--- colin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > I'm not saying that "the system" is to blame for
> these
> > kinds of events.
>
> of course it is 'the system' as you call it.
> Actually, it is us, you and
> me and evryone else. Society.
>
> Empathy is something one has when one is brought up
> with love and
> respect. Sociaopath is a meaningless label used to
> make people feel
> better and take the blame away from society.
> Severely damaged people are
> unable to empathise. They get that way because they
> are damaged BY other
> people, adults. a lot of very educated sounding
> nonsense is spoken and
> written about these problems. the answer is really
> simple;children need
> to be loved and respected not just by their
> parents/family but by
> society as a whole.
I have no doubt that the boys who killed Jamie must
have been extremely abused themselves, otherwise they
would not have been able to commit such a horrible
crime - and this wasn't a crime of passion, it was
premeditated and they had plenty of time to back out
of it, so we're not even talking about ordinary
children going too far. As far as I'm aware, none of
this was gone into in the media (at least not here)
and I expect this was because of the age of the
children involved - although we were told their names
and their ages, so *not* to talk about the fact that
they were abused makes no sense at all to me unless,
as you say, this was because "society" is shocked when
this kind of thing happens and would prefer to see
this type of criminal as monsters. And monsters they
are, but most likely were not born - unless we're
talking about some type of brain damage, kind of
unlikely given there were two boys from two different
families. And their parents were likely abused and so
on; and likely these two boys had tortured animals
before moving onto a human child.
Some people can undergo traumatic events and may
become hardened and unfeeling - but, in a situation
such as a war, where they must become this way in
order to simply survive, once the traumatic event is
over, some people can return to "normal" and can feel
and emphathize again.
I suspect that this would be extremely difficult, if
not impossible, the younger the person - if a child's
mind is still learning, if his/her brain is still
immature, then the abuse they suffered will most
likely cause them permanent damage and they may never
become "whole" again. Which isn't to say that we
should give up on them, but unfortunately we're all
looking for a magic pill, and it just doesn't work
that way.
Get your free @yahoo.ca address at http://mail.yahoo.ca
