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Dark Adaptation. The Continuum between Good and Evil. As there are persons who can not distinguish certain colors, having what is called color blindness, so there are some who are congenitally deprived of moral sense (Henry Maudsley, 1874, p.11)
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Dark Adaptation The Continuum between Good and Evil
As there are persons who can not distinguish certain colors, having what is called color blindness, so there are some who are congenitally deprived of moral sense (Henry Maudsley, 1874, p.11) Gradual are the steps by which an individual may grow from one state into another, many are the intermediate stages which different individuals represent, yet when you place the typical extremes beside each other for comparison, you feel the two discontinuous psychological universes confront you, and that in passing from one to the other a ‘critical point’ has been overcome (William James, 1902, p.35).
Herein lies the tragedy of the age: not that men are poor, all men know something of poverty; not that men are wicked, who is good? Not that men are ignorant, what is truth? Nay, but that men know so little of men (p.161). (Du Bois, 1905) The whole of life is nothing more than questions that have taken unto themselves shape, and bear within themselves the sum of their own answer: and answers that are pregnant with questions. Only fools see it otherwise (p.73). (Meyrink, 1976)
According to Baumeister (1997) It has become clear to nearly everyone in journalism that the entertainment value of the news coverage is more effective in attracting an audience. One has to tell the public what it is interested in hearing, and often this means presenting simplistic explanations that confirm the expectations, beliefs, and prejudices of the public. Journalists do not see themselves as in the business of educating the public so much as of informing it of what it is interested in hearing about (p.81).
Jung (1967) One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light but by making the darkness conscious (par.335).
William James (1902) There are people for whom evil means only maladjustment with things, a wrong correspondence of one’s life with the environment. Such evil as this is curable, in principle at least, upon the natural plane, for merely by modifying either the self or the things, or both at once, the two terms may be made to fit, and all go merry as the marriage bell again. But there are others for whom evil is no mere relation of the subject to particular outer things, but something more radical and general, a wrongness or vice in his essential nature, which no altercation of the environment, or any superficial rearrangement of the inner self, can cure, and which requires a supernatural remedy (pp.114-115).
Jung comments (1990) We are still so uneducated that we actually need laws from without, and a task-master or Father above, to show us what is good and the right thing to do. And because we are still such barbarians, any trust in the laws of human nature seems to us a dangerous and unethical naturalism. Why is this? Because under the barbarian’s thin veneer of culture the wild beast lurks in readiness, amply justifying his fear. But the beast is not tamed by locking it up in a cage. There is no morality without freedom. When the barbarian lets loose the beast within him, that is not freedom but bondage. Barbarianism must first be vanquished before freedom can be won. This happens, in principle, when the basic root and driving force of morality are felt by the individual as constituents of his own nature and not as external restrictions. How else is man to attain this realization but through the conflict of opposites (p.213)?
Jung (1963) also states: Insight into them must be converted into an ethical obligation. Not to do so is to fall prey to the power principle, and this produces dangerous effects which are destructive not only to others but even to the knower. The images of the unconscious place a great responsibility upon a man. Failure to understand them, or a shirking of ethical responsibility, deprives him of his wholeness and imposes a painful fragmentariness on his life (p.193).
Chapter II: Pinpointing the Level of Violence and Psychopathy in an Individual
Table1: Items of the Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised1. Glibness / Superficiality2. Grandiose sense of self worth3. Need for stimulation 4. Pathological lying 5. Conning / Manipulative 6. Lack of remorse 7. Shallow affect 8. Callous / Lack of empathy 9. Parasitic lifestyle 10. Poor behavioral controls 11. Promiscuous lifestyle 12. Early behavior problems 13. Lack of realistic, long term goals 14. Impulsivity 15. Irresponsibility 16. Failure to accept responsibility 17. Many short term marital relationships 18. Juvenile delinquency 19. Revocation of conditional release 20. Criminal versatility
Scoring the PCL-R • 0 = Does not exhibit the trait • 1 = Exhibits the trait somewhat • 2 = Exhibits the trait conspicuously
0 to 9 = no Psychopathy • 10 to 19 = mild Psychopathy • 20 to 29 = moderate Psychopathy • 30 + = Psychopathic
The Lonnie Athens’ Model of Violence When people look at a dangerous violent criminal at the beginning of his developmental process rather than at the very end of it, they will see, perhaps unexpectedly, that the dangerous violent criminal began as a relatively benign human being for whom they would probably have more sympathy than antipathy (Lonnie Athens,1992, p.6).
Clinical Example My father told me that there were two things I better always remember. If you ever get into it with anybody, don’t ever run but stand there and fight. If something is worth fighting about then it’s worth killing somebody over. If you get into a fight with anybody, try to kill them. I don’t care who it is - a man or woman- pick up a stick, board, rock, brick, or anything, and hit them in the head with it. That way you won’t have to worry about having any trouble from them later (p.50).
Chapter III: Factors of Behavior: Psychological Allergies and Complexes, Archetypes, Constitutional traits, Behavior Repertoire, the Fallacy of Free Will, and Good versus Evil.
Society prepares the crime, the criminal commits it. Chinese Proverb
Jung (1953) states: The face of the unconscious is not rigid; it reflects the face that is turned towards it. If that face is friendly, the unconscious is friendly; if it is unfriendly the unconscious will be unfriendly (para.29)...
Abraham (1927) states: • We often come across the results of early pampering, which intensifies the child’s demands for love to the extent which can never be adequately satisfied 9narcissistic). Among delinquents (antisocial) we are more likely to come across a different fate of the libido in early childhood. It is the absence of love, comparable to psychological undernourishment, which provides the precondition for the establishment of dissocial traits. An excess of hatred and fury is generated which, first directed against a small circle of persons, is later directed against society as a whole (p.304).
Alexander (1923/1930) states: They live out their impulses, many of their tendencies are asocial and foreign to the ego, and yet they can not be considered true criminals. It is precisely because one part of such an individual continues to sit in judgment upon the other… that his total personality is easily differentiated from the more homogeneous, unified and antisocial personality of the criminal. The singular and only apparently irrational drive to self-destruction met with in such people indicates rather definitely the existence of inner self condemnation. Their conduct arises from unconscious motives which are not directly accessible to their conscious personality… Admonition, encouragement or punishment coming from the environment is as useless as his own resolution, “I am beginning a new life tomorrow.” A large proportion of such individuals, neurotically driven by unconscious motives, now to commit a transgression, then to seek punishment, sooner or later fall afoul of the law. [Their] lives are full of dramatic action…something is always happening, as if they were literally driven by the demonic compulsion… Here is where the adventurers belong whose manifold activities give expression to an underlying revolt against public authority. They always manage to be punished unjustifiably from their highly subjective point of view (pp. 11-15).
Kernberg (1984) states: I have found that all patients with antisocial personality structure present severe narcissistic pathology, destruction of their internal world of object relations, and extreme and usually untreatable superego pathology. Such patients are at the limits not only of analyzability but of treatment with any modified psychoanalytic psychotherapies. The evaluation of the quality of object relations, of superego pathology, and of the nature of pathological narcissism tells us whether the patient is treatable (p.276).
