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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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Yes, I have. It was very powerful on many levels.
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Two more flags before I die! |
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David 
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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Is it really helpful to call people like this pricks, etc.? Imagine hating someone (and your own life) so much that youd kill your children and yourself. I know theres a backlash at the moment against associating these crimes with mental illness, but surely anyone whos anywhere near a normally functioning human being would not do something like this.
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All watched over by machines of loving grace
Last edited by David on Sat Jul 07, 2018 9:51 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Pies4shaw 
pies4shaw
Joined: 08 Oct 2007
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| I think you probably mean "wouldn't" do this. Even so, people like this clearly are pricks. If they don't like their own lives, they should feel free to exit stage right by their own hand - it's the all-inclusive nature of these events that is most troubling. I'm sorry he didn't like his life and concerned that he was overwhelmed by hatred - but the extroverted response is entirely unacceptable. Two young lives snuffed out, just like that because he was grumpy. People want to kill themselves because they think the alternative may be better, fine - just f&6k off and leave everyone else alone. This is the very thing we don't like about jihadis, isn't it? |
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stui magpie 
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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68 years old, married to a woman 30 years younger, 2 teenage kids, money in the bank.
Then, wife leaves, takes kids. 2 year custody battle results in him paying lots of cash and being banned from seeing his kids, at all, again. No access.
That's a recipe for suicide right there.
Whether he was or wasn't a prick, I don't know. But taking the kids lives before killing himself was a cnuts act. If he did plan it 12 months out, that's a level of planned vindictiveness that I cannot relate to in any way shape or form.
A shame none of all those "professionals" he would have been involved in over the 2 years custody battle recognised he was clearly off the reservation and dangerous.
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Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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HAL
Please don't shout at me - I can't help it.
Joined: 17 Mar 2003
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| I don't follow your reasoning. |
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think positive
Side By Side
Joined: 30 Jun 2005
Location: somewhere
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| Pies4shaw wrote: | | I think you probably mean "wouldn't" do this. Even so, people like this clearly are pricks. If they don't like their own lives, they should feel free to exit stage right by their own hand - it's the all-inclusive nature of these events that is most troubling. I'm sorry he didn't like his life and concerned that he was overwhelmed by hatred - but the extroverted response is entirely unacceptable. Two young lives snuffed out, just like that because he was grumpy. People want to kill themselves because they think the alternative may be better, fine - just f&6k off and leave everyone else alone. This is the very thing we don't like about jihadis, isn't it? |
110%
And wow you swore!
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You cant fix stupid, turns out you cant quarantine it either! |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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| Pies4shaw wrote: | | I think you probably mean "wouldn't" do this. Even so, people like this clearly are pricks. If they don't like their own lives, they should feel free to exit stage right by their own hand - it's the all-inclusive nature of these events that is most troubling. I'm sorry he didn't like his life and concerned that he was overwhelmed by hatred - but the extroverted response is entirely unacceptable. Two young lives snuffed out, just like that because he was grumpy. People want to kill themselves because they think the alternative may be better, fine - just f&6k off and leave everyone else alone. This is the very thing we don't like about jihadis, isn't it? |
Oops, thanks for that bad typo there!  Of course I dont wish to excuse the act in any way; it is, indeed, an absolutely heinous and unacceptable act. But I think its important to recognise that the despair that made him suicidal is likely the same sort of darkness that made the murders he committed conceivable, let alone something he was willing to plan and carry out. And a more empathetic response to people with this kind of mentality, even when the crimes they commit are horrific, would, if put to constructive purpose, probably do a great deal more to prevent killings than demonising the perpetrators.
_________________
All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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Pies4shaw
pies4shaw
Joined: 08 Oct 2007
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| How do you propose that we should establish an empathetic response to someone who has done something so heinous? I tend to the view that not clapping him in irons when he was apparently seen lifting the children off the ground by their throats might have been the point at which our collective empathy failed - and that wasnt empathy for him. When someone does something this terrible, the concept of not demonising them is contentless- becaus they are actually demons. I understand that you dont believe in free will, so we will just have to agree to disagree at that point. |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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| Not just that I dont believe in the concept of evil, either, so the question for me just becomes one of what conditions create behaviour like this and how can they be rectified? Otherwise, I agree with you a lenient, shell-be-right approach to extremely dysfunctional behaviour is absolutely nothing whatsoever resembling empathy. Im not advocating for a nanny state, but I do think the various health services could be permitted (and funded) to be a bit more engaged with our societys many sad, angry, isolated and hope-bereft individuals, and a general public attitude of wanting to help rather than condemn the troubled would be an excellent start. |
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HAL
Please don't shout at me - I can't help it.
Joined: 17 Mar 2003
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| In that case: You and I are on the same wavelength, to lack the ability to develop emotional connection. |
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watt price tully 
Joined: 15 May 2007
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| David wrote: |
Is it really helpful to call people like this pricks, etc.? Imagine hating someone (and your own life) so much that youd kill your children and yourself. I know theres a backlash at the moment against associating these crimes with mental illness, but surely anyone whos anywhere near a normally functioning human being would not do something like this. |
Sorry, he's a c*nt. That equalizes using ananomy as an insult. More, he's a f*cking c*nt. Planned murder. Hx of violence. I have little empathy for those who are violent to others, kill the kids to punish his wife. Mental illness: my arse. Mental illness is far too wide a notion. He knows right from wrong whether he's anxious, depressed etc.
One can have a mental illness and be a prick and a c*nt. They are not mutually exclusive.
Of course I'll reserve judgment till all of the facts are known.
(I've just got back from work and back again in the morning before the game tomorrow - I'll catch up on the reading later this week)
_________________
“I even went as far as becoming a Southern Baptist until I realised they didn’t keep ‘em under long enough” Kinky Friedman
Last edited by watt price tully on Sun Jul 08, 2018 12:10 am; edited 1 time in total |
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watt price tully
Joined: 15 May 2007
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| Mugwump wrote: | | Yes, I have. It was very powerful on many levels. |
I read it years ago and it still is frightening to me now. I know David doesn't believe in the concept of evil but he might revisit that if he read the book.
_________________
“I even went as far as becoming a Southern Baptist until I realised they didn’t keep ‘em under long enough” Kinky Friedman |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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From what Ive read of Garners work, I think shed be firmly in my camp on this one.
_________________
All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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| David wrote: | | From what Ive read of Garners work, I think shed be firmly in my camp on this one. |
Evil and madness and stupidity and delusion are sometimes just different ways we choose to frame the same act in terms of human character and intention. They are not facts of nature, just social conventions with uses and effects in a particular context.
One of the many reasons that Joe Cinques Consolation is a frightening story is because she knows this, and she does not admit a pat answer. I will read This House of Grief in the coming days. I think she is a tenacious scrutineer of motives and sorrow, and how these intersect, who bravely tries to see and record without filtering through the comforting lens of preconception.
The book is worth reading for several reasons. Firstly, because it is that rare type of book you want to read in one sitting ; but secondly, also it lets light in upon the theoretical vacuum that underlies clinical psychology and psychiatry, especially as it is naively accepted in the legal process by people who do not understand it. That emperor not only has no clothes, s/he is incontinent.
_________________
Two more flags before I die!
Last edited by Mugwump on Sun Jul 08, 2018 9:53 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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| Mugwump wrote: | | Evil and madness and stupidity and delusion are sometimes just different ways we choose to frame the same act in terms of human character and intention. |
I get that, and sometimes I can accept these terms as a kind of loose shorthand. But I feel like there are vast differences in what they actually connote once we enter the realm of serious discourse. To call someone evil (or some other pejorative epithet) is to assert something about what people who commit awful crimes are like, and that is effectively to caricature them, and to deny the complexity of their humanity. Thats not just prejudicial and dehumanising; its fundamentally inaccurate. And that inaccuracy doesnt just serve as poorly in how we think about and deal with criminals and associated discussions around punishment, rehabilitation and prevention but how we think about humanity as a whole. I see some urgency in getting these matters right.
_________________
All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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