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<DIV>In a message dated 7/7/2005 4:59:17 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
anonymous_animus@yahoo.com writes:</DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-LEFT: 10px; MARGIN-LEFT: 10px"><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2>>>Consider: you are no longer responsible for<BR>anything. Sound
familiar? Once it was the devil. Now<BR>it is the gene that made you do it.
You are officially<BR>off the hook. It isn't your fault at all. It's
your<BR>faulty genes. It gets even better. Not only is it not<BR>your fault,
but you actually are a victim, a victim of<BR>your own toxic gene
pool.<<<BR><BR>--We ought to distinguish between the
scientific<BR>question, "What causes human behavior" from the<BR>political
question, "How do we encourage people to<BR>control behavior that might harm
society". Confusing<BR>the two questions is a bad idea. <BR><BR>It's entirely
possible that some people are<BR>genetically driven to violence. But that
would leave<BR>us where we already are: with a group of people who<BR>can't or
won't control their behavior. We may say "You<BR>must control yourself" but we
have no faith that the<BR>command will be enough. So we confine
criminals<BR>instead -- Exactly what we would do if it were proven<BR>their
genes made them do it. The only real difference<BR>would be that we'd no
longer view "deserving it" as<BR>reason to heap scorn on those we've
incarcerated. The<BR>most violent criminals were almost uniformly
treated<BR>with extreme abuse in their formative years, and we<BR>already KNOW
that shaming them only produces more<BR>violence rather than less. Keeping
people who can't<BR>(or won't -- it makes no practical difference)
control<BR>themselves away from situations where they could harm<BR>others is
still the only reliable method of<BR>prevention. <BR><BR>However, identifying
people at risk for violence,<BR>whether it's a genetic trait or a result of
early<BR>abuse and role modeling, is a good idea. Pre-emptive<BR>incarceration
would not be an acceptable strategy, but<BR>providing counselling and
cognitive therapy might<BR>counteract any existing tendency toward
violence.<BR>Cognitive therapy can identify subliminal thoughts<BR>that
accelerate violence (demonization of others,<BR>shifting blame, shame
spiraling into rage, etc) and<BR>increase the individual's ability to calm
himself and<BR>counteract the hypnotic trance-like triggers that<BR>would
otherwise lead to reactive violence. It may also<BR>be helpful to view groups
which demonize one another<BR>as victims of bad programming, and
introduce<BR>counter-programs enabling each side to see members of<BR>the
other as human rather than as symbols of evil.<BR>Regardless of whether free
will exists or not, it's a<BR>good thing to be able to respond in the early
stages,<BR>before violence breaks out, rather than merely<BR>punishing people
after the fact. <BR><BR>Perhaps the fear of society is not that people
can't<BR>control themselves, but that by demonizing criminals<BR>we are
accelerating their pathology. What if we're<BR>making things worse, by
focusing on who deserves what<BR>kind of punishment, rather than how to
interrupt<BR>patterns of violence before they become
lethal?<BR><BR>Michael<BR></FONT></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV>
<DIV>Not only would society be able to identify undesirable behavioral
tendencies, but individuals themselves would be able to reflect on why they act
the way they do. It would have a name. Unknown and uncertainty are two of the
most fearful adjectives describing states of mind known to our species. For her
entire life my daughter knew that her behavior was self-destructive to
sociality. Last year she found a name for her condition, Asperger's Syndrome.
Since then, she's stopped kicking herself for her poor social skills and instead
is takingmedication that has worked wonders. She recognizes the reasons for her
difficulties and tries to work the skills that are necessary to social
creatures.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV></DIV>
<DIV><FONT lang=0 face=Arial size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="10">Lorraine
Rice<BR><BR>Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.
<BR>---Andre Gide
<BR><BR>http://hometown.aol.com/euterpel66/myhomepage/poetry.html</FONT></DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>