Victim Conversation (off-topic moved)

[Mr Chumley]

dont hold back sister

[Jeff Leahy]

touched a nerve there me thinks

[Mr Chumley]

probably, but the vitreol was flowing in bucket loads and there seemed nothing like an inane comment to break the surf so to speak, any way I get much information and thought provoking ideas from you well informed chaps working through a difficult, and obviously empassioned subject..now back to work the lot of you and on with the thoeries..right sailors hats turn up several times in witness accounts anyone else fancy a punt on him being a local who went off to sea and came back for some local carvery

[Jeff Leahy]

Are you suggesting that trying to find the identity of Jack the Ripper is more fun than Ally baiting?

Your right about one thing..there is work to get done..its been a long afternoon rendering

Good luck with your quest Mr Chumley

Pirate

[Mr Chumley]

me thinks Ally baiting is a dangerous game, I will try and get some more research done when i get a week off soon, and may post a little for your crows nest
as always
your obedient servant

[Tom_Wescott]

It's got nothing to do with it. It's just leahy's retardation and mental deficits trying to derail the conversation with inanity again.

Oh, and here I thought it was just a second hand emotion.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Ally]

Leahy,

Ally baiting? is that what's it called when you expose your stupidity for the world to see again, and again and again? I'll go with it. Nothing I can resist more than an idiot attempting to sound intelligent.

Thanks for volunteering to be the moron du jour. Although I hope tomorrow's selection is a slightly higher caliber. Anything with a sub-room temperature IQ isn't as much fun as someone with some slight wits.

[Ally]

Tom,

You should have gone with "sweet old fashioned notion" line. More in line with the schmaltzy sentimentalism that takes the place of reason that's on display.

[Tom_Wescott]

Jeff Leahy. That name rings a bell. Oh well, he's Pirate Jack to me. I'm not surprised he's the 'sensitive' type since he seems to want to find himself on a ship called the Gaylleon with a bunch of sweaty men. I'm afraid I just can't empathise with that.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[babybird67]

there is no vitriol on my part

Ally, i am using the word empathy to mean understanding of the context in which someone finds themselves. It has nothing to do with pitying someone or saying, "Oh poor victim." It is less emotional than that.

It has no moral bearing or judgemental bearing on what they have done.

It also has nothing to do with exonerating or excusing behaviours.

[Tom_Wescott]

That's a MUCH better and cooler sig, Birdy. Now, enough with the empathy talk. That's getting on my head. You girls need to fight about something new now.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Jeff Leahy]

Hey, she’s called the ‘Black Pearl’ (no seriously my boat is called the Black Pearl) yesterday’s photo’s on facebook..I hope your not being homophobic Tom

Seriously Ally, you do this all the time. You take the lives of these women and compare them to your own life, I’ve lost count on podcast the amount of times you start…well me and my brother, when I was six..

I doesn’t work. It is the job of a historian to put these women in Historical context. And that simply means by definition that there choices were different and within those afforded them, their class and their time period.

As you point out these women were no angels but to make assumption about them as mothers or wives or as prostitutes and compare them to your own experiences is simply bad Historical analogy. Quite honestly your opinions of them are irrelevant but it is simply not the case that they bought their rendezvous with destiny upon themselves.

Meeting Jack the Ripper was simply bad luck, pure and simple.

And while as you say they had choices there choices were restricted by there moment in history. A good historian therefore has to try and put their lives in historical context.

If you wish to sit in some form of divine judgment that is up to you. I have no interest, however I do believe that there is a responsibility to put there lives in context and for them each to be treated as individuals instead of being lumped into one miss-leading catch phrase…or constantly portrayed as ciphers.

In short these women were real people, we can only try and understand what we can from historical record about them and from what we can glean from the historical record of the period they existed in as a whole.

Pirate

[Ally]

So then you could have empathy for a child molester? Correct?

[babybird67]

why thank you kind Sir

<curtsies>

Life would be boring if we all thought the same and there was nothing to argue about! Imagine the threads here.... "I think A..." followed by 300 replies all saying, "So do I."

Room 101 anyone?

have a good evening Tom (I'd put a smiley face here but the laughing ones look like they are mocking and the smile one looks like it is too smug....this is the one that most expresses benevolent wishes i think.... )

[babybird67]

Ally

So then you could have empathy for a child molester? Correct?

how many times? You can have empathy for the situation, without any moral comment at all on the person or their behaviours! Stop trying to make it emotional and ethical...it isn't.