From what I've read and heard, most people who have committed atrocities

[raccoon]

Last edited Mon Apr 24, 2017, 01:21 PM - Edit history (1)

don't repent of the terrible things they did. Maybe it's hard-wired into them to protect their self-image?

I'm thinking here of unrepentant Nazis or those who mass murdered many innocent people (in a mass shooting, such as when the Germans invaded Russia). Another example, "the Bird" in the Japanese POW camp who tortured Louie Zamperini (and many others). When he was interviewed in later years, he was unrepentant.

From what I've read and seen in documentaries on the subject, the repentant perp seems to be the rare exception.

[frazzled]

1. Jeez, I repent when I forget to thank the salesperson

or when I forget someone's birthday, or feel silently angry at the waiter when they forget to bring the water I asked for, even though I sheepishly never said anything ("Oh, they were probably overworked or preoccupied," I chastise myself later). I'm often filled with guilt over minor, stupid, even imagined transgressions. To a fault.

I can't imagine committing some terrible crime, but if I somehow did, I don't think I could live with myself. But then, I guess people who commit terrible crimes don't have that great big Jimminy Cricket sitting on their shoulder in the first place: it's what allows them to commit crimes.

[get the red out]

2. Me too

We aren't sociopaths.

[WePurrsevere]

3. You sound a lot like me. A sense of 'personal responsibility'...

isn't something we lack. I'm working on not blaming myself, nor accepting blame from others, for things I logically have no real fault in but it's taking years to de-program it's so deeply ingrained.

Anyway, I don't think that people who commit terrible crimes or do horrible things always lack the 'Jimminy Cricket' conscience. There are ways to mess with/brainwash 'Jimminy' to get it to believe that what is horrible by normal sane standards today isn't in specific cases.

[Iggo]

4. That ain't most people. That's torturers and perpetrators of genocide.

[raccoon]

5. True. Maybe I should've been clearer. I'll edit it. nt

[Wounded Bear]

6. It's a core trait of narcissists, lack of empathy for the victims...