest follow.
Which was me post AND pre 9 11 for nearly a decade. But I got much worse post.
Christianity subverted the greatest tyranny the world had seen from the get go. The trouble is it didn't know how to handle victory. We need to face THAT problem again!
[ 20. June 2016, 12:49: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
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Love wins
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