Bleach Poured Over Woman For Slighting Chav...

[Darth Wong]

Could you define the Thar Mentality for the benefit of those in the audience who have never heard the term before?

It's the attitude that violence must be the correct response to every real or perceived slight or bump in the road of one's life. It's basically a bullshit version of "honor" and "respect", as people with this attitude demand them from everyone all the time, despite doing little or nothing to earn it.

Is it just me or do people who act like this also seem to be the least likely to act respectfully to others?

I'm with Zorg on this one: "Honour's killed millions of people, hasn't saved a single one."

The word "honour" has been the justification for so many atrocities throughout history that it beggars description. Hell, Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great would unhesitatingly wipe out entire peoples based on the "He dissed me" argument. "Honour" is nothing more than a glorified word for "pride".

[Big Orange]

I hear Heather Mills is a 'true sociopath', rather than just a charity worker who turns out to be a greedy bitch.

Does the Pope shit in the woods? Being greedy is an extension of being very selfish and extreme selfishness often alludes to sociopathy. I wouldn't be surprised, considering her hair trigger temper, back stabbing ways, history of domestic violence, and accusations from a judge for being a pathological liar. She may not be a armed robber and multiple murderer like OJ Simpson, but she inflicts a lot of unnecessary social and emotional damage for her own self-aggrandizement.

[RedImperator]

This kind of behavior happens all the time in American ghettoes. There's a culture of "respect", where respect means showing fear and deference for whoever's the most violent, and the smallest slight, no matter how petty, is grounds for violent retaliation (or else one risks losing the respect--fear--of everyone else). The difference is, in this country, our thugs just shoot people. Regardless, usually the victims are other members of the subculture or regular people stuck living in shitty neighborhoods; it only becomes news when an outsider eats a bullet/knife/bleach cocktail. It makes me wonder how many chavs get knifed by other chavs over "disrespect" in British council estates without anybody on the outside giving a shit.

Where are you getting this stuff? How do you know this? Are you just fearmongering? Some stupid kids fucked someone up. Where's this 'ringleader' and 'sociopath' stuff coming from? Stupid young criminals do stupid shit all the time for stupid reasons. Shuold we start talking about all the 'motiveless killings', or just the headlining, gory and titilating ones?

Come on Stark, everyone and his dog is a sociopath wearing an ASBO as a badge of honour these days rather than just being malicious, stupid assholes deserving jailtime, don't you pay attention to armchair psychologists , histrionic fearmongering the tabloids? I hear Heather Mills is a 'true sociopath', rather than just a charity worker who turns out to be a greedy bitch.

And here I thought sociopathy was a rare psychological disorder that may be caused by abnormalities in brain structure, that can only be diagnosed by a qualified specialist, and people without it are and have always been perfectly capable of violence for any number of motives. Turns out, every half-assed thug is actually a sociopath--Professor Internet told me so!

[El Moose Monstero]

I hear Heather Mills is a 'true sociopath', rather than just a charity worker who turns out to be a greedy bitch.

Does the Pope shit in the woods? Being greedy is an extension of being very selfish and extreme selfishness often alludes to sociopathy. I wouldn't be surprised, considering her hair trigger temper, back stabbing ways, history of domestic violence, and accusations from a judge for being a pathological liar. She may not be a armed robber and multiple murderer like OJ Simpson, but she inflicts a lot of unnecessary social and emotional damage for her own self-aggrandizement.

Christ man, this is exactly what I'm talking about. Lets go through these things briefly. I'm going to spoiler it to keep it out of the way of the body of the text, this is not quite tangentially related and I defer to any mod who feels that this is inappropriate of me to take issue with. This may even be a rule violation on my part, as your Heather Mills / sociopath statement was initially in the MJ thread. If it is, I apologise in advance to them and to BO.
Spoiler

Your first link is a BLOG. And at best it says that after a transatlantic flight, she got pissed off at a party when noone was listening. To be honest, I've been on very long haul flights and I've been grumpy when I've got off. You don't need to be a sociopath to get in a strop with people. And a common theme of the four articles is that the actual evidence is limited and the connotations are derived entirely from the reporting.

Your second link you entitle 'backstabbing ways'. It's an 'Entertainment reporter' for a website. She made a promise she didn't keep (or possibly had no intention of keeping). This surely separates her from all the other people who don't follow through on promises and elevates her into the true levels of sociopathy . This btw, is part of my problem, it's an article about her not keeping a promise and you title it 'backstabbing ways'. You sound like a bloody tabloid newspaper!

Your third link is THE SUN. Just to make that point. Now, she might well be a husband beater, he says she cheated, and that she was a compulsive liar. From this reporting, yes, she sounds like a fairly unpleasant person, but this is also tabloid journalism. A little bit of salt is required, and my key point here is that I can find you an unpleasant person who lies and maybe even would beat their partner without them being a "sociopath". Certainly this report of domestic violence is the worst of what you've presented, but at the same time, the Sun is hardly a bastion of fair and balanced reporting.

Your final link is THE MIRROR. And again, I'm not contesting that *as presented* she sounds like someone who is out for whatever she can get. The problem is that with the exception of a single statement about her being (paraphrased) "a kindly charity worker... with a volatile temper...who is her own worst enemy", every single statement which says 'fantasist' or is loaded with negative connotations such as 'blasted', 'greedy' 'damning' 'tore her case apart' comes from the JOURNALIST. All the vitriol in that article is journalistic, not from the actual statement. Even your statement that she was labelled by the judge as a pathological liar is not true (inferred, but not true), and is the work of the journalist. Again, my point is twofold - being a greedy liar is not particularly remarkable, and if everything you've presented is true, then yes, she's a fairly nasty piece of work, but SOCIOPATH? Seriously? Hell, I even think I had a housemate who had most of these character traits. My second point is that a bit of scepticism is sometimes needed, as is some critical reading skills. It's one thing I think SDN encourages rather well.

I think the key point we're trying to make is that tossing around the sociopath label like this makes you sound like a tabloid news journalist, it's sensationalist and unnecessary. You took one single article and went straight to sociopathwiki to try and crowbar the action to fit the diagnosis. You could have said 'this person (the bleach pourer) sounds like a bit of a sociopath' and noone would have batted an eyelid, it's a shocking attack. But you trying to go through the internet profiles of a sociopath to try to backup your statement with armchair psychiatry is what has slightly got the respective goats of Stark, RI and myself.

[mr friendly guy]

And here I thought sociopathy was a rare psychological disorder that may be caused by abnormalities in brain structure, that can only be diagnosed by a qualified specialist, and people without it are and have always been perfectly capable of violence for any number of motives. Turns out, every half-assed thug is actually a sociopath--Professor Internet told me so!

I remember a few years ago there was a thread about the percentage of sociopaths in society. I vaguely remember people commenting it seemed higher than would expect, however given the definition of sociopathy as someone without a conscience, the numbers become more believable.

Here it is. Numbers quoted as 1 in 25. I guess with those numbers it depends on the cut off for what you call rare.

[Big Orange]

- my point is twofold - being a greedy liar is not particularly remarkable, and if everything you've presented is true, then yes, she's a fairly nasty piece of work, but SOCIOPATH? Seriously? Hell, I even think I had a housemate who had most of these character traits.

I don't think Mills is a sociopath in that she's a demented axe murderer, far from it, but she's perhaps on the milder end of the sociopath spectrum with her almost constant dishonesty, excessive self-interest, emotional insensitivity, wanting everything her own way, and a string of broken, parasitic relationships. She's no Hannibal Lecter in the same way I'm no Rainman, despite being autistic myself. I apologise if I cited trashy, tabloid articles, but she's mainly in them since she's a celebrity and has not committed any serious legal crimes; yet she still comes across as bad news to avoid when possible.

The youth criminal who seriously injured that woman with bleach is probably not a sociopath, but his patience, maliciousness, and planning of his retaliation against a bystander because she merely told him off is the none the less rather disquieting and not really the act of ill judged, youthful impulse demonstrated by most other youth crimes (like pushing, punching, or petty vandalism).

[NecronLord]

I want to know why "violence culture" persists. At all. The Thar Mentality hasn't done a thing to help us achieve the standard of living we now enjoy,

Not true. It's helped any number of tribal chieftains and other assholes dominate others and ensure their breeding potential and success. Aggressively putting down rivals and paranoia about dominant control of "your women" is obvious in its potential for self-replication. It doesn't help society at large, no, but it does benefit some.

and yet ironically, the luxuries and surplus revenue at our disposal mean that people can afford to act out and absorb the consequences into their income, or otherwise shrug them off because of the surplus resources that even low-income earners like these chavs have at their disposal compared with, say, a serf in the Middle Ages.

Will they be hanged? No. But I don't think they're going to 'absorb this into their income' if caught. Modern society tolerates things like domestic abuse far less than others - but they're still there, unfortunately.

I want to know why a near police-state doesn't exist that furiously prosecutes acts like this and makes committing them over matters of status absolutely untenable, or at the very least impossible to get away with, because when I step back and consider the fact that a first world standard of living has made a subculture of violence and coercion for status not only possible, but even encouraged in schools, bars and even workplaces, I get seriously pissed off.

Because statistics like how many cameras there are, and who has the legal power to spy, don't actually mean much in this matter. For a start, not all the cameras are overseen by Big Brother esque control systems, and even then, one hoodie looks pretty much the same as another to a camera.

There are severe doubts if all those cameras actually accomplish anything.

[Big Orange]

I want to know why "violence culture" persists. At all. The Thar Mentality hasn't done a thing to help us achieve the standard of living we now enjoy,

Not true. It's helped any number of tribal chieftains and other assholes dominate others and ensure their breeding potential and success. Aggressively putting down rivals and paranoia about dominant control of "your women" is obvious in its potential for self-replication. It doesn't help society at large, no, but it does benefit some.

A psychopathic asshole mindset does work successfully initially and can often be rewarded in the rough and tumble of a hunter gathering society, but it can often catch up on the Alpha males, with old enemies/victims exploiting an opening to get at the said Alpha males or getting outmatched by another tribe that is stronger through stress free co-operation instead of blind aggression. Criminal gangs or conspriacies eventually fall apart through the excessive violence and paranoia of the kingpin making his harried underlings turn against him/her.

Because statistics like how many cameras there are, and who has the legal power to spy, don't actually mean much in this matter. For a start, not all the cameras are overseen by Big Brother esque control systems, and even then, one hoodie looks pretty much the same as another to a camera.

There are severe doubts if all those cameras actually accomplish anything.

I heard prison space is shrinking partially because the law is catching more criminals caught on tape and on anecdotal level my attacker was caught then convicted mainly because his actions were seen on camera.