Dan Gardner on Sanity and Evil

 

 

I need to learn more about him, an agonized young Norwegian woman told the CBC reporter interviewing her. "Hopefully, he's a psychopath."

 

 

The man in question is, of course, Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian believed to have committed one of history's most horrifying terrorist attacks, and that woman spoke for many of us. We need to learn more. And we hope that what we learn is that he is mad, crazy, insane.

 

 

Lots more don't hope. They know. Only an insane person would do something like that, they think. So Breivik is insane.

 

 

But notice that in the torrent of tweets and comments about the atrocity, this common theme is seldom interrogated. What do we mean when we say Breivik is insane?

 

 

He'll surely be subjected to an intense psychological evaluation, and this may well reveal mental disorder, but to date there is little to suggest Breivik is anything but perfectly lucid. His own lawyer says he is aware that what he did is "atrocious" but he felt it was "necessary" to attack a ruling party dedicated to multiculturalism and launch a Christian crusade against the Islamic jihad that supposedly threatens Europe.

 

 

Those are the words of a fanatic, not a madman.

 

 

I tweeted precisely that comment on Sunday and got a barrage of recrimination in return. One man even accused me of "defending" Breivik.

 

 

This got me thinking about how we use the word "insane" and all its more colloquial derivatives.

Most casually, "insane" is merely something that is ridiculous and unsupportable. But in a context like the atrocity in Norway, it becomes infused with moral meaning and it becomes the strongest possible condemnation: "Insane" is the secular equivalent of "evil."

 

 

This is why we call acts "insane," even though acts are not agents capable of perceiving the world and making choices and so cannot be, by any meaningful definition of the word, "insane." This is also why people reacted as they did when I suggested Breivik may be sane. They felt I was diminishing the horror of what he had done. And diminishing his responsibility.

 

 

And that is truly unfortunate because it gets things exactly backwards.

 

 

Responsibility requires choice. The man who robs a store because someone threatens to kill his child if he refuses does not choose to commit the crime. He is not responsible.

 

 

And choice requires awareness. The mentally ill man who strangles a woman because he believes she is a python attempting to swallow him is not aware of reality and cannot be said to have chosen to strangle the woman. He certainly is dangerous and he can be incarcerated until such time as he is restored to mental health. But as Western jurists have recognized since the time of Aristotle, he cannot justly be condemned and punished.

 

 

So in suggesting that Breivik is sane, I am not diminishing his responsibility. In fact, I am suggesting he fully understood what he did and is therefore fully responsible.

 

 

It is those who loudly insist that Breivik is insane who are suggesting there is something disordered about his mind, which may diminish his awareness of what he did, and diminish his responsibility to some degree, even if his particular mental state does not fit the narrow legal definition of insanity.

 

 

But there's still another layer here, I think. It's hinted at in that Norwegian woman's use of the word "hopefully."

 

 

People hope that authorities will announce Breivik is a psychopath or otherwise mentally aberrant because the alternative is that he is as sane as you and I. That would mean that a man who is otherwise ordinary committed an atrocity.

 

 

The implications are obvious. And disturbing. It's much more comforting to believe that only monsters are responsible for monstrous acts.

 

 

But that is false, as psychology and history can both attest.

 

 

"You don't look at their face, even when you put prods in their mouth," a Chilean torturer said in 1984.

"You keep their eyes covered. The secret is not to look into their eyes. The other secret is not to draw blood. You leave that for the sick bastards or the young brutes. You can watch the body arch and bounce under electricity, but never draw blood."

 

 

In the research on torturers, it is not the "sick bastards" and "young brutes" who turn up most often. It is men like this one - an ordinary man who had to carefully and deliberately overcome his normal human sympathies in order to torment helpless people.

 

 

Historians examining the worst crimes of the Nazis and the Khmer Rouge found the same pattern. As the title of a famous study put it, most of those responsible for some of the worst crimes in history were "ordinary men."

 

 

Nor is there much mental illness to be found among legendary fanatics like Torquemada, Robespierre, and Lenin. They knew precisely what they did. And they were explicit about the need to overcome basic human compassion to do it.

 

 

"Our mission here is difficult and painful," wrote a French revolutionary officer as he and his men were butchering men, women, and children. To do this work, a man had to renounce "all the affections which nature and gentle habits have made dear to his heart." His only consolation was "an ardent love of country."

 

 

Heinrich Himmler said something similar to a group of SS officers. "Most of you know what it means when 100 corpses are lying side by side, or 500, or 1, 000. To have stuck it out and at the same time - apart from exceptions caused by human weakness - to have remained decent men, that has made us hard." Himmler's sympathy for his men came from personal experience: Observing a mass execution, he had been sick to his stomach.

 

 

It is tempting to think we can identify the deviant few, lock them away, and be rid of horror.

But as Alexander Solzhenitsyn observed, "the line between good and evil runs through every human heart." The best we can hope to do is stay on the right side of it.

(CFN) The Evolution of Work

 

 

The old model of work still exists, but being mapped on to it are new demands requiring new skills, new tools and new accomodations.  Evolution is a very apt way to describe this process of change:

 

 

Despite a greater number of us Westerners having more of everything than any generation previous, we’re a far from satisfied lot – and a good deal of our malaise is connected with work. You could say the key word there was “generational” and suggest that Gen Y is less dedicated to the traditional work hard, earn more and be happy model – and you’d be right. At the same time, the social world of today doesn’t look the way it did even ten years ago, much less immediately Post-WWII or Turn-of-the-Century when the industrial machine was humming along nicely. The results now being sought by employers, the tools used by employees, the structure of work environments and the length of work days have changed dramatically.

 

We’re not even defining success the way we used to. In times of yore, success was about profit, position of authority and the ability to download responsibility. Social consequence was barely considered. As an example, there’s a great story about a rather wealthy individual who drew motivation from seeing his father mistreated by employers. Seeing the impact that treatment had on both the father and his family, this guy decided he was going be the one who stepped rather than the one who got stepped on. In the process, he not only became the same kind of employer that abandoned his father; his fixation on success came at the expense of his own family’s emotional health.

 

 

 

The Politics of Fear Leads To Violence

 

“The English are waking up, the English are waking up ... It's payback ... Yeah, yeah, that’s enough,” the man muttered as police officers led him away in handcuffs. The suspect, a heavyset, bespectacled man, wore a balaclava, shorts and what appeared to be a bathrobe.

 

"I've travelled across this country and what I've seen more than anything is anger. We have angry people."

 

 

You can ignore the source of any frustration for a while, but there comes a point where the penalities of doing nothing outweigh the costs of action.  Walking away - flight - is one such option.  When you remove avoidance from the table, though, there's really just one choice left - fight.

 

 

That's the emerging theme in Canadian politics from the federal level down to the municipal level.  All Parties and operators are pushing the fear and anger buttons.  The choice is no longer between opposing views of policy; it's a choice between one side or "those who would destroy our community/our future/our traditional values/our language/our culture/our education/our healthcare."  It takes strong emotions to shake the electorate from their restful complacency, after all and fear is easier to build and sustain than is hope.

 

 

The same thing is happening around the world, leading to a rise in regional friction and ethnic tensions.  In some places, violence is already the norm.  Where social strife is less prevalent, it's the already emotionally frayed that serve as canaries in the coal mine.  In somnambulant Canada, the people are stewing.  We're a pot slow to boil, but when that happens, people will get scalded.

 

 

"It gets worse before it gets better" is a truism - possibly because we need to be reminded just how bad it can get when we stand against before we remember why we started working together in the first place.

Save Our Soldiers

 

 

Relying on self-reported symptoms to make a diagnosis is, even for the best clinicians, difficult enough. Among military populations, the diagnosis of PTSD has been hampered, quite publicly, by additional challenges. Soldiers who avoid seeking help and therefore go undiagnosed, as well as concerns over just how accurate the military’s diagnosis process actually is, are but two examples.

 

 

And yet:

 

 

The Department of National Defence is cutting the jobs of medical professionals involved in suicide prevention and monitoring post-traumatic stress disorders — despite claims by DND and the Canadian Forces that dealing with such health issues is a priority.

 

 

I'm sure that Team Harper is focused with free-market intensity on stopping the gravy train when they cut services like this.  They've probably thought very carefully about the bottom line and PR implications of forcing our veterans to individually prove they need psychological help, going against the grain of their training and "corporate culture" of Yes Sir, No Sir, No Excuses Sir.

 

 

But I ask this - have they spent much time thinking about what happens when they decide to move on Iran or any number of emerging conflicts with soldiers that are emotionally and psychologically frayed?  Do they assume they can just hire more troops, when the horrifying consequences of armed conflict are blasted onto every TV, Movie, Video Game and mobile device screen?  Have they thought out the implications of biting off more than Canada can handle militarily or public response to institution a draft?

 

 

No matter what they might try to tell themselves, it's not just about the money.  It's about the people.  I pray for our men and women in uniform - and for the rest of us - that Team Harper doesn't learn this lesson the hard way.

The Social Why Behind Liberal Who

  

 

Yes, this was a deliberately misleading and self-serving, if entertaining, title.  I can only guess as to the story behind Liberal Who, just like anyone else.  But, as you've come this far, here are my top three theories:

 

 

1) Liberal Who was a legitimate, if poorly considered, social media launch pad for a potential Federal Liberal leadership candidate. 

 

 

This Social Media stuff isn't as easy as it looks.  How do you become a #tellviceverything without falling into the trap of @vikileaks?  How do you pull a Call Me Maybe in planned fashion, yet avoid puffin poop?  Some eager beaver, either candidate or someone on their team, floats the idea of a viral lead-in to generate buzz.  "Buzz!" said the candidate and their people.  "Buzz is good, let's do that!" 

 

 

Then it went off the rails; the response wasn't so hot.  Instead of following through and A) defending the approach regardless, which is what most pols do when caught up, or B) owning up to Liberal Who and saying, "this didn't work, but my policies will" and quickly recapturing focus in a positive way, someone blinked.  That blink was followed up with a "if we pretend it was a prank and link to Rick Mercer, this will all be quickly behind us." 

 

 

Someone should have been paying closer attention to the emerging trends of social media - nothing gets left behind; where there's uncertainty, there're armchair pundits and opponents on both sides of the fence ready to dig until they have both mud and the person to throw it at.

 

 

2) Liberal Who was an oppositional attempt to steal the thunder of/put egg on the face of a potential Liberal candidate.

 

 

Think it's a little bit rich to assume somebody's opponent has gone to such lengths to embarrass a candidate or the Liberal Leadership race?  You clearly aren't a political junkie.  It's a sad reality that policy is generally seen as secondary to politics and, in politics as in war, anything goes.  You have to win to govern, but winning comes at the expense of another Party, so every ounce of energy and thought must reflect how to win hearts and deflate your opponents.  It's a fatal flaw in our current political system, but that's another conversation.

 

 

It is entirely possible that opponents of a given candidate decided to use Liberal Who as a way to undercut said candidate before they even got out the starting gate.  Those could be potential leadership rivals, personal foes or supporters of another political team that get way too excited about Nick Kouvalis.  Either way, if you can tar your rival as ineffective, out of touch or focused on sizzle rather than steak, that's an effective way to lessen any threat they may possess.

 

 

Again, though, there was a website, there were emails - Liberal Who is forever imprinted on the Internet; if someone wants to find out who's behind it badly enough, they will.  And that story will get out.

 

 

3) The least likely option, in my mind - some random person came up with Liberal Who because, why not?

 

 

There will always be those who like the idea of generating attention without actually wanting the responsibility and focus that comes with it.  So, stuff like this DOES come up.  Having said that, there is always a motive behind such anonymous attention plays.  Vikileaks was an obvious one - the man behind that meme got to tar and feather an opponent without being tarred back.  At least in theory.  Adam Carroll was outed for that campaign and ended up owning it on the national stage.  Twice, now, actually, so maybe the lesson is that you needn't worry.  I hope not.

 

 

Who would have decided it would be fun to draw attention to a non-leader?  Did they intend to go through with it, or was the eventual redirect to Rick Mercer a cop-out?  Heck, were Mercer's people behind Liberal Who as a way to build traffic?  Not the worst conspiracy theory, as these things go.

 

 

Whoever was behind Liberal Who, whatever their intention, they have generated enough interest that someone is going to follow through on the why.  Where and when that happens, the mind(s) behind Liberal Who will have some xplainin' to do, so they better start thinking about how to deflect, redirect or answer the questions that are coming.

 

 

For everyone else, the lesson is one that more and more people are learning the hard way - if you're going to do something on the Internet, you will forever own it.  This is a good thing, though, as it will encourage people to think a bit further ahead before they act.  The truth will set you free, etc.

 

 

In the meantime, let the #cdnpoli social media guessing games continue.  What's your theory?

 

The Political Fight For Your Limbic Brain

 

 

Both sides of the political spectrum are turning to research suggesting that they other guys are more emotional, less practical than they are.  The new political battleground is on the hustings of cognition.

 

 

Limbic Liberals

 

Limbic Conservatives

 

Which is funny, because they're both right.  To me, that just proves that our social divides don't exist on the axis we think they do and, more to the point, to function as strong individuals in a strong society, we need them both.

 

Move forward together, etc.

The Conscious Revolution is Catching

Mental capacity, and the lack of it, was much discussed in and around Ottawa last week.

 

The word "crazy" gets bandied about with alarming regularity, considering how poorly defined it is.  You can use crazy in the sense of nonsensical, bold, aggressive, reluctant, petulant, ignorant, dumb or even as a descriptor for an actual condition of cognitive impairment.  Given its vagueness of meaning, crazy is really a poor term to use as anything other than an insult.  If you want to actually give a situation, a condition or a person meaning, you need to refine your terminology a bit.

 

 

Hence, Rob Ford's functional fixedness is being considered through the lens of a recognized cognitive behaviour suite, obsessive compulsive disorder.  There are plenty of other politicians who could be diagnosed as having a "mental illness" and indeed, many have come forward, admitting to battles with neurologically-originated conditions like depression or alcoholism.  In fact, the study of the political brain has become trendy in science and journalism  Now, we're still in that phase of the game where we look to use labelling of cognitive ability as a stick to beat opponents with; there has been a lot written of late tying social conservative beliefs to our "reptilian" brain, with the implication being that one end of the political spectrum is dumber or less open to new ideas than the other. 

 

 

But there are a couple other things happening at the same time that, whether we see it clearly are not, are wholly connected to this phenomena.  One, the mental health crisis that, while not prominent on the radar these days due to the focus on our economic doldrums, still lingers.  It is the economy, though, that reigns supreme - along with questions like "how do you motivate innovation to grow new economic activity?"  Innovation, artistic creation and that nebulous concept of crazy are rightly intertwined; innovation is equally a function of our grey matter.  Then, there's health care, specifically the unsustainable nature of our existing model.  There's a huge mental health component to that Gordian knot as well.

 

 

Who makes decisions about our health care, our economy, our services?  Those people who get it into their heads that the world needs their leadership to function properly - a delusional belief if ever there was one.  Just because it takes a bit of delusion or narcissism to think you're that important doesn't mean that it isn't true; exceptional individuals, for better or worse, do change the world.  It's these outliers who, given the right opportunities in life, will build the better light bulb, cure cancer or develop a health care model that is adjusted to the realities of modern society and demand.

 

 

There is a lot of crazy in politics, but we need that crazy to move the ball forward.  Even if you're a status-quo libertarian who thinks of progress as inconsequential, you can't deny the historical reality of manic, motivated people developing followings and nurturing change.  It's just the way things are, the way they've always been.

 

 

In service use, in labour but especially in politics, we are beginning to peel back the layers; instead of simply accepting "that's just the way it is" we're asking "what makes them that way?"  In the days of colonialism, anthropology was a tool used to help Western powers understand (and better manage) those that they colonized.  The corollary of that process was the absorption of bits and pieces of indigenous culture into Western society.  Today, there's almost a reversal of that process emerging; through the studies of organizations like Samara or the information exposure efforts of Wikileaks or 404SystemError, it's now the average citizen who's peeling back the layers of political motivation, reverse-engineering the behaviour of our pols to understand it better.

 

 

As the public becomes increasingly inquisitive about the cognitive capacities or our pols - and as we have ever-expanding access to every breath they take, every move they make - there is more and more thought being given to how we can read, choose and motivate our political class better.  This trend ties in to the notion of managing cognitive labour to greater results, reducing external service dependence, de-medicalizing mental health and of course, getting more out of life.

 

 

This notion of maximizing human potential and of creative destruction in our society at all levels through systematic change is not a new one, nor is the idea of sudden bursts of civic activity, demanding more of society's leaders.  In fact, you could say it happens with startling regularity, with each iteration allowing people at all levels to climb the pyramid a bit further.

 

 

We're in the bust part of one of these cycles now; there will be hard times for those at the lower echelons of society that will trickle up, in degrees, to those above them.  As the wheel turns, though, both sides will realize that to reach their end goals, middle ground needs to be found.  It's that balance between executive function and systematic reaction that at some level, we are constantly striving to achieve. 

 

 

What all this focus on mental capacity at all levels does is allows to pursue that goal more consciously.