Monsters
"...so there they sat, the four of them, huddled in their car as they prayed that whatever got a hold of Jim and Billy wouldn’t find them. The night was dark, pressing in around them, and seemed to carry in the very air with it a deep, forboding silence. Suddenly there was a crunch, like the fall of a foot upon dried leaves. Crunch, crunch, crunch... the footsteps grew louder, and the four felt their heartbeats pounding heavily in each respective ribcage. The trees parted to the left of the vehicle, and a flicker of movement passed by then disappeared into the darkness. They knew he was upon them, and there was nothing they could do about it now. Suddenly, Bob sat up in the driver’s seat and pressed his foot down on the gas peddle, turning the key and hearing the engine struggle to start... REwaaahh... REWAHHH.... the engine roared to life just as there was a loud screeching from the metal of the side door. The car tore off, peeling out on the dirt path. Later, when they got home, they got out of the car wondering if maybe it was all just a bad dream... and that’s when they noticed the hook, hanging from the handle of the car door....
I think we all know these stories. The fairy tale versions of Jack the Ripper, of John Wayne Gacey, of any other serial killer... any other human monster one could think of. As children, we were told these stories over and over again for what reason, nobody knows. Perhaps it is in the very human nature to enjoy being scared, and thus the ghost story told around the campfire was born. However, in childhood we have a way of taking stories like that to heart, and as we grow we continue to believe in monsters. Unfortunately, the monsters that haunt us when we get older are not the kind that exist only in the mind of the teller, or on the written page, but rather these are people that walk the world. They commit acts of unspeakable horror: Rape, murder, kidnapping. These acts remove them from the realm of human... they become monsters, just like Zeke the Plumber. This, however, is where the problem arises.
There has been a long-standing debate in the area of psychology about what is most important in creating a human being, whether it is environment or biology. Nature or nurture. The most widely accepted view now is that biology will give natural inclinations in some situations, but the environment will inevitably design the person from the boundaries set up by their genetic coding. Human beings are not clay to be molded into any form, and a lot of things do rely heavily upon genetics, however the formation of personality leans most heavily upon environment. What most people don’t want to admit to themselves is that ‘personality’ does include the sentiments and justification that allows people to break, in the most heinous ways, nearly all of society’s rules.
It is common for people to stand back and say, “I would never do that. He is a horrible person.” The frightening reality is that, given the right circumstances and environment, you probably WOULD do that. From Ted Bundy to that guy that cut you off in traffic today, these are not personality traits created entirely by their genetic make-up. These are not creations of biology. These are the result of living in personal worlds that have given the person trapped in them no other option but to act in the way they have. Now the question becomes why? What causes that flip. Pol Pot was a history teacher before he became the leader of a group that slaughtered upward of two million people.
Motivation. Motivation is the key word for what makes people who they are. Acts that fall so far outside of normal moral boundaries are not easy, even for the people that do them. True antisocial personality sufferers are not numerous enough to account for even a majority of the poor twisted souls that have made themselves known. What drives a person to do what they do? Well, consider that when a person finds meaning in certain areas that others do not, they may do things that others would never consider doing. For example: If the only form of love a person knew as they were growing up was the ‘love’ from their father’s fist, if you were raised believing that the only important claim is that of having power, then what will give you more power than to control another’s life? God takes life, and if you do too, then maybe you are better than even your father used to be. Whether or not we are born knowing compassion, it doesn’t matter. Anyone can forget given enough time, and I’d say all of their childhood is more than enough time.
So now we deal with blame. Where does blame fall? It would be easy to make an argument, using this logic I have been following, that there is no true blame to be placed except but on the society that has created this child. Heinrich Himmler was a product of his German heritage, and the strict practices of his father, who acted in the manner of the school system, being a schoolmaster himself. So are we angry at Himmler for the concentraition camps, or should we pity the poor man who was turned from an innocent child into a genocidal murderer? Those who died we remember, but they only truly died once. They suffered for years in those horrible camps, if they survived, but did Heinrich Himmler ever truly stop suffering through out all his years of existance? A hard thing to consider, controvercial to say the least, but something that must not be ignored none the less. However, this is not where I stand.
Society as a whole functions much the same as a creature. It is composed of parts, cells, and when cells start to die, society suffers. This, unfortunatly, cannot happen. Your cells exist to maintain you, though they are not aware of ‘you’ as a whole. They just do as they are genetically told. We exist in the same way, we maintain society, though we are not thinking of society as a whole. We just tend to do what we are told. With this system of order, the cells that act to destroy the others cannot continue to exist. Blame must be appointed, and unfortunately that blame must fall upon the cell that is destroying the organism. So when the next door neighbor begins to kidnap and kill young boys because he was raised in a strict religious background where he was taught to hate himself because of how he could not find himself attracted to girls, it’s an unfortunate thing that he must take the fall. However, he must, and for two very specific reasons.
1) The whole must be maintained, even at the expense of the individuals. Thus, he must be removed from society, because he cannot function within it.
2) Society must have a scapegoat, that we can point at and call a monster, so we can remove him and feel better about ourselves. So that we don’t have to feel like EVERY neighbor is going to do the same.
Reality is an entirely arbitrary thing. It is only as powerful, or as real, as we believe it to be. In the world today, society creates reality. Thus, to base justification upon society is to have a unshaking base, as it is truly the way reality functions.
So what does it all mean? I don’t know. Perhaps we ought to cease with our continual search for a scapegoat and begin to root out the issues that cause such mental trauma in the poor children of our society that they feel there is no other route for them to take. Perhaps these flaws will always remain, and we must continue to simply pluck out the bad apples and toss them into the gutter. Perhaps there is no meaning of life, no God, and we’re all inevitably going to die anyway, so why does it matter if it is today or 50 years from now? Don’t be too fast to dismiss any rational possibility, for truly, what reason do you have to believe in them? Because society says so? Well, look at what society does. Humans do not turn into our fairytale monsters, they don’t grow horns and wings, they don’t devour our souls. However, they do become victims, and then inflict their victimization upon the rest of the world around them. How fair is it that they must suffer when no one else around them seems to be suffering? The sad truth in the vast majority of cases is this: There are no criminals, there are only impliments of society enacting it’s twisted, emotionless, beurocratic will."
I think we all know these stories. The fairy tale versions of Jack the Ripper, of John Wayne Gacey, of any other serial killer... any other human monster one could think of. As children, we were told these stories over and over again for what reason, nobody knows. Perhaps it is in the very human nature to enjoy being scared, and thus the ghost story told around the campfire was born. However, in childhood we have a way of taking stories like that to heart, and as we grow we continue to believe in monsters. Unfortunately, the monsters that haunt us when we get older are not the kind that exist only in the mind of the teller, or on the written page, but rather these are people that walk the world. They commit acts of unspeakable horror: Rape, murder, kidnapping. These acts remove them from the realm of human... they become monsters, just like Zeke the Plumber. This, however, is where the problem arises.
There has been a long-standing debate in the area of psychology about what is most important in creating a human being, whether it is environment or biology. Nature or nurture. The most widely accepted view now is that biology will give natural inclinations in some situations, but the environment will inevitably design the person from the boundaries set up by their genetic coding. Human beings are not clay to be molded into any form, and a lot of things do rely heavily upon genetics, however the formation of personality leans most heavily upon environment. What most people don’t want to admit to themselves is that ‘personality’ does include the sentiments and justification that allows people to break, in the most heinous ways, nearly all of society’s rules.
It is common for people to stand back and say, “I would never do that. He is a horrible person.” The frightening reality is that, given the right circumstances and environment, you probably WOULD do that. From Ted Bundy to that guy that cut you off in traffic today, these are not personality traits created entirely by their genetic make-up. These are not creations of biology. These are the result of living in personal worlds that have given the person trapped in them no other option but to act in the way they have. Now the question becomes why? What causes that flip. Pol Pot was a history teacher before he became the leader of a group that slaughtered upward of two million people.
Motivation. Motivation is the key word for what makes people who they are. Acts that fall so far outside of normal moral boundaries are not easy, even for the people that do them. True antisocial personality sufferers are not numerous enough to account for even a majority of the poor twisted souls that have made themselves known. What drives a person to do what they do? Well, consider that when a person finds meaning in certain areas that others do not, they may do things that others would never consider doing. For example: If the only form of love a person knew as they were growing up was the ‘love’ from their father’s fist, if you were raised believing that the only important claim is that of having power, then what will give you more power than to control another’s life? God takes life, and if you do too, then maybe you are better than even your father used to be. Whether or not we are born knowing compassion, it doesn’t matter. Anyone can forget given enough time, and I’d say all of their childhood is more than enough time.
So now we deal with blame. Where does blame fall? It would be easy to make an argument, using this logic I have been following, that there is no true blame to be placed except but on the society that has created this child. Heinrich Himmler was a product of his German heritage, and the strict practices of his father, who acted in the manner of the school system, being a schoolmaster himself. So are we angry at Himmler for the concentraition camps, or should we pity the poor man who was turned from an innocent child into a genocidal murderer? Those who died we remember, but they only truly died once. They suffered for years in those horrible camps, if they survived, but did Heinrich Himmler ever truly stop suffering through out all his years of existance? A hard thing to consider, controvercial to say the least, but something that must not be ignored none the less. However, this is not where I stand.
Society as a whole functions much the same as a creature. It is composed of parts, cells, and when cells start to die, society suffers. This, unfortunatly, cannot happen. Your cells exist to maintain you, though they are not aware of ‘you’ as a whole. They just do as they are genetically told. We exist in the same way, we maintain society, though we are not thinking of society as a whole. We just tend to do what we are told. With this system of order, the cells that act to destroy the others cannot continue to exist. Blame must be appointed, and unfortunately that blame must fall upon the cell that is destroying the organism. So when the next door neighbor begins to kidnap and kill young boys because he was raised in a strict religious background where he was taught to hate himself because of how he could not find himself attracted to girls, it’s an unfortunate thing that he must take the fall. However, he must, and for two very specific reasons.
1) The whole must be maintained, even at the expense of the individuals. Thus, he must be removed from society, because he cannot function within it.
2) Society must have a scapegoat, that we can point at and call a monster, so we can remove him and feel better about ourselves. So that we don’t have to feel like EVERY neighbor is going to do the same.
Reality is an entirely arbitrary thing. It is only as powerful, or as real, as we believe it to be. In the world today, society creates reality. Thus, to base justification upon society is to have a unshaking base, as it is truly the way reality functions.
So what does it all mean? I don’t know. Perhaps we ought to cease with our continual search for a scapegoat and begin to root out the issues that cause such mental trauma in the poor children of our society that they feel there is no other route for them to take. Perhaps these flaws will always remain, and we must continue to simply pluck out the bad apples and toss them into the gutter. Perhaps there is no meaning of life, no God, and we’re all inevitably going to die anyway, so why does it matter if it is today or 50 years from now? Don’t be too fast to dismiss any rational possibility, for truly, what reason do you have to believe in them? Because society says so? Well, look at what society does. Humans do not turn into our fairytale monsters, they don’t grow horns and wings, they don’t devour our souls. However, they do become victims, and then inflict their victimization upon the rest of the world around them. How fair is it that they must suffer when no one else around them seems to be suffering? The sad truth in the vast majority of cases is this: There are no criminals, there are only impliments of society enacting it’s twisted, emotionless, beurocratic will."