I couldn't help but notice an apparent contradiction. You complain about racism and chauvinism, and yet, you identify the murderer as a "Greek student" instead of as a "deranged student".
This is ridiculous. If he had said that the murderer was a male student, would you be complaining about sexism? Identifying someone's race is not racism. He didn't imply anything about Greeks in general.
"Greece's economy" is a non-racism. Am I thereby attributing a cause simply by mentioning its state of affairs?
You are forcing a racist interpretation where there isn't one. You are not giving benefit of the doubt. No one is saying "boy those greeks sure screwed themselves." And even if one were, that's an assessment of their political and economic dealings, though we all know Greece is embedded in a complex arrangement with the EU and the US's pig-headed foreign policies.
"X's ecomomy is crumbling" can be said without racism. And "madness" can be similarly used I hold this true of any peoples subject to the human condition with an economy so described. Look at Morocco, etc. Sometimes environment is the cause, and when the environment is arbitrarily caused.
Again, as the commenter noted, nothing was said about Greeks [in general]. Economy of country and that as an alternative explanation to an individual of that country, yes. The articles on the story state that he is Greek so I figured I should as well.
In fact by saying "look at the economy" I am even further emphasizing the arbitrariness of a cultural explanation, which psychologizing does not do but rather lends to something about Greekness or Greek social thought. I'm saying "yes, he happens to be Greek, and he is from a failing economy that may have caused his distress." And so, "How did this happen to the economy in question that might cause people subject to it to respond in all of these ways?"
Again, I don't know about the verdict on the man. I withhold opinion. I don't think he'll be able to enjoy life given a majority of the options allotted him. He's deprived of life either way, and this too is saddening. So there's nothing to say about his "manipulating the system in his favor." He is in a bad spot regardless, but I think saying that he is deranged is an intuitive response, rather than a critical one. How did he become deranged? He clearly was at some point not deranged. I'm saying the state of Greece's economy, embedded in a global economy, is where we should look.
> The articles on the story state that he is Greek so I figured I should as well.
I believe you.
> I'm saying the state of Greece's economy, embedded in a global economy, is where we should look.
This is where I think you're jumping the gun. There are insane people everywhere. Sometimes some of them do brutal things. That's a sad fact of life. Implicating his Greek-ness will, I believe, lead to unnecessary bitterness against Greeks.
I'm sure you've come across Grice's Maxim of Relevance. Going by that, I tend to include "Greek" if his being Greek led to some racially motivated action, I'd include "male" if his being male led to some sexually motivated action, etc.
Please learn the difference between racialism and racism.
Greece's economy has been crumbling, and many all over the world are succumbing to madness. This feels like another test, but how am I to know if someone is deranged?
Don't force me to accept some verdict by law. I don't deserve that...
I have become sensitized to race after coming across numerous narratives by friends and strangers, where they mention race or nationality though that has nothing to do with what they are saying.
> Greece's economy has been crumbling...
Your point? Did you mean that Greeks are succumbing to madness?
> how am I to know if someone is deranged?
I am not a psychologist, so I can't pass diagnoses either. But some words of lay language express anger or contempt.
> Don't force me to accept some verdict by law.
I have no idea what you meant by that. I did not imply any force.
Why are you doing that? The sentence is "Greece's economy has been crumbling, and many all over the world are succumbing to madness."
Why would I respond to something you're explicitly divorcing from context? If you preserve what I say, you see that I clearly have an assessment nearing to the judgment that [many] in Greece are succumbing to madness.
Do I have a scientific basis for using words like "madness"? Well, would "deranged" be any better?
How about this?: Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must passover in silence.
"But some words of lay language express anger or contempt."
wat ?
"I have no idea what you meant by that. I did not imply any force."
It is coincidence, then, that you suggest "deranged" which is in line in actual fact with his sentence: He was assigned to a mental institution. I can acknowledge that it happens, but I need not say it was the right thing to do. I can withhold opinion on the matter. "Deranged" suggests that he should be treated in a certain way — I have no opinion on how he ought to be treated, I just do not know, barring any generalization to similar cases.
But again: I say [Many] are succumbing, which translates to a statement like [Some] are succumbing, not [All] are succumbing, which is what [Greeks] are succumbing is most often interpreted as[1].
> Do I have a scientific basis for using words like "madness"? Well, would "deranged" be any better?
No. My point was that words like "mad" and "deranged" are part of lay language, and in lay use, only expresses a personal opinion, rather than a medical diagnosis.
> Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must passover in silence.
The irony is killing me.
> "Deranged" suggests that he should be treated in a certain way
It doesn't suggest any such thing. I'd use that word for any brutal murderer.
> Why would I respond to something you're explicitly divorcing from context?
Wat? I questioned the context. Not the same as "explicitly divorcing from context". I asked the question, just so you'd make your bias explicit.
"No. My point was that words like "mad" and "deranged" are part of lay language, and in lay use, only expresses a personal opinion, rather than a medical diagnosis."
Yes, personal opinion but of different models of analyses for explanation. "Mad" is a vaguer term than "deranged" (see Foucault's descriptivist/presciptivist politics). "Mad" is a pointing to "the cause is more complex than we think." "Deranged" is a pointing, most probably, to the DSM (for instance) as a guide.
"The irony is killing me."
This is not irony. You're taking my words out of context to re-purpose them as ammunition within an already complicated topic. If I said "this sentence is false" you very well might say that I'm invalidating everything I'm saying.
"It doesn't suggest any such thing. I'd use that word for any brutal murderer."
No, sir. "Deranged" and "mad" may have many overlaps, but they are not substitutible salva veritate.
You have not proved any bias. I'm saying that madness is prevalant, and sometimes can explain more than a quick leap into psychologizing. "Madness" does not mean that it was utterly free of will to manipulate the circumstances. Madness may have a causal basis as well, if not stronger than "psychological laws." (So here I am blocking the idea that because he was "just mad" he thought it convenient to manipulate the circumstances in his favor. I am saying that "madness," though vaguer than "derangement," has a stronger force that "derangment."
So your determination is that because people in a failed/failing economy are acting irrationally and succumbing to their baser instincts, that the aggressor in this case became mentally ill due to the economy? Are you going to claim next that mental illnesses are transmittable diseases? Are you of the mind that the aggressor was not mentally ill and was just 'faking it' to get out of jail?
Mereological study of parts and wholes applies here, along with small-world network algorithms. Internal causation is a real thing, and best explains various seemingly "utterly chance-like" statistical problems. I'm saying that the environment coupled with internal measures ultimately explain what occurred; from an outside perspective, all I can really depend on is an "external description" of the problem which attributes political and legal descriptions of the result, rather than strictly psychological. "Deranged" suggests a narrow line to the psychological; "mad" suggests a combination of issues which similarly seems to mirror the structure of "depression" which itself is a result of a combination of issues.
I subscribe to legal realism. Like I said, I don't know how we ought to treat him, which implies that I don't know much about the man himself. Legal systems analyze intention to come to (public) justice, not to ensure that the victim is redressed.
My position or statements are a comment on the adjacent, failing legal system. These governments and trade unions (via pharmaceutical industries) have become so thick with corruption that the theoretical construct of the "Observation Statement," emergent from Logical Positivism and Scientific Philosophy, is subjective to game-theoretical quantum systems.
Am I saying that ontologically mental illnesses are diseases?[1] That's a debate. However, Copycat suicide has warrantability or assertability conditions, and we can employ strategies that minimize the spread of disease to minimize the fluctuation of social statistical norm deviation, along time paradigmatic cycles.
If an American student commits a crime in Turkey, we wouldn't call this student a "Turkish student." Some universities in Turkey may not be wholly funded by the Turkish government, nor culturally and financially indebted to a Turkish family.
I think the question would more be of an American who moves to Turkey, then ten years later goes to Russia and commits the crime there. Is this person a Turk or an American? They don't live in the USA; it doesn't make sense to call them an American.
