Little Monsters?
In 1993 a crime was committed that shocked the nation, a crime that for many would defy comprehension and challenge the way we understood murder and childhood. That crime was the abduction, torture and murder of James Patrick Bulger, aged 2. Now the murder of a child is possibly one of the most appalling crimes that I can personally conceive of but as you will no doubt be aware the thing that made it truly shocking was that his killers were two 10-year-old boys, Jon Venables (born 13 August 1982) and Robert Thompson (born 23 August 1982).
Jon Venables has recently re-entered the public consciousness in the UK after it was announced that he had breached the terms of his license of release and had been returned to prison: an announcement that has reignited a sometimes vitriolic and often reactionary debate about the nature of Venables and Thompson’s crime and their subsequent release on license to a life of anonymity.
Some people have expressed the sentiment that Venables and Thompson were simply evil and that prison is the right place for them; that they never should have been released in the first place and that now Venables is locked away the key should be thrown away. Others have cautiously taken the view that the ten year old Venables may not have been able to understand fully the implications and consequences of his actions. This post does not intend to engage in attempting to provide excuses for Venables and Thompsons actions nor does it intend to engage in a lighting the torches and handing out pitchforks to stoke the fires of moral outrage. Rather it intends to look at what psychology has to say about the development of morality in children and what factors can cause two ten year old boys to commit such an unspeakable act.
The brains of children and adults are very different; as part of an evolutionary trade-off we are not born with a fully formed thinking organ – if we were childbirth would likely prove fatal for the females of our species! So our brains develop throughout childhood and adolescence – there are critical periods for the development of binocular vision, thought to be between one and three years, and further critical periods have been identified for the development of hearing and the vestibular system. There is also hypothesized to be a critical period for language acquisition, based partly upon the stories of “feral children” such as Genie and Victor of Aveyron, thought to end somewhere around five years of age.
So is there evidence to suggest that a sense of moral judgment is something which we are born with or something that has to be developed?
Research undertaken by Eliot Turiel has suggested that children as young as three can understand the difference between a social transgression and a moral transgression or rather they recognize that it might be okay to talk during nap, or to stand up during snack time, or to wear pajamas to school if the teacher says it is. But they also assert that a teacher couldn’t make it okay to pull another child’s hair or to steal her backpack. Similarly, children growing up in deeply religious Mennonite communities distinguish between rules that apply because they are written in the Bible (e.g., that Sunday is the day of Sabbath, or that a man must uncover his head to pray) and rules that would still apply even if they weren’t actually written in the Bible (including rules against personal and material harm).
So what cause some children to grow up seemingly bereft of this distinction of moral reasoning and able to do things that are far, far worse than pulling someone’s hair and able to transgress rules against personal harm?
Perhaps a child’s ability to delay gratifaction might cast some light on the issue: to function effectively, individuals must voluntarily postpone immediate gratification and persist in goal-directed behaviour for the sake of later outcomes. If a child can delay gratification in an experimental situation it tells you a great deal about their impulse control and W Mischel et al (1989) found that those 4-year-old children who delayed gratification longer in coping better certain laboratory situations developed into more cognitively and socially competent adolescents, achieving higher scholastic performance and with less frustration and stress.
Individuals who are low in impulse control are much more likely to engage in antisocial and criminal behaviour then those who have more self control. This may seem to some to be somewhat of a tautology but what is interesting is that research has suggested that self control can be affected by the environment in which a child grows up. In the case of the research linked to it was found that parental variables have a consistent and significant impact on impulse control.
Or to put it another way:
Just witnessing violence within the family home can have a huge impact on the development of a child and is highly correlated with that child becoming violent in their own future. Studies in the field of interpersonal violence suggest that the biggest predictor for children becoming abusive or growing up to become abusers is still witnessing or being a victim of domestic violence. Witnessing such abuse can lead to the abused becoming violent towards others. Of course by no means does this cycle of abuse always happen and it’s rare that it ends in the tragic death of a child.
Now there is little reliable information available on the circumstances of Venables or Thompsons childhoods and it would be remiss to speculate as to whether one or the other could have witnessed or suffered abuse and I wish to express explicitly that although this post was prompted by Venables re-arrest it is not intended as a direct comment on the crime or the reasons for it.
This post is simply intended to show that there may be reasons for it over and above branding the tragic actions of two ten year old boys as “pure evil”. It is also important that we consider that circumstance could potentially have stunted Venables and Thompsons moral reasoning in some way and that even though their crime was truly, truly horrific and seems utterly unfathomable – we should not as a society assume that anyone is beyond rehabilitation. In my opinion when cases such as these occur something serious must have occurred to override the normal moral development of a child, perhaps this could be due to some form of critical period? Perhaps this issue needs more exploring – or perhaps the question has been answered and I need to be more aware of the research in this area – if anyone knows more on this issue I would welcome comment.
Related Posts:
Will Self was all over this on Question Time last night. Great stuff.
While watching Question Time last night, I was pleasantly surprised by some of the comments from audience members and Boris Johnson regarding this case. Carol Vorderman was predictably awful, though. I particularly enjoyed watching Will Self questioning her arguments.
It all makes me feel deeply uncomfortable, and am left with a bad taste in my mouth, especially if anyone was to consider where we go with this research. We will never understand the pain of the Bulger family and I regret this story has reappeared once more.
From what I recall of the time, the tabloids made their typical hysterical points. There were one or two more rational voices trying to break their way through, the nonsense. None of us were in those homes. None of us have the full facts; they were two little boys their lives in ruins before they had even begun. There was a academic/journalist who spent a lot of time attempting to make a serious study of the case on one other previous case. (As usual, I could recognise her face, but can’t think of her name, so can’t provide a reference). I’m pretty sure she worked towards trying to understand the kids, their backgrounds etc, and seemed to have made a decent job of it.
On a very different note (I do not intend to diminish the events about the two boys at all, so please don’t think I do), I’m concerned and uncomfortable about where the psychological studies could take us.
I’m old enough to remember the terrible football violence we saw in this country, every Saturday. Much of it never reported in the press because it just wasn’t news. It was a weekly thing that happened. Football then was very much a young male-dominated working class sport, that then became the preserve of the more well-off.
I’ve had business meetings with one particular very privileged company director who had serious concerns about an investment he was making with one engineering company. The engineers, two brothers, had a fantastic idea, patent and finally product that made them a small fortune. The concern was these two brothers preferred the local pub where they had grown up in a working class area in the north of England. There were regular punch ups in the pub. The company director found this awful and felt that people really had to be more like him, that the people just didn’t know how to behave and were despicable specimens of the human race.
My thoughts, listening to him were very clear. I think we have to be careful with this kind of research.
I grew up on an estate in the late ’60s and early ’70s. The kind of place where no one ever involved the police in anything, there were bloody gang fights, loan sharks, you name it, it went on. Now I work with some very privileged people. They just choose to settle their scores in a different more polite, but still damaging way. I am literally a product of two very different cultures, both existing in the same city, two cultures that do not often meet.
How much of it is cultural? Are we really going to begin judging or intervening in family life where one group feels it is disproportionately being told how to behave because they behave in different ways, ways in which one group has difficulty with?
I’m not for one second saying I think that what happened all those years ago to that little toddler is in anyway anything but wrong. What I am asking is, where do academics draw the line of their research and what they think it tells them, what areas they should actually study, if at all? And what about the ethics of those who would seek to use the data and conclusions?
If it really is down to childhood background, then how does that explain some of the terrible mass murders we have seen over the past 100 years or so; mass murders that were actioned by armies of people acting as a group? Could background explain the many instances of child soldiers who were used as weapons of terror in Sierra Leone?
Couldn’t these kids who can’t wait for gratification just as likely grow up into city traders? Are we going to find ourselves dragging kids off for behavioural treatments as if they have a broken leg?
I’d like to see some broad public debate on this kind of research, and what purpose it may serve, where it may take society before we actually go ahead with the studies.
Oh, and to use the word ‘Evil’ when talking about children is something I find something particularly nasty, too full of mythological connotations.
What exactly makes you feel uncomfortable about this “research”? Indeed to which research are you referring?
I think you are overinterpreting what is presented in the article. In-group and Out-group violence is nothing new but a different set of psychological principles are at work so it’s either a misunderstanding of the article or a strawman against it. I think it’s likely the former.
How much is cultural? Well there are cultures that can heighten certain aspects of humanity and supress others – Dawkins makes the case in the extended phenotype that some behaviours (in animals) result from the interactions of genes with the enviroment. I would think that it’s very unlikely this is not the case for human beings – although I also perhaps believe with a human brain it is very dififcult to untangle nature from nurture. How much is cultural: well murder and rape are proscribed against in-group members in nigh on every society (but in-group and out-group lines are not set in stone) and there are many more shared taboos and the like.
I think the line is drawn where “one culture” dissaproves of another culture when there is no salient evidence of the other cultures practices causing harm.
I should also note that a child seems to develop an understanding that their actions have consequences for other people at around the age of 7 or 8 under normal developmental conditions. (where at younger ages they see consequences in terms of how they affect characters goals)
See: Lagattuta, Kristin Hansen (1998) When You Shouldn’t Do What You Want to Do: Young Children’s Understanding of Desires, Rules, and Emotions.
Endless Psych
I, as a member of the public asked questions. Perhaps you could, on a public forum get off your high horse and answer a member of the public, in English, the English anyone can understand? Isn’t that a communication skill that scientists, especially those in the psych fields claim to value? Instead you come across as arrogant. Please lower your standards of expectations enough that a mere mortal can understand you.
What I am uncomfortable with is a bunch of ‘know it alls who know nothing’ which is exactly how you are perceived, arriving in a housing estate and looking down your noses at those you find there. That simply will help no one, and with your attitude on display in your reply, I could presume I am right to be concerned.
Those two engineers I mentioned thought the company director was thick and knew nothing, just as he did of them; two very different cultures.
I said I was ‘deeply unvomfortable’. some political parties make me feel like too, but no one would dream of saying that emotion in such a circumstance was an over-reaction. Why should that be an over-reaction? Perhaps you need some time to think rationally, or just some therapy yourself. What in your childhood made you so pompous then?
I think you have proved my point by refusing to answer.
If that is the best you can do, then I’ll be voting to make sure there is reduced science funding – not worth a bean!
Woah – what high horse?
Also I’m sorry if I came across as arrogant but if there is anything in my reply you would like me to clarify than please do ask and I will endeavour to do so in plain English where possible. Although a lot of your initial comment I didn’t feel really had all that much to do with the information presented in the original article.
In my defence nothing in either the article or my reply to you has anything to do with “going to housing estates and looking down noses at those you find there” – where on Earth you have got that from I have absolutely no idea. I mention the link between witnessing domestic violence and the correlation between this and children becoming violent in later life – no mention of socioeconomic class is made. I resepctfully suggest that it is your prejudice that has dragged class into this and not any of mine. Money and status are no innoculation against domestic violence.
I think perhaps you are mistaking an attempt to understand something as somehow implicitly condoning it – this is most definatly not the case.
But I am still somewhat in the dark as to what sort of research and studies or research you are referring? If it is studies into the future outcomes of those exposed to domestic violence? – Those are already being carried out in many fields – usually exploring the issue through facts and figures gathered from agencices and organisations like social work and the police. If it is studies into morality and child development – then I am also not entirely sure that I see a direct negative implication from such research?
If a child can delay gratification in an experimental situation it tells you a great deal about their impulse control and W Mischel et al (1989) found that those 4-year-old children who delayed gratification longer in coping better certain laboratory situations developed into more cognitively and socially competent adolescents, achieving higher scholastic performance and with frustration and stress.
Individuals who are low in impulse control are much more likely to engage in antisocial and criminal behaviour then those who have more self control. This may seem to some to be somewhat of a tautology but what is interesting is that research has suggested that self control can be affected by the environment in which a child grows up. In the case of the research linked to it was found that parental variables have a consistent and significant impact on impulse control.
I see nothing in here that indicates the Fetes school kids will be getting a visit. Why, because where was the last time anyone saw any kind of news report of anti-social kids there? Anti-social behaviour, rightly or wrongly, is almost exclusively associated with the socially excluded. Hadn’t noticed the socially excluded living around the areas where homes come in at values of over 200K, have you?
Now I do not happen to believe anti-social behaviour is the sole preserve of one class or another – not in my experience, but that could be just my experience. The connotations of the the work referenced and where it will go, what it will be used for was what I asked about. And you still haven’t answered it.
Lets put it simplly.
Once the scientists realised what could be done with the knowledge of nuclear reactions, they didn’t like it and tried to stop their science being used in a destructive way.
I am asking similar questions. I reckon I’m going to have to ask someone else….
Endless Psych
Just so you remember: mind and check the ’scholastic performance’ of the various alledged socioeconomic groups.
You’ve no idea have you? All I am asking is if this has been considered? Have you any idea how well something like that would go down with a far-right party, you know, that party that made it onto Question Time? I don’t know if it is an issue. I’m asking a rational, reasonable question about something that could be very dangerous. We, from Europe at one point in our history though Africans had an inferior brain, and now what I see here, are hints, indicators that someone could potentially use this kind of research to allege the poor are potentially dangerous because their brains aren’t wired up in such a way and they don’t behave in a way that is judged to be OK. And who gets to decide what that behviour is or should be? The issues about liberty and morality here are profound. Even if you fail to recognise it. Utterly profound.
The net is full of the same old same old jumping on the same incompetent bandwagon. I’d thought a bunch of young scientists my nephew told me about would have been more capable. This isn’t the place to ask. Sadly.
There may be nothing in there that suggests the Fetes kids will be getting a visit in the paragraph quoted but there is also nothing to suggest that the kids from areas percieved as “rougher” will be getting a “visit”. Respectfully I’d like to point out that it’s your interpretation of who will get a visit that is raising the issue of priviledge – there is still nothing in the original post that refers to class explicitly or implicitly.
Research into social capital and social inclusion is a vibrant and important field and psychologists and other social researchers are actively involved in many projects to encourage social inclusion and minimize exclusion. However this research has little bearing on the issues raised in the original post – unless you hold that those “engaging in antisocial and criminal behaviour” is somehow something that those who are better off don’t do. The rich may engage in different sorts of criminal enterprises and antisocial behaviours (perhaps more “white collar” crime, snorting coke instead of sniffing glue (I know the reference is outdated but i was going for a whole nasal thing…) and racing down country lanes in obscenely priced cars) but they do. They perhaps also get away with these sorts of things more often then those further down the socioeconomic scale but this is still kinda irrelevent to the original article.
I do not believe that antisocial behaviour or criminal behaviour are the sole preserves of one class, I have never in fact even alluded to such a thing in this article or any other thing I have ever written.
As for the connotations of the work referenced:
Eliot Tureils work is based upon discovering at what age children learn right from wrong – I see no sinister connotations in that and the implications are an increased understanding of how children develop. Of course if the research is well publicised then it could lead to parents worrying that their child has some moral impairment if they are behind the developmental curve. I suppose it could also be used to excuse children under the age of 3 from being hold to answer for serious crimes. Although I don’t think, as far as I know, a child under 3 had ever been held responsible for a serious crime and tried as an adult.
Mischel is looking again at child development and how children below a certain age can’t delay gratification and generally those above a certain age can. Those who delay gratification are more likely than their peers who can to go on to commit antisocial or criminal acts. However this is based upon correlations and it is by no means a certainty. We would be in a sorry state indeed if someone took it upon themselves to base policy on this thankfully in the twenty odd years since this research has been published no one has taken it into their heads to do so. I suspect they would face outcry from all corners and especially vocally for the scientists whose work they were using to justify such measures.
The research into impulse control has not been used to justify any oppressive or socially exclusive policies based on socioeconomic class or any other variable. If it was than I would also argue that it would be more an issue of a corrupt state than of corrupt research.
There is no implication in any of the research quoted that “the poor” are potentially dangerous because their brains “aren’t wired up properly” such an idea is as abhorrent as those scientific justifications sought to justify the enslaving of African peoples. There is nothing in that research that could credibly (or has credibly been used) by any political party or movement to any potentially dangerous aim. I would also repeat my argument that if such a situation were to arise where the research were to be misused then there would be outcry from the public and scientists alike. I’d further argue that if we got into such a situation where such a nefarious and malficient party were in power they would probably adopt the typical politicians attitude towards science and pick and choose that which supports their position or just make up the evidence on the spot. This was seen when the Soviet Union abused science to imprison political dissidents – but this supression would have happened anyway – with or without the false justification of a scientific paper: consider the Spanish Inquisition?
In general the bounds of “acceptable behaviour” are defined by social conventions and norms – society is (by and large) self policing in most things. The bounds of what behaviour is or should be are thus already decided and, in the case of mental illness, is used to frame and define normal behaviour. There are many issues surrounding mental health and the diagnostic criteria for conditions – particularly around sectioning.
However none of this is explicitly relevant to the research quoted in the article.
I was going to comment, but frankly, Les and Keir “Endless Psych” have been much more civil in their responses than I could even consider being.
Unbelievable projection of personal prejudice and downright pig-headedness involved in those comments. The not-so-subtle ‘Godwin’ was nothing short of sickening. Bravo.
Correction: I was going to comment at length. And trust me, I really do mean at length.
Endless Psych
I think Simon was raising a philosophical and moral issue. The two boys who committed this act came from a deprived area and the press coverage at the time was very much along the ‘Sharon Mathews’ kind of coverage. I’m sure you could imagine how emotionally charged, not only Merseyside, but the UK was at the time. Of all the child murder cases I can think of, the level of anger surrounding this case was probably the most severe. You may not have intended to raise such an association in your article, however, that is indeed there written in the history of this case. The subject is worth airing though perhaps a different case would have served your purposes better.
The philosophical question Simon has raised is one I can not answer. I find it difficult to accept that society will negotiate appropriate acceptable behaviours given we have still many problems with enforcing existing laws not only here but across the world. We now live on a globalised world and have yet to adjust ourselves to that. For instance, child witch killing occurs in many parts of Africa, something I would hope many of us would find difficult to accept. Even within countries, some societies find this acceptable behaviour, encouraging mothers to deal with their children accused of witchcraft, while those in a neighbouring village would object to the idea in strong terms.
To further complicate the debate Simon I believe Simon was looking for, we now see the question of neurolaw beginning to be raised in the United States. In all likliehood, these issues will be slowly dealt with through the courts rather than through social agreement and political decision making processes. There is a debate here on brain science here if you are interested (http://fora.tv/2007/10/28/Battle_of_Ideas_My_Brain_Made_Me_Do_It
). The Institute of Ideas also held a debate available on youtube about the way the working classes are portrayed in the UK. That is worth thinking about in this context too (http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=sre9c_nKSFo)
When we live in a society where so much fake-science creeps into our culture, then I wouldn’t be so confident that society will keep a pace as we would hope – the number of teachers who easily accepted the instructions about the Brain Gym nonsense gives me cause for concern.
Simon,
I’m sorry I have no answers for you. I think you are right to raise the issues you do. It is something we must always be thinking about. If a child has a chromosomal abnormality what expectations do we put on that child, on the family? We would discuss treatment with the parent and work hard to ensure the parents did not suffer guilt. If children are born with behavioural problems, or if they develop them then how should we as a society respond? We have so many children prescribed drugs to control their behaviour, for behaviours and people are raising concerns as to whether the drugs are necessary for the child, or necessary for the benefit of hectic parents too tired to cope with energetic children.
We do not know how insurance companies would deal with such knowledge. Things live driving insurance may be refused for example. These are all important issues that follow on from the attempts at understanding the processes that make humans humans.
I fear you see in future years we could have a form of yet government spying or monitoring on a given group of people merely on their childhood development pathways – we have lost a great deal of our liberties recently! When you think about crime rates in the UK we dismiss it because we don’t want to think we would be unfair – though we probably are for many reasons. However, we would suspect quite easily what group would be monitored more closely in the US; the same group that disproportionaly find themselves in prison even now. The terrible E word raises from out shame again!
I hope that world never comes.
Good luck in your search for understanding. Perhaps I’ve gone someway in answering you. Now, I have a baby to feed.
Writing off the science of developmental psychology because of fears about eugenics is, to me, profoundly odd: In the case of a eugenics policy being inacted what actually happens? Well in the worst (and to a large extent the best case) it is being used as an excuse to enact totalitarian policies around who can and who cannot breed (Such a thing happened in India and was met with condemnation from the public – including scientists). But science is not a prerequisite for such a thing happening the state (if it is in a position to enact such policies) can happily create it’s own science to support it’s policies – or indeed just send the Stasi out in the middle of the night without any pretext of scientific evidence for any purges – examples are given in other comments. Was science used to justify Jewish ghettos in Europe? Was Science used to justify the genocide of the native American people? Was Science used to justify the terror of the Spanish Inquisition?
The idea of “my brain made me do it” is interesting – it is also interesting to note that thus far it has had very little (if any real) impact on conviciton rates. In the video Rosen details a very extreme position about “neurolaw”, one that borders close to erecting a straw man or veers into conspiracy territory. The talk could equally have talked about “society made me do it” and Rosen could have drawn from countless examples where people discuss how situational cues and background are at the root of their crimes. It is perhaps because we are unfamiliar with the language and ideas of “the brain made me do it” that it causes such consternation. Of course the brain made them do it – there is nothing but the brain and how it interacts with the enviroment to blame. Furthermore the main implication, thus far, of the idea of “neurolaw” (although this is a misnomer as the statutes are based on psychological diagnosis rather than neurological scans) is to keep those convicted of crimes incarcerated above and beyond the sentences the legal system has given them: I’m thinking specifically of the “mandatory treatment” of paedophiles in California. One might be tempted to ask why it is nearly always people from outside a scientific discipline regard it with fear and paranoia – seeing only worst case scenarios – could it be a lack of knowledge and understanding around the subject and that old human foible “fear of the new”?
Also you likely will find it difficult to accept that society negotiates acceptable behaviours if you think that legislation dictates social behaviour – it doesn’t legislation is built around social behaviour. We may have problems enforcing certain laws around the world but we aren’t shitting in each others corn flakes as a matter of course. A slightly flippant example perhaps but our day to day interactions are filled with interactions and behaviour dictated by the society we live in – some are matters of etiquette and distinct to a society and others may be born of a more inherent moral sense. Rape and Murder against in-group members are almost universally proscribed and for a society to sanction commiting such crimes a process of dehumanisation has to occur. People do not suddenly decide to kill other people lightly – first they must start to think of them as less than human.
Simon may be raising a philosophical and moral issue but he has done so by systematically misrepresenting my position and by enforcing his own prejudices upon me (commiting the fundamental attribution error) which is poor form.
I find it difficult to see where the problem with Simon’s questions are?
From my reading Simon asked some rather thoughtful questions, questions that were ignored. I do not see anything Simon has said indicating he has a problem with class other than he is aware of it. None of Simon’s first post indicated he had any academic training in psychology, making the reply he received seem perhpas lofty and indicating the author’s inability to communicate with a wide diversity of people from different professions. It may have been considered a good answer to those who have a deeper understanding of science, but wouldn’t to those who do not.
I had hoped this community would have served the Scottish science community and the broader Scottish public a means of communicating, breaking down barriers in the process. Criticism is difficult to accept. Branding Simon with deameaning attributes is immature, defensive but not fruitful. I read his questions as exceptionally important.
Watch the film the link is provided in my previous post a few times. Society decides on laws? There are many, many people who would take great issue with your assertions. Let me prod you with something I personally do not believe. Are you saying the laws, our regulations are decided by society and therefore society is responsible for troops driving vehicles, vehicles they themselves all coffins? Are you claiming each of us as a group decided that is they way they will work, the equipment they will use? Surely not. Of course society did not directly decide this to be the case. A group of individuals failed in their duty, and another group suffer as a result. In an age when even the Cabinet system of government has quietly gone with no one in our society being asked, in an age when many serious thinkers are asking what society is with respect to the people who influence the UK. I can only guess you are young and have a few years yet before you begin to gather the widsom that comes with experience.
Try perhaps reading the works of Susan Jacoby, another important thinker you may find both enjoyable and useful.
Using the Bulger case was indeed a can of worms, one I suspect few are able and prepared to deal with.
I don’t think anyone has meant to be lofty. Simon’s criticisms were just a little vague, that’s all, so I think people have been unsure exactly how to answer them.
What I got from what he has said is that he is worried that the kind of research discussed in the article may lead to policies of social exclusion (or worse). My criticism of that is that a socioeconomic factor is neither suggested nor even implied in this research.
Apologies for any misunderstandings of tone, but the questions raised here haven’t been entirely clear.
The main issues with Simons question was that he did not specify which research he was referring to. Also many of the questions were related to points which had little or nothing to do with the article or the research mentioned within it. Thus it was quite hard to get a handle on exactly what was being asked. I decided to reply without assuming ignorance and coming across as patronising – obviously there is a fine line between patronising people and blinding them with jargon. Although I felt from the context that in-group and out-group weren’t all that difficult to understand.
EDiT: The following paragraph is in reponse to accussations that Simon was met with “demeaning comments” – this was not something that happened because someone was “just asking questions” but because someone was abusive and vitriolic in response to a request for clarification (which could have been expressed better granted) and an attempt to answer their question. If someone doesn’t like the answer to a question they have asked they have the right to disagree – they don’t have the right to insult the other party with impunity.
I have recieved a number of ad-hominem attack from Simons in his comments – “know it alls who know nothing” and now from yourself as well “inability to communicate” and also ” Perhaps you need some time to think rationally, or just some therapy yourself. What in your childhood made you so pompous then?”. These are not to my mind the ideal actions of someone who wants an answer to their questions – especially when someone is entirely willing to provide them if they recieve some clarification. Although on reflection is seems likely that my first post may have come across as defensive – an inappropriate use of quotation marks perhaps? More of an acknowledgement of Simons points perhaps may have helped diffuse the situation before it started.
In all honesty I think myself and Simon just “got off on the wrong foot” – my reply was hurried and it was difficult to answer Simons points because they address far ranging concerns about a broad spectrum of research – much of which is not directly relevant to the research mentioned in the article.
I think you misunderstand my point – perhaps my fault for not expressing it clearly.
Society as a whole does not decide laws and regulations that is undoubtedly true. However my point was meant to address the idea of the social pressures that force us to conform to certain norms and standards of behaviours: From Taboos about where people can and can’t be touched to standards of behaviour generally expected in public and in interactions with others. Indeed my point was in fact remarkably similar to yours – society doesn’t decide on laws. Legislation is formed in a top down system not a bottom up one – although social pressures can eventually change laws: the lifting of the proscription of homosexual relationships for instance? Or the effect of the feminist movement on equality legislation.
I hope that is an acceptable reply to a point I didn’t actually make
I also hope that this discussion will not fall into a series of ad-hominem attacks – questions were at no point ignored: clarification was asked for. “Indicating the authors lack of ability to communicate with a wide diversity of people” – well I would respond to that by pointing out I have been civil and offered to clarify any misunderstandings in plain English and I have already explained in another comment my rationale for my use of jargon in my initial reply. The quotation marks around “research” I understand were very easy to misinterpret and perhaps with more thought the confrontational style that evolved on this thead could have been avoided.
Also why bring age into this – it’s a classic example of dismissive rhetoric and serves only to demean discussion and debate. Age has nothing to do with it the claims should be judged on what they say and not how old they are.
The use of this young man to discuss children is tabloid-esque and disturbing, particularly since the facts of the case have been clearly outlined elsewhere many years ago. Here for instance, is a much older and wiser article, well worth reading (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2003/feb/06/bulger.ukcrime1)
I am sceptical of the motives of the author!
Well the motivation was to challenge the notion that people are simply “evil” and that we can discount their actions as such.
EDIT: The guardian article is indeed a thoughtful and insightful piece.
The IP address record for this comments page is an insightful piece, too.
“The use of this young man to discuss children is tabloid-esque and disturbing”
The inference in this phrase alone is tabloid-esque and disturbing.
Also, these comments read as if they’re from the same person (all of them bringing up age as a way to dismiss claims simply via personal attack, for example). Similarly phrased too.
Or am I to believe that that some undiscovered process of literary osmosis is going on here? Would Simon/Helen/Colin care to explain this odd no doubt coincidental quirk?
“The IP address record for this comments page is an insightful piece, too.”
I am sceptical of the motives of this/these author(s).
[...] is not her revealing statements on Jon Venables, however, for which the Bad Argument prize in this instance is to be offered. It is another [...]
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