“Mere Psychopathy”

‘”Any time bombs are used to target civilians, it is an act of terrorism,” Obama said, adding that it remained unclear who carried out the attack and why.’

But I don’t think this is right: I think it is important to differentiate a terror attack, which has a political aim, from mere psychopathy, where someone just wants to kill lots of people because it excites them.

Yes, I’m sure this difference matters hugely to the victims. The quality of terror must be entirely different in these cases. “My friend / relative has been murdered by a mere psychopath! What a relief! I feared this was something serious but, whew! I feel so much better now!”

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34 responses to ““Mere Psychopathy””

Roberto Severino

April 16, 2013

Hey! I like Gene Callahan as an economist, but a few people over at Bob Murphy’s Free Advice blog don’t like it when he comments on posts, Recently, a commenter claimed that he was acting like a troll here.

http://consultingbyrpm.com/blog/2013/04/potpourri-139.html#comment-61317

As for what you’re trying to say, I completely agree with you, Clarissa. I think Professor Callahan is focusing too much on a triviality. A tragic event is still a tragic event.

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Stringer Bell

April 16, 2013

Well, ‘mere psychopathy’ seems to be code for when white americans do it.

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thevenerablecorvex

April 16, 2013

Especially Republicans! Sure are a lot of “lone psychos” wandering around these days.

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April 16, 2013

It makes a huge difference to people in charge of social institutions, when they have to choose how to continue dealing, whether there are more bombs somewhere, etc. From which direction society is under attack.

There are numerous words in English language to differentiate among variations of crimes. Having a new term, as the author advises, seems a normal idea. After all, today we already have words “drunk driving” or “overspeeding” or “phone driving”, while people may die from either of the cases.

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bloggerclarissa

April 16, 2013

Whether there are more bombs and why the attack happened should be investigated in any case.

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David Gendron

April 16, 2013

So Bush and Obama, those war criminals, are “mere psychopaths”.

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bloggerclarissa

April 16, 2013

No, they were politically motivated, so that makes them worse.

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1. David Gendron
  
  April 16, 2013
  
  Of course.
  
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2. Z
  
  April 16, 2013
  
  I don’t understand why it is worse. Perhaps I accept the existence of war too much but somehow “my relative was killed by war” or “by a disease” seems less traumatic than to have them killed by random insanity.
  
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David Gendron

April 16, 2013

My twanzphobic chronicle:

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/04/13/17733363-transgender-woman-banned-from-idaho-grocery-store-over-restroom-use?lite

We will not agree on this arrest, but this quote is outrageous.

“In February the parents of a 6-year-old transgender girl in Colorado filed a complaint with the state’s civil rights agency challenging a decision by education officials to deny their child access to the girls’ restrooms in her school.”

SIX YEAR-OLD TRANSGENDER GIRL! Are they kidding me?

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bloggerclarissa

April 16, 2013

“”The store security officer said he had been dealing with a problem over a couple days with the person going into the women’s restroom and urinating while standing up,” Lanier said.”

– The real question is why are there no doors on the bathroom stalls??? I haven’t seen anything like that since Soviet times.

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  April 16, 2013
  
  “In February the parents of a 6-year-old transgender girl in Colorado filed a complaint with the state’s civil rights agency challenging a decision by education officials to deny their child access to the girls’ restrooms in her school. The case is being closely watched by civil libertarians.”
  
  – Everybody in this situation is being a jerk. Except the kid, of course.
  
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2. David Gendron
  
  April 16, 2013
  
  Fair enough, I don’t see as a big deal that a 6 year-old boy could go in any bathroom.
  
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Evelina Anville

April 16, 2013

David, I appreciate many of your comments and perspectives. But you are so very very very off base when it comes to this subject. And, as a side note, maniacally repeating the words “jendah” and “twansphobic” doesn’t make you seem clever or ironic: it just makes you seem mean spirited and insensitive.

Gender identity is complex and runs deep. And gender identity is not necessarily connected to biology year. 6 olds absolutely have a gender identity. I certainly identified as a “girl” when I was six. But I was lucky enough to possess the “biological parts” that connected with female identity, and so I never experienced the very painful cognitive disconnect that many transpeople experience. Transgenderism is very real.

I’m not sure why you are so insensitive when it comes to this issue. But please, revisit your stance here. And for the love of everything, don’t return to the bathroom issue and don’t claim you are somehow standing up for ciswomen here. The threat of “bathroom rape” is almost nonexistent. And no ciswoman is asking for or applauding your efforts. Don’t dump your issues with transgender people on us.

My recommendation? Do a bit of soul searching and try to articulate what your issue with transgenderism is. And you can’t use the following words when trying to articulate that issue: bathroom, jendah, twansphobic. I suspect you will discover that your issue is much more hateful that you would like to admit. Good luck. 😉

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1. David Gendron
  
  April 16, 2013
  
  At least, you appreciate my other comments, so I will reply to this later. 🙂
  
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2. David Gendron
  
  April 16, 2013
  
  “And, as a side note, maniacally repeating the words “jendah” and “twansphobic” ”
  
  As a feminist, I’m against genderism, so I can’t support transgenderism because trangenderism needs genderism. So this sum up my issues with transgenderism. And every time someone does say this or evoke sex essentialism against gender essentialism, ey is labeled as “someone who doesn’t respect my jendah identity” or even worse, ey is labeled by the “twanzphobia” strawman.
  
  “it just makes you seem mean spirited and insensitive.”
  
  I’m glad to be considered as mean spirited and insensitive. As an anarchist, I’m not interested by PR nor kneejerk networking.
  
  “And gender identity is not necessarily connected to biology year.”
  
  I agree, but it’s often connected with education. Parents have the patriarchical tendency to make their children “acting like a girl” or “acting like a boy”.
  
  “6 olds absolutely have a gender identity.”
  
  Many actual trans women (men) felt like their biologically assigned sex at 6 years old and parents should not enforce a gender to their kids.
  
  “Transgenderism is very real.”
  
  It’s real when you consider genderism as real.
  
  “I’m not sure why you are so insensitive”
  
  Again, I’m glad to be considered like this.
  
  “The threat of “bathroom rape” is almost nonexistent.”
  
  Fair enough, I don’t think this is a so big issue for trans women. I could even be agreeing to your assertion concerning trans women. BUT, the problem is that HET MEN will use this (and they use this now) to be able to satisfy their bathroom fantasies and their cross-dressing fantasies (which are very common among het men) AGAINST WOMEN. Why I should explain this again?
  
  Maybe I will add to this later.
  
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  1. bloggerclarissa
    
    April 16, 2013
    
    Normally developing children discover gender identity by the age of 3. My niece Klubnikis knew who was a girl and who was a boy at the age of 2. And was asking endlessly “does x have a penis or a vagina ” and “what is my vagina for”?
    
    So yes, they have gender identity. If only adults could behave like normal people and not create a hullabaloo around the individual gender identity. The kid says, “I’m a boy”, just relax and taken it in your stride. The kid wants to be called Allison instead of Alfred, what’s the big deal?
    
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3. bloggerclarissa
  
  April 16, 2013
  
  David shared earlier that he had had a very traumatic incident with a bathroom peeper and police. I’m sure he doesn’t want anybody to be hurt, or discriminated, or persecuted but he does have a very intense reaction to the bathroom issue because of this personal experience.
  
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4. bloggerclarissa
  
  April 16, 2013
  
  I also think that the exercise Evelina suggested is an extremely useful one. I highly recommend it.
  
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5. David Gendron
  
  April 17, 2013
  
  @Evelina Anville
  
  “And no ciswoman is asking for or applauding your efforts. Don’t dump your issues with transgender people on us. ”
  
  You could be surprised but I would stop about bathrooms if the majority women would not support sex-segregated spaces. Right now, a clear majority of women supports sex-segregated spaces.
  
  This use of the “cis” prefix is sexist because it supports genderism. I’m not personally offended by this but some women could be.
  
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6. David Gendron
  
  April 17, 2013
  
  @Clarissa
  
  I agree with the “personal experience” thing.
  
  “Normally developing children discover gender identity by the age of 3.”
  
  Discovering their biological sex, not gender. Gender is a social authoritarian construct, not biological sex. Parents (and the society) are those who enforce gender identity. Sometimes, kids could reject this gender identity (rightly so!) but this may not necessarily mean that they reject their biological sex definitively nor that they would necessarily embrace “the other gender” later. Any claim that a 6 year-old boy is a trans girl is about supporting parental alienation and this is not right. Also parents should not try to manipulate kids for their own gender politics issues.
  
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  1. bloggerclarissa
    
    April 17, 2013
    
    “Discovering their biological sex, not gender. Gender is a social authoritarian construct, not biological sex. ”
    
    – No, I said what I said: children discover gender before the age of 3. Again, from my niece Klubnikis at 2,5: “No, Mommy, Daddy can’t be a princess because he is a boy!” She is now 3 and already knows that girls wear lipstick and she has a collection of lipsticks and loves them all. She is even teaching her mother to apply lipstick correctly. Her parents are feminists, so they obviously did not foster any of this. The only society she meets is that of other kids in daycare. Probably, this is where princesses and lipsticks came from, although – and this is important – she was the only child at the daycare who could speak when she discovered lipsticks and princesses.
    
    “Any claim that a 6 year-old boy is a trans girl is about supporting parental alienation and this is not right.”
    
    – I agree that with a child so small there is no need to bring the word transgender into the equation. As I said, parents should just react normally to any self-positioning of the child. When s/he grows up, s/he will choose which identity to embrace and how to identify.
    
    “Also parents should not try to manipulate kids for their own gender politics issues.”
    
    – I agree. I find it very disturbing that the parents are suing when – I am absolutely sure – this could all have been handled through having a conversation with the teachers and the school principal.
    
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thevenerablecorvex

April 16, 2013

Jesus God on a Cruciform Cracker, are you still going on about this?
You seem to spend more time thinking about trans women’s penises than trans women do. Grow up.

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  April 16, 2013
  
  Cruciform cracker. 🙂 🙂 This is the best.
  
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  1. thevenerablecorvex
    
    April 17, 2013
    
    Yeah, I was pretty proud of that one.
    
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2. David Gendron
  
  April 17, 2013
  
  “Cruciform cracker”
  
  I enjoy it even myself! 🙂
  
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musteryou

April 16, 2013

Yes, somehow it seems to some people less shameful to be attacked by a psychopath, because then they are a mere victim of fate. To be attacked by a terrorist means they let their guard down, which is to say they are culpable in a way. This same dichotomy in reasoning that I have perceived must be why more and more of life is relegated to the category of being an uncontrollable force of nature and less and less is related to the individual and their capabilities. At the same time, it is this common, dichotomised perspective itself that produces the ridiculous either-or possibilities. Reality is nuanced.

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Z

April 16, 2013

Oh, I see — it is about doing right and wrong. I had not thought of this, being attacked by a terrorist is considered something you should know how to avoid or that someone should have protected you from.

Now I understand at last a long-ago discussion I did not understand at the time. It was with someone I was in graduate school with, about a third person from graduate school who had not made tenure due to the general corruption in her department.

Person A: Person B did not make tenure.
Me: How ridiculous of that university. Well, what are her plans?
Person A: Oh, that is not important … what is important is that not making tenure was not her fault.
Me (aside): Hunh? I am sure not, but she is out of a job regardless, isn’t it more interesting to think about the next step?

But no, the whole interest was around the question of fault and now I see more and more, this is how mainstream people think. Hm.

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1. musteryou
  
  April 16, 2013
  
  I learned about this in part from some USA martial guy or whatnot talking about the shooting of a judge. He said it was basically down to the judge making a mistake and letting down his guard for a fraction of a second, which he ought not to have done.
  
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2. bloggerclarissa
  
  April 16, 2013
  
  Ah! I have just realized why people get so rabid when I say I believe in psychosomatic causes of illness! They must believe it’s my way of assigning blame for the disease. Oh Gods.
  
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  1. Z
    
    April 16, 2013
    
    Yes, this must be it. I now see what is behind a typical conversation I have.
    
    Person: Do you know why you have X reaction to Y?
    Me: Yes. X is unjust, for one thing. For another, I react to this particular injustice for personal reasons.
    
    People want to say that calling something unjust is “blaming”, which is bad because it is not “taking responsibility” for one’s personal reasons for reacting. Then if one does say one has personal reasons one is aware of, and one knows already that only oneself can resolve these, it totally confounds people. They are very, very caught up in the idea that the reflex is to blame and that blaming is some kind of moral censure and also avoidance.
    
    What is clear to me from this is that in US culture people must be raised with a very punitive attitude — they’re bad bad bad — and so they want to avoid being called that and it is at the same the only way they have to express the opinion that anything is wrong anywhere (it is “bad” in the sense of blameable, punishable).
    
    Somehow related is this friend I have, resents job because it requires so much work but at the same time feels like a “bad person” because of not wanting to do so much work. All this resentment and blame everywhere.
    
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3. FD
  
  April 17, 2013
  
  It’s called the ‘just world’ theory. Very common in the US in my experience, although you stumble across it everywhere. I consider it a sign of delayed emotional development – propounders of this theory serum to have gotten stuck at age 3 or 4 when they were fist discovering that actually the world does not operate according to fairness.
  
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  1. Z
    
    April 17, 2013
    
    Oh, my God.
    
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Evelina Anville

April 17, 2013

@David: “Right now, a clear majority of women supports sex-segregated spaces.”

Sure. Many women prefer that. But this is what you continually miss: transwomen ARE women. Gender is NOT just a function of biology. Gender is much more complex than that. That’s it. That’s where the discussion ends.

And don’t start spinning any story about hetmen assuming the ID of a transwomen to gain access to women only spaces. That’s a fantasy, And it’s a problem that can happen at any time. The existence of transwomen doesn’t exacerbate the threat of rape or of creepy peeping toms.

So if a females only space exists, transwomen should be able to join that space. Why? Because, again, transwomen are women. And their experience of femininity is as legitimate as that of a ciswoman. Period. End of story. Not complicated.

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