Victim sympathy/empathy

[protohistorian]

In a couple of words share your view on the point.

[protohistorian]

In a couple of words share your view on the point.

No, being hunted is not worthy of sympathy.

[Mary_Jane_Kelly]

what you should be really asking protohistorian is not whether or not we should feel sorry for the victims, but you should be asking why do people feel sorry for them. and i personally do feel sympathy for these poor girls because of their desperate lives and of there deaths. no-one deserves that, no matter even if they were prostitutes! and i think you, protohistorian, should not talk about these weomen like they are just a topic for general conversation, because these weomen were somebody's mum, somebody's sister, somebody's daughter or somebody's freind!!!!
please get some respect protohistorian.

---MJK---

[Ally]

And you think choosing the name of one the victims to be your username as if it were a choice role in cosplay is a sign of respect?

[protohistorian]

what you should be really asking protohistorian is not whether or not we should feel sorry for the victims, but you should be asking why do people feel sorry for them. and i personally do feel sympathy for these poor girls because of their desperate lives and of there deaths. no-one deserves that, no matter even if they were prostitutes! and i think you, protohistorian, should not talk about these weomen like they are just a topic for general conversation, because these weomen were somebody's mum, somebody's sister, somebody's daughter or somebody's freind!!!!
please get some respect protohistorian.

---MJK---

you are a person. There are 6.7 of those on earth(where you live). A small percentage of those hunt people. Expect it.

[Mary_Jane_Kelly]

And you think choosing the name of one the victims to be your username as if it were a choice role in cosplay is a sign of respect?

yes! absolutley! i am drawn to the ripper case because of MJK, because i think she is an enigma. the reson i chose her as my username signifies that i think highly of her.

---MJK---

[JSchmidt]

I think spending the last moments of your life getting killed in a painful and terrifying way is enough cause to sympathise with the ladies.

[Ally]

yes! absolutley! i am drawn to the ripper case because of MJK, because i think she is an enigma. the reson i chose her as my username signifies that i think highly of her.

---MJK---

I think the mere fact that you would choose her name as your "character"' name means you think nothing about her at all except as a fascination and a role playing exercise and therefore your exhortations to others to respect the victims comes off as highly hypocritical. She was a person, not a character name to be assumed by fan boys.

[Barnaby]

I think spending the last moments of your life getting killed in a painful and terrifying way is enough cause to sympathise with the ladies.

You sure about painful? Or terrifying for that matter?

[Jeffery]

It's sad, how they had to live, trapped in a life of sin, even more than how they died. Yes, I feel sorry for them. But my first interest is always in Jack himself.

[Mascara & Paranoia]

Empathy. Sympathy seems a bit partronizing.

But their lives were no different to any of the other prostitutes in the area at the time, only the way in which they died is the only thing serparating them from the rest. If they'd 'only' had their throats cut, then I wouldn't be as empathetic, but the state of their mutilated bodies and the fact that pictures of them being nothing more than a product of Jack's handiwork is what really gains my empathy the most.

[richardnunweek]

Hi,
Sympathy to all the East End victorians they all suffered poverty,and the risk of a young death, the majority of us nowadays have no comprehension of what out great grandparents had to endure, even in other parts of the UK.
We today constantly moan about the credit crunch, and if we can afford to go abroad three times again this year, and we think we are hard done by?
I do have sympathy for the poor women we discuss on these boards, they did not deserve to meet their maker in such dreadful circumstances, and I certainly feel utter contempt for the perpretrator.
Regards Richard.

[John Bennett]

Empathy. Sympathy seems a bit partronizing.

Empathy, according to my dictionary, is 'identifying oneself mentally with person or object of contemplation'. I have to say 'empathy' is something I've certainly never felt for the victims.

These women had passed through emotional and relationship break-ups which today are nothing unusual. However, if one considers their lives just prior to their deaths, to empathise would be to identify with living in one of the worst areas of London, stringing out a day-to-day existence in doss-houses or squalid rooms, not knowing when the money would appear for the required 'rent', sustaining oneself on the very basic food that one could get (if you could get it), drawn towards alcohol as a crutch to the point of using it despite oneself and to cap it all, walking the streets at all hours hoping that several complete strangers will f*** you in the street for the modern equivalent of £3 which will then allow you to continue the above lifestyle. Only then to be strangled and mutilated and have your body left in the open to be stumbled upon by unsuspecting passers-by.

If anybody here has experienced that kind of life then fair enough, perhaps for them 'empathy' is a word that can be used appropriately.

'Sympathy' may be a little patronising, but it is less grating.

[Nicola]

Whenever I think of these ladies,the expression "There but for the grace of God,go I" comes to my mind.A lot of people say,I would never or that'll never happen to me. But we have no idea what path we'll take in life or be set upon. Grace may be granted to some of us or it totally ignores others. Or grace is fleeting with it's favor.Looking at their lives from the distance of time and different circumstances,we say no,we cannot possibly emphathize with them. I can.I grew up in Cabrini Green in Chicago and I have seen just what grinding poverty can do to a person.Whether it was a century ago or today,poverty can drive a person over the edge.

These women had lives,loves,families. Whether through their own devices or addiction,they eventually wound up in a living hell. Possibly,it ate at their souls,their minds to do what they did to eke out a wretched survival. Alcohol perhaps numbed these feelings for a time. For them to wind up,viciously murdered for some unknown freak's pleasure is just the worst kind of fate.

Even now,sometimes they get no respect. They are just part of the greatest whodunit of all time. Reduced to morgue photos,dispassionate discussion of their wounds,grim jokes,and generally seen as nothing more than marks on a killer's scorecard.I think they deserve a lot more sympathy and respect.


Sorry for being maudlin and long winded this morning.

[CLK]

I feel so sorry for them. It terrifies me to think what went through their mind as they were being killed. I hope all the victims passed out before the mutilation began, I can't bear to think what it would have been like. It was all very cruel - nobody deserves what happened to these women. I feel it is sometimes almost forgot that these women were real people who were once alive and not just a face in morgue photographs.