Muse
Lifer
- Jul 11, 2001
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Contemplating criminals is interesting. I try not to overdo it because they are often very cunning and and study of them could have detrimental effects... I don't want their cunning to rub off on me, that's the thing. Other than that, it's interesting to contemplate what they might be about. Dostoevsky did that, I'm sure. We see people in the news who commit crimes and it's hard not to wonder what motivates them, what they could possibly have been thinking. What gets me is how the news and authorities keep talking about "motive." They imagine that the perp has a reason for their actions. They don't get that a great many of these perps don't think in those terms, they don't have a motive per se, they don't have an ordered and logical life, at least not that pertains to the particular criminal act that brought attention to them. They sometimes dream up some action because it excites them. The aftermath is often something completely different, of course. So many times they are a cautionary tale. In that, thinking about them is instructive. Of course, one wants to stop thinking about them because life can and should be so much better...My viewpoint on criminals are idiosyncratic. Criminals are not appreciated for their legal or psychological intelligence or the willingness to play the stage with "testimony". Thus, criminals can make "excellent" businessmen or lawyers because they're already well-practiced in many things.
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