07-09-2014, 10:08 AM
Your example Grungie reminds a bit of an autistic kid I used to know she I was about 11 and he was the same age. Lets call him Tom because I can't remember his real name. By and large, he was a nice kid, but on occasions he had some pretty bad behaviours. He was a very sore loser, could get violent (both intentionally and in cases of taking things too far) and sometimes said or did socially unacceptable things, depending on his. We went a park with some friends and he and some of them decided to make a film if them fighting with sticks (i didn't join because i had hispterswag and i think i read a book). Anyway, he got waaaay too into and starting hitting people really hard and cut up a couple of kids. Not badly, only surface cuts and grazes, but unnecessary nonetheless. Another occasion we played a game with him, he lost, and my friend a (fairly innocuous but maybe a bit antagonising) comment about how he lost. He stormed off in a terrible rage to his room. Now thing is, these would be fine, if dealt with properly by his parents, but in the first instance they half-heartedly told him to be gentle bug let it carry on and in the second the other friend got blamed for being "rude" and because Tom is autistic he should be pandered to.
Of course allowances have to be made for people with conditions they have no control over, but equally, people on the autistic spectrum can learn to function well in society and using the condition as an excuse is not going to help that, particularly as his case was relatively mild. They need boundaries and consistency, which his parents didn't give him, instead used his condition as an excuse.
It's similar with people with people who have had shitty pasts. I know this girl who has had an awful past, she was raped, she was in a near fatal car crash and has a multitude of health problems. Personally I find her intensely annoying, because I don't like her personality (also she can be really quite bitchy while claiming to "hate bitches") but that's not connected with her past. I just don't like her. If I were to say that to some people I'd probably get called "heartless" or whatever because of her past.
I'm all for compassion, particularly as some of my friends have none of it. I'm also all for looking at things from as many perspectives as possible, which is again something many of my friends don't do very often. Some people I know are too quick to judge without thinking that ultimately, we're all human. It's important to know the reasons why people have nasty behaviours. I would like to hope that they can be changed into to better people. However, just because someone had a shitty childhood doesn't mean they can do what they want. Sure, say, an abusive father might explain why someone is in turn abusive to their kids, but that's a reason not an excuse. There are consequences to all actions and this should be recognised.
The thing that worries me in some ways is that some people have had such shitty loves that they don't know any better, they genuinely can't behave in other ways because they never learnt how to. Punishing them may just make things worse and prolong the festering problems. But equally, you can't just let them get away being a layabout scrounger or an abuser or whatever - they have to have some form of consequence. In an ideal world there would be some form of therapy/correctional setup, which was is both effective and ethical. Actually, more idyllic is that this sort of thing is prevented in the first place, with less poverty, better acknowledgement of mental disorders, better equality, better parenting and a "nicer" society (inverted commas because "nice" is a vague and ambiguous term so what would make society nicer is debatable and I don't know myself, to be frank)
It seems to me preventing bad behaviour is the most effective way to stop things. Although therapies and punishment would be still necessary, they would less so with prevention of anti social or just socially negative behaviours occurring in the first place. However, that leads to ethical issues, like the concept of "good and bad" and the idea of it leading to sci-fi-esque control of freedom and the diminishing of rights and individual choice. It's an extreme, but maybe it could happen. A Clockwork Orange sort of correction system would not be ideal.
Of course allowances have to be made for people with conditions they have no control over, but equally, people on the autistic spectrum can learn to function well in society and using the condition as an excuse is not going to help that, particularly as his case was relatively mild. They need boundaries and consistency, which his parents didn't give him, instead used his condition as an excuse.
It's similar with people with people who have had shitty pasts. I know this girl who has had an awful past, she was raped, she was in a near fatal car crash and has a multitude of health problems. Personally I find her intensely annoying, because I don't like her personality (also she can be really quite bitchy while claiming to "hate bitches") but that's not connected with her past. I just don't like her. If I were to say that to some people I'd probably get called "heartless" or whatever because of her past.
I'm all for compassion, particularly as some of my friends have none of it. I'm also all for looking at things from as many perspectives as possible, which is again something many of my friends don't do very often. Some people I know are too quick to judge without thinking that ultimately, we're all human. It's important to know the reasons why people have nasty behaviours. I would like to hope that they can be changed into to better people. However, just because someone had a shitty childhood doesn't mean they can do what they want. Sure, say, an abusive father might explain why someone is in turn abusive to their kids, but that's a reason not an excuse. There are consequences to all actions and this should be recognised.
The thing that worries me in some ways is that some people have had such shitty loves that they don't know any better, they genuinely can't behave in other ways because they never learnt how to. Punishing them may just make things worse and prolong the festering problems. But equally, you can't just let them get away being a layabout scrounger or an abuser or whatever - they have to have some form of consequence. In an ideal world there would be some form of therapy/correctional setup, which was is both effective and ethical. Actually, more idyllic is that this sort of thing is prevented in the first place, with less poverty, better acknowledgement of mental disorders, better equality, better parenting and a "nicer" society (inverted commas because "nice" is a vague and ambiguous term so what would make society nicer is debatable and I don't know myself, to be frank)
It seems to me preventing bad behaviour is the most effective way to stop things. Although therapies and punishment would be still necessary, they would less so with prevention of anti social or just socially negative behaviours occurring in the first place. However, that leads to ethical issues, like the concept of "good and bad" and the idea of it leading to sci-fi-esque control of freedom and the diminishing of rights and individual choice. It's an extreme, but maybe it could happen. A Clockwork Orange sort of correction system would not be ideal.
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