Crime as a Rebellion Against Reason

[Scott A. 0]

Miller is kind of funny. I used him because he looked at the right things, but had very backwards conclusions that I think reflected his own bias going into the studies. What he says about the dependency issue is that the criminal wants to be saved from himself, which conflicts with his desire to be autonomous. So he will go through alternating periods of seeking environments of control (he lists "wife, prison, a restrictive job" as examples), and when his resentment boils over he gets into more "trouble".

The thing is, the dependency is real and it's no coincidence that criminals can't make it without someone to care for them. But the nature of the dependency is not what Miller thought. I don't know where he got his idea from, but he doesn't provide any evidence for it.

Yes, it's hard to know if criminal's really have an underlying motivation to be saved from themselves. It strikes me that what they may really want/need is stability or consistency. My understanding of people, especially adolescents, who come from chaotic home lives is that they can do quite well in highly structured environments where rewards and punishments are clear and consistent. While not all criminals necessarily come from such backgrounds, it just seems that the criminal lifestyle itself is chaotic and can't be maintained indefinitely.

Is it possible that the criminal, consistent with other distortions we've discussed, views bending others to his will and living off their effort as itself a productive effort? Whether by physical force or manipulation, does he tell himself that he actually is doing something effortful (with the self-deception that it's productive)?

I think so, and that's why I framed what I called "virtues" in the first part. And recall Abbott who referred to the "efficacy of force". I don't know if they see it as "productive" per se, but they are proud of their crimes as we are proud of our achievements. Well, even the pride isn't really the same, because it's all built on evasion.

This is just speculation, but I wonder if their form of pride is something closer to rebellion against shame.

I see what you’re saying. Yes I don’t think he wants to live, in the sense that he doesn’t want to live qua man. He sees what’s required to live and thinks he can cheat his way out of it, which makes him smarter than the “suckers”. Something I keep coming back to is the character from Crime and Punishment, who thought some men are above the system, that everyone else exists to support them. I thought that was a very observant commentary on criminal thinking on Dostoevsky’s part.

This makes a lot of sense to me, and would be consistent with what I assume is some fairly significant narcissism on the part of many criminals.

One thing in Samenow’s book that really struck me was the idea that criminals are kept from reform (or suicide, in worst cases) because they believe they are basically good people. This excuses them to do anything, because they keep themselves from facing the wickedness of their actions.

This would be consistent with their view of authority as inherently unjust and themselves as victims. I can't help but wonder, though, if there aren't two sets of premises they hold: consciously they tell themselves they are good people trying to be free in an unjust (impersonal, uncaring) society, but subconsciously they know that they are the ones being unjust and hurtful. If this is the case, I think it's the old idea of repeating a lie often enough to the point one actually believes it. That is, their conscious premise of being unjust victims is held with far stronger conviction than the subconscious idea that they are the victimizers. Again, just speculation.

So what just occurred to me is that trauma has an enormous effect on self-image, which is again central to evading. Feel free to offer your own expert input on this, but isn’t it expected that someone who has been a victim of violence would suffer from feelings of helplessness afterward? I can only imagine the kind of rehabilitation a normal, rational person (let alone a child) has to go through when they suffer violent trauma, to restore a healthy view of the world and other people. A normal person would want to restore that worldview because they’d want to continue to pursue their values and reap the emotional rewards. But not everyone would.

Yes, someone who is a victim of violence definitely feels helpless for a time. Being a victim shakes one's sense of life and reality, as well as self.

I am very skeptical of the idea that trauma can itself create a criminal. If it could, what stops it from doing so in most cases of victimization? There has to be something inside the victim that reacts to the trauma in a certain way, something that most people don’t have. This is all just speculation of course, but wouldn’t that feeling of helplessness following from a serious trauma give someone with prior thoughts of criminal behavior the cover for pursuing those thoughts? They could act out under the cover of being a victim, saying to themselves that they were pushed to it, nurturing that fear and feeling of helplessness in order to escape the knowledge of what they were doing and what was really behind it.

I'm quite skeptical of trauma as a singular cause of criminality, as well, especially if it was a single trauma. What I could see is that a person grows up in a consistently traumatic environment--he may not suffer one profound or serious trauma, but experiences many and repeated traumas that carry the implicit or explicit message that victimization is a way of life and one is either the victim or the victimizer. In such a situation, it would be "better" to be the victimizer, as one is operating (he thinks) from a position of power and control as opposed to helplessness. Add into the mix any number of rationalizations and that might be a good recipe for creating a criminal mindset. This is just a different way of saying what you did about using victimization as a "cover" for pre-existing criminal thoughts.

That means a lot Scott, especially because out of my observations and explanations this one was the most original. I was itching to talk about it the second I had the thought last year before I started this thread, but for it to make sense it had to wait until the other pieces were in place. And that's what I really liked about this part, because it built on everything before it.

Yes, I really appreciate your thinking and the evidence you provide for it. I'm sure there's more to explore here, and I for one will look forward to what you uncover!

[PhilO 0]

What I could see is that a person [who] grows up in a consistently traumatic environment--he may not suffer one profound or serious trauma, but experiences many and repeated traumas that carry the implicit or explicit message that victimization is a way of life and one is either the victim or the victimizer. In such a situation, it would be "better" to be the victimizer, as one is operating (he thinks) from a position of power and control as opposed to helplessness.

Gail Wynand immediately comes to mind.