Littleton backlash
Tanos - remove X
> In the days after the Littleton, Colorado massacre, the
> country went on a panicked hunt the oddballs in High
> School, a profoundly ignorant and unthinking response to a tragedy
> that left geeks, nerds, non-conformists and the alienated in an
> even worse situation than before.
> Odd values - unthinking school spirit, proms, jocks - are exalted,
> while the best values - free thinking, non-conformity, curiousity
> - are ridiculed.
continued on http://slashdot.org/articles/99/04/25/1438249.shtml
and this coupled with the persistent attempts of the Littleton
"jocks" to label the killers as gay.
Not a good time to be young and in a sexual minority?
Tanos
T. Eckhart
What streams me most is that for all the talk of "what caused" it
no one is looking at the students who made these kids feel like outcasts.
If kids didn't tease each other so bloodly much maybe kids wouldn't dream
of hurting other kids and even doing harm.
--
--
Love, Peace, Hugs, Kisses, Whips, & Chains,
TammyJo Eckhart (teck...@kiva.net)
http://www.kiva.net/~teckhart/
"I'm going to take you higher, and that's no lie." -- Savage Garden
Daniel B. Holzman
T. Eckhart <teck...@sherrill.kiva.net> wrote:
>
> What streams me most is that for all the talk of "what caused" it
>no one is looking at the students who made these kids feel like outcasts.
>If kids didn't tease each other so bloodly much maybe kids wouldn't dream
>of hurting other kids and even doing harm.
I'm sorry, TammyJo, I think you're entirely off base with this one.
For one thing, it sounds far too much like certain excuses which have
historicly been made for rapists.
For another, have kids really gotten that much worse in the 12 years
since I and so many of my friends were in school being hounded by them?
We all dreamed about visiting all sorts of horrors on our tormentors, but
we managed to work out our issues without staging armed assaults on the
school at large.
I'm afraid I don't buy the "it was because they were outcasts" argument
-- there were too many other outcasts. It can't be that simply, any more
than it can be any of the other easy-bubt-wrong explanations that are
floating around.
--
William December Starr
hol...@ripco.com (Daniel B. Holzman) said:
> For another, have kids really gotten that much worse in the 12 years
> since I and so many of my friends were in school being hounded by
> them? We all dreamed about visiting all sorts of horrors on our
> tormentors, but we managed to work out our issues without staging
> armed assaults on the school at large.
Dunno about you, but I didn't "manage" anything. The main reasons I
didn't do anything like what those two boys in Littleton did were
(minor reason) logistical: lack of access to guns, bombmaking
equipment and instructions, etc. and (major reason) lack of guts,
i.e., cowardice.
If there'd been another student like me, living near enough to me that
we could have been friends/co-victims outside of school and mutually
reinforced each other (and make it very hard for one of us to admit
doubts or misgivings, or to back out of grandiose plans), and if
weapons had been available, who knows?
> I'm afraid I don't buy the "it was because they were outcasts"
> argument -- there were too many other outcasts. It can't be that
> simply, any more than it can be any of the other easy-bubt-wrong
> explanations that are floating around.
I really feel that the fact that there were two kindred souls brought
together somehow had a lot to do with it. By themselves, each one of
them might have never done anything more than steam in private and go
on to live a mostly miserable life.
-- William December Starr <wds...@crl.com>
Todd Hawley
put forth:
> What streams me most is that for all the talk of "what caused" it
>no one is looking at the students who made these kids feel like outcasts.
>If kids didn't tease each other so bloodly much maybe kids wouldn't dream
>of hurting other kids and even doing harm.
Not that this really has much to do with BDSM content, but I was one
of those kids 30 years ago that was made fun of and made to feel like
an outcast simply because I was quiet and admittedly a bit nerdly
looking. Yeah it hurt like hell to be treated that way, but it didn't
make me want to rush out and get a gun and kill my fellow students!!
-th
Take out the NOSPAM to reply.
Xiphias Gladius
It didn't?
I *still* have pleasant dreams where I take a straight razor to the guts
of certain people in my high school.
However, I never had the desire to kill *everyone*. Me, if I'd snapped,
they would have found four or five bodies in a quarry somewhere with a
bullet apiece through the back of the skull.
That's what bothers me about those two kids -- they were non-selective.
They were killing innocent bystanders, instead of finding the people they
*actually* wanted to kill.
- Ian
--
http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/ian
SSBB Diplomatic Corps; Boston, Massachusetts
NightMist
wrote:
>In article <slrn7i9odk....@sherrill.kiva.net>,
>T. Eckhart <teck...@sherrill.kiva.net> wrote:
>>
>> What streams me most is that for all the talk of "what caused" it
>>no one is looking at the students who made these kids feel like outcasts.
>>If kids didn't tease each other so bloodly much maybe kids wouldn't dream
>>of hurting other kids and even doing harm.
>
>I'm sorry, TammyJo, I think you're entirely off base with this one.
>
>For one thing, it sounds far too much like certain excuses which have
>historicly been made for rapists.
>
>For another, have kids really gotten that much worse in the 12 years
>since I and so many of my friends were in school being hounded by them?
>We all dreamed about visiting all sorts of horrors on our tormentors, but
>we managed to work out our issues without staging armed assaults on the
>school at large.
>
>I'm afraid I don't buy the "it was because they were outcasts" argument
>-- there were too many other outcasts. It can't be that simply, any more
>than it can be any of the other easy-bubt-wrong explanations that are
>floating around.
>--
Sorry, I have to agree with TammyJo. I have simply known to many kids
over the last 20 years (I'm a local rock musician, I hear a lot of
stuff parents and teachers don't) who did retaliate. None of them
went out and killed people, but I think some of them would have if
they could have laid hands on a gun. Things I have heard of include:
Potato rockets-load a potato with as many firecrackers as you can cram
into it, light it and chuck it through someone's window, blanket
parties: inspired by that Sean Penn movie. Throw a blanket over the
victim and pound them with blunt objects (when done by more than one
person) alternative for a single person fill a blanket or pillow case
with hard heavy objects and pummel the victim senseless....then there
are the kids who try learning martial arts to 'protect' themselves.
What it comes down to in a worst case scenario (as best I can make
out) is this: When the kid who is getting harrassed gets to the point
of being suicidal over it, anything can and probobly will happen.
And as far as the harrassment goes, there is that certain type of jock
who just keeps going to far. One of them darn near killed a friend of
my husbands in high school.
NightMist
to reply via e-mail add 156 to my initials
Nicole
NightMist wrote:
<some good points snipped only for the sake of brevity>
>....then there
> are the kids who try learning martial arts to 'protect' themselves.
Well, if they try, and succeed in learning something, martial arts helps
alot. It gives one a method of dealing with one's frustrations, and
learning self-control, to fight the homicidal/suicidal urges.
There are a few of my classmates who can thank Mr. Kim for their
pathetic lives being allowed to continue.
A couple of them, I even had the joy of pummeling during "sparring"
sessions, when their parents, so they could learn some discipline,
enrolled them into the only TKD class on the base.
Regardless of what anyone says, it *does* feel good to beat someone up,
when they've picked on you all year, while their families watch...but
even with that, one has to have self-control. Once you prove you could
kill them with your bare hands, and just don't want to, letting go is
easier.
Another thing that helps...something I told a "computer nerd" I had a
crush on in high school:
In 5 years, you'll be in a good job, or maybe even wealthy. They'll
still be playing the same petty games until they get a reality check
from someone meaner and more powerful than they are.
It's not all Darwinism, though...Sometimes it helps just to remind
people that they are cared for, and that the world has a need for talent
beyond the mediocre.
> What it comes down to in a worst case scenario (as best I can make
> out) is this: When the kid who is getting harrassed gets to the point
> of being suicidal over it, anything can and probobly will happen.
This is true..and probably the most important issue. If people don't or
can't love themselves enough to see the value of their own lives, it is
highly unlikely that, if pushed far enough, they will see the value of a
person's life who is harrassing them, or enabling the harrassment.
I learned, early on, that there is no such thing as an innocent
bystander. I was the type who would jump in for the sake of someone
being picked on...but then, I could.
Maybe it would be a good idea to have peer intervention teams to diffuse
harrassment. Allowing the kids organized self-regulation is a better
idea than depending on the teachers (of which there is a shortage) to do
it all.
> And as far as the harrassment goes, there is that certain type of jock
> who just keeps going to far. One of them darn near killed a friend of
> my husbands in high school.
Jocks do it, but other cliques do it too. There's no substitute for
good home-training, and when kids don't get it, as people outside their
families, we have to, pretty much, just figure out how to protect our
own kids from such people, and try to keep our kids from becoming such
people. Not a simple job...but definitely a worthy pursuit.
~IronWynch
Tanos - remove X
>
> >In article <slrn7i9odk....@sherrill.kiva.net>,
> >T. Eckhart <teck...@sherrill.kiva.net> wrote:
> >>
> >>If kids didn't tease each other so bloodly much maybe kids wouldn't dream
> >>of hurting other kids and even doing harm.
>
> And as far as the harrassment goes, there is that certain type of jock
> who just keeps going to far. One of them darn near killed a friend of
> my husbands in high school.
That playground/schoolyard mentality is the root of so much intolerance
in later life: many people acquire a taste for ganging up on
individuals who are "different". Some go to the extremes of Kosovo;
some just commit assaults or practice petty discrimination; some
don't manage anything more than hounding people out of newsgroups or
other social groups.
But I believe the root cause is in behaviour "learnt" in school, and
it needs to be opposed at all stages, from "people like you can't
play our game", all the way up to ethnic cleansing.
Tanos
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NBarnes
> thawle...@tdl.com (Todd Hawley) writes:
> >Not that this really has much to do with BDSM content, but I was one
> >of those kids 30 years ago that was made fun of and made to feel like
> >an outcast simply because I was quiet and admittedly a bit nerdly
> >looking. Yeah it hurt like hell to be treated that way, but it didn't
> >make me want to rush out and get a gun and kill my fellow students!!
> It didn't?
>
> I *still* have pleasant dreams where I take a straight razor to the
> guts of certain people in my high school.
>
> However, I never had the desire to kill *everyone*. Me, if I'd
> snapped, they would have found four or five bodies in a quarry
> somewhere with a bullet apiece through the back of the skull.
>
> That's what bothers me about those two kids -- they were
> non-selective. They were killing innocent bystanders, instead of
> finding the people they *actually* wanted to kill.
Yeah, man, if there's one thing all my time playing Doom and Quake
when _I_ was in high school taught me, it's conserve your ammo and
control your fire. These amateurs wouldn't have lasted fifteen
seconds in a real deathmatch.
NBarnes, trying to decide if sie wants
to spend the emotional energy to write
a rant on the entire topic for SSB
NBarnes
> Maybe it would be a good idea to have peer intervention teams to
> diffuse harrassment. Allowing the kids organized self-regulation is
> a better idea than depending on the teachers (of which there is a
> shortage) to do it all.
That's a lovely idea. I really like the idea of motivated,
self-possessed teenagers who are willing to stand up to the monolithic
social structure of high school in order to help out those that that
structure grinds beneath it's weight, and have the social status
themselves to make it stick.
Unfortunately, such people don't exist. But it's a nice fantasy. I
wish there had been something like that when I was in high school.
NBarnes
JWarrenZ
>of certain people in my high school.
ditto....
I recall a short story in a 1980s Analog. I forget the date but it was in the
copy with How To Build an Atom Bomb and Wake Up the Neighborhood and at the
same time the Progressive Magazine was publishing instructions on making
multistage weapons.
The plot was a handsome, successful college professor finds a way to predict
earthquakes and holds off on releasing his discovery so the reunion of his high
school classmates which is being held next to an LGN storage facility will be
blown away.
I still remember thinking, "I'd do it!"
My high school had no respect for real students. Jocks ran the place. As far
as learning went, they did what they had to and not a bit more, but the
athletes got held up as gods. I still recall one assembly where a winner of a
National Science Foundation Grant (mentioning no names) was simply named by the
speaker, each of the teams was brought up one by one to applause and cheers.
It's no EXCUSE for killing, but it is a pathology, and it helps provide a
better reason than "the kids played Doom" or "they had too much access to
weapons."
Of course it was exceeding pleasant to return a few years ago, a Ph.D. with a
vice presidency in a Manhattan multinational, and meet the "head jock" who was
working .... in a shoe store.
Too bad those kids in Littleton didn't have someone to tell them the future.
They might have waited.
Boston Dungeon Society Diversified Services
www.bostondungeon.org Toys & Books for the Scene
Telnet: bdsbbs.com Email: Men...@bdsbbs.com
Info: 617-654-0536 www.diversified--services.com
Xiphias Gladius
>Another thing that helps...something I told a "computer nerd" I had a
>crush on in high school:
>In 5 years, you'll be in a good job, or maybe even wealthy. They'll
>still be playing the same petty games until they get a reality check
>from someone meaner and more powerful than they are.
For me, the reason I never went completely postal was something that one
of my adult friends told me. I was lucky to be raised by several adults
who had all been picked on in school (and let me tell you, if someone I
cared about had *ever* told me that "these are the best years of your
life", I could well have become suicidal).
But what I was told was that "This is the worst your life will ever be.
High school sucks. The only thing that's potentially worse than high
school is junior high school. But you have to know that, once you get to
college, things will start to turn around. Yes, you'll be poor, yes,
you'll be overworked and have no sleep and no money -- but you will find
friends. And you will be happy. And it gets better from there. And,
while your life gets better and better, what makes it truly sweet is that
all of *their* lives will get worse and worse. So stick it out now,
becaue you want to be around for the rest of it."
That helped. That helped more than anything else ever could have.
And, y'know, the kids that picked on me, well, one of my friends saw the
ringleader recently. He was working as an unskilled day-laborer who
didn't get any respect because he wasn't compitent at it (I've worked
construction -- there are laborers who are well-respected, if not
well-paid, because they work hard, do their jobs right, and can be counted
on not to screw up. He wasn't one of those.)
And when Lis went back to her ten year high school reunion, she was so
happy to see all the popular, pretty girls with faces like aligator bags
(because they spent all their time on the beach), drinking and smoking
heavily, dressed cheaply, with bad face lifts. After just ten years.
While *she*, of course -- she was an unpopular, ugly little girl in high
school. Those of you who know her . . .
She wore the corset and one of her silk shirts and a skirt that showed of
her legs, and we danced, and all of those popular girls' husbands and
boyfriends couldn't keep their eyes off of her.
*That's* revenge. That's much more satisfying revenge than walking in and
shooting everyone. The best revenge isn't just living well -- it's
noticing that *they* are all living poorly.
So -- because I know that there are a few high schoolers reading this, and
because I know that you feel different and alientated from all your
classmates, and because they pick on you ceaselessly, and because you can
understand why the kids in Littleton did what they did, and, sometimes, at
three in the morning this past week, there's been a little thought in your
mind saying, "I just wonder -- not that I'd ever DO this -- but I just
wonder where I can get a shotgun .. "
Just know this -- your life will get better. And their lives will get
worse. And you want to be around to see this. And you want them to be
around to see this.
Nicole
Heheh...Maybe they don't exist yet, but perhaps this is where we should
direct the teen masochists who wander through here.
I mean, what better proving ground for dealing with the social issues
involved with BDSM than to first, stand up against the social pressure
in high school. Why skip stages?
It might seem strange to people, if the Gothic/BDSM/Fetish communities
come out of the fringes to spearhead a youth intervention movement,
though...so if we do it, we'll probably have to keep the connection
unspoken, or just not do anything directly, but talk to our kids about
the idea, and support them financially, in their efforts.
I will second you in the wish that there was something like this when I
was in high school.
~IronWynch
Cherie
Xiphias Gladius <i...@dillinger.io.com> wrote:
>
> Just know this -- your life will get better. And their lives will get
> worse. And you want to be around to see this. And you want them to be
> around to see this.
Ok, I gotta stick my head into this finally. *I* was one of "the bad guys"
- popular, smart, and sometimes mean to geeks, etc.
<minor rant>
Ya know what? We're not all evil to the core, and doomed to a life of
failure. I have 2 degrees, a happy marriage, and a career I love (well,
this is temporarily on hold until I get my green card, but I *did* have one
before I moved, and expect I'll be able to continue it.) I don't think my
life got worse after highschool, and I know the same is true for many of my
friends.
And, just for the record, sometimes the geeks *deserved* to be taken down a
peg or two. We never resorted to physical intimidation, but we were
certainly willing to verbally lambaste some of the more sanctimonious
shits.
I could have been one of the people who were picked on - straight A's,
member of the school choir, classical pianist, etc - but I wasn't. The
difference, from my perspective, was my willingness not to pass judgement
on the popular crowd. I didn't think they were inferior because they got
C's, preferred the hockey rink to the computer lab, or drank before the
legal age. The "in crowd" accepted me for who I was because I accepted
them.
Maybe it was because we lived in a small isolated community and many of us
had known each other since elementary school or earlier. Maybe its a
Canadian thing. I don't know. But I get a bit defensive when I hear
comments like I've heard in this thread, to the effect that the popular
kids will turn out to be failures while the unpopular ones will succeed.
</rant>
Sorry, just had to vent a bit. And Ian, this wasn't directed at you
personally. Your post was just an appropriate starting point.
Cherie
Karl Kleinpaste
> If there'd been another student like me, living near enough to me that
> we could have been friends/co-victims outside of school and mutually
I'm disturbed to an immense degree that rather a lot of people seem to
say this same sort of thing: That only lack of opportunity prevents
them from having engaged in death-dealing mayhem.
At high school age, that one's moral compass should be so utterly
lacking in direction is... I don't know, I can't pick the right
adjective now, I'm too disturbed by such suggestions. Try horrifying.
Or disgusting. Or depressing. Or sickening.
All my life, from the time I was in single digits of age, I have had
weapons at hand. I was taught to handle firearms and shoot at barely
age 7. There have always been firearms around the house. They were
never locked up. The basement was set up as a shooting range (.22 and
.38 only, indoors). I took a rifle to school in 6th grade...for an
English class project on public speaking, in which we all had to pick
some topic and do a how-to presentation. I even got the chance to
make some serious points on safe gun handling as a result, to that
bunch of fellow classmates/ignoramuses who (until I laid down the law
when trying to start my presentation) thought nothing of sitting at
the end of the presentation table so that the muzzle would have been
pointed *right at them*, an extremely vivid memory:
"You have to move."
"Why? It's not loaded."
"Maybe. Maybe not. What if I've screwed up? Did you
personally prove to your own satisfaction that it's not
loaded? Have you seen the empty chamber?"
"Well, uh...no."
"Then move. I won't start until I can do so safely."
Yet somehow, with all the opportunity given me, and with a
predilection for certain entertaining variations on chemistry class
lab plans, I never had even a hint of actually carrying out any of the
occasional revenge fantasies in which all picked-on children engage.
Such a thing wasn't ever even remotely possible. Never. Not once.
Maybe the masses don't deserve to handle weapons after all. The
masses have forgotten what it means to be armed. They've forgotten
the fundamental nature of responsibility in being armed. They've
forgotten the value found in being armed. They've forgotten *why* one
goes armed.
Forgotten...as though they ever knew in the first place, apparently.
--karl,
routinely armed (as today - small-frame .45 in fanny pack),
not at all dangerous to fellow peaceables
Katharine Hawks
<snip>
> What streams me most is that for all the talk of "what caused" it
>no one is looking at the students who made these kids feel like outcasts.
>If kids didn't tease each other so bloodly much maybe kids wouldn't dream
>of hurting other kids and even doing harm.
I'd be willing to bet that adolescents have been tormenting each other
for centuries. I'd also bet that social sadism, victimization, anger,
frustration, depression, and group actions aren't new to youth culture
either.
All of this stuff certainly existed when I was growing up and when my
parents were growing up and when their parents were growing up. In
the meantime, I'm sure the victims and outcasts have dreamt of doing
harm for centuries.
However, these school killings are inconceivable to me. It's
unthinkable that homocidal pathology is no longer an individual freak
experience. Now it's a cultural thing.
It's unthinkable to me that these homocidal children, with all their
narcissism, delusions of victimhood, and petty anger are even
*capable* of making the mental leap to say "ok, I am going to arm
myself and gun down my peers." Why? Because they were *mean*?
Good grief.
When these killings happened I thought about the growth in SM culture.
I wonder if many of us perverts have found a way to play with and
process the malaise that is now cultural -- of disassociation, an
affinity for violence, a need to suffer and inflict suffering -- in a
more productive manner.
I've often wondered why SM seems to be the child of modernity -- while
I have no doubt that the subtext of SM is part of human history -- I
do think the current formulation of our sexual subculture speaks to
more than just sexual wiring. How we articulate and express this
wiring seems to me to be deeply rooted both the joys and pains of our
cultured experience.
At a cultural level, we are out of touch with both life and death. I
think, for some of us, SM brings the intimacy that we need to feel
with both life and death back into our experience.
--Katharine
****************************************
General Purpose Pervert
Caution: Contents Under Pressure
*****************************************
SSBB Diplomatic Corps: Chicago, Illinois
Daniel B. Holzman
William December Starr <wds...@crl.com> wrote:
>
>Dunno about you, but I didn't "manage" anything. The main reasons I
>didn't do anything like what those two boys in Littleton did were
>(minor reason) logistical: lack of access to guns, bombmaking
>equipment and instructions, etc. and (major reason) lack of guts,
>i.e., cowardice.
Lack of access to firearms and explosives was not an issue for me in
those tender years. Indeed, the explosives were the easy part, given how
many househld items can be made into them. And I didn't have an
internet to look the information up on, either.
>If there'd been another student like me, living near enough to me that
>we could have been friends/co-victims outside of school and mutually
>reinforced each other (and make it very hard for one of us to admit
>doubts or misgivings, or to back out of grandiose plans), and if
>weapons had been available, who knows?
That's a difference. There was another student like me. L and I even
fit the mold of "One's military-minded (L) and one's geek-minded (Me)"
We created a clique of the other outcasts in our school. We even gave
them a scary name ("The Corporation," which I still think has a more ominous
ring to it than "Trench Coat Mafia") We even sat around having revenge
fantasies about those who tormented us. (I still like the name "Car part
of the month club") We knew how to make explosives, we thought things
exploding were fun, we made explosives and detonated them. We listened
to dark, scary music. (Quite frankly, I find Marilyn Manson's music
and message quaint.)
Our parents didn't know because we didn't tell them, and we didn't do
any of it at home.
[Gee, have I given out too much information yet?]
But we didn't bring our guns to school, nor did we blow it up, or try
out our home-grown napalm anywhere near populated areas, let alone in
school. The only revenge I ever took on my classmates was having as my
prom date a girl my tormentors all wanted to get with, but wouldn't give
them the time of day.
>I really feel that the fact that there were two kindred souls brought
>together somehow had a lot to do with it. By themselves, each one of
>them might have never done anything more than steam in private and go
>on to live a mostly miserable life.
BUt contrast that with how things turned out for L. and me: We both went
to college and entered into our intended careers. We both found people
and lead productive, happy, successful lives. It never occurred to us
that we had no future, or that we should actually act on our fantasies.
--
Katharine Hawks
Starr) wrote:
>Dunno about you, but I didn't "manage" anything. The main reasons I
>didn't do anything like what those two boys in Littleton did were
>(minor reason) logistical: lack of access to guns, bombmaking
>equipment and instructions, etc. and (major reason) lack of guts,
>i.e., cowardice.
>
>If there'd been another student like me, living near enough to me that
>we could have been friends/co-victims outside of school and mutually
>reinforced each other (and make it very hard for one of us to admit
>doubts or misgivings, or to back out of grandiose plans), and if
>weapons had been available, who knows?
"Who knows?"
I can't speak for you, but if I didn't *know* -- down to my core --
whether I was or was not (or am or am not) capable of a homocidal
spree I'd certainly wan't to spend some time figuring it out.
Tanos - remove X
>
> Xiphias Gladius <i...@dillinger.io.com> wrote:
> >
> > Just know this -- your life will get better. And their lives will get
> > worse. And you want to be around to see this. And you want them to be
> > around to see this.
>
> Ok, I gotta stick my head into this finally. *I* was one of "the bad guys"
> - popular, smart, and sometimes mean to geeks, etc.
> peg or two.
But only "sometimes", as you admit yourself.
Did you and your "popular" friends cause any suicides? Are you sure?
Far too many victims of bullying don't even get a "rest of their
lives" because of this kind of treatment.
Your post comes across as trying to excuse and dismiss bullying,
but these are life and death issues for many victims, and
occasionally for abusers, throughout the world.
Tell us you didn't mean it that way, eh? ;)
Tanos
DonSideB
be in the coming weeks as various single issue groups try to use this act of
insanity to promote their political causes.
The anti-gun groups are already on the scene, though why i cannot fathom. These
two lunatics were prohibited by several gun laws already from having the
weapons they used and it did not deter them. If there is any better proof of
the futility of gun laws i can't think of it just now.
The censorship groups will be next, wanting again to sieze control of the
internet. And music, and dress codes, and political thought.
Of course this will be another excuse for "hate crime" legislation, and bans on
"hate speech".
Then the teachers union will be demanding more money for "the children" as
though raising teacher salaries will prevent a reoccurance. Think that's
stretching it? Just wait, i'll bet anyone a ten spot someone from the NEA says
this within a month.
Heaven help us all if the rumors that these kids were gay are true. That will
bring the religious moralists out of the woodwork again.
Everyone wants simple solutions to these kinds of problems. There is the desire
to "do something" whether it really fixes the problem or not. But when we
succumb to that desire, we always lose a little freedom without gaining any
real security.
Tragedies like this are bad enough without special interest groups latching on
to them to promote their agendas. Let's not join them.
don
That which does not kill us is a good scene,
SSBB Diplomatic Corps: Tidewater Virginia
T. Eckhart
>In article <slrn7i9odk....@sherrill.kiva.net>,
>T. Eckhart <teck...@sherrill.kiva.net> wrote:
>>
>>no one is looking at the students who made these kids feel like outcasts.
>>If kids didn't tease each other so bloodly much maybe kids wouldn't dream
>>of hurting other kids and even doing harm.
>
>
>For one thing, it sounds far too much like certain excuses which have
>historicly been made for rapists.
trying to explain it which is what all these so called experts are trying
to do. Why do some kids play the same games or listen to the same music
and not turn violent? Why is almost everything else being looked at but
not how these kids were treated by other kids? Are we afraid as a society
to say "show respect to each other"? If this is the case, then we better
all get ready for this to happen more and more.
Why is it that an explanation is being read as an excuse?
>For another, have kids really gotten that much worse in the 12 years
>since I and so many of my friends were in school being hounded by them?
>We all dreamed about visiting all sorts of horrors on our tormentors, but
>we managed to work out our issues without staging armed assaults on the
>school at large.
Maybe the access has changed? I asked Tom about his experience
and I think as he was treated very badly in school if he had had access to
guns and subcultures that promoted violence that his negative experiences
might have pushed him to be violent in return.
>I'm afraid I don't buy the "it was because they were outcasts" argument
>-- there were too many other outcasts. It can't be that simply, any more
>than it can be any of the other easy-bubt-wrong explanations that are
>floating around.
I didn't say this was the single reason, I said I was very upset
that it isn't even being discussed. Saying video game, music, gun laws,
that in my opinion is too simple. You have to look at why someone takes
an action, what is going on in the mind before you can even hope to
prevent it from happening again. Why are we looking at these two boys and
not at the entire high school experience? Why do we have classes that
train kids to ignore being insulted but not classes to teach mutual
respect so that insults are not even an issue? Why do we privilege those
who "fit in" and insult those who don't?
These boys at Littleton were not acting out of immediate
self-defense but somewhere in school they were led to believe that the
only way to not be teased, ignored, whatever was to behave violently. Why
don't we look at those circumstances that created these feelings as well
as the game, guns, music? Are we too afraid to find out that all of us
has a responsiblity to each other to treat each other with respect?
Saying it is a gun, or music, or games, or even the family environment
would certainly free the rest of us from our collective guilt. I accept
my guilt as part of a society which tolerates teasing and violence both --
but can only affect those nearest me and stop tolerating such behavior
around me. I will not tolerate my child insulting another student anymore
than I would tolerate them taking a knife to school.
I saw a letter to the editor in my school paper making my same
point and one expert last night on the news -- but that expert got thirty
seconds while the anti-video game person got over two minutes. How many
more people wil have to be murdered, how many more students will have
their self-esteem ripped to pieces and suffer silently, before we start
investing in fundamental changes in how we treat each other.
T. Eckhart
>Nicole wrote:
>
>> Maybe it would be a good idea to have peer intervention teams to
>> diffuse harrassment. Allowing the kids organized self-regulation is
>> a better idea than depending on the teachers (of which there is a
>> shortage) to do it all.
>
> That's a lovely idea. I really like the idea of motivated,
>self-possessed teenagers who are willing to stand up to the monolithic
>social structure of high school in order to help out those that that
>structure grinds beneath it's weight, and have the social status
>themselves to make it stick.
> Unfortunately, such people don't exist. But it's a nice fantasy. I
>wish there had been something like that when I was in high school.
I think a group like this, especially started before high school,
could be a great idea.
When I was in school, past junior high school, I had dealt with
enough harassment that no one bothered me anymore, at least not to my face
to around my friends. I started standing up for other people. That is
how I met one of my closest friends: she, a small girl, was being picked
on so I just walked up behind her and told the boys harassing her "I think
you need to leave now" and they did. When she was with me, she was left
alone after that and I made sure to be around her more. I also had a
fellow actor move into my locker because he was being severely harassed
with threats in his locker and to his face -- that harassment eased up a
lot after he moved into my locker. If the "silence masses" would just
speak up, not laugh, and make it known it was unacceptable and lot of
harassment could stop.
LawLess
: I'm certainly not making excuses for any type of behavior, I am
: trying to explain it which is what all these so called experts are trying
: to do. Why do some kids play the same games or listen to the same music
: and not turn violent? Why is almost everything else being looked at but
: not how these kids were treated by other kids? Are we afraid as a society
: to say "show respect to each other"? If this is the case, then we better
: all get ready for this to happen more and more.
Given that homo sapiens isn't real -big- on listening when told "show more
respect to each other" and never has been, guess we really should expect
this to happen more and more. (And, imo, we should, but for a different
reason[1].)
: Daniel Holzman:
: >For another, have kids really gotten that much worse in the 12 years
: >since I and so many of my friends were in school being hounded by them?
: >We all dreamed about visiting all sorts of horrors on our tormentors, but
: >we managed to work out our issues without staging armed assaults on the
: >school at large.
:
: Maybe the access has changed? I asked Tom about his experience and I
: think as he was treated very badly in school if he had had access to guns
: and subcultures that promoted violence that his negative experiences
: might have pushed him to be violent in return.
Well, I'm another of those ones who #1, was one of the -most- unpopular
and ostracized kids in school[2] and #2, had more than ample access to
guns, ammunition, and things that go boom - not to mention all kinds of
books explaining how to -make- bombs, boobytraps, knockout drops, poisons
and the like. And, mmm, I'm kinda one of those who thinks violence -is-
a solution[3]. But I never went ballistic like these kids did. Why's
that, I wonder?
: [...] Why do we have classes that train kids to ignore being insulted
: but not classes to teach mutual respect so that insults are not even an
: issue? [...]
Because the only way you're going to accomplish that is by killing the
kids who ignore your teaching (as they will tend to) and insult and bully
others. Or, perhaps, massive drug therapy for life might work. Peace and
respect for others? Pipe dream.
: These boys at Littleton were not acting out of immediate
: self-defense but somewhere in school they were led to believe that the
: only way to not be teased, ignored, whatever was to behave violently.
Suicide would've managed the trick quite well by itself -without- going
to all the work of lugging bombs around. I don't buy it. What they
wanted, imnsho, wasn't "peace", but glory. And that brings me to the
first of my footnotes. :)
[1] We can expect more of this, and worse, because of the media. In
a society with a concept of "15 minutes of fame", kids are learning
that they can be famous, that Everyone Will Know Their Name, by going
out and slaughtering a bunch of their schoolmates. And it's going to
get worse, because not only did the perps names get airred all over
the world, practically, but -numbers- were given. So now, someone
will aim to kill more than 15, happy happy joy joy - CNN is even
keeping score for them. :(
Whereas back a decade or two ago, shit like this was hushed up as much
as possible, so it didn't spread like wildfire, regardless of whether
it was a kid going berserk in school or killing hir family or just
finding a colorful way to suicide.
[2] See, not only was I small and skinny and too damn smart, I was
from the Big City (NYC), had an accent and an advanced vocabulary
when I moved to Real Backwoods Maine - population 465 or so in the
third grade. Oh, and I had one glaringly odious personal habit, so
I -really- got some nice nicknames totally aside from bookishness,
a big mouth / attitude, and not fitting in.
And then, I had guns. And knives. And gunpowder for handloading,
and was -given- bricks of 500 rounds of ammo most weeks. I could
fieldstrip and reassemble a wide variety of pistols and military rifles
even before I joined the Marines, and the only reason I was an honor
grad in boot camp was because I was already a good enough shot to win
the Leatherman Award for being the top rifleman in my platoon / series.
And yet, despite being violent, and anti-social, and blowing things
up and demolishing an entire -house-, I never did worse than brawl and
maybe occasionally cut someone.
[3] If there were -more- guns being carried in the school, maybe, just
maybe, a lot less than 15 people would be dead out there. If one of
the other kids had been carrying, and shot those two as they walked
down the corridors laughing and hooting and killing - I'd have to
consider it a case of violence solving a problem, and even being a
Good Thing if only 3 or 4 had died instead of 15 dead and 20 wounded.
--
-- \_awless is : Chase Vogelsberg | SSBB Undiplomatic Corps, Tampa
-- Wormwood and wine, and the bitter taste of ashes. \ ICQ #19100721
Daniel B. Holzman
T. Eckhart <teck...@sherrill.kiva.net> wrote:
>
> I'm certainly not making excuses for any type of behavior, I am
>trying to explain it which is what all these so called experts are trying
>to do. Why do some kids play the same games or listen to the same music
>and not turn violent? Why is almost everything else being looked at but
>not how these kids were treated by other kids? Are we afraid as a society
>to say "show respect to each other"? If this is the case, then we better
>all get ready for this to happen more and more.
It's not an objection to saying "show respect to each other." I honestly
don't believe that this wouldn't have happened if these two hadn't been
outcasts.
You say it yourself: Why do some kids play the same games or listen to
the same music and not turn violent? Why do some kids get the same nasty
treatment and not turn violent? There was something else going on that
made these two think this was a thinkable thing to do.
A friend of mine put it this way: These two spent a *year* planning this,
making decisions about kill ratios and colateral damage that soldiers
have to go through basic training in order to be able to have made about
them; and that officers have to go to school in order to make. There is
no easy explanation how these guys got to the point where that training
would have been superfluous.
>>For another, have kids really gotten that much worse in the 12 years
>>since I and so many of my friends were in school being hounded by them?
>>We all dreamed about visiting all sorts of horrors on our tormentors, but
>>we managed to work out our issues without staging armed assaults on the
>>school at large.
>
> Maybe the access has changed? I asked Tom about his experience
>and I think as he was treated very badly in school if he had had access to
>guns and subcultures that promoted violence that his negative experiences
>might have pushed him to be violent in return.
See my followup to William December Starr on this score. Access to
weapons was not an issue for me.
--
Karl Kleinpaste
> The censorship groups will be next, wanting again to sieze control of the
> internet. And music, and dress codes, and political thought.
Too late -- trenchcoat-free dress codes have already been emplaced
around Denver and some other areas. They're considered "alarming" and
"disruptive to the system" now, after all (those are quotes from
ClariNet articles I saw on the subject last week).
Bacchae
>I've often wondered why SM seems to be the child of modernity --
while
>I have no doubt that the subtext of SM is part of human history -- I
>do think the current formulation of our sexual subculture speaks to
>more than just sexual wiring. How we articulate and express this
>wiring seems to me to be deeply rooted both the joys and pains of our
>cultured experience.
>
I just finished reading a book called "Ancient Mystery Cults". The
scholars referenced in the work do not appear to be capable of
recognizing SM per se but they used the term "flogging" to explain
some of the things they have seen in artwork (fresco at the Villa of
Mysteries and perhaps other sources) of the period. I have some more
reading to do to confirm it (Tammy Jo may be able to tell us more than
I can) but Roman persecution (186-180 B.C.E.) crushed and ultimately
banned the Dionysian bacchanalia perhaps because of such practices.
I think I can safely quote a teaser here to support my interest:
"There remains the intriguing depiction in the Villa of the Mysteries
of what is no doubt a flagellation scene. A kneeling girl, keeping
her head in the lap of a seated woman and shutting her eyes, the
seated woman grasping her hands and drawing back the garment from the
kneeling girl's bare back, while a sinister-looking female behind is
raising a rod - these are all quite realistic details of caning."
"...On these we find Pan or satyr-boys being disciplined with a
sandal..."
"...madness is described as feeling the strokes of a whip as early as
in Attic tragedy; Lyssa, as "frenzy" personified, appears with a whip
in vasepainting...
"...there are suggestions that one form of purification, *katharsis*
<italicized in original to denote the original Greek term>, could in
fact be flogging."
I do not really believe that SM is a child of modernity and am rather
captivated by the idea that wiitwd was practiced "formally" in ancient
times. I personally thing this would explain many things but I am not
quite ready to hypothesize too broadly yet.
reference to above: Burkert, Walter 1987. "Ancient Mystery Cults"
(Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press) p. 104.
- Sandy <now you know why I chose the Bacchae nick>
--
Bacchae at cadvision dot com
"Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it.
We want to be devoured by it, to hide ourselves in that fire which
refines us."
- Donna Tartt
Nicole
Cherie wrote:
> Ok, I gotta stick my head into this finally. *I* was one of "the bad guys"
> - popular, smart, and sometimes mean to geeks, etc.
<rant snipped, but it's alright to let it out>
So, you were one of the few who grew up, and at least realized that
picking on people, regardless of whether you feel they deserve it, stops
producing the desired effect after highschool.
Congratulations...
~IronWynch
William December Starr
Katharine Hawks <kha...@enteract.com> said:
> "Who knows?"
>
> I can't speak for you, but if I didn't *know* -- down to my core --
> whether I was or was not (or am or am not) capable of a homocidal
> spree I'd certainly wan't to spend some time figuring it out.
To the extent that anyone can really and truly know themselves, I know
that I am not capable of it now. If nothing else, I've made so damn
many posts in various newsgroups over the years about believing in
other peoples' human rights that it would just be too *embarrassing*
for me to go out and violate those rights now... :-)
But back then -- I'm forty-one now -- I was a mess. My self-esteem
was somewhere below the sub-basement and I didn't really have any
reason for doing anything, including living, except that I didn't have
the initiative, of the guts, to do anything differently either, be it
running away from home, killing myself, or what-have-you. On my own,
the "worst" I think I might have done would have been to think about
suicide but never do it. When I said "Who knows," I was talking about
what might have happened if there'd been another person involved;
two-person dynamics are far more unpredictable than the one-person
flavor, after all, especially when one of the two is hypothetical.
William December Starr
Katharine Hawks <kha...@enteract.com> said:
> It's unthinkable to me that these homocidal children, with all their
> narcissism, delusions of victimhood,
Delusions?
> and petty anger are even *capable* of making the mental leap to say
> "ok, I am going to arm myself and gun down my peers." Why? Because
> they were *mean*?
Sure. Because they were mean (which was a bad thing that could be
changed by killing them), and because they were getting away with it
(which was a bad thing that could be changed by killing them), because
life was unfair, because nobody cared enough, because it'd be fun, and
because life is non-valuable enough that there's no reason *not* to do it.
To grossly oversimplify a bit with regard to that last point:
Some people, as children and young adults, instinctively know that
life is a good thing. Some don't know it instinctively but are
successfully indoctrinated into the belief. Some never really *know*
it at all. People in the first two categories often have trouble
understanding the motivations of people in the third.
N.M. Wallace
> All of this stuff certainly existed when I was growing up and when my
> parents were growing up and when their parents were growing up. In
> the meantime, I'm sure the victims and outcasts have dreamt of doing
> harm for centuries.
>
> However, these school killings are inconceivable to me. It's
> unthinkable that homocidal pathology is no longer an individual freak
> experience. Now it's a cultural thing.
>
> It's unthinkable to me that these homocidal children, with all their
> narcissism, delusions of victimhood, and petty anger are even
> *capable* of making the mental leap to say "ok, I am going to arm
> myself and gun down my peers." Why? Because they were *mean*?
I don't know...it's not unthinkable to me. I used to have plenty of
fantasies about gunning down a few of my classmates--the ones that made my
life hellish, the ones that I used to dream about trying to kill me.
I didn't, because even as a teenager, I was concerned about the kind of
karma hit killing someone would create in my life, and also because
it was more fun to envision showing up to my reunion successful and happy.
But even now, I still occasionally think of that time, and sincerely hope
that the people who helped make high school such a hideous experience for
me are now just as miserable and alone as I was then.
> When these killings happened I thought about the growth in SM culture.
> I wonder if many of us perverts have found a way to play with and
> process the malaise that is now cultural -- of disassociation, an
> affinity for violence, a need to suffer and inflict suffering -- in a
> more productive manner.
In part, yes. I find that when I hurt, or when I am hurting someone, I am
more focused in the moment then at just about any other time. It's much
more productive to channel violent rage into beating someone who wants to
be beaten, or by letting my owner take me down in a fight scene than to
slam my head into a wall...or, to go shoot a bunch of people. For me, one
of the most important things I've learned in the scene is that anger isn't
necessarily something to be ashamed of, that it's possible to do something
constructive with that energy, instead of using it to destroy, or hiding
it. I'm sure I'd have been much happier had I learned that lesson as a
teenager.
Darkrose
Nancy M. Wallace @}----- dark...@shore.net
"...turning the sofa into a pygmy hippo...might be very good
transfiguration, but it's rather hard on the carpets and it
confuses the hippo."
Tanya Huff, _Summon the Keeper_
Steven S. Davis
: Cherie <monch...@hotmail.com> wrote:
: >
: > Xiphias Gladius <i...@dillinger.io.com> wrote:
: > >
: > > Just know this -- your life will get better. And their lives will
: > > get worse. And you want to be around to see this. And you want
: > > them to be around to see this.
: >
: > Ok, I gotta stick my head into this finally. *I* was one of
: > "the bad guys" - popular, smart, and sometimes mean to geeks, etc.
:
: > And, just for the record, sometimes the geeks *deserved* to be
: > taken down a peg or two.
:
: But only "sometimes", as you admit yourself.
And as she also said, she was only sometimes mean to geeks.
[cheap shot snipped]
: Your post comes across as trying to excuse and dismiss bullying,
Only to you.
What it came across to me as doing was:
1) Dismissing a comforting but untrue assertion that the people
who are socially sucessful in high school will be unsuccessful
in life (what would be more accurate is to say that there is
a) not much correlation between social success in
high school and success in life
b) for all but a very few, no correlation between athletic
success in high school and success later in life.
[The reason for the two statements is that there are some
schools - including some with successful athletic programs -
where being a jock isn't the pinnacle of achievement, and
that some forms of success do correlate better with future
success than does athletic success (though they by no
means assure it]
2) Recognizing a quite basic truth that arrogance, exclusion,
and meanness are not solely the province of any particular
group. And that those who are hostile will often be treated
with hostility.
The SSB FAQ: http://www.unrealities.com/adult/ssbb/faq.htm
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Cherie
Tanos - remove X <Ta...@informedconsent.Xco.uk> wrote
> Cherie <monch...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > And, just for the record, sometimes the geeks *deserved* to be taken
down a
> > peg or two.
>
> Did you and your "popular" friends cause any suicides? Are you sure?
Quite. It was a small town. I would have known if a fellow student had
killed hirself. (the only one who did was one of the "popular" students.)
> Far too many victims of bullying don't even get a "rest of their
> lives" because of this kind of treatment.
I think you're making a pretty broad statement, with no justification, by
claiming bullying is the reason some people self-destruct.
> Your post comes across as trying to excuse and dismiss bullying,
> but these are life and death issues for many victims, and
> occasionally for abusers, throughout the world.
>
> Tell us you didn't mean it that way, eh? ;)
I thought I was pretty clear in what I meant. I'll try again.
Geeks (or nerds, or whatever label you choose) are not always innocent
victims. They can (and do, in some instances) provoke such behaviour. I
don't think the fact that someone doesn't "fit in" is reason enough for the
constant cry of "oh poor blameless victim" that often resounds. (Perhaps
I'm biased, as I don't have much tolerance for anyone who plays the role of
perpetual victim.) And the geeks aren't always successes after highschool
- they don't necessarily have better careers or lives than do those they
claim "bullied" them. That's a generalization and oversimplification of
things.
The "in crowd" (or whatever label you choose) are not all ogres doomed to
failure. It might make people feel better to think this, but its simply
not true.
Is that more clear?
Cherie
Xiphias Gladius
>On Tue, 27 Apr 1999, Katharine Hawks wrote:
>> It's unthinkable to me that these homocidal children, with all their
>> narcissism, delusions of victimhood, and petty anger are even
>> *capable* of making the mental leap to say "ok, I am going to arm
>> myself and gun down my peers." Why? Because they were *mean*?
>I don't know...it's not unthinkable to me. I used to have plenty of
>fantasies about gunning down a few of my classmates--the ones that made my
>life hellish, the ones that I used to dream about trying to kill me.
>I didn't, because even as a teenager, I was concerned about the kind of
>karma hit killing someone would create in my life, and also because
>it was more fun to envision showing up to my reunion successful and happy.
>But even now, I still occasionally think of that time, and sincerely hope
>that the people who helped make high school such a hideous experience for
>me are now just as miserable and alone as I was then.
See, for me, I didn't go postal for a number of reasons. I had been
assured that they *would* be miserable eventually -- that was a big one.
Another reason was that I didn't have anything *against* most people in
the school -- I didn't *know* most people in the school.
But, well -- why *wouldn't* someone go out killing people? People are
born amoral. There's no genetic or instinctive block against going out
and commiting mass mayhem. People have to be carefully trained growing up
to not go out and commit mass mayhem.
Me, I *was* trained not to use violence. So much so that I *couldn't*.
I was beaten up several times as I stood there and *took* it, because I
*couldn't fight back*.
At all. I took several years of martial arts, but I could not hit
someone in anger. Wasn't able to actually get rid of that until I got
into the scene. I don't know if I have or not, in fact, since I haven't
been in a real fight since I got into the scene.
But eventually, one day, when I was being beaten up, something inside me
snapped, and a little voice said, "Well, you can't *hit* people, but maybe
you can pick people up and throw them. . . "
So I picked up the guy who was beating me up and hurled him against the
wall.
And someone tackled me just before I stepped on his throat to crush his
windpipe.
Katherine, I wish I went to the school that you went to -- the one where
it was impossible to think about slaughtering your classmates. See,
junior high school and high school -- they're about pain, and violence,
and horror, and mind-numbing drudgery, and they suck.
I can understand going in and slaughtering everyone. I can understand
planning this with military precision. Because why the hell not? I mean,
what was the reason they had to *not* slaughter their classmates?
Katharine Hawks
Starr) wrote:
>In article <3725e8da...@news.enteract.com>,
>Katharine Hawks <kha...@enteract.com> said:
>
>> It's unthinkable to me that these homocidal children, with all their
>> narcissism, delusions of victimhood,
>
>Delusions?
Being an outcast in high school does not make you a victim. Being
pathologically self-absorbed and enraged may make you think you are a
victim.
These kids were white, fairly affluent, and by all reports (so far)
came from relatively stable (or at the very least, 'average')
families.
Sorry, I don't see any victimization. Which is not to say that there
isn't an uncovered history of abuse in either or both of these
families. Such a history would change my opinion somewhat -- if only
to acknowledge that abuse begets violence.
However, it would not change my opinion that the central pathology
here is one of self-absorption -- even more so than anger/rage.
>> and petty anger are even *capable* of making the mental leap to say
>> "ok, I am going to arm myself and gun down my peers." Why? Because
>> they were *mean*?
>
>Sure. Because they were mean (which was a bad thing that could be
>changed by killing them), and because they were getting away with it
>(which was a bad thing that could be changed by killing them), because
>life was unfair, because nobody cared enough, because it'd be fun, and
>because life is non-valuable enough that there's no reason *not* to do it.
>
>To grossly oversimplify a bit with regard to that last point:
>
>Some people, as children and young adults, instinctively know that
>life is a good thing. Some don't know it instinctively but are
>successfully indoctrinated into the belief. Some never really *know*
>it at all. People in the first two categories often have trouble
>understanding the motivations of people in the third.
That may be true. Why do you think some people are not born with or
are unable to acquire a value for life?
--Katharine
*************************
General Purpose Pervert
Use Sparingly
*************************
SSBB Diplomatic Corps
Chicago, IL
Daniel B. Holzman
Xiphias Gladius <i...@dillinger.io.com> wrote:
>
>I can understand going in and slaughtering everyone. I can understand
>planning this with military precision. Because why the hell not? I mean,
>what was the reason they had to *not* slaughter their classmates?
Because You Don't Do That.
That's what stopped me. You Don't Do That. I got beaten up alot until
I learned to defend myself with overwhelming force when (a filled
bookbag makes a great mace), but that's defense in the face of attack. I
and my friends used to think about all ways we could make our tormentors
miserable: Dozens of ways to explode their cars; Scores of plans for
returning their cars a square inch at a time; Enlisting them in the armed
forces while they weren't paying attention; switching chemicals on them
in Lab.
And we got alot of good laughs thinking all of that and much more up.
But You Don't Do That, either.
Maybe that's something that someone either gets or they don't. Idunno.
--
Katharine Hawks
wrote:
<snip>
If I had ever had any revenge inclinations or fantasies (on a grand
scale, anyway), the object of my attention wouldn't have been my
classmates. I was one of those "in between" kids -- not part of the
super-popular crowd, but generally well-liked. Kids at school were
sometimes mean to me and I was sometimes mean to me and that always
felt like life. No big deal.
>Katherine, I wish I went to the school that you went to -- the one where
>it was impossible to think about slaughtering your classmates. See,
>junior high school and high school -- they're about pain, and violence,
>and horror, and mind-numbing drudgery, and they suck.
This has *nothing* to do with my school environment. This is about
who I am *internally*. I was a scholarship kid at a fantastic school.
But I grew up in a home with regular and repeated indoctrinations into
abuse, violence, spiritual and physical annhilation. Destruction,
fear and uncertainty were everyday experiences. I was the child of an
alcoholic and her pedophile boyfriend. The last time I saw my
mother's boyfriend, I was 16 and he was holding one of my sisters up
against the wall by her neck, her feet dangling off the ground. My
inability to fathom what people are saying in this thread has nothing
to do with any lack of exposure to pain, violence, and horror. (If
anything, it has to do with over-exposure to these things.)
And *that* is why I am sitting here reading this thread -- and am
completely *stunned* by what I'm reading. What you and others are
saying is so utterly foreign to me that it's genuinely painful to
read.
I don't mean to sound judgemental -- I know I am coming off that way.
But the internal stuff that you're describing squicks me. I don't
understand how anyone who has had their life devalued can turn that
kind of energy back into the outside world. I don't understand how
anyone can even fantasize about it.
I spent years processing *serious* rage. Even then it didn't occur to
me (either in fantasy or action) to direct that at someone else --
including my abuser. Of course I fucked up alot and plenty of that
rage escaped and people close to me suffered the occasional minor
injury. But it was always my goal to be responsible for my own anger
and never, ever, to become like the thing that had almost destroyed
me.
>I can understand going in and slaughtering everyone. I can understand
>planning this with military precision. Because why the hell not? I mean,
>what was the reason they had to *not* slaughter their classmates?
I take it this is a rhetorical question.
As I said to William, I'm fairly convinced that the ability to become
a rampaging homocidal (at least in the Littleton case) is about an
extreme pathology of self-absorption. Those guys weren't victims.
They just romanced the role of victim to further their narcissism.
(Hello? Hijacking a plane and crashing into new york city -- perhaps
signs of delusions of grandeur here?)
But then -- even with all my experiences, I don't think I was a
victim, either. I did think of myself as a victim for a while, but
if I had continued with my self-pity, I would have destroyed myself.
It simply got old.
Victims who are in love with their victimhood choose to die.
Intellectually, I can understand how this kind of spiritual suicide
would make it impossible to respect the lives of others. Beyond the
level of intellect, I don't know why anyone would make this choice.
Cherie
Steven S. Davis <s...@links.magenta.com> wrote what I would have said
originally if I had anywhere near his talent with words:
> What it came across to me as doing was:
>
> 1) Dismissing a comforting but untrue assertion that the people
> who are socially sucessful in high school will be unsuccessful
> in life (what would be more accurate is to say that there is
> a) not much correlation between social success in
> high school and success in life
> b) for all but a very few, no correlation between athletic
> success in high school and success later in life.
> [The reason for the two statements is that there are some
> schools - including some with successful athletic programs -
> where being a jock isn't the pinnacle of achievement, and
> that some forms of success do correlate better with future
> success than does athletic success (though they by no
> means assure it]
>
> 2) Recognizing a quite basic truth that arrogance, exclusion,
> and meanness are not solely the province of any particular
> group. And that those who are hostile will often be treated
> with hostility.
Yeah, what he said. That's what I was trying to say. Thx Steven.
Cherie
CountV
> Cherie wrote:
>
>> Ok, I gotta stick my head into this finally. *I* was one of "the bad guys"
>> - popular, smart, and sometimes mean to geeks, etc.
>
> So, you were one of the few who grew up, and at least realized that
> picking on people, regardless of whether you feel they deserve it, stops
> producing the desired effect after highschool.
> Congratulations...
>
> ~IronWynch
Actually, the desired effect is simply trying to make yourself feel better
by placing yourself in a superior position to others (however illusory), and
people do that _long_ after high school.
CountV
--
"I am part of a degenerate elite / Dragging your society into the street /
Into the abyss and to the sewer don't you see / The man just told me, he
told me on TV" - Boingo "Insanity"
CountV's Home Page: http://members.xoom.com/CountV
design by Coercion: http://surf.to/coercion
CountV
> Geeks (or nerds, or whatever label you choose) are not always innocent
> victims. They can (and do, in some instances) provoke such behaviour.
I'm sorry, but I fail to see how someone can provoke being bullied. What is
considered a justifiable provocation, if I may ask?
> I
> don't think the fact that someone doesn't "fit in" is reason enough for the
> constant cry of "oh poor blameless victim" that often resounds. (Perhaps
> I'm biased, as I don't have much tolerance for anyone who plays the role of
> perpetual victim.)
I personally have a _lot_ more tolerance for that (irritating and
counter-productive though it may be) than for _anyone_ that resorts to bully
tactics.
> And the geeks aren't always successes after highschool
> - they don't necessarily have better careers or lives than do those they
> claim "bullied" them. That's a generalization and oversimplification of
> things.
I agree - that is wishful thinking on the part of many former geeks. Out of
my 9th grade class (the last compulsory grade in Sweden), I'd say that most
of them have been fairly succesful, geek or not.
For the record, I was always inbetween. I used to befriend the outcasts, but
had enough social skills to keep in pretty good with the popular crowd too.
In fact, I came to get to know the outsiders by defending them from bullies,
a lot of the time.
CountV
> In article <7g61v2$6ft$1...@hiram.io.com>,
> Xiphias Gladius <i...@dillinger.io.com> wrote:
>>
>>I can understand going in and slaughtering everyone. I can understand
>>planning this with military precision. Because why the hell not? I mean,
>>what was the reason they had to *not* slaughter their classmates?
>
> Because You Don't Do That.
>
> That's what stopped me. You Don't Do That. I got beaten up alot until
> I learned to defend myself with overwhelming force when (a filled
> bookbag makes a great mace), but that's defense in the face of attack. I
> and my friends used to think about all ways we could make our tormentors
> miserable: Dozens of ways to explode their cars; Scores of plans for
> returning their cars a square inch at a time; Enlisting them in the armed
> forces while they weren't paying attention; switching chemicals on them
> in Lab.
>
> And we got alot of good laughs thinking all of that and much more up.
>
> But You Don't Do That, either.
>
> Maybe that's something that someone either gets or they don't. Idunno.
I've never been one to fight, except to break up a fight (if that makes any
sense), and I was never _universally_ hounded in school.
But we did have a gang of Nazi Skinheads in my school who terrorized most
everyone, and me and my closer friends in particular because we were little
Punk Rockers. We did get back at them, though - although they'll never know
we did it.
We simply got their personal facts from the school yearbook - their social
security numbers (well, their Swedish equivalent; the on number that you get
assigned at birth), and we ordered so much stuff...
For one guy living in a skyscraper we ordered a snow plow and a flagpole. We
ordered bargain boxes of gay porn, gift subscriptions to old ladies'
magazines (from one skinhead to another), collectible plates, flower
arrangements...
Not exactly the most mature behavior, but it was quite satisfying, and no
one got hurt.
CountV
horror stories on this thread about High School, and seeing that there are
quitea few who feel that they at least _wanted_ to bring down violence on
their schoolmates.
Why does this sort of thing mainly happen in the US? I'm genuinely curious -
what is about this nation that engenders these feelings and this kind of
behavior in numbers unequalled anywhere else? It's not the ready
availability of fire arms, since, as in the Littleton case, one year of
planning would be sufficient to get weapons in even the most gun-controlled
of countries.
So, any theories that aren't just "it's the media/internet/lack of
morals/etc."?
Nicole Cloonan
: "Cherie" <monch...@hotmail.com> wrote:
:
: > Geeks (or nerds, or whatever label you choose) are not always innocent
: > victims. They can (and do, in some instances) provoke such behaviour.
:
: I'm sorry, but I fail to see how someone can provoke being bullied. What is
: considered a justifiable provocation, if I may ask?
Justifiable for an adult, or justifiable for a teenager?
Nicole.
--
SSB Diplomatic Corps: Brisbane, Australia
SSB Hompage: http://www.phszx81.demon.co.uk/ssb/
Email: nic...@uq.net.au
M. Shirley Chong
<<<snippage>>>
> Ok, I gotta stick my head into this finally. *I* was one of "the bad guys"
> - popular, smart, and sometimes mean to geeks, etc.
>
> <minor rant>
> Ya know what? We're not all evil to the core, and doomed to a life of
> failure. I have 2 degrees, a happy marriage, and a career I love (well,
> this is temporarily on hold until I get my green card, but I *did* have one
> before I moved, and expect I'll be able to continue it.) I don't think my
> life got worse after highschool, and I know the same is true for many of my
> friends.
>
> And, just for the record, sometimes the geeks *deserved* to be taken down a
> peg or two. We never resorted to physical intimidation, but we were
> certainly willing to verbally lambaste some of the more sanctimonious
> shits.
<<<snippage>>>
I found this to be one of the most disturbing posts I've ever read. I've
started and deleted literally dozens of replies.
I wasn't exactly a geek (the Goddess gave me two hits of "ability to train
animals" and omitted my "ability to deal with machines") but I was severely
unpopular and, for a time, harassed.
For one thing I was (and still am) fat. Not chubby, not plump, not voluptuous,
just plain fat.
For another thing, I am Eurasian. I was the *first* Asian of any degree to
attend my elementary school, junior high school and high school. There were
black kids but no other Asians. This led to some unfortunate incidents. Like
the first day of fifth grade when my teacher had me stand up and told the
class: "Shirley and her family are part of the communist people who are
killing our American boys in Viet Nam." When my parents bought a lot and
started to build a house on a new lot, the neighborhood took up a petition to
keep us out. When the house was 95% finished (just interior stuff like
woodwork to be put on--the drywalling and panelling had already been
finished), it was clear the petition wouldn't work so the house was burned to
the ground. Getting death threats wasn't a daily occurance but it happened
about once a month until I was about 15 years old, when it seemed to ease off
(the local phone company got new equipment that made phone traces easier).
So it was hard for me to figure out just how serious threats and verbal
harassment at school really was. Intellectually, I knew it was probably
nothing. On the other hand, I'll never forget the image of that burned out
house. Or picking up the phone to hear a voice hissing about exactly how they
planned to kill my parents or me or my sister or my brother.
When I was 12, I was raped by a child molestor. That added to my inability to
let things roll off my back. I tried to take the advice given to me by many
people: just ignore them, don't let on it bothers you, etc. It didn't work.
More than that, it felt dishonest. Why would I pretend that it didn't bother
me when it really did? I had one horrible secret choking me (being raped), I
didn't have room for other secrets inside of me.
So what I did was start being honest. When someone said something hurtful to
me, I would look that person in the eye and tell them how it made me
feel--hurt, confused, angry. I didn't try to attack in return, I just revealed
my feelings honestly and immediately. If I was pushed or "accidentally" hit, I
made it clear that I was hurt.
At first, it made the harassment worse. I did notice that those people
couldn't look me in the eye, though. Very quickly, they stopped tormenting me overtly.
A couple months ago, I ran into one of the people who had been most active in
harassing me. He apologized to me--said that for the last twenty years or so,
he had regretted his actions in high school and that when I started letting
people know how I felt, he felt deep shame over his own actions. I doubt I'll
ever like him but I was able to tell him that I forgave him.
I wonder, sometimes, if both the victims of harassment and the harassers are
done a disservice by the advice to pretend to be stoic, don't let them see
that it hurts, etc. The targets of harassment are being told, in effect, to
pretend not to have their own reactions--does this delay their ability to own
their own feelings? The harassers aren't being given honest feedback about the
effects of their own actions, which could delay in the development of their
ability to empathize with others.
Like Katherine, I am unable to truly understand how someone could willfully
kill another human being, or set up the bombs on delayed timers (which seems
to me to be a calculated attempt at harming police and/or rescue personnel). I
went through my own tough times and I cried plenty of tears over it. But I
never wanted to hurt anyone else. As best as I can remember, I think I felt
they were acting in accordance to their own inner selves and it was up to me
to figure out how to deal with it. What was successful for me was to be
absolutely and ruthlessly honest.
I dunno where all this is leading and I don't know why Cherie's note triggered
all this. But that's what I have to say.
M. Shirley Chong
to reply via e-mail remove the trees from my address
CountV
> CountV wrote:
> : "Cherie" <monch...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> :
> : > Geeks (or nerds, or whatever label you choose) are not always innocent
> : > victims. They can (and do, in some instances) provoke such behaviour.
> :
> : I'm sorry, but I fail to see how someone can provoke being bullied. What is
> : considered a justifiable provocation, if I may ask?
>
> Justifiable for an adult, or justifiable for a teenager?
I fail to see the distinction. Is there a separate set of morals for teens?
SilverOz
CountV <cou...@REMOVETHISPARTiname.com> wrote:
>zznc...@uq.net.au (Nicole Cloonan) wrote:
>
>> CountV wrote:
>> : "Cherie" <monch...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> :
>> : > Geeks (or nerds, or whatever label you choose) are not always innocent
>> : > victims. They can (and do, in some instances) provoke such behaviour.
>> :
>> : I'm sorry, but I fail to see how someone can provoke being bullied. What is
>> : considered a justifiable provocation, if I may ask?
>>
>> Justifiable for an adult, or justifiable for a teenager?
>
>I fail to see the distinction. Is there a separate set of morals for teens?
What are people doing to jk? To various others?
When the cry of "bully" went up on this group in the past, the general
reaction was to say "they deserve it, it's not bullying".
So.. why is this?
Constant putdowns because of the way they act and express themselves is
not bullying? Name calling, insults, those aren't either?
THey are adults and they should therefore know how to act with others -
in other words they have provoked the action?
Or it *is* bullying, and the general consensus is to condone it as it is
done by the "favoured" ones, the in-crowd, and although it is wrong no
one will stop it or tell the bullies off?
I think Nicole is saying that teenagers should be cut more slack because
of the growing up they are trying to do - it's not right to treat them
as grown ups are and expect them to have sorted out the social skills
thing.
SilverOz
TyMeDwn1st
My county's school board enacted (after some months of debate, admittedly) a
uniforms-required rule for public school students the day after the shootings
in Colorado. The head of the school board -- a retired military officer --
used the shootings as an affirmative argument for the need for similarity, the
need to reduce disruption by "those who want to act different from the norm,"
and a couple of other arguments.
<sigh> If we had trains in this town, I'm sure they'd run on time.
Ty
Who is mostly just
a slightly skewed
Donna Reed
(To reply via email, simply remove my pearls...)
DonSideB
<cou...@REMOVETHISPARTiname.com> writes:
>
>Why does this sort of thing mainly happen in the US? I'm genuinely curious -
>what is about this nation that engenders these feelings and this kind of
>behavior in numbers unequalled anywhere else?
Because we don't have any "organized" terrorist groups to join.
If these kids had been born in Ireland, they would be IRA or Sien Fien. In
Palestine they would be PLA, in Germany Red Brigade, in the USA of the sixties,
Black Panthers or Symbioneze Liberation Army. etc....
There are people filled with hate and feelings of persecution everywhere, they
group together where there is politcal oppression and become terrorists. Where
there is no political oppression, they find some group to hate and become KKK
Dragons or Nazis.
But even if deprived of any rational target for their hatred, there are still
those who feel persecuted whether they are or not and still hate without
reason.
Gotta kill somebody, just because their own lives are filled with misery from
the sickness in their own souls. It doesn't make sense to rational people
because we are rational people and our minds can't identify with the twisted
paths of persecution and hatred. If you understood why they did these things,
you should worry about your own soul.
don
That which does not kill us is a good scene,
SSBB Diplomatic Corps: Tidewater Virginia
Xiphias Gladius
>In article <7g61v2$6ft$1...@hiram.io.com>,
>Xiphias Gladius <i...@dillinger.io.com> wrote:
>>
>>I can understand going in and slaughtering everyone. I can understand
>>planning this with military precision. Because why the hell not? I mean,
>>what was the reason they had to *not* slaughter their classmates?
>Because You Don't Do That.
>That's what stopped me. You Don't Do That.
Right. Me too. But *how* do you get that? How did *I* get that? My
point is that, in my mind, the instilation of You Don't Do That-ness is
*not* the default condition.
Xiphias Gladius
>On 28 Apr 1999 04:14:26 GMT, i...@dillinger.io.com (Xiphias Gladius)
>wrote:
>>I can understand going in and slaughtering everyone. I can understand
>>planning this with military precision. Because why the hell not? I mean,
>>what was the reason they had to *not* slaughter their classmates?
>I take it this is a rhetorical question.
No. It's not. What reason are we given to not slaughter our classmates?
You didn't, and internalized that you shouldn't to the point that you
can't understand the desire. Many of the rest of us had that desire, but
never did it.
So, why didn't we? That's what we should be looking at. In my mind, the
fact that we *didn't* is less understandable than the fact that they
*did*.
Kevin Craig
Holzman) wrote:
> Because You Don't Do That.
>
> That's what stopped me. You Don't Do That. I got beaten up alot until
> I learned to defend myself with overwhelming force when (a filled
> bookbag makes a great mace), but that's defense in the face of attack. I
> and my friends used to think about all ways we could make our tormentors
> miserable: Dozens of ways to explode their cars; Scores of plans for
> returning their cars a square inch at a time; Enlisting them in the armed
> forces while they weren't paying attention; switching chemicals on them
> in Lab.
>
> And we got alot of good laughs thinking all of that and much more up.
>
> But You Don't Do That, either.
>
> Maybe that's something that someone either gets or they don't. Idunno.
And you "get it". Finally, someone else who gets it.
I went to a tiny rural school. My graduating class was 24 students.
There were no clicques; you were either in, or you weren't. I wasn't. We
moved there when I was 10, and 8 years wasn't nearly long enough for me to
be anything other than an outsider. I was smart. I was generally
well-behaved. You couldn't get much more un-redneck than I was.
I was picked on, harassed, excluded. The only two times someone got
physical with me, I fought back, so they didn't try that again. But I
went through school very much a loner, lonely, an outcast. I could handle
it. But there were others who couldn't, and I suspect they bear emotional
scars to this day. Kids have always had the capacity to be cruel, and
most likely they always will.
This was a rural school. At least half of the vehicles in the parking lot
had a shotgun or rifle in the gun rack, and no one bothered to lock the
doors. Every boy had a lock-blade knife on his belt. No one blinked at
someone carrying a gun to Shop class to refinish the stock, or drill and
tap the receiver for a scope mount. I remember being surprised after the
OKC bombing that people were shocked to learn that ammonium nitrate and
diesel makes a good low explosive, because we all knew how to mix it and
detonate it. You could buy dynamite at the farm co-op.
This wasn't the Dark Ages. I graduated high school in 1981. But all the
cases of mental cruelty, physical abuse, ostracism, whatever, never *ever*
resulted in a single case of anyone making a bomb, or going to the truck
for a shotgun, or even pulling the knife on his belt. Not just in my
school, but in any of the neighboring rural schools, or even the "big"
school at the county seat (graduating classes of 120 or more).
Why? "You Just Don't Do That".
Knives, guns, explosives... these were *tools*, and their availability was
a point of honor, evidence that one could be entrusted to use them
properly. To misuse them would mean the loss of that privelege, and would
be a far more crushing blow than being picked on.
What's changed? Our willingness to condemn bad behavior. Our willingness
to just say, No, You Just Don't Do That.
I remember all the snide commentary about the "Just Say No" campaign.
Makes perfect sense to me, though.
Kevin
John Dimaio
wrote:
>
>>dons...@aol.combackatyu (DonSideB) writes:
>>> The censorship groups will be next, wanting again to sieze control of the
>>> internet. And music, and dress codes, and political thought.
>>
>>Too late -- trenchcoat-free dress codes have already been emplaced
>>around Denver and some other areas. They're considered "alarming" and
>>"disruptive to the system" now, after all (those are quotes from
>>ClariNet articles I saw on the subject last week).
>
>My county's school board enacted (after some months of debate, admittedly) a
>uniforms-required rule for public school students the day after the shootings
>in Colorado. The head of the school board -- a retired military officer --
>used the shootings as an affirmative argument for the need for similarity, the
>need to reduce disruption by "those who want to act different from the norm,"
>and a couple of other arguments.
>
><sigh> If we had trains in this town, I'm sure they'd run on time.
>
I'm no fan of bureaucrats of any ilk, but I take exception to
your above comment that essentially defines military officers as
fascists. It has been my experience that folks who perceive a need
for us to march in lock-step can be found with an unfortunate
frequency in most walks of life.
John.
NightMist
<cou...@REMOVETHISPARTiname.com> wrote:
>I have one main question about Littleton, especially after reading so many
>horror stories on this thread about High School, and seeing that there are
>quitea few who feel that they at least _wanted_ to bring down violence on
>their schoolmates.
>
>Why does this sort of thing mainly happen in the US? I'm genuinely curious -
>what is about this nation that engenders these feelings and this kind of
>behavior in numbers unequalled anywhere else? It's not the ready
>availability of fire arms, since, as in the Littleton case, one year of
>planning would be sufficient to get weapons in even the most gun-controlled
>of countries.
>
>So, any theories that aren't just "it's the media/internet/lack of
>morals/etc."?
>
>CountV
On the IRC , and on the backgammon server I play on, I have been
lectured by a couple of Europeans, as to how this sort of thing is the
result of living in a classless society where no one knows their
place, and everyone expects to be treated above their station.
Don't ask me where that comes from! Thats the only bit of what they
said that I could make sense of......I havent a clue as to what their
political agenda might be....
NightMist
Daniel B. Holzman
Xiphias Gladius <i...@schultz.io.com> wrote:
>
>>Because You Don't Do That.
>
>>That's what stopped me. You Don't Do That.
>
The difference is that my "YDDT" didn't extend to "You don't hit someone
who's hitting you," despite my early martial arts training.
>point is that, in my mind, the instilation of You Don't Do That-ness is
>*not* the default condition.
That's what I've been wondering for the last week. I and friends far
more dangerous than I hope ever to be have been wondering exactly that,
though phrased as "what changed in the last decade and a half"? I don't,
however, recall a time when I didn't have YDDT for such things -- AFAICT
it was the default condition.
A friend of mine opines that there's been a loss of personal
accountability, but neither of us have been able to pinpoint where that
loss occurred. We've reviewed and found holes in alot of suggestions
about where that point is, though.
--
Katharine Hawks
<cou...@REMOVETHISPARTiname.com> wrote:
>zznc...@uq.net.au (Nicole Cloonan) wrote:
>
>> CountV wrote:
>> : "Cherie" <monch...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> :
>> : > Geeks (or nerds, or whatever label you choose) are not always innocent
>> : > victims. They can (and do, in some instances) provoke such behaviour.
>> :
>> : I'm sorry, but I fail to see how someone can provoke being bullied. What is
>> : considered a justifiable provocation, if I may ask?
>>
>> Justifiable for an adult, or justifiable for a teenager?
>
>I fail to see the distinction. Is there a separate set of morals for teens?
I should hope not. Teens may have more trouble with things like
impulse control, less communication skills, fewer anger processing
skiills, etc.; but it's my understanding that a sense of right/wrong
and a system of ethics is developed (or fails to develop) long before
high school.
But they should still be held accountable for their actions. That's a
big part of how people develop these skills (at least IMX).
--Katharine
****************************************
General Purpose Pervert
Caution: Contents Under Pressure
*****************************************
SSBB Diplomatic Corps: Chicago, Illinois
Xiphias Gladius
>This has *nothing* to do with my school environment. This is about
>who I am *internally*. I was a scholarship kid at a fantastic school.
>But I grew up in a home with regular and repeated indoctrinations into
>abuse, violence, spiritual and physical annhilation. Destruction,
>fear and uncertainty were everyday experiences. I was the child of an
>alcoholic and her pedophile boyfriend. The last time I saw my
>mother's boyfriend, I was 16 and he was holding one of my sisters up
>against the wall by her neck, her feet dangling off the ground. My
>inability to fathom what people are saying in this thread has nothing
>to do with any lack of exposure to pain, violence, and horror. (If
>anything, it has to do with over-exposure to these things.)
I've been thinking about this for a couple hours now, and I wonder if
what's happening is that you went through so much pain at home to make
whatever happened at school seem trivial.
But what you have to remember is that different people have different
breaking points.
Xiphias Gladius
>In article <7g786a$gg$1...@hiram.io.com>,
>Xiphias Gladius <i...@schultz.io.com> wrote:
>>
>>>Because You Don't Do That.
>>
>>>That's what stopped me. You Don't Do That.
>>
>>Right. Me too. But *how* do you get that? How did *I* get that? My
>The difference is that my "YDDT" didn't extend to "You don't hit someone
>who's hitting you," despite my early martial arts training.
That's a seperate issue for me -- that was a mental problem that I've been
working on since then. That was a twisted and sick over-application of
the idea that I hope I've managed to cure.
>>point is that, in my mind, the instilation of You Don't Do That-ness is
>>*not* the default condition.
>That's what I've been wondering for the last week. I and friends far
>more dangerous than I hope ever to be have been wondering exactly that,
>though phrased as "what changed in the last decade and a half"? I don't,
>however, recall a time when I didn't have YDDT for such things -- AFAICT
>it was the default condition.
Sure, but you don't imagine that you were *born* with it, do you?
Maybe it was instilled before you were three, but it had to have been
instilled.
DonSideB
(Kevin Craig) writes:
>
>Knives, guns, explosives... these were *tools*, and their availability was
>a point of honor, evidence that one could be entrusted to use them
>properly. To misuse them would mean the loss of that privelege, and would
>be a far more crushing blow than being picked on.
>
>What's changed? Our willingness to condemn bad behavior. Our willingness
>to just say, No, You Just Don't Do That.
>
>I remember all the snide commentary about the "Just Say No" campaign.
>Makes perfect sense to me, though.
>
>Kevin
>
Exactly, but it is really scary when you realize that while this makes perfect
sense to you and me and a handful of others here, there will be a lot of folks
who haven't a clue what you are talking about or worse, will think you naive or
backward for understanding the relationship of trust and honor.
Thanks for saying it well, whether you are undestood or not.
AJ
"CountV" <cou...@REMOVETHISPARTiname.com> wrote:
> I have one main question about Littleton, especially after reading so many
> horror stories on this thread about High School, and seeing that there are
> quitea few who feel that they at least _wanted_ to bring down violence on
> their schoolmates.
>
> Why does this sort of thing mainly happen in the US? I'm genuinely curious -
> what is about this nation that engenders these feelings and this kind of
> behavior in numbers unequalled anywhere else? It's not the ready
> availability of fire arms, since, as in the Littleton case, one year of
> planning would be sufficient to get weapons in even the most gun-controlled
> of countries.
>
> So, any theories that aren't just "it's the media/internet/lack of
> morals/etc."?
>
Weeellll, since you asked...
It isn't the media or bullying or accessiblity of weapons or laissez-faire
parenting or computer games or nihilistic music or schools that are too big
or the internet or [insert your favorite agenda here]. It's *all* of these
things. And they combined in a particularly volitile and deadly mixture in
the individuals involved. Yet we can probably all name at least one person,
maybe even ourselves, who experienced a similar set of factors and did not
commiet mass murder. Why? We'll probably never know. Why does one abused
child grow up to perpetuate the cycle of abuse and another becomes a
concientious, loving parent? Why different individuals can experience the
same set of circumstances and come to different ends is the $64 million
dollar question.
I do think that we are going to have to take a harder look at why so many
children appear to suffer from attachment disorders (a precurser to what we
think of as sociopathy). And not only children from those populations that
are "traditionally" at risk of abuse and neglect. I also think that many of
us are going to have to become comfortable with a certain degree of hypocricy
when it comes to raising our children. "We" did all the drugs and the sex
(And managed to make it highly risky in the process.) and somehow survived
punk, acid, heavy metal, death metal and disco <g>. "We" have tattoos,
brands, body piercings and interesting wardrobes. "We" talk at the dinner
table about how pornography shouldn't be censored on the internet. "We're"
the ones who *invented* Doom and Quake. So how far are those kids who want
to push at boundaries, rebel, defy and shock "us" supposed to go? It's a
quandary, and I do feel a frisson of hypocricy when I, who has ingested most
mind and mood altering substances known to man, tell my five year old that
"Drugs are bad cause they hurt your body", but oh well.
We're never going to be able to pinpoint "Why??", because we *know* why, but
we don't yet have the ability to understand how all these factors interact
with the individual to produce one outcome over another.
AJ
<packing away soapbox>
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http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
Elisabeth Anne Riba
>No. It's not. What reason are we given to not slaughter our classmates?
>You didn't, and internalized that you shouldn't to the point that you
>can't understand the desire. Many of the rest of us had that desire, but
>never did it.
>So, why didn't we? That's what we should be looking at. In my mind, the
>fact that we *didn't* is less understandable than the fact that they
>*did*.
Well, the first issue is whether the anger is internalized or not.
When the desire is to escape one's tormentors, you can either take them
out of the way or take yourself out of the way.
When I was in high school, I never much thought of physically hurting the
bullies in my school (emotional abusers, all of them) but I did consider
sleeping pills for myself.
Maybe there's two questions; what separates the suiciders from the
killers and what separates those groups from the folks under the same
pressures who don't crack.
--
---------------> Elisabeth Anne Riba * l...@netcom.com <---------------
"[She] is one of the secret masters of the world: a librarian.
They control information. Don't ever piss one off."
- Spider Robinson, "Callahan Touch"
JWarrenZ
>>used the shootings as an affirmative argument for the need for similarity,
>the
>>need to reduce disruption by "those who want to act different from the
>norm,"
>>and a couple of other arguments.
>>
>><sigh> If we had trains in this town, I'm sure they'd run on time.
>>
>
> I'm no fan of bureaucrats of any ilk, but I take exception to
>your above comment that
>essentially defines military officers as
>fascists. It has been my experience that folks who perceive a need
>for us to march in lock-step can be found with an unfortunate
>frequency in most walks of life.
However, I've noticed (and I was also an officer of Marines) that the
profession does attract those for whom conformity is prized over creativity.
The same is true of many religious orders.
Boston Dungeon Society Diversified Services
www.bostondungeon.org Toys & Books for the Scene
Telnet: bdsbbs.com Email: Men...@bdsbbs.com
Info: 617-654-0536 www.diversified--services.com
Bacchae
>Sure, but you don't imagine that you were *born* with it, do
you?
>
>Maybe it was instilled before you were three, but it had to
have been
>instilled.
>
This is the second time now you have implied this idea, that
"humankind is innately evil". If others are working on the
premise that "humankind is innately good" then never the twain
shall meet.
I believe that, barring organic problems (i.e. inherited and/or
birth defects causing abnormalities in the brain), humankind is
good.
If you believe humankind is bad then you tend to default into
the "there's nothing to be done" philosophy. If you believe in
"goodness" then you raise children with more caution to
preserve that goodness.
I believe the environment and the treatment children are
subject to growing up are of critical importance. I believe
that there is a genetic link to personality and how it is
expressed. I think parenting is crucial to the formation of
morality but I think, barring inherited sociopathic behaviour
or other abnormalities, we are born with "the right stuff".
Parents need to take more responsibility for their children,
their parenting and their behaviour. Parents need to provide
an environment where "good" will be nurtured.
<standard disclaimer about these being my views blah blah blah>
- Sandy
--
Bacchae at cadvision dot com
"Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver
before it.
We want to be devoured by it, to hide ourselves in that fire
which
refines us."
- Donna Tartt
Katharine Hawks
wrote:
>That's what I've been wondering for the last week. I and friends far
>more dangerous than I hope ever to be have been wondering exactly that,
>though phrased as "what changed in the last decade and a half"? I don't,
>however, recall a time when I didn't have YDDT for such things -- AFAICT
>it was the default condition.
>
>A friend of mine opines that there's been a loss of personal
>accountability, but neither of us have been able to pinpoint where that
>loss occurred. We've reviewed and found holes in alot of suggestions
>about where that point is, though.
I think any "reason" will have to be reformulated into multiple
reasons. For example, I suspect that you could make a long list of
cultural shifts in the past 10-15 years that could be seen as "risk
factors" for an inability to develop (and adhere) to a sense of
right/wrong. And I also suspect different people will have different
outcomes to the presence of risk factors.
I'd definately put a lack of personal accountability on the list. I
see it in the way some of my friends are raising their children --
many of the kids of my peers do not have to work in exchange for the
perks and pleasures of life. They are not expected to contribute to
the household in anyway. They are developing a sense of entitlement
which I find profoundly disturbing.
You know what? I'd also put a lack of suffering on the list. Not
suffering at the hands of harrassers, abusers and tormentors (I
wouldn't wish that on anyone) -- but suffering in the sense of dealing
with everyday loss, anger, hurt and frustrations. This is how we
learn how to cope with hurt, loss, anger, and frustration. I don't
see how anyone can acquire these skills w/out walking through those
little fires.
I'd also add the deterioration of social networks -- such as the loss
of the extended family, deteriorating neighborhood cultures, and other
support networks which provide both love/nurturing and demand
accountability for our behavior.
While I don't think media or video games contribute to violence by
showing violence; I do think they contribute to a sense of social
alienation. In other words, it's not the content; but the lack of
interaction involved in these past times. It's hard to have
compassion when you haven't learned how to perceive other people.
I'd also add the rise of "victim culture". The proliferation of
psych-speak in our culture has given us a vocabulary which helps us
percieve and articulate our angsts -- but a lot of people are very
selective in what they choose to hear <g>. For example, I hear alot
of people talking about their victimization and protecting their
boundaries; and far fewer people talking about self-accountability and
the importance of recognizing consequences for choices made in life.
And finally -- this one is harder for me to articulate -- but the way
we relate to ethics have changed. There has been a broad shift from a
"universal" notion of what is considered ethical to a system of ethics
that is more situational. Now, I am a big believer in situational
ethics -- for example, "YKIOK" relies to a large degree in this
restructuring of ethical systems to take into account issues of
context. The danger, however, is that systems of situational ethics
are vulnerable to misuse in the hands of people who are prone to
self-rationalizations of any sort (i.e., teenagers *grin*). In other
words -- there's always an "excuse" in a paradigm of situational
ethics. "Kids are mean," "parents don't understand," "it's their
fault," etc.
I think there is a broad cultural shift -- and we are moving toward a
cultural system of situational ethics. I suspect part of the changes
in american youth culture are, to a certain degree, about the growing
pains resulting from this shift.
Anyway, these are just some ramblings. Obviously I'm playing armchair
cultural anthropologist. But it's what I see around me.
M. Shirley Chong
planning this with military precision. Because why the hell not? I mean,
what was the reason they had to *not* slaughter their classmates?
Xiphias Gladius: No. It's not. What reason are we given to not slaughter our
classmates? You didn't, and internalized that you shouldn't to the point that
you can't understand the desire. Many of the rest of us had that desire, but
never did it.
So, why didn't we? That's what we should be looking at. In my mind, the fact
that we *didn't* is less understandable than the fact that they *did*.
Shirley: The reason for me is that I can't remember a time when I didn't know,
soul deep, that each person's life was as precious to them as my own is to me.
That we are all alive, that we all feel pain and to hurt someone else is to
cause pain, whether I feel that pain or not.
Shirley
SilverOz
M. Shirley Chong <eit...@forest.pcpartner.net> wrote:
>
>Shirley: The reason for me is that I can't remember a time when I didn't know,
>soul deep, that each person's life was as precious to them as my own is to me.
>That we are all alive, that we all feel pain and to hurt someone else is to
>cause pain, whether I feel that pain or not.
I've been wondering this too, and I don't know...
I don;t think I saw people as like me in that way, not till
later. When I was having the usual childhood angst about "Nobody
loves me everybody hates me gonna go and eat some worms" I
still never thought I shuold kill, or that violence was right.
I think it might be because my parents did the right job. Not, I
suspect consciously, but just by who and what they were. I think it may
also be me, what I am. I find it very funny that I have the reputation
locally of "someone who'll kneecap you if you get in her way" but I've
nver been violent or felt the desire to be. Be "feared" yes, be thought
to be someone you don't mess with, yes those are cool power things. But
to actually earn them for real? Not me!
My mother fed me stories of Grandpa and his war service. Bravery and
privation. The killing and fighting was not much talked on, it was the
hardship and the overcoming of it, the discipline, the silly stories
that were told at reunions. So although I respect soldiers, think
solidering in a war is a valuable and maybe even enviable thing, it's
not for the killing but for the status :) The obstacles overcome,
the courage, and yes, the parades afterwards.
I played Samurai games (aah! the Phantom Samurai! 30 foot backwards
into trees!) and had swords and a suit of plastic armour. I had cowboy
guns and spud guns and water pistols right up to a replica flintlock.
But the idea of using real guns on real people never crossed my mind.
Did a lot of playing with guns and cowboys and indians and such (cue
"tying up when kids" thread) but it was B movie level and the killing
wasn't the point, the victory or dying heroically was.
When I asked Mum for a pocket knife she said "Yes, but only if you
promise me you will never use it to hurt someone" A promise I had no
difficulty in making because I couldn't understand why on earth anyone
would do such a thing! Still don't. I didn't want it to be tough,
I wanted it to do cool things with like carving wood and cutting
string and cos my best friend had one.
I think for me the "you don't do that" is a combination of parents who
were solid in *their* beliefs that "you don't do that" ("It's not done"
was a common quiet word) and imparted them to me by osmosis almost, and
a temperament that isn't violent but likes power. So I find other ways
to do it.
I did kick a twerp once - I was waiting for guitar lessons after school,
he was being a nuisance, dropping pebbles into the guitar soundhole.
Saying "please don't do that!" didn't work. I suddenly kicked him *hard*
in the backside. What amazed me was that he was shocked and upset that
his action had had such a consequence. That he hadn't got away with his
act of minor powerplay. Or else that the consequence was outof
proportion to the action. But the sense of power seeing him suddenly
upset and scared and wary and dithering... wooho! If he's dead how can
he look so.. so.... in my power?
SilverOz
--
========================================================================
Australian BDSM Information Site http://www.zed.com.au/~master/abis/
========================================================================
Katharine Hawks
wrote:
>Maybe there's two questions; what separates the suiciders from the
>killers and what separates those groups from the folks under the same
>pressures who don't crack.
That's really the $64 million question, isn't it? I would be
skeptical that suiciders or killers were under more pressures than
those who 'processed' and didn't crack. In fact, it seems that the
majority of folks are able to process trauma -- we just hear more
about the trauma when the lack of processing and coping skills lead to
tragedy.
That's why I don't think appropriate interventions involve the removal
of hurtful things from life -- if anything, that seems to weaken
processing skills (at least my completely anecdotal perception of this
stuff.)
Do you think you acquired more of these skills because of the torment
you went through in HS? In other words, do you see any value in your
adolescent suffering? I'm curious, because there is a part of me that
is immensely grateful for the fact that I've been "tested." I have a
huge degree of faith in my ability to cope; and to a certain degree,
that faith is a big part of having the ability to begin with.
Xiphias Gladius
>You know what? I'd also put a lack of suffering on the list. Not
>suffering at the hands of harrassers, abusers and tormentors (I
>wouldn't wish that on anyone) -- but suffering in the sense of dealing
>with everyday loss, anger, hurt and frustrations. This is how we
>learn how to cope with hurt, loss, anger, and frustration. I don't
>see how anyone can acquire these skills w/out walking through those
>little fires.
Let me give you a truly trivial example of that: they've taken everything
out of playgrounds that someone could get hurt on. See-saws,
merry-go-rounds, jungle gyms, slides, swings - there's nothing left.
So, the lesson is, pain and risk are to be avoided at all costs. So kids
grow up with no exposure to physical pain, so it's not real to them, and
they don't know how to deal with it.
Yes, this is a silly example. But I wonder if the current notion of
removing all risk and danger from childhood doesn't lead somehow to this
sort of backlash.
This is all top-of-the-head musing, and isn't very well thought out; but
we've had several people say that they were around firearms their whole
childhood, which gave firearms and explosives a reality which prevented
them from using them irresponsibly. Somehow, we've managed to not only
make firearms and explosives "not real", we've also managed to take away,
pain, death, risk, and injury as real.
Or, of course, all of this that I'm saying could just be bullshit; I'm not
really sure right now.
Xiphias Gladius
>Xiphias Gladius wrote in message :
>>Sure, but you don't imagine that you were *born* with it, do
>you?
>>
>>Maybe it was instilled before you were three, but it had to
>have been
>>instilled.
>This is the second time now you have implied this idea, that
>"humankind is innately evil". If others are working on the
>premise that "humankind is innately good" then never the twain
>shall meet.
Hunh? I don't believe that humankind is innately evil. I believe that
humankind is innately amoral, and that concepts of good and evil must be
taught.
I believe that people are innately *selfish*, to a certain extent, but
that selfishness need not be good or evil. I believe that the concept of
selfishness can be expanded to include working on behalf of one's family
and friends.
I also believe that humans can't *directly* feel loyalty to any group
larger than a couple dozen -- loyalty to things like country, religion, or
ideals must be learned, whereas loyalty to family, close friends, or one's
squad may be instinctual.
>I believe that, barring organic problems (i.e. inherited and/or
>birth defects causing abnormalities in the brain), humankind is
>good.
That's a damn frightening idea -- because you are now saying that entire
families can be inherently evil.
>If you believe humankind is bad then you tend to default into
>the "there's nothing to be done" philosophy. If you believe in
>"goodness" then you raise children with more caution to
>preserve that goodness.
Not in my experience. The few people I've known who've raised children
with that latter idea seem to have spoiled them.
[ . . . ]
>Parents need to take more responsibility for their children,
>their parenting and their behaviour. Parents need to provide
>an environment where "good" will be nurtured.
I would agree with that -- but I would say that that is *instilling*
goodness.
Nicole Cloonan
: Xiphias Gladius wrote in message :
:
: >Sure, but you don't imagine that you were *born* with it, do you?
: >
: >Maybe it was instilled before you were three, but it had to
: >have been instilled.
:
: This is the second time now you have implied this idea, that
: "humankind is innately evil". If others are working on the
: premise that "humankind is innately good" then never the twain
: shall meet.
[snip]
Nononononononono.
The way I'm processing what Ian is saying I agree with completely.
It's not that humans are "innately good" or "innately evil" at
all. It's that they are born amoral.
Morality, or the sense of "good/evil" or "right/wrong" in not a
born or evolved function, it's a wonderful product of cultural
evolution.
Consider your average animal. Your average cat doesn't know that
it is BAD to kill native birds, but it is GOOD to kill rats in
the ceiling. A cat has no concept of morality, and it doesn't have
the capability to learn. It will know hunger, and perhaps it may
even know consequences of doing an action, but it doesn't know that
these actions are bad.
A human child is like an animal. No, a human child is worse than
an animal, it is a little monster because it is so like us, but
lacking the sense of ethics, lacking the sense of what is GOOD and
what is BAD. Humn adults know what is GOOD and what is BAD because
we have been taught, by our parents, by our teachers, by society
and by whatever other things greatly influence our life. In turn,
we teach our children and the children around us about what is
GOOD and what is BAD.
A child will express no guilt or shame about doing things that
as adults, we feel guilty and shamed about. A child won't know
that it is BAD to torture an animal unless it is taught about
the concept of suffering, and this takes time as the ability
to empathize takes time to develop.
The concepts of GOOD and BAD are definable, but I won't. It
would take too much bandwidth. But the reason that "You Just
Don't Do That" is because it is BAD.
Nicole.
--
SSB Diplomatic Corps: Brisbane, Australia
SSB Hompage: http://www.phszx81.demon.co.uk/ssb/
Email: nic...@uq.net.au
Lacenlthrs
> What streams me most is that for all the talk of "what caused" it
>no one is looking at the students who made these kids feel like outcasts.
>If kids didn't tease each other so bloodly much maybe kids wouldn't dream
>of hurting other kids and even doing harm.
Thank you SO MUCH for saying this!!!!!! I was beginning to believe I was the
only one who saw things this way. (Not unusual for me, but sheesh!) I do not
want to downplay the tragedy of the kids and teacher who were killed, but the
tragedy of these boys who felt so driven to do this is just as sad.
Maybe it pushes buttons for me because I was one of those outcasts in school.
When I read Stephen King's "Carrie" I felt like I'd found a hero! <EG> I think
I have a high enough regard for human life to say I would not have killed my
main tormentors if someone had handed me a gun, but I'm not 100% certain (I had
great fantasies about them coming to harm in some indirect way).
Last week I had to deal with a situation at my daughter's school. Four boys
chased her and a friend home from school (4th graders), and one tried to run
her down with a bike. She got detention the next day for pushing one of the
boys (she was BLOCKING him, but she felt "guilty" and admitted to pushing
instead of protecting herself). The school's attitude about this and other
incidents is basically "boys will be boys" and that she should toughen up and
not be so sensitive. I am fed up. Why is it that the bullies can be tolerated,
and it's somehow HER fault because they're allowed to get away with antisocial,
cruel behavior?
I have yet to arrive at a satisfactory solution to this. We (her parents) have
decided to allow some basic martial arts training. Not to be an aggressor, but
simply so she isn't afraid to protect herself. I learned from my own
experiences that, sadly, "they" don't leave you alone until you stand your
ground an refuse to accept their behavior (I knocked a girl down a flight of
stairs in 7th grade, and that was the end of my problems). Fighting fire with
fire, I suppose. I don't like it, but it works.
Sad but surviving,
KarenJ
William December Starr
i...@schultz.io.com (Xiphias Gladius) said:
> Let me give you a truly trivial example of that: they've taken
> everything out of playgrounds that someone could get hurt on.
> See-saws, merry-go-rounds, jungle gyms, slides, swings - there's
> nothing left.
>
> So, the lesson is, pain and risk are to be avoided at all costs. So
> kids grow up with no exposure to physical pain, so it's not real to
> them, and they don't know how to deal with it.
I can't go along with the part about "so kids grow up with no exposure
to physical pain." Assuming a full range of physical movement, the
kid who _doesn't_ sooner or later fall down a flight of stairs, do a
bit of unintentional bicycle/tree interaction, run into the kitchen at
full speed and meet a table leg head-on or find one of the three
zillion other ways of discovering *pain* is a rare child indeed...
-- William December Starr <wds...@crl.com>
Bacchae
Sandy:>>This is the second time now you have implied this idea,
that
>>"humankind is innately evil". If others are working on the
>>premise that "humankind is innately good" then never the
twain
>>shall meet.
>
Ian: >Hunh? I don't believe that humankind is innately evil.
I believe that
>humankind is innately amoral, and that concepts of good and
evil must be
>taught.
Okay, amoral I can handle better, but I am still inclined to
think that people will do "the right thing". I think that is
because we can reason.
>
Sandy: I believe that, barring organic problems (i.e.
inherited and/or
>>birth defects causing abnormalities in the brain), humankind
is
>>good.
>
Ian: That's a damn frightening idea -- because you are now
saying that entire
>families can be inherently evil.
>
No, I am not saying they are evil. They may be predisposed to
certain behaviours. For example, the genetic abnormality XYY
is seen rather frequently in prison populations. It appears
there can be heightened aggression because of the extra Y
chromosome BUT this does not mean this genetic abnormality is
an automatic jail sentence at birth, it's just an aberration
that perhaps needs to be addressed from a parenting standpoint.
If a violent paranoid schizophrenic happens to pass on their
heritable schizophrenia then it will be a concern for any
children of that person not to mention the environment the
child is raised in if the paranoid schizophrenia is not
properly treated. Again, this does not mean the child will
necessarily fall into the same behaviour as the parent but
since schizophrenia is heritable it will be a health concern
related to that child that will affect to how parenting should
or will be carried out. <and no, I am not saying people with
schizophrenia are "evil". I used the terms violent and
paranoid as qualifiers which, as it relates to schizophrenia,
make it a very rare combination. Schizophrenia is treatable
and many people affected by the disease lead relatively normal
lives. Mental illness does NOT equal "evil".>
I know a woman whose son is bi-polar and suffers ADD. He hits
her, has threatened her, is verbally abusive to her and others
in his family, has held knives to her throat, and so on. Her
other children are normal. Both diseases are likely to be
organic rather than environmentally acquired. This child isn't
necessarily evil but _is_ dangerous and has demonstrated
violent tendencies and pretty well a complete lack of impulse
control.
Several serial killers have had poor or no sense of smell.
This argues whether their loss of smell was/is a birth defect
or from brain damage and whether, physiologically, there is a
reason that this loss of smell seems to be linked to serial
killing. Again this is an organic problem (although it _may_ be
an acquired one in which case did the damage that caused the
loss of the sense of smell also effect impulse control or the
area of the brain related to morality).
Now, I believe most people CAN be good but if the environment
conspires against those who also have the first strike against
them physiologically then it makes life just that much tougher
for them.
Sandy: If you believe humankind is bad then you tend to
default into
>>the "there's nothing to be done" philosophy. If you believe
in
>>"goodness" then you raise children with more caution to
>>preserve that goodness.
>
Ian: Not in my experience. The few people I've known who've
raised children
>with that latter idea seem to have spoiled them.
>
<chuckle> Well it depends on what you consider spoiling but I
am rather strict around kids and they tend to be better for it
rather than worse. I do not believe in spoiling children but I
do believe I can foster "goodness" in them without it.
KAYDEE127
basis, making fun of each other, threatening each other and other "childish"
things. I am 27, so I am not so far removed from my own school experience.
Things have changed drastically since I was in Junior High. Children today are
dealing with much more than many of us did: single parent homes, no supervision
before/after school and most importantly, no one to instill values and morals.
Granted, I teach in an urban environment with 70% of my students at or below
poverty level (a far cry from Littleton); however one thing remains true... If
parents do not talk to their children and guide them and know what is going on
in their kids lives problems occur. These problems range from kids earning
failing grades to mass murder. We need to know what our kids are up to, who
their friends are, what they are doing in school, what their interests are,
etc. This means parents must be around, make time and most importantly LISTEN
to their kids... listen to what they are NOT saying.
Kristin
~a teacher who still has a lot to learn~
Devon
> >You know what? I'd also put a lack of suffering on the list.
> >with everyday loss, anger, hurt and frustrations. This is how we
> >learn how to cope with hurt, loss, anger, and frustration.
Ian <Xiphias Gladius> wrote:
> Let me give you a truly trivial example of that: they've taken everything
> out of playgrounds that someone could get hurt on. See-saws,
> merry-go-rounds, jungle gyms, slides, swings - there's nothing left.
>
> So, the lesson is, pain and risk are to be avoided at all costs. So kids
> grow up with no exposure to physical pain, so it's not real to them, and
> they don't know how to deal with it.
There's a theory I recently heard about the physical side of this.
When kids eat (breathe, roll in, etc) dirt and germs, they are preparing
their bodies' immune systems. When germs are introduced in small
amounts, over time, the immune system gets stronger. (like vaccines)
Now, people are so terrified of germs that there are hand sanitizing
gels for times that you can't get to a sink. Maybe parents are doing
kids a disservice by keeping them so clean. Anti-bacterial soap has its
place, but a few germs won't kill you - they make you stronger.
Or maybe *I'm* full of crap! <laughs>
Devon
[remove the thingy from my address]
William December Starr
lacen...@aol.comnospam (Lacenlthrs) said:
> Last week I had to deal with a situation at my daughter's school. Four
> boys chased her and a friend home from school (4th graders), and one
> tried to run her down with a bike. She got detention the next day for
> pushing one of the boys (she was BLOCKING him, but she felt "guilty"
> and admitted to pushing instead of protecting herself). The school's
> attitude about this and other incidents is basically "boys will be
> boys" and that she should toughen up and not be so sensitive. I am fed
> up. Why is it that the bullies can be tolerated, and it's somehow HER
> fault because they're allowed to get away with antisocial, cruel
> behavior?
>
> I have yet to arrive at a satisfactory solution to this.
The phrase "sue the bastards" -- the school administrators, I mean --
leaps screamingly to mind. They do have a legal duty to ensure your
daughter's safety while she is in their custody, after all.
> We (her parents) have decided to allow some basic martial arts
> training. Not to be an aggressor, but simply so she isn't afraid to
> protect herself. I learned from my own experiences that, sadly, "they"
> don't leave you alone until you stand your ground an refuse to accept
> their behavior (I knocked a girl down a flight of stairs in 7th grade,
> and that was the end of my problems). Fighting fire with fire, I
> suppose. I don't like it, but it works.
True. Teaching me the opposite -- "Ignore them and they'll stop
bothering you" is something for which I will _never_ forgive my
single-parent mother. (Then again, how was she supposed to know
anything about the real-life behavior of school children? She was
only a career elementary school teacher, after all...)
Why yes, I am still bitter about it. How could you tell?
William December Starr
"Bacchae" <Bac...@nospam.cadvision.com> said:
> Okay, amoral I can handle better, but I am still inclined to think
> that people will do "the right thing". I think that is because we
> can reason.
The problem here, as I see it, is that "reason," as a verb, is _not_
equivalent to "examine the data and arrive at the same conclusions as
the majority does."
Nicole
"Steven S. Davis" wrote:
>
> Only to you.
Ahem...it's not a good idea to try to tell people that they are alone.
I took cherie's post as a bit on the clueless or denial side too.
>
> What it came across to me as doing was:
>
> 1) Dismissing a comforting but untrue assertion that the people
> who are socially sucessful in high school will be unsuccessful
> in life
Heheh...I'm sorry, but people who harrass, stalk, and pick on others are
not exactly what I'd call "socially successful".
~IronWynch
Nicole
CountV wrote:
> Actually, the desired effect is simply trying to make yourself feel better
> by placing yourself in a superior position to others (however illusory), and
> people do that _long_ after high school.
>
> CountV
Hmmm...This is true...But I think they also want to influence the person
they are harrassing. It's just that at a certain point, people don't
just cry about being harrassed anymore...They call the police, or grab a
weapon, or something...Well, not everyone, but the chances of getting
into serious trouble for harrassing people increases after high
school..Well, unless the harrasser's parents have alot of money, and are
still willing to cover their arse. There are a few people like that.
~IronWynch
William December Starr
Katharine Hawks <kha...@enteract.com> said
(to Elisabeth Anne Riba, but I'm responding anyway):
> Do you think you acquired more of these skills because of the torment
> you went through in HS? In other words, do you see any value in your
> adolescent suffering? I'm curious, because there is a part of me that
> is immensely grateful for the fact that I've been "tested." I have a
> huge degree of faith in my ability to cope; and to a certain degree,
> that faith is a big part of having the ability to begin with.
I see no value in any of my suffering, and today I have no real faith at
all in my ability to cope. Where (most of) the rest you get yours from
is an eternal mystery to me, at least with regard to those who didn't
get their heads successfully stuffed full of Christian-like religious
faith before they really had a chance to learn and think for themselves.
William December Starr
kha...@enteract.com said:
>>> It's unthinkable to me that these homocidal children, with all
>>> their narcissism, delusions of victimhood, [Katharine Hawks]
>>
>> Delusions? [wdstarr]
>
> Being an outcast in high school does not make you a victim.
I think it does. The disagreement here may -- *MAY* -- be that I
believe that children are entitled to happy lives and you (if I
understand correctly) do not. Being deprived of that to which you are
entitled makes one a victim.
> These kids were white, fairly affluent, and by all reports (so far)
> came from relatively stable (or at the very least, 'average')
> families.
>
> Sorry, I don't see any victimization. Which is not to say that
> there isn't an uncovered history of abuse in either or both of these
> families. Such a history would change my opinion somewhat -- if
> only to acknowledge that abuse begets violence.
>
> However, it would not change my opinion that the central pathology
> here is one of self-absorption -- even more so than anger/rage.
Wanting to be happy is self-absorption?
>> Some people, as children and young adults, instinctively know that
>> life is a good thing. Some don't know it instinctively but are
>> successfully indoctrinated into the belief. Some never really
>> *know* it at all. People in the first two categories often have
>> trouble understanding the motivations of people in the third.
>> [wdstarr]
>
> That may be true. Why do you think some people are not born with or
> are unable to acquire a value for life?
"Not born with," I dunno. But I didn't say "unable to acquire" -- I
said "aren't successfully indoctrinated." The former indicates a lack
or flaw in the person; the latter also opens up the possibility that
nobody tried to do such an indoctrination or that they tried but were
incompetent.
Nicole Cloonan
Count V wrote:
: >> : I'm sorry, but I fail to see how someone can provoke being bullied.
: >> : What is considered a justifiable provocation, if I may ask?
I wrote:
: >> Justifiable for an adult, or justifiable for a teenager?
Count V wrote:
: >I fail to see the distinction. Is there a separate set of morals for teens?
SilverOz wrote:
[snip]
: I think Nicole is saying that teenagers should be cut more slack because
: of the growing up they are trying to do - it's not right to treat them
: as grown ups are and expect them to have sorted out the social skills
: thing.
I like SilverOz's answer, and I agree with it, but it would be
dishonest to say "Yeah, that's exactly what I meant". I'm not
actually sure what I was trying to say.
Maybe I should have asked "Justifiable -as- an adult ..." etc.
I wasn't trying to say that teens have or should have a different
set of morals applied to them, but children will have a different
understanding of a morality than adults. Sometimes, what is generally
justifiable as a teenager ("He told everyone my most personal
secret, so I punched him") will not generally be justifiable as
an adult ("He told everyone my most personal secret, so I no longer
call this man my friend").
That's all about internal justification.
As far as external justification goes, I would be far more willing
to forgive a teenage bully than to forgive an adult one.
Steven S. Davis
: "Cherie" <monch...@hotmail.com> wrote:
:
: > Geeks (or nerds, or whatever label you choose) are not always innocent
: > victims. They can (and do, in some instances) provoke such behaviour.
:
: I'm sorry, but I fail to see how someone can provoke being bullied. What
: is considered a justifiable provocation, if I may ask?
Define "bullying".
Always an important part of any such exercise. Remember those
studies of a few years ago that found two-thirds of the women
in college had been sexually abused ? "Sexually abused" included
such things as people trying to emotionally manipulate them into
having sex (emotionally manipulating people into having sex is
a bad thing, no doubt about that, but it's not what anyone
reading "sexually abused" in the reports about a report will
think (actually, the numbers were horrific enough, with about
16%, IIRC - and sorry, I'm relying on memory, I have no cites,
anyone who thinks my memory is wrong can go check the cites if
they wish - of the respondents reporting that they'd criminal
sexual assaults)). Standard operating procedure is to define
what you are against so broadly that it appears to be an
epidemic - even when there's more than enough of the real thing
happening to justify considerable upset.
Has anybody reported the Trenchcoat Mafia being beaten or terrorized ?
I haven't seen such reports (which doesn't mean they don't exist).
I haven't seen their bon fides for their claim to victimhood,
and don't accept that they were the victims in this matter.
Some people didn't like them, it seems. Perhaps some people
excluded them - though they seemed to do a quite good job of
setting themselves apart. I'm sure that people made nasty comments
among themselves about them, and perhaps made nasty comments to them
or where they could hear them. Does anyone believe the Trenchcoat
Mafia didn't do the same ?
Excluding people, feeling superior to them, making disparaging
comments to one's fellows about them, and sometimes making nasty
comments, perhaps meant as jokes and perhaps not, to people or
in such a way that people will hear them. Geeks don't do this ?
Does this justify beatings ? Well, first of all let's toss
the idea of "justifies", since that really has nothing to do
with anything that happens in life, that's just how people
explain their conduct after the fact. Is beating people up
a reasonable response to such conduct ? No. Is responding
in kind ? Yes. Not, perhaps, an optimal response, but a
reasonable one. People with attitudes get treated with attitudes,
hostile people receive hostility, people who offer disrespect
receive it back. And the people engaging in the extremely
common (in every sense of the word, including its most
pejorative) practice of returning exclusion for exclusion,
jibe for jibe, disrespect for disrespect, prejudice for prejudice,
and hostilty for hostility, belong to every class and clique.
It is, of course, rather a different case when one is so isolated
that one can't be exclusionary and hostile to the others, one
of the great traditions of humankind, because there's no "us"
to pit against "them". But in a lot of cases it isn't one person
being the brunt of everyone's disdain, it's different groups
being disdainful of each other.
Is it justified ? What the fuck does that have to do with anything ?
Does it "work" ? Yes. There's a great need to feel good about oneself,
and that can be very hard to do, especially for teenagers, but so long
as you can look down on someboody, hey, things ain't so bad.
Is it optimal ? Well, there's other ways, ways that stress building
oneself up rather than others down, or stress being respectful and
inclusionary, and these ways may produce more valuable results.
But they also involve hard and scary (sometimes facing others,
and sometimes facing/exposing onself) work, and aren't nearly as
much fun, so who's gonna do that ?
It's nice to think that "they" do all the bad things, and this
applies to "out" groups as well as the "in" groups. But like
a lot of things that it's comforting to believe, it isn't true.
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Bacchae
>Today on /. :
>
>> In the days after the Littleton, Colorado massacre, the
>> country went on a panicked hunt the oddballs in High
>> School, a profoundly ignorant and unthinking response to a
tragedy
>> that left geeks, nerds, non-conformists and the alienated in an
>> even worse situation than before.
>
>> Odd values - unthinking school spirit, proms, jocks - are
exalted,
>> while the best values - free thinking, non-conformity,
curiousity
>> - are ridiculed.
>
>continued on http://slashdot.org/articles/99/04/25/1438249.shtml
>
>and this coupled with the persistent attempts of the Littleton
>"jocks" to label the killers as gay.
>
>Not a good time to be young and in a sexual minority?
>
> Tanos
The backlash hit Alberta today:
http://www.canoe.ca/TopStories/taber_apr28.html
One kid killed, another injured in Taber, Alberta.
Lilith
Bob Mc. wrote:
> I'm sitting here watching television and am absolutely quieted. IN southern
> Alberta, in a town known for its corn, Taber, a 14 year old boy wearing a blue
> trench coat walked into the High School this afternoon and using a 22 calibre
> gun, killed one 17 year old boy and injured another.
>
> Of course, the Canadian media is there en masse and the town is already rife
> with rumors that the Littleton media masses are heading north to be there too.
>
> What in God's name is going on
Jeez, Bob - I know the town of Taber. Quiet little place. Your whole post
resonated with me. I don't have the answers either, but as one of those type
children who tended to stick up for those kids who were being bullied,
marginalized, etc. - I was never one of the "popular" kids in school - but I was
never fucked with, either. Because the kids knew I'd mess with them back, if they
did. The sheer viciousness of cruelty of children toward one another astonished
me - even back in the very early grades of school.
> Ya, it's a copy cat killing - but there's more than meets the eye. The 14
> year old who has been arrested and charged was, like his "mates" in Colorado,
> the subject of ridicule from class mates - perhaps even more of a loner than
> the Littleton pair. He apparently had no friends at all.
There's a whole country filled with kids like this - I shudder to think of the
copycat episodes ahead. And I frankly have _no_ sympathy for any of those adults
who report that they were kids in school who *did* pick on others who were
different from them, or geeks, nerds, whatever, but that it all turned out OK. No
sympathy at all. I didn't accept it as a child and I don't accept it as an adult.
There is never any excuse for causing gratuitous non-con pain to another,
particularly a child, IMHO.
> You know, when I
> was in boarding school (a juvy in my own right) there was a kid we called
> Rat. No one liked him and everyone called him names. His folks lived in the
> city and it must have seemed to him that even they didn't love him - because
> they made him board Monday through Friday. One day he snapped. I had never
> before and haven't personally since, seen anything like it. But that was a
> long time ago and people just didn't use guns. He didn't have one - just
> screamed and screamed and yelled obscenities in the main lobby for about
> twenty minutes.
Shuddering, as I read this, to imagine what horrors that poor boy endured - and
thankful that in those days, we didn't have guns available to us.
>
> As we adults merrily go along marginalizing anyone who doesn't meet our
> personal agendas (hello Christian right) and scream for more money, lower
> taxes, less of "those" people around us, I wonder what we are teaching our
> kids. I wonder what choices we leave the marginalized to get our
> compassionate attention. I have a teenage neice and a just-about teenage
> nephew. I'm going to hug them next time I see them and that's a promise.
Kids can never get too many hugs. And there just aren't enough hugs to go around
because so *many* are marginalized. Kids, adults, anyone who's "different".
> I don't have answers but I have a big question - what the hell is happening?
>
> <end rant> Sorry,
Violence in our whole society (video games, TV, etc.) for entertainment is my
personal button - don't even get me started.
>
> Bob Mc.
>
Aloha all,
Lillith
Lilith
Xiphias Gladius wrote:
> hol...@ripco.com (Daniel B. Holzman) writes:
>
> >In article <7g61v2$6ft$1...@hiram.io.com>,
> >Xiphias Gladius <i...@dillinger.io.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>I can understand going in and slaughtering everyone. I can understand
> >>planning this with military precision. Because why the hell not? I mean,
> >>what was the reason they had to *not* slaughter their classmates?
>
> >Because You Don't Do That.
>
> >That's what stopped me. You Don't Do That.
>
> Right. Me too. But *how* do you get that? How did *I* get that? My
> point is that, in my mind, the instilation of You Don't Do That-ness is
> *not* the default condition.
>
> - Ian
In my own case, my default condition of You Don't Do That was instilled by my
parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, older cousins, to the point where it *was*
my default condition from my earliest memories about age 4, when I first began
sticking up for kids being picked on. (I was way undersized, but with a big
mouth and a hot temper, still I don't know how I managed to get away with it).
Admittedly, I'm of a certain age before the wave of
violence-as-entertainmenment-for- children from the media, which desensitized so
many. But at what point did our elders stop instilling that conditioning in us,
that You Don't Do That? Or was it that kids just stopped listening to the elders
- I mean really, really _stopped_ listening, totally?
Lillith
Lilith
Xiphias Gladius wrote:
> Katharine Hawks <kha...@enteract.com> writes:
>
> >You know what? I'd also put a lack of suffering on the list. Not
> >suffering at the hands of harrassers, abusers and tormentors (I
> >wouldn't wish that on anyone) -- but suffering in the sense of dealing
> >with everyday loss, anger, hurt and frustrations. This is how we
> >learn how to cope with hurt, loss, anger, and frustration. I don't
> >see how anyone can acquire these skills w/out walking through those
> >little fires.
>
> Let me give you a truly trivial example of that: they've taken everything
> out of playgrounds that someone could get hurt on. See-saws,
> merry-go-rounds, jungle gyms, slides, swings - there's nothing left.
>
> So, the lesson is, pain and risk are to be avoided at all costs. So kids
> grow up with no exposure to physical pain, so it's not real to them, and
> they don't know how to deal with it.
>
> Yes, this is a silly example. But I wonder if the current notion of
> removing all risk and danger from childhood doesn't lead somehow to this
> sort of backlash.
Both of you have made some excellent points, which I see falling under the
general umbrella of the incresaing tendency of society to protect us from
ourselves. "Can't put anything into a playground that might cause a child to
get hurt" - why? Because of the likelihood of a lawsuit. Result? There's
nothing in a playground to play on anymore. Who loses out? Kids. Who wins? I
suppose local and county governments who won't get sued if, deity forbids, a
child might get hurt on a playground.
To make a silly example sillier - the laws requiring motorcyclists to wear
helmets, requiring us all to wear seatbelts, all the many ways we are
constanly being legislated into protection that we don't want but must have,
because of the fear of lawsuits.
I think some of this is a part of where society has been heading in a very
wrong direction. This thread is making me think, a lot, and I'm not sure I'm
making much sense - not even sure where I'm headed with this - but I'm deeply
disturbed.
>
> This is all top-of-the-head musing, and isn't very well thought out; but
> we've had several people say that they were around firearms their whole
> childhood, which gave firearms and explosives a reality which prevented
> them from using them irresponsibly. Somehow, we've managed to not only
> make firearms and explosives "not real", we've also managed to take away,
> pain, death, risk, and injury as real.
>
> Or, of course, all of this that I'm saying could just be bullshit; I'm not
> really sure right now.
>
> - Ian
Making lots of sense to me, Ian, and Katharine has made some excellent
observations, too., IMHO.
Lillith
inn...@prometheus.frii.com
(LawLess) wrote:
> [3] If there were -more- guns being carried in the school, maybe, just
> maybe, a lot less than 15 people would be dead out there. If one of
> the other kids had been carrying, and shot those two as they walked
> down the corridors laughing and hooting and killing - I'd have to
> consider it a case of violence solving a problem, and even being a
> Good Thing if only 3 or 4 had died instead of 15 dead and 20 wounded.
The Military shows that for the most part, the ability to stay calm and
return fire has to be *trained* into a person. In the general instances,
if a person is faced with someone calmly wandering down a corridor and
shooting people their immediate reaction is to run and hide, not return
fire. For most people this would be their first taste of combat and people
without training at shooting at people tend to do poorly in those
situations.
Extra guns at school also provides ample opportunites for "heat of the
moment" incidents.
I suspect that if you were to introduce armed students to school it would
be vital to ensure that gun safety and the responsible use of firearms
would have to be a solid and large part of the teaching schedule. But if
that is the case, why not devote the time to training the kids to getting
along with each other?
The evidence so far is that these kids were 'crazy', eg they were
sufficently mentally unbalanced to do the thing they did, they were no
different from the guy that went down to a school in England a couple of
years ago and shoot 20 primary school children (and a teacher). That they
were young and in school is less relevant than that they were mentally
ill.
--
Anson NZ BDSM Newsletter Editor
100% Kiwi and Proud of it! http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~cave
ssdavis
: "Steven S. Davis" wrote:
: >
: > Only to you.
: Ahem...it's not a good idea to try to tell people that they are alone.
This is true. There's no assertion that someone won't believe.
: I took cherie's post as a bit on the clueless or denial side too.
*smile*
CatKresh
disrespect. When my 12 year old son and I discussed this who situation I told
him that I felt like the bottom line was you have to respect people... all
people whether you like them or not. Because all people deserve to be treated
with human decency. When I was in high school there were kids that you just
knew better than to mess with. Not because they were scarey but because they
were on the edge. Maybe the difference between now and then is that we just
toked our cares away instead of blowing them away.
ssdavis
: In article <7g82sh$9oj$1...@iceman.tac.net>,
: "Bacchae" <Bac...@nospam.cadvision.com> said:
: > Okay, amoral I can handle better, but I am still inclined to think
: > that people will do "the right thing". I think that is because we
: > can reason.
: The problem here, as I see it, is that "reason," as a verb, is _not_
: equivalent to "examine the data and arrive at the same conclusions as
: the majority does."
Nor is it equivalent to "arrive at a moral/ethical conclusion.
Reason is also amoral and can produce some quite vicious
conclusions.
Morality and values are not the product of reason, rather
they are quite nonrational (*not* irrational). Reason
working on/with moral values produces moral (for that
value system) conclusions. If that value system isn't
yours, you won't necessarily think the conclusion moral.
Edri
>
> I'm sorry, TammyJo, I think you're entirely off base with this one.
>
> For one thing, it sounds far too much like certain excuses which have
> historicly been made for rapists.
>
> For another, have kids really gotten that much worse in the 12 years
> since I and so many of my friends were in school being hounded by them?
> We all dreamed about visiting all sorts of horrors on our tormentors, but
> we managed to work out our issues without staging armed assaults on the
> school at large.
>
> I'm afraid I don't buy the "it was because they were outcasts" argument
> -- there were too many other outcasts. It can't be that simply, any more
> than it can be any of the other easy-bubt-wrong explanations that are
> floating around.
> --
you know I don't understand your response either.It amazes me actually that
this type of thing doesn't happen more often.That someone would be surprised
when one or two people who have put up with years of abuse and belittlement
lash out...even occasionally...is in itself amazing.
Dana Watsham Hansen
Katharine Hawks wrote words of wisdom:
> I think any "reason" will have to be reformulated into multiple
> reasons. For example, I suspect that you could make a long list of
> cultural shifts in the past 10-15 years that could be seen as "risk
> factors" for an inability to develop (and adhere) to a sense of
> right/wrong. And I also suspect different people will have different
> outcomes to the presence of risk factors.
<snippage>
> I'd also add the deterioration of social networks -- such as the loss
> of the extended family, deteriorating neighborhood cultures, and other
> support networks which provide both love/nurturing and demand
> accountability for our behavior.
Too true.
> While I don't think media or video games contribute to violence by
> showing violence; I do think they contribute to a sense of social
> alienation. In other words, it's not the content; but the lack of
> interaction involved in these past times. It's hard to have
> compassion when you haven't learned how to perceive other people.
>
> I'd also add the rise of "victim culture". The proliferation of
> psych-speak in our culture has given us a vocabulary which helps us
> percieve and articulate our angsts -- but a lot of people are very
> selective in what they choose to hear <g>. For example, I hear alot
> of people talking about their victimization and protecting their
> boundaries; and far fewer people talking about self-accountability and
> the importance of recognizing consequences for choices made in life.
>
> And finally -- this one is harder for me to articulate -- but the way
> we relate to ethics have changed. There has been a broad shift from a
> "universal" notion of what is considered ethical to a system of ethics
> that is more situational. Now, I am a big believer in situational
> ethics -- for example, "YKIOK" relies to a large degree in this
> restructuring of ethical systems to take into account issues of
> context. The danger, however, is that systems of situational ethics
> are vulnerable to misuse in the hands of people who are prone to
> self-rationalizations of any sort (i.e., teenagers *grin*). In other
> words -- there's always an "excuse" in a paradigm of situational
> ethics. "Kids are mean," "parents don't understand," "it's their
> fault," etc.
Adding on to this: [disclaimer: I don't live in the US, but have family there,
and they have backed me up in this] When I was a teen and used the
parent-put-down "you don't/wouldn't understand", my parents' reaction was:
"Well, talk to me until I DO understand". I do the same with my two teens (14
and 18), but it takes time. Time to sit and honestly try to hear what they're
saying.
It also takes an upbringing where they trust you to honestly listen when they
speak.
Working in a day care facility for school children, I was at times shocked by
how few children over 11 have the feeling that their parents listen when they
speak.
And that is what breeds a breakdown. Of ethics. Of empathy. Of some sort of
rapport. And it breeds isolation, and a search for SOMEONE who will listen. It
breeds the kind of vulnerability which is food and drink for extremists of any
kind, because they can offer an easy solution to feeling lost and isolated,
and offer a sense of belonging.
> I think there is a broad cultural shift -- and we are moving toward a
> cultural system of situational ethics. I suspect part of the changes
> in american youth culture are, to a certain degree, about the growing
> pains resulting from this shift.
>
> Anyway, these are just some ramblings. Obviously I'm playing armchair
> cultural anthropologist. But it's what I see around me.
>
> --Katharine
>
Ain't doing too bad.............
Dana
Dana Watsham Hansen
William December Starr wrote:
> > However, it would not change my opinion that the central pathology
> > here is one of self-absorption -- even more so than anger/rage.
>
> Wanting to be happy is self-absorption?
If it is to the exclusion of other people's right to live, then YES.
Dana
NightMist
<Bac...@nospam.cadvision.com> wrote:
>Xiphias Gladius wrote in message :
>
>>Sure, but you don't imagine that you were *born* with it, do
>you?
>>
>>Maybe it was instilled before you were three, but it had to
>have been
>>instilled.
>>
Sandy says:
>This is the second time now you have implied this idea, that
>"humankind is innately evil". If others are working on the
>premise that "humankind is innately good" then never the twain
>shall meet.
>
>I believe that, barring organic problems (i.e. inherited and/or
>birth defects causing abnormalities in the brain), humankind is
>good.
>
>If you believe humankind is bad then you tend to default into
>the "there's nothing to be done" philosophy. If you believe in
>"goodness" then you raise children with more caution to
>preserve that goodness.
>
>I believe the environment and the treatment children are
>subject to growing up are of critical importance. I believe
>that there is a genetic link to personality and how it is
>expressed. I think parenting is crucial to the formation of
>morality but I think, barring inherited sociopathic behaviour
>or other abnormalities, we are born with "the right stuff".
>
>Parents need to take more responsibility for their children,
>their parenting and their behaviour. Parents need to provide
>an environment where "good" will be nurtured.
>
><standard disclaimer about these being my views blah blah blah>
>
>- Sandy
>--
I think what was essentially being said, and with which I agree, is
that humans are born amoral. Neither good nor evil, but in the
beginning, incapable of understanding anything but the quintessential
"me". What that 'me' wants is all that is important, all that is
understood. This makes your statements about parenting all the more
important.
It is also why I find some of the things being said about the shooters
backgrounds totally irrelevant. That they came from middle-class
families is far less important, than whether or not those families
were there for those kids. Did they teach them anything at all about
right and wrong? Did they teach them that revenge was a good thing?
Did they teach them that they were real people, with value and a
future? Or were these 'artifact' kids?
That they were outcasts, OK there are a lot of outcasts running about.
But were they prepared by their upbringing to cope with the results of
being an outcast, that is the main question. Or when daddy found out
he didn't have a star quarter-back (or star whatever), did one or both
of these kids just get written off?
I take my responsibilities as a parent seriously. (Thats one of the
reasons I was so pissed off at Tipper Gore...but thats a rant for
another day) I fully expect other parents to do the same. I am
frequently disappointed. (also a rant for another day)
NightMist
To reply via e-mail add 156 to my initials
NightMist
Starr) wrote:
>In article <7g82sh$9oj$1...@iceman.tac.net>,
>"Bacchae" <Bac...@nospam.cadvision.com> said:
>
>> Okay, amoral I can handle better, but I am still inclined to think
>> that people will do "the right thing". I think that is because we
>> can reason.
>
>The problem here, as I see it, is that "reason," as a verb, is _not_
>equivalent to "examine the data and arrive at the same conclusions as
>the majority does."
>
>-- William December Starr <wds...@crl.com>
>
I was thinking along those lines myself.....
And "majority rules" dosent necessarily equate with right or wrong.
Just legal and illegal....and sometimes not even that.
Sitting down and reasoning it out will merely get you to the most
personally profitable conclusion.
NightMist
to reply via e-mail add 156 to my initials
NightMist
<mcda...@pilot.msu.thingy.edu> wrote:
>Katharine wrote:
>> >You know what? I'd also put a lack of suffering on the list.
>> > ...[snip]... suffering in the sense of dealing
>> >with everyday loss, anger, hurt and frustrations. This is how we
>> >learn how to cope with hurt, loss, anger, and frustration.
>
>Ian <Xiphias Gladius> wrote:
>> Let me give you a truly trivial example of that: they've taken everything
>> out of playgrounds that someone could get hurt on. See-saws,
>> merry-go-rounds, jungle gyms, slides, swings - there's nothing left.
>>
>> So, the lesson is, pain and risk are to be avoided at all costs. So kids
>> grow up with no exposure to physical pain, so it's not real to them, and
>> they don't know how to deal with it.
>
>There's a theory I recently heard about the physical side of this.
>
>When kids eat (breathe, roll in, etc) dirt and germs, they are preparing
>their bodies' immune systems. When germs are introduced in small
>amounts, over time, the immune system gets stronger. (like vaccines)
>Now, people are so terrified of germs that there are hand sanitizing
>gels for times that you can't get to a sink. Maybe parents are doing
>kids a disservice by keeping them so clean. Anti-bacterial soap has its
>place, but a few germs won't kill you - they make you stronger.
>
>Or maybe *I'm* full of crap! <laughs>
>
>Devon
>[remove the thingy from my address]
I've thought for these last 17 or 18 years that there has been to much
emphasis on wrapping a kid in cotton wool to 'protect' them from
everything a body can possibly imagine. Heck, if a kid goes to school
with a visible bruise these days "Someone In Authority" is on the
doorstep within 24 hours to find out how they got it.
I think there may be some validity in the theory that such
overprotectivness may result in impaired copeing skills, and reduced
empathy. (as well as an underdeveloped immune system...:) )
NightMist
I also think that many of
>us are going to have to become comfortable with a certain degree of hypocricy
>when it comes to raising our children. "We" did all the drugs and the sex
>(And managed to make it highly risky in the process.) and somehow survived
>punk, acid, heavy metal, death metal and disco <g>. "We" have tattoos,
>brands, body piercings and interesting wardrobes. "We" talk at the dinner
>table about how pornography shouldn't be censored on the internet. "We're"
>the ones who *invented* Doom and Quake. So how far are those kids who want
>to push at boundaries, rebel, defy and shock "us" supposed to go? It's a
>quandary, and I do feel a frisson of hypocricy when I, who has ingested most
>mind and mood altering substances known to man, tell my five year old that
>"Drugs are bad cause they hurt your body", but oh well.
>
>We're never going to be able to pinpoint "Why??", because we *know* why, but
>we don't yet have the ability to understand how all these factors interact
>with the individual to produce one outcome over another.
>
>AJ
><packing away soapbox>
>
Just the other day, I was commiserating with another mother about how
we each have a child that seems to be a changeling.
I was complaining about how my 16 year old is a
conformist-at-all-costs sort of kid. She had to comment "Well, how
else is she going to rebel against you guys? Your wierdos from the
word go!"
*indignant sniff*
And just how does being bi-sexual pagan Domme, who sings in a rock
band, makes sex toys and enjoy's gothic artwork qualify me as a
wierdo?
lol!
SilverOz
NightMist <N...@madbbs.com> wrote:
>
>I was complaining about how my 16 year old is a
>conformist-at-all-costs sort of kid. She had to comment "Well, how
>else is she going to rebel against you guys? Your wierdos from the
>word go!"
>
That's my mother's explanation for how my elder sister ended up
so conventional. She tried a little to be properly unconventional,
art school and all that, but she ended up married with kids in
the suburbs...
I think I rebelled by falling off things.
SilverOz
--
========================================================================
Australian BDSM Information Site http://www.zed.com.au/~master/abis/
========================================================================
Bob Mc.
Alberta, in a town known for its corn, Taber, a 14 year old boy wearing a blue
trench coat walked into the High School this afternoon and using a 22 calibre
gun, killed one 17 year old boy and injured another.
Of course, the Canadian media is there en masse and the town is already rife
with rumors that the Littleton media masses are heading north to be there too.
What in God's name is going on?
Ya, it's a copy cat killing - but there's more than meets the eye. The 14
year old who has been arrested and charged was, like his "mates" in Colorado,
the subject of ridicule from class mates - perhaps even more of a loner than
the Littleton pair. He apparently had no friends at all. You know, when I
was in boarding school (a juvy in my own right) there was a kid we called
Rat. No one liked him and everyone called him names. His folks lived in the
city and it must have seemed to him that even they didn't love him - because
they made him board Monday through Friday. One day he snapped. I had never
before and haven't personally since, seen anything like it. But that was a
long time ago and people just didn't use guns. He didn't have one - just
screamed and screamed and yelled obscenities in the main lobby for about
twenty minutes.
As we adults merrily go along marginalizing anyone who doesn't meet our
personal agendas (hello Christian right) and scream for more money, lower
taxes, less of "those" people around us, I wonder what we are teaching our
kids. I wonder what choices we leave the marginalized to get our
compassionate attention. I have a teenage neice and a just-about teenage
nephew. I'm going to hug them next time I see them and that's a promise.
I don't have answers but I have a big question - what the hell is happening?
<end rant> Sorry,
Bob Mc.
Alberta Public Radio @ http://www.ckua.org 6 am - 2 am Mountain Time.
Music and news from civilized Albertans
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
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Katharine Hawks
Starr) wrote:
>In article <37268ce5....@nntp.enteract.com>,
>kha...@enteract.com said:
>
>>>> It's unthinkable to me that these homocidal children, with all
>>>> their narcissism, delusions of victimhood, [Katharine Hawks]
>>>
>>> Delusions? [wdstarr]
>>
>> Being an outcast in high school does not make you a victim.
>
>I think it does. The disagreement here may -- *MAY* -- be that I
>believe that children are entitled to happy lives and you (if I
>understand correctly) do not. Being deprived of that to which you are
>entitled makes one a victim.
As we grow up, I believe, we are "entitled" to fewer and fewer things.
Ideally we should be taking responsibility for making sure our needs
get met -- and that includes happiness. I don't think teenagers are
"entitled" to happiness. I do believe that children and teenagers are
entitled to environments which help them become happy people.
Happiness is not something that can be given to adult or a teenager.
>> These kids were white, fairly affluent, and by all reports (so far)
>> came from relatively stable (or at the very least, 'average')
>> families.
>>
>> Sorry, I don't see any victimization. Which is not to say that
>> there isn't an uncovered history of abuse in either or both of these
>> families. Such a history would change my opinion somewhat -- if
>> only to acknowledge that abuse begets violence.
>>
>> However, it would not change my opinion that the central pathology
>> here is one of self-absorption -- even more so than anger/rage.
>
>Wanting to be happy is self-absorption?
Wanting to be happy while refusing to take responsibility for one's
own happiness is, IMO, self-absorption. I think the Littleton killers
were immensely sick. I doubt they were capable of taking
responsibility for their own happiness. I mean, do you really believe
this happened because they were unhappy? Everyone is unhappy at
certain points in their life.
The self-absorption is thinking that one's *lack* of happiness is
important enough to warrant harming another. The self-absorption is
assuming that other people should be responsible for one's happiness.
>>> Some people, as children and young adults, instinctively know that
>>> life is a good thing. Some don't know it instinctively but are
>>> successfully indoctrinated into the belief. Some never really
>>> *know* it at all. People in the first two categories often have
>>> trouble understanding the motivations of people in the third.
>>> [wdstarr]
>>
>> That may be true. Why do you think some people are not born with or
>> are unable to acquire a value for life?
>
>"Not born with," I dunno. But I didn't say "unable to acquire" -- I
>said "aren't successfully indoctrinated." The former indicates a lack
>or flaw in the person; the latter also opens up the possibility that
>nobody tried to do such an indoctrination or that they tried but were
>incompetent.
Well, I also think there are people who are unable to acquire it, even
with reasonable attempts at "indoctrination" as you put it.
--Katharine
*************************
General Purpose Pervert
Use Sparingly
*************************
SSBB Diplomatic Corps
Chicago, IL