Ginger and Richard Rhodes
Ginger,
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StumbleUponI did call you Ginger, but no, I'm not mad at you. You told me not to use your pet name in public, and I ran out of spices.
The Fraysters are roiling over violent socialization. I think I'd better offer a few comments on their comments before they burn out the fiber-optic lines.
First off, a lot of Fraysters evidently can't read very well. We said brutalization ISN'T the same as abuse. It's a technical term Athens coined to collect three conjoined kinds of social experiences: being violently subjugated, seeing intimates violently subjugated, and being coached in a personal responsibility to use violence. We also said brutalization ALONE isn't enough to make someone seriously violent: They had to VOLUNTARILY move through three further stages (belligerency, violent performances, virulency) before they emerged as malefic, violent individuals. And since these three further stages are voluntary, becoming violent is, we said, a CHOICE some people make. Which explains why the vast majority, thank god, of people who are brutalized don't end up violent and why violent socialization isn't an excuse: Violent people are RESPONSIBLE for their violent acts. Of course they are. Who ever thought otherwise?
So no one's making excuses. (Thanks, tony d.) We're offering an explanation. Frayster "128sl" has it exactly right.
Athens' work was NOT statistical. It isn't based on statistical correlations (but your, Ginger's, statistical study supports his CAUSAL study). He followed the method once known as the "method of universals" and known today as "analytic induction": Identify people who display the behavior, and then see what they all have in common that is different from people who don't display the behavior. That's the way diseases are identified. Malaria was identified from ONE case, and no one disputes the causality. Athens had several hundred violent criminals, both men and women. The four stages of violent socialization were common to them ALL but were not common to criminals without violent histories, whom he interviewed as controls. So when I described how Harris and Klebold showed the same pattern, I was adding two more cases to the evidence base, not excusing them or making something up. The pattern is there in their backgrounds for anyone to see who cares to look. Since Athens worked retrospectively, his model is always provisional, but it ain't statistical. These days a lot of people don't seem to know the difference because it's evidently no longer taught in school. Causation is different from statistical correlation. Correlations don't prove anything; they just tell you where to look for possible causal connections.
As for Octavius' question, "Why do some kids ... become violent and others do not?" the short answer is, they made different choices along the way. Brutalization isn't a choice, obviously (and that's what Ginger meant, I think, when she said we're all responsible, because we ARE as a society responsible collectively for protecting children from being brutalized, are we not?), but belligerency, violent performances, and virulency ARE choices, and most kids fortunately have better guidance and make OTHER choices. But Octavius, I haven't found any cases of violent individuals who have happy backgrounds. If you find any, let me know, and I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts there's a missing piece to your information. But remember that violent socialization doesn't always happen in childhood. McVeigh's may well have happened in the military (no, no, I'm not BLAMING the military, go back and read the previous paragraphs). It certainly looks as if he completed it in the military, or at least formed his fatal grudge against the government in the military when he was rejected for Special Forces training.
So, Fraysters, I'll tell you what. Much as I respect your sovereign right to blow off while hiding behind the anonymity of your nicknames, if you're serious about these questions, I'd suggest you start by reading my book Why They Kill, which confronts all the issues you raise, or, better, read Lonnie Athens' original studies, The Creation of Dangerous Violent Criminals and Violent Criminal Acts and Actors Revisited, both published by the University of Illinois Press.
Ginger wants to thank Wayne Butler for the first paragraph of his message.
On a cheerier note, I hope Debra Norville got over her laryngitis.
Whew, long day.
xox,
Rhodeman
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Reader Comments From The Fray:
[Notes from the Fray Editor: This week's "Breakfast Table"-ers did a terrific job of summarizing the Fray entries, taking up their points and answering them in the column--Fray industry workers could have taken the week off. As new star Mangar put it: "Richard Rhodes was very gracious in his willingness to directly address comments from the Fray. It's a brave thing to do, and I wish more authors had the guts. Thanks to Richard, and I'll try to reply with that respect in mind." Though Mr Rhodes' claim that Fraymanians "blow off while hiding behind the anonymity of your nicknames" did not go down well. Several posters gently and politely defended their right to Fraynames, for example here.
An interesting discussion on Mr Rhodes theories, and of his comments on The Fray (Fraymers didn't like the bit about "can't read very well" either), started here, with the splendid title "An attempted ex post facto clarity?"--if there's one thing Fraysters are going to catch you out on, it is that. Some of the Fray's finest pitched in. A brave and honest (and not anonymous) post about brutalization in schools came from Roy Jaruk, here.
Violence was the overwhelming topic of choice, but there are a few posts on verity, fawns ("fauns are those things that have afternoons, unless your woods are much more interesting than mine"), lekking, and other matters. Use the Fray Editor's Picks button, or just look for the checkmarks and stars. And Claude Scales took up the question of what we should call Fraypersons here.]
What sociologists and psychologists try to do is find a reason for a behavior or pattern of behavior. They don't use these reasons as "excuses" to pardon criminals, just as a way to understand the root of criminal action. These reasons have been badly skewed in courts as they have become excuses for heinous crimes--true to history, people have used science irresponsibly for ridiculous and damaging profit. (By the way I am a biologist and no, this has nothing to do with cloning). So take it to heart and realize behavioral scientists are simply trying to find explanation for such actions to end this pattern in the future.
--Mel
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You don't have to delve very deeply into the human psyche to find out why some people are violent. It's not some strange perversion or disease that needs an explanation from genetics or childhood trauma or sociological circumstance. Put quite simply, it works. It's an efficient and effective way of acquiring immediate power over people, and of gaining their enduring fear, if not their respect. Someone who stands to gain more than he loses from using violence is going to be quite tempted to use it. So in order to combat violence, we need have an ongoing legal, social, and moral campaign against it, to make sure most people who commit violent acts lose more (in terms of money, respect, and social approval) than they gain.
--Jane Grey
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My personal belief (and so it is only opinion based on observation) is that we are not teaching children (males in particular) how to channel aggressiveness positively or when certain levels of violence are a reasonable response (and which are not). We are simply condemning aggressiveness and violence but the children in learning that things are not that simple are making up their own rules.
--Michael Murray
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[People] talk about "violence" as if it were a simple and agreed upon quality, like the flavor vanilla, and could be discussed as a single unified thing. In point of fact, though, soldiers jumping out of trenches into machine-gun fire, cold-blooded poisoners, domestic batterers, schoolyard bullies, and generals who order airstrikes, although they are all engaging in "violence" of one sort or another, have nothing else in common, and it's disingenuous (at best) to discuss them as if their actions were interchangeable.
The "problem of violence" is an illusion. It is not tuberculosis. It is not vanilla. And it does not have a "cure".
--Thrasymachus
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