Why Do People Inflict Pain

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https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2018/02/the-50-best-movies-about-serial-killers.html?a=1
In the book The Deepest Sense there is a section that is devoted to the uses of pain. when reading this part and thinking about what I was reading, I could help but think about serial killers and why they do what they do. Do they get joy from inflicting pain? Is it a way for coping with their pain, or is it a way to control their pain. It also could be that these people are just psychopaths that have no remorse for other human beings. Maybe committing these crimes is the only way they get to experience their senses because they have isolated themselves from the world. It has crossed my mind that maybe serial killers such as Ted Bundy or Joseph DeAngelo have some sort of distortion of their senses. By this I mean maybe they are lacking attention to one of their senses and compensate by committing heinous crimes. Is there a way in which we can help people in our lives feel like they can perceive the world in a healthy way so that they do not commit horrible crimes? The answer is I don't know, but it would be interesting to find out what these serial killers feel about the senses and how they thought the senses correlate to their crimes.

Comments

  1. Jonathan Brumberg-KrausMay 11, 2018 at 7:37 AM

    Psychologists have pointed out the phenomena of what they call "other-directed emotions," like admiration and empathy. I bet experiencing pleasure in other people's pain is probably something like that, at least neurologically. And about perceiving things in a healthy way? What if pleasure in vs. compassion for others' pain is as hard-wired as another seeing red where you see orange?

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