Crime scene cleanup hardly captures my real interests, but it has to do. When it comes to crime, I'm more interested in terrorism, white collar crime, and coroner fraud as found in Orange County, Califorina and elsewhere.
Terrorism and coroner fraud seem to me as close cousins. Why? Because terrorists and crony government employees have no empathy for their victims. If they could feel some empathy for their victims, their crimes would never occur.
As for white collar crime in general, I believe that people selling stocks, bonds, real estate, and other stuff may have empathy for their victims, but it's within their power to move forward. The object of their theft has less meaning in the world than people victimized by violence and death.
In any case, here I start writing with an "I" to make certain no one else creeps into my words without my pointing to their words. Suicide takes up much too much of my reading and writing time, but it turns out that thoughts on our human condition arise as suicide captures my attention. So why not include suicide with something broader and deeper? What's behind our abusive nature? What's behind county employees ripping-off victim's of violence, for that matter?
Researching for the who, what, why, when, and how of suicide and abuse of others lead to Marx, Freud, and Darwin this morning. I had turned away from Freud long ago. I wanted someone to tell me quickly and briefly what's going on with suicide. Karl Marx, I'm finding, has a few nuggets headed in other directions. This may help, though. by unveiling what remains behind as I strive to uncover clues to the stuff of society. Marx's writing takes too long to unravel at this stage of my game. So I'll dig out what I can from others while still using others for what follows.
Darwin's fun and I enjoy his animal investigations. His stark approach to life may unveil some nuggets about the human condition, especially when thinking about empathy. Empathy has forged direct links between Marx and Darwin in my mind. A reasonable adult would think a writer like myself would have grown more accustomed to treachery and thievery as an every day occurrence, but, actually, I was well into my 50s before I convinced myself of humanity's treacherous nature.
Of course the biblical version, "We're all sinners in the eyes of the lord" came to mind. Be that as it, may, it remains too simplistic for the sticks, stones, and glue for the human condition. Something less theological, more ontological will suit my quest more fully. Besides, if anyone in the United States still has any doubt about Marx's comments, let them rethink Wall Street and our government's generous bailout of needy billionaires.
I continue to stand on George Herbert Mead's social psychology. Who would care to argue with Mead, after all? To wit:
Our mother's release us into an unfriendly environment as biological bundles of potentiality. Soon we discover our own body and its many many wonders. We soon learn to grasp, push, pull, and so on. Then the gestures begin to arise and our world responds in kind. Before long we discover another aspect of our bodies, we have a name and it belongs to a body others relate with as we relate to them. Language arises from our common gesture system.
It happens now that we belong to a society, one Helen Keller first found to be in the world, not of it. We, like her, developed a knowing self with learning language and how to use it. As part of this symbolic action system, a structure of roles and statuses, we learned the rules and customs for acceptable behavior. We learned too that anything less meant some sort of negative reinforcement.
These thoughts I'll now consider for suicide causation, where before they were of no value in this quest:
- Genetics
- Greed
- Narcoses
- Sibling rivalry