Honor killing in Pakistan

[SatansMaleVoiceChoir]

I would agree he is not defective, but he's certainly unusual. Looking at the numbers of washouts, I'd say most people are simply not cut out to be so pragmatic.

And your 'bog-standard' infantryman laying up as part of a deliberate ambush? How do you think the army "de-program" his allegedly inbuilt aversion to killing?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Oh right, it's not your fault you have nothing that conclusively proves your assertion, but mine for not understanding!

Science has proven that we are all born with moral values built in - they're not something that's learned - and it's too difficult to put in laymans terms for a Thicko like me? Yeah, OK...

You have failed to provide any conclusive evidence for a single claim you have made, when called on it, and that's my fault is it?

I posted a very specific genetic influence on a well known moral dilemma that explains why people's response to the dilemma differs. It's not simply upbringing or culture, it's directly related to measurable brain chemistry.

Your answer was not to discuss the neurology or the genetics or even the study. You answer was, you don't get it therefore you dismiss it.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

But these are a minority of people, it is not the norm. For millennia mentally ill people have existed. That doesn't make it the norm. Crime is not the norm, people who commit crimes believe they will get away with it. Do you really think that's the difference? The rest of us don't think we would get away with it, otherwise we be out there on pillaging murderous rampages?

Why would anyone ever return a valuable item they find? No one is going to catch them stealing.

Does that mean everyone would return it? No, but you seem to be mistaking the outliers for the norm.

Mobs are not composed of the minority. Lynching is not done by the mentally ill, but by normal people. All it takes is a victim who is sufficiently alien, by deed, culture or blood, to count as the Other.

That is not to say that your average person is two short hairs away from becoming a pillaging psychopath. But given the right circumstances, the right motivation... yes, Joe Six-pack can indeed be a killer.

And your 'bog-standard' infantryman laying up as part of a deliberate ambush? How do you think the army "de-program" his allegedly inbuilt aversion to killing?

They call it "basic training." The soldier is conditioned to follow orders; without question, without hesitation, no matter how objectionable or nonsensical they may seem. Watch Full Metal Jacket (Warning: hilariously NSFW language). Fyi, Gunnery Sergeant Hartman was played by a REAL drill instructor, so this is straight from the horse's mouth sir no offense meant sir.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Mobs are not composed of the minority. Lynching is not done by the mentally ill, but by normal people. All it takes is a victim who is sufficiently alien, by deed, culture or blood, to count as the Other.

That is not to say that your average person is two short hairs away from becoming a pillaging psychopath. But given the right circumstances, the right motivation... yes, Joe Six-pack can indeed be a killer.

But once again, mobs and lynching are not the norm.

It seems to me this discussion is boiling down to different definitions of moral imperatives. Just because they are not absolute does not mean they don't exist.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

But once again, mobs and lynching are not the norm.

Sure it is! Happens all the time. I read about one in the paper happening in Virginia not two weeks ago. Some black kid scared a white girl just before Halloween, was arrested for assault, then drug out and lynched.

Just because it's not nice and talked about much doesn't meant it's disqualified from consideration for the norm.

 

[SatansMaleVoiceChoir]

Why do we have laws against cruelty to animals?

I actually have no idea. Certainly not in the UK, anyway, where people lose their minds if someone puts a cat in a bin overnight, but they're happy to hunt foxes with dogs.

I know that we Brits are very protective about our pets as a nation, and like to think we are of our live food as well. But if we don't eat it or stroke it, nobody seems to mind.

 

[Nessie]

Rubbish. You're completely grasping at straws now. Soldiers are indeed trained to follow basic words of command, but the days of a commander pointing at a target and saying "Kill!" with an unflinching soldier blindly doing as he's told are long since gone, and haven't even been remotely like that for at least the last 40 - 50 years. Certainly the last 30. British soldiers do not act on unlawful commands, and know one when they hear one.

Point out where I said a soldier wouldn't climb out of a trench and charge the enemy.

You do understand what a 'lawful command' is, yes?

I now have no idea what you are going on about and why my comment

"OK so not trained on some sort of psychological level to kill, with specific here is how to turn yourself into a psychopath lessons. Just an expectation that their job is very likely to result in them killing and that they will have to deal with that and not back out of doing it.

Soldiers are trained, or maybe conditioned is a better word to follow orders, no matter what, even if that order means a high risk of theirs or another's death. That comes with basic training, drill and a new soldiers life being dominated by senior officers whose word is law."

is rubbish. You are coming over as being in a default argue mode no matter what is said to you. If a commander points and says kill, the soldier has to do that when it is a lawful order.

In the same way some Pakistani and Afghan women will react regarding honour killings, they have been conditioned and are expected to comply and in their case it is not even considered lawful as they can still be punished for murder.

 

[Lithrael]

And your 'bog-standard' infantryman laying up as part of a deliberate ambush? How do you think the army "de-program" his allegedly inbuilt aversion to killing?

At a guess, I would think they reinforce all the dehumanizing out-group type stuff. It doesn't seem like it would be that amazing of an idea. 'These guys are the enemy, they're trying to kill you, also they hate you and are stupid, and they like to throw acid on uppity women, and they'd be killing each other in sectarian violence if we weren't here anyhows, so you don't need to waste any of your sympathy on them.'

This inbuilt aversion to killing that we are discussing is exponentially stronger the closer to your own in-group it is, and weaker the further away from your own in-group. Which makes sense because the idea is that it's tied to genetic survival. If you're green, you won't mind nearly as much if you had to kill the purple guy for the greater good, as you would if you had to kill a fellow green guy.

Or do you really think the infantryman would feel exactly the same about his job if he was doing it in his hometown instead of thousands of miles away from everything (besides the people he's deployed with) that he cares about?

 

[Nessie]

And your 'bog-standard' infantryman laying up as part of a deliberate ambush? How do you think the army "de-program" his allegedly inbuilt aversion to killing?

By conditioning soldiers to follow orders and that killing is an expected part of the job. Setting up and conducting an ambush is lawful and accepted during conflict and so the soldiers have been programmed/trained/conditioned to do it.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I actually have no idea. ....

Well that ought to be a clue for you.

 

[SatansMaleVoiceChoir]

They call it "basic training." The soldier is conditioned to follow orders; without question, without hesitation, no matter how objectionable or nonsensical they may seem. Watch Full Metal Jacket (Warning: hilariously NSFW language). Fyi, Gunnery Sergeant Hartman was played by a REAL drill instructor, so this is straight from the horse's mouth sir no offense meant sir.

FMJ is set about 50 years ago, and deals with the American army. With no disrespect to the US Forces, I know for a fact that the British Army has not churned out brainwashed unthinking automatons for at least 30-40 years. British soldiers are trained to follow basic words of command, yes, but are also trained to act independently, work 2 rank levels above their own if possible. Orders (as in formal written/verbal orders) are not given and expected to be followed to the letter - a subordinate commander gives the broad parameters, the assets, enemy forces and his intent - the detail of the execution is left to those on the ground, often at a very junior level.

Getting all your ideas about how a modern army (certainly the British Army) operates is like getting all your ideas about how modern computers work by using a 1950's card operated 'computer'.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Sure it is! Happens all the time. I read about one in the paper happening in Virginia not two weeks ago. Some black kid scared a white girl just before Halloween, was arrested for assault, then drug out and lynched.

You may want to re-read that report:
Crime History: Leesburg teen lynched for frightening white girl

On this day, Nov. 8, in 1889, Orion "Owen" Anderson was lynched in Leesburg for donning a sack on his head and frightening a white girl as she walked to school.

I'm pretty sure that would have created a national outrage had that been just 2 weeks ago. But perhaps you have a different link?

People who kill under those cultural circumstances first have to come to the belief that the person they are killing is not human. That doesn't negate the innate nature of morality, it side steps it.

Just because it's not nice and talked about much doesn't meant it's disqualified from consideration for the norm.

We're debating with two completely different concepts. It's cross talk.

The norm. It's a big world. There are things going on every second of every day that are outside the norm.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

For the readers general consideration, dehumanizing is a long known concept:

The Lucifer Effect: Dehumanization

At the core of evil is the process of dehumanization by which certain other people or collectives of them, are depicted as less than human, as non comparable in humanity or personal dignity to those who do the labeling. Prejudice employs negative stereotypes in images or verbally abusive terms to demean and degrade the objects of its narrow view of superiority over these allegedly inferior persons. Discrimination involves the actions taken against those others based on the beliefs and emotions generated by prejudiced perspectives.

Dehumanization is one of the central processes in the transformation of ordinary, normal people into indifferent or even wanton perpetrators of evil.

The fact innate morality is plastic, or not the same in every human, or exists with fuzzy edges or a range of moral beliefs and behaviors, does not mean neurobiology is not the underlying mechanism of morality.

It's like saying, because people are different shapes and sizes, or because one can over eat or under eat and affect one's body size, it must not be genetic makeup underlying the difference.

 

[Nessie]

FMJ is set about 50 years ago, and deals with the American army. With no disrespect to the US Forces, I know for a fact that the British Army has not churned out brainwashed unthinking automatons for at least 30-40 years. British soldiers are trained to follow basic words of command, yes, but are also trained to act independently, work 2 rank levels above their own if possible. Orders (as in formal written/verbal orders) are not given and expected to be followed to the letter - a subordinate commander gives the broad parameters, the assets, enemy forces and his intent - the detail of the execution is left to those on the ground, often at a very junior level.

Getting all your ideas about how a modern army (certainly the British Army) operates is like getting all your ideas about how modern computers work by using a 1950's card operated 'computer'.

Indeed and within that there is clearly still a place for a more senior soldier to order troops out of a trench and to charge. I am sure we agree on all of this.

Maybe some of the confusion here is down to outwith conflict a soldier will have no instinct to kill and has the instinct of protecting their offspring, but in conflict his instinct to kill will take over, but not such that he would kill his offspring. Those places with honour killings are not at war, so they need to be conditioned to kill, especially their children who instinctively we protect.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

You may want to re-read that report:
Crime History: Leesburg teen lynched for frightening white girlI'm pretty sure that would have created a national outrage had that been just 2 weeks ago. But perhaps you have a different link?

Hm... coulda been. I tried googling it myself, but the false positives I got for "Virginia Lynch" took longer to sort through than my customary thirty second giving a damn duration.

We're debating with two completely different concepts. It's cross talk.

The norm. It's a big world. There are things going on every second of every day that are outside the norm.

But they're all people. Presumably innate behaviors are innate everywhere, yes?

 

[SatansMaleVoiceChoir]

Soldiers are trained, or maybe conditioned is a better word to follow orders, no matter what, even if that order means a high risk of theirs or another's death. That comes with basic training, drill and a new soldiers life being dominated by senior officers whose word is law."

No. You are getting all your ideas from films and television. We are NOT trained to blindly follow orders 'no matter what', or follow the word of a superior officer as if it was law. We are trained to follow basic words of command, but never blindly and without thought to consequences. We are encouraged to point out better ways of doing things to our superiors, give suggestions and rely on experience. A better way of doing something based on proven experience will always take precedence over the word of a commander, if he has got any sense.

If a commander points and says kill, the soldier has to do that when it is a lawful order.

I'm pretty sure I said something similar...

In the same way some Pakistani and Afghan women will react regarding honour killings, they have been conditioned and are expected to comply and in their case it is not even considered lawful as they can still be punished for murder.

Yes, they have been conditioned by their culture to believe that honour killing is morally right. Just as in Western culture we have been conditioned to believe that murder is unacceptable and morally wrong.

 

[SatansMaleVoiceChoir]

Well that ought to be a clue for you.

British people are only caring towards animals they pet or eat, and anything else is OK to be chased with, and ripped apart by dogs?

British landed gentry are all born defective when it comes to foxes?

 

[Nessie]

I understand a Western army soldier would now be unlikely to charge a tank with no gun as Soviets did during WWII, or for their senior officers to be behind then shooting the ones who did not keep charging for failing orders. You have decided that I have only ever watched TV and films and that is where I get my information from and you move goal posts and argue past me to keep that idea going.

We agree more than I think you realise, hence no issue about a soldier following a lawful order.

So you agree conditioning is needed to kill in certain circumstances? That suggests it goes against instinct.

 

[Nessie]

British people are only caring towards animals they pet or eat, and anything else is OK to be chased with, and ripped apart by dogs?

British landed gentry are all born defective when it comes to foxes?

No that is down to breeding and conditioning by tradition and environment. But you could get anyone to do it if their animals which they depend on are being savaged by foxes and dogs provide a means of stopping that.

It just so happens for some that chase between dog and fox became a kind of sport and less cruel methods of killing foxes were ignored.

 

[SatansMaleVoiceChoir]

I understand a Western army soldier would now be unlikely to charge a tank with no gun as Soviets did during WWII, or for their senior officers to be behind then shooting the ones who did not keep charging for failing orders. You have decided that I have only ever watched TV and films and that is where I get my information from and you move goal posts and argue past me to keep that idea going.

So where ARE you getting your ideas about soldiers then? And where have I moved the goalposts?

So you agree conditioning is needed to kill in certain circumstances? That suggests it goes against instinct.

No, because we in the West are culturally conditioned NOT to kill. Which would suggest our natural state is a 'blank slate' where we have no compulsion either way, outside of basic survival instincts.