| Author | Message | ||
     Patrick Walker (Patrick_walker) Username: Patrick_walker Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 91.125.225.205 |
Is not joining Facebook a sign you're a psychopath? Some employers and psychologists say staying away from social media is 'suspicious'. The German magazine Der Taggspiegel points out that accused theatre shooter James Holmes and Norwegian mass murder Anders Behring Breivik have common ground in their lack of Facebook profiles. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2184658/Is-joining-Facebook-sign-youre-p sychopath-Some-employers-psychologists-say-suspicious.html Remember, you read it first in The Daily Mail! | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.44.184.207 |
James Holmes has at least eight Facebook profiles! It can also be a sign of just being old fashioned, but I see what it means. People I know who do avoid it are a little odd. It can be a sign they find it awkward fitting in, or don't want to hear about people. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.44.184.207 |
Sigh. I'm on Facebook but have no 'real' friends outside my family (who aren't my wife's). What does that make me? | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.44.184.207 |
'Holmes was reportedly on the site 'Adult friend finder'' - that line is so profoundly sad. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 178.116.61.103 |
I'm not on Facebook and intend to keep it that way. Lots of things to hide and all that.  | ||
| Kate (Kathleen) Username: Kathleen Registered: 09-2009 Posted From: 86.131.45.253 |
Typical Daily Mail scaremongering - making spurious associations and presenting it as fact by quoting "experts".  I'm on Facebook, but under my pen name, not my "real" name. What does that make me? | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.145.211.108 |
I'm on facebook but i've slaughtered dozens. I've had to slow down because my freezer is full and i need somewhere new to bury the bits i can't feed to the cat. So all this stuff is complete nonsense. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
They should pass a law that says everyone's required to have a Facebook profile. Thereby, we remove psychopaths once and for all from society.... | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 92.232.244.38 |
OK, I confess - I'm a psycho. And I don't have any friends. That's why I refuse to join Facebook ...   | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 2.24.29.52 |
Medical historian Georges Canguilhem said "Normal man is normative man." In other words, social and behavioural norms depend on social pressure to establish them. The normalisation of social networking, which in major ways is an unhealthy trend, won't just happen because of 'human nature': it needs pressure by vested interests. The same is true of most aspects of 'human nature', of course. The idea that employers 'expect' candidates to be members of Facebook will be repeated until, through mindless HR imitation, it has become reality. It's closely similar to the process by which literacy is becoming denormalised – when a young man slapped a book out of my hands on the bus last year, I didn't think 'ignorant thug', I thought 'note to self: reading is no longer socially acceptable'. I'm used to the idea that social norms are arbitrary, vicious and reinforced with violence. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.31.184.63 |
If somebody slapped a book out of my hand, my first thought wouldn't be "reading is no longer socially acceptable." It would be how I could get the book inside the offender's head most efficiently. And i don't mean encouraging him to read it. | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
Sorry for chucking my oar in here but... psychology isn't a precise science. It's barely even a real science. And yet there are many many people who work in the field who need to be kept in a job and these people are never going to shrug their shoulders and admit that it's not such an accurate (or always even insightful) discipline after all. If this gunman had been on FB, the appropriate experts would have announced how this was evidence he was a psycho; because he wasn't on FB, that's also evidence that he was a psycho. Because he is a psycho, anything that he ever did is evidence that he was a psycho. | ||
| John Forth (John) Username: John Registered: 05-2008 Posted From: 82.132.246.119 |
Out of curiousity, Joel, do you think that the book was the problem in that situation, or just a convenient prop for his intimidation? What I'm asking, I suppose, is: if you were holding, say, a phone or a sandwich or a banana, would he have performed the same action? Sorry, a little off topic, and apologies if it's been discussed before. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.30.11 |
http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/bipolar-disorder/content/article/10168/1529320 | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
John, I'm sure it was the book. I've never been slapped just for existing, though I'm sure that day will come. There's a lot of talk on this forum (or at least there used to be) about 'chavs' and how working-class culture seethes with violent intolerance. But I've never in my life encountered such boorish, aggressive, ignorant louts as the public schoolboys at my university in the 1980s. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.30.11 |
Well, I don't think I've met any public schoolboys, but I constantly encounter abominably boorish, aggressive, ignorant louts. All seem working-class. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.59.115.60 |
Well, I don't think I've met any public schoolboys, but I constantly encounter abominably boorish, aggressive, ignorant louts. All seem working-class. That's been my experience too, mostly - the only folk I know who are ex-public schoolboys are charming, erudite and scarily well-mannered. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.31.184.63 |
I've met loads of public school people (through work) and the one thing that strikes me about them is their confidence. They say what they feel, and take what they need. These are not necessary characters flaws, but it does sometimes strike me as rudeness. Working class folk are, on the whole, less sure of themselves. I suppose that's why they come across as either diffident or aggressive. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
One thing I remember very clearly is the word 'gink', which public schoolboys used to refer to anyone from a state school. It had the combined overtones of 'nerd' and 'upstart'. It was used frequently, even obsessively, to make commoners feel they had no place in the college bar, the university, or the world. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.31.184.63 |
Was it like Cameron's Titanic at your place, then? "Put another peasant on the fire, Lord Bastard!" | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.44.184.207 |
Joel - I get hassle for existing. I'm in a lower-working class area. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.31.184.63 |
I get hassle for existing, too, and I live in a middle class area. I'm too young for all these miserable old bastards, I guess. The fault is to be different. (Mind you, the chances of me getting beaten up are probably slimmer than yours, Tony. But I did my time on a council estate - 14 years in Bradford. I've earned a bit of violenceless friction.  ) | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 178.116.61.103 |
I constantly encounter abominably boorish, aggressive, ignorant louts. All seem working-class. Same here. In the very building I live in. Unsufferable boink-boink-boink-chuggachugga-boink-boink-boink 'music' day in day out (try to get some studying done!), all manner of ill-mannered disturbances during the night hours, thefts (only last week a guy who was moving out had his fridge stolen from the lawn outside), you name it. I'm afraid there's very little I can do. The police come, tell the culprits off and ten minutes later it's the same as before. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.66.23.11 |
A lot depepnds on how you treat other people. One guy, who went to the same school as me, was my lodger for a long time. He was from a very upper middleclass family (IIRC his dad once ran for Mayor of Bangor) and thought that anyone working class was automatically going to attack him. He thought that if people saw him wearing a tie he'd be set on by a pack of baying chavs and his liver ripped out to feed their rottweiler while his remains would be hung by his tie from their satellite dish as a trophy. His irrational fear of the neighbours gave him some kind of blindness to that fact that at least a third of the people you saw in the local streets were wearing ties for their day jobs as well. The neighbours in the flats where we lived used to call him the wall man because if he saw anyone in the lobby he would instantly back up against the nearest wall and scuttle along it to the lifts. If he couldn't escape their presence he would stare at the ground and completely ignore anyone who attempted to start a conversation with him. Of course they took this as rude and snobbish behaviour (which it was) and took offense. But this was apparently their fault and not his for behaving like an idiot. Even in my current house which is in a relatively quiet area of Salford with nice friendly neighbours, I once saw him pull his collar over his face and run for the front door just because one of the neighbours said a friendly hello to him. When I picked him up on this as I'd witnessed the whole thing, he claimed they'd threatened him. I pointed out that the neighbour had only said hello but apparently the tone of voice had been mocking and threatening. It wasn't. I wish I was exaggerating this behaviour but i'm not. He also used to park his car so far accross an access road at the back of my house that the workers at the fencing yard couldn't get in to their work (this was through pure bad parking, not a lack of space). The first time this happened they were polite, knocked on the door and asked if the car could be moved out of the way. And the second time, they were also polite. After a while though, it was a case of "get that ignorant cunt to move his car before we get a forklift and move it for him." To hear my ex-lodger, this behaviour of theirs was in no way related to his behaviour and his parking and everything to do with their being working class and therefore thuggish louts. Because of the way he behaved toward the neighbours it became a game with them to try to scare him. He could never work out that it was his attitude that brought about this behaviour. If he'd behaved normally with the neighbours (like I always have done) they'd have been as friendly with him as they are with me. I'm not saying that all the locals are good at heart, there are people that I will cross the road to avoid if I can. But the way you behave towards people makes a huge impact on how they behave back to you. I'm also not suggesting that people on this board have brought their own problems on themselves - I know Tony has particularly unpleasant neighbours for example and I would hate to live in his area - but sometimes we need to look in the mirror before complaining about the behaviour of others. I will admit that when I meet people who I feel are turning their noses up at me because of my working class roots I can become the stereotype they're expecting me to be and tell them to go fuck themselves. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.66.23.11 |
"If somebody slapped a book out of my hand, my first thought wouldn't be "reading is no longer socially acceptable." It would be how I could get the book inside the offender's head most efficiently. And i don't mean encouraging him to read it." That would be my reaction too - but I wouldn't be using the most efficient route to insert the book into their head. The last couple of times that there's been a threat of violence made towards me (normally in the pub and only maybe 3 incidences in the last 5 years) I've basically faced them down, or in one case laughed in his face at the threat and walked away. Confidence in the face of a threat seems to scare the people trying to threaten you. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
"Confidence in the face of a threat seems to scare the people trying to threaten you." That's a good observation, and one my own experience supports. Though I'm sure there are some people it doesn't work with. You get a sense, over time, of who to stand up to and who to quietly back away from. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
Tony, I'm sorry to hear that. Now I think about it I have been slapped – a vicious blow that affected my hearing and broke my glasses – for existing, but I think not for existing in the Joel sense. I mean I could have been anyone, any victim would have done. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.181.208.239 |
A lot varies with folk too - I'm sure there are many well-to-do, well off idiots, and just as many from all other backgrounds. I think it's dangerous to assume any one group of people are always a certain way, be they incredibly poor, amazingly rich or somewhere in between, otherwise we're only a short way from a version of racism, assuming a certain group of people are always a particular type. i.e. Working class people are all shiftless, benefit scroungers, or from another person's view they're all rough diamonds who've never had a bad thought and who all love their mums. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.25.173 |
"But the way you behave towards people makes a huge impact on how they behave back to you." Of course. But if you've done nothing at all? | ||
| John Forth (John) Username: John Registered: 05-2008 Posted From: 82.24.1.217 |
Hear, hear, Mick. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.158.61.189 |
"But the way you behave towards people makes a huge impact on how they behave back to you." Of course. But if you've done nothing at all? Then they're complete arseholes... However, my ex-lodger would always claim he'd done nothing - when he'd just completely blanked someone who was just saying a friendly hello. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jun/08/chavs-demonization-owen-jones-review This book seems relevant to this thread | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 2.24.14.8 |
It's very good – the Owen Jones book I mean. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.181.208.239 |
Very interesting opinions within the article itself:- "He adds fuel to the fire by adding: "Karl Marx once described religion as 'the sigh of the oppressed creature': something similar could be said about the rise of the far right today." Quite apart from the questionable nature of equating religious faith with fascist sympathies, the quote points to a difficult truth about left-of-Labour politics: it requires working-class people to be "oppressed creatures", always victims, not rational actors in a play they help to write." My 'bold'... | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
It's utter rubbish though, Mick. It's far more characteristic of New Labour to regard the working class as passive recipients of kind concessions and to frown on the dynamism, purpose and intelligence of radical trade union activity. The serious left works closely with the trade union movement and views the working class as the source of revolutionary change – indeed, as the only possible source of revolutionary change. What the left does not accept is that the current social and economic system is the product of a rational consensus. It continues to affirm that class struggle is at the heart of social change. That doesn't make the working class a passive victim. It is only a passive victim if it relies on the likes of New Labour to tell it what it is allowed to expect. And by 'the working class' I don't mean people in manual labour or in poverty: I mean everyone whose labour is exploited for the profit of those above them. |