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landmark Inner circle within a triangle 5194 Posts |
This makes me sadder than I've been in a long while:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/massachusetts-t......age=true
Click here to get Gerald Deutsch's Perverse Magic: The First Sixteen Years
All proceeds to Open Heart Magic charity. |
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rockwall Special user 762 Posts |
Very sad. Unfortunately it makes me AS sad as I've been over multiple stories this last year.
I can't help but wonder if this stuff used to happen nearly as often but it wasn't reported as much or that as a society we've become that much more brutal. While crime in general has gone down, it seems that more horrible crimes by young people like this are happening. What is causing this lack of empathy among a small portion of our society? Is it the culture? The combination of movies, music, video games, etc. Is there a cure or is it the new normal that we just have to live with? |
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landmark Inner circle within a triangle 5194 Posts |
IMO, as someone who has spent a lot of time working with adolescents, the lack of empathy is caused by lack of empathy.
Click here to get Gerald Deutsch's Perverse Magic: The First Sixteen Years
All proceeds to Open Heart Magic charity. |
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Cliffg37 Inner circle Long Beach, CA 2491 Posts |
Landmark, I have been a high school teacher for the last 23 years. I think you have hit the nail on the head. People raised with love, (not a lack of discipline mind you, but real love) tend to live with more respect for others and for life in general.
Magic is like Science,
Both are fun if you do it right! |
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rockwall Special user 762 Posts |
Quote:
On 2013-10-24 15:55, landmark wrote: So, possibly in large part due to the breakdown of the American family? |
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landmark Inner circle within a triangle 5194 Posts |
Yes, partly due to the breakdown of the American family.
But you may not like the rest of my answer. And I probably will have a hard time not ranting, so I'll keep it brief. We live in a society that worships death, killing, depersonalization, and wealth. Which has absolutely no interest in the welfare of children. It's extraordinarily difficult to keep a meaningful family life in the face of that. Every ad, every message is about solving problems with violence. The education system is only teaching those subjects which will contribute to that. The arts, the prime place where we learn to empathize are cut as frivolous. Children know they are expendable. If they are lucky, they are able to find adults who can help them find meaning and worth in their lives. Then they can find peers as well who can help them feel as if they belong to something useful, interesting, stimulating. But many are not that lucky. For some the pressure is too much to bear quietly.
Click here to get Gerald Deutsch's Perverse Magic: The First Sixteen Years
All proceeds to Open Heart Magic charity. |
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Michael Zarek Special user Sweden 923 Posts |
I think this doesn't have anything to do with how he was raised.
This kid is clearly a sociopath.
Reader discretion is advised.
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Woland Special user 680 Posts |
I think it would be prudent to know all of the facts of the case before using it as an exemplary or metaphorical justification for all of one's personal preoccupations.
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Jonathan Townsend Eternal Order Ossining, NY 27297 Posts |
How did she lure a male student into the girls bathroom and where did they get the box cutter?
...to all the coins I've dropped here
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landmark Inner circle within a triangle 5194 Posts |
Quote:
On 2013-10-25 08:55, Woland wrote: My comments were not specific to this particular case. Those details remain to be seen. I was addressing rockwall's question about the origins of lack of empathy.
Click here to get Gerald Deutsch's Perverse Magic: The First Sixteen Years
All proceeds to Open Heart Magic charity. |
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Magnus Eisengrim Inner circle Sulla placed heads on 1053 Posts |
More to the point, why try to make political hay? A young woman was tragically murdered. My condolences to her family and friends.
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.--Yeats |
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Jonathan Townsend Eternal Order Ossining, NY 27297 Posts |
The tragedy is private to those who lost her.
The story so far in public is ... Wanting
...to all the coins I've dropped here
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rockwall Special user 762 Posts |
Quote:
On 2013-10-25 12:03, Magnus Eisengrim wrote: I'm not sure who you think was attempting to make political hay. I do however think that it is certainly a worthwhile exercise, whenever something like this happens, to try and understand both the smaller and larger causes if we ever hope to stop future tragic events. |
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Woland Special user 680 Posts |
Quote:
I was addressing rockwall's question about the origins of lack of empathy. Fair enough. When you said, Quote:
The arts, the prime place where we learn to empathize are cut as frivolous. I wondered, do the arts really teach a culture empathy, or do the arts not simply reflect or express the values of the culture? Since you also say, Quote: - don't you think those are the values that we find in our movies, popular music, and other genres of "the arts"?
We live in a society that worships death, killing, depersonalization, and wealth. |
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landmark Inner circle within a triangle 5194 Posts |
Interesting question, goes back at least to Plato doesn't it?
The answer, I believe, as in many of these kinds of dichotomies, is that there's truth on both sides. If I had to identify my basic philosophy, it would be some sort of humanist. It's in art where we learn what it is to be human. Of course, art can reflect and encourage the worst as well. That's why we (theoretically) have schools and teachers. To point out the most human and interesting art. To expose students to Hamlet rather than Rambo. Of Mice and Men rather than Real Housewives of New Jersey. Do the Right Thing rather than Gone with the Wind. And so on.
Click here to get Gerald Deutsch's Perverse Magic: The First Sixteen Years
All proceeds to Open Heart Magic charity. |
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LobowolfXXX Inner circle La Famiglia 1196 Posts |
I wouldn't say that the teachers make those distinctions in order to point out the most human and interesting art. The Real Housewives is probably "more" human "Of Mice and Men." And while I find Hamlet infinitely more interesting than Rambo, I think I'd be on the short end of that vote, whether among children OR adults. If Hamlet (the play, not the dude) were more inherently interesting, you could let the students pick which one to study. Good luck with that.
I believe there's something qualitative about art that's completely incidental to "humanity."
"Torture doesn't work" lol
Guess they forgot to tell Bill Buckley. "...as we reason and love, we are able to hope. And hope enables us to resist those things that would enslave us." |
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landmark Inner circle within a triangle 5194 Posts |
Quote:
I wouldn't say that the teachers make those distinctions in order to point out the most human and interesting art. I did . There's plenty students can see switching around the television channels by themselves. It would be a shame if they never read (and more importantly, never attended a really good production of) Romeo and Juliet. I required my "homeroom" students to accompany me to the theater at my expense on their precious weekends. They were often bitterly opposed at first to such an intrusion on their football time, but were always grateful afterwards. A good teacher should be able to promote a discussion about Hamlet or Rambo that is provocative and interesting. S/he should be able to point out similarities in themes and even similarities in storytelling techniques. But a good teacher should also be able to have students discover for themselves why Hamlet is a more complex, layered piece of work, dealing with a wider and more subtle range of the human experience. That process fosters empathy, and at the same time a critical eye to the emotions that are being manipulated. Yes a teenager will not at first find Hamlet more inherently interesting than Rambo. That's exactly the point. That's why there are teachers--to expose students to other options, and help them uncover the pleasure that lies within. Look, the house of art, like magic, clearly has many rooms. While the formalistic sculpture in front of some chemical corporation's headquarters may be interesting to some, it is supremely uninteresting and un-human to me. It's worth about as much to me as a YouTube coin magic video that focuses only on the hands and has no face in the frame. And much of recent education policy has been about removing the face from the frame.
Click here to get Gerald Deutsch's Perverse Magic: The First Sixteen Years
All proceeds to Open Heart Magic charity. |
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Woland Special user 680 Posts |
Hi landmark and Lobo,
First of all, the deterioration in educational standards and the level of ignorance among even college and university students nowadays is truly appalling. I don't think that it is possible, wise, or even acceptable to rely on schools and teachers to transmit the basic values of our culture or society. It needs to happen at home. Parents should show their children what is good, beautiful, and true in life and in art. But when a child does not have parents, or when the parents are themselves innocent of what is good, beautiful, and true, how can it happen? The collapse of families, the end of marriage, the "withering away" of all of the institutions of civil society EXCEPT the State -- the results of these phenomena are seen in the coarsening of the arts and the continuing degradation of moral values in the arts. Of course, sometime in the 19th century, many artists began to see themselves not as exemplars and propagators of the values of their culture, but as opponents of their culture, and the exaltation of this counter-cultural art and the lives and values of its perpetrators has also contributed in no small way to the disintegration of Western culture. |
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landmark Inner circle within a triangle 5194 Posts |
Quote:
Of course, sometime in the 19th century, many artists began to see themselves not as exemplars and propagators of the values of their culture, but as opponents of their culture, and the exaltation of this counter-cultural art and the lives and values of its perpetrators has also contributed in no small way to the disintegration of Western culture. Oh boy. I'm not going to go there. Harriet Beecher Stowe might disagree, and Leni Riefenstahl on the other hand totally agree, with you heartily to take two easy cases. Quote:
First of all, the deterioration in educational standards and the level of ignorance among even college and university students nowadays is truly appalling. By international standards, the exact opposite has happened over the last 75 years. Read Diane Ravitch's new book Reign of Error for an in depth look at the history and facts. But with the current ongoing destruction of public education by the privatizers and profiteers we may well be entering a decline.
Click here to get Gerald Deutsch's Perverse Magic: The First Sixteen Years
All proceeds to Open Heart Magic charity. |
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Slide Special user 533 Posts |
"Of course, sometime in the 19th century, many artists began to see themselves not as exemplars and propagators of the values of their culture, but as opponents of their culture" That has always been the purpose of art: Hieronymus Bosch, anyone?
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