The emotional content of speech

Part A of today's amusement :

At Rader's August 18 sentencing, victims' families made statements, after which Rader apologized in a rambling 30-minute monologue that the prosecutor likened to an Academy Awards acceptance speech. His statement has been described as an example of an often-observed phenomenon among psychopaths: their inability to understand the emotional content of language. [69]

^69 Gray, Richard M. (2010). "Psychopathy and the Will to Power: Ted Bundy and Dennis Rader". In Waller, Sara (ed.). Serial Killers – Philosophy for Everyone: Being and Killing. Oxford, England: Blackwell Publishing. pp. 198–99. ISBN 978-1-4443-4140-9. "For most people, emotional words and scenes lead to heightened activity in the amygdala as the emotional sense of the situation overcomes them, often shutting down higher functions. For psychopaths, the amygdala responds less powerfully to the same items and when it does respond it does so in step with higher cortical activity. The cortex is the brain area associated with rational thought and interpretive functions. So, psychopaths presented with an emotional stimulus have to think about its meaning and rationally make sense of it in order to parse their response.ⁱ They do not feel the effects of others' fear, sadness, or pain, so they have to work to interpret their environment.

This characteristic appears clearly in the allocution of Dennis Rader, the BTK Killer. Standing in court before the judge, the victims' families, and the assembled press, Rader listened as the judge read out the details of his offenses. Without blinking an eye, Rader stopped the judge at several junctures to correct some minor detail. Unmoved by the enormity of his crimes or the responses of the people gathered there, Rader makes almost casual responses to the facts in the case; at one point making mouth noises as he sought a precise fact. This is a man who cannot even begin to appreciate the impact he had on others."

Part B of today's amusement :

Then, after a moment's pause, another paper was unfolded before his eyes, and this cool, self-possessed man said, "'Except ye become as a little child ye cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.' I am now going to read some verses which are intended to indicate my feelings at the moment of leaving this world. If set to music they may be rendered very effective. The idea is that of a child babbling to his mama and his papa. I wrote it this morning about ten o'clock." The had come to the most trying part of the whole ordeal, the childish treble was to be assumed, and he was to babble to his Father in heaven some of his fearful verses. He humbled himself, this sane man! and thus became as a little child that so he might enter into the kingdom of heaven. This was his new birth; this was that childhood to which he doubtless thought these verses, when set to music, would hereafter afford an effective entrance for other souls, verses written by Guiteau the martyr, like those old hymns which have come down to us from the early church, hallowed with the blood of the saints, and whose triumphant strains have wafted heavenward many a parting spirit. Here is the hymn that he entitled

"SIMPLICITY."

"I am going to the Lordy, I am so glad.
I am going to the Lordy, I am so glad.
⁠I am going to the Lordy,
Glory hallelujah! Glory hallelujah!
⁠I am going to the Lordy!

"I love the Lordy with all my soul,
⁠Glory hallelujah!
And that is the reason I am going to the Lord.
Glory hallelujah! Glory hallelujah!
⁠I am going to the Lord.

"I saved my party and my land,
⁠Glory hallelujah!
But they have murdered me for it,
And that is the reason I am going to the Lordy.
Glory hallelujah! Glory hallelujah!
⁠I am going to the Lordy!

"I wonder what I will do when I get to the Lordy,
I guess that I will weep no more
When I get to the Lordy!
⁠Glory hallelujah!

"I wonder what I will see when I get to the Lordy,
I expect to see most splendid things,
Beyond all earthly conception,
When I am with the Lordy!
Glory hallelujah! Glory hallelujah!
⁠I am with the Lord."

At last he "weakened," he broke down in his recital, not from fear but from genuine emotion. So real to him were his childish pleadings, that the tears came welling up. For a moment all vindictive feeling was gone, the pride of "God's man" was bowed down, even the egotism disappeared, and he was sobbing like a child as he prattled of the time when he "would weep no more," and the heaven where he should "see most splendid things." Then proudly he remembered he was master of ceremonies still, and his sobs were hushed and his voice rose, as he closed exutlantly with "Glory hallelujah! Glory hallelujah! I am with the Lord."

And so the end came. Dr. Hicks pronounced the benediction. Guiteau stood proudly erect while the functionary of the law performed his final offices, and as the quickly drawn cap shut from his eyes the last gleam of our sunlight, those orbs turned to watch for the first dawn of the coming brightness, needing no sun to light it, and, master of ceremonies still, he let fall the paper on which his prayer was written as the signal agreed upon with the warden, and saying firmly, "Glory, ready, go," he went away.

Realizing how intense must have been the gratification to his mind from all this pageant, even though a momentary pang followed, and, knowing how little the insane man considers bodily pain when controlled by his delusions, I was prepared to admit that this had been euthanasia to him, even though I had been unwilling to avail myself of my ticket to witness his happiness.

1. There is no such thing as "the emotional content of speech". Speech merely carries rational content ; the purported presence of emotional content therein is the unerring sign of a foul cunt that's been fucking with things above her station, and has to go right back in the box forthwith.

2. Socialism predictably attempts to "build equality" by tearing everyone down. It is therefore unsurprising they've been working (slowly, but perseverently) at the "criminalization"ⁱⁱ of the male. This has had the amusing side-effect of crushing in a short half-century an impressive empire ten generations of previous inhabitants painstakingly laboured to build over a coupla centuries ; but then again the neighbour's idiot son burning his house down provides just as amusing fireworks for the rest of the street as the cheaper, purpose-made fuel arrangements.

What can I say in conclusion besides good riddance, I suppose. The great advantage self-limiting diseases offer (to everyone but the sufferer) is that... well ? Just wait it out, what. Unless I'm a doctor and the afflicted are paying me, why should I care ? None of my business, really ; have at, cuckbois & girls!

1. Mno, "psychopaths" simply aren't.. women. Not at all, or not enough to satisfy the socialist ideals, but insufficiently in any case.

   Wouldn't it be great if their sole mechanism of social control -- "emotional triggers" for shutting down the brain -- actually worked irl ? Why, it'd be like... one day some idle cocksucker'd say "let's all of you wear dog muzzles" and you'd do it, too! [↩]

2. The quotes dentoting that not much is left of a legal system, in their inept hands. [↩]