Why the pain

[GoldenCojones]

This may not seem to belong here at first, but hear me through. I want to understand the motivation of why people want to hurt others. I don't get it.

Oh, I get some of it. Some of it comes from fear. "I fear you so I must hurt you." Irrational, but real.

Some of it comes from greed. "I want what you have so I must hurt you." Sickening, but real.

Some of it comes from Anger. "I am mad at you so I must hurt you." Pathetic, but real.

But this doesn't explain the rioters in NC that single out an innocent person and beat them for no reason. Are they angry? Yes, and I get that, but they're not angry at the person they just hurt. So why did they do it?

It doesn't explain the violence we see around the whole world. The car bombs, the children being forced to wear suicide belts, the fanatics setting off pressure cooker bombs. Why are we, as a species, causing such pain? It is unfathomable, incomprehensible. Why do we have mothers killing their babies? Fathers killing their babies? Children killing other children?

Can any of you really give me the why?

I need to understand for the story I'm writing. It has a scene where three thugs attack the main female character. It's realistic. I see this kind of thing reported gleefully by the talking heads on our news stations on a regular basis. But I don't understand the motivation behind the violence. I feel like I need to understand to write it well.

 

[LadyVer]

Humans are one step above animals, and sometimes animals seem to be the better part of creation. I don't think you need input for your story.

 

[sr71plt]

What news station are you watching that they report such violence gleefully?

And I don't see why you are including it in a story if you don't know what the motivation is--both for your characters to do it and for you to write it.

 

[GoldenCojones]

What news station are you watching that they report such violence gleefully?

And I don't see why you are including it in a story if you don't know what the motivation is--both for your characters to do it and for you to write it.

I'm including it in the story because her being attacked leads to her being rescued, of course by the main romantic interest. So yes there is my motivation for writing it. But as much as you may think I was not being serious, I want to understand why thugs behave as they do. If I don't understand why they would do it, they will come off being cardboard stereotypes. They probably will anyway though.

As far as which news stations, it is usually CBS but CNN is actually worse when I've watched it. I would be the others are just as bad.

 

[MLClifton]

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[MLClifton]

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[rjordan]

I need to understand for the story I'm writing. It has a scene where three thugs attack the main female character. It's realistic. I see this kind of thing reported gleefully by the talking heads on our news stations on a regular basis. But I don't understand the motivation behind the violence. I feel like I need to understand to write it well.

Like sr71plt I'm wondering why you're writing it. What's the story? You don't know their motivation, so it remains just a puzzling news blurb. If it's senseless violence, then by definition you can't make any sense of their motivation. There's no story to be told about their motivation unless you define what their motivation was.

If there's a story there, it's what happens to the woman. How does an act of senseless violence affect her life, her work, her relationships, whatever.

rj

 

[EverLux]

I need to understand for the story I'm writing. It has a scene where three thugs attack the main female character. It's realistic. I see this kind of thing reported gleefully by the talking heads on our news stations on a regular basis. But I don't understand the motivation behind the violence. I feel like I need to understand to write it well.

It might depend on the type of attack.

Regardless, you also have people who think nothing of their actions, other than it would suck it they got caught. It could be a cultural thing--they grew up in an area where violence is an everyday thing. It could be that they were raised by people with broken moral compasses.

There's always mob mentality, too. The attackers wouldn't necessarily do this individually, but with their friends, there's a shared culpability and a sense of anonymity. Plus, guilt can be alleviated by knowing that you may have done a shitty thing, but so did your friends--you're not shitty all alone.

 

[sr71plt]

As far as which news stations, it is usually CBS but CNN is actually worse when I've watched it. I would be the others are just as bad.

I watch CNN quite a bit and I think you are showing a false bias in how they are reporting the news. I've never seen them report tragedy gleefully. It sort of sounds like you want to write something in that vein yourself.

 

[legerdemer]

This may not seem to belong here at first, but hear me through. I want to understand the motivation of why people want to hurt others. I don't get it.

Oh, I get some of it. Some of it comes from fear. "I fear you so I must hurt you." Irrational, but real.

Some of it comes from greed. "I want what you have so I must hurt you." Sickening, but real.

Some of it comes from Anger. "I am mad at you so I must hurt you." Pathetic, but real.

But this doesn't explain the rioters in NC that single out an innocent person and beat them for no reason. Are they angry? Yes, and I get that, but they're not angry at the person they just hurt. So why did they do it?

It doesn't explain the violence we see around the whole world. The car bombs, the children being forced to wear suicide belts, the fanatics setting off pressure cooker bombs. Why are we, as a species, causing such pain? It is unfathomable, incomprehensible. Why do we have mothers killing their babies? Fathers killing their babies? Children killing other children?

Can any of you really give me the why?

I need to understand for the story I'm writing. It has a scene where three thugs attack the main female character. It's realistic. I see this kind of thing reported gleefully by the talking heads on our news stations on a regular basis. But I don't understand the motivation behind the violence. I feel like I need to understand to write it well.

I don't have huge insight (maybe none) into this but I've wondered about it before - steam in a pressure cooker has to go somewhere. It will escape, one way or another. That kind of violence is an outlet for desperation, when people feel there are no other outlets or ways to express their frustration. As you said, it doesn't excuse it. It's not logical.

 

[TxRad]

The motive for the beating has a lot to do with where it happened. Inner city would be different motives than the suburbs or the countryside. Age also is a factor. You say thugs but what kind of thugs? There is a wide and broad field under that heading.

Was the woman in a place that she shouldn't have been? Cutting through a bad section of town? On a dark and deserted street? Opportunity is sometimes the biggest motive.

Why does the 'knockout game' happen? A woman was hit by a man in downtown Houston a week or so back. No reason is known. He didn't know her and she didn't know him. He just walked up to her, hit her up side the head and walked off.

 

[TamLin01]

I watch CNN quite a bit and I think you are showing a false bias in how they are reporting the news. I've never seen them report tragedy gleefully. It sort of sounds like you want to write something in that vein yourself.

Well, writing off the news is much easier than paying attention to and then parsing it.

OP: I think you already answered your own question. Mob violence is VERY much rooted in anger and fear. Oh, they're probably directing that anger and fear at the wrong people; but then, don't we all? Fear and anger aren't a particularly good recipe for detached, rational decision-making. Taking it out on someone FEELS good, so we do it.

This is hardly unique to a mob. Almost everybody does this, to one degree or another. I used to date a woman with chronic road rage, for example (not a terribly attractive quality...). When another driver did anything she didn't like, she'd complain not about that person's driving, but about (what she imagined to be) his/her personality: "This guy's an asshole," "Look at this entitled bitch," etc.

For all she really knew, these could have been perfectly nice people who just made a mistake. It didn't matter. It feels good to say those things, so we say them. It's not even really about the person we're talking to/about, it's about EVERY person who ever did us wrong, or even whom we just imagine has. For a more immediate example of this same principle, we might examine certain writers' comments about "trolls"(or, conversely, the emotional baggage certain readers take into a story)...

Hope some of that helps. Good luck with it.

 

[Hypoxia]

Rioting mobs are the scariest shit around -- except for the (mostly) guys who coldly plot the destruction of non-combatant civilians, whether by IED or an airforce carpet-bombing a city.

Why do people commit hot or cold violence? Because we're thinking (or at least rationalizing) animals. Hot violence jumps from our emotions, individually or in a raging mob. Cold violence flows from our strategies and tactics -- maybe driven by ideology, we decide we need to impose death. Those heretics? Oh, they're not really human; burn'em. Those n!ggas? Target practice. The infidels? Send a message by blowing up buses and schools. Let'e wage war on global TV.

I need to understand for the story I'm writing. It has a scene where three thugs attack the main female character. It's realistic. I see this kind of thing reported gleefully by the talking heads on our news stations on a regular basis. But I don't understand the motivation behind the violence. I feel like I need to understand to write it well.

WHY do the thugs attack her? Does their subculture hate women? Is she a media figure and thus a target, maybe of miscreants, maybe of cops? Are the attackers buddies, drunk & drugged & out for a night of rapine? Did she jog through a seedy part of the park and fall to opportunistic scum? What is the context?

You're the author. You get to decide the why and how. You want realism? Design the context, and the realism will fall into place.

 

[NaokoSmith]

Everlux, TXRad and TamLin make useful points for you in trying to understand the motivation.

Group violence and group sexual violence have a lot to do with group dynamic, and also with the context in which the attack happens.

The road rage example shows too how it's to do with identity and sense of self-worth. The easiest way to feel good about yourself is to diss or do down someone-else. Feeling a sense of power over somebody else makes you feel like you are worth something.

Being part of a group also makes you feel you are worth something.

Gender dynamics are one of the longest-standing areas of identity politics, many men still feel that you are better than women. But of course you know that this can't really be true - you see women around you all the time who are smarter than you are. Then you feel uneasy, your ontological security - confidence in being - as Giddens calls it (not that I am keen on Giddens, but that's another paper) is threatened. You firm it up by saying and doing more things to assert your superiority over women, but you are still uneasily aware that it's simply not true that you are better than they are. So you come to dislike all women. Just by walking confidently along the pavement, they seem to be jeering at you and saying: "I am better than you." This simmering sense of inferiority might suddenly boil over if you have had a couple of beers and are out with a couple of men who are your friends because they feel the same way as you do, and will also bitch about women when you see them on tv or make crude dumbing-down remarks about them.

People do like violence, it's exciting. I remember when I broke up a fight outside a schoolgate once, I was most cross because a lot of pupils were standing round shouting: "fight, fight!" and enjoying it. I was pretty disgusted that they didn't show the girls fighting that that sort of thing is not acceptable. Bystanders play a big part in whether people think this kind of behaviour is OK or not.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I remember the first fight I was ever in...eighth grade. This wise ass in my class and I didn't like each other at all. He kept getting others in class in trouble with the teachers. I should probably mention, it was 1963. One day after class down by the railroad tracks, we had it out.

We both used many different styles, fists, feet, wrestling, etc. In the end, it appeared that neither of us wanted to really hurt each other, but there were a large group of our classmates standing around cheering us on.

After half an hour, both of us were out of breath and we called it a draw.

After that day, we were best friends...still are.

Motive for the fight...we thought we hated each other. Turns out we were wrong.

As for why people do thing today...

I believe and this is only my assumption, that we now have a generation of adults that grew up playing violent video games. No, I'm not going to say the game made them do it. What I'm going to suggest, is they have spent their life being desensitized by the blood and gore on the TV screen.

I myself have played a lot of these games, but my moral compass had already been set, although I could see how easy it would be to cause harm to someone without remorse. I wouldn't ever do anything like that, but I could see how someone without a set moral compass could.

So, we now have a generation of young adults, whose moral compass may have been modified or set by the types of video games they played. That generation was also, in most cases, the generation where mom and dad didn't teach their children, they left that to the school system and our underpaid teachers and a group of administrators whose only worry was getting Johnny through the system. Didn't matter if Johnny could read or write, just so he got through the system.

Now a lot of you will think I'm full of shit and if I thought the video game made them do it, I would think so too. But, there is a lot more to it, but that game they played almost 24/7 exposed them to violence without consequences.

Do I sound like an old fool? Probably, but I've been around for 66 years, raise two children, helped raise four grandchildren. So far, they are all good. Although my youngest granddaughter will attack someone trying to hurt her older sister at the drop of a hat, she only does this to protect. (Her younger sister is smaller than her.) So far none of them have taken up arms against their classmates or knocked out someone just for the hell of it. But they were taught right from wrong at home by their parents, reinforced by their grandparents.

Damn this is the longest post I think I have ever written. Hope this helps.

 

[ishtat]

Possibly the most sinister/scary violence is that which is without motivation at all. Some may do it 'because they can' - they have done it many times before, it has lost meaning, but they still do it . Why not?. Cut out any motivation and you are left with the greatest fear of all, fear of the unknown.

And in a story if you explain violence, aren't you in danger of rationalizing, even justifying it? Mebbe leave it raw.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Violence is the short-cut to results.

Biologically sex and violence come from the same place and employ the same mechanisms with minor differences. Many think sexual assaults are pure and simple violence. I agree. Its the quickie payoff folks want.

Violence and sex are used to get lotsa stuff.

 

[Handley_Page]

Humans are one step above animals, and sometimes animals seem to be the better part of creation.

Sometimes it's a frighteningly short step.

 

[DreemingOfYou]

I wondered about this too and when I looked at it, it all comes from their selfishness

 

[lovecraft68]

All the above situations described are mob mentality and cowardice. Ladyver is wrong, people are one step below animals. Humans are the only race on this planet that beats, rapes and kills for fun.

Whether this is to be used in a story or not, this thread shouldn't be here. Things like this belong in the GB where you will get all kinds of examples of mob mentality and people being dicks.

Talking about writing erotica -and stories in general-is one of the few places we can go these days where we don't have to hear about how horrific our society has become. We now need it here to?

If you inherently don't understand the mentality of scum, then why write about it?

Being the product of a very dysfunctional and abusive and violent childhood and background I could fill this thread with everything you're looking for, both from victim and committer of, but won't. Somethings don't deserve the credit of being discussed.

But if a woman being assaulted is something you're looking for the thought process behind, keep checking back. We all know there's a pair of posters that will have plenty of insight to provide on that topic. Hopefully they keep it to 18+ this time. Or maybe not and the site finally does us a favor.

 

[colddiesel]

All the above situations described are mob mentality and cowardice. Ladyver is wrong, people are one step below animals. Humans are the only race on this planet that beats, rapes and kills for fun.

Whether this is to be used in a story or not, this thread shouldn't be here. Things like this belong in the GB where you will get all kinds of examples of mob mentality and people being dicks.

Talking about writing erotica -and stories in general-is one of the few places we can go these days where we don't have to hear about how horrific our society has become. We now need it here to?

If you inherently don't understand the mentality of scum, then why write about it?

Being the product of a very dysfunctional and abusive and violent childhood and background I could fill this thread with everything you're looking for, both from victim and committer of, but won't. Somethings don't deserve the credit of being discussed.

Your sentiments LC, seem to lack congruence with your AV?

 

[PennLady]

It doesn't explain the violence we see around the whole world. The car bombs, the children being forced to wear suicide belts, the fanatics setting off pressure cooker bombs. Why are we, as a species, causing such pain? It is unfathomable, incomprehensible. Why do we have mothers killing their babies? Fathers killing their babies? Children killing other children?

Can any of you really give me the why?

There are so many reasons for these things.

For car bombs and suicide bombers, I gather you're referring to a lot of violence centered in the Middle East. This often -- usually? -- has a religious component. We are the chosen and they are the infidels and must be stopped, that sort of thing.

As awful as it is, parents kill their children for a variety of reasons, and mental illness of some sort seems to be chief among them. Depression and other conditions, especially if untreated, can lead to horrible thoughts and actions.

I need to understand for the story I'm writing. It has a scene where three thugs attack the main female character. It's realistic. I see this kind of thing reported gleefully by the talking heads on our news stations on a regular basis. But I don't understand the motivation behind the violence. I feel like I need to understand to write it well.

Violence like this, it seems to me, would have different reasons than the other examples you cited.

If Person A comes into a place where Villain Z thinks they ought not be, then Villain Z may feel they need to make a display of power to stake out their territory, or just show their authority. Maybe they do this to look strong in front of any peers -- or challengers to their authority. Villain Z may just be looking for the opportunity, as someone suggested, to wield their power over someone else, and someone not from their territory would be a good choice.

In the movie Attack the Block*, some teenagers mug a woman. Later, when they are all thrown together against a common enemy, they apologize to her. They didn't realize she was from their "block" (apartment complex), and if they'd known, they would have left her alone. This is the mentality I'm getting at here, that there was a little sense of community (tribalism?) at work. The kids would leave alone people from their community, even if they wouldn't exactly protect them.

Some people feel entitled to take what they want from someone else, again especially if they think that other person doesn't belong.

Maybe that helps?

*Have to recommend Attack the Block. It's a scifi/horror thing, British, lots of fun and has John "Finn" Boyega in one of his first major roles.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Its useful to distinguish motivation and imagination.

 

[Carnal_Flower]

Well you can always go back to the Bible. People have been pondering evil since . . . forever.

I do think the new factor in the mix nowadays is the internet.

Think of that fool in Orlando tweeting and posting selfies while he's on his killing rampage. He actually tried to update his Facebook about it. The number one thing that needs to stop is identifying these idiots. They should never be known.

"Anonymous Loser kills 10 and then himself."

It should be made a federal crime to name them.

 

[rjordan]

I believe and this is only my assumption, that we now have a generation of adults that grew up playing violent video games. No, I'm not going to say the game made them do it. What I'm going to suggest, is they have spent their life being desensitized by the blood and gore on the TV screen.

Interesting. TV shows, movies, video games desensitizing generations of young people to blood and gore. Generations of young people who have been taught that guns are a solution to every conflict. Guns are macho. Guns are empowering. Guns are bigger than any antagonist's dick. We encourage them to buy more guns, carry them everywhere. Stand their ground. They're good guys protecting us all, just like in the movies.

We recalibrated their moral compasses to fit what we've created.

rj