Bleeding hearts and awful journalism

Austin Barry

Odd, isn't it, most of just get on with our ordinary lives but to the hand-wringing, self-hating, anguished onanistic liberal elite we are all somehow responsible for the few evil creatures who dwell among us. Sorry, Ms Day, I don't buy it and nor, apart from your weak, emotionally incontinent self-flagellating chums, does anyone else.

Miv Tucker

Well, to echo Tonto's famous response to the Lone Ranger, "What you mean WE, white man?" I do wish the Elizabeth Days of this world would just leave me out of their, as Mr Barry eloquently puts it, onanistic liberal hand-wringing.

Beedeekay

It is the "we are Hizbollah syndrome". No matter how many terrible acts are perpetrated against us, these bleeding heart liberals are quite happy to let the evil doers get away with them and instead blame the innocent victims for somehow bringing disaster upon themselves. Thus after 9/11 we were told that "America had it coming" and 7/7 was our fault because of our foreign policy. You can see it happening again with the reporting of Gaza. The liberals don't give a damn and do not report the fact that 4,000 missiles have been launched against Israel - in their inverted logic, as with Ms. Day, the good guys are in the wrong and the evil ones can literally get away with murder. The World, truly has gone mad.

James Hickling

I would guess that Denise Fergus would be none to happy about Ms Day's pathetic liberal "reasoning". Expectations of human decency lead me to presume Ms Day would have warned her about the content, and I assume Mrs Fergus won't read it, owing to the gruesome description of James's death contained in it. Therefore the opportunism that Stephen correctly points out - Ms Day's liberal preening at the expense of a woman who justly remains distraught that the killers are "thinking they got away with murder" - will go unchecked. Still, that's Observer values for you.

Arbie

Perhaps I'm missing something here, which is worrying because I guess it opens me up to the all-encompassing attack on dirty liberals that this post and its comments seem devoted to... But are we all saying that we have no sense that children don't fully appreciate the impact of their actions? Of course this is one of the most extreme cases imaginable, not least because of its premeditation. But people premeditate going to war and yet it is commonly accepted that until you've been in it, you don't fully understand it. You know something is awful, you know in varying detail exactly how so, but that doesn't prevent people resorting to it. Likewise, however heinous this crime, it is unlikely that 10 year old children fully appreciated what it was doing. They would have understood it (in that they shouldn't be doing it), but they didn't appreciate it (in just how terrible a crime it was). Now perhaps they should have known, no? Well, yes, I think they should have known. When I was a child, I knew. Did you three? And if so, how? Perhaps because your parents, siblings, teachers, neighbours and everyone else let you know in no uncertain terms. We transplant our language, morals, accents, habits, fears, desires, and morals onto each generation, which as they grow older mould them further to their own needs. If we deem children unable to know when to marry at the right time, when to have sex, smoke, drink, drive, then we must accept that we as their elders have greater knowledge that we must impart to them and until they are sufficient to handle life by themselves, we must guide them through it. Does this make everyone responsible for the Bulger murder? Of course not. But the very social framework in which nearly everyone (liberal hand-wringers or not) learn their morals was clearly severely absent for these two boys. As a society, we believe that it is right to provide that framework. In this case, we did not. You are not personally responsible for this case, but you are aware that in your own social environment you entirely are responsible for it (your kids, pets etc are trained by you to behave correctly, and rightly so). People were horrified such an awful thing happened because we recognise our responsibility to those around us. When others do not fulfil that responsibility (family, for example), rather than letting the child lose anchor we should step in in whatever way (as a neighbour, teacher, vicar, samaritan). It isn't your responsibility for them going off the rails, but it is our responsibility to try and get them back on it before it is too late, because otherwise we wash our hands of the notion of righting wrong situations, of deeming it not worthy enough to put kids back on the rails just because they are not ours, even though we know both what the right rails are and we put our own kids on them. So stop this childish liberal hatred. I'm not one, as it happens, but I recognise that there is such a thing as society, primarily built around those tiny social units we take for granted as our nearest and dearest. Within them you no doubt live good lives, but when others don't we have a responsibility to step in to right them. It's the social form of interventionism. It's the recognition that there is a wrong and a right in this world and that it doesn't just exist, but you have to fight for it, to inculcate it, to nurture it, and to defend it. Without this moral grounding these kids committed heinous crimes, heinous crimes for which they are wholly responsible in its occurrence, but which would not have likely occurred had they had the right framework in which they grew up in this world. As the child psychiatrist in the article explains, 'More often than not, it is a complicated matrix of individual, familial and environmental risk factors that come together in a bad way at the same time.' This murder was the social equivalent of the perfect storm, one element of which society allowed to brew. Failed by others, Thompson and Venables became failures themselves who then grossly failed James Bulger. They hold clear primary responsibility for what happened. Thompson, especially, was regarded as a chillingly evil child. But to recognise that there were antecedents to this murder greater than the actions and thoughts of these two ten year olds is not to take part in self-hating, it is to recognise that if you don't fight for what is right you will lose it to those with either no knowledge, no appreciation, or no care for it. That is what happened the day James Bulger was murdered, and that is why we felt such rightful revulsion at what had happened. But instead of being revolted and solely blaming it on someone else, recognise that even though you personally had no responsibility for this action, you as a person have a responsibility to those around you to ensure things like this do not happen, and as a society as a whole we hold the same responsibility. No one around Venables and Thompson took that responsibility, and our revulsion is a sign of our appreciation that someone should have. This article simply reflects the feeling amongst the nation that these kids grossly failed James Bulger, that the two murderers’ social environments grossly failed them, and that as a broader society we have a right and a responsibility to intervene to prevent the cycle deepening. In this case, like many others, we did not. Society, at all applicable levels, failed to stop the rot, and James took the consequences.

Lee Jakeman

According to science (that's REAL science I'm talking about), man differs from the other animals because he has the power to change his environment. If he has the power to CHANGE his environment, then he obviously cannot be the PRODUCT of his environment. Reduced to its simplest form, this means that people are RESPONSIBLE for what they do and cannot shift responsibility onto other people or onto circumstances beyond their control. The "people are the product of their environment" line is a politically motivated lie. It may be good socialism, but it's not good science.

Verity

Stephen, your headlines should have been Hearts And Bleeding Awful Journalism.

Verity

Lee Jakeman - Well argued, sir! Thank you for giving us an answer we can deliver to the next bleeding heart. (I was going to mention how I'd deliver it, but thought Stephen might not let me back on the site.)

Austin Barry

Arbie, so "Thompson and Venables became failures themselves who then grossly failed James Bulger". No, they didn't "fail" him, they butchered the terrified little kid on a railway line. Why do you use evasive euphemisms to make your fugitive, we-are-all-guilty argument? Because, I suspect, reality may be just a little too difficult, a little too ugly, to reconcile with your Pollyanna view of the world.

Herbert Thornton

Ms. Day should change her name to Elizabeth Heinz-Kiosk.

Roy

A good point. The times I've shouted at the TV or radio . . . "speak for yourself", when I've heard that 'we'.

Nick Kaplan

Elizabeth Day’s moral relativism is disturbing, it is simply not true that there are no absolutes, there are, and not murdering any innocent defenseless person outside of extreme circumstances is one of them. This cannot be blamed on “society.” Even if she is seriously deluded and believes these two boys did not know that what they were doing was absolutely evil and wrong, how can she seriously say it is our fault because we implant our values on our children? Society makes perfectly clear that murder is absolutely wrong, if people choose to ignore this it is not our failing but their responsibility. The one aspect of society that one could perhaps blame is people such as herself; the lefty relativists. The more lefty liberal journalists keep telling everyone that they are not responsible for their actions, that it’s societies’ fault and that they should not be punished, the more it becomes self-perpetuating and the more people will fail to take responsibility. We need to make clear that crimes of this kind are completely wrong, we should be united in our condemnation, and strong in our resolve to punish such criminals and then maybe, just maybe such evils would become far rarer. So next time she thinks blaming the rest of society is right, she should take a good hard look in the mirror and consider her role in wreaking morality in society by pretending people are not responsible for their actions. And Arbie, perhaps you should consider the role the Liberal media play in declining morality before you accuse the rest of us for being childish for getting cross.

Austin Barry

Oh, dear, I've just re-read Arbie's post to see whether I'd somehow missed the point. Unfortunately for such a sensitive soul, Arbie writes, ".. put kids back on the rails just because they are not ours, even though we know both what the right rails are and we put our own kids on them...". Given the specific circumstances of James Bulgar's murder I can't think of a more unfortunate choice of words. But then Arbie doesn't really want to know about the killing: it's just part of a construct against a guilty society.

Minnie Ovens

Sorry Arbie, after the 6th line I reached for my razor to cut my throat but fell asleep. Now could you make whatever point you were making in less than two hours?