{"id":364,"date":"2006-08-28T02:20:41","date_gmt":"2006-08-28T06:20:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/s265039441.onlinehome.us\/philpaine\/?p=364"},"modified":"2018-08-22T00:17:11","modified_gmt":"2018-08-22T04:17:11","slug":"14746-%c2%a0%c2%a0-elliott-leyton-hunting-humans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=364","title":{"rendered":"14746.&nbsp;(Elliott Leyton) Hunting Humans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">This is the sem\u00adi\u00adnal work on the anthro\u00adpol\u00adogy and soci\u00adol\u00adogy of ser\u00adial killing. I read it in con\u00adjunc\u00adtion with an <span class=\"caps\">NFB<\/span> doc\u00adu\u00admen\u00adtary film \u201cThe Man Who Stud\u00adies Mur\u00adder\u201d, which puts a face to the voice of the book. Ley\u00adton is a coun\u00adtry boy from small-town Saskatchewan (who looks and sounds dis\u00adtinctly Metis, though I can\u2019t say for sure that he is) and now lives in New\u00adfound\u00adland. New\u00adfound\u00adland is rur\u00adal, poor by North Amer\u00adi\u00adcan stan\u00addards, and vir\u00adtu\u00adally every house has a gun. Eco\u00adnom\u00adi\u00adcally, it\u2019s the Cana\u00addian equiv\u00ada\u00adlent of Arkansas. But it has one of the low\u00adest mur\u00adder rates in the world. In the film, Ley\u00adton dis\u00adcusses the rea\u00adsons why he con\u00adsid\u00aders cul\u00adtural choic\u00ades and mores the prin\u00adci\u00adpal deter\u00admi\u00adnant of mur\u00adder rates and styles of mur\u00adder, often using his home as a laboratory.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span id=\"more-364\"><\/span>The book on ser\u00adial and mass killers, deal\u00ading with the \u201cclas\u00adsic\u201d cas\u00ades, attempts to get beyond the kind of unver\u00adi\u00adfi\u00adable psy\u00adchi\u00adatric spec\u00adu\u00adla\u00adtions that dom\u00adi\u00adnated the issue before Ley\u00adton came on the scene. As he demon\u00adstrates, psy\u00adchi\u00ada\u00adtry has been of lit\u00adtle use in under\u00adstand\u00ading the phe\u00adnom\u00ade\u00adnon. He shows the fun\u00adda\u00admen\u00adtal sim\u00adi\u00adlar\u00adi\u00adties in most ser\u00adial killings, and does his best to deflate the non\u00adsense gen\u00ader\u00adated by Thomas Harris\u2019s \u201cHan\u00adni\u00adbal Lecter\u201d fan\u00adtasies. Ser\u00adial killers are invari\u00adably pathet\u00adic, inef\u00adfec\u00adtive losers, usu\u00adally pret\u00adty dumb.\u2026. nev\u00ader the suave super\u00adge\u00adniuses of fic\u00adtion. Ley\u00adton rejects bio\u00adlog\u00adi\u00adcal and psy\u00adchi\u00adatric expla\u00adna\u00adtions in favour of a cul\u00adtural one, and argues it per\u00adsua\u00adsively. He may not have the last word on this issue, but his opin\u00adions are more worth read\u00ading than most. He is also a wit\u00adty and enter\u00adtain\u00ading writer <strong>\u2015 <\/strong>and from the evi\u00addence of the film, has the same qual\u00adi\u00adties in person.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is the sem\u00adi\u00adnal work on the anthro\u00adpol\u00adogy and soci\u00adol\u00adogy of ser\u00adial killing. I read it in con\u00adjunc\u00adtion with an <span class=\"caps\">NFB<\/span> doc\u00adu\u00admen\u00adtary film \u201cThe Man Who Stud\u00adies Mur\u00adder\u201d, which puts a face to the voice of the book. Ley\u00adton&nbsp;is&nbsp;\u2026<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=364\">Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[946,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-b-reading","category-bu-reading-2006"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=364"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9507,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364\/revisions\/9507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}