Violence
I finished Violence: Our Deadly Epidemic and Its Causes. Where the book shines is in making sense of the psychology behind really atrocious, terrible violence. The author was an advisor for a maximum security prison, and he shows a very clear understanding of really dangerous people.
Like many nonfiction books, this one restates a lot of its premise frequently. The author, James Gilligan, is a braver man than I, because he restates saying things kind of like this:
"One of the reason he keeps committing murders is that it gets him sent to prison, which feeds his need to be taken care of. This need might otherwise make him feel helpless, infantile, like a child, like a pathetic little baby, emasculated, effeminate, like some kind of 'pussy'. The question remains what this mass murder will do next.
"Probably, he will cry like the poor, immature little pussy he is."
Okay, that's in quotes, but I'm paraphrasing. The point is that Gilligan restates things often to get his point across, like specialists often do when they write things for the masses. If it was just me, and my home security system was less impressive than Helm's Deep, I'd risk being a little vague or technical about how feminized or infantalized mass murderers can be in the prison system.
The book goes away from psychology to sociology to suggest solutions to the cycle of violence. Gilligan has an ethical obligation to do this in the book, and he does it. It shows, however, that he's a psychologist and not a sociologist, and the sections that describe how fighting poverty will help violence, while believable to me, aren't nearly as convincing as the chapters on violence. I'd like to see another book that Gilligan co-wrote with someone who has a better idea of the larger picture.
Like many nonfiction books, this one restates a lot of its premise frequently. The author, James Gilligan, is a braver man than I, because he restates saying things kind of like this:
"One of the reason he keeps committing murders is that it gets him sent to prison, which feeds his need to be taken care of. This need might otherwise make him feel helpless, infantile, like a child, like a pathetic little baby, emasculated, effeminate, like some kind of 'pussy'. The question remains what this mass murder will do next.
"Probably, he will cry like the poor, immature little pussy he is."
Okay, that's in quotes, but I'm paraphrasing. The point is that Gilligan restates things often to get his point across, like specialists often do when they write things for the masses. If it was just me, and my home security system was less impressive than Helm's Deep, I'd risk being a little vague or technical about how feminized or infantalized mass murderers can be in the prison system.
The book goes away from psychology to sociology to suggest solutions to the cycle of violence. Gilligan has an ethical obligation to do this in the book, and he does it. It shows, however, that he's a psychologist and not a sociologist, and the sections that describe how fighting poverty will help violence, while believable to me, aren't nearly as convincing as the chapters on violence. I'd like to see another book that Gilligan co-wrote with someone who has a better idea of the larger picture.