Resonant Information - Because serial killers are people too - Comments

Compassion?

Anonymous — Wed, 14 Sep 2005 00:06:14 -0400

Going on those lines, about not having compassion about your fellow man, then we can classify all muslims as psychopaths because they teach us to kill to infidels where they congrigate and to slit their throat from ear to ear. Going on that point, lets kill all muslims. Sounds like a great plan.

Sociopaths

Zed — Sat, 09 Apr 2005 03:59:50 -0400

Obviously, at least a couple sociopaths did care for other humans. That people miss this is rather the point.

Sociopaths Are Not Human

carpundit — Fri, 08 Apr 2005 20:51:11 -0400

A serial killer saves your life. Yes, that could set up some conflicting feelings.

But the rest of us do not lose our humanity by thinking of sociopaths as less than human. They are less than human. To be human is to have empathy, to have some care for other humans; sociopaths don't.

We do not lessen ourselves by recognizing monsters among us, calling them out, and killing them.

Because serial killers are people too

Zed — Wed, 06 Apr 2005 20:21:56 -0400

Behind the somewhat flip title and reference to the (somewhat depraved, but rather funny) Chopping Block cartoon lies a more serious matter: our tendency to dehumanize our enemies. This is a natural, but regrettable tendency; trying to think of someone that has hurt you as less than completely evil often makes things hurt more. It is, however, an error; people are not completely evil, and by forgetting that even our monsters are still human leads down the slippery slope of abandoning compassion completely.

I spent more time thinking about this after reading a story both uplifting and tragic, the memories of a man who was saved from serious injury and possibly death by a serial killer, and who's mother was ultimately responsible for his capture. In the comments, a woman describes her own similar emotional conflict in remembering and judging a sociopath who saved her life.