Whoever Fights Monsters: My Twenty Years Tracking Serial Killers for the FBI

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Well, Mr. Ressler, you’re the criminal profiler. You’re the FBI. You figure it out.”– John Wayne Gacy Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.” (Nietzsche)

Whoever Fights Monsters - Macmillan

What has been taken as vacuous story-telling about impossible creatures, very often seems to have been about change in cultic practices; in a non-monotheist world, without a hegemonic church with an unalterable text. We can find this dynamic in Beowulf, which has been linked to the transition from pagan rites around intoxicants and human sacrifice (very like the Elusinian mysteries, one of the worlds longest practiced rites), and contention for sway over the community with the then new Christian culture. Power could not be cemented by force alone, it also crucially required, having the best story. Before written texts, that defined human history - the best story. Could already be an example of "slave morality" which he seems to have outlined later in that book. In that if you deify your opponents as monsters and lean in on your resentment of them, you give them power over yourself. They are the ones who control your thinking and acting, in that everything you do and think is in response to this powerful enemy (even if it's phrased as an antagonism, it's the monster who determines your moral code). So if all you think relates to the monster how can you think of becoming anything other than a monster or what would you be once you've defeated the monster? a b c d e f g h Ressler, Robert (1993). Whoever Fights Monsters. New York: St Martin's Press. pp. 23–30. ISBN 0312950446.On the other hand, the author is not very likeable from a modern and liberal standpoint. A couple asides about gay relationships and women making false rape accusations both left a bad taste in my mouth. He places a ton of weight upon confessions extracted under intense questioning, referencing the Central Park Five case with zero skepticism (the book was written in 1991, so you can't blame him for not seeing the future, but it's concerning that he mentioned it as an example of a well-conducted investigation similar to one that he himself was involved with). Even from the beginning when he describes his early work with the army, going undercover to infiltrate anti-war student movements during the Vietnam War, I knew I was not going to agree with his politics. And with his discovery that serial killers share certain violent behaviors, Ressler's gone behind prison walls to hear the bizarre first-hand stories countless convicted murderers. Getting inside the mind of a killer to understand how and why he kills, is one of the FBI's most effective ways of helping police bring in killers who are still at large. Alongside fellow criminal profilers John Douglas and Roy Hazelwood, the experience was being gained in a new method of catching criminals. Upon reflection, police officers and criminal investigators had been using profiling techniques for many years without realizing it. The visual analysis of a crime scene, the logical sequence of events, and the presence or absence of certain characteristics; all have been used to help understand a criminal and their motives.

a monster by Why, according to Nietzsche, is becoming a monster by

Ressler. R.K., and Shachtman, T. (2003) I Have Lived In The Monster: Inside The Minds of the World’s Most Notorious Serial Killers.St. Martin’s Press Power may be the medium of morality, and its goal, but tasteless use of power is like tasteless use of any other medium. To see his aesthetic, you can look at his own artistic process, which he displayed over and over again by choosing mythological or poetic representations, or you can look at his critiques of other's work. Particularly, I think it is why he bothered to publish 'contra Wagner'. The only thing that prevents us from directly experiencing this abyss is the continual input of our senses, filling the void with experiences and impressions from the outside world, the world beyond the abyss. This is why Buddhists, in particular, like to quell the sense data and meditate on a realisation of nothingness (which I am reliably informed – is a very noble spiritual state to be in and much sort after experience). The book is also obviously dated, with no new chapters referencing anything past the early 1990s. I really need to find more modern texts, but so far nothing is quite as superior as these for definitive facts and information relating to violent crimes etc.

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Nietzsche was a brilliant philosopher whose intellectual life was crippled by serious amounts of pain and discomfort and a slow descent into madness, the primary cause was a progressive and untreatable brain condition that resulted in his almost complete immobility in later years due to stroke. Whoever Fights Monsters details Robert Ressler's career with the FBI in his revolutionary quest to fine tune the process of profiling serial killers. If you're not familiar with Ressler then just know this--he actually coined the term 'serial killer' He was also the main point of reference for Thomas Harris when he was writing Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs. He also started that little interviewing project where FBI agents interviewed serial killers around the country to find out more about them in hopes of identifying future serial killers. He says he is often asked why he never discusses female serial killers and says there has really only been one, Aileen Wuornos. And then does not go on to discuss her psychopathy the difference between male and female killers. Literally puts a period on that sentence and then never revisits it once. It’s as if in his mind female serial killers hold so little value to him that they don’t even deserve study. Difficult as it may be to believe, almost all police and justice forces never examined perpetrators psychologically or thought it at all important to solving whodunnit until recently. A crime is committed, nearby people are interviewed, suspects are rounded up and questioned based on their likelihood of having a reason to kill - money, jealousy, sex, rage, especially past convictions involving violence - done. Police had no interest in profiling. Indeed, most police were suspicious of profiling, even today. Crime scene facts and physical evidence are what matters, along with witness statements, if any.