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I am a critic of a lot Steven Pinker says, but I still think this quote is dead on: "...Amok is a Malay word for the homicidal sprees occasionally undertaken b

by themgt 11y ago

I am a critic of a lot Steven Pinker says, but I still think this quote is dead on: "...Amok is a Malay word for the homicidal sprees occasionally undertaken by lonely, Indochinese men who have suffered a loss of love, a loss of money, or a loss of face. The syndrome has been described in a culture even more remote from the West: the stone-age foragers of Papua New Guinea. The amok man is patently out of his mind, an automaton oblivious to his surroundings and unreachable by appeals or threats. But his rampage is preceded by lengthy brooding over failure, and is carefully planned as a means of deliverance from an unbearable situation. The amok state is chillingly cognitive. It is triggered not by a stimulus, not by a tumor, not by a random spurt of brain chemicals, but by an idea. The idea is so standard that the following summary of the amok mind-set, composed in 1968 by a psychiatrist who had interviewed seven hospitalized amoks in Papua New Guinea, is an apt description of the the thoughts of mass murderers continents and decades away: “I am not an important man... I possess only my personal sense of dignity. My life has been reduced to nothing by an intolerable insult. Therefore, I have nothing to lose except my life, which is nothing, so I trade my life for yours, as your life is favoured. The exchange is in my favour, so I shall not only kill you, but I shall kill many of you, and at the same time rehabilitate myself in the eyes of the group of which I am a member, even though I might be killed in the process.” The amok syndrome is an extreme instance of the puzzle of human emotions. Exotic at first glance, upon scrutiny they turn out to be universal; quintessentially irrational, they are tightly interwoven with abstract thought and have a cold logic of their own..." The USA is increasingly productive at churning out people who feel this way. It's time for some soul searching. Guns are a problem, but they like drugs are also "solutions" to far deeper problems, and ... let's say there is in many situations, a broader coalition to be built around dealing with effects, rather than causes.

politician 11y ago
In the same discordant, illogical way that an amok person feels that they will "rehabilitate [themselves] in the eyes of the group of which [they are] a member", is that statement that "Guns are a problem" when you were clearly on to something more profound with the statement that the culture is producing people who feel forced to take drastic measures or who feel that they are worthless.
maroonblazer 11y ago
>The USA is increasingly productive at churning out people who feel this way. More-so than any other country? You didn't cite the source, so I have no other context than what you quoted, but it seems incongruous to say that something so 'universal; quintessentially irrational' is given outsize expression in one country in particular.
shalmanese 11y ago
And from John Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar: "Background: 'mucker' is an Anglicisation of 'amok'. Don't believe anyone who says it's a shifted pronunication of 'mugger'. You can survive a mugger, but if you want to survive a mucker the best way is not to be there when it happens. "Prior to the twentieth century the densest concentration of human beings was almost certainly found in Asian cities. (Except Rome and I'm coming to Rome later.) When too many people got in your way you armed yourself with a panga or a kris and went out to cut some throats. It didn't matter if you were educated in their use or not - the people you came up against were in their normal frame of reference and died. You were in the. berserk frame of reference. Background: the berserkers developed from communities who for a large part of the year sat on their asses in Norwegian fjordal valleys with an unclimbable mountain range on each side, a lid of horrible grey cloud on top, and you couldn't get away by sea either because of the winter storms. "There's a saying among the Nguni of South Africa that you didn't only have to kill a Zulu warrior - you had to push him over to make him lie down. Background: Chaka Zulu made it a policy to take his assegai-fodder from their parents in early childhood and raise them in barrack-like conditions owning no possessions bar a spear, a shield and a sheath to hide the penis, with absolutely no privacy. He made independently the same discovery the Spartans made. "Also it was when Rome had already become the world's first million-city that the Eastern mystery religions with their concomitant self-privation and self-mutilation took hold. You fell in behind the procession honouring Cybele, you seized a knife from one of the priests, you cut your balls off and ran through the streets waving them till you came to a house with the door open when you threw them over the threshold. They gave you an outfit of women's clothing and you joined the priesthood. Reflect on the pressure that drove you to think that that was the easy way out!"

by themgt 11y ago

politician 11y ago

In the same discordant, illogical way that an amok person feels that they will "rehabilitate [themselves] in the eyes of the group of which [they are] a member", is that statement that "Guns are a problem" when you were clearly on to something more profound with the statement that the culture is producing people who feel forced to take drastic measures or who feel that they are worthless.

maroonblazer 11y ago

>The USA is increasingly productive at churning out people who feel this way. More-so than any other country? You didn't cite the source, so I have no other context than what you quoted, but it seems incongruous to say that something so 'universal; quintessentially irrational' is given outsize expression in one country in particular.

shalmanese 11y ago

And from John Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar: "Background: 'mucker' is an Anglicisation of 'amok'. Don't believe anyone who says it's a shifted pronunication of 'mugger'. You can survive a mugger, but if you want to survive a mucker the best way is not to be there when it happens. "Prior to the twentieth century the densest concentration of human beings was almost certainly found in Asian cities. (Except Rome and I'm coming to Rome later.) When too many people got in your way you armed yourself with a panga or a kris and went out to cut some throats. It didn't matter if you were educated in their use or not - the people you came up against were in their normal frame of reference and died. You were in the. berserk frame of reference. Background: the berserkers developed from communities who for a large part of the year sat on their asses in Norwegian fjordal valleys with an unclimbable mountain range on each side, a lid of horrible grey cloud on top, and you couldn't get away by sea either because of the winter storms. "There's a saying among the Nguni of South Africa that you didn't only have to kill a Zulu warrior - you had to push him over to make him lie down. Background: Chaka Zulu made it a policy to take his assegai-fodder from their parents in early childhood and raise them in barrack-like conditions owning no possessions bar a spear, a shield and a sheath to hide the penis, with absolutely no privacy. He made independently the same discovery the Spartans made. "Also it was when Rome had already become the world's first million-city that the Eastern mystery religions with their concomitant self-privation and self-mutilation took hold. You fell in behind the procession honouring Cybele, you seized a knife from one of the priests, you cut your balls off and ran through the streets waving them till you came to a house with the door open when you threw them over the threshold. They gave you an outfit of women's clothing and you joined the priesthood. Reflect on the pressure that drove you to think that that was the easy way out!"