Victim Conversation (off-topic moved)

[babybird67]

empathy

but if we could only feel empathy for people who always made 100% the right choices in life, there wouldnt be many people who we could feel empathy for.

[Rob Clack]

Annie Chapman had a good life in Windsor and she through it all away because she liked a drink. Mary Ann NIchols had a good life until she stole from her employers. While they don't deserve to have died the way they did. These women weren't angels.

Rob

[The Good Michael]

Ally,

so it's always as easy as that, eh? Black and white. That means everyone has the same intellectual capacity to make good choices. I don't think so. Some folks aren't equipped for that, for whatever reasons.

Mike

[halomanuk]

We will never know what went on throughout any of these women's lives so it's pointless attributing any judgement on them...and this is heading off topic.

[Jeff Leahy]

To place them all in the same category is simply ignorance of the historical facts. I can strongly recommend, “The Victims of Jack the Ripper” by Neal Stubbings Sheldon.

I noted while Ally dragged their characters through the mire without sympathy, that she failed to recognize their broken marriages, the stillborn children or the social realities of the life for women in 1888. But then the queen of mean was born with a silver spoon in her mouth and has no comprehension of the hardship and brutality that these women went through.

No doubt we will hear the usual voices saying that you cannot romanticize these women’s lives, which is true to some extent. But we can seek to find out more about the world they lived in and have some historical understanding of the way they lived then instead of trying to compare it with our own cushtie lives we live today, as Ally always does.

Pirate

[Ally]

You mean their broken marriages that ended because they drank themselves stupid? Every one of these women started in much better circumstances and it was their drinking that brought them down. There aren't a whole lot of choices for addicts these days either.

And yes, the social realities of women in the 1800's were limited: but the fact remains these women had better options and they pissed them away. Stillborn children happen to millions upon millions of women. They don't all choose to throw themselves in the gutter as a result.

[Victor]

...she failed to recognize their broken marriages, the stillborn children or the social realities of the life for women in 1888.

Broken marriages because they chose to drink.

And the chance of stillborn children increases the more that's drunk.

I'm not judging them for chosing to drink, I like an odd tipple myself, but I chose not to drink to excess, and make myself vulnerable.

[Tom_Wescott]

More Irony...

The author of the book NOT currently being discussed in this thread happens to own a pub.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[halomanuk]

I tried to point out the 'off topic 'ramblings earlier Tom,
All the best,
Chuck

[Jeff Leahy]

Broken marriages because they chose to drink.

You dont know that as fact. Its only speculation. While its probable in Annie Chapmans case, there is some potential evidence that Poly Nichols husband was having an affair while she was pregnant. It's most probable that Kelly's husband was killed in a mining accident. We dont actually know when or why exactly these women turned to drink and to what extent.

And the chance of stillborn children increases the more that's drunk.

While this is true, alcohol is also a good sterilizer and may have reduced the chance of infection to some level. Water from the pumps was not clean. Of course as tea became cheaper boiling the water also worked.

I'm not judging them for chosing to drink, I like an odd tipple myself, but I chose not to drink to excess, and make myself vulnerable.

For what ever reason they all drank, at what point one becomes an alcoholic I'm not certain?

However this was an age when women had no vote, no rights and no income if they left their husbands, there was no social security or free money. You got money in whatever way was possible. And for these women that meant prostituting themselves, cleaning, selling nick nacks, hop picking. Whatever turned up. They lived from day to day and often went hungry.

To try and moralize about the way they lived is ridiculous, sat in your soft centrally heated houses. They didn't choose their poverty they slipped into it over a number of years as did thousands of women in similar positions of that period.

I'm not making out these women were saints, but they were ordinary people who for differing reasons found themselves on the streets and Vulnerable to a brutal serial killer. To try and claim in any form that “they had it coming to them’ or ‘they bought it on themselves’ is just ignorance of the facts.

They were victims.

Pirate

PS Yes 'the old Plantation inn'

[babybird67]

sorry that this is off topic again, but...

to Ally, it's not about excusing personal responsibility. It's about understanding that not all choices are freely available to all, that human actions do not exist in an existential vacuum, but are situation and context-specific.

Think of any decision you have made in your own life...was there one motivating factor for and one against (the black/white theory), or were there a myriad of possibilities all competing for your attention, and seeking for you to weave from their interaction a suitable choice?

And what constitutes a suitable choice? From whose perspective? If i make a choice that would make me happy, should i still choose it if it makes somebody else unhappy? What if there are a myriad of people affected by my choice? That too impacts on how one lives one's life, for good or bad...etc

People who have made bad choices are not necessarily bad people.

People who have made bad choices need support around them, to encourage them to learn how to make better choices in life. Nobody learns from being written off. Nobody benefits.

Human beings and the lives we live are far too complex for a black and white attitude towards human choice...novelists would be out of work if this were not so.

[Jeff Leahy]

Thomas Hardy would certainly be out of a job

http://www.pubutopia.com/pubs/M/Maidstone/Bearsted/Old%20Plantation%20Inn/

contains photo of said pub

[Tom_Wescott]

However this was an age when women had no vote, no rights and no income if they left their husbands

Cue the song 'Those Were The Days'.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Ally]

And all that's really nice and fluffy and cute. And completely irrelevant. There is a bottom line. A choice is made. All the other stuff is actually irrelevant:

You do something or you don't. You choose to do A or you choose not do A. A is A. Period. A choice, at some point, regardless of all the external influence and internal wrangling is made. And forever after that, you and you alone bear the responsibility for your choice.

Whether they were "bad" people or not is irrelevant. Whether you believe in judging them for their status in life, or exonerating them or take the middle ground that their lives were their lives to be led as they saw fit and their choices were their choices is all irrelevant.

The bottom line is this: they made their choice in life and who are you to deny them that? People constantly want to reduce these women and all other people like them to the status of perpetual victims. That's all they are to you. They aren't people who have brains, lives or ability. They are just poor, pathetic endless victims who can't be expected to make good decisions for themselves because they were poor, or their mommy didn't love them or they were abused. All of that is irrelevant. They were people who had choices that they had to make. No one on this planet has a unique experience. Everyone is victimized to one degree or another. Everyone has to make choices of what they are going to do with their lives. And everyone is responsible for the choices that they make regardless of any external factors.

Not every poor woman became an alcoholic. Not every poor woman became a whore. Not every poor woman became an alcoholic whore. Those that did, made choices. And they bear the responsibility for those choices and I am not obligated to feel sympathy for the lives of women when they have done nothing to deserve sympathy in their lives. They abandoned children. They had to be PAID to tend to their sick children. The stole. They were NOT sympathetic women. And I am not going to pretend a false sympathy for their lives just because of the tragic circumstances surrounding their death.

[babybird67]

Tom !!!!

lol!!