Once I had a short experience of teaching in a private school for high-status children, and the environment felt like a training room for sociopaths. The children were reinforced, every day, for years, that no rules apply to them, their actions have no consequences, and everything is someone else’s fault and someone else’s problem. (The only rule was to never cross a path of someone even more powerful than you.) Any kind of problem can be fixed, first by parents, and later I assume by powerful friends; which is why it is critical to know a lot of people in the same social class, and be ready to offer the same kind of help to them.
Approximating on what I saw there, I can well imagine that if they would later rape someone and face a trial, their sincere thoughts would be: “Why are these people making such a big deal out of nothing? Are they insane, or what? I should call my parents/friends to get me rid of this stupidity.” And after the problem would be fixed, their only emotion would be an indignation about how some stupid person had the audacity to bother them over nothing; and their friends would completely agree with them.
(I wish I had a statistics about how many of them, 10 or 20 years later, end in jail, and how many in parliament or similar. I guess, some of them could really end in jail, not because of the justice system per se, because they will overestimate their power and contacts in some specific situation, or unknowingly cross the path of someone more powerful. But maybe this is just a wishful thinking.)
Please come back with your thoughts once they’re ready; this is the most productive and nuanced conversation I’ve managed to have on this topic in quite some time.
Unfortunately I can’t talk about these thoughts, since they’re mostly mapping what he’s describing in people to my personal experience and analysis of that.
If you have public digital record of other productive and nuanced conversation on this topic, I’d love if you’d link.
These are well-chosen words.
Once I had a short experience of teaching in a private school for high-status children, and the environment felt like a training room for sociopaths. The children were reinforced, every day, for years, that no rules apply to them, their actions have no consequences, and everything is someone else’s fault and someone else’s problem. (The only rule was to never cross a path of someone even more powerful than you.) Any kind of problem can be fixed, first by parents, and later I assume by powerful friends; which is why it is critical to know a lot of people in the same social class, and be ready to offer the same kind of help to them.
Approximating on what I saw there, I can well imagine that if they would later rape someone and face a trial, their sincere thoughts would be: “Why are these people making such a big deal out of nothing? Are they insane, or what? I should call my parents/friends to get me rid of this stupidity.” And after the problem would be fixed, their only emotion would be an indignation about how some stupid person had the audacity to bother them over nothing; and their friends would completely agree with them.
(I wish I had a statistics about how many of them, 10 or 20 years later, end in jail, and how many in parliament or similar. I guess, some of them could really end in jail, not because of the justice system per se, because they will overestimate their power and contacts in some specific situation, or unknowingly cross the path of someone more powerful. But maybe this is just a wishful thinking.)
Fascinating.
I will meditate on this more, it relates to many things I’m processing right now and makes a lot of sense.
Please come back with your thoughts once they’re ready; this is the most productive and nuanced conversation I’ve managed to have on this topic in quite some time.
Unfortunately I can’t talk about these thoughts, since they’re mostly mapping what he’s describing in people to my personal experience and analysis of that.
If you have public digital record of other productive and nuanced conversation on this topic, I’d love if you’d link.