Cohen Questions..........?

[Errata]

G'Day Errata



I hope not! That's a pain I hope never fades for the world. Because as long as the pain continues we will be vigilant to try and ensure its like never occurs again.

The two are not mutually exclusive.

Nor does remembrance and pain keep us from letting the same thing happen again. We Jews do not have the monopoly on world suffering. Maybe the monopoly on white people suffering... But there have been somewhere around 50 instances of legally identified genocide since the Holocaust. Almost 20 of them with a bigger death toll than the holocaust. China has killed 90 million of it's own citizens since the communist revolution. Never mind the crap Israel pulls, which is personally appalling. And the Allies didn't even care about the Holocaust until the war crimes trials were coming up.

It's not the jokes we have to worry about. They are bad jokes. Bad like not funny at all. Totally lacking in humor.

It's the indifference that's the problem.

And I don' think it will be funny in our lifetime, nor even the next. But Monty Python's Spanish Inquisition bit is hysterical. So the Spanish Inquisition is now funny, where it wasn't 200 years ago.

[GUT]

G'Day Errata

But when the jokes seem funny that is a sign of indifference. I remember to my shame when jokes about Africans starving were considered funny.

[Errata]

G'Day Errata

But when the jokes seem funny that is a sign of indifference. I remember to my shame when jokes about Africans starving were considered funny.

Jokes are funny regardless of their subject matter. Except for shock jokes, which are never funny but make us laugh because they are so astonishingly unacceptable. There's an entire body of humor devoted to dead baby jokes. Not because dead babies are funny, but because they are the most unfunny thing people can think of. The humor is in finding the worst thing to say. It startles people into laughter because it is so unacceptable.

I remember the Ethiopian jokes. I remember the Branch Davidian jokes, I've heard all the Jewish jokes, some Jesus jokes, really all the inappropriate jokes out there. And a bunch of them were funny. Really funny (depends on your sense of humor though). But I still gave my allowance to feed starving Africans, I still retained my anger for how Waco went down, I still maintain respect for religions. I worked in theater, I worked in comedy. I've heard it all. There is actually a science to what is funny and what is not. The Western World brain is tuned a certain way, and any joke that conforms to Western World rules of humor is going to be funny. The only exceptions are jokes that are "too soon". Holocaust jokes are still considered "too soon". And that's good. But someday it won't be. And that's okay too. It can't be a raw wound forever.

The big debate now in comedy is rape jokes. Some people think there is no excuse for telling them. Some are big supporters. Who gets to tell a rape joke and who doesn't? Is making fun of rapists considered a rape joke? That sort of thing. I have a friend who thinks that if anyone tells a rape joke they should have their tongue cut out. I have another friend who says that women get to tell them but men don't. And I have a third friend who uses her own rape in her act. And her act is hilarious and desperately uncomfortable, and sad for me because I remember her struggling with the things she jokes about. But the rape jokes are how she gives her experience to the world. You laugh because it's funny, but it stays with you because you never really thought about t like that before. Rape isn't funny. Some jokes about rape are. Humor can be insidious. Tickle your ribs while they slide in the knife.

Jokes are a tool, like letters to the editor, like protests, like pamphleteers and proselytizers. Like a worm on a hook. Nobody bites a bare hook because they don't want a mouthful of hook. Put a worm on it and you've got them. They get the laugh, but they also get the concept. The bigger picture. They can avoid a pamphlet or a speaker or a newspaper article because it's uncomfortable, or people think it doesn't apply to them. They swallow a joke every time. There is a theory out there that every single cultural revolution in the 20th century had it's road paved with humor. Whether they meant to or not, the old comedians made the idea of integration a familiar and relatively safe concept by making fun of it. And there are a lot of people out there who think that there have to be far more Jews than there actually are. Because they can't imagine that there would be soo many Jewish jokes for such a small population. They think we are ubiquitous. We aren't by a long shot, but because they think we are they don't react with shock or horror upon meeting a Jew. And don't get me started on what Seinfeld did.

Think of jokes as a scar on the wound. There comes a day when it won't hurt, but there will never come a day when the scar doesn't remind you of the wound. But it doesn't help anyone to walk around bleeding the rest of their lives. And jokes don't breed indifference. It's our natural state sad to say.

[GUT]

G'Day Errata

Think on this one we'll have to disagree to agree, I honestly believe that some subjects are just not joking matters. Rape's a good example I just don't find it a topic of jest.

[J6123]

assuming that the lusk letter was genuine (and it certainly could be), would this guy have been capable of writing it?

[RivkahChaya]

G'Day Errata

Think on this one we'll have to disagree to agree, I honestly believe that some subjects are just not joking matters. Rape's a good example I just don't find it a topic of jest.

There's a comic named John Mulaney who makes a hilarious joke about rape: he says once he was running behind a woman in a subway because he assumed she was running because she saw the train coming, and then it dawned on him that she was running away from him, because he might be a rapist, "Because that's what adults do, they rape each other."

This was in the larger context of him being in his early 20s, and struggling with the idea of being an adult, even though he still felt like a little kid inside. He said he wanted to apologize to the woman, but what could he say? "I'm not going to rape you, Ma'am; I'm a little boy."

It was very funny, and also very clear that he felt rape was wrong, so yes, there are funny rape jokes-- or maybe, jokes about rape.

There may not be knee-slapping Holocaust jokes, but some of the ridiculous things that happened are funny. In Maus, Art Spiegelman writes that his father kept a second shirt wrapped in paper for "lice check," because sometimes you would be denied food at mealtime if your shirt had lice, so Vladek Spiegelman would pull out his second shirt, that had no lice, because he never wore it, and always get food. It's funny because it's so outlandish.

[Cogidubnus]

Hi Rivkah

There may not be knee-slapping Holocaust jokes, but some of the ridiculous things that happened are funny. In Maus, Art Spiegelman writes that his father kept a second shirt wrapped in paper for "lice check," because sometimes you would be denied food at mealtime if your shirt had lice, so Vladek Spiegelman would pull out his second shirt, that had no lice, because he never wore it, and always get food. It's funny because it's so outlandish.

I'm afraid a whole genre of concentration camp jokes was floating round my school back in the late 60's...looking back, it was probably the taboo nature of the subject matter and the sickness of the humour which made it so irresistable to the immature teenaged male mind, plus of course the inbuilt desire to shock...

Having said that, in hindsight, much of the 60's probably was purely about shocking earlier generations...I was blithely unaware of that, being but a youngster myself at the close of the 60's...certainly never saw any of the free love that was supposedly around!

All the best

Dave

[Harry D]

Old as things are here on this thread, it remains a valid point that the pathology of anti-Semitism does seem to wriggle its way into every subject. Certainly the last post here - too ambiguous for the the assumption of sarcasm - has begged comment for quite a while. So here it is: disgraceful.

As a new member, I hope this sort of thing is not typical of the site or its participants.

I'd argue that crying "anti-semitism" the minute someone makes a Jewish joke is far more contemptible, but hey that's just me.

Anyway, I hope we can get this topic back on track, as I'm keen to know more about this David Cohen, since it seems he's the one police confused with Aaron Kosminski.

[jmenges]

I'm keen to know more about this David Cohen, since it seems he's the one police confused with Aaron Kosminski.

If you've not heard it already, there is a podcast here from 2008 in which Martin Fido brings us up to date on his thoughts about Cohen.

http://www.casebook.org/podcast/listen.html?id=57

JM

[Harry D]

If you've not heard it already, there is a podcast here from 2008 in which Martin Fido brings us up to date on his thoughts about Cohen.

http://www.casebook.org/podcast/listen.html?id=57

JM

Thanks, that was a interesting listen.

I'm happy to go with this 'Cohen' fella being JTR. All I know is that police must have had a damn good reason for believing this guy was their man, other than 'It had to be a Jew'. Martin Fido makes a cogent point about Jack's psychology. While the raving lunatic in the asylum doesn't match the typical image of the cool customer lurking in the shadows, the killings were Cohen's way of pacifying his inner-demons. Without that catharsis, his rage turned inwards and he went completely wacko.

[Errata]

Thanks, that was a interesting listen.

I'm happy to go with this 'Cohen' fella being JTR. All I know is that police must have had a damn good reason for believing this guy was their man, other than 'It had to be a Jew'. Martin Fido makes a cogent point about Jack's psychology. While the raving lunatic in the asylum doesn't match the typical image of the cool customer lurking in the shadows, the killings were Cohen's way of pacifying his inner-demons. Without that catharsis, his rage turned inwards and he went completely wacko.

Which is a great story, and a classic one. But a story that in no way shape or form conforms to known behavior in either the mentally ill or in serial killers. That's just not how it works.

And I'm going to briefly hop on my soapbox, which is not directed at you but you did accidentally free the beast, so to speak. It is stories like this that make people so terrified of the mentally ill. And they have never been more than stories. Granted psychology and psychiatry are soft sciences, but they are sciences. Even in something as squishy as human behavior, a+b always equals c. Always. Given that all of the variables are known, the behavior of the mentally ill is always predictable. It's not magic, it's not demons, it's not one of the great mysteries of life. It's an equation. It's predictable. Nobody in the history of ever has suddenly lashed out with no warning signs, nobody in the history of ever has turned self destructive when denied the chance to be destructive, nobody in the history of ever has defied to laws of being that everyone else obeys. The only difference between the mentally ill and the mentally sound is a different set of assumptions, all of which a cataloged and known. So it's not a Gothic romance. It's math.

[Harry D]

Which is a great story, and a classic one. But a story that in no way shape or form conforms to known behavior in either the mentally ill or in serial killers. That's just not how it works.

And I'm going to briefly hop on my soapbox, which is not directed at you but you did accidentally free the beast, so to speak. It is stories like this that make people so terrified of the mentally ill. And they have never been more than stories. Granted psychology and psychiatry are soft sciences, but they are sciences. Even in something as squishy as human behavior, a+b always equals c. Always. Given that all of the variables are known, the behavior of the mentally ill is always predictable. It's not magic, it's not demons, it's not one of the great mysteries of life. It's an equation. It's predictable. Nobody in the history of ever has suddenly lashed out with no warning signs, nobody in the history of ever has turned self destructive when denied the chance to be destructive, nobody in the history of ever has defied to laws of being that everyone else obeys. The only difference between the mentally ill and the mentally sound is a different set of assumptions, all of which a cataloged and known. So it's not a Gothic romance. It's math.

You speak like an authority on the matter. However, I find what you're proposing to be quite specious. I'm no expert myself, but wouldn't a respected criminologist like Martin Fido be aware of such a factoid when making his hypothesis? Was it not supported by others in the field?

[Errata]

You speak like an authority on the matter. However, I find what you're proposing to be quite specious. I'm no expert myself, but wouldn't a respected criminologist like Martin Fido be aware of such a factoid when making his hypothesis? Was it not supported by others in the field?

Yes he would be. And I imagine he is. But Criminology and Psychology are both behavioral sciences and thus often in competition with each other. Given a criminological explanation and a psychological explanation, Fido would opt for the former, and I would opt for the latter.

One of the problems we have with finding a motive or a reason for these crimes is that we often have to reverse engineer a bunch of facts into a cogent theory. Cohen was a raving loon (scientific term of course) in the asylum, the Ripper could not have been one while killing, or he would have been caught. If Cohen is the Ripper, the only possible explanation is that he wasn't a loon while killing, but became one after he stopped. An easy explanation for that would be that killing kept him together, and he fell apart when he had to stop.

Except that isn't an explanation at all because that's not how mental illness works. And it's not how serial killers work. We can look at all known serial killers and millions of mentally ill people and not find a single example of that etiology. Is it possible that he was sane while killing and barking mad a short time after stopping? Yes. Did he lose his **** (another scientific term) because he stopped killing? No. He could have if he had raging compulsions, but that would have been apparent in him during the murders, and he had no sign of compulsions after commitment. So if the only factor to possibly fit the explanation is not present, then that is not the explanation.

It's not the idea that Cohen is the killer I object to. And it's not the idea that he went insane I have a problem with. It's the explanation. That' just not how it works. If Cohen was the killer, it is likely that no matter how odd it may seem, that his killing and his illness had nothing to do with each other. If he was in fact Schizophrenic it's entirely possible for him to be asymptomatic up until his 30s. And the onset can be swift and brutal. It could easily have not at all informed his murders, but cause his collapse. It is also likely that he was in fact ill during the murders, and nobody did anything about it until he became too unstable to be in a room with. You would be amazed at what people will ignore. It is also entirely possible that he was exposed to something that mimicked madness. Some disease, or chemical or pollutant that damaged his brain. Or even a head injury. But I can assure you that he didn't keep himself sane by mutilating prostitutes and only wigged out when he couldn't do it anymore.

Every mental illness has a known progression, known behaviors, and known outliers that accompany it. A+B=C. It's not magic. It's not unforeseeable, and it's not unknowable. And given the total lack of treatment available to the insane back then, they don't change. They simply adapt to the new environment. It's not Jekyll and Hyde, no matter how someone may appear to change. It's just simple progression.

[Harry D]

Very constructive, Errata! Thanks for taking the time to post that. I'm glad that you're at least not ruling Cohen out as a suspect. I will have to defer to your superior knowledge on the matter, unless someone is willing to challenge your assertions. Just out of curiosity, do you mind telling me what your background is?

[Barnaby]

Attacking women in their early to mid forties was a good strategy for avoiding pregnancies, but still finding uteri that looked, well, in working order.

Why in the world would Jack the Ripper care about impregnating his victims?