posted
I was just reading another book (by some famous authors, and I won't even go into all the problems, but it really did seem like at least half the book was in poorly marked flashbacks and I could never be sure which character was the POV at any given moment...and the degree of incomprehension of tactics, technology, and society displayed was astonishing--some of that could be blamed on the characters not understanding these things, but not all of it), and I had one specific problem that I wanted to gripe about.
Cold-blooded killers aren't normal. Most any human can get angry enough to intentionally kill someone, but most humans cannot do it in cold blood...there is some kind of instinct that prevents this. A human with this instinct can override it, but doing this more than a few times will result in marked changes in personality, changes that other people will notice. Humans that lack this instinct start off seeming a bit strange and frightening.
In the book I just read (as well as a number of the other books written by one of the authors), normal, everyday, cheerful sociable people can kill in cold blood whenever it is necessary to the story that they do so. They then go on being the very same lovably cute folksy people as before.
Only bad people lose part of their humanity when they kill in cold blood, in this moral universe.
I assure you, this is not true! To kill without great passions moving you, you must strip away part of your humanity (if you happen to come with that part, not everyone does). Non-hate-frenzied humans instinctively shy from killing other humans. And once a human has killed other humans, it is almost impossible to restore that human to a state of true normalcy.
Does anyone else ever find this bothersome in fiction? I admit, I find the opposite idea (that killing is always wrong) even more annoying...as a philosophy, at least. But it is actually more realistic than the idea that normal humans can just go around killing anyone that needs killing.
posted
I agree that the average person would find it very difficult to kill in cold blood, and that an average person who does so, even if he feels it was justified, will not instantly snap back into a normal cheery life.
However, I'm not sure about this:
quote:A human with this instinct can override it, but doing this more than a few times will result in marked changes in personality, changes that other people will notice. Humans that lack this instinct start off seeming a bit strange and frightening.
Yes, there have been plenty of serial killers with very strange personalities, but there are also the cases where the serial killer was well-liked and considered normal by his friends and neighbors, who then find it very hard to believe that he really is a killer.
I'm not saying that the serial killer is normal; all I'm saying is that sometimes he may be able to mask his abnormality to the extent that other people don't notice.
posted
I have heard this same opinion before, and I do not believe it. I know that the belief that ANYONE can kill in cold blood is not popular, but it is one that I find to be true firsthand.
I serve in the United States Navy. I have a hand in the deaths of thousands of people just by serving, but I know a great many people who have done it firsthand. You wouldn't know it by talking to them, going out drinking with them, even being their best friend. They're called Marines. I work with them every day. If you are joining the military for an education, travel, job skills, you join the Air Force or Navy . . . maybe the Army. Not the Marines. I can't say that it's true for everyone, but when people join the Marine's it is because they want to kill.
I know, it sounds sadistic. It's not. It's human nature. Alexander Hamilton was one of the most outspoken, passionate gentlemen of his time. One of the greatest of our founding fathers. He fought in duels, though, over stupid things. He killed several hundred men.
The morals and morays of society have ingrained in us the idea of compassion, that killing is wrong, but that doesn't change instinct. Some people go against the grain. When you challenge conventional thought, conventional social thought is challenged, and that leads people into a whole other existance---survival of the fittest.
Sure, some people might change after commiting murder, but I know people who haven't. "They killed for their country", you might say. Yes, they killed for reasons that they thought were appropriate. That THEY thought were appropriate. Sure, they were trained to do it, told that it was all right, but they made the choice. It is people like that that die . . . and kill to make society feel safe, to let them BELIEVE that killing is wrong. Some kill because they have to, some because they're told to, and some because they like to.
One of my buddies told me once, in confidence, something that I'll share. I won't release his name, I'm sure he'd be fine with it. He was one of the nicest guys you'd ever meet. Mormon, clean language, polite, social, considerate. One of the best friends you could have. He was shy once, a shy Idaho apple-pie kid. But after killing, he had nothing left to fear . . . no social situation would ever worry him compared to what he'd already experienced. Sure, he might have nightmares, have a hard time sleeping, I don't know, but it's something he had to do, for his own reasons. And that's something that he can live with. Me too.
[This message has been edited by JBShearer (edited March 09, 2004).]
quote:Alexander Hamilton was one of the most outspoken, passionate gentlemen of his time. One of the greatest of our founding fathers. He fought in duels, though, over stupid things. He killed several hundred men.
I'm going to need a source on that.
I think the truth is much closer to your friends example, a deliberative killing does change most people. Not all people start out with this instinct, but I believe that the great majority of humans do, and overriding it makes a man less subject to many strong instinctive behaviors (such as cause social fear).
I didn't say the changes were never positive, or that killers were never charming, only that they aren't normal. I happen to consider myself a charming person with many positive qualities
In the interests of providing additional information, I would point you to an excellent article at the oddly named killology.com site.
You can also google Brigadier General S. L. A. Marshall, Men Against Fire and Military studies.
quote:Most any human can get angry enough to intentionally kill someone, but most humans cannot do it in cold blood...there is some kind of instinct that prevents this
I disagree. In fact, I believe that humans do have an instinct to kill, one that rearing in polite society overrides. Those who don't get this training may not be normal, I don't really know what you mean by normal, really....
Look at young boys at play. They play war. I didn't....but I think there is actually a gender bias on this point anyway. (not a hard and fast law, just a bias. )
Have you ever read Lord of the Flies? That was one of the required readings in high school that I actually kinda liked. I thought it made some excellent points about how children would revert without parents, rules, and society.
I was talking to some people a couple years ago about a somewhat unrelated topic...sin. Theyw ere the types that claimed one sin was the same as another in the eyes of God, I was disagreeing. I told them that a kill in self defense was different from a kill in cold blood. What if you killing that person saved a thousand people? I asked them. Oh no, the same...point is, they told me that if I was forced to kill in self defense I would feel BAD.
No, I would not. I finally decided this after the face, I never got a chance to tell them. If I was upset it would be because my life, or the life of my family/friends were in danger. It would not be because I did what I had to do. As far as I'm concerned that person would have killed himself by messing with the wrong @#$* person and good riddance.
Cold blood....no I couldn't kill in cold blood, but I recognize that the instinct TO killin cold blood exists in humans. It's so tough to isolate in modern day society, away from the pressures and needs of the tribal unit, but I think JBShearer has told us beautifully where those with that strong an instinct who do not want to become serial killers might turn. Actually, your post was very interesting, JB, I learned a few things.
posted
The truth is, nobody can really accurately say whether or not people have the instinct to kill in cold blood unless they've been put in the situation and discovered they either could or couldn't do it. Anyone who hasn't been tested is just speculating, and can only contribute so much to the conversation. Even then, they can only say whether or not THEY have that ability, and not the rest of humanity.
My opinion is that people generally don't have the ability to kill in cold blood unless something (like military training or desensitization) programs that ability into them. That's only my opinion, though, since I've never had the choice, opportunity, or desire. (Hot-blooded murder, that's a desire I have every time some ^#?! cuts me off in traffic, but not cold-blooded.) My opinion is extrapolated (is that the right word there?) from my imagination that I would have a lot of trouble killing somebody in any situation, whether it's right to do it or not, and I assume everybody else is just like me. That's of course not the case, but my own personality is the only frame of reference I have, so my opinion has to be based on that.
In reality, whether or not people have the ability to kill in cold blood without being changed in a major way would probably have to be decided on a case-by-case basis. Some can probably do it, and some probably can't.
posted
I have 12 boxes of books that I have yet to unpack since my recent move. In one of them is some material on psychological experiments performed to see if the average person could be a cold blooded killer. One of these is often cited in beginning psychology textbooks as an example of an unethical experiment. (My guess is it's unethical because people don't want to know what they could do, I think it's a stupid reason.) The famous experiment, by some guy whose name I am straining to remember, finds that when asked to give increasing levels of electric shock to a subject (who is actually pretending to receive the shock) 2 in 3 will actually keep going to lethal levels. Similiar experiments have found that a person is more likely to kill if they are wearing a hood or a mask, making them anonymous.
I will try to go th rough and find some way to cite these for you. I had forgotten all about it until wetwilly said we couldn't prove one way or another if a person could be a cold blooded killer. I'm not sure that these experiments are proof positive, but they do give average people who have never had to kill in cold blood room to talk.
posted
I've read about that experiment, too, Christine, but as I recall the subjects of the experiment were told that the shocks were painful but would not cause any real harm.
posted
I think the sad truth is that each of us is capable of anything, given the right circumstances. That's why it's so foolish to say "never."
Posts: 1810 | Registered: Jun 2002
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posted
The Milgram experiments, done at Yale by Stanley Milgram. The point wasn't the killing, but rather whether people would be obedient to authority even if they knew death was a significant risk to the other person.
I've seen the videos. They're chilling-- but not for the reasons one would imagine. The subjects, the people pushing the shock switches, are shaking, nervously laughing, all in all falling apart, and every time they say "Don't you think something is wrong?" the experimentor says "You must go on. The experiment requires that you continue." And most of them go on, even when the other person-- the other person who's been screaming and refusing to go on and yelling about his heart condition-- has stopped responding entirely.
posted
I know the main point of the experiment was not that people would killin cold blood...it was a study in peer pressure. Nevertheless people did end up killing in cold blood simply because they were ordered to do so. They weren't even ordered by anyone with any real authority...just some experimenters. I find *that* to be both chilling and quite telling.
More importantly, it tells me that a lot of our actions are motivated by peer pressure. So that is we are NOT cold blooded killers, isn't it possible that the only reason is that it is socially unacceptable to do so?
posted
That probably depends on whether you believe humans have a conscience.
At very least, we have a sense of guilt that's trained from the time that we're born. That has no direct correlation with social pressure or whether killing is socially acceptible - it's more a nurture thing.
Personally, I think humans have a conscience that tells them it's wrong to kill and makes them feel guilty about it, even without training - but that it's pretty easy to override in the right circumstances: mob mentality, soldier mentality, self-defense, anger, etc.
Now, if you want to get into some really disturbing stuff, study necrophiliacs who have turned to killing people in order to get sexual partners. Jefferey Dahmer types. Dahmer even liked to pour acid into his captives' brains to make them into zombie servants before he did them in. He was one messed-up guy. When the cops discovered his stash, he didn't even try to hide anything...
I wonder how much of killing is all control? Many necrophiliacs have a desire for complete control, which they can really only have over a dead person. Is that also what murder is really about?
Christine: I'm glad you brought up that experiment. I was going to if nobody else did. It's probably one of the most disturbing studies I've ever read about.
posted
Actually that's mentioned in the article I referenced. It was one the the most important innovations that made the Romans so effective in battle, they had non-coms standing behind the troops and demand "effective killing activity."
It has always been a huge factor in war that when battle is joined for real, most of the soldiers can't overcome the instinctive reluctance to kill other humans, particularly face to face. You all really should read that article, it was pretty good.
Plus, I'm still waiting for anyone to confirm for me that Hamilton killed a lot of men in duels over 'stupid things'. I wasn't aware that he'd ever killed anyone in a duel.
posted
Oh, yeah, Lord of the Flies is an excellent example. All of the killings (and there are only two that I recall) are carried out in situations where some degree of mass hysteria is present. And the killers are far from unaffected, psychologically. That's part of what makes it a great book.
Posts: 8322 | Registered: Aug 1999
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posted
My husband and I were actually friends with Milgram's son at college. He told us that his father was vilified until the (rather early) end of his life for that experiment. His goal was to try and comprehend how ordinary people in Germany during the Holocaust could torture and slaughter millions of people and then shrug it off as having been "following orders." I'd say the experiment was a success to some degree, although no one involved felt good about the answers it yielded.
[This message has been edited by Hildy9595 (edited March 10, 2004).]
posted
Survivor, I agree that most "normal" humans cannot go around killing anyone who needs killing. It seems the book you read broke that rule and ended up with lousy fiction.
But I think there is an exception to the "normal" rule used in Lord of the Flies. From what I understand about the recent genocides in Rwanda, it seems that children can be turned into killing machines. Given brutal enough circumstances or role models at a young enough age, it may be possible to keep children from developing the level of compassion we consider normal. The Rwandan child soldiers were notorious in their ability to kill without hesitation and feel no remose afterward.
I don't know much about the subject, but I think the kids they were using were 10 - 14 years old. Obviously none of this would apply to the book you were reading, which was about "normal, everyday, cheerful sociable people."
posted
Yeah, that's the thing. These are supposed to be normal small town Americans, forced into a situation where they have to start brutally killing people (to avoid being brutally killed). And yet, none of the characters seem even slightly tramatized by this turn of events...and not just former military personnel, who've undergone at least some training in that line, or even the town FPS addicts (actually, there don't seem to be any Doomers or such in the bunch, which was odd but so what, right?).
Even for people that have been trained to kill, that only means they'll be more likely to pull the trigger, it doesn't make them immune from the truama afterwards.
Those child soldiers are a good example, it takes a lot of highly skilled care to turn them back into something like normal children...and they don't just leave the experience behind even then.
Anyway, since I've mentioned the book that I have not named as an example of how not to do it, and have on the other hand endorsed The Lord of the Flies as an example of how you should do it, anyone else have examples on either side?
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