I think social scientists are feeble not to foresee and prevent violence on a mass scale. Perhaps they do not have sufficient knowledge in this field. It's rather strange. The act of killing is a primitive act. Incidentally, there is a Russian proverb: It's easier to destroy than to create. Every human life must be carefully nurtured and preserved over time, but it can be destroyed in a moment. We will succeed in solving this problem, if we observe more closely the process of killing. In turn we can identify the objects of this act. Prof. R. Baenninger (Temple University USA, 1991) named these victims as targets . In this way we can name an endless list of victims found in the daily life of ordinary people. They are insects, fish, birds, and animals.
These beings resemble human beings anatomically, physiologically and behaviourally, more or less depending on their evolutionary development. So we are able to perceive man growing either as a killer or as a killer's client. The next step is to explore the transition from killing animals to killing people. Then we need to find out which factors prevent or favour it. Through this process thinking we better understand the genesis of killers and may overcome the barrier of post factum analysis.
The following points of view exist in elaboration of the above: 1.People are involved in the habit of destruction from childhood, usually by their parents.
2.They grow up as killers with a specific ideology and skills. Consequently, under special circumstances, they can inflict this habitual act upon a 'non-habitual' victim -- their fellow men. These circumstances are well explained and classified by criminologists, sociologists and psychologists.
3. Individual ( the maniac) or collective ( bands, militarists) forms of participation are determined according to the situation.
I would like to propose the following schema as a model of typical behaviour in the case of an attack:
a) A person reduces his victim's qualities to one or a few (for example bad, black, dirty, and harmful). Maybe a person reduces his own feelings (hate, anger, passion, sadism, lust, greed, and so on). Perhaps he reduces his mutual relations with the victim (he bothers me, it's profitableÖ) The phenomenon is comparable to viewing the victim through the sight of a gun.
b) Then the person may recall his previous victims (often animals), utter abuse, or imagine a symbol.
c) The person will then try to kill, assist in killing , or order to kill just as he usually does. Alternatively, there is the friend-stranger model, the stranger being either killed or used .
People commit the same actions against one another as they did against animals. For example, cattle farms and slaughterhouses are the prototypes for concentration camps. People poison insects and then they develop and use chemical weapon and so on. We remember the military propaganda slogans: lousy intelligentsia , Russian pigs , fascists beasts , guasanos (= worms on Cuba) etc.
In another way, people may use images of beasts in order to stimulate their spirit of attack. State insignias, emblems of military forces, and the trade marks on various weapons ( Eagle plane or Tiger tank).
There are a lot of other views and themes concerning this set of ideas concerning the transition from killing animals to killing humans. I can speak about the influence of the act of killing animals upon people's souls and characters. And I can explain many aspects of terrorism, totalitarianism, army structure and function, criminality, suicide, fear, depression, and so on.
(sf)Stanislav Mordinsky is an independent researcher of violence and a post-graduate student of the Russian Academy of Science (St. Petersburg). Since ten years he has been working on the subject of war roots, terrorism and crime reasons.
St. Mordinsky would like to come into contact with colleagues in order to get some information about conferences, fellowships, grants and other forms of contact and co-operation.
Further information:
Stanislav Mordynsky,
s. Novaya Slobodka
Korotcha raion
Belgorod region
