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-- (snowleopard6@webtv.net), April 30, 1999

Answers

At the risk of being disgracefully lazy, and not having had teh pleasure of seeing the articles last week, could we get a link (either type, or even a thread title) please??

I'm in the process of researching some stuff that will take some time and am therefor being lazy.

CR

-- chuck, a Night Driver (rienzoo@en.com), April 30, 1999.

Chuck, unable to pull up thread with discussion, but located original article by LTC Dave Grossman. The title of the article was "Trained to Kill," and is the most thorough analysis of the virus of violance I have seen regarding these school and other shootings. Sorry, unable to hot link.

http://www.christianity.net/ct/8T9/8T9030.html

-- (snowleopard6@webtv.net), May 01, 1999.

Link to article:

CT 8/10/98: COVERSTORY: Trained to Kill

This article is one of the best I've ever read about the roots of violence in late-20th-century civilian society.

Grossman's psychology-based explanations ring far truer than any morality-based arguments. Many people do not wish to accept that modern psychology can usefully explain "bad" behavior, but the evidence is there anyway.

-- No Spam Please (No_Spam_Please@anon_ymous.com), May 01, 1999.

thanks, all for the links. No Spam, I really have a minor difficulty with your take on the article. The last 20% of it is about all the morality comment anyone needs to see that it is PRECISELY our LACK of moral decision making that is the root of the problem. As the author so states, in about so many words. Ummm, I will admit that I thought the article was over and then scrolled down a bit more and found the end.

Chuck, who didn't really like the formatting so much

-- chuck, a Night Driver (rienzoo@en.com), May 01, 1999.

Chuck,

>The last 20% of it is about all the morality comment anyone needs to see that it is PRECISELY our LACK of moral decision making that is the root of the problem. As the author so states, in about so many words.

No -- with only minor exceptions Grossman's morality- and religion-based comments are about what he recommends that people do to correct the problem, not about the cause of the problem.

The transition is approximately the second paragraph after the last of those text-interrupting quotation blocks:

That's powerful. That's censure, not censorship. We ought to have the moral courage to censure people who think that violence is legitimate entertainment.

Before a few paragraphs prior to that point, Grossman is describing causes, and is not asserting a connection to morality or religion.

[Note: the following just points out the minor exceptions -- skip if you wish.] The author's references to God -- "Thank God" -- "God-given" -- "God's creatures" -- are not presenting a religious connection to the cause of children's violence. They could be deleted without changing his explanation. His first use of "moral" -- "moral and psychological equivalent" -- simply reinforces "psychological", not standing on its own. Later, he writes that a technique is "morally reprehensible", but again morality is simply not a significant part of his explanation of the causes of kids' violence.

>PRECISELY our LACK of moral decision making that is the root of the problem

I'm afraid this is a preconception, not what the author actually wrote.

I realize that my pointing this out so bluntly can be upsetting to those believing that the roots of violence are explained by morality or religion, but the evidence shows that modern psychology can explain the roots of violence more accurately and predictably than the usual moral or religious explanations.

BTW, please don't extrapolate what I write here too far. I'm not presenting a treatise on either religion or morality here.

-- No Spam Please (No_Spam_Please@anon_ymous.com), May 01, 1999.