how does one deal with implacable evil?

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Kraichgauer
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09 Feb 2012, 1:15 pm

auntblabby wrote:
Kraichgauer wrote:
Thank you very much. That certainly answers a lot of my questions. But I have to ask, can an individual who is either a psychopath or a sociopath be "cured," or at least, "learn" how to behave normally?

that is a two-part question, but i will try to answer both parts with one wordy but inexpert guestimate answer - implicit in the title of the book "the mask of sanity" is the fact that the brightest of these bad boys can learn to put on the false front of sanity - but for the most part they will be acting the part and not BEING the part. they will generally be working against their natural inclinations. our jails and prisons are full of such types. sure, there have been 'paths who have had the big illuminating moment, after many years and many occasions in prison, when the thought bubble pops-up over their heads, with the words, "why do i keep doing this stuff that gets me stuck in here?" - but with a very few notable exceptions, they will not feel real remorse for their victims but instead remorse for themselves, for their poor choices in life which cost them years and their youths. the smarter/less addled ones will occasionally determine with all their might to reform for the sake of being able to live a semblance of a "normal" life as free people. but i still would not get on the bad side of these so-called reformed people, as they remind one of the t-shirt with the motto, "51% sweetheart, 49% [female dog]- don't push it." two of the the aforementioned few exceptions would have to be Howard Storm ["My Descent Into Death"] and Danion Brinkley ["Saved by the Light"], both of whom purportedly met their makers ahead of time, and were definitively set straight, both by their testimony of forced conversion as well as by the example of their lives after their transformation. google their very interesting story. another more illuminating example of an accidental sociopath, was one whose misbehavior was caused by an accidental lobotomy via wayward railroad spike- Phinneas Gage was a pious, upright type before his accident, but became a foul-mouthed, intemperate rake afterwards, incapable of learning from his many mistakes. after a few years, his brain managed to heal somewhat on its own, and his behavior eventually reverted to normal. in light of this tragic example, some of the answers to the riddle of sociopathy may reside somewhere in the restraining influence of the frontal lobes [in addition to the limbic system]. but nobody [outside of the supernatural] has come up with any definitive cures for the antisocial types. my law-and-order oldest brother believes in the "lead" cure. :wink:


Thank you. 8)

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer



snapcap
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09 Feb 2012, 5:02 pm

auntblabby wrote:
Kraichgauer wrote:
auntblabby wrote:
snapcap wrote:
Best way to deal with it is to not consider it evil. POOF! Gone...

how does one not consider josh powell's actions to be evil? if it quacks like a duck...


I'm sure a whole lot of bad people would love to have their actions declared "not evil," so they could escape the consequences of their actions.

i have a sociopathic older brother who maintains there is no such thing as good or evil, there is only self-interest and "common sense." i stay as far from him as possible.


There is right and wrong, but there is no evil. An evil on one person could be glee for another, like a drone attack in the ME that kills innocent people. No one is going to hell. You don't have to be a sociopath to think that.



GoonSquad
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09 Feb 2012, 5:26 pm

more evil (click)

Quote:
Prosecutors also cited journal entries in which Bustamante described the exhilaration of killing Elizabeth.

"I strangled them and slit their throat and stabbed them now they're dead," Bustamante wrote in her diary, which was read in court by a handwriting expert. "I don't know how to feel atm. It was ahmazing. As soon as you get over the 'ohmygawd I can't do this' feeling, it's pretty enjoyable. I'm kinda nervous and shaky though right now. Kay, I gotta go to church now...lol."


I'd say this qualifies as evil.


PS

Evil is what fills the void left in people who have no empathy.


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09 Feb 2012, 5:35 pm

auntblabby wrote:
(clicky)total and unadulterated evil
i put in this most recent link as a most recent example of what has been bothering me- i gotta know- how does one deal with unplacable evil, evil that will not be anything other than total evil? how does one deal with people who will not be civil, people who will not be civilized? this gave me nightmares about bullies chasing me across time and space. how does one deal definitively with evil without becoming evil oneself? how does one remain good despite encroaching evil? how? :? :huh:


I know. Very difficult. It's like when Jesus was tempted by Satan in the desert. How do you handle being tempted by bullies to become one yourself? F. Nietzsche wrote, when dealing with monsters, be careful not to become one. So how would Nietzsche handle it? By writing books where he subtly pokes at his monsters. But in a way, that is becoming one, isn't it? You could write a book of parables.

Just be smarter than the bullies and publish books like Nietzsche did or share your wisdom like Jesus. You can try to find devout followers like Jesus to shield you from your foes. Just look at how others have dealt with people who want to do them in. Of course Jesus ended up crucified, but for a while, he was doing great. He did nice things for people. Some people didn't like what he said or his acts but he had enough followers, for a while, it didn't matter. What you need are devout followers as well so do nice things for people who will be loyal and supportive and don't be tempted by the evil.



Sylkat
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09 Feb 2012, 7:11 pm

I do not comprehend the Powells andd Bustamentes of this world.
Never have.
Never will.
All the studies and reports and articles that explain what's wrong with someone cannot explain how anyone can choose to kill a child, plan it, prepare for it, buy supplies (Bustamente dug little Elizabeth's grave days in advance and Powell bought at least 6 gallons of gasoline to douse his house with), then brutally end a child's life. The pain of loss and guilt will be part of people's lives forever. Guess that's what these 'people' want.
Thank you for bringing this topic, Aunt Blabby, the 3 victims deserve their stories to be told.
But I just hate this.

Sylkat :cry:



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09 Feb 2012, 7:59 pm

auntblabby wrote:
how does one remain good despite encroaching evil? how? :? :huh:


By adopting a firm set of principles that are clearly NOT evil, and never, ever abandoning them, for any reason whatsoever. Even in the face of death.

Life AS an evil person, is not worth living anyway.

Which is probably why things like this happen. People who leave their own good principles loose the will to live, and unfortunately sometimes take others with them.

That doesn't mean the rest of us have to.

"Evil's" number one definition is "Morally reprehensible." To say that morally reprehensible people or acts don't exist is pure blindness to reality.

Or, maybe I'm wrong and Hitler was just a misunderstood gentleman. :roll:


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10 Feb 2012, 3:45 am

I think MrXxx brought up something very important; these people sometimes think they are taking someone 'with' them; they are not. The minute Powell's sons were dead, they were NOT with their father. Powell does not 'have' his wife or sons. No one 'keeps' someone by murdering him. A life is ended, but not 'owned' forever. Not trying to start a religious discussion, but though those boys and their mother and little Elizabeth had their lives cut short, they will never see their killers again. I personally believe they, the victims, are in a better place than this world (where Bustamente never went to trial and who will be eligible for parole).

Sylkat



auntblabby
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10 Feb 2012, 6:45 am

i wonder where the spirit of josh powell resides now?



jojobean
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10 Feb 2012, 10:31 am

Kraichgauer wrote:
Thank you very much. That certainly answers a lot of my questions. But I have to ask, can an individual who is either a psychopath or a sociopath be "cured," or at least, "learn" how to behave normally?

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer


The is no cure for them or most other personality disorders known because they are essentually "perspective disorders" Everything the sociopath or psychopath experiences, even therapy,is viewed through distorted mental lenses. The first step to getting help is to realize there is a problem, people with personality disorders rarely believe they are the ones with the problem because of their distorted lens of how they experience everything. Therapy has never proven sucessful because such client often sees the therapist as a person to manipulate, rather than a person to help them. Drugs dont work because it is not a brain chemical problem but a personality problem.

Anyway to answer Aunt Blabby's question, each situation is different. In this case, the courts should have seen this coming and revoked parrental visits. Many times courts put children in harms way by ordering them to see their abusive parent. I know of a women who is forced by court to take her son to her ex husband who is a serial child molester for unsupervised visits every other week. He got away with it cause the older boy who he molested is HFA and got nervous and could not talk to investigators, her younger son, is too young to say anything about it. The molester's mother is a social worker, pulling strings for her son to hault any investigation.
The mother of the children has ample evidence to convict him, but the judge refused to believe it and ordered manditory unsupervised visits.
Court ordered child abuse. Unfortunately this is common....children taken away from good homes because they are messy and children forced to visit evil parents.
The system is broken.

But as how to react to this situation after such evil has been done, why dont you start a petition at www.change.org to reform DFACS and child custody laws. Make the boy's death save the lives of many others.

Jojo


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10 Feb 2012, 11:04 am

Josh Powell's spirit is bound up in his legacy of murder. This is the worst kind of narcissism. His motives are so transparent.. His false belief was his kids can never have a quality life without him in it so they would be better off dead which led him to murder the two boys and, most likely, the mother.

He will most likely be forgotten by the vast majority of people in a few years while the ones who do remember him will do so with bitter bile and disgust.



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10 Feb 2012, 11:29 am

Significant was Powell's treatment of the social worker who brought the kids to his house. He must have liked her and had the impression she was on his side, wanted to reunite him with his kids and help him obtain that goal. Otherwise, he would have made sure to blow her to smithereens, too. This guy saw anyone who wanted to separate him from his kids as monsters who deserved to be obliterated.

There's talk of a need for him to visit the kids in a public place instead of his house but would that stop him from killing them if he was intent on it? He would have likely ended up killing a lot more people in that scenario. Sometimes, you have to admit, it's better to just cut your losses and move on. Safer, anyhow.



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10 Feb 2012, 1:23 pm

Sylkat wrote:
I do not comprehend the Powells andd Bustamentes of this world.
Never have.
Never will.
All the studies and reports and articles that explain what's wrong with someone cannot explain how anyone can choose to kill a child, plan it, prepare for it, buy supplies (Bustamente dug little Elizabeth's grave days in advance and Powell bought at least 6 gallons of gasoline to douse his house with), then brutally end a child's life. The pain of loss and guilt will be part of people's lives forever. Guess that's what these 'people' want.
Thank you for bringing this topic, Aunt Blabby, the 3 victims deserve their stories to be told.
But I just hate this.

Sylkat :cry:


I don't think anyone should try to comprehend them as anything different from some wild beast of sorts. Things that have been caged away for the protection of real human beings with actual souls. If they're seen as that then it's easier not to have to feel the horrible dread, disgust, and rage towards such beings. That comes from trying to picture them as a human being like yourself which is impossible. It's easier to just pity them like you would a dangerous animal that mauls a person to death.

If you're a Christian I suppose you just have to leave it to god to forgive such a person as a fellow human. I don't think such can be expected of mere mortal human beings.



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10 Feb 2012, 1:27 pm

auntblabby wrote:
i wonder where the spirit of josh powell resides now?


I don't think the idea of hell being eternal torture for such people is really a just idea. Not that I wouldn't desire to see such people tortured (especially if someone from my family was murdered). Not for all eternity though as even monsters feel pain.



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11 Feb 2012, 12:11 am

marshall wrote:
auntblabby wrote:
i wonder where the spirit of josh powell resides now?


I don't think the idea of hell being eternal torture for such people is really a just idea. Not that I wouldn't desire to see such people tortured (especially if someone from my family was murdered). Not for all eternity though as even monsters feel pain.

the biblical concept of outer darkness makes some sense to me, in that therein they will be confronted with the totality of their actions in the life just surrendered. that falling-short of the divine would be the worst punishment, the flames of perdition in this case would be the self-flaggelation of utter spiritual failure, the failure of being set [in one's spiritual evolvement] back countless lifetimes. i believe he will be having his nose rubbed in it for quite a while, but not for eternity. i believe the spirits entrusted to his parental care this most recent lifetime, he will not get to meet them again for an incalculable amount of time, if ever.