RE: Young Men and Mass Violence

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tweakabelle -> RE: Young Men and Mass Violence (5/2/2013 1:10:05 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Kirata quote: ORIGINAL: tweakabelle One thing that does emerge clearly is that we have very different understandings of what humans are. You are relaxed attributing various aspects of human behaviour to 'human nature', as though there is some kind of essence-given-in-Nature (eg behavioural genetic inheritance, biological predisposition) that we all share. I don't share that perspective at all, either in your main argument or in the example offered (sexuality). You are simply ignoring reality here, and in consequence everything that follows falls. Both individually and collectively, human nature is not a blank slate upon which nurture may write what it will. K. Your reality is yours to define, but none of us can define 'reality' for everyone. Your reality is your reality and yours alone. I've said nothing about a blank slate not do I propose to get into a yet another stupid tabula rasa discussion. Do try re-reading what I wrote with an open mind. Where you are coming sounds like it has little or nothing to do with what I wrote.

Rule -> RE: Young Men and Mass Violence (5/2/2013 1:15:21 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: tweakabelle quote: ORIGINAL: Kirata You are simply ignoring reality here Quite. Or rather: she is unaware of that part of reality, just like a born blind person is unaware of the reality of light.

Kirata -> RE: Young Men and Mass Violence (5/2/2013 2:11:33 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Rule Or rather: she is unaware of that part of reality, just like a born blind person is unaware of the reality of light. Well I think she may be a Sociologist, which would be to say the same thing. Sociology is bad theology by other means. It proposes the existence of a realm called the "social," a realm so broadly conceived as to encompass virtually all human interaction, and so inescapable that even when we retire into solitude we take it with us, "inside" us as it were. In this dynamic and magical realm of the "social" everything consists of interactions; interactions between actors who in turn embody the sums of their previous interactions. There are no independent actors, no actual people there. So we should not expect that Sociologists would know anything about them. K.

PeonForHer -> RE: Young Men and Mass Violence (5/2/2013 3:59:17 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Kirata Sociology is bad theology by other means. It proposes the existence of a realm called the "social," a realm so broadly conceived as to encompass virtually all human interaction, and so inescapable that even when we retire into solitude we take it with us, "inside" us as it were. In this dynamic and magical realm of the "social" everything consists of interactions; interactions between actors who in turn embody the sums of their previous interactions. There are no independent actors, no actual people there. So we should not expect that Sociologists would know anything about them. K.[/font][/size] Hell's bells, K . . . that is prejudice. Against a whole subject discipline, too? That's pretty breathtaking.

Kirata -> RE: Young Men and Mass Violence (5/2/2013 4:20:01 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: PeonForHer Hell's bells, K . . . that is prejudice. Against a whole subject discipline, too? That's pretty breathtaking. Well damn, and I'll bet you even have an asshole too. [:D] K.

PeonForHer -> RE: Young Men and Mass Violence (5/2/2013 4:26:50 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Kirata Well damn, and I'll bet you even have an asshole too. [:D] I haven't a clue what that means.

Kirata -> RE: Young Men and Mass Violence (5/2/2013 4:30:29 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: PeonForHer I haven't a clue what that means. Oh, I'm sorry. It's a saying: "Opinions are like assholes. Everybody has one." K.

PeonForHer -> RE: Young Men and Mass Violence (5/2/2013 4:37:47 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: tweakabelle Your reality is yours to define, but none of us can define 'reality' for everyone. Your reality is your reality and yours alone. Well, one reality that upon which there's broad agreement on this thread is that a lot of violence is done by young men, that a lot of this is detrimental to wider society, and that it'd be good if this weren't the case. Another agreement I'm detecting is that notions of developing or nurturing 'warriors' aren't going to afford much help because, if they apply at all, they could only apply to a minority of men. Wouldn't it be better to learn from looking at what has worked for the majority of men - that is, those who've done no violence that's harmful to society at large?

PeonForHer -> RE: Young Men and Mass Violence (5/2/2013 4:38:54 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Kirata Oh, I'm sorry. It's a saying: "Opinions are like assholes. Everybody has one." Ah - OK, gotcha. Ta.

Aswad -> RE: Young Men and Mass Violence (5/2/2013 4:59:03 AM)
tweakabelle, I'll get back to you shortly. We're finally making some headway, converging. Some minor matters, I'll try to word them properly so we don't lose the mutually gained ground. Then, we are close to mutual revelation, I think. [:D] quote: ORIGINAL: PeonForHer Hell's bells, K . . . that is prejudice. Against a whole subject discipline, too? That's pretty breathtaking. I read him more as proposing that the sociologist outlook stumbles in the same place as the tabula rasa outlook and the nature outlook. I mean, human beings clearly have a social instinct, sure, but it's not so much that we are social fictions, more characters, and more that we draw the lines of identity and behavior in the oddest of places. Most human beings have a stack of overhead projection sheets of social identity elements, both cultural, relational and situational, on top of the core identity sheet that's glued to the projector glass plate, which tends to be engraved with a few very basic potentialities. Many also tend to stick a bit of tape on some of the sheets their fond of, and some keep a big-ass felt tip pen on hand for adjustments, while a few also remember the erasers. A common failing in the history of many theories is trying to account for everything with one model at once. To create one perfect model that accounts for all the observables isn't impossible, but it's a huge work, and were I in that field, I wouldn't be confident enough to set out to make one of those. No, I find that several models have merit, because they describe something, not everything, and their creation is manageable. Then, later, when certain constellations of models appear, we can refactor them, synthesize a supermodel that encompasses all the incremental advances, because the leap is still there yet far shorter. Perhaps sociologists need to realize that they describe one kind of human, not all. And perhaps Kirata needs to realize the sociologists are talking about a very common kind of human. Or perhaps he already has, and simply refers to that kind of human as a sociologist. In which case you should realize that seems a rather fair assessment, just coupled with a dislike. I figure all of these could stand to be considered. I can understand the desire to assume we're all human, all the same kind of human, but the prime computation is: not within any framework I've ever seen for organizing humans by kinds. That, perhaps, more than anything, is why I initially found such authors as Nietzsche interesting: the admission that it's pointless to search for some unified humanity, because we're not all the same, just close enough to gainfully coexist, not close enough for unified analysis yet, not simple enough for that, and each analysis should focus on the kind to which it is most applicable. A diversity of types. Else, we all just fall short of each other's illegitimately transposed ideals, or worse: a single, shared false ideal. IWYW, — Aswad.

PeonForHer -> RE: Young Men and Mass Violence (5/2/2013 5:12:45 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Aswad A common failing in the history of many theories is trying to account for everything with one model at once. To create one perfect model that accounts for all the observables isn't impossible, but it's a huge work, and were I in that field, I wouldn't be confident enough to set out to make one of those. No, I find that several models have merit, because they describe something, not everything, and their creation is manageable. Then, later, when certain constellations of models appear, we can refactor them, synthesize a supermodel that encompasses all the incremental advances, because the leap is still there yet far shorter. I think what you're describing there is an issue of high modernity - a time that saw the heyday of grand, universal theories. Social theorists fell prey to that - what is now seen as arrogance - but so did most others, of course. Times have moved on . . . .

Aswad -> RE: Young Men and Mass Violence (5/2/2013 5:18:51 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: PeonForHer Another agreement I'm detecting is that notions of developing or nurturing 'warriors' aren't going to afford much help because, if they apply at all, they could only apply to a minority of men. My dissent detector is beeping, and it's pointing back at me for some reason. quote: Wouldn't it be better to learn from looking at what has worked for the majority of men - that is, those who've done no violence that's harmful to society at large? No. See my previous post. What has worked for the majority of men is having no claws. They don't need to be taught what to do with what they don't have in the first place, though it doesn't hurt, either, and my pet hypothesis is it does some good. They are a null sample when you try to measure success at this, in any case. IWYW, — Aswad.

vincentML -> RE: Young Men and Mass Violence (5/2/2013 5:39:54 AM)
quote: What I was trying to convey was that male violence is a social phenomenon, not given in Nature or via some kind of biological inheritance. Sorry about the ambiguous phrasing. But isn't ALL behaviour a social phenomenon? Isn't sexual preference a social phenomenon? But does it not have a genetic root? quote: Any one seeking a biological basis for a cultural understanding of any behavioural phenomenon is welcome to try but I will continue to regard their conclusions as comedy until some one establishes a causal connection between any kind of biological inheritance and any cultural understanding of a behavioural phenomenon. Tweake . . . not saying there is a purely biological basis. Saying you cannot ignore biology in your cultural construct. You have not shown that the genetic phenomenon is not in play. You simply dismiss it as comedy. Was the finding of chromosome differences in male to female transexuals in error? OTOH, you cannot show causal relationships between culture and behaviour when in fact you admit that male violence is cross cultural. On a related topic, where are we in your model of homosexuality? Is there not an innate factor? Or is it because their mommies were strict and their daddies absent? Surely not, when there are so many gay men cross culturally and cross historically. Then, where are we in your cultural model of male violence? Still without explanation so long as maleness is an undeniable salient factor in all cultures where violence occurs. You say we model aggressive behaviour to young males. I say quite the opposite: we do all we can with our educational systems to deflect it into more productive, competitive endeavours. The abundance of violence in urban ghettos points to the failure of that indoctrination. Education is absent or a minimal presence in the lives of young men in the 'hood. We fail to teach them to read and we fail to teach them to respect the person and property of others. And then we have the outliers, the black swans, those on the far fringes of the curve. How does a cultural model explain the obsessions of a Jeffrey Dahmer? Surely, he wasn't taught to be a sexual cannibal. Where was the model for that behaviour? The mass killers and serial killers are anomalies. When you have so many anomalies to your model it is time to rethink your model if you wish to lay a claim to science.

PeonForHer -> RE: Young Men and Mass Violence (5/2/2013 5:44:04 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Aswad What has worked for the majority of men is having no claws. They don't need to be taught what to do with what they don't have in the first place, though it doesn't hurt, either, and my pet hypothesis is it does some good. They are a null sample when you try to measure success at this, in any case. I'm not sure what you're saying here. It seems pretty clear to me that, for the majority of men - of people - aggressive instincts can and have been channelled into a variety of socially beneficial pursuits. This has happened in the workplace, at home, in sports . . . the average aggressively-wired young man these days is likely to spend his day working in a thrusting way at the stock exchange, then go off to the squash court and thrust his racquet furiously there, then go home and play frenetic games on his pc. Do you think that such young men as the Boston bombers could never fit into that world - that, instead, they might better fit into being trained as warriors, with some higher code of honour, behaviour etc incorporated in such training? I'm not sure what you're driving at, Aswad. Is this a rough approximation of your proposed solution?

fucktoyprincess -> RE: Young Men and Mass Violence (5/2/2013 6:31:32 AM)
FR I've been following with interest where this discussion has led - don't assume my silence means I've abandoned my own thread. What I like about this discussion - very much - is that we are all trying to grapple with the underlying issues involved (whether there is agreement or not). And what I see in the media about these types of issues - well, people are not grappling with the right issues, at least in my mind. I encourage each of you who has been so forceful with your opinions here to speak out in your own communities, countries, etc. about this issue because I don't feel the media outlets are engaging in looking at the issue in this way. Even in countries like Saudi Arabia, part of the reason young men turn to terrorism is that their energies are not properly directed. Saudi Arabia is a very wealthy country and most Saudis don't need to work. They employ foreign labor for most things. This leaves a huge pool of young Saudi men who literally have nothing to do. I think at the very least, we can all agree that young people with too much time on their hands and no purposeful direction is a terribly bad equation. I think the debate on nature vs. nurture is interesting, however as with much of childhood development and where other branches of science are going, many, many things in our world (but not all) are a combination of both. I have generally found that in order for us to come up with solutions as a community it helps sometimes to table the dispositive scientific finding of nature or nurture, and instead, perhaps, assume it is a bit of both and proceed from there. My point is only that if we wait to come up with solutions until the scientific debate of nature or nurture is dispositive, we will not be able to provide solutions in a meaningful way within our lifetime. To the extent that solutions do not overburden a gender or community in other ways, I'm inclined to support them, regardless of the ontological underpinnings. Our contemporary society still demands that we have people who can fit a number of different roles. We need men (and women) who are workers, nurturers, visionaries, warriors, etc. Who is suited to what role is a very broad question. But what I do believe with all my heart is that people need to be directed to purposeful activity. And when I say this it does not mean that violence is, or is not, part of the purposeful activity - but to me being a warrior is inherently different from being a mass murderer. There is, historically, a contextual difference. We don't consider the deaths at Dieppe to be the same morally as the concentration camps of WWII - nor should we. And for the forseeable future, most, if not all societies will need defensive forces. This discussion is inherently linked to how we view war and violence. Again, not claiming to have all, or any answers. But this is the discussion that needs to be going on in the world. And I don't see it in many places. [sm=2cents.gif]

Rule -> RE: Young Men and Mass Violence (5/2/2013 7:04:55 AM)
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VideoAdminChi -> RE: Young Men and Mass Violence (5/2/2013 4:42:56 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: vincentML Be careful, you'all. [sm=adminwatch.gif] lol!! QFT, lol

vincentML -> RE: Young Men and Mass Violence (5/2/2013 4:52:03 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: VideoAdminChi quote: ORIGINAL: vincentML Be careful, you'all. [sm=adminwatch.gif] lol!! QFT, lol Grinnnssssss . . . . .

Aswad -> RE: Young Men and Mass Violence (5/2/2013 8:37:27 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: tweakabelle Reading your post, I was struck again and again by the resonance between the concept you are articulating and Nietzsche's Will to Power. It struck me that the your notion of 'volentiality' was something analagous to what I understand as 'Power'. I'm not exactly sure how you would reach that conclusion, but in your frame of reference, close enough for these purposes, I think. quote: If one were to use Power instead of the awkward sounding violentiality, I suspect your idea would be far easier for most people to grasp and accept. We could call it frooblety for all I care, so long as we are in reasonable agreement on what is meant by the term. Power, I think, is not the appropriate term for what I'm referring to, particularly not in the sense of Will to Power, or any of what I've learned from Nietzsche, but such works will mean different things to people of different dispositons. quote: Using Power would locate your notion directly in the Nietzsche-Foucault-De Leuze stream of philosophy (which might be why you wish to use another term[:D]). I'm not rightly sure how you could have read them to arrange them so, even to differentiate. From what I've read of the three, I can only assume the latter two were trying to advance the field, rather than probe its depths, as they don't bring ideas to the table beyond what fairly casual thinking will surpass. Kudos to them for thinking and for sharing, but what they share is hardly enough that they should be notable among philosophers if not for the scarcity of the field. quote: However there would be a clash between the naturalist model of humanity you use, and the anti-naturalist tendency of that stream. Pardon? Nietzsche does not offer an anti-naturalist model of humanity. He offers a model of humanity that is based on what is perfectly natural to some of us. Much as he found great relief in reading Schopenhauer, I found relief in reading Nietzsche. Finally a man that has some common ground with me. It makes intuitive sense, unlike most philosophy, and absolutely unlike my native culture. He could stand to make his point with more brevity and in greater depth, as could most philosophers, but I get why he doesn't; still, coming from me, a complaint about the lack of brevity should carry some weight, at least. quote: One thing that does emerge clearly is that we have very different understandings of what humans are. [...] I don't share that perspective at all, either in your main argument or in the example offered (sexuality). My example should have been focused on making babies, which could be said to be an aspect of human nature, though not by any means universal. I do not contend that our nature is universal or immutable. I contend that evolution leaves an imprint, which influences our probable dispositions on a statistical level. Sexuality is the topological cluster whose apex or center is reproduction, the outcome selected for. No more, no less. If we cannot agree that humans are, at a species level, honed to make babies, and that this tends to lead to secondary influences on our actualization process and its outcome, then you need to make that clear right away. Nature is simply the term for the property-tendencies of our species. quote: De Leuze's model sees the human body as a set of potentials that are actualised (or not, as the case may be) by acculturation. I hope that's a gross simplification of his views to the point of incorrectness. quote: The adult version of that body is the 'subject', a set of actualised potentials. Yes, yes, we develop and evolve, and most of us unfortunately even set at some point, a sad side effect of an optimization property of neural networks such as ours, the reversal of which was part of why Nietzsche advocated the only mechanism he was familiar with to defy entropy at the level he hoped for. quote: The singular notion of subjectivity (what a human being is in Western culture today) you have adopted is quite different. For me, the most basic characteristic of human behaviour is its diversity. I've no idea how you arrive at the assumption that I'm somehow denying diversity or adopting a singular notion of subjectivity; nothing could be further from the truth, and indeed much of my gripe with Deluze is precisely that the things he's written (of those I've read that pertain to this) are self-evident in the extreme. quote: Following from this, in some humans, some potentials are actualised, in others they are not. The potential for actualisation is never completely lost, nor is the process of actualisation ever complete or immutable. We can all change or be changed depending on the context. Nothing about us is fixed and immutable forever. True to a point. Like with any natural optimization process, the one at work in human brains tends to require increasing levels of energy to tunnel or to climb back up the well, so some things will for most people effectively be set forever, if not exposed to extreme circumstances or possessed of an intense will to change. For instance, many appear to lack the ability to change ocular dominance at will. But for common purposes, I suppose it will suffice. quote: So, in as much as the quality you call 'violentiality' is a potential that is open to actualisation in humans, we are talking the same language. Then we are talking the same language, I think. quote: So I'd be looking for a term that conveys those aspects of it, assuming that I have not totally misunderstood you. In your terms and frame of reference, you appear to have understood. Force, incidentally, would be closer than Power. quote: In my terms, what you are suggesting is an Knowledge system (technos) governing the relationship between the subject and the various Power/Knowledge structures that operate around and surround that individual, that if followed, leads to a more ethical subject, a kind of technology of the Self (again, assuming I understand you correctly). Sorry about the jargon but language tends to be woolly in these spaces for thought. Sounds reasonably close. Can we agree on Force as the term for the aspect, and Code as the term for the (continuously) internalized principles that govern ethical behavior? IWYW, — Aswad.

Aswad -> RE: Young Men and Mass Violence (5/2/2013 8:54:54 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: PeonForHer I'm not sure what you're saying here. Could you, credibly, choose to murder a bunch of people? quote: It seems pretty clear to me that, for the majority of men - of people - aggressive instincts can and have been channelled into a variety of socially beneficial pursuits. Absolutely. But for a majority of men, the answer to the above question is "no", unambiguously, except at the end of a long and winding road to the place where they are able to cross that line (and, indeed, by virtue of the process, usually end up unable not to). It is only for a minority that it's a choice like any other. What makes that minority behave productively? For that question, an observation about the majority that don't credibly have the choice is just a confounding factor. The evidence seems to suggest that by the time the typical human gets to the point of having the choice, it's already been made, and in the wrong direction from a societal perspective. quote: Do you think that such young men as the Boston bombers could never fit into that world - that, instead, they might better fit into being trained as warriors, with some higher code of honour, behaviour etc incorporated in such training? Possibly. If they were ready for the choice when they got it, they might have made it differently. quote: I'm not sure what you're driving at, Aswad. Is this a rough approximation of your proposed solution? I'll see if I can give you a good sketch after seeing what you think of the above. IWYW, — Aswad.

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