For the majority of my life I have lived blindly. I think most people often do. We go about our daily life oblivious of what our actions actually mean. Humans are extraordinarily complex creatures and it is bewildering how little most people actually know about themselves, myself included. However, Douglas Kenrick’s Sex, Murder and the Meaning of Life provided insight explaining the depths of my actions. I never reflected much on my actions, nor attributed them to being caused by anything other than my own thoughts; but I was amazed reading Kenrick’s book seeing how much of an enormous role my ancestors have shaped me. Reading this book has allowed me to pry open my eyes and dive deep within the inner workings of myself and understand my true self and how I have evolved.
Summary
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The chapters tie in to the overall assumption that modern human’s positive characteristics such as generosity and love, evolved from our ancestor’s selfishness. As the title implies, Kenrick elaborates on relationships, murder, and the meaning of life. Some relationship interaction research was based off Kenrick’s hypothesis that men’s biased attentional processes might mislead them into overestimating the ratio of attractive to average-looking women in crowds. He also tested to see how men and women’s feelings about themselves changed when they saw either a beautiful woman or a successful man. Kenrick discloses to the reader his tough upbringing in New York. He was constantly in fights, and his father and other close relatives and friends were in prison. His upbringing has led him to have homicidal fantasies, and he hypothesized that everyone has them as well. His research concluded that the majority of his 760 students had contemplated murder at least
The film “Murder by Number” also includes medical issues, including brain damage, as contributing to the violence of many serial killers. Some criminologists and psychiatrists believe that serial killers kill because of issues with their families. These issues include failure to properly bond with
John Kessel’s essay, Creating the Innocent Killer, is a character study of Andrew ‘Ender’ Wiggin, from Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game. The essay provides an interesting look into who Ender actually is underneath all of Card’s world manipulation, and the message that Card was trying to send through Ender’s existence in the story. Essentially, the message that Kessel sees in the novel is that ‘actions should be judged based on intentions, rather than results,’ which is a belief that is generally be untrue. The theory that this message was intentionally being portrayed in Ender’s journey is backed up by large amounts of evidence, both from the book, and from Card himself. This isn’t all too hard to prove.
The Other Side of The River tells a story of two towns: One by the name of St. Joseph and one by the name of Benton Harbor, which are 95 percent white and 92 percent black respectively. Although these two towns are geographically close, they are socially separated by class, race, and virtue. After the death of Eric McGinnis, a black teenage boy from the town of Benton Harbor, tensions grew between the two towns. The story of McGinnis’ death had several versions to it and the one you believed in was indicative of which side of the river you called home.
Some psychological issues may have been visible in Dahmer from a young age of being uncommunicative, withdrawn and a “loner” personality following a hernia surgery that was reportedly traumatizing to him. In an interview, Dahmer stated that he had violent thoughts intermingled with sex, one of having sex with a corpse. This clearly demonstrates some form of a mental illness with his alcohol dependency, necrophilia and possibly antisocial personality
Steven Pinker made so very interesting arguments in The Blank Slate that caused me to question and try to rationalize how I truly came about to become the person that I am today. When I was younger I was always taught to believe that God has some plan for me and that everything that occurred in my life was all apart of some grand master plan that God had laid out for me and not to worry and that everything was going to work out fine as long as I was a good person. I believed that people were definitely born inherently good and that certain factors for whatever reason caused people to lose sight of that and become corrupted and acting poorly. I believed that we all have a soul and are free to make whatever choices we want but we should try to
In Julie Beck’s informative article, “This Article Won 't Change Your Mind,” she explores and challenges the phenomenon that belief and choices are often influenced by a person’s moral characteristics and their environment. Beck first uses a short anecdote explaining how people often chooses to only believe the things that they want to believe. If a subject matter is too uncomfortable to discuss, people often become dismissive and choose not to acknowledge the unbearable truth. Beck then continues to pursue her argument by applying reliable studies in order to strengthen the ethicality of her beliefs. She uses sources such as T Leon Festinger’s study and Stanley Schachter’s book, When Prophecy Fails, in order to imbed undeniable facts into
The demonstration of the narrator's imagination unconsciously leads his own thoughts to grow into a chaotic mess that ultimately ends in a death. By murdering, it’s his own way of finding peace. He is portrayed as being a sadist, sick man with an unnatural obsession for
In this paper I will be applying the psychological theories to serial killer Ed Gein. Ed Gein was a prolific serial killer in the 1950’s. He murdered and robbed graves for body parts to make furniture and clothing. He was apprehended in 1957, where he stood trial and was institutionalized. Edward Theodore “Ed” Gein was born August 27th, 1906 to George and Augusta Gein.
There are many times humans act differently because of someone else. The outlooks of human behaviors depend on the negative or positive influences that surround a person. People act the way they are because of the external forces that affect them. Likewise throughout history, many authors and poets create their work of literatures based on the external forces. Often times, the message that these authors and poets reveals not only has universal themes, but also can connect to people’s life stories.
Last friday, a tragedy happened in the parking lot of Trey Community College in Springfield, Kentucky. What seemed to be an average morning turned into a scene from a horror movie. On this seemingly regular Friday morning, a sophomore student, Isaiah Teller, took out a gun and fired four shots at his fellow students, and then one at himself. Teller’s mother, Emily Teller, says that this may have been avoided, “He never really liked people. Was always anti-social.”
"You see; I truly believe that murderers are mentally ill… their brains don't work like the rest of ours do. To deliberately kill someone requires crossing a profound boundary. Most of us couldn't do it. We couldn't even think about it. But they can.
Introduction I. Look around this school and think about exactly how many students are here daily. How would you feel if I told you that one out of every twenty five people are sociopaths(Pratt 2006).The fact of the matter is that not everyone who is a sociopath is a serial killer but oddly enough it has been proven that all serial killers are sociopaths. II. I have chosen serial killers that I found intriguing and that I thought not many people would know a lot about.
Inside and beyond the myth and the social impact of the subject as One or Substance. Alan H. Goldman’s essay ‘Plain Sex’ is a central contribution to the academic debate about sex within the analytic area, which has been developing since the second half of the ‘90s in Western countries. Goldman’s purpose is encouraging debate on the concept of sex without moral, social and cultural implications or superstitious superstructures. He attempts to define “sexual desire” and “sexual activity” in its simplest terms, by discovering the common factor of all sexual events, i.e. “the desire for physical contact with another person’s body and for the pleasure which such contact produces; sexual activity is activity which tends to fulfill such desire of the agent” (Goldman, A., 1977, p 40).
It is suggested that because of these feelings, it was easier for him to turn to murder and evil thoughts. Jeffery Dahmer’s thoughts of dread and doom are strong indications of
In Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Gabriel Garcia Marquez criticizes the social practice of machismo by using different literary methods like shock. However, his ultimate purpose is to develop his portrayal of machismo in the Colombian society so that the reader is aware of his criticism but also understands the dire, grim, and disastrous influence it can have on people’s lives, not only in the book but also in the real world. Machismo is a social concept and practice in Latin America that stipulates male sexuality and male behavior, especially towards women. According to machismo, males have a strong drive for sex and they may exercise this desire in any way possible.