I remember seeing a comic some years ago in a sociology textbook. It showed a man face down on the ground covered in bruises and cuts, and an academic stands over him and says, “Oh my goodness - whoever did this to you is in need of some urgent help”. The punchline, of course, being that the perpetrator was in need of help rather than the victim. It was a bit of an anti-academia comic, in a way, suggesting that academics (perhaps classic Freudian left-leaning academics, mental health support rather than police punishment etc) would rather focus on the perpetrator rather than the victim, but I think it speaks to Alain de Botton’s point that the bigger picture is never seriously engaged with.
The mushroom murders is a classic example of this, as you say. Why does violence happen in the Holocene, given the economic conditions and education afforded to most of us in modern liberal societies - what pushes people to torture and kill in such heinous ways? Dostoyevsky, in The Brother’s Karamazov, might say that it is a part of our humanity without resolution, but I rather think it is an aberration rather than the rule, even if it happens so frequently and on such scale.
I always appreciate your thoughtful comments, Craig! I'd love to see that comic, I reckon it's start a great conversation. And I confess, much to my mother's disappointment, I've never read Dostoyevsky. Maybe one day!
Really loved the idea of breaking mundane news into more pertinent categories! Good read! and the more I think about it, I guess we could portray you cutting me as more of a Lennie from mice and men kind of move than an act of violence 😂
I remember seeing a comic some years ago in a sociology textbook. It showed a man face down on the ground covered in bruises and cuts, and an academic stands over him and says, “Oh my goodness - whoever did this to you is in need of some urgent help”. The punchline, of course, being that the perpetrator was in need of help rather than the victim. It was a bit of an anti-academia comic, in a way, suggesting that academics (perhaps classic Freudian left-leaning academics, mental health support rather than police punishment etc) would rather focus on the perpetrator rather than the victim, but I think it speaks to Alain de Botton’s point that the bigger picture is never seriously engaged with.
The mushroom murders is a classic example of this, as you say. Why does violence happen in the Holocene, given the economic conditions and education afforded to most of us in modern liberal societies - what pushes people to torture and kill in such heinous ways? Dostoyevsky, in The Brother’s Karamazov, might say that it is a part of our humanity without resolution, but I rather think it is an aberration rather than the rule, even if it happens so frequently and on such scale.
I always appreciate your thoughtful comments, Craig! I'd love to see that comic, I reckon it's start a great conversation. And I confess, much to my mother's disappointment, I've never read Dostoyevsky. Maybe one day!
Really loved the idea of breaking mundane news into more pertinent categories! Good read! and the more I think about it, I guess we could portray you cutting me as more of a Lennie from mice and men kind of move than an act of violence 😂
This is the most little brother comment ever lol