What offends you?

[cappuccina]

I think this issue speaks to something we should perhaps start a new thread about...whcih is reslience...Obviously this poor child was failed by EVERYONE. As a parent, I would die for my children if I had to without giving it a second thought.

Even before I had kids I was and am a very resilient person; i have been that way all of my life. Without excusing this mother's behavior, for I am NOT doing so, clearly she did not have the resilience to move, and had a breakdown.

How can we do better as a society to raise and teach children to be more resilient, especially for the ones who seem to be born without any resilience at all? And, connecting to our discussion on another thread....in the case of girls who lately seem to be REWARDED by society in general (the "cool crack waif")....uuuuugggggggghhhhhh for being PERPETUAL VICTIMS AND FOR NOT BEING RESILIENT....how do we break this horrible cycle??

Interesting article on resilience and genetic predisposition...

[Limehouse]

I strongly disagree. When one is saying that one should have empathy, sympathy or compassion for a woman who lit her daughter on fire, one is saying to some degree or another that her actions are excusable or understandable.



I agree firmly that she should have been left in peace. I disagree that saying she should have done something differently in hindsight is naive. She may have been having a breakdown at the end, no one is arguing that. However, it is entirely her fault for allowing it to get to the point where she would have killed her own child rather than freaking moving.

She could have moved. At any point, over the last few years, she could have said, this is ridiculous, packed her crap and moved. She was responsible for her choices all the way up til the end. And as I pointed out, she apparently contemplated doing the exact same thing years before and didn't go through with it. At that point, it was incumbent upon her to take stock of her life, her choices and make better decisions for her future. She failed to do so.

Her actions were not one final breakdown. It was a series of bad decisions and well thought out plans that led to her murdering her daughter.

I think she was just too worn down to move. I thnk her self-esteem was down to nothing. I think the strain of caring for a daughter with complex difficulties and challenging behaviour was beyond her physical and mental strength at the time she took the decision to do what she did.

The teenagers who tormented her and her family did so because they could see a weakness and a vulnerability that they could exploit. They committed a hate crime towards Fiona and her family. I don't know what their family circumstances were but they must have been very poorly raised to have been capable of such behaviour.

As a society we should be raging about such cases. Fiona and her daughter deserved protection from the bullies and the bullies deserved better parenting and swift action from the authories to protect them from their offending and offensive behaviour.

[Ally]

Ally, you seem to have mistaken reasons for excuses. Nobody has claimed that the burning was right or excusable.

I strongly disagree. When one is saying that one should have empathy, sympathy or compassion for a woman who lit her daughter on fire, one is saying to some degree or another that her actions are excusable or understandable.

The woman should have been left in peace, justice could have been brought before the tragedy, but to declare what she should or should not have done in hindsight is naive, when considering that she was probablysuffering some formof breakdown at that point and unable to take responsibility.

I agree firmly that she should have been left in peace. I disagree that saying she should have done something differently in hindsight is naive. She may have been having a breakdown at the end, no one is arguing that. However, it is entirely her fault for allowing it to get to the point where she would have killed her own child rather than freaking moving.

She could have moved. At any point, over the last few years, she could have said, this is ridiculous, packed her crap and moved. She was responsible for her choices all the way up til the end. And as I pointed out, she apparently contemplated doing the exact same thing years before and didn't go through with it. At that point, it was incumbent upon her to take stock of her life, her choices and make better decisions for her future. She failed to do so.

Her actions were not one final breakdown. It was a series of bad decisions and well thought out plans that led to her murdering her daughter.

[TomTomKent]

Ally, you seem to have mistaken reasons for excuses. Nobody has claimed that the burning was right or excusable. They have simply stated the reasons for the action came from the bullying, and could have been avoided if her calls for help were heeded.

There is an important distinction, and i do not it is fair on other posters to claim they are trying to paint this tragedy in any way heroic.

My take;
The right to a life free of prejudice is as protectedby the HRact1998 as the right to free speech. Possibly more so depending on how you choose to read the act. Any claimthat the bullies were just indulging the right to free expression has to recognise the difference between the right to say what you want, and the act of forcing your voice on those who did not wish to engage at all. The woman should have been left in peace, justice could have been brought before the tragedy, but to declare what she should or should not have done in hindsight is naive, when considering that she was probablysuffering some formof breakdown at that point and unable to take responsibility. What she did was wrong, but that does not mean her tormentors were blameless in pushing her over the edge.

I humbly suggest that An Inspector Calls is a more pertinent play to compare.

[glyn]

The ironic thing about your post is that you are still bashing socialism when in fact you apparently support complete freedom of speech and thought which in effect allows these teenagers to persecute this family.

Im not bashing Socialism Limehouse,I was merely suggesting that a "subscription to the Socialist Herald" might help those little blighters see the error of their ways.....or hopefully send them to sleep permanently.
I got a little carried away with my response to you and introduced Socialism into the mix,when it might have been easier to omit that reference,knowing it might be deemed offensive.My bad!
I like exchanging ideas with folk,even when our politics are a world apart,and maybe our ideals also.Not everyone has ideas of their own,some often think the things that tumble out of their brain pans and into the world, will pass as...... intelligent thoughts , and not merely Dogma.
I am doing my best to avoid,or ignore that particular Mental Tower of Babel.Sometimes its easy to stay out of such non productive discourse.....Other times its like a bloody Magnet.
But, back to the main point...freedom of speech...in my view we either have it -or we dont. If its ever taken away from us..even if it is just one word at a time -little by little...we will never get it back. And why the word Socialist keeps cropping up as regards this issue,is that the Socialist ideal and the regimentation that goes with it ,in my view ,is the vehicle which seems most likely to deprive us of probabley our most important liberty. Are there Downsides? most certainly but such is life.

[Ally]

Hi Ally

Fiona Pilkington had written to her local MP who in turn reported her concerns back to the local police force....but as I said the police did nothing.

Derrick

The fact remains. She did not do "everything" she could do. She opted out. And well she sure showed them didn't she? I mean lighting your disabled daughter on fire...there's a proportional response. I mean when you look at what these other little beasts did, throw rocks at a window, name call, and make fun of how the girl walked, I mean really that's horrendous isn't it compared to say...dousing her with gasoline and torching her?

Who REALLY abused that girl? Who really terrorized that girl? Who lit that girl on fire?

This was an enormous human tragedy.

I would suggest that Ally's posts about it here have been quite heartless.

But of course each to their own.

You are damn right they are heartless, but nowhere near as heartless as burning a girl alive. And I have absolutely no heart in me for anyone who is capable of doing that, I don't care what "excuses" the bleeding hearts make for them.

There is no excuse for a parent burning their child alive. None at all.

[lynn cates]

emotions

Hello Robert. Well, I think we can rule out postpartum depression. (heh-heh)

But seriously, I am thinking of Medea's line just before she kills the children--to the effect that she knows that what she is doing is not right, but that her emotions have overcome her reason.

Cheers.
LC

[Robert]

It's rare for a woman to kill her child and even rarer for one to be in her right mind when she does it. Add on the suicide and the gruesome means chosen, and I'm led to conclude this woman was mentally ill at the time.

[lynn cates]

interest

Hello Norma. Indeed. But that is not why philosophers, especially in the mediaeval period, were drawn to the play.

And if Euripides is correct, that righteous person may be more fictive than real.

Cheers.
LC

[mariab]

The philosophically interesting import of Euripides' play lies in the question, "Can one knowingly choose evil?"
The answer Medea gives, "Video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor" (I see the better path and approve it [but] I follow the lower) stands in direct contrast to the Socratic/Platonic dictum, "To know the good is to do it."

Eurypedes had no respect for the coldly self righteous well behaved man.But he was remarkably free thinking for his time and was subversive and sceptical about the Greek myths.No one can argue either that ,'The Trojan Women' is not a clear statement against barbarism.So-not quite as clear cut as you put it---like most things in life.

Hello Norma and Lynn.
I fully agree that Euripides was a free thinker and, to quote Norma, “he had no respect for the coldly self-righteous well-behaved man“, i.e. for Sophocles. :-) Euripides is sometimes accused of “misogynism“ (LOL) because he was the first to introduce female anti-heros in his plays (as in Medea, Phedra). He was totally against war, and The Trojan women are a reception of the Athenians' reaction to the Peloponnesian war.
Incidentally, I'm participating in a conference organized by Oxford Uni. held in Athens in 2 weeks with a paper on The perils of reconstructing Ancient Greek tragedy in early 19th-century Neapolitan opera: Mayr’s “Medea in Corinto“, Manfroce’s “Ecuba“, Rossini’s “Ermione“, so I thought it was a funny coincidence that you started talking about Euripides today. Anyway, hope to start working on that paper tomorrow (after finishing polishing the last 40 p. of my book manuscript).
PS.: The conference is held at the Cacoyannis Foundation, and we're gonna watch his Elektra from the 1960s and other movies/productions in the evenings.

[Natalie Severn]

Hello Ally, Norma. The philosophically interesting import of Euripides' play lies in the question, "Can one knowingly choose evil?"

The answer Medea gives, "Video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor" (I see the better path and approve it [but] I follow the lower) stands in direct contrast to the Socratic/Platonic dictum, "To know the good is to do it."

Cheers.
LC

But Lynn, Greek tragedy grew out of the rites of Dionysus.
Eurypedes had no respect for the coldly self righteous well behaved man.But he was remarkably free thinking for his time and was subversive and sceptical about the Greek myths.No one can argue either that ,'The Trojan Women' is not a clear statement against barbarism.So-not quite as clear cut as you put it---like most things in life.

[Natalie Severn]

This was an enormous human tragedy.

I would suggest that Ally's posts about it here have been quite heartless.

But of course each to their own.

I agree with you Stephen.

[Stephen Thomas]

This was an enormous human tragedy.

I would suggest that Ally's posts about it here have been quite heartless.

But of course each to their own.

[lynn cates]

choosing evil

Hello Ally, Norma. The philosophically interesting import of Euripides' play lies in the question, "Can one knowingly choose evil?"

The answer Medea gives, "Video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor" (I see the better path and approve it [but] I follow the lower) stands in direct contrast to the Socratic/Platonic dictum, "To know the good is to do it."

Cheers.
LC

[Derrick]

So she writes it...and then doesn't give it to them? Rather than handing it in to the police and standing there and refusing to leave and DEMANDING That they do something? Calling an attorney? Calling the people above the local constables? What good does writing a diary and leaving it to be found after you kill yourself do? How is that doing everything you can do?

Hi Ally

Fiona Pilkington had written to her local MP who in turn reported her concerns back to the local police force....but as I said the police did nothing.

Derrick