Redemption?
Juanita has done a great job covering this as she obviously has an inside track. So, I will not add any details here. It just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Besides, I usually get long-winded here. So, I will offer two rhetorical questions that the beloved community here can chew on if they like. Some of these have obvious academic answers, so this is more on a philosophical level.
- How is it that people like Alex Jones exist?
Yes, I took Abnormal Psychology and Psychopathology. I know the literal textbook definition of this. This is usually where “well actually” guy comes busting out the DSM-V with the textbook definitions of psychopathy and sociopathy. Yup, we all know that. What we also know is that those conditions really aren’t curable. That makes the second question easier to answer in his case.
However, on a personal or philosophical level it is quite disturbing. He made up to 800,000 a day knowing full well that he was not only lying but also really hurting those people. That takes a special kind of cruelty. I’m not a psychologist and I can’t practice counseling outside of a school setting, but it produces a vexing question. How much do people like Jones really know? He knows that his lies were in fact lies. He knew he was making money off it. He willfully spurred his minions on those poor families. I can’t tell you how the psychopathic brain works exactly. I don’t know how much they are really cognizant of and how much they are able to compartmentalize away from whatever humanity they actually have.
2. How do we decide exactly who gets redemption and who doesn’t
I know two things. First, I know that sociopaths and psychopaths cannot really be redeemed and it is dangerous to try. Alex Jones doesn’t deserve to be redeemed. Donald Trump doesn’t deserve to be redeemed. Tucker Carlson doesn’t deserve to be redeemed. These are people that know exactly what they are doing and are aware on some level of the damage they are doing. As I said above, I don’t know exactly how much they know, but at least a large part of them knows.
The second thing I know is that some people can be redeemed because they already have to a greater or lesser extent. People have turned on these folks after the fact. Usually, they need a little legal pressure to do so, but they have done it. So, how do we draw the line between the redeemable and the unredeemable? If they can be redeemed then what does that redemption look like?
The best analogy I know comes from my own religious education. Forgive me for those not religious. Yet, that word is the very word we are concerned with. In order to get absolution, we first have to admit what we have done wrong. Then. we get some sort of penance depending on the offense. I think a number of people skip one or both of those. Some people admit they are wrong, but expect immediately to be welcomed in without atoning for their sins. Others pull the “why don’t we all just get along” without actually admitting they’re wrong. Both of those need to be present for it to work. Yet, none of that answers the question above. We can’t redeem everyone and yet we also can’t write everyone off either. So, what gives?
There are several things going on with Jones.
First above all, he is a low-functioning addict. He is not addicted to any physical substance, but to ideology. This is why he does not understand what is going on around him and is not able to react appropriately to any of it.
Secondly, he is performing (and improvising) because he cannot imagine anyone doing anything else. This is not something that he can be shocked out of; any potential shock could only be perceived as someone else’s improvisation, to be reacted to on that level.
In light of these things, the concept of “redemption” is not applicable, and the best possible outcome is not any sort of “punishment” for Jones, but getting him off the air.
1I guess that would be an FCC thing. No one has a right to a platform. However, if you have the means to do it yourself then I would guess some other legal machinations would need to take place. I guess you could maybe do a pod from prison? I’m not a first amendment attorney so I don’t the ins and outs of that.
2I don’t know about redemption for the likes of Alex Jones, but there’s a common thread that runs through many on the right. Lying sells. Lying gets votes. Lying can get you elected president. I can only hope the lying finally takes him down and off the air. Same with trumpf and politicians living off the big lie. No redemption.
3I’m an accountant not a psychiatrist, so I will say from my experience greed is a very powerful drug – the more you get the more you want until you have someone like me, or the FBI, police etc. putting a stop to it. I would suggest a book, The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson, if you want to know a succinct description of one as well as their victims – most enlightening!
4Grandma Ada.
Greed is a powerful drug.
So is adulation.
And when you are not held accountable for your actions or words, people like Trump, Jones and Limbaugh are born
5Diane #5 – your right, but it takes some money to get adulation. In the book I referenced, he said 95% of sociopaths are behind bars and the other 5% lead large corporations. Scary!
6Whatever it takes for those three (and others like them) to be redeemed, I don’t know, but I’d sure as hell hate to be whatever they will be reincarnated as in their next lives. Karma balances the books sooner or later.
7Picture on AOL ……. looks like a hot poker being shoved up where the don’t shine……first time I have been able to look at him and smiled…….
8People like Jones, Anthony Wiener, the Cuomos, ad nauseum, are all welcome to whet ever personal redemption they can find. But why the fuck do people keep paying them obscene amounts of money and giving them massive platforms to pontificate from when they have screwed up so badly and betrayed so much trust. Let them work at a car wash or stock lumber at Menards. Let them go on and rebuild their lives but stop with the societal rewards and outsized megaphone for their opinions. There are lots of smart, thoughtful people who are NOT scumbags. Let’s hear from them on the op-ed pages of the NYT and prime time cable.
9May I recommend two books by Martha Stout – “The Sociopath Next Door” and “Outsmarting the Sociopath Next Door: How to Protect Yourself Against a Ruthless Manipulator.”
If you think,”It can’t happen to me” … well I’m here to tell you that it can. You can’t always control who might come into your life, and if they do, you can’t always avoid them. Until a month ago, I literally had the misfortune of one who moved in next to me in our condominium building eight years ago, where we literally had to walk past his front door on the way in and out.
Hostile encounters that he would provoke became so bad that I felt in necessary to take phone videos anytime outside our front door. On occasion when the police were called, my videos were essential in refuting his wild and crazy claims and lies.
His pattern of rage, incessant lying and abuse eventually turned most of our neighbors against him, so this year he and his partner sold their property and left. Has his behavior changed? In a few months from now, his new neighbors in a town 85 miles away will get to know him, and the results are predictable.
Please prepare yourself. In life, sociopaths happen just like car accidents happen. Don’t rely on luck alone that you won’t encounter one.
10Some people are addicted to the idea that they’re influential and that they deserve to be. Some people are ruthless in their pursuits. Combine that with sociopathic extremes, and you get the likes of Alex Jones. They just want to be heard and to have followers who dote on their every word, and they do not give the faintest part of a damn who suffers because of it.
11Nick Carraway writes at #2:
I guess that would be an FCC thing. No one has a right to a platform.
The FCC does not control Internet service. The FCC has no authority to remove Alex Jones from the Internet.
The Supreme Court ruled some time ago that speech cannot be prosecuted unless it leads to “imminent lawless action.” As such, people such as Bill O’Reilly, who spun up hate night after night against Dr. George Tiller, did not drive imminent lawless action, but the outcome was entirely predictable, stylised as “stochastic terrorism”: The idea that if you demonise some opponent or idea starkly enough, while any one person will not act on those ideas, the chance becomes statistical unity that someone will.
Hate mongers are well-aware that their speech will shake someone loose to do the heinous acts they themselves would never do, whether it’s Christian hate monger preachers telling parents their atheist children are literally demon-possessed (so a certain number of families disown and throw out their children from the home every year, with the Fifth Columnist churches which claim to be “liberal” not calling out the hate mongers for who they are), to the years now of the GOP demonising liberals as “un-American” or trying to destroy the country.
The hate monger knows that amongst thousands or millions of listeners, a certain number will act. The overwhelming majority of conservative supporters of Donald Trump did not attend the January 6 storming of the Capitol, but Trump’s team knew they had members unhinged enough they would attend. Just like so-called liberal churches acting as Fifth Columnists for the hate churches, so-called moderate Republicans are the Fifth Columnists for their core base of hatred.
12IMHO this is a continuation of one of the same conversations we’ve had here for years.
People listen to and support sociopaths/psychopaths/pick your term, because, wait for it,
there’s been a well planned, well funded, and we’ll executed movement to make it fundamentally on some kinda subterranean gut level , a moral requirement to be repulsed by anything “liberal”
Required if you’re gonna be a patriotic, baby Jesus loving Christian American.
Sorry for the redundancy, can’t be murkin unless yer cristhin.
So once you got that, the rest is easy-peasy.
Cause don’t try talking shit to me about Jesus taking away the guns his daddy promised in one of them old testaments.
13Second amendments, Second Thessalonians,
same thing.
James @12, I just used the term “stochastic terrorism” here a few hours ago on JJ’s AJ thread too.
It’s exactly what the Alex Jones, Scammitys, O’Reillys, Limpballs [RIH], Trumps, Abbotts, etc ad infinitum, do 24/7 in our perverted modern media.
I actually know the guy who first popularized the term back in 2011 [the concept predates then], he’s a prolific and very intelligent commenter on the Daily Kos blog with the ID of G2Geek.
Here’s the Wikipedia link :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lone_wolf_attack#Stochastic_terrorism
“…A variation of this stochastic terrorism model was later adapted by an anonymous blogger posting on Daily Kos in 2011 to describe public speech that can be expected to incite terrorism without a direct organizational link between the inciter and the perpetrator.[35][36] The term “stochastic” is used in this instance to describe the random, probabilistic nature of its effect; whether or not an attack actually takes place.[37] The stochastic terrorist in this context does not direct the actions of any particular individual or members of a group. Rather, the stochastic terrorist gives voice to a specific ideology via mass media with the aim of optimizing its dissemination.[37]…”
14A good read on psychopaths that I would recommend is Without Conscience, by Robert Hare. It’s the one I suggest to my clients who are dealing with such a person in their lives.
There is no redemption for psychopaths (the term is interchangeable with ‘sociopaths’). They know what is culturally considered Right/Wrong, they just don’t care because the rules don’t apply to them – they’re special and the rest of us are chumps for falling for their BS. And it appears to be hard-wired, not the result of being raised by cruel parents.
There is no therapy for psychopaths – ‘therapy’ just makes them better at parroting the words that garner forgiveness. It appears that the only way to short-circuit psychopathic behavior is to show the psychopath that what they’re doing is not in their own best interests…..i.e. $4.1M in compensatory damages and (please Lord) even more in punitive damages. That will end the behavior.
15Sandridge @14,
Here’s the link to the actual original article/diary by G2geek [ref above], outlining the concept of “stochastic terrorism”; one of the first expositions of this concept.
A very long, well written piece that is well worth reading; read the comments too, although there are almost 800 of them ;].
I won’t even try to quote anything here…
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2011/1/10/934890/-Stochastic-Terrorism:-Triggering-the-shooters
16NBC News says child pornography was found in the data Jones’s lawyers “accidentally” sent to the plaintiffs. The FBI is now involved. It’s about to get real.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/child-porn-found-documents-alex-jones-sent-sandy-hook-family-n1018541
17Grandmother and teacher here. I try to teach kids that I order to be forgiven, or redeemed as it were, you have to do 3 things: 1. Admit you were wrong / you did or said a bad thing. 2. Repair the damage (in as much as it is possible). 3. Apologize to the people/critters you have harmed. After that, it’s up to the victims to decide if it’s enough.
Given that Jones is incapable of self reflection, ownership of his egregious actions is improbable, given his greed and desire to be idolized it’s impossible.
What we can and should do under the circumstances is to be exceedingly grateful that the Bankston’s were willing to hold his feet to the fire. We can also shun him, which is still better than he deserves.
18First of all, thanks for all of the reading suggestions. As I said in the post, I’ve taken Abnormal Psych and Psychopathology. Those make me knowledgeable enough to be dangerous. The interesting question from a clinical perspective is whether it’s primarily environmental or biological.
The more immediate question is how to deal with these people. Jail just doesn’t seem enough. Punitive damages are good but not enough. Keeping him off the air would also be satisfying but not completely so. It can be paralyzing but we have to get the ball rolling somehow. As unsatisfying as it may seem.
19Apologies in advance for redundancy.
I started my last comment with an idea and ended up with something different.
alex Jones IMHO is definitely a psychopath.
But what baffled me for so long about why people were drawn to him is much clearer to me now.
Substitute psychopathy for cruelty in “The cruelty is the point” and it’s clear why magas are drawn to him and trump.
Because IMHO it’s the psychopathy/cruelty of the victors that they’ve harnessed. With repugnant efficiency.
Full disclosure, I’ve never served in the military and this is the opinion of someone who hasn’t.
Historically when people are at war, their enemies are demonized in horrific ways to ensure the hatred of “our” tribe.
The justification of the psychopathy/cruelty we inflict on our enemies.
Fuckers deserved it.
And anybody willing to do the icky stuff on our behalf is a hero for sacrificing themselves by wallowing in the muck.
For us.
The cruelty of the victors is the well earned psychopathy of the righteous victors over the defeated.
Or almost defeated.
Or soon to be defeated
Or somebody who’s different than me.
Or somebody that pissed me off.
But here’s the kicker.
And IMHO it’s the reason these fascist fucking douchebags have been so successful.
The only requirement to enter the tribe is the willingness to accept whoever the tribe says are enemies.
20Boom.
5 or 47 of your former friends just outed themselves by standing by everything they ever said, as being enemies.
And you never knew!
Sneaky sonsabithes.
alex jones is a millionaire BECAUSE he’s a psychopath.
21And that’s the world we live in.
He is unredeemable because a ridiculous number of people are sending him ridiculous amounts of money to do what he is doing. If he is truly a psychopath he is always going to act in his own self interest, and his cult make is in his self interest to behave like an abhorrent ghoul.
I heard an interview with a self professed psychopath a while back. She was a lawyer, (surprise) she said her lack of emotion made her a very good lawyer because she could look at a client’s case dispassionately.
She was asked, since she didn’t care about anything other than her self interest, why she wouldn’t cheat or steal or hurt people in some fashion.
She said it was in her self interest not to, since cheating in court could result in disbarment, crimes could result in incarceration, and acting hurtfully to people might burn bridges.
The guardrails of society kept her most selfish impulses in check and she seemed a valuable member of society because of it.
Alex Jones’ followers have effectively removed the guardrails of society for him, ensuring that he not only doesn’t suffer for bad behaviour, he is rewarded for it. Until that dynamic changes there is no redeeming him because redemption is not as financially rewarding as being a completely trash human so it is not in his self interest. The better question is whether the cult members who support him can be redeemed.
22I think today’s repugs/conservatives really equate bullying & cruelty with the virtues of strength and courage. Cheating is “smart”, lying is clever. Making money from all these things is admirable.
Is it genetic predetermination, or upbringing & society’s influence? So far as today’s Media can be considered “society”, I’d say its a case of Society applauding and rewarding the base, amoral-to-destructive instincts and impulses of people with weak egos ( no inner sense of right vs. wrong) who are eager to be reassured that their malign thoughts urges are actually demonstrations of strength and brilliance.
A good (partial) description of Trump himself.
23