About Me
- Name: Nick W.
- Location: Wisconsin, United States
Libertarian observations from within the Ivory Tower by an archivist, librarian and researcher.
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A university is just a group of buildings gathered around a library. ~Shelby Foote
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Stupid Big Brains
One of Kurt Vonnegut's less good books is Galapagos, a strange and disjointed tale that lacks the internal coherence and clarity of his best work. But the central point of the book rang very true for me when I read it a dozen or so years ago, and it seems sad and terribly true today as well. Human beings have brains that are just too damn big.
We get weird ideas in them. One bad connection amongst millions and suddenly otherwise normal people are fixated on shrubbery, or poodles, or making doilies out of tree bark. Bad ideas form in our ridiculously big brains all the time, and some times the mechanisms in place to keep us from acting on those bad ideas fails. Because our ridiculously big brains know exactly how to circumvent the mechanisms-- having built, or internalized, all of them in the first place.
Worst case scenario, you get the school massacre in Pennsylvania on Monday. You get a brain so messed up that it's owner would be better off dead, before he does the terrible thing his brain whispers to him to do. Bad wiring. Bad experience. Both. Whatever the cause, it should be impossible for a brain to come to the conclusion that kidnapping and killing young girls was a good idea. Or, realizing that it's owner is about to actually follow through with it's really abhorrent idea, there should be a safety over-ride in the brain that jumps right to suicide and skips all the in between bits. Because it seems in nearly every horrific shooting of this nature the gunman winds up killing himself afterwards-- how much better if he just killed himself first, before inflicting his horrors on others?
But brains don't work that way. Capable of amazing beauty, profound insight, remarkable analysis, and millions of other wonders, they are also capable of conceiving of the worst horrors, the worst travesties. And of how to justify them.
Therein lies the trouble. Humans are so very, very good at rationalizing. We can convince ourselves of nearly anything given enough time and the right environment. Big brains can not only conceive of ramming jets full of people into buildings full of people, but they can also make it seem moral, good and right. Big brains allow people to say things like, "Behead anybody who says Islam is not a religion of peace" with complete and utter sincerity.
I don't want to get off on a political tangent here, but those are two really vivid examples of what I'm talking about. Which is why it is important to step back and take stock from time to time. Question your assumptions-- I assume that I am a good father and husband because my great big brain tells me I'm doing a fine job at each. Is that true? I hope so, but to try and make sure that reality is jiving with my great big brain's view, I step back from time to time and try, as best I can, to look at things both objectively AND from my family's point of view.
Same thing with politics. Though I am definitely far more conservative than I was ten years ago, I don't blithely accept all of the various tenets that go with it. I try to read a variety of perspectives, and to get different analysis on the same topics. I enjoy talking with my family because they're far more liberal perspective keeps my conservative views from becoming synchophantic regurgitation of party lines.
So.
Question your great big brains. Don't blindly accept everything it tells you. Beware of the rationalization, and try to hear other opinions and viewpoints. Above all think it through. All the way through.
We get weird ideas in them. One bad connection amongst millions and suddenly otherwise normal people are fixated on shrubbery, or poodles, or making doilies out of tree bark. Bad ideas form in our ridiculously big brains all the time, and some times the mechanisms in place to keep us from acting on those bad ideas fails. Because our ridiculously big brains know exactly how to circumvent the mechanisms-- having built, or internalized, all of them in the first place.
Worst case scenario, you get the school massacre in Pennsylvania on Monday. You get a brain so messed up that it's owner would be better off dead, before he does the terrible thing his brain whispers to him to do. Bad wiring. Bad experience. Both. Whatever the cause, it should be impossible for a brain to come to the conclusion that kidnapping and killing young girls was a good idea. Or, realizing that it's owner is about to actually follow through with it's really abhorrent idea, there should be a safety over-ride in the brain that jumps right to suicide and skips all the in between bits. Because it seems in nearly every horrific shooting of this nature the gunman winds up killing himself afterwards-- how much better if he just killed himself first, before inflicting his horrors on others?
But brains don't work that way. Capable of amazing beauty, profound insight, remarkable analysis, and millions of other wonders, they are also capable of conceiving of the worst horrors, the worst travesties. And of how to justify them.
Therein lies the trouble. Humans are so very, very good at rationalizing. We can convince ourselves of nearly anything given enough time and the right environment. Big brains can not only conceive of ramming jets full of people into buildings full of people, but they can also make it seem moral, good and right. Big brains allow people to say things like, "Behead anybody who says Islam is not a religion of peace" with complete and utter sincerity.
I don't want to get off on a political tangent here, but those are two really vivid examples of what I'm talking about. Which is why it is important to step back and take stock from time to time. Question your assumptions-- I assume that I am a good father and husband because my great big brain tells me I'm doing a fine job at each. Is that true? I hope so, but to try and make sure that reality is jiving with my great big brain's view, I step back from time to time and try, as best I can, to look at things both objectively AND from my family's point of view.
Same thing with politics. Though I am definitely far more conservative than I was ten years ago, I don't blithely accept all of the various tenets that go with it. I try to read a variety of perspectives, and to get different analysis on the same topics. I enjoy talking with my family because they're far more liberal perspective keeps my conservative views from becoming synchophantic regurgitation of party lines.
So.
Question your great big brains. Don't blindly accept everything it tells you. Beware of the rationalization, and try to hear other opinions and viewpoints. Above all think it through. All the way through.
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Nick said:
Whatever the cause, it should be impossible for a brain to come to the conclusion that kidnapping and killing young girls was a good idea. Or, realizing that it's owner is about to actually follow through with it's really abhorrent idea, there should be a safety over-ride in the brain that jumps right to suicide and skips all the in between bits. Because it seems in nearly every horrific shooting of this nature the gunman winds up killing himself afterwards-- how much better if he just killed himself first, before inflicting his horrors on others?
According to the National School Safety and Security Services, there were 65 school-related violent deaths during both the 2002-2003 and 2003-2004 school years.
According to the CDC's WISQARS Injury Mortality Reports, there were 31,484 suicide injury deaths in the U.S. in 2003 (the most recent year available on the WISQARS report options).
Suicides (which are unfortunately not rare) do not garner national attention, but school shootings (which are rare) do get covered heavily by the media. It makes you wonder if maybe that "safety over-ride switch" kicks in more often than not, but we never know about it because the individual ends his or her own life before committing any greater atrocity.
Whatever the cause, it should be impossible for a brain to come to the conclusion that kidnapping and killing young girls was a good idea. Or, realizing that it's owner is about to actually follow through with it's really abhorrent idea, there should be a safety over-ride in the brain that jumps right to suicide and skips all the in between bits. Because it seems in nearly every horrific shooting of this nature the gunman winds up killing himself afterwards-- how much better if he just killed himself first, before inflicting his horrors on others?
According to the National School Safety and Security Services, there were 65 school-related violent deaths during both the 2002-2003 and 2003-2004 school years.
According to the CDC's WISQARS Injury Mortality Reports, there were 31,484 suicide injury deaths in the U.S. in 2003 (the most recent year available on the WISQARS report options).
Suicides (which are unfortunately not rare) do not garner national attention, but school shootings (which are rare) do get covered heavily by the media. It makes you wonder if maybe that "safety over-ride switch" kicks in more often than not, but we never know about it because the individual ends his or her own life before committing any greater atrocity.
# posted by 
: 5:22 PM
: 5:22 PM
Yeah, maybe. I'm not sure how much comfort that actually brings. And I fear that many, maybe most?, suicides come from people who were traumatized by somebody without that safety switch in place, rather than somebody with it.
Certainly the girls who survived the shooting on Monday will be scarred for the rest of their lives, and it wouldn't surprise me if one or more of them winds up killing themselves somewhere down the line. I hope not. That is one nice thing about our great big brains. They are so friggin' big we can bury a lot of bad memories in them and reprogram them easily and often.
Certainly the girls who survived the shooting on Monday will be scarred for the rest of their lives, and it wouldn't surprise me if one or more of them winds up killing themselves somewhere down the line. I hope not. That is one nice thing about our great big brains. They are so friggin' big we can bury a lot of bad memories in them and reprogram them easily and often.
The possibility that disturbed individuals may commit suicide before committing atrocities really shouldn't be all that comforting. But, considering that suicides usually out-number murders, and that most of what hits the media is shown because it is shocking, new, or rare, one could at least look at the possibility that there is something that causes individuals who are capable of a greater atrocity to turn on themselves before turning on others more often than not.
Maybe most of those suicides are due to prior traumatization from other unstable individuals. I can't say and, as in my first comment, I'm just throwing out some possible theories. Keep in mind, though, that there is the possibility that we could have been witnesses to many more horrific shootings if only a fraction of a percent of those suicidal individuals had decided to lash out at others before ending their own lives. If only a tenth of one percent of those 31,484 decided to try to take other people out with them, then we would have seen 31 more tragedies in that year alone.
The entire Amish community where that horrible crime took place will have plenty of trauma to deal with, but none of them, of course, will have to deal with the trauma that those girls who survived the incident will need to deal with for the rest of their lives. I can't really imagine what any of them will need to go through.
Consider also, though, the great compassion that our big brains give us the capability of. Rarely are any of those acts of kindness and charity covered by the MSM; usually the only time you will see those stories is once and a while during the human interest segment of the local evening news. But, in relation to the shooting at the Amish school, consider this from WCBS-TV:
[Rita] Rhoads[, a nurse midwife, who delivered two of the girls who died Monday,] said, "One of the victims' grandfather has gone to visit the shooter's family and had expressed the community's forgiveness."
I don't believe that I could be that charitable, but our big brains are capable of that kind of mercy too, and that should bring at least a modicum of comfort.
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Maybe most of those suicides are due to prior traumatization from other unstable individuals. I can't say and, as in my first comment, I'm just throwing out some possible theories. Keep in mind, though, that there is the possibility that we could have been witnesses to many more horrific shootings if only a fraction of a percent of those suicidal individuals had decided to lash out at others before ending their own lives. If only a tenth of one percent of those 31,484 decided to try to take other people out with them, then we would have seen 31 more tragedies in that year alone.
The entire Amish community where that horrible crime took place will have plenty of trauma to deal with, but none of them, of course, will have to deal with the trauma that those girls who survived the incident will need to deal with for the rest of their lives. I can't really imagine what any of them will need to go through.
Consider also, though, the great compassion that our big brains give us the capability of. Rarely are any of those acts of kindness and charity covered by the MSM; usually the only time you will see those stories is once and a while during the human interest segment of the local evening news. But, in relation to the shooting at the Amish school, consider this from WCBS-TV:
[Rita] Rhoads[, a nurse midwife, who delivered two of the girls who died Monday,] said, "One of the victims' grandfather has gone to visit the shooter's family and had expressed the community's forgiveness."
I don't believe that I could be that charitable, but our big brains are capable of that kind of mercy too, and that should bring at least a modicum of comfort.
# posted by : 9:10 PM
: 9:10 PM<< Home
