Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
I don't see why you're saying that "binary thinking is a two way street". My whole point is that we shouldn't be on that damned street in the first place, not that we should go to one end or the other.
i agree. however, it doesn't preclude being reminded at times when the pendulum shifts from one side to the other is all's i was saying.
We really can't blame society for the acts of an individual. If we were going to blame society for something the furthest we could go is to blame it for Sarah Palin. If she didn't have thousands of supporters then she wouldn't be a figure that any of us even talked about. It would be somebody else just like her. That person would say all the things that the crowd wanted to hear or get replaced, a lot like a coach that can't motivate their team to victory. Sarah is perhaps not as stupid as she seems if you calculate what she's worth now compared to before she came into the public arena. She's a performer, celebrated by the audience that selected her to perform. The blood libel comment that has offended many people was probably intended to stir things up and it did just that. A publicity stunt? I don't think the speeches and comments and good ol boy terminology is as much of a publicity stunt as Sarah Palin herself is. Most people DON'T take her seriously but there are enough people who do to create conflict and conflict is lucrative in America.
She's only guilty of doing a good job at the job she's payed for, stirring up emotions. You might as well blame a wrestler for your kid getting a concussion from getting hit with some stupid kids steel chair. It's not the fault of a performer when people take their performance to mean "break the law!" If a dog is rabid they put it down but when a person is a nutcase they wait for him to hurt people before they act to remove the potential danger they present. The reason being because there is a chance that a crazy person may live out their life without hurting someone.
I'd say that a nice compromise would be that a person who is reported to be crazy AND owns guns should be required to go through a mental assessment in order to keep them. Similar to how you can't just go buy a lot of gasoline and open a gas station at your house. These things are dangerous so someone SHOULD intervene when they could prevent a potential disaster. IMO.
I'm blaming society
unitary individuals who exist outside of social influence or as an insland, uninfluenced by other people, are non-existant
Its more what Sym was saying, by holding accountable the man who pulled the trigger, we are not absolving the social conditions that lead to the acts. It isn't one or the other, but both interacting to produce behaviour
Originally posted by inimalist
I'm blaming societyunitary individuals who exist outside of social influence or as an insland, uninfluenced by other people, are non-existant
Its more what Sym was saying, by holding accountable the man who pulled the trigger, we are not absolving the social conditions that lead to the acts. It isn't one or the other, but both interacting to produce behaviour
In America society teaches people not to take the law into their own hands except when they are defending their life from an immediate threat. How can you hold society responsible for acts that reject it's teachings? Society is the direct result of the understood rules of the place you call home. If going against the rules is celebrated, that's sometimes reason enough for any individual to go against their society's rules. That society's rules still are what they are, defined by the majority of it's peoples beliefs.
The point I'm trying to make is that right or wrong society is something that an individual can go against if they want to. Society doesn't make choices it just is what it is like the current weather. Current society would define what he did as crazy (if he's literally insane) or evil (if he was going against society of his own free will).
The shooter's society was against his actions so I don't see how it shares any responsibility at all. If politicians regularly shot each other as a political tactic and it was approved of by the majority, then I could see how he might be influenced by society to do what he did.
Originally posted by The MISTER
In America society teaches people not to take the law into their own hands except when they are defending their life from an immediate threat. How can you hold society responsible for acts that reject it's teachings? Society is the direct result of the understood rules of the place you call home. If going against the rules is celebrated, that's sometimes reason enough for any individual to go against their society's rules. That society's rules still are what they are, defined by the majority of it's peoples beliefs.
no it doesn't
the past week since the shooting, we have seen countless examples of people, who are in positions of power and influence, encouraging violence, or using incredibly violent imagry and rhetoric (that would be unacceptable anywhere else in the world [nobody talks about "getting your guns" in Canadian politics]).
You simply can't dismiss this. In fact, American culture is full of "heroes" who do exactly what you describe, and are praised for it. Taking the law into one's own hands is THE archetype of American heroes, be them of the revolution or comic books.
Originally posted by The MISTER
The point I'm trying to make is that right or wrong society is something that an individual can go against if they want to. Society doesn't make choices it just is what it is like the current weather. Current society would define what he did as crazy (if he's literally insane) or evil (if he was going against society of his own free will).
the point I'm trying to make is that people don't work in the way you are describing. Our immediate and general social context, in fact, does influence our "free will" in ways we are not even close to aware of.
You, straight up, don't go around making conscious descisions about things. You brain has actually come to decisions about behaviour before you are ever conscious of your desire to act. People don't just "choose" to do things.
From the stance of modern psychological science, your view is terribly outdated. Just because you "want" people to be or think it is politically best that people are "individuals" and so forth, doesn't make it so. The evidence is abundently clear in this instance as well, as the shooter belonged to an extremeist right wing group, known as the Soverign Citizens movement, which encourages militancy and "taking back the corrupt nation" [they are also against the ammendments that banned slavery]
the culture that the shooter here belonged to was rife with violent and hateful rhetoric, and being subjected to this type of thing on a daily basis is exactly what has been shown to produce violent behaviour in people. Also:
and:
The violence, on BOTH sides of the political spectrum, is endemic in your nation. This is unheard of, unheard of, in other nations. Politics and violence are rarely so intimately tied, and TYT provides not only logic behind this shooting, but a spate of other violent incidents related directly to the culture of violence that surrounds your politics.
This again too:
Originally posted by The MISTER
The shooter's society was against his actions so I don't see how it shares any responsibility at all. If politicians regularly shot each other as a political tactic and it was approved of by the majority, then I could see how he might be influenced by society to do what he did.
1) american society worships violence. Really, debate me on this, lol
2) american politics are so full of violence that it is astounding to an outside observer
3) this gentleman belonged to a extremeist and militant ideology
Sure, he bares personal responsibility for his actions, but really, the way you are trying to define human behaviour isn't simply a matter of politics or opinion, it is straight out wrong. Insane or not, people are influenced by the media they consume and the world around them. If there is violence inherent in the way people talk about politics, there will be violence inherent in the political process itself.
edit-@Mister
I think the guy was nuts. Everyone who knew him attests to this fact. But, I don't think the media, who is more responsible than society in this case, is making the statement that society caused this situtation. The Republican Party (Sarah Palin, Sharron Angle, etc), the media and this guy being nuts is the case being made (by the media -f'ed up, I know), not society.
American society is enamoured with guns and these "cowboy" types. The media buys into and escalates it with all their nonsense, but at the end of the day, there is a tacit acceptance of vigilatism and "justified violence" in not just politics, but everything.
You couldn't tell people to "get their guns" in Canada, for any reason. The media couldn't spin it, our society is entirely against it.
Originally posted by skekUng
I'll take your word for it. It's hard to focus the lense from inside the big picture, you know.
not to say that there aren't lunatics or violence up here (we watch pretty much the same movies and media too)
thats actually one of the thing that boggles my mind about this whole thing. I don't actually believe that people could watch and be involved in politics that sound like this. Like, I've only ever met 1 person who seriously watched fox news. Its hard for people I know to even believe that Bill O'Riely isn't a charicture like Colbert is, that he would be a real personality that people trust... its insane. That this type of thing is politics as usual in America, it certainly makes it hard to get a real perspective on right-wing issues...
Hell, maybe I'm wrong, I'm sure if you dig you could find Canadian political ads and rhetoric of the same nature, but it isn't the mainstream...
[lol, I suppose I'm also anticipating ddm missing my point and posting that Canada actually has more knife murders per capita than does America... 😛 he knows I love him]
Originally posted by inimalist😄 I'd be glad to in a thread on that topic.
1) american society worships violence. Really, debate me on this, lol
Originally posted by inimalistI was trying to say this in the denial thread, concerning the impact of the media on the first social group a person belongs to.
Insane or not, people are influenced by the media they consume and the world around them.
The world around people is not the same as the media. I can blame the media for this but society in America ( As much as it does revel in conflict ) does not approve of murder and lawlessness when it's applied to real life situations. Give me one example of a person that has been celebrated by a majority of Americans for committing a politically influenced murder.
Either society at large approves or disapproves. Where is there any evidence that SOCIETY (not the American MEDIA) approves of a murderers behavior? Free speech allows for klansmen to march whether society approves or not so I'm still unconvinced that society is to blame, rather than the media and their call to individuals who want to go against America's social beliefs.
Originally posted by skekUng✅
edit-@MisterI think the guy was nuts. Everyone who knew him attests to this fact. But, I don't think the media, who is more responsible than society in this case, is making the statement that society caused this situtation. The Republican Party (Sarah Palin, Sharron Angle, etc), the media and this guy being nuts is the case being made (by the media -f'ed up, I know), not society.
Originally posted by inimalist
Sure, he bares personal responsibility for his actions, but really, the way you are trying to define human behaviour isn't simply a matter of politics or opinion, it is straight out wrong. Insane or not, people are influenced by the media they consume and the world around them. If there is violence inherent in the way people talk about politics, there will be violence inherent in the political process itself.
though i agree completely with the majority of your post (certainly environment plays a major factor in action and should NOT be absolved of blame) i do have a question:
i'm not sure when he joined this militant group, but let's pretend he joined it within the last 5yrs. that makes him a full adult, well aware of both the group's message and intentions when he joined in the first place. did a PREVIOUS environment (ie societal influences) force him to join this group which in turn influenced him so greatly that he commited this violent act? does not his rationale decision (assuming for the moment he is rationale) to join said group supercede society's influence in this case since he made the decision to join it in the first place? having joined this group, it seems he already had a predilection toward violence. is some other outside factor to be blamed for this predilection? how far do you go back? unless he is born into it, can we not also find a CHOICE that the individual made to enter or listen to the 'society' around him?
Originally posted by leonidas
i'm not sure when he joined this militant group,
I should have elaborated on this, not disagreeing with anything you said, just to make it clearer. A Mother Jones article (iirc) looked at the shooter's youtube videos and matched the content of them to the ideological points of the Soverign Citizens. It is not clear if he officially joined their group, and from how I saw it explained (admittedly by TYT [ya, I have 2 sources for news...]) Soverign Citizens may not even be a "group" one can join, so much as just an ideological point-of-view, like "progressivism" of something.
Originally posted by leonidas
but let's pretend he joined it within the last 5yrs. that makes him a full adult, well aware of both the group's message and intentions when he joined in the first place. did a PREVIOUS environment (ie societal influences) force him to join this group which in turn influenced him so greatly that he commited this violent act? does not his rationale decision (assuming for the moment he is rationale) to join said group supercede society's influence in this case since he made the decision to join it in the first place? having joined this group, it seems he already had a predilection toward violence. is some other outside factor to be blamed for this predilection? how far do you go back? unless he is born into it, can we not also find a CHOICE that the individual made to enter or listen to the 'society' around him?
I always hate to bring this up, but it is relevant to my perspective here. Like, I'm a trained psychological scientist, and the stuff I have learned about how people come to decisions, and about what it really means to "rationally" think about things, or about where our beliefs and desires come from, sort of make the distinction between "choice" and "society" entirely illusory.
Maybe think of it like this: there is not point, between the stimuli in an environment and a person's brain/mind, where you can draw a line and say, "ok, here is where this individual begins, and where society ends". Essentially, you can't look at any behaviour and say "oh, ok, this is motivated by the person's upbringing, and this by their inner self", not simply because it is too difficult, but because those aren't different things. Society informs self informs society. Ourselves and our surroundings are one system, not two or more interacting with eachother.
I know this throws a wrench in the mainstream political discourse, because it gives really unsatisfactory answers. Western political discourse is obsessed with attributing blame (Western philosophy and psychology actually tend to be in direct conflict on most issues regarding "individuals"😉, and even to me, it would be nice (as in, it would make me feel better) if we, as a people, could say, "ok, this person or that one, singular thing is the problem", but you can't.
The best answer I can give you to that question is: Yes, or both. Any predeilictions that Lauchner would have had toward extreme politics would themselves been based on social issues that themselves were selected by predilictions Lauchner had that were themselves the consequence of social interactions... A deeper sort of "ok, this gets 60% of the blame, that 40%" is impossible. Again, not because it is hard to do, but because, essentially, "nature" and "nurture" are not different things, but illusory concepts that have stuck around in Western philosophy.
Originally posted by The MISTER
😄 I'd be glad to in a thread on that topic.I was trying to say this in the denial thread, concerning the impact of the media on the first social group a person belongs to.
The world around people is not the same as the media. I can blame the media for this but society in America ( As much as it does revel in conflict ) does not approve of murder and lawlessness when it's applied to real life situations. Give me one example of a person that has been celebrated by a majority of Americans for committing a politically influenced murder.
Either society at large approves or disapproves. Where is there any evidence that SOCIETY (not the American MEDIA) approves of a murderers behavior? Free speech allows for klansmen to march whether society approves or not so I'm still unconvinced that society is to blame, rather than the media and their call to individuals who want to go against America's social beliefs.
dont confuse "violence that the state deems illegal" with "violence". My point hinges specifically on the fact that it is violence that is deemed acceptable by society that is the problem, not that people love murder.
people who win wars are never thought of as murderers. Western expansion, and the essential genocide of native peoples that came with it, was America's manifest destiny. The violence of that expansion is celebrated in America. God, look at how the confederacy is still treated in the south, and they were a military organization.
also, there is no reason to confine this to non-fictional examples. That nearly every action hero in movies, books, comics or video games is the bad ass violent male (more females now, as chicks with guns are hot [sic, though I am guilty of this myself]), who follows their gut and takes the law into their own hands when the beuracracy fails. This IS batman, this IS die-hard, this IS Nico Bellic. All cultures and societies are reflected by their art, sir.
Originally posted by inimalist
dont confuse "violence that the state deems illegal" with "violence". My point hinges specifically on the fact that it is violence that is deemed acceptable by society that is the problem, not that people love murder.people who win wars are never thought of as murderers. Western expansion, and the essential genocide of native peoples that came with it, was America's manifest destiny. The violence of that expansion is celebrated in America. God, look at how the confederacy is still treated in the south, and they were a military organization.
also, there is no reason to confine this to non-fictional examples. That nearly every action hero in movies, books, comics or video games is the bad ass violent male (more females now, as chicks with guns are hot [sic, though I am guilty of this myself]), who follows their gut and takes the law into their own hands when the beuracracy fails. This [b]IS
batman, this IS die-hard, this IS Nico Bellic. All cultures and societies are reflected by their art, sir. [/B]
You got a point with Batman, but John McClane actually is a police officer, and Nico Bellic is a criminal, and perhaps we can understand some of his behaviour, but he's surely not celebrated.
Your point is surely valid, of course, I just think there'd be better choices to underline it.
Originally posted by Bardock42
You got a point with Batman, but John McClane actually is a police officer, and Nico Bellic is a criminal, and perhaps we can understand some of his behaviour, but he's surely not celebrated.Your point is surely valid, of course, I just think there'd be better choices to underline it.
my point with mcclane is that his violence is ok. We are supposed to cheer for him because he is able to do more violence to his enemies than they are to him/society. Basically, there is an inherent justification of violence so long as there are certain conditions that surround it (though, tbh, the things that make violence "justified" are likely more universal to humans than just Americans). He might be a cop, but does he ever read people their rights? do we see him pouring over evidence for 56 hours in order to get a proper warrant that allows the grind of regular police work to collar the terrorists [do we?, I've never seen a Die Hard]? We aren't celebrating his "police-ness", hell, cracked jokes about how the police force never takes his hunches seriously, we are celebrating the fact that he knew he was right and he did violence because of it.
Bellic I'll give you... though I think it does still work in a way. Through the story of GTA4, rockstar portrayed Nico as some troubled immigrant trying to escape his past, then he shoots 61 mafia guys in the face with no second thought. Sure, he is pressued into it, but there is never a time where we see him reflect on this, or where, as a person playing the character, we are admonished for using violence as a tactic, especially when it furthers the goals of the character (justification). My biggest complaint with GTA4 is actually that. They made such an interesting character with real, human motivations, and then they ignored all of that during gameplay.
I agree, there are more "stereotypical" characters I could have used, but I tried to show more than just "comic book vigalante" as proof.
Originally posted by inimalist
my point with mcclane is that his violence is ok. We are supposed to cheer for him because he is able to do more violence to his enemies than they are to him/society. Basically, there is an inherent justification of violence so long as there are certain conditions that surround it (though, tbh, the things that make violence "justified" are likely more universal to humans than just Americans). He might be a cop, but does he ever read people their rights? do we see him pouring over evidence for 56 hours in order to get a proper warrant that allows the grind of regular police work to collar the terrorists [do we?, I've never seen a Die Hard]? We aren't celebrating his "police-ness", hell, cracked jokes about how the police force never takes his hunches seriously, we are celebrating the fact that he knew he was right and he did violence because of it.Bellic I'll give you... though I think it does still work in a way. Through the story of GTA4, rockstar portrayed Nico as some troubled immigrant trying to escape his past, then he shoots 61 mafia guys in the face with no second thought. Sure, he is pressued into it, but there is never a time where we see him reflect on this, or where, as a person playing the character, we are admonished for using violence as a tactic, especially when it furthers the goals of the character (justification). My biggest complaint with GTA4 is actually that. They made such an interesting character with real, human motivations, and then they ignored all of that during gameplay.
I agree, there are more "stereotypical" characters I could have used, but I tried to show more than just "comic book vigalante" as proof.
Well, I can see where you are coming from now. I was thinking you were referring to more specific examples of cheerful vigilante justice in the face of laws prohibiting it.
You are right with GTA4 of course, but that's a problem with the whole open world, choice is yours thing. Nico Bellic definitely had potential, and his cutscenes are good, but a game completely centered around indiscriminate murder is not the best place to tell his story, gameplay wise.
But yeah, American culture (though I do think that's something they have well exported, at least to my social circles) does celebrate violence for the greater good. Though again I guess that is a line we all have sometimes, in some circumstances we all think violence is the solution, say if we take the most extreme you coming home to your wife being threatened with a gun, I don't think anyone would say "No, you are wrong if you help her" (of course you may be stupid for helping her, but almost everyone would consider it noble and justified...or am I talking out of my ass here?)
Originally posted by inimalist
I should have elaborated on this, not disagreeing with anything you said, just to make it clearer. A Mother Jones article (iirc) looked at the shooter's youtube videos and matched the content of them to the ideological points of the Soverign Citizens. It is not clear if he officially joined their group, and from how I saw it explained (admittedly by TYT [ya, I have 2 sources for news...]) Soverign Citizens may not even be a "group" one can join, so much as just an ideological point-of-view, like "progressivism" of something.I always hate to bring this up, but it is relevant to my perspective here. Like, I'm a trained psychological scientist, and the stuff I have learned about how people come to decisions, and about what it really means to "rationally" think about things, or about where our beliefs and desires come from, sort of make the distinction between "choice" and "society" entirely illusory.
Maybe think of it like this: there is not point, between the stimuli in an environment and a person's brain/mind, where you can draw a line and say, "ok, here is where this individual begins, and where society ends". Essentially, you can't look at [b]any
behaviour and say "oh, ok, this is motivated by the person's upbringing, and this by their inner self", not simply because it is too difficult, but because those aren't different things. Society informs self informs society. Ourselves and our surroundings are one system, not two or more interacting with eachother.I know this throws a wrench in the mainstream political discourse, because it gives really unsatisfactory answers. Western political discourse is obsessed with attributing blame (Western philosophy and psychology actually tend to be in direct conflict on most issues regarding "individuals"😉, and even to me, it would be nice (as in, it would make me feel better) if we, as a people, could say, "ok, this person or that one, singular thing is the problem", but you can't.
The best answer I can give you to that question is: Yes, or both. Any predeilictions that Lauchner would have had toward extreme politics would themselves been based on social issues that themselves were selected by predilictions Lauchner had that were themselves the consequence of social interactions... A deeper sort of "ok, this gets 60% of the blame, that 40%" is impossible. Again, not because it is hard to do, but because, essentially, "nature" and "nurture" are not different things, but illusory concepts that have stuck around in Western philosophy. [/B]
cool. playing devil's advocate again for a moment though, the problem i have with that is this: taken to it's inevitable conclusion, you are eschewing freewill and laying all of our actions (and all our future actions) at the foot of 'society'. any decision i make is not 'my' decision. it is a decision based on the society around me. it's robert wright's idea (that GENES control everything) looked at in a mirror.
hypothetically, i could go buy a gun and shoot someone in the street tomorrow, and claim that it wasn't my fault, i was merely a victim myself of a society that made me what i am. even though i'm aware that society itself would deem my actions monstrous and i myself know they are wrong yet make the choice to pull the trigger anyway. it also seems to be a basically unproveable claim, because each time someone says he made THIS choice, your logic would say--but something influenced him to MAKE that choice.
i agree whole-heartedly that society can influence our decision making (some people more than others) but i still feel that rationale choice can--and in most cases do (or more people would be doing whatever they wanted)--overcome those influences (negative as well as positive at times) under normal circumstances. otherwise, again, what becomes of the idea of freewill? or are you saying we are simply societal automatons?
meh, good discussion and just my 2 cents.