American society is the most violent of any nation in the industrialized world. Nothing we do, from administrating the world’s largest prison system to militarizing our police, seems to help. Dr. James Gilligan argues that childhood abuse, and the shame it engenders, is the engine that fuels America’s deadliest epidemic. This abuse and shame, he argues, fosters a dangerous numbness that breeds a deep self-loathing and inchoate rage. It is only by understanding the causes of our national epidemic, and addressing those causes, that we will have any hope of stemming the nihilistic violence that grips American society. Dr. Gilligan grounds his writing not only in case studies of the violent patients he works with, but Greek myths and Shakespeare.
Dr. James Gilligan is a professor of Clinical Psychiatry at New York University. Formerly, he served as the director of the Center for the Study of Violence at Harvard Medical School and the director of the Bridgewater State Hospital for the criminally insane in Massachusetts. He is the author of Violence: Our Deadly Epidemic and Its Causes, and Holding a Mirror up to Nature: Shame, Guilt, and Violence in Shakespeare, which he co-authored with David A.J. Richards.
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Leave it to a shrink to make the claim only humans have a soul. Cant even prove there is such a thing but he wants everyone to believe only we can have one! Talk about ignorant!
Ryann Flynn
🏧🪠📱😘🔌🦸🙏👑😌🙊📟🪤🎱🕷️📀💰💰💰💰💰💰💰🎧🥅📢👃🕶️🧤🫁🌐☎️🎩🔋💎🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🛵🛵🛵🛵🛵🛵🦻🦻🙉🎬📹🎓🪖
"This world and the other world"???
What other world? We only have one world.
Soul??? What evidence do you have of this? There is no "soul". THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE OF A SOUL. If there is a soul, then why would you think that animals do not have one. This is ridiculous!
You might talk about "psyche" as manifestation of a person's particular consciousness and perspective, but SOUL?
We have glorified war and violence in our society ever since the nation was born and increasingly so since the turn of the last century (1900s-2000s). Our heroes are warriors. The essence of manhood is to be a hero. Therefore in the USA to be a hero you must be a warrior.
What do warriors do?
They kill the enemy effectively.
Who is the enemy?
It is whichever scapegoat your perpetrator has selected to punish. Their enemy will be among the victims.
Our society treats people like dirt. We have a ruling elite, who do not give a rat's ass about anyone else.
With the assistance of our elites we have created a turbo-capitalist, work-harder, pseudo-meritocracy, where only work counts. The only thing better than work is to be a hero. Just being in the military is not enough anymore, you must have seen combat or you are taught to hold your manhood cheap. If you want to look at Freud, weapons have become our phalluses.
Decent people, who grew up in very good conditions are among your mass murderers.
Until we make it cooler and more important to grow a garden than to kill, to make something rather than be able to destroy, to protect our environment rather than to exploit it and to help people rather than to buy a fifth Porsche, we will have this mentality in our society.
The elite Oligarchs in the USA want to keep the lower class dumb and hold their feet to the fire so that they have a Favela that they can use as slaves and to scare the shit out of the Middle-class.
A guy like Elon Musk could solve the US housing crisis by using the interest off of one of his business deals. Jeff Bazos, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Steve Balmer, Michael Bloomberg, Jim Walton, Alice Walton, Rob Walton, Michael Dell, Phil Knight, Warren Buffet, Tim Cook, Charles Koch, Julia Koch, Len Blavanik, Stephen A. Schwarzman, John Franklyn Mars, Jacquiline Mars, Leonard Lauder, Miriam Adelson, Dan Gilbert, etc. They could all stop a ton of suffering in the USA, if they wanted to. Maybe if it was cool to do that they would. Maybe if you had to give everything back to the people, after you made your first 5 million, 10 million, 15 million, 20 million, 25 million, 30 million, 50 million things could be better?
It is not just the USA either. Look at China or Russia. Their billionaires are equally morally bereft.
You talk of Shakespeare's plays when most of your lower class cannot even read a newspaper!
The feeling of Deadness is caused by our focus on money and materialism, which is driven by not having the bases covered on basic human rights: Medical Insurance, Education, Transportation, Housing, Food, Clothing, Retirement. THESE ARE THE THINGS THAT YOU ARE MISSING. THIS IS WHY PEOPLE ARE SO DESPERATE. DESPERATE PEOPLE DO DESPERATE THINGS!
When even well-educated people realize that they will never be able to achieve and they will never be heroes, they find a scapegoat to blame, dehumanize them and try to be warrior-heroes, by killing the enemy efficiently. The Oligarchs are unreachable, so their wrath falls on the society that has forsaken them.
You are right in saying that punishment will not deter violence or crime.
The US needs an attitude adjustment.
Most traumatized people will turn to drugs and alcohol to escape their suffering, but a few will become mass murders. We know all of this. No one gives a shit. That is why this culture persists in the USA.
How many times does the god of the bible use violence as a means to an end Chris?! Seriously, how many times?! "Immoral means cannot bring about moral ends." – MLK Jr
Violence solves nothing.
This s some BS. Humans r evil. Animals r nice. I hate christianity.
Making excuses for killers doesn't fly. Put a needle in him.
Maybe that's why Christ turned the other cheek.
Compassionate People like Chris Hedges are a gift to Humanity. God Bless them.🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏
Ohhhh man. This was just too short. Two more hours, at least!!
Incredible interview 🙏
So somehow, because Christ was killed by the Romans on the Cross, that's somehow his follower's fault. Got it.
Go AI the digital way too
Rejected by family at the age of seven placed in state run institutions were they continued the abuse first suffered at the hands of my dad, at t13 chose the streets as a safer place to live locked up at 15-16 lost control of my rage almost killed my cell mate was given a liquid cosh and thrown in a strip cell, what stopped me from becoming a homicidal maniac a simple old rasta in jail who took it upon himself to teach me how to read and write my own name using his bible.
Crucifixion was adopted by the Romans from the Assyrians of Sumer and Akkad Alexander the great brought it to Europe after his conquest of the Levant.
America is the most violent, dangerous country. In fact, every year, the US is listed as the greatest threat to world peace. Of course, sycophantic nationalists will demonize anyone who dares state the truth. America has spent billions of dollars trying to create the false narrative that it's the "moral" warrior for democracy. What a crock o' crap. America is an imperialist menace that threatens the world whenever the US sees fit. Praise! Glory!
This conversation affected me more than I expected.
F… the scourge of the earth,gone with them!
Lloyd Demause always knew this and also believed all wars have their origins in child abuse. I happen to agree, especially when I hear ordinary men with more power than they deserve, like policemen and politicians. Well brought up people don't strive for power, they express power in all kinds of nonviolent ways
I think a lot of the violence is based on the Christian religion. Remember Passover? We celebrate Passover? The infanticide of the firstborn innocent Egyptian children. We are taught it is okay to be a psycho sadist god and send angels of slaughter to kill children.
Remember the flood? We are taught to worship a genocidal god that drowns children, mothers, and fathers in a huge flood. We are taught that being is good.
Of all the ways this maniac could save our sorry asses from sin, he chooses child abuse. He chooses to have his son sadistically crucified as if this is a good thing.
How about hell? Those "dead" souls Dr. Gillian tried to bring to life are going to be sadistically burned and napalmed by the sadistic Christian god in hell for all eternity if they don't get "saved". We teach children that this sadist monster is a good being worthy to be worshipped and that his genocidal behavior and violence are all okay.