After a heinous crime of some sort it is common to hear
questions like “How could someone do
this?, What was going on in his/her mind?,
Why does God let evil things like this happen?” I remember watching an interview of Michael
Jordan after his father was murdered in 1993 and a distraught Michael expressed
curiosity in how a human being could murder another human being. Many people do not understand the depths of
violent crimes, intentional maliciousness, and flat out ‘evil’, but as the
saying goes hurt people hurt people.
Psychological sciences have uncovered the connection
between early childhood trauma and the possibility of becoming a dangerous
person later in life. There is the old
triad of sociopathy that indicates a child who engages in behaviors such as
animal cruelty, fire setting, and bed wetting has an increased likelihood of
becoming a dangerous individual to society.
There is a more modern idea that brain damage, mental health illnesses,
and child abuse are three key components that develop sociopathic
characteristics in people. I believe it
can be a combination of all of these and other things as well. No one problem is initiated by one thing; it
is usually a variety of components that create something. This idea is supported by Sir Michael
Llewellyn Rutter, who has extensively researched child development and created
an ‘index’ of factors that may lead to a person becoming a sociopath. The more items within his list that a person
has, the more likely they are to become a sociopath. For example, Wikipedia’s description of
Rutter’s says that:
“…Studies…involving a wide
range of scientific techniques and disciplines, including DNA study and
neuroimaging; links between research and practice; deprivation; influences of
families and schools; genetics; reading disorders; biological and social,
protective and risk factors; interactions of biological and social factors;
stress; longitudinal as well as epidemiologic studies, [affect] childhood and
adult experiences and conditions,” (Wikipedia, 2015) .
As stated before, I do not believe that any one aspect of
trauma or human development is solely responsible for violent desires and acts
but I have noticed one in particular that appears to have a strong impact on
the likelihood of sociopathy. Parental
loss. It has been alleged that Jay-Z
shot is own brother in the shoulder; (“How
could someone do this?”). Jay was on
the Howard Stern show and Howard addressed the situation by inquiring if there
was any connection between the anger Jay-Z had about his father leaving his
family when he was nine years old and him shooting his own brother. Jay acquiesced and stated that there was
definitely a connection. 50 cent is
partly well-known for displaying excessive and extremely violent and aggressive
behavior earlier in his life. His mother
was murdered when he was a young boy. 50
has been criticized for his violent beliefs (which is understandable). However, one should objectively ask
themselves, if someone killed your mother
– a mother you loved dearly, and you did not necessarily know who did it,
wouldn’t you be a little mad at the world?
Would everyone you encountered not be a potential suspect whom you
fantasize about killing in your mothers honor? Rapper Kevin Gates spoke in an interview about
his sisters promiscuous ways and he said during a personal conversation that he
had with her, she opened up to him about the connection between her promiscuity
and her search for a relationship with the father she desired. In the show DEXTER, the main character Dexter
Morgan is a sociopath. His nickname at
work is “Socio”. He presents himself as
an ordinary person but during the night he travels around Miami as a vigilante
killing other serial killers. When he
was three years old he and his biological brother, Brian Moser, witnessed their
birth mother murdered and chopped up into pieces. Brian would also become a serial killer.
I could go on and one with stories like this that I have
read about and seen in my own personal life among people I have grown up
with. The connection between the violent
acts between 50 Cent, Jay-Z and Dexter (all of who I believe display
sociopathic tendencies) is that they all experienced parental loss. They
are all highly intelligent as well.
Not only am I making the point that there is a connection between
parental loss and violent crimes but there is an increased likelihood of
sociopathy when the child experiencing the parental loss is intellectually
gifted.
#ExpandYourPerspectVe
Note to the reader:
Remember that all sociopaths are not murderers. Less than six percent of the world’s general
population is considered to be sociopaths and all of them do not act out with
physical violence. Many of them engage
in other manipulative and conniving ways.
They may not kill you but they may do things like steal your money,
damage your property, create lies about you in the workplace, etc. To be quite honest, we all have a sociopathic
side whether you have lost a parent or not.
References
(2015).
Retrieved from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Rutter#cite_note-CJP-9
© February 19, 2016
PerspectVe LLC
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