(January 7, 2017 at 10:36 am)mh.brewer Wrote:(January 7, 2017 at 10:26 am)Brian37 Wrote: Another point I'd like to make is that could have been me as a kid and teen. I see myself in what they did, the sheep mentality wanting cheap attention just to fit in. It could have been far worse for me, if I had fallen in with physically violent teens, or violent racists. There is no excuse for what they did. But as I said, I see myself in them. Teen angst and aggression is the same be it property destruction or physical violence. It still amounts to peer pressure, lack of family oversight and looking for belonging. It is the same social instability that leads white racists to join gangs, same lack of self awareness by humans that lead them to shack themselves up with violent religious sects.
All social structures from family to community to entire ideologies can become quite destructive and aggressive when there is no awareness of conditions or understanding of those conditions.
Sounds like excuses to me.
Bullshit
Understanding human behavior from a psychological perspective IS NOT excuse making. Just like if you beat the shit out of a kid as a parent growing up it is very far more likely to become an adult who will do that to their own kids. It is also why we know that both child molestation and sexual assault of adults are both crimes of opportunity and not sexual preference. Those teens did not do it because they were black, they did it for the same reasons I did destructive things.
You subject any human or group of humans to similar conditions our actions on average are going to look similar. Any psychiatrist or psychologist can tell you that toddlers not subject to the sell of tribalism of the parents, if left in a room together with no indoctrination, will form their own social structures.
