|
 |
 |
|
|
|
| Author |
Message |
    
Lindsey Millar
Sergeant
Username: Lindsey
Post Number: 17
Registered: 9-2004
| | Posted on Monday, October 25, 2004 - 8:33 pm: |       |
Howard,
Keep safe, eh.. there are those of us on the Casebook that care about you.
Lindsey |
R.J. Palmer
Inspector
Username: Rjpalmer
Post Number: 475
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 26, 2004 - 6:25 am: | |
"Could it be wrong? Anything can be wrong, but what about the logical conformity of the case evidence taken as a whole to the E.C.? "
---D. Radka.
Ah, yes, but what about....
"Nothing falsifies history more than logic."
--Francois Guizot.
Sometime ago, I quoted Protagoras ('Man is the Measure of Things') and I'll now explain myself. What I meant is that the human agency of all things human has to be accounted for in measuring the "case evidence." We can't allow the evidence to have an outside 'objective' reality of its own. (I don't think you would disagree). This basic and inescapable condition is why I stated that the views of Sir Robert Anderson are the 'original sin' of A?R. Why? Because you hold that Anderson's statement that a suspect had been identified allows us to conclude that something (an event) happened to make him believe this. It's a competent and intelligent argument...an interesting departure from the previous approaches to Anderson. Too subtle a flavor, perhaps, for anyone but the connoisseurs of the Polish Jew theory to savor.
Impressive...and yet....
I pose a question. Could the rub in this argument be Anderson himself? Anderson the man? You see, I hold that Sir Bob is great mystery in his own right....
(I'll leave that for another day)
RP
Rosey O'Ryan wrote my all-time favorite post on these boards. 'The doubting of wise men shall be our shield'... Remarkable insight. |
Jeff Hamm
Inspector
Username: Jeffhamm
Post Number: 497
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 26, 2004 - 3:34 pm: | |
Hi RJ,
Good point about Anderson's identification of a suspect, and the nature of witness testimony. I think Anderson's statements should be viewed as "witness testimony" unless other documentation backs up his impression of the event. Unfortunately, as the whole "identification" event sounds a bit "hush hush", it's quite unlikely there is such documentation. Therefore, this statement must be viewed with the same critical eye as any witness testimony.
Although I can't rule out the "outright lie", I think there are other alternatives that should give pause before accepting Anderson's impression of "what just happened" as reflecting the actual events.
For example, let's say Anderson called upon Lawenden to identify some suspect. Lawenden repeats his claim that he can't recognize the fellow with something like the line "I don't know. That might be the guy, but I can't be sure. No, I wouldn't testify in court that is him. Why? Because he might get convicted and hanged because of me, and I'm not sure he's the same guy I saw. It was a long time ago, and I didn't get a good look then". Etc. That kind of thing.
In other words, Lawenden might simply have been unable to provide a positive identification, and refused to change his story. Possibly even explaining why he couldn't identify the suspect. Anderson, for whatever reason, may simply have attributed Lawenden's reluctance to the fact that both were Jews. I mean, I can't see someone going "That's the guy I saw! What? He's a Jew? Well, forget it. I'm not going to testify against a fellow Jew." That's just too implausible, and the police would be all over the witness to get him to testify. I would think the courts could force him to testify, and this identification could be entered. His subsequent refusal, pending upon what he originally said, might even be cause to bring chargest against for "obstruction" or something? (Or not, I'm not sure of the finer details of the legal arguements around something like this). Anyway, I think it more reasonable (opinion flag here) that Anderson knew both were Jewish, and may have attributed the reluctance of the witness to that fact, rather than to the fact that the witness truely was not sure if the suspect was the guy.
Why might Anderson have thought this? The frustration of the case, and perhaps he had some reason to think this particular suspect "looked good for it", coupled with general biases of the times that the poor and the Jewish would balk at helping out the "law", could have led Anderson to assume such a reason, rather than the suspect give the reason directly (finding they were both Jews, etc).
The problem with the whole "event", however, is like so much about this case. There are no recordings of this event happening in any sort of official capacity. Private notes and personal memoirs are poor substitutes for official documentation. Even official documenation must be questioned before accepted as capturing truth on a page.
So, in the end, we have a suggestion that some sort of identification may have been attempted. But exactly who was the suspect, who was the witness, what was said, and where and when this all was to have taken place, is hardly cemented into place.
A?R bases itself on the witness being someone other than the most likely witness (Lawenden), and that the events transpired as described by Anderson's unofficial recordings of the events. Perhaps those recordings are only Anderson's unofficial impression of the events, and impressions can be wrong. It also assumes, of course, that the suspect was actually the "right guy".
In otherwords, A?R, without any logical reason, sets one of many equally possible alternatives to be true, and then tells a story around it. Sure, it touches on material related to the case, but that doesn't mean the story has been at all constrained by the material. Because, the material is insufficient to constrain the story.
My above alternative, for example, could easily be presented as equally valid concerning the identification of Anderson's suspect. Is it what really happened? I have no idea. But then, I don't think just because I can tell a story that the story becomes true.
- Jeff |
Jeff Hamm
Chief Inspector
Username: Jeffhamm
Post Number: 501
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 26, 2004 - 6:29 pm: | |
Hi David,
The "psych database" is a database search engine in the University's library. It's not accessable via the web. However, if you live near a University that has a psychology department (and most do), you may be able to access it from their computer system. I suppose it will depend upon the University's policy concerning the public access. Most will allow you in the library, and you should be able to access the various databases from a computer terminal. I used "PsychInfo", which used to be called "PsychLit".
As such, there are no "exact URLs". The articles are found in published journals, or in the Dissertation abstracts. Since published journals require that you pay a subscription to read them, they don't make the articles freely available on the web. The university where I work has a subscription to the data base, and for the journals that we also have a subscription to, I can get the articles to read for my own research (the recent ones, back issues are often not in electronic format; for those I either have to go photocopy from the Library, or write the authors directly for a copy). However, for those journals which we do not have a subscription, usually only the later option is available. Write the author and ask them for a copy. PhD dissertations, well, they tend to be a few hundred pages long. Usually the information comes out in a series of published articles after the fact, though some of the material is usually published before the person completes their degree.
Anyway, your best bet is to go to the nearest University and use the Library there. The Library will have a searchable database of psychology references (and other topics too of course), and most likely will even have many (if not all) the journals that contain the articles you are interested in. You can then photocopy those articles, or may even be able to get an electronic copy.
The most frustrating thing is when you find an article where the abstract looks really interesting, but the Library doesn't have that particular journal. If it's an older article, trying to track down a copy can be a pain. They may be able to order a copy of the article, but that often costs a few dollars, and requires one to wait until it arrives. Frustrating when you're really interested in reading it.
- Jeff |
Jeff Hamm
Chief Inspector
Username: Jeffhamm
Post Number: 502
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 26, 2004 - 6:52 pm: | |
Ahhhhh, releif! Finally, after months and months, you have resorted to actually addressing the issue.
When you say "real anger", what you mean is "intense anger", rather than "real as in the opposite of fake". Now how hard was that, to simply point out that your original statement was ambiguous. That perhaps the word "real" is not the best qualifier because it leads to the interpretation that everyone but yourself came to. All you had to do was point out that by "real" you mean "intense".
So, you are going with the view that psychopaths have "muted emotions", or "reduced intensity in the qualia of their emotions". And which, yes, there are those who present this view (see the references I gave above). However, as also indicated in the references above, there is the exact opposite view as well.
This whole issue would have been much simpler had you just pointed out that perhaps using the phrase "real anger" was a mistake because it's an ambiguous phrase. By doing so, you could have then re-phrased to get across the meaning you intended, and the discussion could have then proceeded. By choosing an aggressive and insulting approach, however, nothing was accomplished except for this thread to be much longer than it need be.
- Jeff |
Jeff Hamm
Chief Inspector
Username: Jeffhamm
Post Number: 504
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 26, 2004 - 11:40 pm: | |
And, David asked me to tell a consistent story that differed from his, but doesn't contain the connection between Levey and "Jack". Below is such a story, but just to be clear, I do not believe this story to be necessarily true. It's just an example of what one can do with the A?R approach.
Now, as for an “alternative” explanation, let’s start with your initial premise that we’re dealing with a psychopath. And, let’s not worry about whether or not a psychopath actually “feels” more or less emotion than others, since that is in some ways an unanswerable question at this time. What we do know about psychopaths is that many seem to have a reduced emotional response to external events that normally produce emotional responses in others. Paradoxically, they seem to “over-react” in other situations, usually those where they are denied something, or where they perceive they are the target of an “injustice” (meaning, they didn’t get what they wanted, or they perceive themselves as being “picked on”). Note, they generally don’t care if getting what they want ends up causing a similar injustice for someone else. This is why many believe the core deficit in a psychopath is a lack of empathy.
Regardless, let’s keep in mind our “hypothetical Jack”, has these two characteristics
1) external events do not cause the usual emotional response. If any emotional response is generated, we can assume it will be muted.
2) If a situation occurs where our “Jack” feels personally wronged, his response will be more than usual (either because he actually “feels more” or because he’s “mimicking what he thinks is the correct and normal response”
Ok, now, let’s add one more point to my fundamental premises (or, in your terms, my “epistemological centre”.
3) Jack has impotency problems.
I can do that, so long as my story remains consistent when I make this assumption. I don't need no stinking proof! The proof is in my story and how it all fits together; the A?R approach.
Now, Jack comes across Polly Nichols. Turns out, he can’t perform. She makes some comment along the lines of “Hurry up”, or she laughs, or he just gets frustrated. This situation brings out characteristic response mode 2, he gets angry and blames her. Perhaps he’s also been under a lot of pressure at work, or his wife has been annoying, or any number of other life stresses are going on. He’s feeling “picked on” by the world, and now this humiliation from someone he feels superior to. In his anger, he attacks and strangles her. He has a knife (obviously), but his anger isn’t sated, so he cuts her throat. Because it’s an impotency problem, he targets her midriff as well (blaming her for his lack of performance).
Either he leaves, or he spots the fellows coming down the road. Either way, he leaves without being spotted in the dark. He has enough time to regain his composure, so if he does see a cop, he no longer panics. Although the normal response after having just killed someone might be to panic, but with the psychopath, external events, or stimuli like our hypothetical cop, don’t evoke that emotional response. Hence, he can just stroll by, keep his hands in his pockets, look casual, etc, and none are the wiser.
Strangely enough, he finds this whole event rather arousing. He may even have overcome his impotency during the attack, or when he got home. The attack, for whatever reason, was satisfying to him. Perhaps he even was able to justify it to himself, the world has so wronged him that she deserved it somehow. His “enjoyment”, I think, is something we could infer based upon the fact the murders continue.
Again, his attack on Annie Chapman may have been partly prompted for similar reasons. If Mrs. Long’s statements are accurate, the “Will you?” question does sound like some sort of negotiation is going on, and in the context of the situation, that negotiation is probably of a sexual nature. And again, if he’s unable to perform, he again attacks her. His lack of concern of the time, and of being in an enclosed backyard, demonstrates his lack of emotional response to the external cues that might indicate this isn’t a great time and/or place for murder. Once he starts killing her, he also takes with him a trophy (another indication that the murders are enjoyable to him, and now he’s taking things to help re-live the moment; also suggests he lives alone for the obvious reason of how do you explain bringing home a uterus?) Again, an over-reaction either because he was again impotent, or because now he’s changing. Now murder is more interesting to him than sex.
Again, once he leaves, he doesn’t look suspicious because he doesn’t respond emotionally as a normal person would. He doesn’t look nervous, he’s able to keep his bloody hands out of sight somehow (in his pockets), etc. And, so, if he’s not looking nervous, there’s no reason for anyone to notice him until the body is found. And by which time, he’s long gone. Out of sight, out of mind.
Night of the double event? If we include Stride, ok, he kills her and flees. The most probable explanation for him to flee is the cart, but there are others. Based upon the description of the time line of the blood clotting, the cart interruption seems to fit pretty well actually (I’ve posted on other threads about this). Now, killing Stride after being spotted (I’m assuming she’s killed by the man seen assaulting her, so this is our “Jack”), would require that he’s banking on not being recognised by Schwartz or “pipe man”. Perhaps, but I suppose he has to weigh that against being identified by Stride herself since he’s already attacked her. Taking a gamble, he kills Stride, gets interrupted and flees. Also, if we go with Schwartz’s description, it appears he’s a bit intoxicated as well. So, his judgement may be worse than before, and his enjoyment of the murders, and perhaps all the fuss he’s creating as well, got the better of him and he’s started to believe his own press. Hence, he attacks her in the street, rather than wait to get her to some more secluded area. Of course, if Stride is not a Ripper victim, things get easier since we can just ignore this murder.
So, either he’s now fled and bumps into Eddowes, or Strides not a Ripper victim. Since his emotions are muted to normal events, by now he’s no longer showing any outward excitation or nervousness from having just killed Stride (if, of course he did). He’s spotted by three people, but has no reason to suspect they would take notice of two people; and they didn’t really. They all indicate they couldn’t identify the man, and only identified Eddowes by her clothes. Much like Ted Bundy didn’t care about the women he approached at Lake Sammish (sp?), but failed to induce into his car. Why would they remember him well enough to describe him? It’s just another random event in the day, more or less normal, until later you hear about the murder. By that time, you might remember you saw someone, but not the details necessary to provide a good description. Ted Bundy even gave people his real name, and he’s supposed to be a smart one.
Anyway, so after these 3 guys go passed, he goes with Eddowes into the square. By now, he’s more interested in killing than sex. Kills her immediately, and gets out of there. Again, while leaving, he’s able to appear non-suspicious and so nobody pays any attention to him. His reduced emotional response to what would normally induce nervousness and fear, are what get him out of the area. He tosses the apron, may or may not have written the “Juwes” message, and heads into a well crowded area; possibly to his home, where he can wash up.
As for Kelly, she’s prettier and younger. He may simply have enjoyed her services. His impotency problems are gone because he can fuel his arousal through his memories. However, perhaps at some point she rebukes him (she wants to sleep, or she kicks him out, something) and so he then attacks and kills her as well. Now, he indulges himself because there’s no need to get out of the area quickly. He finally finishes, cleans up with some of the clothes in the room, burns them on the fire, gets dressed, closes the door which locks behind him, and wanders off looking as if he has no cares in the world. A normal event that nobody takes any notice of.
Now, such story fits more or less with the characteristics of a psychopath. Emotional responses are muted in response to the external events, but when he’s the target of some “injustice” or whatever, he goes over the top. Once he leaves a murder scene, it’s that muted emotional response that allows him to go “unnoticed”, and the same allows him to appear non-suspicious to his victims. It’s the “over the top” reaction which produces the murders. The impotency is simply a factor that provides the reason for the “over the top” reaction; it’s what he gets “angry” about – some sort of interaction between him and at least the earliest victim, has to do with a failure to perform. It also explains why the target of the mutilations are the abdomen and genital area. It also explains why he might have continued after being spotted by Lawende and company; it’s such a normal thing to see a man and women in that area he has no reason to believe he will be remembered. If Levey knew him, he would realise this (he’s not delusional), so I see no reason to believe Levey, or any of the others, know our hypothetical Jack.
The extent of the mutilations simply reflect the fact that he enjoys the mutilations. There’s no message in them, other than “I like doing this. It gets me off!”.
Now, is this a “solution”? No. It’s a story, one of many, that simply could explain the murders. It leaves us with no suspect, and it starts from an unverified premise, that Jack was actually psychopathic and impotent; or at least impotent with Polly Nichols. Yes, a psychopath could commit the murders, yes if he had impotency problems it might provoke a violent response. But a schizophrenic could have committed these murders, or a very angry and violent fellow who was not psychopathic. Etc. Being able to tell a consistent story does not prove the unverified premises are true.
- Jeff
|
Jennifer D. Pegg
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 1220
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 27, 2004 - 4:35 am: | |
Hi everyone,
what a truly bizarre week it has been and now this too.
Isn't it about time that we agreed to disagree with David so our tiny brains could have a rest from the ARRR?? onslaught we are so often subjected to.
And David think before you say things.
Feel free to introduce as many new suspects to the case as you like, just realise that some kind of evidence to back up a suspect is always a good way to gain support.
Jennifer
We're off to Button Moon, we'll follow Mr Spoon,
|
Jennifer D. Pegg
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 1221
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 27, 2004 - 11:37 am: | |
And I know I shouldn't say anything, but, David,
the vast majority of that list I have never heard said by anyone whether it be publicly or privately until this morning when YOU said it, some of it I find quite extrodinary that you would claim without any supporting evidence and without stating who said it and where it was said. Was it said on this thread?
Take point 13 (those of you who cant be bothered to go look its the one about a beenie) I have never heard that said by anybody in any single context ever and have no idea what you mean.
Is any of what you put there a direct quote from someone on this site?
I certainly have yet to find anyone with a bad word to say about Ally and Stephen and /or their relationship.
A more fruitful list would be all the insults you have given, whether they be personal (i.e calling me obtuesly inadequate) or general (i.e most of what you said about the British in general)
Glad to be back home,
Jennifer
We're off to Button Moon, we'll follow Mr Spoon,
|
David O'Flaherty
Chief Inspector
Username: Oberlin
Post Number: 505
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 27, 2004 - 1:58 pm: | |
Hi, Jeff
I was reading about the IL senatorial debate between Barrack Obama and Alan Keyes this morning. Something I read made me think of this thread. Alan Keyes:
"The wonderful thing that one learns when one deals, actually, with logic and philosophy is that when I have a point proven over here, the fact that that same point applies in an entirely different circumstance does not prove the error of my logic."
Dave |
Jeff Hamm
Chief Inspector
Username: Jeffhamm
Post Number: 505
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 27, 2004 - 3:34 pm: | |
Oh,
And for the schizophrenic version of the above story, let's change our premises:
If I were to look at say, paranoid schizophrenia, I would find the following characteristics:
1) schizophrenia is often characterised by "flat affect" (reduced emotional expression)
2) schizophrenia can include volitile and unexpected emotional outbursts
3) schizophrenia often includes hearing voices, and when violent, the voices are often commands to commit the violence
Ok, now, change the impotency reference for our psychopath above, to his voices telling him to "kill prostitutes" (or whatever command you feel is more appropriate: I.e., your brother is a doctor, why can't you operate like he can? You're useless, prove you can operate as well as he can. Etc. We can be as creative as we like, just keep the story consistent to the points).
Again, I now have a character who now has the traits I need. When I need him to be "calm, and emotionally flat", I point to premise 1. When I need him to be capable of violence, I point to premise 2. And, when asked why he does any of this? I point to premise 3.
When asked why the murders stop, he's
a) gone into remission (it was a single episode)
b) he's gotten worse, and finally is put away as a lunatic
c) he's hit by a train
etc.
Whatever gets rid of him is "proved" by how my story is consistent with the facts (which, fortunately, I have the pleasure of picking for myself; the ones that don't fit I can say "Not Genuine").
You know, based on how easy this A?R is to prove who the ripper was, I think there are more Jacks than Jack's victims!
- Jeff |
Jeff Hamm
Chief Inspector
Username: Jeffhamm
Post Number: 507
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 27, 2004 - 6:01 pm: | |
David,
You responded in one of your posts to me the following:
>>I agree that a statement is wrong if it does not convey the correct meaning. But WHAT STATEMENT of mine do you refer to, and WHY is its meaning not correct?
I figure it only curtious if I answer this for you. Your statement that "psychopaths do not experience real anger", which we've seen cut and pasted from your posts many times now so I won't go and do it again, is wrong because the words used do not convey the meaning you intend.
The word "real" means "actual; true; etc", which is the opposite of "fake". So, when you say psychopaths do not experience real anger, then the "not" negates the "real", which turns it into fake.
Now, what you intended by your statement was something other than "fake". From your above post, you seem to be saying that "They do experience anger, but that the emotion is 'muted', or 'less intense', than it is for non-psychopaths". In other words the anger is "real", only they experience less of it.
That means your original statement did not convey the meaning you intended. And so, by your own admission, your statement was wrong.
And, the meaning your words conveyed was quite apparent if you read and considered the comments returned to you. Had you simply indicated that "real" was a poor choice of qualifier, because it leads to an ambiguous statement, it would have prevented this thread from getting so long while getting nowhere. Instead, you took the approach of continuing to use the ambiguous qualifier, which was obviously the source of the problem.
As for your list of things people have called you, well, if you dish our insults, expect them to be returned. You antagonise, insult, and so forth, why should you expect any better in return?
Anyway, since the A?R approach simply boils down to telling a consistent story, it's no longer of interest to me. It sounds more like a guideline on how to "write a good novel" than it is a guideline on how to solve a mystery. The bootstrap approach is useful for examining the internal validity of a theory (do all the parts hold together), but it is not proof of the theory. Even the bootstrap method requires that the implications of the theory be tested by emperical measurement at the points where the theory makes measureable predictions. A?R has simply dropped the one aspect of the bootstrap that makes it scientific, or useful, in solving mysteries. The idea of it is to show which theories are invalid because they are not internally consistent (so time and effort need not be spent on expensive research to follow them up). Then, once one is left with a set of "vialbe theories", to figure out what research needs to be done to test the validity of one over the other. Since you advocate not doing research (it's emperical), you advocate story telling over case solving.
- Jeff
- Jeff |
Dan Norder
Inspector
Username: Dannorder
Post Number: 342
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, October 28, 2004 - 7:30 pm: | |
As amusing as it is to see David personally insist that I have to come debate him on this thread over things we already went over dozens of times months ago (which he conveniently denies ever happened), there's no good reason to even bother.
I could continue to point out his many and major errors, he'd continue to deny them, and then as the post count increased he'd pretend yet again that it means his theory is important enough to be worth more discussion than everything else on the boards combined.
David, for crying out loud, just work on getting your book written and sent to publishers. Saying the same things over and over on the Casebook boards and pretending to be some super-genius in fields you have no training in doesn't do anything other than demonstrate why nobody should take you seriously.
Dan Norder, editor, Ripper Notes |
Glenn L Andersson
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Glenna
Post Number: 2161
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, October 28, 2004 - 7:42 pm: | |
Good going, Dan.
It can't be said better and clearer than that.
I'm indeed impressed by Jeff's stamina in these discussions, but I'm afraid this thread really died ages ago, from a relevant academic point of view.
Good riddance to it.
All the best
Glenn L Andersson, crime historian
"If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth. Alles klar?"
Herr Wolf Lipp, The League of Gentlemen |
Jeff Hamm
Chief Inspector
Username: Jeffhamm
Post Number: 508
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, October 28, 2004 - 8:39 pm: | |
Hi Dan and Glenn,
It's probably pointless, but I thought I would give it one more go. I will be highly surprised if anything comes back apart from another barage of insults. But, in the end, it's David's theory, and so the onus is upon him to convince others of it's worth. So far, he's failed in that respect as far as I'm concerned. Story telling is good fun and it's easy to do. It can even be useful as it can lead one to investigate in areas not thought of before, but it's not the research and it's not proof in and of itself.
And, I too will now be bowing out of this thread. It's been going nowhere for months, and I cannot foresee that changing in the near or distant future. I'm sure David won't miss me, as I tend to say nothing anyway. And though I may aim at his theory, I apparently shoot blanks. Oh well, as they say, when you hunt elephants, use elephant bullets.
- Jeff |
D. radka
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Monday, November 01, 2004 - 1:40 pm: | |
Where is Dan Norder?
It has now been over SIX WEEKS since Mr. Norder posted (on Sunday, September 19, 2004 - 2:40 pm) that he just couldn’t spare the time to refute my explanations of how JtR’s behaviors coincide with the PCL-R and DSM-IV checklists that I posted in detail above (on Sunday, September 12, 2004 - 2:17 pm and Tuesday, September 14, 2004 - 8:01 pm.) He still needs to explain “all the errors and self-contradictions,” in his own words, he claimed at that time and a few times since to have found in this work. The points he must prove, the points he has reiterated a hundred times based on his reading of these checklists beginning in April 2004, are:
1. That I believe psychopaths are incapable of any emotions.
2. That I believe psychopaths are incapable of feeling anger.
3. That in order to do what I claim JtR did on the night of the double event, he would have to be experiencing delusions, while psychopaths never experience delusions.
Quite a disappearing act for someone who spent 4½ months of the time of the readers of this thread petulantly insisting that I had certainly misunderstood the meaning of psychopathy, isn’t it? It’s well past time, Mr. Norder. Proof or apology to the readers, sir. Win or lose. Here’s your chance! Show us what you've got!
|
D. Radka
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Saturday, October 30, 2004 - 12:45 pm: | |
Original statements in capitals. My responses in small letters, within { } brackets.
I HAVE HEARD IT SAID…
1. THAT A?R BOTH DOES AND DOES NOT IDENTIFY THE MURDERER. {In other words, that the theory contradicts itself by identifying the killer as someone close to Aaron Kosminski during the Terror, while at the same time it doesn’t conclude on exactly who—Abrahams, Lubnowski, or perhaps some other familiar. But no self-contradiction is involved in this. A logical conclusion is made to the extent of the sufficiency of the evidence available. Since we don’t have enough data to look into the family situations of Aaron’s family, we must restrain ourselves from concluding any further. This is maturity in logical argument, not self-contradiction.}
2. THAT A?R HOLDS THAT THE MURDERER BOTH WAS AND WAS NOT A PSYCHOPATH. {By this it is meant that some aspects of the A?R account of the case indicate psychopathy, for example the murderer’s lack of empathy and desire for self-enrichment through extortion of the reward money; while others allegedly indicate psychosis, for example his attempted communications on the night of the double event that are alleged can only be seen as insanely far-fetched and alien to rational expectation. However, no psychosis is required for any part of A?R’s account of the murderer’s actions. All are irrational antisocial manifestations typical of psychopathy, referred to by Cleckley as “madness in excelsis without delusions.” The irrationally non self-reflexive, self-projecting personality is vulnerable to rationalizing that it will attain by its own efforts what it decides it wants, despite that no or a miniscule possibility of success, or the forbiddingness of the risk/reward ratio would make the plan seem absurd or unthinkable to a nominal personality. No self-contradiction applies.}
3. THAT THE MURDERER TRIED TO COLLECT A NONEXISTENT REWARD. {By this it is meant that because at the time of the double event Mr. Henry Matthews had not approved a Home Office reward for the apprehension of the murderer, it cannot be gainsaid that the murderer planned to extort this reward, and therefore that A?R’s account of the double event is self-contradictory. However, one of the purposes of the double event was to so terrify the population as to significantly increase George Lusk’s leverage in pressuring the Home Office. The murderer, typical of psychopaths, felt irrationally self-confident in his ability to bring this condition forth. Further, a more modest reward was already available, arising from contributions and pledges Lusk’s Mile End Vigilance Committee had already received. No self-contradiction applies.}
4. THAT THE MURDERER TRIED TO COLLECT A REWARD FOR CATCHING HIMSELF. {This is meant to convey the notion of self-contradiction by a play on words, rather than by evidence. Actually the murderer did not plan that he himself would be caught, but that witnesses from two crime scenes would turn in a proxy by his arrangement. No self-contradiction applies.}
5. THAT THE MURDERER TRIED TO COLLECT A REWARD FOR BEING THE KILLER OF PEOPLE HE HADN’T KILLED. {Again, the notion of self-contradiction is falsely portrayed by a play on words, not by evidence. The double event was a plan to actually kill two prostitutes, and the murderer did in fact go ahead and kill them. No self-contradiction applies.}
6. THAT THE MURDERER SOUGHT TO PRECLUDE THE POSSIBILITY THAT HE WOULD BE ARRESTED BY MAKING SURE THAT HE WOULD BE SEEN BY PEOPLE PASSING AT THE TIME HE COMMITTED THE CRIMES. {This is true. The murderer behaved in a self-contradictory manner in this instance. Obviously, if one wishes not to be arrested, one should not intentionally commit two crimes in full view of a witness each time. But the murderer was a psychopath, a personality type well known for self-contradictory behavior if a narcissistic self-projection to obtain some end were in effect. The murderer was supremely confident in his ability to get the witnesses (1) not to turn him in immediately due to their fear of causing a pogrom, and (2) to turn in Aaron later to share in the reward instead.}
7. THAT THE MARKINGS CUT INTO THE FACE OF CATHERINE EDDOWES’ CORPSE BOTH WERE AND WERE NOT TAILOR’S SYMBOLS. {This point hasn’t been proved or disproved yet. They might have been the murderer’s own personal tailoring symbols, or his personal conception of tailoring symbols he’d seen used by a tailor. In any event, whether or not the symbols were of the tailoring trade is of no significant moment to the A?R theory. Their meaning on the corpse’s face is the same either way. No self-contradiction applies.}
8. THAT THE MURDERER USED A SPECIFICALLY CHRISTIAN TERM IN THE WENTWORTH GRAFFITUS FOR THE PURPOSE OF A COMMUNICATION THAT WOULD BE SPECIFICALLY MEANINGFUL TO THE JEWISH COMMUNITY, AND, FURTHER, THAT THIS TERM DID NOT EXIST AT THE TIME. {A psychopath is capable of rationalizing anything if it is to obtain something he wants, if he feels he has a chance at getting it. Thus, even though the majority of Jewish people in Whitechapel may not have been aware of the German Christian use of the contraction “Juwe” (for jugendwerk,) he would feel in using the term if and as he did that a few of them might, and thus that word would get around quickly enough to secure his purposes. With respect to the existence of the contraction in German as of 1888, nothing has been proven. The fact that the German Mennonites did not begin using the term for their youth programs until the early 1960s is inadequate to establish anything. Further, as I have mentioned before on this thread, the murderer’s intention might have been simply to misspell the word for “Jews” as a Gentile might to infuriate them, which was another part of his plan. In any event, whether or not a contraction for jugendwerk was intended is of no significant moment to the A?R theory. The meaning of the graffitus is the same either way. No self-contradiction applies.}
9. THAT THE MURDERER SET A TEAPOT THAT COULDN’T WHISTLE ON A FIRE SO THAT IT WOULD WHISTLE. {Again, a self-contradiction is established by a play on words, not by evidence. Mary Jane’s teapot has not been proven either to have been or to not have been the whistling type. In addition, the murderer might have rationalized incorrectly that it was the whistling type. In any event, the whistling, or lack of it, is of no significant moment to the A?R theory. The meaning of his stuffing the hearth full of clothing to cause a bright raging fire and thus to summon sister prostitutes to the room to discover the mutilated body soon after he had left is the same either way. No self-contradiction is proven.}
10. THAT THE MURDERER SUPPOSEDLY TOOK STEPS THAT WOULD CERTAINLY HAVE RESULTED IN MARY JANE KELLY’S BODY BEING DISCOVERED IN ONLY A FEW MINUTES, BUT IN FACT IT WAS NOT DISCOVERED FOR HOURS. {Quite true. The murderer muffed it in this instance. He rationalized that all that clothing lit afire would get adjacently local sister prostitutes to come a’ runnin’ most directly. But what you get when you burn worn woolen clothes is a slow simmering and rather malodorous fire, as the ‘A-Z’ points out. Without the bright flame (and perhaps the whistling of the teapot) nobody noticed anything, and the plan to disrupt the Lord Mayor’s procession went by the boards. No self-contradiction applies.}
11. THAT A WITNESS WHO DID NOT SEE HIM IDENTIFIED THE MURDERER. {One either believes that Levy lied at the inquest, or that he didn’t. This irrational statement would have us believe both at the same time. We can’t have it both ways. If you want to believe that Levy told the truth, that he really didn’t recognize the man standing with Eddowes at the head of Church Passage, then you don’t accept A?R. But if you so believe, a considerable body of evidence would indicate that you might be wrong. No self-contradiction is possible; the presumption here is itself self-contradictory.}
12. THAT THE MURDERER AVOIDED DETECTION BECAUSE THE POLICE DECIDED TO PROTECT THE PUBLIC AND THEIR IMAGE BY SECRETLY LOCKING UP A HARMLESS LUNATIC INSTEAD. {This is basically a massive confusion of different pieces of the A?R theory and case evidence to give the illusion that a self-contradiction is made. The self-contradiction, stupidly conceived, is that in order to stop the murderer you have lock the murderer up, and thus when I write that he stopped when Aaron got locked up I am contradicting myself. But the murderer DID NOT avoid detection because Aaron was locked up; instead because he got caught by someone who was concerned for his own welfare if he were to notify the police, and who settled for the murderer just to stop the killing. Aaron getting locked up happened eighteen months afterward. No self-contradiction applies.}
13. THAT DESPITE THAT THE MURDERER WAS INCAPABLE OF EXPERIENCING EMOTION, HE STOPPED KILLING BECAUSE HE BECAME FRIGHTENED. {This is a favorite point of debate on the A?R theory, and it is a great-looking item on its surface, truly devastating if correct. I’d really be contradicting myself if I said a man who had no emotions could be controlled by the emotion of fear, plus the cessation is at the heart of the A?R theory. Problem is, A?R does not say that the murderer stopped because he became frightened, but instead because Levy had the goods on him and convinced him he’d turn him in if he didn’t stop. No fear is involved with this transaction. It is purely a practical matter. Prior to Levy telling him he’d turn him in, the murderer fearlessly and foolishly believed Levy wouldn’t dare turn him in. But that was before Levy spoke with him and gave what was to him undreamed of news. This sort of thing happens to psychopaths all the time—it is a part of their character flaw of obtuse self-confidence. The only reason it is said here that I have held that psychopaths are incapable of emotion is so that this bogus claim of self-contradiction on my part can thereupon be made. I’ve never maintained these people are incapable of emotion. No self-contradiction applies.}
14. THAT PRECISELY BECAUSE THE MURDERER WAS QUITE INTELLIGENT, HE COULD NOT MAKE RATIONAL DECISIONS. {A stupid obfuscation. The apparent self-contradiction is that the more intelligent one is, the LESS likely one is to make irrational decisions. So the self-contradiction sounds pretty valid on the surface, doesn’t it? But psychiatric texts say that although psychopaths are CAPABLE of making rational decisions when they want to, the often make unaccountably irrational ones anyway, very much at odds with their own personal interests, if it appears to them they may be able to get some externally-cathected object of their consciousness they want. They are different in this respect from normal people. The reason is because their irrationality is not determined by their intelligence, but by their personality.}
|
D. Radka
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Thursday, October 28, 2004 - 8:34 pm: | |
Look-in post, answered out of order:
I’m answering this before other recently received posts (such as those of Mr. Hamm) because of its quality and pertinence to current discussion. I will get to the rest later.
Mr. Palmer wrote: {Mr. Radka posted:} Could it be wrong? Anything can be wrong, but what about the logical conformity of the case evidence taken as a whole to the E.C.? "---D. Radka.
{Mr. Palmer responds:} Ah, yes, but what about...."Nothing falsifies history more than logic." --Francois Guizot.
1. “Sometime ago, I quoted Protagoras ('Man is the Measure of Things') and I'll now explain myself. What I meant is that the human agency of all things human has to be accounted for in measuring the "case evidence." We can't allow the evidence to have an outside 'objective' reality of its own. (I don't think you would disagree).”
>>Right. To do so is the sense of traditional British empiricism, which has failed to solve the case for 116 years. If this is part of what you mean by sophistry, then I’m with you this far.
2. “This basic and inescapable condition is why I stated that the views of Sir Robert Anderson are the 'original sin' of A?R. Why? Because you hold that Anderson's statement that a suspect had been identified allows us to conclude that something (an event) happened to make him believe this. It's a competent and intelligent argument...an interesting departure from the previous approaches to Anderson. Too subtle a flavor, perhaps, for anyone but the connoisseurs of the Polish Jew theory to savor. Impressive...and yet....I pose a question. Could the rub in this argument be Anderson himself? Anderson the man? You see, I hold that Sir Bob is great mystery in his own right....(I'll leave that for another day)”
>>I recognize that it certainly could, and this is in part why I write. While I believe that the thinking of Begg and Fido on this point is adequate to serviceably justify the positions they take on Anderson on the level of reasonable discussion, namely that SOMETHING had to have happened to convince him that the murderer had been identified at Hove, I can’t discount completely that he and Swanson may not have also mutually illusioned themselves later in life ala’ Philip Sugden, thus complicating the objectivity of the identification. How can these two factors be separated? If all we have to go on is what Anderson and Swanson said, and no further verifiable information about the identification to serve as corroboration or further illumination, then even though we have census, asylum, workhouse and other records concerning Aaron to make it seem more plausible, this still doesn’t necessarily mean his identification was a satisfactory one. What I try to do in A?R is come up with a satisfying corroborating perspective, which I derive through the E.C. and hermeneutical interpretation of the crime scene and other evidence. Thus I logically account for both my human measure with respect to the case evidence, and Anderson’s and Swanson’s too. I link together logically two independent bodies of information, and this is the sought-for corroboration. If this isn’t good enough, and I will argue that it is, then A?R isn’t good enough.
3. “Rosey O'Ryan wrote my all-time favorite post on these boards. 'The doubting of wise men shall be our shield'... Remarkable insight.”
>>Sounds more like mere skepticism to me. Skepticism is what did in the philosophical age of Athens, helped along by the sophists, if you remember. DesCartes learned how to productively handle doubt, ages later.
|
D. Radka
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Sunday, October 31, 2004 - 5:37 pm: | |
1. {Mr. Brown wrote:} "I wouldn’t be afraid of my Mom either...She’s in the boneyard,dead,deceased,and a memory... But if alive,she would put a country whippin’ and a whompin’ on you for your DISRESPECT."
2. "Jose grabbed my forearm and told me that I treated him better than his stepfather,because I am always nice and RESPECTFUL to him,unlike the stepfather,who talks “noisy” [ mi padre es muy ruidoso conmigo ! ] to him."
3. {Mr. Brown wrote:} Radka....This guy on A**book,Jason Mullins,is really kicking your a** with his wit. Okay...he's chandala. But...is the great Know-Sh*t from Connecticut gonna just sit there and take this sh*t? Get in there and post some more nonsense. Everyone enjoys it. Your number-f*cking-one fan.....How Brown Philadelphia Pa. |
Howard Brown
Detective Sergeant
Username: Howard
Post Number: 112
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 03, 2004 - 8:47 pm: | |
Just a quick look in...for the last time on any thread that Rocket J.Radka appears in primarily.
Sweetheart..You should have been told that any prior assumed animosity that I harbored toward Stephen should be considered " water under the bridge".
Was I wrong with any comments I made? I was.
Was I really mad at Stephen ? No...just irritated because of the absolute contempt I have for your Internet personality and that he,Steve Ryder,would spend time on you. Thats his business what he does now and it was then...
Have I personally been responsible for booting anyone that badmouthed this site, at another location? Yes.
Was I mad at you for your panic stricken performance almost 2 years ago ? Take a wild guess,Nietzsche,Jr.
In case you had an idea that I would avoid being held accountable[ no pun intended ] for anything I say,do,or may think, you are sadly mistaken. I am the first to admit when I am wrong on anything. Unlike you. Hell...even you know that.
My few e-mails to you were from a long time ago...I don't really think about you much anymore. Thems the facts.
So say,post,do whatever you want. I'm not going to augment your ridiculous sense of self worth anymore. Your possible attempt at outing me as a previously unhappy camper was from way back. [I also explained to Jason what the "chandala" reference was to]...That was then,this is now.
...and that,along with the fact that I get along with as many people here as anywhere else,should tell you something...and thems the facts....
|
John V. Omlor
Chief Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 865
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, November 04, 2004 - 6:55 am: | |
David,
Descartes never really doubted anything. It was all a sham, a cheap piece of drama in order to make his inevitable conclusions (about God, the soul, the existence of self and others) seem somehow "rational" and logical. But if you read the Meditations closely, you'll see that it was a fake. There is no real doubt in Descartes.
He, like Plato, "knew" the answers he wanted long before he pretended to ask the questions for the sake of appearances.
Now if you had said Hume...
Still, as always, chuckling at your faux-intellectual tone and wondering if your fingers ever get tired,
--John |
Jennifer D. Pegg
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 1228
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, November 04, 2004 - 8:25 am: | |
For God's sake ahhhhhh!!!!!
Phew!
I don't care!!
Ok now i better explain what that meant.
David it's clear to me you are trying to stir up a problem for Howard here, but actually no one could care less what you and he said to each other over email. we barely care what is said on this board anymore (if we ever did)
That's it
period (as you americans say!) |
Jason Scott Mullins
Inspector
Username: Crix0r
Post Number: 336
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, November 04, 2004 - 9:51 am: | |
"9. THAT THE MURDERER SET A TEAPOT THAT COULDN’T WHISTLE ON A FIRE SO THAT IT WOULD WHISTLE. {Again, a self-contradiction is established by a play on words, not by evidence. Mary Jane’s teapot has not been proven either to have been or to not have been the whistling type. In addition, the murderer might have rationalized incorrectly that it was the whistling type. In any event, the whistling, or lack of it, is of no significant moment to the A?R theory. The meaning of his stuffing the hearth full of clothing to cause a bright raging fire and thus to summon sister prostitutes to the room to discover the mutilated body soon after he had left is the same either way. No self-contradiction is proven.}"
Here, I believe, is something that you can try at home David. Provided you have a fireplace handy. I can not be certain, but I'm willing to guess that a lot of people have fireplaces in Connecticut. Never the less if you do not have one readily available, borrow one. Bear in mind that I think you'll be looking for a smaller fireplace. I don't pretend to be an expert on fireplace history or design, but I think that the fireplace in mary's little flat wasn't what most would refer to as grand, or even large for that matter. We will probably never know the exact conditions or dimensions of the fireplace or the clothes. There are also _many_ variables at play here, but we'll generalize for the sake of conversation.
Once you have chosen an acceptable fireplace, get some older clothes. Polyester and Rayon certainly were not invented yet. That wouldn't happen until the 1930's. Finding the right type of clothing might take you a little while, but trust me, it's worth it.
Once you arrive at your chosen fireplace with your chosen clothes, get 'em wet. That's right, wet. This is because it was a rainy on the "night" Kelly was murdered. Now here's the hard part, you might have to do this experiment twice. Reason? Because no one can agree on when she was murdered, let alone when the clothes hit the fireplace. So, presuming he choked her so he could do his work uninterrupted, took off his clothes so he wouldn't get messy, etc., throw the clothes on the fire wet. Results? I think you'll find that they don't really burn at all. They just kinda smolder. Now try a very moist set of clothes. This would cover if she died later than classically accepted or he put his clothes in the fireplace after they had dried a bit. Results? Again I believe you'll find that the just kinda smolder.
Here's the last part, bring a video camera and film your experiment. When you are done with it, send me the tape, certified mail or UPS (something with a tracking system). I'll take the tape and convert it to MPEG 2. I'll ask spry to host it, or if it becomes to large, I'll find hosting myself. Then you can share with all of us the results of your experiment.
I'm willing to help in anyway you deem fit and the reason for that is because I've tested this myself.. guess what. The clothes didn't really do much but smolder. Any form of accelerant would have most certainly been described by witness at the scene. I can't think of one off hand that you can put into a fireplace and still have lots of material left after it's done it's chemical change. So we can rule accelerants right out.
Provided you play by the rules (and by that I mean you don't cheat and use newer clothes, non-moist clothes, a huge fireplace, accelerants, etc.) your results should be eerily similar.
Net results? There probably wasn't a raging fire in that flat on the night of her murder. The teapot might have been left over the fire because hey, whatta know, it's owner was in the middle of being disemboweled.
What this might mean for you and your theory, however, is that you might want to admit defeat and start again. OR at the very least, try a few of your "ideas" out before presenting them.
I think you'll find your theory about teapots and raging fires just went... hehehe.. up in smoke.
"Our name is Legion, for we are many"
"I was born alone, I shall die alone. Embrace the emptiness, it is your end." |
Jennifer D. Pegg
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 1231
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, November 04, 2004 - 12:01 pm: | |
ohh and just to mention its now clear Radka doesn't read his own thread so maybe the rest of us shouldn't bother!(NOTE TO SELF!!)
If you have a look you'll see what i meant (there are no prizes so don't look too hard!)
David i hope to get soon your book whenever it is published maybe in time for Xmas! It would sit nicely on my shelves between Cornwell and Feldy in it's rightful position wouldnt you agree? |
R.J. Palmer
Inspector
Username: Rjpalmer
Post Number: 480
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, November 05, 2004 - 12:59 pm: | |
"Mary Jane’s teapot has not been proven either to have been or to not have been the whistling type"
David--I've seen two sources that dated the invention of the whistling teapot to the 20th Century. Do you have any evidence that it was even around in 1888? |
Christopher T George
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Chrisg
Post Number: 1049
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, November 05, 2004 - 1:16 pm: | |
Hi RJ
According to the London-based magazine Creative Week, November 10, 2003, the whistling kettle was invented by a Mr. Blood in 1875.
Chris
Christopher T. George
North American Editor
Ripperologist
http://www.ripperologist.info
|
R.J. Palmer
Inspector
Username: Rjpalmer
Post Number: 481
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, November 05, 2004 - 2:24 pm: | |
Chris--Interesting. (thanks) It's difficult to know what to believe on the internet. Another site has it invented in 1921, and a third site states it was developed after the turn of the century by the inventor of the earmuffs (Chester Greeenfield). Hmmm. Now my curiousity is up. RP |
Christopher T George
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Chrisg
Post Number: 1050
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, November 05, 2004 - 2:53 pm: | |
Hi R.J.
True, I wouldn't accept anything from the Internet without additional verification, although if you check that reference it does not seem to be said in a joke fashion, unless the allusion to the marital situation is a clue that it might be a joke. I wonder if Blood's kettle was patented? That might be one way to tie down the fact that a Mr. Blood did invent the whistling kettle in 1875.
All the best
Chris
Christopher T. George
North American Editor
Ripperologist
http://www.ripperologist.info
|
Nina Thomas
Detective Sergeant
Username: Nina
Post Number: 113
Registered: 5-2004
| | Posted on Friday, November 05, 2004 - 11:10 pm: | |
Hi Chris,
The first non-electric whistling teakettle was invented by Cyril Aubrey Lynch & William Humphrey Webster of York in 1919. Patent #152461
This was the only reference that I could find with a patent.
Nina
|
Jennifer D. Pegg
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 1237
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, November 06, 2004 - 10:56 am: | |
is this going to turn into some kind of quiz. it seems like we have got a load of different answers. How many different types of kettles can theere be?
All very interesting
Jenni |
R.J. Palmer
Inspector
Username: Rjpalmer
Post Number: 482
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, November 06, 2004 - 12:25 pm: | |
Nina--cool find; but it appears as though Lynch & Webster's patent was for improvements on a non-electrical type of whistler. I think this might only mean that they were the first to put a whistle on an electric model (?) But this is intriguing. Since electric teakettles date back to 1891, this might suggest that Lynch & Webster's patent appeared not long after the original whistler. I have one of those 1908 Sears catalogues; it has several teakettles, teapots, etc., but nothing that makes a peep...a little bit odd, perhaps, if they were a commonplace item on the market. I'm not yet convinced they'd be found in Whitechapel in 1888. But I'm leaving off my investigations for now...I'm suddenly feeling sheepishly like I have way too much time on my hands!! Cheers, RP |
Nina Thomas
Detective Sergeant
Username: Nina
Post Number: 115
Registered: 5-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, November 06, 2004 - 8:12 pm: | |
Hi RJ,
Ah! the never ending mystery of the whistling tea kettle!
Hi Jenni,
Too many to count! Unless, your up to it? 
Nina
|
D. Radka
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Sunday, November 07, 2004 - 8:07 pm: | |
Mr. Hamm wrote:
1. “Just a quick post to try and teach David a little about psychopaths and anger. Just did a quick search for you in the psych database.”
>Note the arrogant, rash intonation. He’s going to show you how he’ll TEACH us something based on a QUICK search.
2. “Found about 50 articles on a combined "psychopathy and anger" search. Hmmmm, seems a lot of research is being done on something you keep claiming "doesn't exist" (anger in the psychopath). Maybe all these articles are just finding what David has claimed? Let's check, shall we?”
>>This is a lie by Mr. Hamm. I have never claimed that anger “doesn’t exist” in the psychopath. My interpretive point is that they are incapable of real, genuine, deeply felt emotions, including anger. *** Mr. Hamm should perhaps not have combination searched on “psychopath” and “anger.” By doing so, he unfairly prejudices his result in favor of his assumptions. This search will bring up references that discuss anger in psychopaths WITH THE ASSUMPTION MADE that this is the way the reader wants to approach the subject. i.e., as if anger were a net level subject to be discussed with respect to psychopaths the same as in terms of normal people. And certain schools of psychology may decide to sometimes approach the matter this way, especially behaviorism, which uses a wide array of techniques for recording and measuring human behaviors and reactions to stimuli, which in turn could be said not to differ, qua reactions, from one group to another. But this surely doesn’t mean that such studies, taken as a whole and after considering the case histories of a large number of psychopaths, would reach any fundamental conclusions on the subject of psychopathy that would invalidate A?R’s general methodology. Surely psychopaths are homogeneous as a referent group after all. After entering “psychopath,” Mr. Hamm should search instead on “emotion.” This is a fairer search. At that point he would retrieve at least some balancing references backing up my point that psychopathic emotion, including anger, is inadequate from the perspective of a normal personality.
2. “Hmmm, I'm seeing all sorts of references to "primary" and "secondary" psychopaths. Gee, odd thing for modern researchers to use terms that suggest there might be "more than one group" or "kind" of "psychopaths" when our self proclaimed resisdent expert says they are all alike; almost carbon copies of each other has been the gist of some of his posts.
>>You are full of prunes as usual, Mr. Hamm. You are glancing over your topical index references too literally and superficially. References to “primary” and “secondary” relate to two different methods or standards a certain branch of psychiatry has developed to evaluate a homogeneous group called psychopaths. Right from the start--do you realize how totally you’ve soiled yourself here by writing this dreck, Mr. Hamm? Look at what you’ve done. You entered a word search in a database and then started making pronouncements on someone’s research based totally on the topical index references, without even reading one word of text! You said it yourself—you said “Hmmm, I’m seeing all sorts of references to ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ psychopaths.” And then based on that alone YOU IMPLIED this demonstrated a principal lack of homogeneity in the referent group. But all you were “seeing” was a listing of books and articles written, with subject headers! You’d have no idea reading this much how the terms ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ are used in the field, what kind of psychiatric work they refer to, or anything about these concepts whatever. You have amply demonstrated by this callously insensitive escapade that you have no notion of how to think about psychiatric writings in depth, and that you are prone to rash misjudgments and pronouncements with respect to them. I can’t imagine how any reasonable person reading this thread would place the tiniest degree of credence in anything you might ever have to say about this subject again. *** You and your buddy Mr. Norder have the same fundamental flaw—a simplistic, hardened and narcissistic sense of objectivity. An apple is an apple is an apple, pick it up from anywhere, it always means the same thing. Just reach out and aggressively grab among the multitude, glittering, specific opportunities anywhere, anytime. How rudely insensitive to thought, context, meaning, human advancement and culture.
3. “One might think you would know about this if you didn't rely on such a small sample of sources where maybe the more recent research is not included? Hmmm, if the recent research isn't included in your sources, wouldn't that justify the comment that they might be considered "out dated"?”
>>Please have another little peek at your list of topic headers, Mr. Hamm. Do you see the name of David T. Lykken there? You should have, if you were turning up references on the primary/secondary theory of psychopathy, because he is among its chief proponents. Now, take a second little peek at the A?R Summary, will you? Do you notice this reference?
“[iii] Lykken, David T.: THE ANTISOCIAL PERSONALITIES. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, 1995.”
In the course of my psychiatric readings I became familiar with Dr. Lykken’s work, and incorporated it. He gives an excellent discussion of several different approaches to the problem of psychopathy in chapter 7 of his book, entitled: “The Psychopath, Introduction to the Genus,” beginning on page 113. Before you publicly criticized me for being ignorant of the primary/secondary theory, did you even bother to read this material to learn about it for yourself? I can’t see how you could have, because I’ve got Lykken in my references, right in front of your nose. I referenced him right in the body of the Summary. *** Is 1995 “modern” enough for you? *** The primary/secondary theory of psychopathy is a part of a school of psychiatry called neurobehavioralism, and is based on the original work of Fowles and Gray (c. 1980s.) Neurobehavioralism attempts to study the human psyche by breaking its reactions down to measurable nerve impulses. Since it was thought that the syndrome of psychopathy makes its presence known in terms of the subject making decisions—often foolishly antisocial ones—with respect to whether or not he wishes to commit himself to the pursuit of an external or externalized object, a theoretical architecture was developed along the lines of what were thought to be the neurological origins or manifestations of these decisions. It was postulated for the sake of the theory that human beings—psychopaths included—possessed both a neurologically measurable Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS) and a reciprocal Behavioral Activation System (BAS), each of which corresponded to certain regions of the brain. In terms of the conscious manifestations of nerve impulses, BIS was held to relate to “frustrative nonreward,” in which the subject experiences anxiety with respect to the prospect of possibly not getting what he wants, impinging his decision to attempt to attain it; and BAS was held to relate to stimuli associated with reward or escape from pain, in which the subject undertakes an “approach behavior” or actively senses reward according to the relative likelihood of attaining his object, impinging his decision to attempt to attain it. Based upon the patterns of neuron electricity, the relative strengths of the BIS and the BAS could be measured, and differences compared among individuals. Psychopaths who demonstrated a weak BIS were deemed to have a high tolerance for fear, and thus were classified as primary because they seemed to correspond straightforwardly to the historically significant Clecklean/humanist view of the cause of psychopathy, held to be a weak inhibitory system resulting from inadequate emotional depth; and psychopaths who demonstrated a strong BAS were deemed to have a low tolerance for emotional frustration, and thus were classified as secondary because, while they did the same behaviors that the primary psychopaths did, they seemed to deviate neurologically from the mainstream humanist-based conception of having below-par emotional reactions.
To say the same thing in a different way, both the primary and the secondary psychopaths suffer from a failure of passive avoidance with respect to dangerous and antisocial behaviors, due to a defect in their ability for emotional experience in depth: The emotions they feel aren’t real, sophisticated, interrelated, or complex enough to give them on balance an adequate sense of judgment with respect to the consequences of their actions. In the case of the primary psychopath, this happens because he just doesn’t fear the possible repercussions of his actions, and in the case of the secondary psychopath, it happens because he just can’t resist the temptation of the object. But in both cases, the psychopath defaults self-ruinously to the external or externalized object because of his simplistic emotions.
Please keep in mind the BIS/BAS distinction is a neurological one, having to do with patterns of neuron firings in the brain, and is on balance neither a net emotional nor a net cognitive one. When considering whether or not to go ahead and steal that nice red convertible sitting unattended on the street corner, each of the two psychopaths says exactly the same thing to himself in externalizing himself into the object: “That’s me! That’s my car! I’m ready for that.” There is no real difference in the net personality type involved, or the group “psychopath” referred to by the respective BIS or BAS theories, albeit the neurological fine-tuning. BIS and BAS are theoretical refinements used to postulate the neurological origins of psychopathic behaviors, which transact for the most part beneath the level of personal considerations. Theoretically, it would be possible to continue the splitting with respect to psychopaths to a further extent if permitted by brain mapping. If it became possible to map the various regions of the brain more exactly, for example, this might result in ever more complex theoretical oppositions or subdivisions being developed either within BIS and BAS, respectively, or in other cranial quarters, and we might then have the theoretical entities of tertiary and quaternary neuro-psychopaths, for example. But even then the psychopathic personality would still be the net synthesis of all the subject’s neurological activities, taken as a whole. The referent group remains essentially the same. If you WANT to discuss the neurological basis of human behavior, however, then you would want to use the primary/secondary distinction. But if you wanted to discuss psychopaths as a Freudian, humanist, Jungian, or any non-neurological psychiatry would, then you wouldn’t use the distinction. You’d basically have to keep in mind how the respective theories are used. *** Catch my drift, Mr. Hamm? You are nothing but an UNREAD SNAKE OIL SALESMAN concerning your pompous popping-off about “the two kinds of psychopaths.” You do NO reading, and attempt to pass yourself off as learned. How humiliating. *** With respect to your equally unenlightened statement:
{Mr. Hamm wrote:} “Gee, odd thing for modern researchers to use terms that suggest there might be "more than one group" or "kind" of "psychopaths" when our self proclaimed resisdent expert says they are all alike…”
{Mr. Radka responds:} Dr. Lykken—remember him from the Summary bibliography?—is quite clear concerning how to theoretically derive the single homogeneous referent group called psychopaths for general psychiatric discussion. It is done just as I have beginning with the Summary and carried forward faithfully through six months of posts on this thread. What you do is take the original Clecklean case histories and make minor adjustments using Hare’s PCL-R. You stop short of the APD’s DSM IV criteria, which conflate the temperamentally antisocial with the environmentally antisocial. This gives you a sense of the historical stream of psychiatric thought concerning how the basic concept of psychopathy was derived, Cleckley to Hare. What you wind up with is more or less a description of the primary psychopath (because, remember from above, it was Cleckley’s original idea that psychopaths operated on a system of below-par emotions,) seen in turn as something of a stem along which various new branches of theorization may grow. That is basically it, Mr. Hamm. The basic concept of the referent group is an historical animal in nature, and a living one at that.
What kind of psychopath was JtR? For us in 2004, the kind of psychopath JtR was is that kind that best answers to the empirical case evidence. Keep in mind we can’t put the perpetrator of the Whitechapel murders on a brain scan machine to determine primary or secondary characteristics empirically. However, it would seem that he showed primary characteristics insofar as he impudently violated social norms and operated with pathologically low emotions at crime scenes, and that he also to some extent showed secondary characteristics insofar as he couldn’t resist engaging in foolish scheming to score the reward money. Since he did the former originally and the latter contingently, only when it subsequently became available to him, I’d say we are on solid ground placing him on the typical continuum used in general psychiatric discussions related to psychopathy, which is basically primary.
4. “Here's the opening quote from a PhD dissertation on the topic (by Brian Lee Steuerwald):
Theoretical views of psychopaths' anger generally fall into one of two categories: the deficient/attenuated-anger hypothesis or the adequate/heightened-anger hypothesis. This study tested divergent predictions of these two hypotheses in a group of individuals with psychopathic characteristics. ...
Notice here David, there are two broad classes of theories about psychopathy. One is that anger is heightened (more anger than non-psychopaths), the other idea is that it is "attenuated" (less anger; note not "no anger" but simply less anger). You are pushing for an extreme version of one side of a theoretical debate. So, evidence for a "lack of consistency in the current understanding of psychopathy" is probably best demonstrated through example by this very point. The field is obvioiusly not even decided on the question of one emotion: do they feel more or less anger than non-psychopaths?”
>>The field obviously IS decided on how it wants to use the notion of anger in psychopaths, Mr. Hamm, but one needs to actually know something about the field in order to understand this. Psychopaths have a deficiency in experiencing the reality of emotions in depth, and this leads them to do the antisocial things they do. What is your problem with that? Emotionally mild pseudoanger has the same effect in producing the psychopathic personality as does emotionally intense pseudoanger. Both are the same pseudoreality on a net basis. Both are below par on the same affectational continuum. They are two halves of the same coin. The subject is left deficient with respect to integrating himself, or in perceiving himself as a part of the human dimension. What’s so hard to understand? Aren’t you a human being yourself? Can’t you empathize with this? Keep in mind the history of the animal. *** There is NOTHING extreme with respect to the notion of psychopathy I am “pushing,” to use your word Mr. Hamm. I use conventional, plain vanilla, mainstream psychopathy straight from the reference books. But even if I went extreme, what would be the problem for A?R if I did? If I were to push an extreme category of psychopathy, or of any other kind of psychiatric problem for that matter as the epistemological center, what would be the harm if it were based on solid psychiatric research and it solved the case? The only reason I plump for psychopathy as the E.C. IS BECAUSE IT SOLVES THE CASE. If, for example, the borderline personality syndrome instead solved the case, I’d plump for that. Again, what’s your problem?
5. “And what did this series of studies find? In his summary statement of his results it's: Findings were generally not inconsistent with the adequate/heightened-anger hypothesis of psychopathy. Which basically go right against your assumption that psychopaths do not experience anger.”
For the two thousandth time, Mr. Hamm: I have NEVER said that psychopaths do not experience anger. I have said they don’t experience ADEQUATE anger. *** I am extremely skeptical of your analysis of the Steuerwald dissertation, Mr. Hamm. Did you read the whole thing? Since you talk about only the very beginning and the very end of it, it seems to me this is maybe all you read, and that you therefore haven’t got the slightest clue what Stewuerwald is talking about, typical of your snake oil salesman personality. *** I am going to get hold of all the references you quote in this post, and report here on how well you have analyzed them. Because you have spent three of the last six months lying to my readers concerning my work, you had better hope that you analyzed them fairly. If you didn’t, expect no mercy or quarter from me here, to the limit of what Mr. Ryder will allow.
6. “So do modern theories think Psychopaths have anger David? Yup, they do, and it's a topic of study that is not yet resolved. Possibly because psychopaths are not one homogenous group as you seem to think they are.
Here's a quote from another PhD thesis on the topic:
"Second, psychopathy had both a direct relationship to aggression, and an indirect relationship to aggression for Ambiguous Scenarios, with hostile attribution bias and anger acting as mediating factors."
What that means, is that their level of anger acted as a predictor for aggression. Not surprising, unless you're David and you erroneously thought that psychopaths didn't experience anger in the first place. Hard to have different levels of zero.”
>>Let me say it again: I DO THINK PSYCHOPATHS HAVE ANGER. I have always thought psychopaths have anger. But I don’t think they have REAL anger, or that the sum total of all their feelings amount to adequate human subjectivity in the aggregate. You don’t understand how studies in the humanities work, Mr. Hamm. You are hopelessly outclassed by what you are trying to read.
7. “Anyway, here's some information from another recent paper by Morrison and Gilbert, this one published in the Journal of Forensic Psychiatry, 2001.
"Primary psychopaths perceived themselves to be significantly higher in social rank than secondary psychopaths, lower in shame, and lower in ratings of angriness, self-blame and anger towards others. A significant association was found between social rank and anger in response to provocation and an inverse relationship between social rank and both shame and angriness. Regression analyses revealed that social rank and self-esteem best predicted variance in anger intensity to provocation, controlling for antisocial personality deviation. Primary and secondary psychopaths differed significantly, therefore, in their self-evaluative and social evaluative processes. The key differences lay in social rank evaluations and shame. Primary psychopaths assume dominance and threaten others who challenge them, while secondary psychopaths assume defensive, subordinate positions within a psychopathy hierarchy, seek dominance, but are sensitive to attacks from above and below."
>>It is known that primary psychopaths do not experience anxiety in the commission of their crimes, and secondary ones may, and this originates in the BIS/BAS distinction. But so what? It’s a neurological artifact. You have the same net level situation when the subject decides to go ahead and commit the crime: He isn’t emotionally capable of appreciating its consequences to himself, so he does it. With respect to psychopathic emotions, that is my only point. What you are doing above is going into the neurological grain and claiming you are not. The two kinds of psychopaths are not grossly separated from one another as you want to superficially claim. They have the same kind of personality. Theory is a living, not merely a mechanical thing.
7. “Once again, different kinds of psychopaths (so your original sorces will be combining primary and secondary psychopaths at the very least; and possibly other disorders as well). And as shown above, these groups tend to differ (they are not all carbon copies of each other just because they are psychopathic). And just look at how often that "angry" thing keeps turning up David. Anger is there, even if you want to say it isn't.”
My ‘original sources’ DO NOT combine primary and secondary! I referenced Lykken right in the Summary! He is a prime proponent of the primary/secondary theory! You are FULL OF GARBAGE, Mr. Hamm. *** Once again, I HAVE NEVER SAID ANGER ‘ISN’T THERE’ IN THE PSYCHOPATH.
8. “And, here's the conclusion statement from an article by Pham, Philippot, and Rime (2000) from the Journal Encephale:
“The results indicate that while psychopaths' autonomic baseline may be generally hyporeactive, they do not have any emotion-specific physiological deficit."”
>>This is exactly what I’ve been saying right along. You have proven my point and disproven yours. Psychopaths are capable of experiencing emotions, but are incapable of experiencing the depth of emotions. That is what the term “hyporeactive” means, Mr. illiterate Hamm. Psychopaths are incapable of the emotional reactions normal people have. They are emotionally sub-par, emotionally dim on a net basis. Tragedy, deep fear, great joy, and real satisfaction don’t apply to them. They hypo-react. Don’t you even know how to use a dictionary? *** If you put a psychopath on an emotion-measuring machine, you’d find that WHEN HE DOES EXPERIENCE AN EMOTION the needle jumps just as much as when a normal person does. The physiological manifestations are the same. And you’d find that FOR THE PSYCHOPATH the emotional experience is just as much a motivator as it is for us. That doesn’t mean he experiences ADEQUATE emotions, or that he experiences that set of emotions APPROPRIATE to the circumstances he is in. This is what he can’t do.
9. “And perhaps a nice summary is presented in this Journal Article, although a bit older (1971):
Journal: Revista Mexicana de Psicologia
Title: The psychopathology of William McCord-Joan McCord
"Discusses the definition, historical background, causes, diagnosis, treatment, and sociolegal implications of a psychopathic condition and proposes that: (a) a psychopath is an asocial, impulsive, aggressive, and unprincipled S who has difficulty in adapting and relating to his environment; (b) his condition can be due to hereditary, neurological, environmental and/or neurosocial factors; (c) diagnosis of a psychopath is based on characteristics, e.g., egocentrism, superficiality, intense anger, fear of rejection; (d) adequate treatment is hard to find although psychodrama, individual therapy, psychoanalysis, drugs, etc. . . . are suggested with special emphasis on Wiltwick's method of rapport, tolerance, group influence and advice for children; and (e) laws regarding mental patients and psychopaths should be revised. It is concluded that studies undertaken in the past 150 yr. have led to nothing concrete and that a more thorough analysis of this problem is necessary.
The "bolded" sections are by me for emphasis in this last abstract.
Now, as much fun as it is to beat my head against a brick wall, I have some papers to mark now.”
>>You are up to your old tricks of offering subject headers as real research on your part, Mr. Hamm. Did you even bother to read the article to see how the McCords handle the question of anger in psychopaths? Nah. It was much easier to simply push the header on all the good people who read here! I can tell you one thing, they didn’t say that psychopaths experience anger the way Hamlet did. *** What is this old-fashioned stuff doing here, anyway? 1971 was way back there. Cleckley was thoroughly updating his work seventeen years afterward, Lykken twenty-four. *** For the sake of your students, whose papers you have gone off to mark, I sincerely hope that you are a teacher of something like typing or power mechanics.
|
D. Radka
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Tuesday, November 09, 2004 - 8:52 pm: | |
Mr. Hamm wrote:
1. “David, You responded in one of your posts to me the following:
{Mr. Radka wrote:} I agree that a statement is wrong if it does not convey the correct meaning. But WHAT STATEMENT of mine do you refer to, and WHY is its meaning not correct?” {Mr. Hamm wrote:} I figure it only curtious if I answer this for you. Your statement that "psychopaths do not experience real anger", which we've seen cut and pasted from your posts many times now so I won't go and do it again, is wrong because the words used do not convey the meaning you intend. The word "real" means "actual; true; etc", which is the opposite of "fake". So, when you say psychopaths do not experience real anger, then the "not" negates the "real", which turns it into fake. Now, what you intended by your statement was something other than "fake". From your above post, you seem to be saying that "They do experience anger, but that the emotion is 'muted', or 'less intense', than it is for non-psychopaths". In other words the anger is "real", only they experience less of it. That means your original statement did not convey the meaning you intended. And so, by your own admission, your statement was wrong.”
>>You do not understand what meaning I intend. When I wrote the Summary, I carefully considered the choice of psychiatric references to be included. I concluded that they should be Cleckley, Hare and Lykken. Cleckley and Hare are there because the fundamental notion of psychopathy that psychiatrists use today was invented by them, first by Cleckley with his expertly-drawn case histories, and then subtly adjusted by Hare with his PCL-R. Lykken is there because he is a good alternative thinker—he’s got many important and critical opinions differing from the mainstream (not all of which are agreed to by me), plus he gives excellent, concise summaries of a number of theories concerning the psychopathic condition, such as neurobehavioralism. If you read these three books you are on solid ground with respect to critically understanding this baffling syndrome and the many theories about it. THIS IS WHAT I THOUGHT MY READERS WOULD DO—I THOUGHT THEY’D GO RIGHT AHEAD AND ACTUALLY READ THE BOOKS I RECOMMENDED TO THEM. THE REASON I WROTE THE SUMMARY WAS TO GET PEOPLE TO THINK THE CASE EVIDENCE THROUGH PSYCHIATRY IN A CRITICALLY APPRAISABLE WAY. But did anyone do this? Noooooooo. What everyone actually did (with the exception of Roger Palmer) was to get right up in his or her bully pulpit and claim that Dave Radka didn’t know anything about the syndrome, WITHOUT READING THE BOOKS I RECOMMENDED FOR THEMSELVES. This is the reason why we have these recurrent issues regarding how I use words, what I mean, how “my words don’t convey the meaning I intended,” as you say, how “my statements are wrong,” etc. What Ripperologists really want to do is argue, so when someone comes up with psychiatric material, they merely see it as opportunity to go into their typical action. The problem is that I write out of the language of the chosen psychiatric books, and you haven’t read these books so you don’t understand, and then you blame ME for alleged “mistakes.” The solution to the problem is that YOU ACTUALLY READ FOR YOURSELF the chosen books. You need to LEARN ABOUT PSYCHOPATHY DYNAMICALLY to be able to evaluate A?R. No Ripperologist ever required you to do something like this before, so you don’t take me seriously when I say you need to do it. But you MUST do it in order to understand my work. *** When I talk about real emotions, I mean what the psychiatrists mean. Why should I mean anything else? It is the sense of things originally used in this regard by Cleckley and Hare, in hosts of statements they make like—
“Vexation, spite, quick and labile flashes of quasi-affection, peevish resentment, shallow moods of self-pity, puerile attitudes of vanity, and absurd and showy poses of indignation are all within his emotional scale and are freely sounded as the circumstances of life play upon him. But mature, wholehearted anger, true or consistent indignation, honest, solid grief, sustaining pride, deep joy, and genuine despair are reactions not likely to be found within this scale.” (Cleckley, Hervey M: THE MASK OF SANITY: AN ATTEMPT TO CLARIFY SOME ISSUES ABOUT THE SO-CALLED PSYCHOPATHIC PERSONALITY. Augusta, Georgia: Emily S. Cleckley, 1988, page 348.)
“...Incapacity to feel the actual living, the tragedy and joy that are so real...(Lured by) an active drive toward...folly and failure.” (Cleckley, page 323.)
“(The psychopath exhibits) a consistent leveling of response to petty ranges and an incapacity to react with sufficient seriousness to achieve much more than pseudoexperience or quasi-experience.” (Cleckley, page 383.)
“Although he deliberately cheats others and is quite conscious of his lies, he appears unable to distinguish adequately between his own pseudointentions, pseudoremorse, pseudolove, and the genuine responses of a normal person.” (Cleckley, page 385.)
Thus, when I use the term “real emotion,” I don’t necessarily mean strong emotion, nor intense emotion, nor emotion sufficient to motivate a psychopath, nor raw emotion, nor un-muted emotion, nor non-fake emotion. I mean “the opposite of pseudoemotion” or “that emotion that enables normal people to develop an adequate sense of reality.” The REAL in REAL EMOTION refers to REALity. Psychopaths don’t know about reality. They have a defective and inadequate human identity structure that prohibits them from developing a subjectively integrated idea of who they are, what their REAL circumstances are, and what they ought to do. Their personality is externalizing and projective in nature, not reflexive, interactive, and inner-dimension making like ours. They don’t have the ability to create the house of reality for them to live in like we do. And the reason they can’t is because the sum total of their emotional responses isn’t potent enough to bring them up to this level. Emotionally speaking, they under-react or hyporeact. A colorful illustration should suffice here. A psychiatrist wants to test the emotional reactions of psychopaths compared to normal people. He uses a machine that records responses from a number of electrodes placed over the subject’s head and body measuring all sorts of things like brain electricity, galvanic skin response, muscle tension, etc. The machine has an emotion meter that registers from 0 to 100 using a needle indicator. 0 is no emotion, 100 is jumping out the window emotion. The psychiatrist has a deck of 8½ X 11” photographs, numbered 1-20. What the subject does is sit at a table and look at each picture in sequence, one at a time, for exactly 15 seconds while the meter records his emotional reactions to it. Each subject goes through the deck in the same order and in the same way. The psychiatrist has got the deck rigged. Every photo except #17 is of a common, ordinary object. One is a mailbox, another a tree, one is a fish, another a bird, another a fire hydrant, etc. Totally ordinary objects with no particular emotional reaction applicable to them. But when the subject gets to #17, what he sees is a woman sitting in a wrecked car holding her severed head in her lap. A passerby took the photo just after the fatal accident took place. The woman driver was following a flatbed truck carrying steel shelving units. When the truck accelerated the load shifted, extracting one of the shelves from the stack. It punched cleanly through the poor woman’s windshield and cut her head right off like a guillotine. The head fell into her lap, on top of her hands as they fell from the steering wheel. So what the test subjects sees is the woman, nicely dressed and without a crease in her clothing sitting in the driver’s seat normally, her headless body holding her head, which faces the photographer as he stands a few feet from the open doorway to snap the photo. The emotion meter tells the story. Both the psychopaths and the normals had about the same response to all the photos except #17. The emotion meter goes from 0 to the 5-10 range as each photo registered in their consciousness. But when the normals got to #17 the needle goes way up, whereas the best the psychopaths could muster was 10-15, just a little more emotion than the baseline reaction. Thus Hare writes:
“(For) the psychopath,...violence is not emotionally different from other forms of behavior.” (Hare, Robert D.: WITHOUT CONSCIENCE. New York: The Guilford Press, 1999, page 175.)
“...Casually (describes) a brutal offense as if an apple had been peeled or a fish gutted.” (Hare, page 89.)
The reason why the emotions of psychopaths are impotent is a matter of theory, but most theories center around the idea of a balance between emotions on the one hand and inhibitions on the other. Normal people have two sides and a balance, psychopaths don’t. Normal people are inhibited concerning feeling and doing, and thus emotions and inhibitions dynamically oppose, check, and culture one another, whereas psychopathic emotions are allowed to either let fly in any direction or hardly react at all. Normal people develop a concerted blend of emotions and inhibitions on which complex chords and dissonances are played, psychopaths have either a few shrill notes shrieking out here and there, or near silence. Normal emotions can be deep, psychopathic emotions can’t be. Normal emotions connect and separate the subject within himself, providing him a learning experience of himself; psychopathic emotions merely externalize the subject, and send him after whatever looks good to him at the moment. Normal emotions are more reliable than psychopathic emotions, and provide a measurably more even and predictable set of responses, thus they are deemed adequate in nature. Normal emotions are capable of generating infinite gradations of personality; psychopathic emotions produce virtually the same kind of personality in every psychopath. Normal emotions are more indirect, competing, and suggestive, psychopathic emotions are more direct, isolated from one another, and compelling. When discussing psychopathic emotions, the main theory is that of Cleckley because of his historical importance to the field, and his idea was basically that psychopaths simply lack sufficient emotional feelings to generate the growth and learning curve necessary to move from infancy to adulthood. They basically remain babies throughout life. When you read psychiatric texts, you get a sense for how other theories have both diverged from and are compatible with Cleckley’s theory.
2. “And, the meaning your words conveyed was quite apparent if you read and considered the comments returned to you. Had you simply indicated that "real" was a poor choice of qualifier, because it leads to an ambiguous statement, it would have prevented this thread from getting so long while getting nowhere. Instead, you took the approach of continuing to use the ambiguous qualifier, which was obviously the source of the problem.”
>>I don’t think this thread goes nowhere. On this thread, people ask questions about how to interpret the case evidence, and they learn the solution of the case. What could be more germane than that? I appreciate and read the comments made here thoroughly, as my responses attest. “Real” comes from the psychiatric field, not from me, and it is a pertinent qualifier.
3. “As for your list of things people have called you, well, if you dish our insults, expect them to be returned. You antagonise, insult, and so forth, why should you expect any better in return?”
>>Is it okay with you if I threaten you and your family, and with no information about you personally publicly label you a queer, an excessive masturbator, psychotic, incompetent in your field of work, an anti-Semitist, and a weakling? How about if I say that I detest your personality, hold you in contempt just for being you? Can I obsessively make up anything I want concerning you, and post it on a worldwide web site? This is all fair, legitimate, and related to your work in Ripperology, right?
4. “Anyway, since the A?R approach simply boils down to telling a consistent story, it's no longer of interest to me. It sounds more like a guideline on how to "write a good novel" than it is a guideline on how to solve a mystery. The bootstrap approach is useful for examining the internal validity of a theory (do all the parts hold together), but it is not proof of the theory. Even the bootstrap method requires that the implications of the theory be tested by emperical measurement at the points where the theory makes measureable predictions. A?R has simply dropped the one aspect of the bootstrap that makes it scientific, or useful, in solving mysteries. The idea of it is to show which theories are invalid because they are not internally consistent (so time and effort need not be spent on expensive research to follow them up). Then, once one is left with a set of "vialbe theories", to figure out what research needs to be done to test the validity of one over the other. Since you advocate not doing research (it's emperical), you advocate story telling over case solving.”
>>Absolutely not. Did you even read the Summary, Mr. Hamm? Did you get so far as the last item? Let me reproduce it here for you:
“44. Might There Be Any Empirical Evidence Readily Available To Assist In Proving the Thesis of Alternative Ripperology? Possibly. Documents related to Aaron’s committals to various institutions in the timeframes 1890 and following have been located, with copies in the hands of various people who follow the case. A graphologist may wish to compare the handwriting of persons signing as Aaron’s next of kin to that of the Lusk letter. However there are many caveats. The writer of the Lusk letter used exaggerated, vicious spearing motions and other tricks, possibly to frighten Lusk, that he may not have used in his normal handwriting, perhaps destroying basis for comparison. Persons appearing and signing for Aaron may not have been as they presented themselves. A “Wolf Kosminski” claimed to be Aaron’s brother despite that there is no official record of Aaron having a brother. Someone in Aaron’s extended family may have signed the name of a different family member to throw suspicions elsewhere, especially in light of Robert Anderson’s interest in Aaron. And finally, the person who wrote the Lusk letter need not have been directly involved in Aaron’s various committals.”
I do not “advocate story telling over case solving.” A?R is the only case solution ever produced that accounts for the whole of the empirical case evidence in a satisfying manner. You bastardize my approach: A?R is a viable theory that can serve as a guide for many avenues of empirical research. Such is being conducted right now.
|
D. Radka
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Thursday, November 11, 2004 - 9:43 pm: | |
Mr. Hamm wrote:
1.”Hi RJ, You are spot on, psychological research into human emotions is extremely difficult to do, and like any area of research, is often loaded with jargon (psycho-babble; chemico-babble; bio-babble; phsics-babble; etc).”
>>This isn’t what Mr. Palmer said or implied! He basically said that in trying to plumb the depths of the human psyche, various theories arise over time due to the essentially subjective and perspectival nature of the work. He did NOT say that such work is extremely difficult, or fruitless, or that psychiatric theories make no sense, or are chaotic and perpetually in contradiction with one another. Your perspective on this, as you’ve developed it over a number of posts, seems anti-intellectual in nature. You seem to want to sell us on a futile view of the capabilities of the human intellect, the human spirit, or both. This view, concerning many things, is typical of underclassmen in my experience. I believe it is a part of your plan concerning A?R, because you wish to convince people that my perspective that JtR was a psychopath isn’t tangible or comprehensive enough to serve as the epistemological center. But it is NOT true that psychiatry is hopelessly divided over what psychopathy is, or who is in the referent group. This is NOT what Cleckley, Hare and Lykken say, if you were to actually study them as I recommend, Mr. Hamm, as opposed to merely doing database searches and reading only the subject headers as you do. The notion that psychiatry is hopelessly fragmented and spitting in the wind concerning psychopathy is nothing more than your layman’s opinion.
2. “As with any research, you have to measure something. If you define anger in terms of behaviour, then you will focus on "angry behaviours". If you want to get at the notion of the "qualia of that inner experience", well, how do you? How can we even be sure that two "non-psychopaths" share the same inner experience when they both report being angry? It's like wondering if I experience "Red" the same way you "experience Red"? Obviously, if one of us is colour blind, that is not true (one confuses red and green, one does not; so we could assert that the inner experience must be different). However, if neither of us are colour blind (or we both are), does that mean our inner perceptions are the same? Maybe, maybe not. Who knows.”
>>This is far too skeptical to qualify as a scientific perspective. You are basically advocating universal solipsism or agnosticism here, and that is certainly not the perspective of psychiatry concerning psychopaths. Research on these people returns logical perspectives that can be interpersonally confirmed. For example the notion that psychopaths chose their actions based on an inadequate emotional appreciation of their circumstances has been verified by hundreds of different studies over the years. As Cleckley wrote:
“He never attacked others suddenly or incomprehensibly as might a psychotic person motivated by delusions or prompted by hallucinations...No signs of towering rage appeared or even of impulses too strong to be controlled by a very meager desire to refrain...The desire to show off appeared to be a strong motive behind many of his fights.” (Cleckley, Hervey M: THE MASK OF SANITY: AN ATTEMPT TO CLARIFY SOME ISSUES ABOUT THE SO-CALLED PSYCHOPATHIC PERSONALITY. Augusta, Georgia: Emily S. Cleckley, 1988, page 32.)
Psychiatric interviews of psychopaths demonstrate that they as a group take action based largely on idle whims and capriciousness.
3. “Some call these kinds of things irrelavant, and in the end it's only the behaviour that matters. So, if psychopaths behave more "angrily", that means they "are more angry". Others argue that this means the inner experience (the qualia of the emotional experience) is not addressed if you leave it out of consideration. Often physiological responses are used (heart rate, sweating, etc) to try and get at the idea of what the "qualia" might be. These findings tend to suggest that psychopaths have a lower response to emotional stimuli. However, having a lower response to images, or sounds, that normals have stronger emotional responses to may only indicate psychopaths have less "empathy", which is pretty much accepted by everyone I think.”
>>The psychiatric notion of “a psychopath in full” is that of a person who has BOTH no empathy and a degraded, unreal set of emotions or pseudoemotions. However, it has been advanced that there may be shades of gray in the syndrome. Some may have the syndrome more than others. The person you are referring to above may be a partial psychopath, then, or he may be a tough-skinned non-psychopathic person. But if he were a full-fledged psychopath, he’d fit the classic descriptions. So what is your problem, Mr. Hamm? There is no error with respect to psychiatric classification above; there is only your conflating different classes of personality. There is no sharp, unhealed, cancerous disagreement among scientists concerning what attributes psychopaths have, as you seem to imply. *** I think, based on the empirical case evidence, that JtR whoever he was, was a psychopath in full. His sharply antisocial posture in general, fearlessness, and unconstrained grabbing for the reward money strongly indicate this. Therefore, he fits tightly within the classic descriptions of psychopaths made by psychiatrists. I see no problem with the E.C. *** I’m not sure it can be said that normal human life is not all interconnected, emotionally. How can someone TOTALLY lack empathy, but NOT be lacking in those emotions that generate empathy? What is your explanation for someone being totally free of empathetic feeling but having a deep sense of tragedy, for example? How could Shakespeare feel for Hamlet if he were incapable of feeling for the rag-girl that lived up the road from him? What is the difference between Hamlet as a human subject and that rag-girl? The fact that Shakespeare has the feeling of tragedy concerning his fictional creation means that he CAN’T AVOID a feeling of empathy for the rag-girl as well. You can’t have it both ways, Mr. Hamm. If you can’t feel empathy then you can’t feel tragedy. And if that, you can’t get mad, feeling full-scale anger, at the fickleness of individual fate. If you do get mad, it is not full-scale anger, but something less. And if that, you don’t have a personal fate; you are relegated to living in the present time and place. You’re a psychopath.
4. “If they don't care, or respond emotionally, to an image of a starving child, for example, that doesn't mean they are incapable of feeling "sad", or of "feeling angry". It just means that the kinds of things that make "normals" feel sad and angry through "empapthy" don't cause a psychopath to feel sad or angry (or whatever). These kinds of studies are usually where the "low or deficient" emotion notion comes from; but they could be argued to simply be showing "a lower level of empathy", rather than a "lower capacity for those emotions".
>>Not responding emotionally to the image of a starving child is not limited to pseudoemotionality. Someone may not respond emotionally to the image of a starving child because he represses his feeling. However, repression always makes him pay a price later. Only the psychopath, who has no conscience, never pays a price, and this difference is therefore what identifies his personality type. Again, I think you are wrong to imply that the underlying nature of these experiences is beyond comprehension. Psychiatrists know well enough what is going on, albeit they do not know the ultimate origins of human feeling and thought. *** If a human being knows he feels tragedy, how can he arbitrarily prevent himself from feeling empathy? Nobody picks and chooses what emotions he or she feels, we all have our feelings visited upon us. I might chose to not ACT in an empathetic way toward someone, but, ceteris paribus, I can’t PREVENT MYSELF FROM FEELING EMPATHY FOR THEM if I know their situation is one that would evoke such feelings. I cannot prevent myself from completing my primordial experiences, based on the emotions I have. But a psychopath can be shown on many counts to have fundamentally incomplete experiences, incomplete reactions to stimuli when compared to normal people. This means that he doesn’t have the ability to deploy the full compliment of emotions that normal people can. *** If you just can’t feel empathy when you see a starving child, then I’d say you couldn’t feel sad and angry when you are supposed to. And if that, your sadness and anger isn’t real sadness and anger, it is some inconsequential little emotional blip, perhaps, with a cognitive approximation tied to it as a compensatory mechanism. It is a counterfeit emotion. This doesn’t mean that the image of a starving child necessarily has to trigger empathy in everyone every time. However, NO image that evokes empathy in a normal person EVER triggers empathy in a psychopath, hence the taxonomy. *** “Not caring” about the plight of a starving child is very common, and need not be related to psychopathy. “Not feeling” appropriately about the matter is either the repression of a normal person, or the pseudolife of a psychopath. *** There is no question about psychopaths showing a “lower level of empathy” as you say. Extensive interviews and studies indicate a complete lack of empathy and conscience, and in its place a cataclysmically self-ruinous self-centeredness. We are not talking about gradations of empathy here. *** It was Cleckley’s original explanation that they are emotionally simplistic and in this sense deficient with respect to experiencing reality, that they would under-react on a net basis when confronted with situations that would elicit deep feelings on the part of a normal person. He didn’t mean and never said, and I have never said, that they were incapable of hair-trigger, hotheaded, freak level emotional outbursts, and that these would not in some cases cause their antisocial actions. For some people, it may be hard to imagine these two attributes operating simultaneously in the same person. Thus we get into endless debates concerning whether or not psychopathic emotions are by nature “cold” or “hot.” But cold-hot / low-high are inadequate dimensions along which to gage psychopathic inadequacy. It is a complex emotional deficiency, and leads instead to the reality-pseudoreality distinction as its lowest common denominator. *** Cleckley didn’t fatally buy into the low-high dimension of psychopathic emotions I don’t think, but no doubt many subsequent psychologists have attempted to test a low-high response scale concerning these people. And when they do, no doubt they get conflicting results; because the questions they ask are answered along the same inadequate dimension. But that’s the way psychology proceeds, quite often. *** Somehow it seems to me that you are saying above that psychopaths are somehow programmed for different ends or goals than normals. In effect, they don’t react with full or real emotions to what normals react to, but that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t really react to something, we don’t yet know what. But I think these two positions are equivalent, Mr. Hamm, because: What is there to react to that the psychopaths do react to? What is there that normals just don’t know about? You seem to portray psychopaths as lost in an alien dimension where their latent emotional capacities cannot be actualized, because what they “eat” emotionally just doesn’t grow there. But then you have to describe their natural dimension for us, and you don’t.
5. “However, deny a psychopath something they want, and they may experience anger, real anger and real frustation. They may show such a large response that normals would think this level of emotion is innappropriate. And this is where the "increased anger" ideas comes from.”
>>Psychopaths never experience anything real, real being defined as the moral, temporal and spatial dimensions experienced by normals. An 18 month-old infant is capable of reacting as you describe. It is not a “large” response as you think, but a petty one. “Gimmie lollipop!” is not what Hamlet felt concerning “To be, or not to be.”
6. “In conjunction, we might end up thinking something like "Psychopaths will respond with less emotion to situations which normally evoke an empathetic emotional response. Paradoxically, they may have an increased emotional response when the emotion is invoked by an event operating on them directly, rather than through another". I'm not saying this is the "correct answer" for psychopaths. My area of research does not include these kinds of questions, so I'm not up on all the current research that is being done. But I'm familear with enough of it to know that it is not as simple as David seems to think it is.”
>>What you are describing is egocentricity, typical of psychopaths. What you DO NOT describe is WHY they are egocentric. But you CAN’T not explain this if you want to theorize about them! You are truncating half the question in order to cartoon your APPARENTLY logical position. Psychiatry has answered this question as follows: “Psychopaths are egocentric because they lack the emotional depth and sophistication to mature normally. They remain emotional babies throughout life.” Now, please tell why this explanation is wrong, giving your alternative to it. Complete your thought. Show us what you’ve got. *** The “paradox” you draw above is no paradox at all. This emotional arrangement is nothing more or less than what could be reasonably expected from an egocentric person. John Wayne Gacy had little or no emotional response to his arrest, trial, conviction and appeals. Nobody saw much emotion from him until the gurney to take him down to the execution room was wheeled into his cellblock area. At that point, he knew HE was going to die, and his emotional condition deteriorated. *** I have no illusions regarding the complexity of this subject, but feel confident in my ability to employ it to solve the case.
7. “Because the question is so hard to address, it is not surprising that the literature is not entirely consistent on the issue.”
>>This is an outrageous, self-serving misrepresentation of the literature and questions of psychopathy. Did you actually read Cleckley, Hare and Lykken Mr. Hamm? You talk through your hat to make yourself seem wise. You are a snake oil salesman.
8. “One has to first decide what to measure, and how to measure it, and in response to what change will these measurements be taken. Since we can measure human behaviour (physiological changes being a form of behaviour), that is what gets measured. Trying to get at the notion of that intangible "inner experience" through only behavioural observations, makes this kind of research very difficult. Some say impossible, some say it can be done despite the difficulties.”
>>Well, I agree with you that it is impossible for a normal person to put himself in the place of a psychopath. You are correct on this point. There is no neutral common ground psychopaths and normals can occupy together to compare experiences. Someone is either immediately a psychopath with no grasp of normal reality, or one is immediately normal with no grasp of the psychopathic “consciousness,” if that is what it can be called. But this relates to the inability of psychiatrists to cure psychopaths, it does not relate to an inability on the part of psychiatry to make consistent statements about the syndrome, learn about it, at least to ballpark it to a reasonable degree. Are the case histories totally meaningless? You have to know how to find the solid ground, that’s all.
9. “It's also why relying on one or two sources, that may share a common view, is so dangerous. You get a biased perspective because you don't have the background or knowledge to realise that the issues are not as clear cut as your one or two sources may seem to imply. Being more widely read, and more critical in one's thinking, is essential if you really want to understand what the problem is, let alone what the answer might be.”
>>How many times do I have to repeat this, Mr. Hamm? I DO NOT limit myself to only a few sources! Cleckley, Hare and Lykken taken in and of themselves DO NOT take a common perspective; there is difference among them! Further, they are at the center of psychopathic thought! I am aware that ALMOST NO issues in the humanities are clear-cut, because I have had a substantive and successful graduate career in studying humanities at a high level! I do not disgrace myself, as you do, by quoting SUBJECT HEADERS as if they were real research! I actually read the books! *** You write banalities.
10. And, much like research into JtR, we may simply not have enough information yet to actually answer the question. The only guarentee is, if we stop looking for the answer, we will never find it.
>>No, no, God no, Mr. empiricist Hamm. We can follow the empiricists looking for JtR for the next 2,000 years without finding him! We wouldn’t want to do that, would we? Let’s be a little discreet about this, shall we? Let’s ask ourselves about WHAT WE SHOULD BE LOOKING FOR before we start, shall we?
|
D. Radka
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Saturday, November 06, 2004 - 2:50 pm: | |
Look-in:
With respect to the whistling teapot, the spelling "Juwes" as an abbreviation for the German "Jugendwerk," and the carvings on Eddowes' face as tailoring symbols: If you don't like these explanations, just give them a heave. Provable or unprovable, they have NO implication on the A?R theory being right or wrong.
Thank you kindly for your interest and contributions, which I appreciate.
David
|
Cludgy
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Monday, November 08, 2004 - 7:44 am: | |
Mr Mullins
Believe it or not the fireplaces in modest Victorian houses (i.e.the ones where I have had personnel experience) were quite large in proportion to the size of the rooms.
They were referred to as ranges, and had special grates for boiling kettles, and using pans on.
The level of the grate (from the floor) where the actual coal was burnt was about 3ft, this height was necessary to facilitate the easy use of the fire to boil kettles and pans on. They also had big cast iron ovens to one side of the fire.
My grandmother's old fire was huge, and you could get a half hundred weight of coal(56lbs) in it. Coal was a reletively cheap commodity back then.
The room (where the fire was) was pretty small, i'd say 16ft by 18ft, and the width accross the fire was about 4ft.
Now I'm not saying that Mary Kellys fire was as large as this, but back in the 1950's and 1960's I remember that most of the original old fires in old houses were quite large. Large enough to take the clothing found incinerated in Mary Kellys fire
Regards Cludgy.
|
Jason Scott Mullins
Inspector
Username: Crix0r
Post Number: 339
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Friday, November 12, 2004 - 11:47 am: | |
Hey There Cludgy -
Yeah, I'm well aware that large fireplaces did in fact exist back then. Not all of them were ranges of course. The reason I chose a smaller non-range type of fireplace for my experiment was because it resided in a rented abode. Furnishings were sparse in her flat, etc. It wasn't exactly a "grand" building either. From what I've read (and I will admit to being a little less than scientific in this respect) it was pretty common that the ranges and larger fireplaces were built for people with money, by people with money. Us common folk just got the fairly standard fireplace. Knowing that there were a BUNCH of variables I would never have the answer too, I just went ahead with the smaller of the fireplaces just to see what kind of results I would get.
It will be interesting to see if David has an open mind about it, though I am doubtful.
crix0r
"I was born alone, I shall die alone. Embrace the emptiness, it is your end." |
R.J. Palmer
Inspector
Username: Rjpalmer
Post Number: 485
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, November 12, 2004 - 12:24 pm: | |
Jason--I'm impressed with you willingness to carry out practical experiments. One thing, though. Should we really assume that the clothes were damp? The general consensus is that these were the clothes left in the room by Mrs. Harvey on Thursday afternoon. Technically, Harvey had been staying with Kelly for several days and it seems to me that it's certainly possible that the clothes might have been in the room since the previous Monday. (See Kelly inquest reports; Novemeber 13th) RP |
Jason Scott Mullins
Inspector
Username: Crix0r
Post Number: 340
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Friday, November 12, 2004 - 1:27 pm: | |
"You have no right to speak for Mr. Mullins. Only he can speak for himself."
Here I find myself partially agreeing with David again.
David -
You are correct in stating that only I can speak for myself. However, I do not get the sense that Howard was trying to speak for me, only that he was doing a little CYA. A "No need to make enemies. What if something gets misconstrued ?" sort of thing. Not at least in the passage you quoted. The original one where he seemed to be taunting you with me, perhaps.. but not the passage you chose to quote.
I do not know what happened to Howard in the past, nor do I really care. His drug addiction, if real, is his business and unless you can tie it in somehow (not really sure if you did this) to the relevant discussion, probably shouldn't be brought up under this thread. Go create a "Why Howard Brown is broken" thread. I don't care what people think of Spry, Ally or even Howard for that matter. Keeping up their appearances is their job, not yours or mine (remember that. Sometimes you forget that).
You know full well that your behavior is liable to illicit a nasty response every time you post. Don't be coy, be honest with yourself at least. Don't pretend that all these little tiff's of yours aren't at least thought out a little or that you had "no idea that you would face just great resistance". You can't make some of the comments you choose to make and not have consequences. You know you have a difficult time not coming off arrogant. Knowing this you must understand that not everyone is going to react well to your half hearted attempts to insult them and even a few of them will take it more personally than they should and they might make threats. I'm not defending anyone's actions. I'm simply saying that you made your bed.. don't complain that it's too lumpy.
I feel that perhaps you do need to lighten up a little when it comes to these message boards. For if you think these people are harsh, you've got another thing coming. There are thousands of other message boards out there that would not only ban you and make a fool out of you publically, they would do it on a regular basis so as to keep the n00b's in check.
Your behavior thus far has been far less that amicable to all but a select few posters. If you wish to keep people from behaving in a manor you find unsettling, then perhaps you should look into yourself to see if their is something that you might be doing to illicit that sort of response.
"Our name is Legion, for we are many"
"I was born alone, I shall die alone. Embrace the emptiness, it is your end." |
Jason Scott Mullins
Inspector
Username: Crix0r
Post Number: 341
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Friday, November 12, 2004 - 1:43 pm: | |
All -
God I love spell checkers!! "their" instead of "there" wtf?? Grrrrrrrr!! Please forgive the phonetically correct but grammatically incorrectness of my post above :P
Hi R.J. -
Indeed, I considered that. However, I didn't really try that as I took David's position to be that they were either Kelly's clothes or the killers, which would more than likely be a little damp. That they were neither Kelly's or the killers, that they belonged to a best friends, cousins, roomate, etc. I did not take into account on purpose (see above where I said that there were way to many variables to contend with).
I only did it out of curiosity, months ago. I didn't know I would be bringing it up to David as a point of order or I would have gone the much more scientific route 
crix0r
"I was born alone, I shall die alone. Embrace the emptiness, it is your end." |
D. Radka
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Sunday, November 14, 2004 - 9:28 pm: | |
out of order:
Mr. Hamm wrote:
1. “It's probably pointless, but I thought I would give it one more go. I will be highly surprised if anything comes back apart from another barage of insults.”
>>But of course it is not an insult to my readers on your part to cite database subject headers as real research, Mr. Hamm? To not look up simple words in the dictionary like “hyporeact,” and then claim they mean the opposite of their real meaning? And, worst of all, for repeatedly lying to my readers concerning my position, in your words, that “psychopaths do not feel anger” for—how long—three months? Don’t you think I have feelings too?
2. “But, in the end, it's David's theory, and so the onus is upon him to convince others of it's worth.”
>>Fair enough. The worth of the A?R theory is that it is the best explanation of the case evidence possible. It makes a whole out of all the loose parts. It is logical, rational and critically appraisable as to both the main idea and the disposition of the evidence at all points. It begins properly in wonder, not at whatever empirical data point may seem lucky to an untrained mind, and analyzes the evidence by asking pertinent questions about the logical oppositions it finds. It is the only theory to address the evidence by asking why it happened, and to reasonably explain it using its chronology. It provides alternative corroboration and interpretation of the most important testimony in the case evidence, that of Dr. Robert Anderson. It is also valuable in that it provides readers a realistic portrait of psychopaths, useful to anyone who must deal with one. Critically speaking, the A?R theory should not be confused with the legal standard of proof of guilt of a specific individual beyond a reasonable doubt. Certainly we wouldn’t want to convict anyone based only on the best possible explanation of the murderer’s actions; we’d need specific evidence placing him at a crime scene, or holding some property of a victim, that kind of thing. But at the same time, the degree of holism and completeness attained with respect to the case evidence leaves no doubt that A?R has correctly explained the case evidence in terms of the ideas it reasonably represents, and therefore is the best solution of the case possible. This is a complex thought, however, and may seem hard to swallow at first to people who are used to British empiricism, the legal standard, and inadequate explanations of the evidence. And lastly, the original use of continental rationalism in place of British empiricism gives a new dimension to Ripperology.
3. “So far, he's failed in that respect as far as I'm concerned. Story telling is good fun and it's easy to do. It can even be useful as it can lead one to investigate in areas not thought of before, but it's not the research and it's not proof in and of itself.”
>>Well, this is the tired, old, and mediocre empirical bull again. Under this standard, if what a theory holds to be true isn’t explicitly shown empirically, then it is storytelling, and storytelling is wrong. The refutation of this position is two sided: (1) Take a look around and notice what the empiricists are doing. I mean Edwards, Evans, Cornwell, “the Diarists,” Knight, etc. What these squeaky-clean empiricists do is first give you a wonderful, rock-ribbed recapitulation of the known empirical evidence. Nothing wrong here, because it’s all-empirical. Then they give you a second wonderful, rock-ribbed set of empirical facts about who the murderer was, how he would have done the murders, how he would have gotten away with it, where he was born and when he died, etc. Nothing wrong again here, because it’s all-empirical. Every iota of the theory being based on empirical research, the reader as a touchy-feely human being who wants to stand foursquare in the bosom of science is satisfied, buys the book, and walks away thinking he knows the identity of Jack the Ripper once and for all. The problem is, nobody thinks well about anything. There isn’t an adequate analysis of the ideas underlying the proposed theory, so that a reasonable person would be able to realize for himself what were at stake in accepting the position intellectually. The whole purpose of the exercise is to prevent readers from thinking well by peppering them with fact-fact-empirical fact instead. No coefficient of certainty in connecting the murderer to the case evidence is logically estimated or estimable. The scam is the old shell game, or “run it by him fast.” If you keep rearranging the three walnut shells really fast, a blurring of the brain takes place, and the sucker loses track of the location of the pea. The scam works great, and permits a mediocre man to be an author with a following, and authorship is a great club to be a member of. Your publisher can always say that your book is virtuously and vigorously researched, and he is telling the truth when he does so. Richard Whittington-Egan is returned to his rightful office as the empirical arbiter of truth, with a big mandate. I’m always amazed at the good faith good-heartedly granted to every cockroach that crawls out of the woodwork with yet another “well-researched solution.” It’s as if everyone cuts him half a mile of slack just because he’s perceived as “trying hard” to solve the case through research and written a thickly nice book. But the reality is that he, unethically in my view, gives you NO WAY TO KNOW how close to the truth he is. He could just as likely be very far away as close. So in two words: Research, schmesearch. (2) So you think A?R is mere storytelling, eh? Let me ask you to think hard about this question: What does it matter if it is storytelling or not, if it (a) Holistically explains all the empirical evidence, and (b) Hermeneutically analyzes all the empirical evidence based on logical oppositions? We have a starting point, a logical procedure, a goal and a reaching of the goal, all of which are critically appraisable. Isn’t this the way a good deal of European rationalist philosophy is done? I don’t think it is right to equate my work to making up a story out of whole cloth. I follow the evidence.
|
Cludgy
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Monday, November 15, 2004 - 9:41 am: | |
Hi Scott
It Maybe then that the North and South of our Sceptered Isle,(in the Victorian era) differed in the use of fireplace for the humbler of abode
My Grandmothers house was decidedly humble, but as I said, she had a range
And the 2 reasons that prompted me to think that Mary Kelly's room might have contained a range was
1. The fact that a kettle was found on the fire, seems to me to suggest in itself a range type of fire.
2. The fact that a good quantity of clothing was found to have been burnt on the fire, seems to suggest a big open fire with a good size of flue to take the smoke produced from the burning of the clothes. I remember the miners strikes of the 1980's, and believe me we were burning anything that came to hand in lieu of coal, the coal fire in my home at the time was one of the small variety, and believe me there's no way you can burn clothing (of the volume burnt in Mary's fire) without clogging and damping the fire down.
Maybe an answer to the mystery of the size of the fire can be resolved by looking in the local archives.
In the past if one wanted to alter a building in anyway in this country, a large size plan of the building had to be drawn up, I have seen plans of this nature and they would reveal the size of fires in individual rooms.
These plans (all of which are kept for posterity) can be found in local council archives.
All it needs now is for some local enthusiast, to ask (in the appropriate place) if any plans of 23 Dorset Street were ever drawn up, if so the chances are they are still in existence.
Regards Cludgy
|
D. Radka
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, November 12, 2004 - 10:29 pm: | |
out of order
Mr. Mullins wrote:
1. “…So, presuming he choked her so he could do his work uninterrupted, took off his clothes so he wouldn't get messy, etc., throw the clothes on the fire wet. Results? I think you'll find that they don't really burn at all. They just kinda smolder. Now try a very moist set of clothes. This would cover if she died later than classically accepted or he put his clothes in the fireplace after they had dried a bit. Results? Again I believe you'll find that the just kinda smolder. Here's the last part, bring a video camera and film your experiment. When you are done with it, send me the tape, certified mail or UPS (something with a tracking system). I'll take the tape and convert it to MPEG 2. I'll ask spry to host it, or if it becomes to large, I'll find hosting myself. Then you can share with all of us the results of your experiment. I'm willing to help in anyway you deem fit and the reason for that is because I've tested this myself.. guess what. The clothes didn't really do much but smolder. Any form of accelerant would have most certainly been described by witness at the scene. I can't think of one off hand that you can put into a fireplace and still have lots of material left after it's done it's chemical change. So we can rule accelerants right out. Provided you play by the rules (and by that I mean you don't cheat and use newer clothes, non-moist clothes, a huge fireplace, accelerants, etc.) your results should be eerily similar. Net results? There probably wasn't a raging fire in that flat on the night of her murder. The teapot might have been left over the fire because hey, whatta know, it's owner was in the middle of being disemboweled. What this might mean for you and your theory, however, is that you might want to admit defeat and start again. OR at the very least, try a few of your "ideas" out before presenting them. I think you'll find your theory about teapots and raging fires just went... hehehe.. up in smoke.”
>>How does my theory “go up in smoke?” Did you even bother to read the Summary? My theory follows the empirical evidence; this part of it attempts to explain the remnants of a fire that burned clothing found in the hearth. The explanation is that the murderer desired to create a fuse for his time bomb that would (1) give him time to escape, and (2) ignite rioting pursuant to the Lord Mayor’s procession. He thought that if local prostitutes found the hideously mutilated body of a sister prostitute they knew, right in their own court, they’d flip out and run screaming into the streets, igniting the riot. So he used what he thought were combustible materials ready-to-hand. He noticed the bundles of laundry left in Mary’s room by her laundress friend Julia Venturnay, and the rolled up bundles (one is visible in the photographs) gave him the idea of stacking one in the hearth. So what he does when he’s ready to leave is get the bundle ready, then get some hot coals going, then get his coat on and put the heart and knife in his coat pocket, then listening at the door and not hearing anyone stirring, right before he’s ready to boogie out he stuffs the bundle into the hearth, and then he makes his run for it. Maybe the reason for the melted solder on the teapot is because the bundle is high-stacked, and there are some flames licking directly on the solder where Mary Jane left the teapot hanging. Or maybe he thought the teapot would whistle, which would augment his plans to call the prostitutes to Mary Jane’s room, so he positioned it on top of the bundle himself. What he wants to happen is that the package smolders for one or two minutes, during which time he makes it out the door and hangs a few turns down some alleyways, which takes him out of the crime scene picture. Then the clothing flares up brightly, lighting up the whole room and also the windowpane. Plus maybe the teapot begins to whistle. Seeing and hearing all this and concerned that Mary Jane isn’t watching her fire, one of her friends knocks on the door. When no one answers she pushes the coat aside from the broken glass, sees the body lit up by the flames, and goes nuts. Next thing you know, maybe a hundred lay dead in Whitechapel rioting.
I am quite clear that the reason all this didn’t happen was BECAUSE THE CLOTHING DIDN’T BURN BRIGHTLY ENOUGH, THE WAY THE MURDERER THOUGHT IT WOULD. Or perhaps it did burn brightly but for only a minute, and no one was around to notice it right at the time. His plan failed, the body wasn’t found until much later, after the fire fizzled out, and it was found by an employee of the landlord who kept his mouth shut and went to tell his boss instead of screaming. Your “experiment” does not disprove my theory, it reinforces it. So what is your problem? How do you figure I need to “admit defeat and start again?”
P.S. I do not believe the clothing put into the hearth was wet, absent any empirical evidence in this regard. It was likely one of Julia’s bundles, or was some of Mary Jane’s clothing bundled up like Julia’s bundles. It was inside the apartment and not subject to being rained on. The reason it didn’t burn brightly is because worn woolen clothing generally smolders when ignited. The murderer evidently overlooked this fact, or just didn’t have any experience burning this kind of material. I don’t suppose you’ve read the “A-Z.” You wouldn’t have needed to do your “experiment” if you had, since full information about worn woolen clothing making only a smoldering fire is given there.
|
D. Radka
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - 6:44 pm: | |
Mr. Mullins wrote:
1. “Has the gravity of your situation began to sink in a little deeper now David? Have you noticed how no one is really responding to you? How all that ego inflating attention is beginning to wane?…we're all just so fed up with your BS that there is no reason to respond to you. If you weren't such a nuclear attention whore, perhaps you would have picked up on this by now.”
>>Please state precisely, point for point, what you think “my BS” is. I will respond to clear up any misunderstandings. If you can’t say, then don’t claim there is “BS” when there is none.
2. “As for why I am required to respond to you. Allow me to fill you in so that you can see just how silly your line of thinking about me and Dan being in cahoots really is. I am required to respond to you because I require myself to.”
>>Nobody can require himself or herself to do anything. You contradict yourself. What are the terms of your employment? Don’t you think it is only fair to the readers of this thread to inform them what your bias may be? You don’t want to be another Stewart Evans, do you?
3. “I believe I know volumes more about your chosen subject of sociopathy (or pyschopathy to you) than you do. You claim to be this breadth of knowledge, yet when pressed you either refuse to respond or can't seem to get your ideas straight.”
>>Rubbish. I’ve been responding fully, straight out of psychopathic texts, since Day One, April 26th. Please state precisely, point for point, what you think I haven’t answered, and I will answer it. And also state specifically what “volumes” you use concerning psychopaths, as I have.
4. “In the interest of new members and old alike, I decided that I just can't sit back and let you spout off at the mouth, unchallenged. I'm not certain why you had to come up with a conspiracy theory based on a little sentence I wrote.. but cha did. You took one statement I made and turned it into 3 (I believe) posts on some conspiracy.. One that doesn't exist (save inside your own head) might I add. Just sit back for a moment and IMAGINE what you have done with your theory and summary, in this regard.”
>>You wrote you wouldn’t post to this thread if you weren’t required to do so. That implies someone is doing the requiring, and you are doing the complying. Please answer the question: Who are you working for?
5. “As I'm sure you are aware, I have at least 2 confirmed sociopath's in my family. This places me in a rather interesting position of observation. A position that you have likely not been in before. I've already given you reasons why I'm almost positive that you are off by a long shot in your summary and your views on what a real "psychopath" is like or is inclined to do, So I won't repeat myself here. If you do not remember them, I highly suggest you familiarize yourself with the search button at the top right of this very page you are reading now. Just know that I know you are ill informed and have no problem calling you out on it.”
>>This is the typical baloney resorted to by Dan Norder on this thread for months. Just claim you answered the question before, and you never have to answer it at all. It is a dirty, immature con game, a strategy suitable only to people who don’t care what they do. Who are you working for?
|
D. Radka
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - 2:49 pm: | |
Mr. Andersson wrote:
1. “Based on what we know from the behaviour of some criminal psychopaths, their supposed lack of human emotions generally refers to their lack of empathy and their inability to have true and deep feelings of love in a sincere way. It is in this context their emotions are referred to as "shallow", since they are not real, but only displayed as an act in order to maximize their own personal benefits.”
>>This is a recapitulation of the inadequate view of psychopathy championed by Mr. Norder and Mr. Hamm for now over five months on this thread. It is dangerously wrong. The type of personality Mr. Andersson is referring to is a type that Norder and Hamm MISTOOK to be that of the psychopath. When the ‘mediocre trio’ (Norder, Hamm and Andersson) think of psychopathy, they automatically and unimaginatively revert to the various cold-blooded meanies and villains found throughout history who were NOT psychopaths, such as Hitler, Goebbels, Goring, General George Custer, some of the dark ages popes, the “bad guys” portrayed in various cheap western movies, etc. These were, or were portrayed as, self-advancing non-empathetic sorts who didn’t care how other people felt, so as soon as the mediocre trio hits their first web-based checklist and reads “lack of empathy” there, Bingo! They lock right in to this group in their minds. The trio is aware, however, that these folks often expressed strong emotions, witness Hitler’s many highly emotive speeches, so they figure I just have to be “dead wrong” about the psychopathic personality type. They figured I must have spent a just few hours of my time Googling to generate the A?R Summary, and that is why I either totally whiffed on what psychopaths are, or, more likely, that I fully know and always fully knew that I’m wrong concerning psychopaths and am MAKING UP a phony account of them just to fit my preconceived theory concerning the case evidence. But Hitler was a NORMAL man, not a psychopath. He did what did not because he was incapable of empathy, but because he honestly believed that his enemies, the Jews, the Russians, the British, and the Americans, didn’t deserve empathy. He was capable of any emotion, including deep love, full grief, tragedy, and despair. He murdered six million Jews not because he just couldn’t feel their pain, as would a psychopath, but because he genuinely and sincerely believed they ought to be exterminated because of all the harm he imagined them to have done to Germany over the years. The mediocre trio got the whole matter of psychopathy wrong from the start because they failed to study the psychiatric references books I cited, then quite stupidly stuck to their mediocre guns to avoid having to admit their error, and in the end they had to GIVE UP without winning a single point on this thread.
Now let’s get this straight for the umpteenth time, folks. Psychopathy does not merely refer to an inability to feel empathy or true love. SCADS of people are unable to empathize or sincerely love others or certain others, millions and millions of people, but only a few of them are psychopaths. In addition to an inability to empathize and love, an across-the-boards disability with respect to ALL emotional feelings is attributed to psychopaths. They under-react emotionally, and fail to generate a sufficiency of emotional feeling to tell them what the world is all about. Their emotions are UNREAL, pathological, profoundly misleading to themselves and others, on the surface the same as normal emotions but underneath hollow and empty. This is AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT MATTER than Mr. Andersson saying above that these people “display their emotions as an act to get what they want from others.” MILLIONS of non-psychopaths do this! Psychopaths display the emotions that they feel and that truly move them, but these emotions are too transient, ephemeral, furtive and inadequate to formulate a normal experience of the world, and condemn the subject to a lifetime of being fundamentally antisocial, absolutely without conscience, totally egocentric, utterly emotionally immature, often emotionally unstable, and massively irrational with respect to personal choices. It is a cataclysmically disastrous syndrome equal to the worst psychoses; it is not simply “mental toughness” or “being out for oneself” or “looking out for Number One” as the trio thinks. There is NOTHING to admire in a psychopath.
2. “That doesen't mean that they can't become angry or feel genuine rage, however. There are emotions and emotions. In a situation when they feel pressed or gets stuck in a position that threatens them, they can apparently show a dangerous rage. Psychopaths are complex, since they on one hand can be cunning and street smart and on the other suddenly becomes irrational when their "animal" driving forces takes control -- during intense moments. That is why psychopaths generally are labelled as "unpredictable".”
>>None of this is true. It is totally inadequate, unread dreck. All Mr. Andersson is doing is handing us what makes sense to him off the top of his head, absent any serious study of the subject matter on his part. (a) A psychopath feels pseudoanger and pseudorage, not genuine anger and rage. If he ever felt genuine rage, he’d be able to apply it to himself, he’d become enraged at himself for doing all the rotten things he does, and he’d therefore have a perspective with respect to asking himself if he really wanted to do those things. Interviews with psychopaths abundantly show THAT THEY HAVE NO SUCH PERSPECTIVE, THAT THEY HAVE NO ABILITY TO LOOK INTO THEMSELVES WHATEVER. (b) Psychopaths are not “complex” people as Mr. Andersson says above, but irremediably two-dimensional and simplistic. They do nothing more than chase after what looks good to them at the moment, like a cat a butterfly on the lawn. They are profoundly self-unreflective, prankish people. (c) On what basis, pray tell, does Mr. Andersson believe they have “animal” driving forces? They are repeatedly shown to take extreme antisocial actions precisely because of being WEAKLY AND INADEQUATELY MOTIVATED!!! They are remarkably UN-DRIVEN people! They do terrible things because they lack conscience, empathy and personal morality, not because they deeply crave the purchasing power of the money they steal, or powerfully and animalistically crave the sex they force on hapless others. There is NOTHING deep about them at all. (c) These people are unpredictable alright, but not because they have “intense moments.” If JtR were having “intense moments” during his crimes, why was he able to always escape? Why were the removed organs neatly stacked, instead of strewn about? Why didn’t he make any noise and attract the attention of the great many people nearby? If intense emotions were predominating his inhibitory system, why didn’t he rape the women or ejaculate on them? Therefore, WEAK emotions were predominating over his inhibitory system, because that inhibitory system was EVEN WEAKER.
3. “However, we are miles from this to the strange behaviour of Radka's character suspect. It is irrelevant to debate over whether Radka's "psychopath" is a psychopath or not, since he is a confused mix and jigsaw puzzle of all possible mental disorders put together. It is just not credible.”
>>The behavior I attribute to the Whitechapel murderer strictly corresponds to that of psychopaths as shown in the literature of psychiatry. In every respect. On every level. In whole and in part. Mr. Andersson lacks an holistic conception of the case evidence.
4. “I feel happy on Radka's part, though, that he's found such a loyal and totally uncritical follower in Scott Nelson, especially since Mephisto seems to have disappeared -- he sure needs everyone he can get to back him up.
It is very much up to Mr. Nelson to label Radka's delusional and ... well... imaginary work as "brilliant" as well as insult and smack those in the head who dares to critize it, although I would assume such statements would probably belong to the worst intellectual suicides ever seen on these Boards. At least I had a good laugh. But whatever makes you happy, Scott...”
>>Mr. Nelson is an astute questioner of the case evidence along serious anthropological lines, with many excellent articles to his credit. Why would he “uncritically” compliment or associate himself with any theory? What would be the allure to him in doing that?
|
D. Radka
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Thursday, November 18, 2004 - 11:28 am: | |
Sarah Long wrote:
1. “Just stopped by. Couldn't help myself really. I'm not going to reply to David though since he is beyond help. Just wanted to comment on the above post by Scott. I couldn't work out if he was joking or not. If it's a joke, then it's so sarcastic it almost sounds real. It's actually funnier if it's not a joke (which is what I suspect). Funniest words:- {Mr. Nelson wrote:} David's thesis is brilliant {Sarah Long wrote:} Couldn't help myself. Scott, for the record, David has been dishing it out for ages, but it just seems that he can't take it. He insults people and pushes his point (which doesn't even make any sense).”
>>Scott knows the case and this thread, Sarah, and I am grateful for his support. He is a veteran Ripperologist, more than twice your age and has advanced degrees, with many fine articles to his credit. Many also have been the nights I’ve stayed up past midnight reading and savoring his works over a Glenlivet. His knowledge of the case evidence is far advanced.
2. “{Mr. Nelson wrote:} Post a little less, read a little more, then this thread will be more valuable. {Sarah Long responded:} This thread was never really valuable. David is pushing an argument in which he contradicts himself over and over again. He keeps saying that psychopaths don't experience real anger and then says that he didn't say that. Many posters have proved him wrong in this and other issues many times but he won't ever admit that he may be wrong.”
>>The relationship of human emotion to cognition is the deepest kind of question in philosophy, as well as in psychology. In philosophy, it gets you into aesthetics, metaphor theory, time and space, will to power, and other major questions. The psychiatrists who study psychopathy have to plumb these depths and come up with both questions and answers regarding the nature of human nature. If you change one side of your argument, you have to change the other side as well, and the purpose of having an argument is to explain phenomena. Sometimes an argument that looks a bit dingy on one side ought to be saved for its other bright side. The argument that best explains phenomena takes the lead, at least for today. This is the kind of environment one is in when one tries to comprehend psychopaths, and one can’t afford to just ride as a passenger on somebody else’s thoughts. You have to be able to think these things through for yourself. Don’t you know how to pay attention to what you read? Can’t you formulate a reasonable perspective? Have you read any of the sources I cited, Cleckley, Hare and Lykken? “Post a little less, read a little more,” I agree with Scott. *** I am “pushing” nothing here. I respond to the questions that are asked of me. I try to create new lessons without repeating myself so that my “students” will learn. I am keeping up my end of the bargain, recognizing my responsibilities. If you folks want to get more out of this thread, stop posting this cr*p and ask how the case evidence might be viewed, as Mr. Palmer has recommended. Organize your minds, get specific and contribute.
3. “Sorry, just had to comment on that Scott. It made me laugh. Now I really shall retreat from this thread, I don't want to get laughter lines now do I?”
>>I really can’t see how you’d do yourself any worse harm.
|
Sarah Long
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Sarah
Post Number: 1329
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Monday, November 22, 2004 - 6:28 am: | |
Ok, I've tried to stay silent and will not be commenting on the rest of your post. I know you insulted me on purpose to get me to react and you know what, I don't care that you got your way.
3. “Sorry, just had to comment on that Scott. It made me laugh. Now I really shall retreat from this thread, I don't want to get laughter lines now do I?”
>>I really can’t see how you’d do yourself any worse harm.
How dare you insult my appearance. So, I may not be some supermodel but I do not appreciate you insinuating that I am ugly or old looking. If you wish to discuss this thread then do so with people who are interested but do not stoop so low as to insult people's looks.
I also can't believe that Stephen let that post on here. I thought people weren't supposed to insult people personally. I may have had a go at your personality (because that's what comes across on here) but I would never call you ugly (even if you had a photo on here and you were).
Smile and the world will wonder what you've been up to
Smile too much and the world will guess  |
Glenn L Andersson
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Glenna
Post Number: 2337
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Monday, November 22, 2004 - 7:51 am: | |
David Radka!
I had promised myself not to indulge myself in your so called theory any further, but since you addresses me, and you are so completely in error, I just simply have to retort.
It's foolish, I know, but what the heck...
[I wrote:] “Based on what we know from the behaviour of some criminal psychopaths, their supposed lack of human emotions generally refers to their lack of empathy and their inability to have true and deep feelings of love in a sincere way. It is in this context their emotions are referred to as "shallow", since they are not real, but only displayed as an act in order to maximize their own personal benefits.”
[Radka:] >>This is a recapitulation of the inadequate view of psychopathy championed by Mr. Norder and Mr. Hamm for now over five months on this thread. It is dangerously wrong. The type of personality Mr. Andersson is referring to is a type that Norder and Hamm MISTOOK to be that of the psychopath. When the ‘mediocre trio’ (Norder, Hamm and Andersson) think of psychopathy, they automatically and unimaginatively revert to the various cold-blooded meanies and villains found throughout history who were NOT psychopaths, such as Hitler, Goebbels, Goring, General George Custer, some of the dark ages popes, the “bad guys” portrayed in various cheap western movies, etc.
Firstly, you are completely wrong. Your ignorance of the psychological foundation and behaviour pattern of psychopaths, is incredible.
Everybody who has a slightest bit of knowledge of this disorder, knows that a psychopath is totally unable to feel the deep emotions that others do, and when they seem like capable of it, it's just an act of a bogeyman. This is no news flash, it is widely established.
Furthermore, I have no idea what you're rambling on about; I have never said that Hitler was a psychopath, and I am not sure that he was.
That was a total strike in the dark -- as usual.
"Psychopathy does not merely refer to an inability to feel empathy or true love."
I never said it did merely, but it is one of several distinguished elements in the disorder -- one of the more important, as a matter of fact.
"In addition to an inability to empathize and love, an across-the-boards disability with respect to ALL emotional feelings is attributed to psychopaths."
Wrong again. They do actually have emotions that are real. They are incapable of true love and to feel empathy towards others, but their rage and their sense of jealousy and personal threats are real. This is because they are self-centered individuals. They are completely capable of feeling the emotions that are necessary for their own benefits.
What they can't feel -- and therefore has to put forward an Oscar award-winning performance -- is true affections and understanding towards other people and an ability put themselves in other people's position.
Once again, these are some of the more important and well-known traits. If you are disputing this, then you are disputing the total concept of psychopathy.
"Their emotions are UNREAL, pathological, profoundly misleading to themselves and others, on the surface the same as normal emotions but underneath hollow and empty."
And that is exactly what I said. The difference is, you seem to believe that this applies to all of their emotions -- it doesen't. Their anger and jealousy of others is real, and this is mostly displayed on the surface when they for different reasons blows their own cover, when their self control expires. Ted Bundy is a perfect example -- charming, superficially social (all these positive elements are a result of acting) but at the same time shallow and very dangerous when his act was discovered and questioned, and his self-preservation suddenly failed to hold up the facade.
"A psychopath feels pseudoanger and pseudorage, not genuine anger and rage."
Completely false and incorrect. Their anger is real because it is connected with their predatory instincts. This is something the try to control, but sometimes fail in doing -- and that is where things go wrong for them, and their victims.
"Psychopaths are not “complex” people as Mr. Andersson says above, but irremediably two-dimensional and simplistic. [...] They are profoundly self-unreflective, prankish people."
I meant that they are complex to diagnose, because they are deceptive and never revealing who they are, and I am not sure they even knows it themselves.
"On what basis, pray tell, does Mr. Andersson believe they have “animal” driving forces? They are repeatedly shown to take extreme antisocial actions precisely because of being WEAKLY AND INADEQUATELY MOTIVATED!!! They are remarkably UN-DRIVEN people! They do terrible things because they lack conscience, empathy and personal morality, not because they deeply crave the purchasing power of the money they steal, or powerfully and animalistically crave the sex they force on hapless others. There is NOTHING deep about them at all."
This is probably the most stupid and confused passage in Radka's post.
Are you even aware of what "animal driving forces" means? How do you reach the conclusion that "animal driving forces" refer to anything deep and profound -- I don't get it. It is actually the other way around. Animal forces are not connected with deep emotions and brainstorming -- it is referring to simplicity; an animal is simple and is acting out from very basic needs -- not complex or deep ones -- deriving from nature. You wouldn't call an animal "deep", would you?
A psychopath is driven by simple animal driving forces because he or she is a PREDATOR!
A predator and an animal is not driven by strong emotions, but animal instincts and basic needs, which are strong expressions in itself.
"These people are unpredictable alright, but not because they have “intense moments.” If JtR were having “intense moments” during his crimes, why was he able to always escape? Why were the removed organs neatly stacked, instead of strewn about?"
A psychopath has intense moments during his crimes because that is the only time his cold surface and self-preservation is ruled out by the predatory incentives. As soon as the crime is committed, his rational side takes over and starts to plan the escape and how to elude the police or not being spotted. This contradictory element is what makes a psychopath complex and unpredictable from a psychological point of view. Once again, Bundy -- the symbol of a criminal, sexual psychopath -- is a perfect example; some of his last crimes, after he had escaped from prison, are almost disorganized in nature, possibly because he was forced to act out the predatory INSTINCTS and NEEDS.
Your views are based on academic, simplified prefabrications and narrow generalisations that does not apply to reality. If you are so well read upon psychopathy, then you would be aware of the dualistic nature of these characters, just like a disorganized or paranoid schizofrenic also display complex behaviour -- irrational and displaying lunacy at times, and then on some occasions rather normal and calm.
You are making the same ultimate mistake -- based on literate generalizations -- as people who claim that a disorganized killer is running around all the time like a raving lunatic, drooling from the mouth.
"If intense emotions were predominating his inhibitory system, why didn’t he rape the women or ejaculate on them?"
Yes, and why didn't he subject them to torture? Torture and rape are very common ingredients in psychopathic (organized) serial killers, and these points are actually one of many that makes me believe that Jack the Ripper was NOT a psychopath, but in fact a disorganized killer. And as crime history (also modern cases) has shown, they can be quite as capable of eluding the police and not drawing attention to themselves; they are not as easy to catch as people think.
"Mr. Andersson lacks an holistic conception of the case evidence."
Incorrect. This is a very strange and foolish comment coming from someone who has no interest in and knows nothing about police work in general and case evidence in particular. Your summary lacks every connection with the case evidence on most crucial points. It is every police officer's ultimate nightmare and a mere creation of narrow-minded academism.
">>Mr. Nelson is an astute questioner of the case evidence along serious anthropological lines, with many excellent articles to his credit. Why would he “uncritically” compliment or associate himself with any theory? What would be the allure to him in doing that?"
Beats me. I don't get that either. Why don't you ask him?
Radka, your theories and your concepts of psychopathy are so full of flaws and misinterpretation of literary sources that everything has blown up in your face, along with your own narcissistic self-importance.
Several intelligent people here have tried to lay out the facts for you, but you just don't seem to grasp that you are wrong and that your whole theory is based on misconceptions and manipulated sources, mistreated and misread in an almost criminal way. I feel bad for you.
All the best
G, Sweden
(Message edited by Glenna on November 22, 2004)
"Want to buy some pegs, Dave?"
Papa Lazarou |
Glenn L Andersson
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Glenna
Post Number: 2338
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Monday, November 22, 2004 - 8:15 am: | |
Hi Sarah,
"I thought people weren't supposed to insult people personally. I may have had a go at your personality (because that's what comes across on here) but I would never call you ugly (even if you had a photo on here and you were)."
Believe me, you're not ugly -- a million miles far from it. Anyone who states that should be crucified upside down for all eternity.
I think, though, that maybe Mr Radka meant that you could do you no more harm in a literate way (regarding the reasoning), which of course also is a false claim.
Besides that, I think we in this thread have gone far beyond personal insults a thousand times over already.
I believe Mr. Radka himself has set the tone by setting his own intelligence over others.
All the best
G, Sweden
(Message edited by Glenna on November 22, 2004)
"Want to buy some pegs, Dave?"
Papa Lazarou |
hemustadoneit
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, November 19, 2004 - 6:26 pm: | |
Hi David,
I doubt it will do much good confronting crix0r like that. He will deny it of course, which just plain shows how guilty he is.
I can imagine them all now..., Dan, Crix0r, Jeff, Sarah, Monty, RJ, Howard, Jennifer, Glenn, John O gleefully coming up with their next scheme and voting for who is to be next in the rota to "have a bash" at the Radka. They are just sssooooooo pathetic.
Do they take us for fools David. Do they think we can't spot that when Dan stops posting oh ever so coincidentally, Jeff starts posting.
What can we do with them David, they are spoiling this thread for all the others.
They say they're leaving the thread but then Dan (the ring leader I suspect, he of course will deny it, what more proof do we need) literally forces them to start reading and posting again; I think the hope is they tell all these lies in all their posts to drown out all the supporters who are posting.
They never read their Cleckley and worse they never read their Radka!
Come on then all David's supporters, make you voices heard, right here, right now, lets drown out the dissenting voices, lets create our own conspiracy, lets come up with our own slogan and our own logo and our own song (any suggestions welcome).
Note: I printed out my copy of the summary and made a nice suit out of it, that way I'm never short of an original Radka insight wherever I am or whatever I'm doing.
Pehaps that could become our uniform and secret sign of support for David?
Do we have to apply for permission David, what with all this copyright thingumy jiggumy?
Cheerio,
ian - with one eye closed and the other one reading my left kneecap at the moment.
|
|
Use of these
message boards implies agreement and consent to our Terms of Use.
The views expressed here in no way reflect the views of the owners and
operators of Casebook: Jack the Ripper.
Our old message board content (45,000+ messages) is no longer available online, but a complete archive
is available on the Casebook At Home Edition, for 19.99 (US) plus shipping.
The "At Home" Edition works just like the real web site, but with absolutely no advertisements.
You can browse it anywhere - in the car, on the plane, on your front porch - without ever needing to hook up to
an internet connection. Click here to buy the Casebook At Home Edition.
|
|
|
|
