im starting to think we need a real version of the gom jabbar (for those who havent read 'Dune', leave this site now and head to your local bookstore or library and READ IT)... because i am seeing too many examples of people willing to sacrifice their humanity, their free will, as a means of freeing themselves of any and all responsibility for their actions and the state of their life...

in particular, im refering to the idea of "chemical imbalances"... the belief that some kind of indefinable, unclassifiable, unprovable, unsupportable coctail of neurotransmitters gone wild can MAKE you do something outside your control... the fairy tale that claims that for whatever reason you no longer have a choice in your behavor, no way to exert your will over your actions... in short, a license to do whatever you FEEL like doing, and having no responsibility for doing it...

my problem with this myth is that those who subscribe to it are willingly abdicating their humanity... they are voluntarily giving up what separates us from animals: our free will.

see, animals have no free will, or at the least a very limited example of self-direction... animals behave according to their nature... if a wolf kills and eats a person, it isnt because they are somehow deliberately, maliciously seeking out people to kill and eat, its because they are doing what it is their nature to do: hunt, kill, and eat. they have to free will in the selection of their prey, they simply take what is available and easiest to kill. animals generally dont hunt humans, because in general humans are dangerous prey (excepting the very stupid examples of humanity you can find any given night on Fox)... or if not dangerous, definitely more work (and more risk) than a lot of other prey.

by the same turn, animals dont deliberately do themselves harm... because it is in their nature to protect their own interests... they dont consume things they know to be bad for them (tricking them with poisons dont count... thats just another example of humans being dangerous prey)... they would never deliberately do something crazy or self-destructive... and this basic self-interest and drive towards self-preservation, in fact the very INABILITY to do otherwise, is what proves the lie of "chemical imbalances"... one could easily make the argument that animals behave the way they do, in a self-preserving and non-destructive way, because they CANT HELP BUT DO SO.

this is the self-same arguement those who believe in chemical imbalances make... that because of some convenient flaw in their brain chemistry, they CANT HELP doing what they do, they HAVE NO CHOICE... in short they are like an animal... the only problem is, they ARENT behaving like animals, because in EVERY CASE, this arguement is used to support (explain, apologize for, etc) extremely bad, SELF-DESTRUCTIVE behaviors and actions... you never hear someone saying "i just cant seem to stop behaving right! i jog every day, eat according to my bodies nutritional needs, and rear my children with love and care... why, i must have some kind of freakish CHEMICAL IMBALANCE!"

no, instead they want to claim that the removal of free will makes them drink themselves to death, poison themselves with drugs, fuck around on their spouses with anything that moves, abuse their family, jerk off uncontrollably, eat until their heart explodes, etc etc etc... but doesnt it stand to reason that if your ability to choose, the ability to direct your own actions was removed from you, you would then revert to your more basic drives and needs as the motivation for your behavior? lets just assume that is the case... do you really believe that our basic underlying instinctive behavior is to destroy ourselves and those around us? and if you believe that, how the FUCK do you explain the fact that we didnt destroy ourselves as a species before we developed self-awareness? if our own basic nature was so self-destructive, so geared AGAINST our own preservation, WE WOULDNT BE HERE NOW.

but hey, im feeling generous... for the sake of this arguement, im going to grant that all of that is true. that people DO develop chemical imbalances that remove their free will and give them no choice in their behavior. ill also grant that in the absence of our free will, we are basically self-destructive, and will tend towarding behaving in ways that harm us as much as possible. in other words, ill grant that people with chemical imbalances do terrible things and CANT HELP THEMSELVES.

so, granting all that... what is to be done with people like this? what do we do with the compulsive child molestor? the mad-dog killer? the alcoholic wife-beater? well, we could do like we currently do, and put them in jail... but why bother? we already established that THEY CANT HELP THEMSELVES. you cant rehabilitate them... rehabilitation implies that you have a choice in your behavior, and they obviously dont. we could medicate them, but what good would that really do? does free will come in a pill? if you lack the ability to make your own choices, can a drug or anything else really provide you with that ability? do you really believe that something so simple and poorly understood can CREATE humanity where none existed before? no... of course not. so... what to do, what to do? well... we already have a simple and effective method of dealing with OTHER animals that have gone off their nut and turned destructive...

we put them down like the crazy animals they are.

its a mercy, really... the poor beasts cant help themselves... they are a danger to themselves and others... the only right thing is to put them out of their misery. so which is it to be? either we do or we dont have control over our actions... you either are or arent an ANIMAL. you cant have it both ways.

the sad truth of the matter is, it isnt the LACK of choice that is the problem... the simple fact we DO have free will is all the explaination we need for this so-called "chemical-induced behavior"... if we had no free will, we would act in a basically self-interested way (self-preserving instead of self-destroying)... no, the answer lies in the TRUE definition of free will:

free will is the basic ability to do the WRONG thing, even though you KNOW what the RIGHT thing is.