Reply #50: Will, what roles did your dad and grandad play, and at what level?

[Mairead]

Because Rich isn't saying anything that a thousand credentialed, respected psychologists haven't also said: what you do shapes who you are. What you take into your hand, you take into your heart. You necessarily take it into your heart because not even an all-stops-out psychopath ever truly thinks of himself as a bad person. He rationalises. He projects his pathology onto others. 'Everyone would be like me if only they had the courage'. 'They asked for it'. 'They made me do it'. That's psychopath reasoning. 'Gooks', 'slants', 'they're all fscking VCs'. That's military reasoning. There's not any really fundamental difference. You can't coldbloodedly kill someone you haven't dehumanised first.

Your dad and grandad are probably wonderful, decent people -- to their kids and grandkids and people like their kids and grandkids. They might be wonderful, decent people more widely, too--if they never saw combat. If they did see combat, if they killed aggressively, then you better believe they did their share of demonising and dehumanising. They wouldn't be here, otherwise.

So ease up on Rich, huh?