Chapter Three (continued)
Becky and Other Students Discuss Hitler, Psychopaths Again, Prison Courses, Attempts to Prevent Crime, and Other Things

(To recap: The previous page ended with one student telling an amusing story about a conflict they had on an Internet forum, and commenting that it would be good if criminals spent time doing that kind of activity instead of committing crime.

One Student Tells the Others About Courses for Sex Offenders and Other Things That Have Had Unintended Consequences

Then the conversation got serious again, as one said, "That forum sounds as if it could be fun. I'm not sure criminals would be into that kind of thing, but yeah; it would be good if some of them gave up crime when they found at least some things to do that they enjoyed so much they didn't want to stop doing them for long enough to go out and commit crime. I think some criminals do give it up when they get into a better lifestyle, like when they start a relationship with someone they care about, who doesn't want them to be involved in crime, and then they start having new responsibilities like looking after a child, and they don't want to risk losing that lifestyle and their relationship for crime. Not that that works with everyone. I think some criminals never change, despite some people's best efforts, ... or efforts that maybe aren't so good.

"I was talking about rehabilitation courses in prisons earlier, wasn't I. Another thing the rapist I mentioned who didn't think much of sex offender courses in his prison, partly because they stirred up thoughts of raping women some more because they had to talk about their offences in detail, said was that getting a load of rapists together to talk about sex offences meant they learned from each other's mistakes and their own after they thought more about them, so as to be able to plan their offences better in future, so as to make it less likely they'd be caught, or at least convicted if they did get caught, since rapists are less likely to be found guilty if their lawyers can flag up things in their victims' behaviour that could possibly make it look as if they actually wanted sex, such as if they were wearing revealing clothes; so rapists might decide to go for women who are doing that in future, so they'll know their lawyers can make that argument if it does get to court, perhaps learning from rapists who were taken to court for crimes but not convicted before they committed a crime it was harder to make excuses for, and were found guilty and sent to prison.

"And the rapist said that people who'd committed all levels of sex offences were on the same course together, so rapists were there with flashers; and people who'd committed less serious sex offences were actually enticed to commit worse ones by the fact that so many people around them had done that that they felt as if they wouldn't have to feel so bad about doing it themselves in future, since it seemed so many other people did. And some people who'd committed serious crimes before felt better about the idea of committing more, knowing that so many other people did. ... He said something like that anyway.

"I actually heard that it's common for more people to start doing all kinds of things if they think it's quite normal to do them. Like I heard that there was this campaign at a university to stop students binge drinking, and it gave the impression that loads of students were doing it, which they probably were. I don't know if any of them cut down on their drinking because of the campaign; but it backfired among some students, who actually started drinking more because of it, because they thought that if so many people were binge drinking, they must be missing out; or they thought that it must be an OK thing to do if so many other people were often doing it, so they thought they didn't need to feel bad about doing it themselves."

One of the others said, "That reminds me of something I heard, about how some study found that the kinds of people who are most attracted to watching soaps where people are always arguing and being aggressive are people who are like that themselves. If that's true, maybe it's because they feel reassured that it must be OK to be like that if people in popular soaps are like it; or maybe they get to feel some kind of emotional connection with the characters because they can identify with them, and that makes them more interested in them."

One of the group quipped, "Wow, if that's true, considering how popular those things are, maybe it means that millions of people come from argumentative homes! ... Well, I suppose they really might."

One Student Tells the Others Something Humorous

One of the others said, "Considering how many arguments go on on the Internet, I could believe it. Mind you, some are fun. I had an argument with a policeman on a forum I was on, after he made a joke about a dwarf I didn't like. It went:

"'Officer, this is how the fight started: I rear-ended the car in front of me. I admit that. It was my fault. So, we both pull over to the side of the road, and slowly the driver of the car I hit gets out of his car. And you know how you just get so stressed, and life sometimes seems like it's suddenly funny? Well, the driver of the car I hit is a DWARF! He gets out of his car and I get out of my car. He is frowning and scowling, and he storms over to me. Right up close at me he looks up in my face and says, "I am not happy!" And I don't know what possessed me, officer, but I look down at him and I said, "Well, if you're not Happy, which one are you?" And that's when the fight started.'

"I joked, 'I've heard it. Actually, here's what really happened:

"'A policeman rear-ended a car, and a dwarf got out. The policeman also got out, and the dwarf said, "I'm not happy". The policeman said, "Which one are you then?" and the dwarf said, "It looks as if You're the one in the set of seven dwarfs, only you seem to have grown a bit. Since you rammed my car, so you can't have been paying enough attention, I would guess you're Sleepy. ... Or perhaps you're a sleeping policeman?"

"'That was when the fight began, and the policeman subsequently had a lot of explaining to do at his station.'

"Then I linked to a page of funny cartoons about sleeping policemen, and joked that the rumour was that they were all about the policeman who put the joke on the board.

"The policeman said, 'Is that what really happened?'

"I joked, 'Well, perhaps not. I suppose whether you think it was depends on whose version you believe.'

"He said, 'I hate to tell you this, but it's a joke. It didn't actually happen either way.'

"I said I knew that. Soon after that, it turned into an argument, where some idiot accused me of making the joke about the policeman starting the fight just because I didn't like the policeman who put the other joke there. I said that actually I made it up because I didn't like him making fun of dwarfs, so I thought I'd make fun of a policeman to see how he liked it. Then I joked, 'Such will be the fate of all those I catch on here suggesting it's fun to make fun of people who could be classed as disabled in some way. ... Actually, no, it had better not be, because the last person I caught doing that was a forum moderator.'

"The policeman asked how his joke had made fun of dwarfs, and I said, 'Well, it didn't make fun of a dwarf in an offensive way, just as when I turned it around so it made fun of the policeman who caused the accident, it wasn't really making fun of policemen in an offensive way, was it.'

"The policeman thought I was contradicting myself because I'd sounded more serious the first time I'd said I didn't like the joke, so he said, 'So were you in error, or are you a liar?'

"Then I explained that actually what had happened was that just before I read the joke, I'd read a bit of supposed humour someone had linked to that genuinely made fun of disabled people, that I'd thought was crass, so I'd been in a little bit more of a mood to be offended by his joke than I'd normally be, although he could tell how seriously I was really taking it by the fact that I'd linked to funny cartoons of sleeping policemen in my first post.

"Then I said I wouldn't really want to make fun of policemen, just as I wouldn't want to make fun of the board police (the moderators). Then I linked to an article about policemen going round to troublemakers' houses to have a stern word with them, and I quoted it, but I changed some of the words for fun, so it made it sound as if it was all about a campaign where the forum moderators were going round disciplining troublemakers on the board.

"The policeman should have been able to tell I wasn't taking things that seriously. But instead of accepting the latest thing I'd said about being offended as a fuller explanation of why I made fun of the joke he'd put on the board, he said,

"'You have had 3 statements about the same post. In each you either state truth, or honesty. Each is very different. I now ask you again, are you in error, or a liar?'

"(I think he must have meant 'dishonesty' when he said 'honesty'.

"It sounded as if he mistook our whereabouts for the police station, and thought he was interrogating me. Maybe he does that everywhere he goes, so if he asks someone the time and they say, 'It's half past four. ... Oh no sorry, it's half past three', he says, 'You've just made two contradictory statements! Are you a liar, or are you in error? Come on, which is it?'

"It should have been easy for him to put any slight differences in my 'statements' down to me simply leaving out a detail or two in the first two; that would seem to have been more logical than exaggerating their differences.

"I decided to ask him a question in the style of the ones he was asking me for fun, and said, 'Are you a bully, or just someone who can't think beyond polar opposites?'

"Some other people on the board had said they thought he was a bully, and he ended up being banned; but I didn't mean it seriously.

"Then I said I had made an error, - when I'd said I wouldn't make fun of a policeman. I said I hadn't been thinking of him at the time, but I'd now decided to make fun of him. I said,

"'I think that in this post, I'll repeat some past gems of humour, by quoting some bits of conversations here where you were made to look daft. ... No, actually, I'll do it later. That statement about doing it in this post was obviously a lie or an error. Now here's the truth: Yep, I'll do it later. I think this evening, I'll reserve a slot of good entertainment time to finding them. I'm looking forward to it! I know Just where they are!'

"Perhaps he'd had his sense of humour cut off at birth, because he didn't recognise the humour in anything I said at all. He said solemnly,

"'Could you show me an example of what causes you to think I may be a bully? I have MERELY taken your posts and asked you what was meant by them. You on three different occasions gave different explanations for the post. and in each one you claimed it was the truthful or honest answer. Each was very different. So I am asking you: Are you in error, or a liar? Nothing bullying about it.

"'You claimed I was picking on dwarfs. You claimed that you picked on policemen because I was doing so. You then say I wasn't picking on anyone, but it was another thread somewhere else that caused you to respond in kind. However that makes as much sense as me getting angry at someone on 15th street, and then punching a totally different person. Do you understand?

"'Now, are you a liar, or were you in error? Seems like you're a little bit of both. You are a liar, trying to cover up an error.'

"I replied, 'Wow, I am going to enjoy making fun of you this evening! I'd like to say I hope you're looking forward to it as much as I am, but of course, I know you won't be, sadly. Oh well, I'll enjoy myself enough for two!'

"I didn't do it in the end, because I found a thread he started that turned into a right laugh, and decided he wasn't bad enough to deserve it after all.

"But when I said I was going to do it, I joked, 'Incidentally: This is a public service announcement:

"I apologise for what I did to the news article I quoted that was really about the police but I changed it to make it seem as if it was about the moderators here. My genes made me do it. Or was it temporary insanity? Or perhaps it was a temporary lapse in common sense. Or perhaps it was a bizarre inability to foresee that there may be consequences from the moderators. Well, it was one of those things. Just possibly. Or maybe it was something else. So I apologise once again.

"'I'm sorry for all those differing reasons for what happened. Most of them were in error. No, sorry, all of them were in error. No sorry, they were all lies. No, sorry, only most of them were lies. No, sorry, that entire last paragraph was a lie. ... Or was it an error? I don't know. I clearly need to be cross-examined on it so you can find out the truth. So go ahead. ...

"'Then you need to cross-examine me on my version of the news article itself. Was it an error? Or was I lying? Those are the questions you need to ask me. Perhaps you'll get the truth out of me under cross-examination.'

"The policeman said, 'If I wanted to accept lies. Sure.'

"I replied, 'But how do you know they wouldn't be errors?'

"Then a bit later I said for fun, 'Wow, Mr Policeman certainly can turn trivialities into major incidents! I expect that if you could, you'd like to take me to the station and put me in a cell overnight for this!

"'I don't see any real discrepancies in any of the things from my posts you quoted at all. In fact, you read a bit more into them than was there. Besides your clear inability to harmonise even simple statements, you seem to have a humour impairment. I'm wondering if that could be classified as a disability, because if it can, then perhaps I ought to make fun of myself as a punishment for making fun of you, in accordance with my rule that people who make fun of people with disabilities deserve to be made fun of. Hmmmm! Where shall I start on myself?

"'But no. I've decided your humour impairment isn't a disability, merely a character flaw. So I won't have to make fun of myself after all. Oh good.'

"Someone else posted, saying we were stupid for blowing a little joke out of proportion. I joked, 'Yes. But you see, there's a secret you don't know. When you do, it'll make all the difference. Now I'll tell you what it is:

"'You know the dwarf in that joke? Well, ... it was you. That's right. The joke's really all about you. I was defending you! You ought to be grateful. That's why it's turned into such a big thing. Aren't you touched by that, Dwarfy? Isn't it nice that I'd defend you like this.'

"At around that time, I got fed up of the forum for a while, partly because some moderators decided to be much stricter and give warnings about being banned out for much more minor things than they had before, and they seemed to let some people get away with them but not others. Not that that lasted; I think they got fed up of being criticised for it and disappeared entirely not long afterwards! But I got fed up when I got one and decided to leave, but changed my mind when they said they weren't planning to be all that harsh.

"But anyway, I started a new thread, and this policeman on the board said, 'Hey, I thought you said you were going to leave! What a load of rubbish that was!'

"I joked, ' You must know by now that I'm not in the habit of going quietly. Nor am I in the habit of going quickly if I can help it.'

"He laughed."

The students giggled.

One Student Tells the Others About a Charity Teaching Some Prisoners to Read and Write

Then one of them said with a smile, "Maybe you shouldn't tell too many people about your love of forum arguments, in case people start thinking arguing's a great idea and more people start doing it, just like someone said before about how it's been found that people can be influenced to behave in some bad ways if they think a lot of other people are doing those things.

"Actually, hearing that got me thinking: Maybe the knowledge that people are more likely to do things if they think loads of other people are doing them could be used in positive ways sometimes. Like I heard that there are schemes in prisons to teach people to read and write well, but a lot of prisoners are too embarrassed to admit they can't read or write well, or they worry about being bullied and made fun of by other ones if they do admit to it, or they think of it as a weakness and don't want to show weakness in the tough environment, so they don't go for them. But maybe if the courses were advertised in ways that give the impression that loads of people around the country are going for them, and that not being able to read and write is a common problem, which it seems it is in prison, more would.

"I heard about a scheme run by a charity where some prisoners are recruited and taught to teach other prisoners how to read and write, and they get something out of it themselves as well as the ones learning to read and write getting something out of it, because it can bring out their caring sides and make them feel better about themselves because they realise they can achieve good things. I don't know if that makes any of them less likely to re-offend when they get out of prison. But at least learning to read and write can make some prisoners less likely to commit crimes in future, since it's much easier to get proper jobs if you can read and write, since if you can't, you won't even be able to fill in application forms for them! And with these mentoring schemes, it means prisoners learning to read and write well get one-to-one help, so they might learn more easily than they could at school in a big class.

"And I heard that it can benefit the families of the people who learn to read as well as them themselves, because they can help teach their children when they get out of prison, and get better jobs to support them; so maybe their children will be less likely to get into crime when they get older, since they'll be more able to get decent jobs themselves. I heard that the more educated a person is, the less likely they'll be to end up in prison or be violent.

"Not that that works for everyone, of course; there are some pretty educated criminals out there. Like when you hear stories about high court judges who are found to have lots of child pornography on their computers, and that kind of thing. Hopefully there aren't many of those! But if there are, it might be one reason why some sex offenders get such lenient sentences, if their judges are into the same things they are."

The Subject of Ineffective Prison Courses Comes Up Again

One of the students who'd been talking about prison courses sometimes being ineffective before said, "Yes! Anyway, about these rapists I heard interviewed on the radio who did courses for sex offenders in prison that they thought didn't work, another one who was interviewed said he was sexually abused himself when he was a child, and he was made to go into detail about that on one of the supposed rehabilitation courses he went on in prison; but there were paedophiles in the group who were getting sexually aroused by what he was saying! So much for rehabilitation!

"And one said a lot of them would fool the people teaching the course into believing they were less of a risk at the end than they'd been at the beginning, by doing things like telling them at the start of it that they were having way more thoughts about committing sex offences than they really were, and then at the end telling them how often they were really having them, so it looked to the staff as if they were becoming less of a risk than they'd been before and that they really were, so they thought it would be safer to let them out of prison.

"And one prisoner I heard interviewed said the anger management course he went on in prison taught techniques that wouldn't work, like teaching people to just count to ten before responding when they had a flare-up of anger so it would have time to die down before they reacted; but he said that might work for some people on the outside of prison, but if you tried to do that among criminals in a high-security prison, you'd probably end up dead before you'd even counted to two!

"I dunno; maybe they did teach better things on the course, but maybe he wasn't paying attention at the time or something; who knows!

"But also, there are courses that teach people how to think more before making decisions instead of acting impulsively; but some criminals have just used the skills they've learned on them to spend more time planning their crimes before they commit them, so they're less likely to get caught. It seems the thinking behind the courses is that people commit crimes on impulse, so if they can only learn to think more about the possible consequences before committing them, they won't. But a lot of criminals plan their crimes carefully or fantasise a lot about doing them and how much they'll like it before they commit them, so learning not to be so impulsive won't work. They might just be learning to discipline themselves to spend even more time planning their crimes, to reduce the chances that they'll get caught.

"Mind you, maybe courses like that do still work for a lot of people.

"But I don't know who designs these courses, or why they didn't foresee the problems with them; but it seems there ought to be more investigation into the evidence that such things actually work before they're introduced into prisons all over the country, and some research into what actually works best! I mean, for one thing, there are prisons in some parts of the world where the offending rate among prisoners who are released is a lot lower than it is here; so prisons there must be doing something better than ours do. It would be worthwhile finding out what it is, so it can hopefully be done here!"

Another student said, "I'm not so sure about that. I myself heard that far fewer prisoners come back to prison for committing more crimes after they get out of prison in some countries than they do in this one. I even heard a radio programme about it.

"But I looked it up on the Internet, and found out that actually, it's hard to know if that's really true, because the statistics get calculated differently in different countries, with some tracking ex-prisoners for more years than others do to see if they commit crimes within that time, so their re-offending rates might look higher than those of countries that follow theirs for less time; and some countries count arrests for crimes that didn't result in convictions in their statistics as well as re-imprisonment, and others don't; and some count crimes that are too minor to get people sent to prison in their statistics, and some don't - so some might even include things like fines for parking tickets; and some countries have high rates of foreign criminals in their prisons who leave the countries after they get out, so they can't be tracked to see if they get caught for crimes after that, so they just don't appear in the statistics whether they commit them or not."

The Students Talk About Lenient Prison Sentences, Reasons Why People Turn to Crime, and a Programme for Children Intended to Reduce Crime

One of the group said, "Maybe some of the rehabilitation courses in our own prisons do work for a lot of people, but the higher a criminal is on the psychopathy scale, the less likely the courses are to work for them, for reasons such as that trying to teach them to care more about the feelings of victims and what they really go through won't work for anyone who doesn't give a stuff about their feelings, and that anyone who really wants to commit crime will just use any information they learn about how to control anger to their advantage, such as by resisting the temptation to hit someone on the spot, and instead spending time thinking through how they can do them in somewhere private so there won't be any witnesses.

"I wonder if courses might be more effective for psychopaths if they have a lot to do with convincing them they'll personally have a higher chance of enjoying life if they don't commit crime in future than they will if they do, because they're less likely to have to spend years in prison, so they'll have more freedom to do any non-criminal things they enjoy, like someone said before.

"Mind you, it'll probably be best for the public if a lot of offenders just get locked up for longer than they do now. I heard about a gruesome murder that was committed by someone who'd previously served a life sentence in prison, which obviously wasn't really for life! Imagine someone getting a life sentence, and then getting out less than a decade later and then committing another horrible crime, and then being given another 'life' sentence, coming out less than a decade later, committing another horrible crime, and being given another life sentence! He'll have served three life sentences, even though he's only got one life! I don't know who actually thinks it makes sense to call them 'life' sentences when they're not really. You hear about judges saying things like, 'I sentence you to life in prison, with the recommendation that you serve at least six years!'"

One student said, "I heard that lots of people in prison have been disadvantaged all their lives in some way, like growing up in violent families, so maybe they started using violence in self-defence and then violence got to be a habit, or they were always full of anger so they were more likely to get violent, or they got into drugs to try to comfort themselves, and then needed to start burgling houses or robbing people or shoplifting to get money for them because they were addicted, and other things like that. I heard that crime can be reduced when children who are known to be at risk of growing up to be criminals because they're being brought up in abusive families or high-crime neighbourhoods are helped in some ways. I actually heard that it's possible to make quite good predictions about the kinds of little children who are likely to grow up to become criminals, because of the kinds of families they come from and the kinds of neighbourhoods they're living in.

"There can be all kinds of things that make it more likely that a child will grow up to be a criminal, or more likely to be a victim of crime when they're older. Like I said, one is if they grow up in an abusive family. Besides making it more likely they'll get into drugs, one thing is that it can be harder to concentrate on getting a good education if you're always worried about what's going on at home, or sleep-deprived because no one cares enough about you at home to make sure you get a decent sleep, so they don't care if you stay out on the streets till all hours getting into who knows what trouble, or you can't get to sleep because your parents are disturbing you by fighting. And if you can't get a good education, you're less able to get a good job that would enable you to pay to move to an area with a lower crime rate; and you're more likely to be influenced by other people to give up on the idea of being educated and to decide that crime's more likely to get you what you want.

"I'm pretty sure a lot of people who grow up in environments like that don't become criminals; but there are quite a lot of things that make it more likely that a child will grow up to be one.

"I read about a study that followed children as they grew up for about twenty years, where about ten thousand five year-olds were screened for aggressive behaviour, and about 900 of those were thought to be aggressive enough that they had quite a high chance of growing up to be aggressive as adults; and they were then split up into two groups, where one group didn't receive any special help, and the other did, so at the end of that time, the two groups could be compared to see if the help was actually making a difference to the way they turned out when they grew up. The children who were put in the group that got the help were given quite a few different kinds of help, as well as their parents given parenting courses so they could learn the best ways of coping with their children's aggressive behaviour, and how best to treat them. And they learned problem-solving skills.

"The children were given extra help with reading for years, and taught skills like how to control their anger better and how to get on with people better.

"When the children in the study grew up, when they were about 25 years old, the study ended, and it was found that fewer of the ones who'd got the help had convictions for violent crime and drug offences, and fewer had addictions to drugs and alcohol, and fewer had mental health problems than the ones who hadn't got the help. They had lower rates of anti-social personality disorder, and fewer of them had been disciplined harshly by their parents.

"It was hoped that they'd go on to treat their own children better as a result, so their own children would be less likely to grow up to be criminals or have the kinds of disadvantages in life that people growing up in harsh environments can have.

"There were quite a lot of people in the group that got the help who still got into crime or caused problems at school or needed to go into special education classes so they could get more help; but there were still fewer by an amount that's probably worth making these things worth investigating some more.

"And some of the parents and children didn't attend all the help sessions. The parents were persuaded to sign up for them in the first place by being told that it was hoped they'd make their children more likely to grow up to get good jobs and stay off drugs and out of prison.

"The help the children were given was expensive; but the people who carried out the study hoped it would be far cheaper in the long-term than the huge amount of money that might have been spent on keeping them in prison if more of them had ended up there.

"Maybe the more this kind of thing gets studied, the more we'll find out about what works best; and then hopefully, more things will be done to try to stop some children growing up to be criminals.

"Maybe one thing is that teachers could do with more training on how to control disruptive classes and deal with bullying, since it's going to be hard for children to get a decent education when they're in an atmosphere where things like that are going on, or if they're causing it."

Another student said, "I've got a relative whose family thought he wasn't very bright at all when he was growing up. His aunt was actually a teacher, and one day she worked as a supply teacher in his school, teaching his class, and he was way behind the others, so she thought it seemed as if he didn't have much of a brain. But when he was in his early twenties, he decided to change his life, and actually got into university and did a degree, and then even did a master's degree! Maybe the reason he did so badly in school when he was a child was because he had a bad childhood. His mum was into drink and drugs, and taught her oldest child to shoplift to support her habits; and his dad was abusive."

The students were thoughtful.

They carried on talking for a while before parting.

Chapter Four
One Student Tells the Rest About Wife Beaters and Their Motives

A week or two after Becky and some other students had had a long conversation about psychopaths and crime and abuse and so on, they met up at the weekend to talk again.

The Conversation Starts With Some Humour Mixed With One or Two Serious Comments

Soon after they sat down together, one of them said, "I've been involved in some arguments on Internet forums recently, although most of them were quite good fun. There was one that wasn't, at least at first. It went on for ages. It did get more entertaining in the end. You'll find out why I think it's worth mentioning in a minute. I'll call the man I had it with Frozen Waffle. At the end of it, someone accused me of stirring up the argument to cause trouble for Frozen Waffle just because I didn't like him. I didn't think that was fair, so I asked the man who'd accused me of doing that a few questions about how he thought he'd managed to work that one out. Then I joked,

"'No, actually, don't answer those. I don't want to talk about Frozen Waffle any more, because I'll probably only end up saying things other people will regret.'

"I don't mind Frozen Waffle really, most of the time. But he's got some extreme views in some ways, which he just loves to argue about with people, bringing up the same old arguments no matter what they say to counteract them. One of them is that religion's a dangerous evil superstition that harms the people who have it and everyone around them, and that it damages the brains of people infected with it, especially people's 'rubbish filters', which he seems to believe are in people's brains to help them distinguish between things that make sense and illogical lunacy, so they can stop them believing rubbish. He reckons the reason some people believe in some religions and superstitions and things is because their rubbish filters don't work, because their indoctrination as children by their parents destroyed them."

Becky said, "Wow, he thinks the things people say can actually cause the brain to be physically damaged? Well, I suppose you never know. I did once read that the brains of little children from disadvantaged families where they haven't been given much to stimulate their brains, because they've been neglected to some extent, or haven't got interesting toys to play with or people around them who've got the time and energy to play with them and teach them things and so on, can look like the brains of stroke victims, because they haven't developed as well as they could have."

The one who'd been talking before said, "Wow, that's bad! Hopefully it isn't permanent, and their brains can start looking more healthy if they get some decent education at school. Playing with toys at school to compensate for not having them at home could be fun. Well, maybe some children benefit from going to nursery schools where they can play together, because they get more stimulation there than they do at home, I don't know.

"Anyway, on that forum I was talking about, there's someone else there who often accuses me of just talking rubbish and being a waste of space, or something like that, I think because he doesn't like the way I joke around so much, for some reason, although I can't be quite sure, because he's never thought to explain why he says it. But one day he said he hardly ever reads what I write. So just how he thought he knew I was talking rubbish, I don't know. I mean, that sounds like a contradiction. So I said for fun,

"'Have you any idea how foolish that sounds? You make declarations about how useless a poster I am, and then state that you hardly ever read what I say? I must get my old buddy Frozen Waffle on the case! This is clearly a case of a highly damaged rubbish filter, with you not being able to tell the difference between sense and nonsense. Perhaps he could get a pair of pliers, a screw driver and a number of other assorted tools, open your head for a few minutes with one of them, and fix it. I'll see.'

"On another day, a man there who's always insulting people and who's really into astrology said to me, for no apparent reason, 'Fat girls and ugly to the bone have never been my style. Sorry, your writing skills give it away.'

"I said for fun, 'So you think that as well as our personalities being formed by distant stars and planets, rather than by our family backgrounds, by childhood experiences, by genetic predispositions and so on, you can tell how beautiful or ugly, fat or thin we are just by the way we write? What an amazing skill you must think you have!'"

The students smiled. Then another one said, "I've often had arguments on a couple of Internet forums. There's one man, who I'll call Squelchy Nightmare, who likes to insult me in a crass way on one of them, and one day after he did, I decided to publicly shame him for fun, by quoting his insults and pointing out how daft they were. Before I did, I joked,

"'Public Service Announcement: I apologise that this post is about to descend to sewer level. Please would anyone who wants to descend with me put on all-over protective clothing, a face mask, and also thermals, since it's bound to be rather cold down there at this time of year. You will be brought up from sewer level along with this post when you see the line of asterisks further down, which will signify your ascent into fresh air once again. However, this post will at least be like having a party in the sewer. I intend to enjoy writing it, thoroughly. In fact, I could keep it on the go on-and-off all evening.'

"I quoted an insult Squelchy Nightmare had recently made for no apparent reason, and then joked, 'Wow, yep, it seems Squelchy Nightmare really is still smarting from when he lost that argument with me a year ago. Or whenever it was. I mean, really smarting! And I didn't think my victory was all that big. Merely equivalent to wafting away a mosquito with a rolled-up newspaper. ... Then again, come to think of it, newspapers are big from the point of view of mosquitos, so maybe it did seem like a big victory to him.'

"After I'd vented my annoyance with him, another poster accused me for fun of being the one who kidnapped Charles Lindberg's baby. I think that might have been some crime that was committed decades and decades ago.

"I joked, 'I eat babies! ... Actually, I may as well confess now: I was the one who shot archduke whatever-his-name-was in the crime that led to the first world war. Yep, I started it. And I went over to America especially to start the American Civil War in the 19th century. And I did it all by myself. And I came over again especially to cause the Great Depression of the 1930s. It was all my fault. Bizarrely though, some people here still like me. A couple of people have said some surprisingly nice things about me. ... I'm just saying that to intimidate anyone who might want to reprimand me for starting the American Civil War, or something like that - they should know I have supporters!'

"I quoted some nice things a couple of people had said about me, and then joked, 'So take that, all you who want to criticize me for slowing down medical advancement, or starting and prolonging the American Revolution, or for causing the current financial crisis all by myself as I did, or for any of the other crimes I've committed! Know that I have allies in this place!'

"There's someone else on that forum who keeps accusing me of things, but in a kind of creepy way, and they're not far-fetched things, but just stupid things, so it's not fun at all. One day after a long argument with him, I joked to someone else, 'I reckon I should have said to him, 'I bet you're just saying this stuff because you're upset about losing the argument, so you're trying to make me look bad, spewing up verbal vomit from your guts, just to make yourself feel better. It's lies, but who's ever heard of vomit being able to tell the difference between truth and lies! Of all the ways you might describe vomit, only a nutter would say, "This vomit's truthful", or, "This vomit's lying"; so it would obviously be silly of me to say it was lying vomit, as if vomit's a living thing and could actually tell the difference between truth and lies. It might be especially foul vomit, but vomit is just vomit after all.'"

The students giggled, and one said while laughing, "Do you have to be so gross?"

Then another one of the group said, "I was arguing with someone on a forum the other day, and we'd hardly got started when he declared he'd won the victory. I joked, 'You wouldn't know defeat if it hit you in the face. That's why it never does. It just can't be bothered. It just creeps around your feet smirking.'

"He joked, 'How can my feet creep around my feet? That doesn't make sense.'

"I said, 'Defeat creeps around de feet.'

"There was another time when someone new came to the forum and introduced himself, saying he was studying criminology at university and was especially interested in the causes of criminal behaviour. He said he liked to play poker in his spare time.

"I said for fun, 'What do you know about the causes of poker playing? Anything? Is someone who does a course on the causes of something any more likely than anyone else to wonder about the causes of his own behaviour?'

"He didn't answer that."

Another student said, "I was in an argument on a forum not long ago, and someone claimed I'd said something I hadn't. I said to him, 'Where did you get that? How many lines of what I said did you have to read in between before you read that one?'

"He was suggesting ideas that he thought could improve America, and I wasn't sure they could really work or how they could be put into practice, and asked him how he thought they could be achieved. Then he suggested another one, and said if I asked him how to do that he'd smack me.

"I joked to someone who was taking his side against me, 'I think it would be worth egging him on to do that, just to observe the logistics of such a procedure. It sounds as if he'd have to employ a method straight out of a Harry Potter book. And I thought those were fiction!'

"Then I did ask the man how he thought his new idea could be put into practice, and he said, 'Smack!'

"I joked, 'Ah, your famous rod of Discipline! But it didn't work. I didn't feel a thing! It seems your Harry Potter-style wizardry skills are sadly lacking. Go back to wizarding school! Yes, I know it'll be embarrassing for a man of your age to be taking lessons with teenagers, but it might be what you need to do if you want to get your long-distance smacking skills up to scratch. Or maybe you could just take a bit of instruction from one of the teachers one evening as a short refresher course, just on magical smacking.'

"There was another time when I was having a conversation with him, after I came across a humorous web page about how atheists are four-legged creatures that live in the mountains and eat certain kinds of flowers that smell of scrambled eggs. He's an atheist. I quoted some of the web page on the forum for fun. Some people didn't like it. We were having a friendly argument about some other stuff too, and this man said arguing doesn't work, but getting to know someone and then persuading them - if they're actually amenable to persuasion because their beliefs aren't very strong, might.

"I joked, 'Are you Seriously trying to suggest to me, for example, that I'm never going to convince atheists that they eat flowers by arguing with them, but if I get to know them better, I might just be able to beguile them into my trust and sneak the idea into their brains when they're not looking so I can get them to believe it after all or something? Or what? Might repetition work, so if I told an atheist thirty times that they eat flowers, they're more likely to believe they do than if I tell them only once?'

"The man said, 'In this particular case, you might need to soften them up with waterboarding and sleep deprivation.'

"I said, 'That's gross! Do you think softening them up with chocolate would work just as well?'

"In the same argument, another man got annoyed with someone who likes to put bigoted views on the board, who I think claimed he'd said something he hadn't. The man who was annoyed said to him, 'Maybe I should start inventing quotes for you and then slapping you about.'

"Obviously he didn't mean it literally, given he would have had to have arms that were hundreds or thousands of miles long to have been able to literally do that, - and I might be a bit inexperienced when it comes to travelling the world, but I've never known someone who's built like that. But I still thought what he said was a bit uncivilised, and joked, 'If this is your mentality, be careful, or you'll be in danger of being zapped by my special powers! Since you seem to be a caveman, perhaps you ought to get back to your cave and do some cave painting, to keep your hands full so you're not tempted to use them to slap anyone else. Make it a really, really big picture, one covering all the walls, and maybe even the ceiling. That should keep your hands full for a while. And then go and collect some big armfuls of firewood and engage yourself in building up a nice big wood store for the winter.'

"There was another time when a man on there who's always insulting people said something insulting to someone and they didn't like it, and I joked, 'He only says what he says because his wife chases him with a whip every time he tries to go in the kitchen or says something out of line, and he's scared of her, so he doesn't dare stand up to her. He tried standing up to her once, and she put him in shackles for days, so he wouldn't dare do it again. He uses the board as a kind of compensation for that, saying all the things he'd like to say to her but wouldn't dare.'

"The man who was always insulting people insulted me for saying that, and I joked, 'Oh come on, you told me all that yourself! I know you'd rather I hadn't broadcast it to the board, but I just forgot my discretion for a minute, sorry.'

"There was another time when I was arguing with someone, and it was getting quite heated, and that man said I sounded self-righteous. I joked,

"'Unfortunately, when the board is half-filled with sociopaths, it's inevitable that one will sometimes come across as you describe. You know the old adage, If you can't join them, beat them.'"

The students grinned.

One of the Group, Naomi, Starts Telling the Others About a Book She's Read About Men Who Beat Their Wives

Then one of them, Naomi, who'd been smiling along with the rest, turned the conversation serious by saying, "Talking of beating and other kinds of abusive stuff though, I read a book about men who abuse their wives, and why they do what they do, written by someone who's learned a lot by running a programme for years to try to help abusers change their ways, who's become wiser to their ways over time. He's called Lundy Bancroft, and the book's called, 'Why Does He Do That?' I'll tell you all about what I learned from it if you like."

The other students wanted to hear what she had to say. So she said,

"OK. Interestingly enough, the book says near the beginning that abusers aren't all the same; there are several different personality types of abusers, and they use different styles of abuse, and yet they've got a lot more in common than they have differences, although it would be hard to guess that, because they can be so different; but their motives are all pretty similar, along with the reasons why they think they're justified in doing what they do. The book says they've all come to believe that they're entitled to treat their girlfriends and wives pretty much as their property, because they've come to believe women are inferior to men, and that they have a right to control them and be served by them.

"It might not seem that way to their wives or girlfriends a lot of the time, since abusers can often be generous and kind, at least at first, and often seem just normal to people outside the relationship. And some can sometimes seem sensitive and vulnerable, like hurt children, crying out for sympathy about things that have happened to them in the past, and seeming to really want to change after they've done something abusive. And a lot of them can often go from being abusive to being loving and caring, and even seem to feel guilty about what they've done. It can often seem as if an abusive partner's like two different people, one considerate and caring and interested in their wife or girlfriend, and the other one angry and insulting, not being willing to listen to a word they say, and giving the impression they think the person they're abusing is just scum.

"The abuse often gradually escalates over time, so there's none at first, and then there's some verbal abuse and criticism every so often, and it can get worse and worse over time, before in some cases the abuse starts getting physical. So partners of abusers can be confused about why things have changed, wondering what they've done to make the abuser less happy with them than they used to be.

"Or they can often be confused about why their abusive partners go from being kind and caring to being abusive every so often, thinking they themselves must be doing something to set off the abuse, but not being able to work out what.

"The seeming changes in an abuser's personality between the time when they're abusive and the way they act a lot of the rest of the time can be so dramatic that their wives or girlfriends can often not imagine them being abusive again when they're being nice; and some of the abusers can seem vulnerable and lost, and starving for love and affection sometimes, willing to talk openly about things that have upset them in the past. So their partners can get optimistic that those times are opportunities to help them talk through their problems so they can begin to heal from the hurts they've suffered, so they'll stop being abusive. But abusers don't normally ever change.

"Victims of abusive partners can be further confused by conflicting advice they get from people around them, some saying they and their partners can work things out if they just try harder and change a bit, - some of those people being authority figures like therapists and church pastors and priests; but with other people urging them to leave. So they can be unsure about what it would be best to do."

How Abusers Manipulate Their Partners and Other People into Not Blaming Them for Their Abuse but blaming other things, and Some Ways They Control Them

Naomi carried on, "A lot of abusers say they don't mean to get abusive, but they just lose control of themselves when they're angry or drunk. But the fact that they don't hit everyone who makes them angry is evidence that they could control themselves if they actually wanted to.

"Couples counselling apparently doesn't normally work with abusive men, because they're not interested in resolving the conflicts in their marriages; they feel entitled to be abusive and don't see why they should stop, and will usually find ways to blame their wives for everything.

"They deliberately use a whole range of manipulation tactics to keep their wives under control. Understanding that that's what they're doing can clarify things a lot for their wives.

"A lot of people might advise abuse victims to leave their abusive partners; but they can be reluctant to do that, sometimes because the abusers threaten that they'll come after them and hurt them if they do, and sometimes because the abusers can seem to sink into deep depression and become suicidal if their partners threaten to leave, so their wives or girlfriends can worry about them. Or the abusers can tell their friends and relatives how upset they are so they feel sorry for them, and pressure the abuse victims not to leave and to give them another chance. And the abusers can promise to change, sounding really sincere, and upset about what they've done. Or they can convince their partners they'll do their best to take the children away from them if they leave. Some abusers have succeeded in doing that.

"If an abuser is made to go to therapy or put on a programme to help abusers change, he'll likely try to gain the support of the people there by embellishing the bad behaviour of his partner, and lie or say other things to justify himself, like saying he only flirts with other women or puts her down in public to show her how it feels when she hurts him.

"And abusers can convince therapists they're persuaded to go to that those therapists are giving them pause for thought and helping them, and thank them for that; and they can seem to have real insight into the way their behaviour hurts their partners, only to go home and abuse them some more for insisting they got help. If therapists never find out they're doing that, they can end up feeling sorry for the abusers and mostly blaming their partners for the problems, especially if they never hear their side of the story. It's probably just instinctive to side with a person telling you a sob story that tugs on the heartstrings, instead of wondering if they're really telling the truth, or whether there's more to the story than they're telling you, that would put them in a worse light.

"The book says that childhood abuse won't in itself make a man abusive to the women in his life; but a lot of abusers use it as an excuse, to make people feel sorry for them. According to what it says, there are other things that predict how abusive a man will be to his partner far better.

"The author of the book says he's come to realise that abusers like their behaviour to remain a mystery to their partners and friends and other people, so they don't find out the real truth about their motives, so their partners carry on seeking out ways to solve their problems that won't challenge them too much, if at all, like being nicer to them, so they can carry on getting away with their behaviour, because they don't have to take responsibility for it if people wonder if it was caused by what other people did to them, or something else that isn't their fault.

"An Abuser will often like to try to convince his partner that she's at least partly to blame for the abuse. And abusers' partners can often believe them, especially if they can get angry and say abusive things themselves. But any abuser who wanted to stop being abusive actually would. Wives and girlfriends who do their best to change can still find their partners being abusive no matter what.

"Abusers can sometimes be surprisingly open about their feelings and the way they were hurt in the past, but it can partly be a way of distracting people from finding out the truth, which is that their abusive behaviour stems from the way they think and their attitudes, not from their hurt emotions, even if it seems that it does. Whatever's happened to them in the past, the main reason they're abusive will be because they believe they're entitled to be, according to this book.

"And it says abusers can sometimes exaggerate the abuse they suffered in the past to make their partners and other people feel sorry for them. For instance, there was a study of paedophiles where they were asked if they'd been sexually abused as children, and about two thirds of them said they had been; but then they were told they were going to be asked the same questions again in a lie detector test; and then less than a third of them said they'd been abused as children.

"But abuse victims can find a glimmer of satisfaction or relief in thinking that when an abusive partner tells them they were abused by their mother, the abuse they inflict actually makes a bit of sense, since it seems it's learned behaviour, or an instinctive hatred of their women relatives that's making them want to do it, and that there's someone else to blame, so they can excuse their abuser a bit. But the abuser tends not to be telling the whole story, and can be exaggerating the abuse they suffered.

"Naturally, abusers deserve a bit of sympathy for any abuse they did suffer; but they can often tug on their partners' heartstrings to stop them trying to convince them they're fully accountable for their abuse and standing up to it. The partners of abusers can feel guilty about judging them too harshly for the abuse if they think it's a product of the way they were brought up; and that can be just what abusers want. There are probably lots of men who were abused as children who don't go on to abuse their wives; so in reality, there must be more going on with the men who do.

"The author of this book says he's often commented to abusive men that surely the abuse they suffered as children should make them less likely to want to be abusive, not more, if it meant they know just how bad it feels to be abused, and fearful of what the abuser will do, and to have their self-esteem battered by continually being told they're no good and so on. He says the abusive men stop mentioning their childhoods after that, as if they realise they can't use childhood abuse as an excuse for what they do any more, so there's no point in bringing it up.

"He says another excuse abusive men often use for their abuse is that they get easily angry because they're still hurting from when a previous partner hurt them, often by cheating on them again and again. That can draw sympathy from their partners; but the author says it often turns out, if they're asked questions about how they knew it was going on, that their evidence for their former partners cheating is actually pretty flimsy, such as that they saw them enjoying conversations with another man, and just knew that must mean they were cheating on them with him. Of course, it's likely it didn't mean that at all. But it's easy to assume that if someone says a former partner cheated on them, they really did.

"At first when the abusers are asked how they knew they were being cheated on, they might just say things like that everyone knew, or that they caught their former partner cheating themselves. So their story will be easy to believe. Only if they're asked what they found their partners actually doing, and they tell the truth, might it turn out that all their former partners were doing was laughing and joking with a man, or something like that, - something that most people would just interpret to mean they were friends, or that they were getting on well.

"Of course, an abuser might really have been cheated on by a former partner; but that doesn't mean it's an excuse for abuse.

"Some of the things an abuser says can be pure fantasy, that he's been able to imagine happening because of the way he himself behaves, such as accusing a former partner of trying to control him all the time and expecting him to wait on her hand and foot. The victim of his abuse can sympathise with him especially because she knows what that's like, since he does that to her.

"Abusers will tend to try to prevent their wives and new girlfriends from speaking to their former partners, or poison their minds against them by telling unfair lies about them, so they end up thinking they're nasty liars who accuse people of abuse unfairly, and things like that, so they're unlikely to believe what they say about them if they do come into contact with them and find out their point of view. If they listened to them though, they'd discover their relationships with the abuser have always followed a common pattern, like with the man being loving at first but changing over time."