Scenes

Film Strip

It’s just my life, I keep observing it like a movie. Maybe, I, deliberately, arrange the events or prospect them as a chain of scenes. It’s a sort of luxury to discuss how life is blissful for me. While for others, it’s a sort of misery to talk about how tragedy their lives are. I don’t read or follow news, they are just side lights which meant to obstruct us from the absolute insight. We tend to make projections of others’ troubles on our daily life. This way, everybody has unsolved problem, why to bother with my own? However, we can be as creative as Karl Marx was, and try to analyze the events around us in a social context.

What Marx did easily is changing the world around us. I know that his aim to a classless community is a bit of a fantasy, but his argument extended a bit further to become an armed fight. What he wanted to achieve may end up with a constant status in the community. The struggle between classes makes poor people work, and rich people think. Nevertheless, I admire, and think it’s a viable idea, when he mentions that socialism can reach the level of a stateless society. The autonomy! In the middle of the chaos we live in, I wonder, is it really struggle that drives the world around? Can one self be unselfish if it has full knowledge that the source it consumes can’t be exhaustible? That makes us feel more like animals, instead of humans. Anyway, what Marx proposed is making news. 

I remember when I was young, I was vigorous and foolish enough to make a big deal of each tiny event I face. No matter how insignificant the cause could be, I was ready to sacrifice my life for the sake of it. Now after seven years of foolishness, my fuel ran out. I redirect my attention toward the human legacy and culture. The headlines in newspapers change every day, but the gravity constant is a headline forever. Tomorrow, we will be making history. Indeed, we always interpret the future as a mirror image for the past. It’s dangerous, since I doubt that history repeats itself.

Beside all this rubbish, I need to address an important issue I’ve been through recently: Religion, and on religion I will speak. A recent study showed that religion doesn’t grant happiness to all mankind and womankind. It depends on the community, socioeconomic status, and the level of education. The interaction between poverty and religion is massive, and it goes both directions: Absolute belief, or absolute disbelief. As the Imam Ali said, “Poverty goes hand in hand with infidelity.” Corruption is a third companion of poverty. On the other hand, the first Muslims were mainly poor or abandoned. As news relieves some of the stress, being powerless and helpless toward a divine power in our daily activities is very comforting. The main inhabitants of heaven are the people who were poor in this life, while the ones who were rich linger in hell. So, apparently the image is a bit clear, religion makes poor people happier, while money makes rich people richer and happier.

However, religion is a personal issue. One person holds the full right to believe or disbelieve in whatever fits them the most. You can be proud of your belief as much as you want, just don’t fight people because of it. Despite the desire to see all humanity share the same bed in heaven, why do we force them to join us? By doing so, we would be raping them from their mentality! Caring for other people is no reason to try to convince them in our own beliefs. The reality is that we hate them, so we want them to share the same bitterness we taste on a daily basis. Yet, I can’t understand the link between faith and aggressive behavior. I mean most wars were motivated by creed. And regardless of the invitation for love of all people that Jesus distributed to all humankind, the very same people tried or really did kill him. Eventually, Christians killed everybody else. It really makes me ask for the reason why? Despite that we cover all our greedy desires under the name of religion, why does it work sometimes, while it doesn’t when we try to convince other logically?

Before I finish what I have to say, I want to elaborate why, according to Marx, the struggle between classes and unfair distribution of wealth exists. That indeed pushes me towards thinking of the Islamic statement that everybody is equal. Either Islam failed to establish that, or Marx’s idea is wrong, seeing as wars hadn’t seized taking place between the Muslims themselves, and with others. 

Besides beliefs, the sensation of happiness is diminishing inside my heart. I can’t come up with new ideas. To tell the truth, it’s a bit boring to read my entries weekly. A study suggests that after buying your thousandth pair of Gucci shoes, you eventually lose the pleasure of owning such items. I’m not wearing Gucci shoes, and this is not an issue of shoes. There is a brain inside of my skull, not a pair of shoes, and I’m not sure if there is something wrong this brain. Until then, welcome back to me, welcome to all my readers. 

Criminal Mind

Sorry for being an hour late!

Blood has a distinctive smell, an attractive color, and special physical motion. It’s a sexy liquid, and very addictive. Therefore, once you get used to it, it’s not easy to detach from it. It’s not surprising that a criminal craves for victims over and over. What triggers a criminal’s desire for bloodshed? Researchers have been working for decades to establish whether offenders’ minds and genes are different from normal individuals’ brain structure. Are they the same? Indeed, a criminal behavior by its own is altered. Yet, can we justify the difference to not punish criminals? This can extend to the efficiency of punishments, but I may avoid it for now.

Shamefully, killing can be justified in various ways based on the race of the murderer. Therefore, special people may enjoy the luxury of mental sickness when they face a death sentence. It’s not my place to argue regarding the validity of research which explain the criminal mind. However, I will tell you that it has three pillars: genes, brain structure, and environment. I don’t like genetics; it shows that we are helpless. Oh, you’re gay because of gay gene. For god’s sake if there’s a homosexual gene, how could it be inherited over generations? Anyway, I think genetic evidence is just a latch attorney use it to lessen the client’s sentence.

There’s an amusing and important study conducted in 1973 called The Rosenhan Experiment. It questioned the reliability of psychiatric diagnosis. Five sane people presented to psychiatry hospitals complaining of symptoms of physiological illness. Then, they tried to convince the doctors that they’re normal. Unfortunately, the doctors and medical staff failed to recognize that.  Apparently, we have no problem judging people based on unreliable science. The beginning of such a criminal psychiatry was to discover any predicted psychopath individual. This way, we can limit, alter, or change the possibility of a criminal. If this is right, we should have discovered the preventive criminal psychiatry. But all we could do so far is retrograde detection. How can we manipulate a brain on psychological level so it would be less aggressive? Perhaps, to be better safe than sorry, we ought to just kill every psychopath! However, all the psychopath psychiatry leads toward being more merciful to those criminals, they’re different and helpless, so how to protect the community by killing them?  

What’s the problem if we just kill the killer? Is there any real way to correct that killer and stop another homicidal incidence? Does he/she deserve another chance while the only chance for another individual is execution? Prison, in usual status, is not an educational or rehab institute as it provides food and roof for free, and social rejection later on. The recidivism rate within three years after release reaches about 7 out of 10 persons. Usually recidivism is associated with psychopathy, therefore I question the efficacy of psychiatry approach and medication. Nevertheless, I don’t imply that Islamic punishment system is efficient, except for killing the killer.

To tell the truth, the trend which attributes such misbehavior a bit further from psychiatry is comforting to me. At least, they may explain the psychopathy finding to a structural variation. There’s an identical pattern in criminals that shows in PET scan in an experiment conducted by Fallon, (Fallon’s Scan.) This implies a miscommunication between two brain aspects: The orbital cortex, which is a part in the frontal lobe just behind eyes; and the amygdala, which controls the primitive drives of appetite and aggression. If the orbital cortex is damaged, or malfunctioning, it may manifest as a criminal or aggressive behavior where the id takes over. Such a finding may imply that for such a physical damage, we need a physical correction. I don’t support to cut hands or behead people, but prisons are just incubating more criminals.

In the middle of all the chaos, even if an individual is predisposed to be criminal due to genetic and brain alteration, would that individual indeed be a criminal? We need to add a third element: maltreatment in childhood. Nevertheless, this triad pattern can be found in criminals and non-criminal people, the field is still young. Anyway, this science may initiate a new law section, where we can excuse the criminals for their actions. I’m not sure if we’re going to blame the divine power which delivered this human being in this form. I don’t mean to start this dilemma. Still, if we are forgiving such people, why didn’t we apply the same scale on Hitler or other insane dictators? At least, in a previous entry we established some association or causation between greatness and illness. Until then, we should differentiate between who to blame and who to punish.