Victim Conversation (off-topic moved)

[Tom_Wescott]

People constantly want to reduce these women and all other people like them to the status of perpetual victims.

People who view themselves as perpetual victims want to do the same to others. The truth is, our best thinking is what's got us all to where we are at. We always have the choice to improve our thinking and thus our situations. Does that mean we shouldn't feel sympathy for those on the outs? Of course not. But we shouldn't make excuses for them either. Excuses are a roadblock to improvement.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[babybird67]

Ally

you speak about things that are irrelevant...and you misunderstand once again what i am trying to say.

I am not making excuses for anyone. I am stating that one can have empathy for people, even people who have demonstrably made the wrong choices. Nobody gets to become a better person from outright condemnation. People know when they have been given up on...that's when they give up on themselves.

I am not saying people should not be personally responsible for the choices they make either. I am saying that in order to get them to the point where they UNDERSTAND that there are other choices and that they CAN make alternative choices, you need to understand and empathise, not condemn.

I say again...choices are not made in an existential vacuum; they are context-specific. The context of someone who is poor will not throw up as many, or the same, choices as someone who is more well off.

How do we help anyone make better choices if we just write them off?

There is a difference between EMPATHY and SYMPATHY, by the way.

But we differ fundamentally on this issue...and we digress...

[Ally]

Yes empathy and sympathy are completely different and you can't possibly have empathy for these women as empathy is something that none of us are remotely capable of feeling since their life circumstances are vastly alien to any of ours.

And if you can feel sympathy for women who abandon their children and have to be paid in order to take care of them when they are sick, then you certainly do expect less of people than I do.

[babybird67]

i disagree Ally

i can empathise with people whether i share their experiences or not. As i said in chat, i had an impoverished childhood, with an abusive step-father...i can see how easy it would be for anyone to make a few wrong choices and not see a way back. And, like i said, without empathy, without being able to arouse empathy, very few novelists would be in work...nobody would care.

I can feel sympathy for the way they died without morally approving of all the life choices they made.

[Tom_Wescott]

Babybird,

What's the story behind your tag? Is that a joke or do you sincerely believe yourself as a weak-minded person?

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Mr Chumley]

an interesting side debate, i think you all have a point. These ladies chose their lives, they were hard women, who took from life what they wanted. Cicumstance and society had its part to play, as does the roll of the die, sometimes people are plain unlucky. it might be said that these ladies were unlucky to meet their end in they way they did, their choice of work put them in that situation. i do not think an empathy is the correct term as put by Ally previously, but one can feel sympathy for another human being who has lost their life, whatever the circumstances may be

[babybird67]

it's a joke Tom

Babybird,

What's the story behind your tag? Is that a joke or do you sincerely believe yourself as a weak-minded person?

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

and a long story...i will PM you with it if you are truly interested...my tag will be changing soon...i've changed it already about six times since i joined.

[Jeff Leahy]

You do talk utter tosh Ally…I’m born in Ethiopia during a famine.

Do I

a) Buy a ticket to the USA make a film about poverty and Marry a millionaire.

b) dig a well, irrigate the land, grow a huge crop and feed my fellow man

c) Bake bread from oats and bake them into cakes

d) Die of starvation like everyone else

While your figuring out the potential life style choices I’ll leave you to the romantic notion that everyone has unlimited choice. The fact is they do not.

I think Woody Allan said “people don’t like admitting the existence of LUCK because it means relinquishing control. If I’d been born in Germany I’d be a lamp shade by now.”

The fact is that life on the whole is about luck. And most of us just got lucky. Choice is largely the requisite of the rich. Unless of course you’ve done one of those American life style courses like the Landmark Forum..” I choose Vanilla ice-cream.” anything is possible sought of courses, like a giant sperm whale heading towards the earth trying to contemplate its existence only moments before hitting the earth. ..it's luck.

Pirate

[Tom_Wescott]

Babybird,

I figured as much, just had to ask due to the tone of the discussion.

Pirate,

Paul Stanley of KISS says, "It's funny how the harder you work, the luckier you get." It's true that some people just don't have a chance, but that's not the case for 95% of us, and certainly was not the case for the Ripper victims.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[babybird67]

definition of empathy..

em·pa·thy (mp-th)
n.
1. Identification with and understanding of another's situation, feelings, and motives. See Synonyms at pity.

No approval is required to approve ethically of the person one is empathising with.

[Ally]

You do talk utter tosh Ally…I’m born in Ethiopia during a famine.

......

While your figuring out the potential life style choices I’ll leave you to the romantic notion that everyone has unlimited choice. The fact is they do not.

No, you are full of idiocy Leahy and once again, your inability to comprehend what you read makes you look like an idiot.

I never said people have unlimited choices. I said in every circumstance they have * A * choice. A person in Ethiopa still has a choice. They can work hard scrabble and do their best to survive and maybe they make it and maybe they don't, but if they lay down in the gutter and don't even try, they definitely aren't going to make it.

And these woman that we are discussing ALL had better circumstances and ALL had better options that they CHOSE to piss away.

[Tom_Wescott]

Leahy? Is that Pirate's name?

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[babybird67]

hi Tom

Babybird,

I figured as much, just had to ask due to the tone of the discussion.

no problem Tom. I hope the tone is passionate but respectful. I respect Ally's views and her right to have them, whilst totalling believing she is wrong!

By the way, don't my postings demonstrate i dont have a weak mind?

[Ally]

Jen,

I noticed you searched around till you found the most simplistic and reduced definition of empathy you could find, one that doesn't even begin to describe the complexity of what the word empathy actually means.

Try this one: the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner ; also : the capacity for this

[Tom_Wescott]

Babybird,

You don't seem stupid at all, but perhaps a bit naive. I think Ally is offended by naive women with rose-colored glasses. Or at least women she perceives as such. I can understand that.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott