Tag: crime

Clever devils: getting good people to act bad

Posted on by kathiemm
“In Self-Defense”. 1876 editorial cartoon by A. B. Frost. Depicts a caricatured former Confederates in the U.S. South with a knife and smoking gun in his hands standing over the corpse of an African-American toddler.
Image is in the public domain.

 

Moral disengagement involves a set of unconscious psychological processes allowing individuals to engage in or support or tolerate inhumane treatment of others while still thinking of themselves as good people.  Common examples include using euphemistic language to make bad things sound less bad (“collateral damage”), pseudo-moral justifications (“the war to end all wars”), displacement or diffusion of responsibility (“I was just following orders”), advantageous comparison (“killing a couple of terrorists is a lot better than letting them kill thousands”), and attribution of blame/dehumanization (“axis of evil threatening the peace of the world”).

Unscrupulous power-hungry political leaders throughout history have often  successfully promoted moral disengagement in those whom they want to dominate for their own purposes.  Unfortunately, in regard to the burgeoning global refugee crisis, expressions of moral disengagement in the home of the “tired and the poor” are rife.

Consider the following comments. What forms of moral disengagement, as listed above, do you see?

  • “When the Syrian refugees are going to start pouring into this country, we don’t know if they’re ISIS, we don’t know if it’s a Trojan horse….it could be the great Trojan horse of all time…”
  • “some people are going to be upset about it, but I think that now everybody is feeling that security is going to rule. And certain things will be done that we never thought would happen in this country in terms of information and learning about the enemy….things that were frankly unthinkable a year ago.”
  • “One of the problems that we have and one of the reasons we’re so ineffective is they [terrorists] are using them (civilians, family members) as shields….It’s a horrible thing, but we’re fighting a very politically correct war.”
  •  “I think waterboarding is peanuts compared to what they do to us….They don’t use waterboarding over there….They use chopping off people’s heads.”
  • “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re sending people that have lots of problems… they’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

Arms for children

Posted on by kathiemm

By guest author Luciana Karine de Souza

What does a society do when its children kill? This question became intensely personal in Brazil with the recent shooting death of a college student in São Paulo. The victim was 19 years old; the shooter was 17.

Graffiti boy with gun
Seattle graffiti by bartleby78. Used under CC Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Child and adolescent psychologists teach us that emotional stability, autonomy, and independence come with time and flourish when children develop secure attachments to the adults who care for them. But what happens when the adults providing children and adolescents with reciprocity, sensibility, monitoring, and so on, do so not for a humane education, but for crime education?

In today’s world, adolescents, and even younger children, are often introduced to guns early and taught how to engage in crime, drug trafficking, robbery, kidnapping, and even planned assassination. These firearms can provide not only money, but also prestige, attention, guidance, safety, and, in a way, some sort of education (how to be brave and strong when shooting, how to be firm and clear when confronting).

When we study and teach the concept of attachment, we focus on the positive roles of reciprocity, sensibility, safety, proximity, and attention in child development. To promote strong and secure attachment, we try to give our children love, embrace them with warmth, and surround them with our dedication. We offer them our arms and a safe haven. We strive to protect them, educate them, listen to them, and learn with them.

These arms, the arms of love, are the arms our children and adolescents need: arms to embrace them, safe and fulfilling arms, arms that protect them from violence, war, and hate. Not arms that kill. Not arms that fill the gap left by weak attachments. Arms that make them want to live and to allow to live. No arms should be stronger.

Luciana Karine de Souza is a full professor at Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil. Her teaching and research involve personality and social development in psychology, education, and leisure.