Violence

[Doobah47]

I found this quote by Pythagorean elsewhere on the site:

Privacy for detumescence: men require a certain amount of privacy to achieve detumescence. Without this element studies have shown that men may become violent and ultimately end up in the prison system.

I thought it quite interesting, worthy of a thread perhaps...

What I'd like to say is this:

It is known that for people suffering from mental illness that pressure from others can be a direct cause of serious/harmful actions; perhaps relative to paranoia or loss of self control. My question is do you think that society accounts for the human temper, or is the temper subdued by drugs/religion/lifestyle and not too much by social interaction? I suppose what I am thinking about is the insistent pressure to conform to a standard of living that ranks social interaction very highly - in that to be anti-social and isolated is something this society works against - so is our society at fault in some way (on a level of social interaction) and causing violent urges in people? Is it possible that consumerist society places far too much pressure onto people, and doesn't allow for this detumescence; people are treated in a demanding fashion (money, work, consumables, advertising, relationships, fashion consciousness), I suppose a lot of people feel as if they are constantly making an impression to somebody and have to keep up appearances as it were.

This is a bit of a rambling query, but if anybody has any thoughts I'd like to see them...

[Didymos Thomas]

My question is do you think that society accounts for the human temper, or is the temper subdued by drugs/religion/lifestyle and not too much by social interaction?

It seems to me that drugs, religion, and lifestyle are all part of social interaction. These tend to be learned habits.

I suppose what I am thinking about is the insistent pressure to conform to a standard of living that ranks social interaction very highly - in that to be anti-social and isolated is something this society works against - so is our society at fault in some way (on a level of social interaction) and causing violent urges in people?

I think you are right to say that our society highly esteems social interaction. The same mentality thrives today that has always encouraged the persecution of people on the fringes of society. Some people who would do better to have their space are coerced into joining our densely populated consumerverse, and this most certainly has a contaminating influence. Just look at the kids who committed the Columbine shootings.

If we were only talking about grown, and responsible adults, we could argue that such individuals should be responsible for their own actions, we could even argue that such individuals have the freedom to leave whatever aspect of society is harmful to them. Children do not have this liberty.

So, sure, the society is at fault. Just as the grown responsible adults are responsible individually.

Though, I have no idea what an ******** has to do with any of this.

[Wizzy]

Great thread

I belive that society is putting alot of pressure on the induvidual to fit in but most of all I belive that the capitalist ideal society puts such great pressure on the low-vage iduvidual that crime-rates will be high, especially gangs since the pressure that society is putting on us is to fit in, cause if we don't, what good are we to the society? And that's the reality we are living in isn't it? If society doesn't need us we're pushed aside and thrown in the gutter..

Crime will flurish in any capitalistic society because of mentality like 'the american dream', get rich by any means.
"The only excuse for being broke is being in jail" - 50 cent, "How to rob"

And I'm not sure how the prison system function in America but here in Sweden atleast when you've done your time, you are released to the same streets, the same firend, without an apartment or cash so ofcourse people get stuck in the system, it's not easy to break that circle and so the system is flawed as best...

For the drugs, I think that drug's a sideeffect of the society pressure the induvidual is reciving, sometimes atleast. Ofcourse alot of people just want to get high and some kids want to be cool but for the ones that feel like they need the drugs, I think that's because they feel so pressured that they just want to escape that feeling, and drugs are great ways to do so. And ofcourse, having to sneak around with it because it's illegal also applies pressure, so they need it more and another circle is formed.

Note that I'm not saying that capitalism is wrong, I'm just pointing out the darker side of capitalism. However I do belive that extreme capitalism is wrong, it should be taken in moderation. America for example, is too capitalistic thus I belive you have such high crime-rates..

[Didymos Thomas]

I belive that society is putting alot of pressure on the induvidual to fit in but most of all I belive that the capitalist ideal society puts such great pressure on the low-vage iduvidual that crime-rates will be high, especially gangs since the pressure that society is putting on us is to fit in, cause if we don't, what good are we to the society? And that's the reality we are living in isn't it? If society doesn't need us we're pushed aside and thrown in the gutter..

I think you're right. When I have something others do not, my having that something promotes jealousy and theft. When we have the sort of disparity between wealth and poor, especially the sort that exists in developed Western nations, we should expect a large portion of the population to envy the wealthy and to pursue unsavory means of acquiring what they desire.

At the same time, we have a consumer culture. When we look around, the largest buildings are banks and corporate offices - instead of our greatest monuments being religious structures, they are for the purposes of making money. We build monuments to money. Our society places so much value on money and wealth - and this is simply unhealthy. Crime and disenfranchisement are the direct result of our wealth worship.

Crime will flurish in any capitalistic society because of mentality like 'the american dream', get rich by any means.
"The only excuse for being broke is being in jail" - 50 cent, "How to rob"

Music being dominated by messages idealizing the pursuit of wealth at all other costs (Get Rich or Die Tryin') is another great example of how deranged our society and culture has become.

The American Dream wasn't always about money. But you are right - the dream of most Americans (and of most people in the developed world) has been the acquisition of wealth for the sake of having wealth. People are convinced that money is equivalent to happiness. Their role models support this mistake.

Instead of being shocked at Tupac, and having compassion for his predicament, we idealized his lifestyle. Big mistake.

And I'm not sure how the prison system function in America but here in Sweden atleast when you've done your time, you are released to the same streets, the same firend, without an apartment or cash so ofcourse people get stuck in the system, it's not easy to break that circle and so the system is flawed as best...

I could go on for days about the problems of the American prison system, but this particular problem you have noticed in the Swedish system is also a problem in the states.

We have such a problem with being "stuck in the system" that many poor Americans have no problem going to prison - that's where their friends are.

For the drugs, I think that drug's a sideeffect of the society pressure the induvidual is reciving, sometimes atleast. Ofcourse alot of people just want to get high and some kids want to be cool but for the ones that feel like they need the drugs, I think that's because they feel so pressured that they just want to escape that feeling, and drugs are great ways to do so. And ofcourse, having to sneak around with it because it's illegal also applies pressure, so they need it more and another circle is formed.

What we have to realize is that a drug free society has never existed - and never will exist. Part of human life is the consumption of mind altering substances. What we need is real education about those substances - this "just say no" mantra has failed miserably, unless increased incarceration rates is success.

Note that I'm not saying that capitalism is wrong, I'm just pointing out the darker side of capitalism. However I do belive that extreme capitalism is wrong, it should be taken in moderation. America for example, is too capitalistic thus I belive you have such high crime-rates..

We have high crime rates for two reasons. The first is what you have pointed out, Wizzy - our cultural diseases. But Sweden and the rest of the developed world has these same diseases. So the question becomes - why does the US have such higher rates of crime than the rest of the developed world?

And the answer is two fold, both answers being closely related. American drug laws are one reason. Right now non-violent drug offenders make up some 40% of the US prison population. The second reason is racism. African Americans and Hispanic Americans are extremely overrepresented in our prison system. Of course, the drug laws exist to discriminate against blacks and Hispanics.

[Wizzy]

Originally Posted by Didymos Thomas

At the same time, we have a consumer culture. When we look around, the largest buildings are banks and corporate offices - instead of our greatest monuments being religious structures, they are for the purposes of making money. We build monuments to money. Our society places so much value on money and wealth - and this is simply unhealthy. Crime and disenfranchisement are the direct result of our wealth worship.

Yeah and yet, America is the most (atleast from what I've heard, not 100% sure on the figures) religious country in the world, which makes that one fact kind of wierd. And then you have "in god we trust" on your dollars, what the hell does that have to do with your money? (got nothing to do with this thread, just pointing it out)

Originally Posted by Didymos Thomas

Instead of being shocked at Tupac, and having compassion for his predicament, we idealized his lifestyle. Big mistake.

Yeah that's a good point, alot of criminals and other get-rich-fast-die-young-people are beeing idiolized in modern times. But that's the world we live in, where somebody can live like a king because they can sing.. yay capitalism! :P

Originally Posted by Didymos Thomas

I could go on for days about the problems of the American prison system, but this particular problem you have noticed in the Swedish system is also a problem in the states.

We have such a problem with being "stuck in the system" that many poor Americans have no problem going to prison - that's where their friends are.

Haha, that's acctually funny.. "That's where their firends are".. haha (It's funny because it's true!)
Another thing I would like to know is how anybody can even think that to make somebody function in society to isolate them from society should do the trick?

Originally Posted by Didymos Thomas

What we have to realize is that a drug free society has never existed - and never will exist. Part of human life is the consumption of mind altering substances. What we need is real education about those substances - this "just say no" mantra has failed miserably, unless increased incarceration rates is success.

Narcotics will eventually become legal, it's just probation right now just like it was against alcohol in 1930is america.. The only thing any ban on anything ever makes is a black market for it where criminals prosper while the honest loose money every which way...

Originally Posted by Didymos Thomas

We have high crime rates for two reasons. The first is what you have pointed out, Wizzy - our cultural diseases. But Sweden and the rest of the developed world has these same diseases. So the question becomes - why does the US have such higher rates of crime than the rest of the developed world?

And the answer is two fold, both answers being closely related. American drug laws are one reason. Right now non-violent drug offenders make up some 40% of the US prison population. The second reason is racism. African Americans and Hispanic Americans are extremely overrepresented in our prison system. Of course, the drug laws exist to discriminate against blacks and Hispanics.

I heard somewhere that US have 5% of the worlds population but 25% of the world's prisoners, might not be true but if it is, america is one F:ed up country..
Your drug policy is probably a big reason, yeah, but also that you have so much drugs then other developed nations probably makes a difference.
And for racism, you don't have monopoly on racism, belive me, most nations have overrepresented immigrants in their prisons but you might be over the medium, don't know if you are or not..

[Didymos Thomas]

Yeah and yet, America is the most (atleast from what I've heard, not 100% sure on the figures) religious country in the world, which makes that one fact kind of wierd. And then you have "in god we trust" on your dollars, what the hell does that have to do with your money? (got nothing to do with this thread, just pointing it out)

I'm not sure about the figures either; however, religion is one of the most important issues to voters in the US when they chose a candidate. Despite our early rhetoric, religion has become a major political force; Reagen used religion to tie his economic policy and military policy together and as a result dominated two elections. This practice was also useful for GW Bush.

It should be very strange, but this sort of perversion is not uncommon. Throughout history, religion has been a successful tool for violence. Even religions which pronounce the virtues of peace and universal love have been used, time and time again, to justify exploitation and destruction.

Yeah that's a good point, alot of criminals and other get-rich-fast-die-young-people are beeing idiolized in modern times. But that's the world we live in, where somebody can live like a king because they can sing.. yay capitalism! :P

There was a time when they went off to war for riches and fame. Talk about violence.

Haha, that's acctually funny.. "That's where their firends are".. haha (It's funny because it's true!)
Another thing I would like to know is how anybody can even think that to make somebody function in society to isolate them from society should do the trick?

They lie to themselves. Seriously. The research has been done - incarceration significantly promotes violence in individuals after release into society.

I heard somewhere that US have 5% of the worlds population but 25% of the world's prisoners, might not be true but if it is, america is one F:ed up country..
Your drug policy is probably a big reason, yeah, but also that you have so much drugs then other developed nations probably makes a difference.
And for racism, you don't have monopoly on racism, belive me, most nations have overrepresented immigrants in their prisons but you might be over the medium, don't know if you are or not..

Over one in one hundred Americans are in prison, and another 750,000 or more sit in jails. Something like one in thirty five Americans are either in prison, in jail, or on parole. We lead the world in incarceration rates.
One reason we have such a demand for drugs is that we are so vicious in our long failed War on Drugs. We spend billions trying to prevent the use of drugs which people have always used, and the result is people making nasty things in their bathtubs. Just another wave of destruction unleashed onto the American people. Most notably, methamphetamine. Just using this stuff makes you more violent.

[Aedes]

Originally Posted by Didymos Thomas

They lie to themselves. Seriously. The research has been done - incarceration significantly promotes violence in individuals after release into society.

Well, the research isn't so clean cut as that because you're starting with a population that's already committed criminal (sometimes violent) acts. So there's no way to control for the effect of imprisonment on criminal behavior unless you have an identical control group that somehow is treated differently.

That's not to defend prisons, of course, but keep in mind that it's only recently that curricular rehabilitation of prisoners (i.e. other than just letting them think about their crime for 20 years) has been a priority. The main point of prisons was to isolate criminals and get them out of society; we euphemistically describe them as 'paying a debt to society', which is strictly speaking the debt of their absence.

[Wizzy]

Originally Posted by Didymos Thomas

It should be very strange, but this sort of perversion is not uncommon. Throughout history, religion has been a successful tool for violence. Even religions which pronounce the virtues of peace and universal love have been used, time and time again, to justify exploitation and destruction.

Yeah I know, it's one of the main reasons why I'm anti-religion... that and that I don't belive in god..

Originally Posted by Didymos Thomas

There was a time when they went off to war for riches and fame. Talk about violence.

Yeah that might not have been better.. But I'm not saying that entertainers shouldn't be able to live on their work, ofcourse they should I'll even give you that they should be well paid but that highly paid? Isn't there a limit somewhere? And the worst people who make big money in capitalism is those damn reality-tv stars.. We have this big-boobed half retarded girl in sweden who had sex in Big Brother and now she's had like three of her own tv-shows earning millions.. why? because she happend to get accepted into the Big Brother house and where horny/cheap? sonofa...

Originally Posted by Didymos Thomas

They lie to themselves. Seriously. The research has been done - incarceration significantly promotes violence in individuals after release into society.

Yeah and it's only rasonable for them to be so.. They do the exacley opposit of what might work.. isolating them together with the other people who are violent or drug abusers what the hell are they thinking?.. If you lock up every smuggler in a nation, I bet they can smuggle stuff into the country from inside the joint and even into the prisons without to much trouble, it's their profession after all and they will only become better at it..

Originally Posted by Didymos Thomas

Over one in one hundred Americans are in prison, and another 750,000 or more sit in jails. Something like one in thirty five Americans are either in prison, in jail, or on parole. We lead the world in incarceration rates.
One reason we have such a demand for drugs is that we are so vicious in our long failed War on Drugs. We spend billions trying to prevent the use of drugs which people have always used, and the result is people making nasty things in their bathtubs. Just another wave of destruction unleashed onto the American people. Most notably, methamphetamine. Just using this stuff makes you more violent.

Yeah like I said, america is one F:ed up country...
The war on drugs is nothing short of a joke.. But I mean, not only the drugs themselves have increased crime but the financial side of it too, drugs have increased gangs and especially gang warefare, if drug where legal there wouldn't be a blackmarket for drugs and no gang would shoot somebody because he sold drugs on their block, saving lifes in the end..

[de_budding]

A child is born into a world and enrolled in our educational system, before she knows it; she is being forced into a secondary school and after much learning is faced with a decision: Work or further education.

I think this decision is a false one, and worst of all that it entails all the frustration and possible violence induced by society. For instance, work represents the chase of employment or self-sufficiency. And after some years of submergence in ‘work’ there are clearly two categories of workers; those who work to live and those who live to work.
The later is the only happy example of a person right? Every one works to live initially, to have food, water, a home, gas etc. So it is no shock that the people who are assumed happiest are those who are able to live (have food, water, a home etc.) and enjoy the process of living it self (they are not just self-sufficient in terms of resources, but in terms of happiness as well). Well there is one who seems happier to some than this, the one who has everything and doesn’t even need to engage himself in the process of work to obtain life. The rich man. Still today wealth is surely the ultimate goal, and education the second ‘option’ is no better. What we do here is simply engage are education for longer for prospects of a better income or a better job. To either have a job we enjoy allowing us eternal happiness or a job which will quickly render us ‘rich’ and therefore render us winners of the game and this destroy our need to work, again allowing eternal happiness.

I think this is the only game with enough pressure to allow the power to induce frustration and violence in its participants. Further more your suggested cures- drugs, religion or lifestyle (my personal remedy), are best applied as cures to the situation above. Religion is a lifestyle cure though, so I think we can break this list down a into lifestyle and drugs, the cures for the pressures of a working society. So onto the preassures- money, work, consumables and advertising yes, but I think relationships can easily be dissolved into ‘lifestyle’ as a cure for the working society, but what about fashion consciousness? I agree it is a social pressure but it seems to have nothing to do with my simple, working society being the root of our social frustrations. Well I think as time has moved on the cures of the game have become games themselves due to the pathetically competitive nature that the working society has induced through the generations of players. Drugs has manifested itself in an adolescent society representing alternativists alike (grebs, emos, Goths etc.) and lifestyle has manifested itself in the adult society representing the successful man. Here in the adult and adolescent word of lifestyle/drugs (drugs are an alternative lifestyle I guess then) new pressures are born which includes fashion consciousness, relationships, character etc. So we suffer through the competition of, who is able to alleviate the pressures of society best (exam/educational pressure exists here, as an aide to ‘success’) only to realize that the competition is over who can suffer least in our working society before submergence.

A competition of stress followed an award ceremony of a thorn crown for 3rd, a demanding master for 2nd and everything 3rd and 2nd want but nothing 1st himself wants for the first place winner. That’s why I think we need to ‘get away’ to allow the swelling of life to heal.

[Didymos Thomas]

Well, the research isn't so clean cut as that because you're starting with a population that's already committed criminal (sometimes violent) acts. So there's no way to control for the effect of imprisonment on criminal behavior unless you have an identical control group that somehow is treated differently.

You would know more about this than I would; however, what of the some 30 or 40% of inmates who committed non-violent crimes?