Posted by Zo on April 4, 2002, at 22:34:43
In reply to Re: Prey are the best people! » Zo, posted by JohnX2 on April 4, 2002, at 21:39:32
> I'm going to agree that it is biological. But I believe the goof-up in the wiring occurs as a result of some repeated traumatic event.
Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. There are some instances--many-- in which psychological thinking is not relevant.
>I believe that these people can function as upstanding , caring people, despite this loss of affect.
Some do, some don't. I agree with everything you say--and as you of course know, it is very limited, the way in which it behooves us to empathize with a psychopath, a Ted Bundy. . . with persons whose problems lie well outside the boundaries of pyschology, as it were.
>Should the prey gather the intellegence to stop being victimized, the perpetrator may feel a compulsion to be forgiven in order to reestablish the relationship.Maybe, maybe not. (Is this getting annoying yet?) This has not been the case in my experience--they become even more oppressive, perceiving, in their primitive way, that increased awareness in their prey/victims requires increased force in retaliation, in order to continue to perp. I think this model plays out in political oppression. . like in the Mideast right now. . .their argument of course being an endless round of I'm the Victim/You're the Perp.
> I am familiar with this concept. My mother was "prey".
>
I understand. Sociopathy/psychopathology is just *such* a different beast . . .from all other human problems.> It would be a pity if these people, "sociopaths" or what not , and I think others with PTSD may fall into the same category, had their wiring messed up>
I think we need to distinguish between PTSD, which is having *had* your wiring messed up---and psychopathogy, which is *being* wired-up wrong.
There are lots of kinds of birth defects. Why couldn't this be one of them?
How one feels about such persons is a question without easy answers. Obviously, one doesn't want to match sociopathy with sociopathy. But any understanding, empathy or forgiveness shown, say, a Cary Stayner or a Ted Bundy while they were on the loose, was best done at a BIIIIIIG distance.
> Maybe if we can cure the perpetrators, then there will be fewer prey.
Yessss. This is why I don't like to waffle over the niceties of psycholgy when we need to understand these mutants/abberations, who are a danger to everyone else. And how and where does the forgiveness in one's soul gets expressed? I don't know, John.. .. I can't think of any way but in art, within oneself--and of course the kind of forgiveness that extends to life itself, to lending an increase in kindness to world. As if to balance things, to transform oneself being injured into a gift to others.
Does this make sense?
Zo
poster:Zo
thread:21405
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20020403/msgs/21463.html