The Drive to Kill 07/25/2006 07:05:48 pm by Dan Krohn

	A partial check of the current news makes it clear that humans are busy killing each other in many parts of the world. A quick short list would include Somalia-Ethopia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel-Lebanon, and Timor Este. And this is only a short list of outright wars currently ongoing. There are no doubt plenty of locations (Sudan, for one example) where organized killing is routine but the activity does not fit the traditional definition of war - to say nothing of periodic terrorist activities. So what’s going on? Unfortunately it appears that humans are prone to engage in organized mass killing on a rather regular basis. It is like the advertising/marketing axiom that people decide with their emotions then rationalize the decision. We humans seem to have uncontrolled rage as part of our inherent make-up, and to make matters worse - we seem to engage in irrational group rage periodically. For a species that considers itself enlightened, this is one difficult characteristic to accept. Given that so few of us want to accept that rage and group rage are inherent parts of being human, most of us perpetually seek rational explanations for such violent behavior. Often these explanations take the form of distorted excuses. But what can excuse massive killing of civilians and the organized rape that has of late become an all too common war tactic? One need only look to the examples of Gandhi and Martin Luther King to see that great things can be accomplished without brutality. Today we have a world where we contend not only with rather traditional wars, but also acts of terror which in turn are balanced by a so-called “war on terror”. (“So-called” because one cannot really have a war against a concept. One can conceive of a war against a terrorist group, like Al Qaeda, but not against a concept like terror.) The terrorists’ goal is to kill as many as possible, often in suicide attacks, just for the sake of killing. These people have somehow convinced themselves that one or another of their dreams will be advanced by atrocity. Yet one cannot help but suspect some perverse pleasure in meting out violence contributes to the activity. Could it not be that there are people who emotionally desire to inflict death or pain on others, then find a rational basis for the sick behavior? It is unfortunately this writer’s belief that there are humans, many more than we would like to admit, who actually get a charge - like a sexual rush - from killing or torturing others. There have been psychological experiments strongly suggesting that this is the case. The desire to inflict pain seems to be something hardwired into human nature, something to be overcome, rather than an aberration. If this is true, then we must deal with this problem in ways other than seeking rational explanations based on sociological or economic theories, which is how the problem has most often been addressed. When we witness obscenely violent behavior on a massive scale, we first emotionally recoil, then we try to understand rationally what happened. And we project that rationality onto others. That projection may well lead us fatally astray.

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Book Recommendation 07/18/2006 12:25:59 pm by Dan Krohn

	Given the events of the world at the moment - particularly in the middle east, it is incumbent upon us to try to understand other cultures. Having just finished reading a book entitled "In the Rose Garden of the Martyrs: A Memoir of Iran" by Christopher de Bellaigue, I strongly recommend it. This book is very well written and does give one a feel for the Iranian people and culture that is not obtainable from television news.

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Predator Follow-up 07/03/2006 10:58:49 am by Dan Krohn

	For further legal analysis on this issue, follow the link below. It is an analysis of a suit filed against MySpace (among other defendants) arising from a girl's allegdedly being sexually assaulted by a guy she met through MySpace. While this author deplores such criminal actions, the emphasis should be on the criminal (and prevention). Since the guy called her on her cell phone, would a lawsuit against the telecom company be as valid? http://writ.lp.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20060626.html

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