That description of his childhood works for me in sociological terms — let’s avoid stuff that we know to create monsters — but not on individual ones (i.e. the monster, having been created, is indeed a monster).
There are valid points both ways. IMO I think the idea is that if you can explain the crime then maybe the monster was created by society and thus can be redeemed by society. If you can't explain the crime, maybe the monster is just a monster.
Taken to its logical conclusions: I’m not even responsible for my belief that he’s responsible, and so on.
Once everyone has no responsibility, you are just left with what are they and what did they do. Did they act like monster, independent of the upstream causality?
I try to apply the same logic to myself when I get into a deterministic ego trip.
The question of if I can choose to go the gym today is irrelevant. The relevant question is do I think I am a dedicated person who will go to the gym today. If I am are kind, loving, and charitable to myself, I find that the answer is "Yes, S1artibartfast is the kind of hard working person who would go to the gym".
The interesting and challenging aspect of the essentialist position is understanding and believing in change. Past performance is not guarantee of future performance, even for the material determinist, as the world is not static.
Maybe you have never been to the gym, but today could be the first day. Ultimately, it doesn't matter what induced the change, but if you will fight it. In this way, I think that determinism is best paired with a optimistic and charitable perspective.
Most people have good intentions. I think that usually the biggest difference between those who act them out and those who don't is their essential optimism or pessimism. To that end, I try to encourage more optimism.
I think that might be the thought process, but I do not think it is very accurate. Some damage simply cant be undone, especially early childhood trauma and developmental damage.
Similarly, blame isn't binary, both can be true. If we have dispensed with the concept of free will, then nothing is to blame, neither society or the individual. It simply is.
Once you reach that point you have to ask, what is it, independent of the assignment of blame.
Are they a monster? Did they brutally murder 3 people?
I'm not following here. Who, specifically, is claiming that those who commit crimes shouldn't be held accountable (prosecuted, incarcerated, etc.) for those crimes because they had a rough childhood/suffered abuse/etc? Please do name names.
As a mild example, just as being drunk is a reason for being obnoxious/nasty, it's not an excuse.
As a person who is somewhat to the left of what other Americans call "progressives," (who are center/leaning center-left), I don't think that understanding something makes everything okay or that crimes should be ignored because of negative stuff in the perpetrator's past. In fact, I've never heard anyone make such a claim.
Many folks (at least in the US, and I'm sure elsewhere too) have been abused by society and the legal system. And we should make every effort to combat that.
However, there absolutely are folks who should be removed from society, as they've shown they cannot live in a society without harming it and/or those within it. And those people should be kept apart from society -- for the protection of society.
>That description of his childhood works for me in sociological terms — let’s avoid stuff that we know to create monsters — but not on individual ones (i.e. the monster, having been created, is indeed a monster).
Seems like a good idea. But no one (AFAIK) is trying to "excuse" criminal behavior even as we try to understand the causes.
I think the knee jerk response would be about perspectives on poverty and class, but I think the more interesting response is that the criminal justice system already takes causes into account.
Provoked Crimes of Passion are treated differently than premeditated ones. Questions of mental capacity are relevant to sentencing. We have things like the twinkie defense and temporary insanity. We have Justified homicide due to self-defense.
In reality, the justice system almost always takes causes into account. Just not all causes. The interesting question is why some but not others.
Absolutely. Circumstances are usually relevant and should be examined.
But GP[0] claimed that "progressives" argue that understanding the causes for the commission of crimes should "excuse" those actions.
Which is an unsupported assertion and I reject it because, at least AFAIK, no one takes that position.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34317453
Edit: Added the missing link, cleaned up prose.
To be clear, I acknowledge that we’re talking about an extreme, broadly unpopular position, but it is one running through certain segments of leftish twitter and academia. (No, I don’t keep a file of such utterances, so I can’t produce a list offhand.)
That's as may be, but lots of people say lots of stupid/ridiculous/untrue things all the time.
Who, in a position of power or influence (or reasonably adjacent to such power/influence), advocates such a view?
I can say all sorts of things, ranging from the mundane ("I like coffee.") to the ridiculous ("There is an underground advance alien invasion base under Biscayne Bay."). And while that does mean I will make coffee for myself tomorrow morning, it most certainly doesn't mean that the Army Corps of Engineers will be planting nukes in Biscayne Bay to destroy those evil aliens.
And it doesn't matter how many times I say it or to whom I say it, the Army Corps of Engineers aren't going to nuke Biscayne Bay. And no one should pay any attention to such ramblings.
And so I have to ask, why are you giving credence to (as you readily state) what some unbalanced rando thinks about prosecuting crime. And not just giving such credence, you also claimed that such views were those of "progressives."
You're now walking that back, but you (and that's what I responded to) implied that "excusing" criminal acts was somehow a "progressive" position.
It is not, and never has been.
There are those who claim that certain government officials routinely abduct babies and small children in order to murder them and extract some hormone to make them live longer.
Overwhelmingly, at least in the US, the folks who make (and/or believe -- not the same thing) such claims almost exclusively supported one political party over another.
Does that mean that everyone who supports that political party (or even a a tiny fraction) also believes such things?
By your logic, the answer should be "yes." Is that correct?
I could give a host of other examples of other ridiculous tropes from the extremes. None of which have support from anyone with or near any real power.
The upshot is that I took issue with you (specifically you, dionidium) smearing a broad group of folks (progressives) with a broad brush, claiming that an extreme stance by folks who may or may not consider themselves part of that group is the default belief of a group.
That's a clear example of "othering"[0], in which you are attempting to besmirch folks with beliefs they do not hold.
If you'd instead said something like "some extremist positions claim that people shouldn't be prosecuted for crimes if they had a bad childhood," I would have heartily agreed.
But "othering" has no place in reasoned discourse. Don't like progressives? I'm sure you can find stuff that's actually true to beat up on them. But just making shit up is low effort and doesn't add to the discussion.
[0] https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-othering-5084425
Edit: Added the missing link.
I think the source of the conflict here is that, no, this does not follow. The position I described is distinctly progressive in nature, on the opposite end of the spectrum from a belief that one might characterize as conservative. That does not imply that everybody who identifies as progressive believes it.
No. The source of the "conflict," as you describe (I call it a spirited conversation, but whatever blows your skirt up) is that you made an unsupported assertion (that the "progressive" position is that people with bad childhoods shouldn't be prosecuted for crimes they go on to commit), and I asked for specific information as to who, exactly, claims that to be not only their position, but that of progressives in general.
You danced around that very specific request and then somewhat backed off your (ridiculous) assertion.
And no, you didn't say "it's a progressive position," you said[0]:
There’s something very odd to me about the modern
progressive position that, more or less, if you can
explain a crime, then you can in some sense excuse
it.
That's simply not true. Nor has it ever been.
And I called you out on your wholly unsupported, unsubstantiated and flat wrong assertion.
You are seemingly trying to walk back your statement and chalk it up to "conflict."
No. I'm not in conflict with you at all. You may think you're in conflict with me, but I'm just here trying to have good faith discussions.
You might try it some time.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34317453
Edit: clarified my prose.
I am actually the world's foremost expert on what I mean when I say something. If we ever have a debate about what I meant, then I am 100% correct and you are 100% incorrect. You can ask me to clarify something, but only I know what I meant.
Quoting somebody's words back to them as if to say, "but but but you said this!" is basically never useful, because you're always talking to the preeminent scholar on what that person meant and you should only ever be in the posture of accepting what they tell you they meant by those words.
If there appears to be some confusion about what I meant, then I am, as one former president so eloquently put it, "the decider."
By the way, since you seem to be so interested in how to have "good faith" debates, you should know that violating this principle is a classic bad-faith arguing tactic that's basically guaranteed to derail a conversation (just as it's done here).
You are the person others perceive you to be, at least as far as they're concerned. Perhaps that's something to keep in mind when you're attempting to share your thoughts.
And that's the last I'll say on the matter.
Have a nice day.
Can you elaborate on this