No silver for this mother’s betrayal…just blogging fame..
I hope free-lance writer Lisa Long enjoys her brief notoriety as a result of her blog post on The Blue Review that was re-published on the Huffington Post and Gawker, guaranteeing millions of readers. That should be worth at least a few more published articles for her, and maybe even a cable interview or two. After all, it would be a pity to deliberately and callously burden the life of her emotionally disturbed son and get nothing out of it at all.
One thing she is already getting as the result of her sensationally-titled essay “I am Adam Lanza’s Mother” is harsh criticism for making such a cynical and self-serving bargain. In her post, Long relates the harrowing tale of her life with her 13-year-old son, whose erratic behavior and emotional outbursts terrify and dismay her. In the most quoted portion of the post, she proclaims his equivalence to well-known serial killers:
“I am sharing this story because I am Adam Lanza’s mother. I am Dylan Klebold’s and Eric Harris’s mother. I am James Holmes’s mother. I am Jared Loughner’s mother. I am Seung-Hui Cho’s mother. And these boys—and their mothers—need help. In the wake of another horrific national tragedy, it’s easy to talk about guns. But it’s time to talk about mental illness.”
Gee, thanks Mom!
It’s also time to talk about blogging family members who exploit their loved ones for 30 pieces of silver, or in Long’s case, 15 minutes of fame. A writer’s family, friends and colleagues don’t exist to provide blog-fodder, and it is inarguably unethical for anyone to publish embarrassing or private information about another individual without that person’s consent. Yes, this applies to YouTube videos as well. If you choose to surrender your own secrets and privacy for a little online attention or a small check, that’s your choice. Exposing the secrets and private life of anyone else without their permission is ethically indefensible—unfair, disrespectful, irresponsible, cruel, reckless, uncaring and wrong. And doing this to your child? Horrible. Doing this to your mentally ill child? Despicable beyond redemption.
Yet this is exactly what Long did to her 13-year-old son “Michael,” relating harrowing episodes where he frightened and threatened her. She got even with him though: she has made certain that even if her son improves and recovers sufficiently to try to build a life for himself, any potential employer, business partner, teacher, date, lover, spouse, lender, or friend will have access to a post on the internet in which his own mother compares him to the deranged murderers of about a hundred victims.
On Slate, Hanna Rosin makes the point precisely, noting that this is old stuff for Long, who in previous blog posts has criticized her more normal children. The blogger gets no credit for appending a fake name, “Michael,” to her son, for her name is on her essay for all to see, she has included photographs, and, of course, anyone who knows her or the family will immediately also recognize who “Michael” really is. The rationalization that the massacre in Newtown was so momentous that it compels undermining the already fragile future of her own son to promote meaningful dialogue about mental illness doesn’t withstand a second of scrutiny. This was the perfect set of circumstances in which to sign a blog post “Anonymous”—not to protect the writer from the consequences of her own words, but to protect her son, who would, and now will, suffer because of them.
That kind and responsible action would have meant that Liza Long would have forfeited her best chance at fame, however, so instead, her troubled son has been embarrassed, exploited and branded as a monster for all time.
Was Long subconsciously punishing her son for the burden of caring for him? Could she have conceivably been unaware that her essay would haunt him for the rest of her life? Or did she simply not care? Was her primary goal public education, or personal advancement? Did no one suggest to her that the responsible and kind course would be to shield the identity of her family and son, and that her public policy goals could be achieved just as effectively without exploiting them?
If there is a monster at the center of ” I Am Adam Lanza’s Mother,” it isn’t Lisa Long’s son.
____________________________________________
Pointer: Althouse
Sources: Blue Review, Huffington Post, Slate
Graphic: Rakel Posse
Ethics Alarms 
Thank you, Jack, for addressing this. When I first saw the title of her blog, I was instantly offended. The gall of her amazed me, not only for exploiting her disturbed son, but for exploiting a woman who was so violently killed by her own disturbed child. Not to mention trying to get some limelight out of a tragedy. Dispicable.
Ms. Meitler, yet another person who claims to be able to comment on a subject she most definitely knows nothing about. This woman knows way too much about a child that is different and needs help. The fact is there is no help and what is out there is hard to find. I hope she continues to write and educate and as far as limelight goes I am sure she would rather have her son born without the suffering he has endured and and that many have endured. I understand you must be a person who finds the wrong in people first and I am sure you wish your comments make you feel that can downplay what Lisa was really saying, only I don’t think you heard her at all. Wake up she was telling a truth that can only serve society well “take care of your children, make sure parents have help in situations that they feel way out of control over and stop denying that there are many children out there who need help. The government needs to care more about children, their families, the kinds of schools that are out there to help children (who guess do feel lonely and bullied and teased and different -and no matter how hard a parent can try they spent half there time in school where frankly the educational sysyem fails them, the mental health system fails them and people like you want to continue to cover it all up.
Petey, my boy, I’ll tolerate dumb comments, but not fake e-mail addresses. The next comment with a fake one gets that comment killed, and you banned. Your choice. Don’t say you weren’t warned–twice. (See the Comments rules.)
“…yet another person who claims to be able to comment on a subject she most definitely knows nothing about.”
Au contraire, Mr. Wells. I am the mother of a child who not only was born prematurely resulting in cerebral palsy, but at the age of 3 was diagnosed with Autism. He is now 14. It is not easy, and I do have much first hand knowledge. I am my son’s expert–not the doctors who see him every few months, or the therapists who see him a couple times per week, or even the aide who sees him 5 out of 7 days–I am. Your assumption that I am “…a person who finds the wrong in people first…” without knowing the facts is also incorrect. I am completely understanding of the frustration we parents of special needs children feel. I actively seek out help for my family. I make sure my son gets all that he needs, both in the school system and the community. There are local, state, and federal programs available, and when appropriate, we use them.
I am sorry that Ms. Long’s son had to be committed. I admire her for making sure he was in a facility which could protect him and help him. I am glad her family is now safe. She did the right thing. I am not sorry that I am still appalled that she titled her blog post “I Am Adam Lanza’s Mother”. She is not, she is just one of countless other moms who could be in the same or similar situation as Ms. Lanza.
I suspect that your name is not Peter, since you do seem to be personally offended by my posting about Ms. Long, but no matter.
Dispicable? Not at all a brave woman speaking the truth? Yes, yes and yes. Offended really? How would her blog make you offended? Does honesty and coming forward to point attention to a situation she has first hand knowledge of make her exploitative – only if the person reading it is unwilling to deny a reality that many parents live with so they can hang their lofty ideas on something they could not possbily imagine happen with their child. Stay in your little world because that is probably what you need to do, but don’t make comments on someone finally having the courage to say I need help, my child needs help and maybe we should all face a little reality here. Though from your comment having the nerve to comment about the women who was killed as if you have a personal right to be offended. That poor women who was killed she never got to speak.
You know why because society doesn’t want to hear about the child who is not born smiling and happy and perfect. Help does not come easily or quickly and having comments from people like you, who regulated that poor deceased woman who probably was crying quietly for help, but afraid to say anything because people would assume their child is just bad. She kept to herself because she was afraid, afraid of what would happen to her son afraid or what people would think of her son and helpless because she felt she had no place to turn to. Shame on you.
Yes, nothing so brave as labelling your troubled teen as a future mass murderer. The ends justifies the means, right? You’re either on the wrong website, beacuse you don’t know ethics from jellybeans, or the right one, because you have a lot to learn.
Peter, I think you misunderstood my stance on Ms. Lanza. I realize she did not have the right to speak– my being offended had to do with Ms. Long exploiting the tragedy to turn attention to herself. Ms. Lanza was not even cold when Ms. Long wrote her blog post!
“…people like you, who regulated that poor deceased woman who probably was crying quietly for help, but afraid to say anything because people would assume their child is just bad.”
Uh, what? I don’t know what you mean by “regulated”. I meant to stand up for Ms. Lanza.
I have read your rant(s) and am done responding to you now. Have a nice day.
I had seen the blog post in several permutations, all of which were, indeed, anonymous, except of course to the extent that people who know the principals might be able to recognize their family members, neighbors, or whatever. Nor were there any photographs on the versions I saw. I even posted one such iteration on the Curmudgeon Central Facebook page–and yes, the anonymity of the author (and hence of the son) was a factor in my willingness to do so. I suppose I could/should have checked to see if there were clues to the author’s identity anywhere in the blog; I didn’t, although I did check the “about me” section, which was obviously pseudonymous.
I might add in this regard that my own blog is structured the same way in privacy terms: I never mention my own name, nor where (specifically) I work, but anyone who really wants to identify me could do so with a minimum of effort, even if there weren’t friends re-posting or linking to my stuff, calling me by name. I am–as you are aware, Jack–perfectly OK with that arrangement.
In the absence of other information (and I appreciate the significance of the “old stuff” argument), I see no problems with the post itself, independent of the ability to determine “Michael’s” actual identity. Indeed, I regarded Ms. Long’s post as quite possibly fiction, although certainly plausible. I thought the point was worth making, and I share Cocteau’s view of art that fiction is often more true than fact. I posted it anyway, because what is described in the piece is certainly true of someone. I have an acquaintance (and no, I’m not providing further identification) who is in a similar situation, and the article rings true to his experience, or at least to my perception of it.
I’d make one further point: I don’t know if Ms. Long claimed “credit” for the blog piece, or if she was “outed.” The latter certainly happens. I know of at least one case in which the blogger used a pseudonym. But the piece went viral and a local TV station figured out (and released) the writer’s identity. His name already having been made public by someone else, he then agreed to do interviews in his own persona.
I’m not saying that’s what happened in this case. But I’m going to withhold judgment until I know more than I do now… Yes, I could do some looking, but I need to get back to the stack of research papers: grades are due tomorrow at noon.
That’s completely new to me. Long has a blog on the Blue Review under her name, and that’s where and how the post first appeared, as far as I can determine. She already has had a little tiff with one of her critics, and didn’t deny that it was a signed piece. Did some publications reprint the post but omit her name? If so, good for them, but clearly some of the ones with the most traffic, like the Huffington Post, did not. Obviously if it wasn’t possible to connect the son in the post to a real child, there was no problem.
I can’t see how if the post were fiction it would be any more defensible, unless it was anonymous. It would be worse, wouldn’t it? Then a completely healthy and blameless child would have to explain that no, he wasn’t really a serial killer.
I’ve never read a Post of yours, Rick, that betrayed the trust of any students, friends or family members for a vivid essay.
I didn’t mean to suggest that fiction would be more defensible–unless it were clearly identified as such, of course, or anonymous. But since the post I read was (effectively) anonymous, the chance of a fictional story being taken as exemplary rather than literally true certainly loomed in my mind.
Of course, if the original post was signed and the version I read was unattributed, that opens up a whole different can of worms: protection of the son, but plagiarizing to do so, as the post clearly wasn’t by the anonymous author of the blog in question. And it appeared not as a link but as an original essay.
Lisa LOng is right on target and only a mother with a child who has difficuluties would know this. You sit on your pedestal and proclaim your so called injustice as to what she wrote. She did not betray her son’s trust, she is letting America know this is a child who is loved and cared for and who no one can seem to help her with. Your self-righteous is just ignorance lets go back to the past and see how that has served people well. You should be ashamed of yourself for commenting on something that has been hidden from the American public – helping children who are not born perfect, who have a lot of good in them, but instead you chose to be an ignormous speaking of something you know nothing about. It is about time America paid attention to our children who are having troubles and come up with solutions.
An astoundingly obtuse comment. There was absolutely no reason to brand her own son a potential serial killer to make her point. None at all. He will have to live with that label all his life, and it may well be a permanent bar to employment, relationships, and recovery. How does her betrayal “help” her child in any way? Did her son approve of her comparing her to a serial killer? Did he anticipate that she would go on the internet and make their private conversations public? If not, and there is no if about it, she betrayed him.
The rest of your comment is just random invective and ignorant blather—pathetic. So are the other three comments that followed this one. They just show you don’t comprehend confidentiality, privacy, fairness, respect or duty—the topic of the blog, in fact. I am a parent, and ethicist and a blogger, and I know that you don’t exploit your own child and thrust him into the spotlight to get a lousy 15 minutes of fame. If you have any integrity and common sense, you can raise any issue powerfully without hurting further the vulnerable, trusting child who is already in trouble.
Most obnoxious comment of the month—pompous, insulting AND dumb. Bravo.
I have to disagree here. Must this woman be required to suffer in silence? An anonymous post does not have nearly the same impact as someone who has stepped decisively out of the shadows. She has changed his name so that would not be google-able to future strangers. Friends and family, if her story is anywhere near true, are already well acquainted with her tale. Raising a mentally ill child isn’t something that she should have to hide; isn’t the thrust of her post to get rid of the stigma tht you are trying to relegate her to? By the time he is grown, and if cured, ready to face the world, “Michael” won’t resemble those pictures, it isn’t his real name anyway, Lisa Long is a sufficiently common name that there should be no link between them, and friends and family already know the issues that the author is dealing with. So what harm has she imposed on her son, as opposed to the hope and relief, and empathy that she has given to thousands of people who have shared her struggle but until reading her essay thought they were the only one?
Your comment doesn’t address the topic at hand, and makes no sense. Should she suffer in silence if the alternative is impugning the reputation and character of her son? Yes. Sure a named piece is more powerful–it also breaches the privacy of her son without his consent. The rest is pure rationalization. “It’s a common name”—come on. The SON will know the post is about him, if nothing else. Way to set off a volatile kid, Mom. What harm has she imposed on her son? How can you ask that? Would you like to have your mother announce to the world that you’re a nascent serial killer?
If I was behaving the way her son is behaving, a blog post about it would be the least of my worries. Her son is surely familiar enough with his own behaviors and actions, nothing she has written should come as a surprise if he is lucid enough to even understand her post. But if he is lucid, then it need not be explained that trying to stab your mother, and frightening your siblings enough that they need a safety plan in case you come after them is deeply troubling behavior, blog or no blog. If he isn’t lucid, then it doesn’t matter that much anyway.
I believe that the author has put in place adequate enough safeguards that if, in the future, he is sufficiently cured enough to function in society, the post that she has written should not be linked to him by anonymous strangers. Friends and family would already know the tale, with or without the post.
“If I was behaving the way her son is behaving, a blog post about it would be the least of my worries.”
Classic unethical rationalization, and my personal least favorite: “It’s not the worst thing.” So misconduct is to be judged on a sliding scale—the more problems someone has, the worse he can be treated?
Not really. Just that as I noted later in the post, if he is lucid enough to worry about that, he should probably start first by addressing the behaviors, like not trying to stab someone, rather than what his mother what might be posting about him using a pseudonym. Perhaps seeing it written down in black and white might sserve as a wake up call for him. But in any case, the harm that you outlined originally in your post, that complete strangers could look him and up, and somehow know that he was the “Michael” that a woman named Lisa Long was talking about in a blog post, is very remote, if not nonexistent.
Nonsense. It’s not remote at all. Online research goes very deep. And ethically, it doesn’t matter—this is an appeal to another rationalization. The point is, it shouldn’t be out there, he didn’t approve of it, it is potentially embarrassing and damaging, and his mother is the one who exposed him. No excuses for any of this.
Yes. I believe that it does have a place out there. It is a story that should be told. You brought up the point that originally that even if the story should be told, it should be counterbalanced by weighing the harm of “Michael” by telling her story. You seem to think that such a story should only be put out there anonymously (though there is certainly no safeguard for that either). I think that the author put in enough guards to adequately protect him, f sometime in the furure, he is able to recover enough to function in society. But I do believe she has a right to tell her story, with or without Michael’s permission, and I don’t believe she behaved unethically in doing so.
This isn’t about “rights.” She has a right to announce every embarrassing thing about her family she’s ever learned. She has a right to betray everyone who ever trusted her. They have no recourse in law. The point is, it’s wrong. There is no balance here. You don’t throw your child to the wolves because you want a blog published. Pure Kant: you don’t trade off human beings for other goals. It is unequivocally wrong. She is a mother, and her first duty is to her child’s welfare, not public policy or her blogging career.
That’s the whole thing. She didn’t throw him to the wolves. Posting about her struggles with her mentally ill son is not throwing him to the wolves. Otherwise no one could ever post or talk about their own struggles that may happen to involve other people or family memebers. You sound very much like those people who want family members to not talk about being sexually abused by family members in the past, or by long dead family members (wouldn’t want to harm dead grandpa’s repution).
Some things should be talked about, publically. Some things should not be swept under the rug, under a mountain of shame. She has a mentally ill, violent, dangerous son. She isn’t the only one out there. Perhaps seeing her struggles, and knowing that she is a real person prevents someone from giving into despair, or causes someone else to recognize the warning signs before it is too late. If we are ever going to grapple openly and honestly about mental illness, and exactly how we as a society should change our techniques regarding it, more Lisa Longs are going to have to come forward out of the shadows. I cannot condemn her for her bravery.
Writing about secrets and conduct another person would not want revealed, when that person had reason to trust that they would not be revealed, without consent, is wrong. Always. It’s not complicated.
Oh yes deery, nothing that a good kick in the ass wouldn’t solve. You have no idea what you’re talking about. See MIchael is human and so are many other children who are suffering the way he is. I wonder perhaps if maybe you’re not, from your response to Ms Long’s article. Why don’t you do a little research before you make such an asinine response to a mother who is suffering along with her son who clearly needs help. Oh Lord I hope society is way more educated than you are and listen to human stories without thinking they can solve them by a simple beating.
Don’t worry, Deery, this jackass left a fake email—you won’t be hearing from him again.
The title of the piece repulsed me right away. My first thought was ‘How dare she?’ Me,me,me…look at me…she reminds me of another horrid mother who wrote a huge blog post about how her autistic daughters weren’t invited to a wedding out of nastiness because of their condition when a little online research revealed that NO children were invited to the wedding. The comment thread overwhelmingly telling the mother that she had no right to demand that anyone be invited to a wedding, let alone only because she’d ‘already told her girls they were going and they were looking at dresses’ was deleted in it’s entirety.
This woman’s betrayal of her son is horrible. deery, no one is asking her to ‘suffer in silence’, How does writing this emotional blog piece help her or her son in any way? She already has professional help for him, as she herself details. Mental illness is not instantly curable, sometimes many modes of treatment, many drugs, have to be tried before what works for that particular patient is found. That treatment is not working all that well at this point does not mean she is not being helped. If helping her son was her primary goal the post would have stated so, and it does not , It is sensation attention grabbing at it’s worst. You’ve veered into Oprah territory, with the ‘brave coming out of the shadows’ emotional appeal. Who said she was ever ‘in the shadows’? She could have talked about her problem without throwing her son under the bus by comparing him to serial killers. Period.
On the intake form, under the question, “What are your expectations for treatment?” I wrote, “I need help.”
And I do. This problem is too big for me to handle on my own. Sometimes there are no good options. So you just pray for grace and trust that in hindsight, it will all make sense.
I am sharing this story because I am Adam Lanza’s mother. I am Dylan Klebold’s and Eric Harris’s mother. I am James Holmes’s mother. I am Jared Loughner’s mother. I am Seung-Hui Cho’s mother. And these boys—and their mothers—need help. In the wake of another horrific national tragedy, it’s easy to talk about guns. But it’s time to talk about mental illness.
According to Mother Jones, since 1982, 61 mass murders involving firearms have occurred throughout the country. Of these, 43 of the killers were white males, and only one was a woman. Mother Jones focused on whether the killers obtained their guns legally (most did). But this highly visible sign of mental illness should lead us to consider how many people in the U.S. live in fear, like I do.
Here she outlines why she is writing the piece. And it does seem in part, like a cry for help, for soome other solutions other than the penal system for her son. She obviously feels that what she has encountered so far is inadequate to solve the problem, and she wants to open a dialogue. In this instance, the goal seems to be working.
Too bad. Just spilling your guts and the problems of family members in a public forum isn’t a cry for help, it’s a cry for attention, which is something quite different.
So you’re saying that a cry for help should be whispered, preferably anonymously? That makes no sense. Crying for help and attention are not mutually exclusive; on the contrary, it’s pretty much impossible to cry for help without also implicitly crying for attention.
Someone who is drowning doesn’t demurely whisper “help…. help.” They scream HELP! HELP! Asking a drowning victim to please drown more quietly and without crying for attention, which is essentially what you’re doing here, is ridiculous.
She’s obviously hoping to either hear from people who have useful advice for her, but who she hasn’t been able to find through the usual channes; or to get in touch with other parents in similar situations for the purpose of mutual support. Both of those purposes are served by doing something in public.
Will it help her son? It might, if it leads to her getting help that she wouldn’t have been able to locate otherwise.
Of course I’m not saying that! I’m saying it is unconscionable for a mother to stigmatize her son publicly for life, and that their personal interactions, no matter how dramatic, are not to be used as convenient blog-fodder. At 13 and with emotional problems, her son couldn’t validly consent even if he were asked. This is narcissism and self-aggrandizing publicity-seeking, not a cry for help. A cry to who? Blog readers? There are places and professionals to seek out for help that don’t require that you call your young son, who isn’t, a mass murderer.
Her post is unforgivable.
agree
Well said! This awful, selfish woman has just begun a media tour–a media tour based around the failings of her own son–and nobody seems to realize how disgusting that is. Children are humans too, even though Lisa Long and her followers would make you think otherwise. We don’t even know what, if anything, was actually wrong with Adam Lanza, yet before the bodies had even cooled, Long was claiming her son has the same problems. The whole thing has incensed me beyond belief and the lack of thoughtful, empathic people such as yourself has really depressed me.
Another problem I have with this whole mentally ill children and their parents narrative is the parents always portray themselves as the victims, rather than the children; it’s never the child–the one with the purported illness–who is sufferer ad victim. Even one of the commenters above asks why must she “suffer in silence”? Because the parents are not the one’s suffering! They are not the ones with an illness! It is the children who are sick and suffering! American society is full of these child-parents–parents who behave like children and make everything about them, how they’re feeling, their pain. And when their child becomes ill, guess what, it’s about them, too. The carer becomes the sick. Long’s piece is one self-indulgent, selfish pity party. We never hear Michaels side of the story, all we get is a rather one-dimensional violent stereotype and the poor, long-suffering mother who has to deal with him/it. And almost in orchestrated unison the public pity the poor mother. Question how Michael must feel about all this and that pitying public’ll bite your head off. Parents are sacred. Mother is queen. And children aren’t even human.
Writing about secrets and conduct another person would not want revealed, when that person had reason to trust that they would not be revealed, without consent, is wrong. Always. It’s not complicated.
I can think of many reasons to write about things another person may not want revealed. To prevent greater harm to that person or innocent individuals for instance.
But in this I’m not even sure if the conduct is secret, as such. The individual has had the police called on him, has been committed to the pysch ward at a hospital, and attends a public school for children with behavior problems. So what would be the secret? That he tried to stab her? That he is a threat to her, his siblings, and the greater community? That, I think, should be perhaps more widely known, and not be a closely held secret. What obligation does she have to tell people her son is a threat to the broader public at large?
Why can’t you get it? She compares her son, her son who is ill, to killers!
‘The individual has had the police called on him, has been committed to the pysch ward at a hospital, and attends a public school for children with behavior problems. So what would be the secret?’
So now you contradict yourself…..how is she ‘in the shadows’ and has to ‘step out’ if he has been committed, goes to a school for troubled children and the local police have been involved?
Now this writer, who has a 6-year-old, could have written a hysterical article entitled ‘It Could Have Been MY Child!!!’ but didn’t…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-rowe-walters/what-six-looks-like_b_2321671.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003
She compared her son to killers…because he tried to kill her. To the point where she can’t leave anything sharp around him. And he is apparently threatening enough to his siblings that they have “safety plan” in place, just in case he tries to harm them too. Her son is mentally ill, like the killers she has outlined. In the case of the Klebolds and the Virginia Tech guy, the parents tried to get help, but were unsuccessful, leading to tragedy for many others besides. I’m sure that none of the killers parents thought they would become mass murderers. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.
So now you contradict yourself…..how is she ‘in the shadows’ and has to ‘step out’ if he has been committed, goes to a school for troubled children and the local police have been involved?
Stepping out of the shadows to the wider public, offerring a discourse on mental health issues, including other families which may be struggling with the same issues. That’s what I mean by “stepping out of the shadows.” Even if her son’s conduct is known, it might be better to talk about it forthrightly, rather than be ashamed, and let whispers trail in her wake, especially while public policy remains unchanged.
In a blog post…..not to a Medical Association, not to the American Psychiatric Association, not a letter to her local Congressman to lobby for better mental health care, but a blog post…
You’re projecting a lot onto this author that isn’t even hinted at in the article, ‘secrets’, ‘being ashamed’ ‘hiding’ etc, Are you certain (and with what do you back it up with, besides your feelings?) that her son was actually attempting to kill her? Did she say it was a murder attempt? The point remains that she wrote an article betraying her own child for attention. Read some of her other posts about her other children and tell me if she still sounds like some kind of hero.
If she really believes what she wrote, she should have her son committed. If he really becomes violent enough that the police have to be called when he is in a “bad mood”, he really needs to be locked up. To require teachers to have to deal with a child who will hurt them if he can, to allow this child to be outside where a small child will be injured or killed if he isn’t in a “good mood”, and to risk the safety of her other children is irresponsible at best. I am not suggesting that this would be an easy decision, but it should be done. Yes, let us talk about mental illness including what needs to be done with the mentally I’ll who are dangerous. What do you do with a child who is violent and mentally I’ll? This mother thinks someone should be required to come in and “fix” her son, but what happens when the truth is that he can’t be fixed? Do you wait for him to seriously injure someone, or does he have to kill someone? Does he have to kill multiple people?
There is mentally ill man in my town who killed the grandfather of one of my students. He didn’t mean to, he just couldn’t help himself. I see him hang around my campus, I have seen him walk right in front of my house and by groups of playing children. What should be done about this man? Yes, mental health advocates, let’s have a real talk about mental illness.
“Michael” sounds like a very, very angry 13 year old. What in the world could make a boy of his age so angry?
This subject needs to be discussed, preferably anonymously, and intended to be anonymous. But discussed it must be. During the years of my medical training and early practice, the inpatient psych wards were greatly reduced because of the “miracle” of behavioral control (read: zombification) induced by improved pharmaceuticals, and an improved understanding of neurochemistry. Previously, the severely ill were “institutionalized,” but it turned out to be too expensive, so the severely ill and mentally incompetent are released onto the streets, except in all but the most dire circumstances. Now, the miraculous wonder psychotropic drugs carry black label warnings that indicate the susceptibility for the drugs themselves to enable violent acts: homicide and suicide. So, you have individuals of marginally competent judgment in the first place, placed on psychotropics known to induce violent behavior. But it’s all OK, because BigPharma has made sure that the drugs continue to get used and their “indications” or reasons for use, expand, including the initially unapproved and untested use in teenagers, and young people whose mental faculties for judgment are notoriously unstable and immature.
I don’t doubt that there is some self-interest, even self-absorption by the Blogger in question, but the story must be told, and it must be told NOW and in the current context. And to wait for her (posthumous) blog to come out after “Michael” kills her to ensure that she has had a legitimate narrative about her son, and the formation of the potential mass murderer, is not going to help the discussion. If you need more evidence to realize that she indeed COULD have been Adam Lanza’s mother, we need a more competent “jury.”
No argument with the discussion. There was no justification for branding her son publicly as a dangerous potential killer to have that discussion. If Lisa couldn’t think of any other way, then she is too dim-witted and irresponsible to be blogging. Or parenting.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. It is appalling to me that anyone would think that publicly shaming a child is a proper way to start a conversation about gun violence or mental health in this country. I have written two articles on this issue because I don’t think I’ve ever been so upset by anything I’ve ever seen written online, and that is saying quite a lot. If you’re interested, here are my posts:
No, You Are Not Adam Lanza’s Mother and Yes, Your Kid’s Privacy Matters
http://www.disabilityandrepresentation.com/2012/12/16/no-you-are-not-adam-lanzas-mother/
On the Ethics and Implications of Outing a Child in the Media: The I Am Adam Lanza’s Mother Debacle
http://www.disabilityandrepresentation.com/2012/12/18/debriefing/
One test of an ethical decision is whether of not you would be happy to make your decision public. For parents wrestling with the love, fear, pain, panic and distress for their disturbed and frightening children, and who live in terror that they might turn out to do the kind of harm that Adam Lanza did, there are clearly many who are willing to go public, (and without even attempting to hide behind anonymity in most cases) if this Huffington Post reaction is anything to go by http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/17/liza-long-parents-of-violent-children-respond_n_2318002.html
How can the “test of an ethical decision is whether of not you would be happy to make your decision public”? The decision to engage in conduct has nothing to do with the actor’s attitude toward it. Stealing is OK if you go public with it? Lying is OK if you tell everyone about it afterwards? This is a nonsensical statement. When people say “Ethics is what you do when nobody’s looking” they mean that the test of one’s character is whether one does the right thing even when there are no negative consequences of the wrong thing. Your extrapolation from that is gibberish.
Jack, I am only a new student of ethics, but I can assure you that ‘The Publicity Test’ is referred to in just about every major textbook that covers the subject (a search on Google books will list numerous sources if anyone doubts this). Ethical decision making almost always means arriving at several possible options, and in the case of a student like myself who is training to counsel people who may have ethical dilemmas that are troubling them, this is just one of the tests that is suggested to help people arrive at a place where they can feel comfortable with the option they arrive at. Whilst everyone would like to everyone to be practising the ‘ethics when nobody is looking’ thing, sometime this isn’t possible. Of course, ‘The Publicity Test’ assumes that you are making a judgement about what ‘reasonable’ people would say, for instance if you went public about lying (say, to defend a child) or stealing (say, food to feed your starving children). It would appear that Lisa Long made the decision that writing about her fears concerning her inability to secure adequate help for her and her son, in the context of what happened to another mother also trying to do her best with her difficult son, was an ethical option she chose. It has struck a chord with a lot of other parents of children with whom they experience similar difficulties getting help, and who similarly fear the consequences. Very likely their family, friends, neighbours, schools, blog followers, etc. are already aware of their fears and these parents do not think wider publicity of their concerns is unethical when weighed against the possibility it might get them and their children better help and possibly prevent future tragedies. Who’s to know if that makes them, and the people who support them, unreasonable?
The so called publicity test (It is often called “the New York Times Test”) is not a means of ethical evaluation or a system of ethical analysis. It’s way to get the ethics alarms to ring, along with “the Mom Test” and the “Gut Test.” These are ways to check conduct and see if you missed a possible ethical problem. The fact that none of these bother you—“Nope, nothing in my gut”…”Nope, don’t mind telling Mom”…”Nope, don’t care who knows”…doesn’t mean that your conduct isn’t wrong, and the fact that any of them do bother you doesn’t prove that your conduct was unethical either. We can still our ethics alarms and all those “tests.” The sociopathic, egotistical and self-righteous can still ALL of them. I don’t care how “comfortable” one feels with an unethical action—it’s still unethical.
Long chose an unethical option, no matter how she or anyone else rationalizes it, no matter how she arrived at the decision.
And I have to say, the argument that a blog post will get Lisa “better help” is laughable. What it gets her is more publicity and notoriety and perhaps vengeance against her son whom she feels has wrecked her life. What it gets her son is one more burden for a kid who has too many already.
I understand that the massive publicity this blog post generated has resulted in some new avenues of possible help being offered to Lisa Long and other parents like her who felt moved to go public with their fears concerning their own children.
It seems clear that the ‘publicity’, ‘Mom’ and ‘gut’ tests sounded alarms for you in this case, but I venture to suggest that you have probably been lucky enough not to have been subject to the very great stresses of this type of dilemma – which psychologists do identify as a ‘family system problem’ – and which do require expert help if they are to be resolved. My own sister, mostly an exceptionally bright, talented and lovely person, also suffered from instability that left us as a family frightened both of her and for her. After she attacked a woman she did not know in public, she was termed ‘dangerously insane’ and prescribed more medication, but neither she nor the family was offered any other help. She committed suicide not long after, fearful of what she would do next. Lisa Long may have wished her son dead at times (and I, and my family, know that feeling), but really she just wanted more and better help. Hopefully, now, she and the other parents in her position will get that.
1. What she wanted is irrelevant.
2. Her plight is irrelevant.
3. Your sister’s experience, though tragic, is also irrelevant.
What is relevant is that Long exploited her emotionally ill son for a blog post, tarred him publicly as dangerous, and did him permanent harm—and he is only 13. There is no excuse for this. It is wrong.
“… really she just wanted more and better help. Hopefully, now, she and the other parents will get that.”
I can read your post in that light; whereas I read Long’s post as Jack and others have read it.
Across language and social process you here make use of, I and others could engage with you across the ideas you express in the above fragment. Long’s language and her “exploitation” of the social process of blogging, saw her engage in, and speak of, actions towards her son, which were and are not in his interests, from the point of view of many (a many who include, as with you and your family, those who care for those who can on occasion act violently towards others).
There are then several categories of concern, and they having to do with how the social process which Long has exploited allows for reaction and response. Firstly, many have pointed up how Long’s narrative on her son, risks contributing to fundamental misunderstandings of constituencies of people, and misunderstanding of what sees persons become violent. Secondly, and this perhaps one crux of things. Long’s narrative risks contributing to a proactively-defensive or preemptive approach to a constituency of people; where that approach risks enegendering violence rather than resolving what leads to it. Thirdly, Long’s narrative airbrushes out the crucial implication of society as a whole, the implication of all of us in what any one of us does; replacing this complexity with the reductive simplicity of any problem lying in the unhealth of particular people.
I think Long’s narrative is dysfunctional and unethical, because it does not allow for and demand, that “Michael” be addressed and treated on the same basis of recognition and rights and being that she is implicitly requiring and requesting for herself. It is not enough that “Michael” end the thing of ill-health and dangerousness he is in her narrative; not enough that his potential be seen as capacity for mass-murdering.
It is then not suprising that some reflexively view Long in the light in which she sought to cast her son. Not surprising that some reflexively leap to defence of and advocacy for the human being “behind” the image of her son she has chosen to offer us.
None of that detracts from the eminently ethical sentiments of your own post. Help is needed. But that help, to be effective, will not take the form of whatever is triggered by Long’s narrative on Michael.
I quite like what I take to be Kant’s rubric for ethicality. I take him to be saying that we ought to proceed on the presumption that what we do should become universal. I find your post ethical because I experience no objection to its import attaining universality. Whereas Long’s post sees me at barricades defending against the possibility of its import going universal.
Thank you Colin for your considered and thoughtful response, acknowledging the relevance of making a public cry for help in these circumstances. Do you believe Lisa Long, and the other parents who have come out about their own fears, should have ensured that they took every possible step to ensure anonymity to protect their children, and b) that they, and Lisa Long, should make it very clear that there is not always a link between mental instability and violence, or violence and mass murder, and that to make these links is just an expression of fear which is neither reasonable, or universal?
Nancy I favour a model of parenting and caring, especially of the very young, where we are the (sometimes safeguarding and sometimes facilitating) hand-maidens or service-mechanics of the self-realisation of the other we parent or care for. The question then arises: what in Michael’s presentation would allow Michael’s mother to conclude that to serve Michael’s self-realising she should do as she has done in her blog-post? I would have fundamental concerns about the self-realising pathway which Michael’s mother’s blogging-activity has opened up for him. I would not have confidence that Michael had given any informed-consent to his mother doing as she has done. The view I have of the blogosphere suggests to me that it is not a medium suited to keeping Michael’s self-realisation at the centre of discussion. I’m not certain that Michael’s self-realising is even allowed for in what Michael’s mother’s controversial blog-post speaks of. I’m unclear as to how an approach focusing on the dangers Michael hypothetically poses to others (this at the heart of the help Michael’s mother appears to be asking for), can allow for his self-realising at all. In approaching violent presentation in children professionally, I would always focus on the self-realising the child is putatively engaging in; where my experience is that allowing for that self-realisation in a managed way, is the first step in leading the child to non-violent ways of self-realising.
I suspect that Michael’s mother does need help, if she and Michael are to have prospect of relating and interacting non-violently, if she is to have prospect of participating in Michael’s process of self-realisation. The question of Michael’s anonymity then has two aspects. In the first it can be conceded that blogging about Michael as she did, spoke more to her own incapacity in parenting Michael, than it served Michael’s interests. In the second it leaves open the door as to what type of help she and Michael might now get; where that might or might not see Michael better served as he goes forward.
Most of us would not do what Michael’s mother did in blogging about him as she did. Many of us would remain concerned about how this blogging will now affect Michael’s care and education and prospects going forward. But we do now know about him. If our concern is great enough, then we will not forget about him.
Michael is and was, it seems in his mother’s narrative, in a bad place. How his anonymity has been breached, and what the consequence of that will be going forward, becomes an empirical question only open to empirical answer.
Your other points are more complex, and more difficult to respond to. It seems to me that this complexity attaches to “mental instability” and “violence” and “mass murder” being constructions which are doing huge things in the conversations we are trying to have. Fear is more straightword, something more readily identifiable: and as something which shapes and drives so much of what we humans do. Michael will be driven by fear in some way; any violence he engages in is probably some attempt to deal with fear. Mental instability does seem to be something we generally fear: whether we encounter that instability in ourselves or others. Likewise violence is something most of us fear: albeit we seem hardwired to protect ourselves against the threat of violence; where that arguably leads us into activity which itself becomes part of cycles of violence. We then have traditions of peace and civility which strive to head off violence by way of seeking to establish peace and civility in how we live and act. It seems to me as if discussion around Michael’s mother’s blog-post, and around the tragedy which triggered that blog-post, sees these two approaches to violence writhing beneath what we saying to each other.
The one approach, which rather accepts violence as an irreducable given, argues for stronger preemptive measures to protect “us” against those of us who might behave violently towards others of us. Whether its armed guards in all schools, or more robust and better-resourced mental-health intervention, the aim is that of throwing a containing screen around the threat, and a protective screen around the rest of “us”. The other approach, which sets out to understand and preempt the emergence of violence and murder and mental instability, tends to look holistically at how we collectively live, and tends to require adjustment across the whole of that way of living.
The constructions employed by these two approaches differ. For the constituency supporting one approach, the link between mental instability and violence and murder and mass murder, is taken to hold; and here, how each of thse things is seen and constructed, sees the link validated. A constituency approaching these things differently, constructs each of these things differently than does the other approach; all such that this link is not valid for this latter constituency.
While I understand and personally agree with what you say, I can also see that Michael’s mother, and the constituency in which she is embedded, can but see and voice the view of things which Michael’s mother did in her blog-post. Our own views are then constrained by them differing from the views of others.
If we get into a winner-takes-all competition or conflict, across our differing views, then we become and remain embedded in a cycle of violence. The alternative is to dig into the substratum across which our differences of view arise. Michael is a casualty of our sustaining of cycles of violence. Whatever violence he contributes to things, is fed by the cycles of violence in which we are implicated. If we are to template and role-model what might see Michael self-realise without violence, then we have to do the R&D on how to do things without violence.
What we might then agree on, is that we do have a collective problem of violence, and that we have a long way to go to see that problem resolved.
received and responded to.
Thank you again for another thoughtful and thought-provoking reply, Colin. I liked that you said ‘If we get into a winner-takes-all competition or conflict, across our differing views, then we become and remain embedded in a cycle of violence.’ I agree that we do have a collective problem of violence, and a long way to go to see that problem resolved. I agree too that ‘Michael’s’ mother feeling trapped in that ‘constituency in which she is embedded’ appears to have lost sight of her son’s potential for self-realising in all but the most negative ways. I think that violent reactions to her actions, rather than compassion, just perpetuate that collective problem of violence.
What “violent reactions” to her actions? Who tried to hurt her or shoot her? There is nothing violent about pointing out that a mother has affirmatively harmed her own child, in order to get some notoriety. There is, on the other hand, a lot responsible about it.
One thing that makes it hard to talk intelligently and productively about violence is that people keep using “violence” to describe any conflict at all. Conflict is part of living. Violence doesn’t have to be.
She also has no understanding of what the many neurological differences she lists are.
ASD, lacking empathy? ADHD, hateful? Sadly this is what a lot of the media is telling people is well. (I don’t even know where to start with that.) She should not speak with any sort of authority on that subject.
All this hurts so terribly. I, who am seeking out a diagnosis in ASD, would not hurt a fly. (Seriously, I have trouble killing bugs, not because they are scary.) And I don’t want to be told something is wrong with me and that I am a mass murder.
Gosh, I hope that kid is OK.
I don’t think he’s OK. I think his serious emotional and mental issues are complicated by a bitter, narcissist mother who treats him as a handy target in her blog, and regards him as a means to an end.
Did you know she describes attempting to murder her son on her blog?
“But my confidence factor was a mere 25%–in other words, I was only 25% sure that I could cross the space beneath me and cling to the other side. Nate started playing with his rope, putting a few “Man vs. Wild” moves into practice as he swung the teal nylon cord across the abyss, catching it on the opposite side. I had already made my decision when I said to him, with utter calmness, “Crossing that crevasse is a selfish act. If you want to do it, I will stand here and take your picture when or if you reach the summit. But it’s selfish. And I will not follow you.”
I was speaking to myself. But Nate heard me. For several minutes. he thought about what I said, and in the end, he too decided not to cross. I knew exactly how courageous that decision was.”
she describes fantasizing to kill the boy during that trip. she describes going across that abyss as probable “death.” she] writes how important choices are.
she
a. fails to alert her son of the dangers of climbing the summit
b. tell him not to cross
c. kinda goads him to attempt to cross
then she presents and seems to understand nate not crossing as his choosing not to die…very disturbed style of thinking .
What do you think of this? Shouldn’t cps be involved? Or is blogging about attempting to kill your son ok, too, for a “frustrated parent”? Is there anyone attempting to intervene for this boy?
She can write about anything, including thinking about killing her son. If he dies mysteriously, it would be evidence, perhaps. But no, there’s very little anyone can do at this point. It does seem ironic that he may be more endangered by her than she from him. I wonder how she would feel if he wrote a blog post announcing, “My mother is Patricia Blackmon; she is Kenisha Berry, Debra Jean Milke. Dora Luz Durenrostro, Caro Socorro,Susan Eubanks, Caroline Young and Robin Lee Row…” (All women on death row for killing their children)?
This situation seems to have been grossly mishandled in so many ways. I am in complete agreement with this post..she *could* have signed the post anonymous and chose fame over family. I have no way of knowing for sure as I don’t know the family, but she seems to really lack accountability. Perhaps the antidepressants she has him onhas something to do with it.
I understand the mother is in pain. I understand the son is in pain. My heart goes out to both of them. The violence outlined in “I am Adam Lanza’s Mother” crushed me nine thousand times over. In fact, reading it gives me flashbacks because I have lived through it myself. I have had my life threatened multiple times by someone who is on the autism spectrum and mentally ill. She tried to stab me twice and choke me. Her violence enabled her to have complete control over all aspects of my life–even what I was allowed to eat. She kept me in a severely abusive relationship by using the same exact threat: “If you ever leave, I’ll kill myself.” But the thing is–both I, and the person who pulled her off me and took the knife from her multiple times–are ALSO on the autism spectrum and mentally ill. Is it fair to call someone a killer because they tried to kill someone? Sure. But is it fair to conflate that with their autism or mental illness? No. There is a breakdown in logic here. The premise of Lisa Long’s post, and numerous articles in the media, is that either “autistic” or “mentally ill” (or both) equals “killer”. However, not all killers are autistic and/or mentally ill, and not all autistic and/or mentally ill people are killers. In fact, MOST mentally ill and autistic people are NOT killers and MOST killers are NOT autistic/mentally ill. Both autistic and mentally ill people are statistically more likely to be on the victim side of violence. I understand that this is Lisa Long’s story and it is her reality. I’m not here to invalidate her feelings or her experiences, nor am I here to invalidate her son’s feelings and experiences. But I am here to say that when she started her blog post with “It’s time to talk about mental illness” and then went on and on about her son’s murder attempts, she conflated two issues. Her son is abusive and that needs to be handled–yes–but that does not mean that the discussion about her son’s abusive behaviors is a discussion about all mental illness. It’s a discussion about abuse, which the author has chosen to attribute solely to his mental illness. But there are far too many mentally ill and autistic people who are NOT abusive that make the implied and correlation/causation erroneous. I empathize with you on a very deep level, Lisa Long, but your argument is invalid.
Excellent post, with one objection. “Is it fair to call someone a killer because they tried to kill someone?” The answer is obviously NO. That person has killed no one. That person cannot be called a killer, because he hasn’t killed. This is the essence of what is so wrong with Long’s essay.
Jack, I find your approaching things in terms of ethics, interesting and illuminating. You must then have a very strong personal constitution to field some of the comments you are getting.
I approach autistic matters in terms of the collective tending to have a fundamentally unhelpful view of the autistic; where that tendency attaches to the hegemony (only game in town) a collective’s social normally enjoys. The autistic challenge is then to articulate its voice from within a field of things from which it begins effectively excluded.
Liza Long’s blog-post on her son “Michael”, has then drawn out at least two polarised threads of response. One thread has it that she is making visible a very important issue of persons who are dangerous because “mentally ill”; so dangerous as to justify viewing and vetting them in terms of a potential to become killers and mass killers. The other thread has it that her blogging indicates that she is such a poor parent, that this parenting is implicated in the distress of and developmental outcomes for Michael.
These two threads of discussion and argument are then being draped across the actuality of an American society which is being pressed to reflect on itself and its crises-of-occurrence, across the barely graspable deaths of children and their educational carers. The danger then is, that the scale and jaggedness of the societal actuality cannot be contained within our capacity to consider and discuss; where all sorts of nascently dreadful outcomes attach to a society being unable to contemplate and talk about its actuality.
It’s then good to have the tool kit of ethics being applied to that fundamental difficulty.
Michael and his well being, is then the ethical focus, the sole matter of primary concern. It would not be right for his needs to be overwritten by a society’s needs to reflect on and discuss its actuality.
Mental illness is a poor construction across which society might come to better understand and manage itself. Albeit those who approach things in such terms must be accomodated; that constituency must not be allowed to hijack a greater debate.
I think it was good for her to start that discussion for all the parents that are suffering in silence because they want to protect their children, while at the same time are scared and concerned. I also believe she should have kept it anonymous to protect her family and to have balanced it with the other side, that even though it is a fear for some, the odds of that actually being the case are very slim and the chance that they learn to cope or get the proper help is much higher. There are many children that had a rough time of it growing up, yet go on to be very successful in life.
For all those people who assume that anonymity is automatically a bar to being taken seriously, William Mark Felt, Sr. would like to differ.
Jack,
In addition to outstanding criticisms that you have raised in your article, I want to share two relevant passages from Liza Long’s blog that I do not believe have been discussed elsewhere.
From the entry “Growing Gardens” http://anarchistsoccermom.blogspot.com/2012/06/growing-gardens.html
“I guess my point—and the point I tried to make on the radio show—is that social media really can be a powerful force, not only for social change, but for personal growth. Socrates, who knew a thing or two about undeserved slings and arrows, said it well more than 2000 years ago: “To gain a good reputation, endeavor to be what you desire to appear.” In other words, live with intention—on Facebook and in real life. And watch the shit in your life turn to big, fat, golden roses.”
And from “The Greater Good” http://anarchistsoccermom.blogspot.com/2012/01/greater-good.html
“I teach ethics at my college, and while I know that we have to address the morality and legality of teen drinking, I also believe that I have a duty, in a crisis situation, to set aside morality in the abstract, and to act in a way that provides the greatest good to the greatest number of people.”
It’s frightening that she purports to be a professor of ethics with a focus in social media, establishing that she HAD to know the potential damage that her defamatory article could have caused her son. The fact that she presumably justifies inflicting this damage as part of her “duty” to what she interprets to be the “greatest good” is unconscionable. Does she view her son as nothing more than the “shit in [her] life” and the accolades she’s received as the “big, fat, golden roses” she believes that she is entitled to?
Let me say that I can understand how parents would have anger and bitterness toward a troubled child who seemingly permanently clouds their lives. I can only try to imagine how hard it is. I can understand how someone in Long’s position could reach a point where he son is, whether she admits it or not, the “shit” in her life, and that her anger and frustration about this could allow her to rationalize sacrificing him to “the greater good” when in truth she would never do such a thing to a normal child, and in fact is motivated as much by anger toward the child for scaring, disappointing and burdening her as she is by anything else. I can see it. I can understand it, and to some extent I sympathize, but nonetheless—she is a mother, he is her son, and her first duty, like all mothers, is to protect him. She is wrong. The fact that we can understand how she came to behave so wretchedly doesn’t make her conduct any less terrible.
Any institution that would allow her to teach ethics should be sued for malpractice.
Jack,
Sharing those passages was in no way an attempt to justify her behavior. In fact, I think they help establish that she acted willfully in publishing that awful article and knowingly ignored both the potential consequences and her own ethical obligations in order to further her own esoteric vision of the “greatest good.”
This is precisely why we have developed ethical codes in the first place, to guide behavior and protect others, no matter how extraordinary we may perceive our individual circumstances to be. That she would consciously ignore her purported training because she believed her private agenda trumped her personal and professional responsibilities truly is unforgivable.
Oh, I know, and I didn’t take it that way, Joe. Her blog posts are unequivocally alarming.
Jack, you say: “What “violent reactions” to her actions? Who tried to hurt her or shoot her? There is nothing violent about pointing out that a mother has affirmatively harmed her own child, in order to get some notoriety. There is, on the other hand, a lot responsible about it. …. One thing that makes it hard to talk intelligently and productively about violence is that people keep using “violence” to describe any conflict at all. Conflict is part of living. Violence doesn’t have to be.”
I see the criteria of violence in terms of violation. I calibrate my threshhold for seeing violence across the ASD children I support. Violence is had where something so violates another’s being, that the possibility of progression and self-realisation through that being is lost while the violating event is sustained. Conflict is had where two or more parties can sustain their respective beings despite a mutual intention to violate each other in order to gain advantage.
Sustained conflict does not allow for any direct resolution. The conflcting goes on indefinitely; or it is ended violently as one party prevails. The victor tends to make their victory hegemonic; that is they use their dominance to remake collective occurrence in its own image (the victor writes the history and makes and applies law and culture). Violence is had where this social/societal makeover represses and suppreses the form of life of the vanguished.
Another approach to conflict resolution, involves investing in understanding the ground and dynamics of the conflict, involves investing in perspective which seeks resolution of conflict on the plane of reconsidering and adjusting what grounds the conflict. Michael and his mother are in conflict: and investing in what might resolve that conflict is the priority; he resorts to violence, and she resorts to violence (the violence of imprisoning him in her characterisation of him). Others have then condemned Michael’s mother, across reductive potrayal of her motivation, and across reductive hypotheses about the consequences for Michael of her actions; so many that there would be nothing to be gained from me piling in, even if I was minded to. I then hypothesise as to how all this might look from Michael’s mother’s point of view. That’s when I see violence: the intention of others to condemn and vilify Michael’s mother for what she has done; and the intention to confront and defeat others minded to be supportive of her.
Jack, it seems to me that you are unwilling to embrace the truth that we all use language and ideation and reasoning, to serve our various purposes. Ethics and any other intellectual exercise cannot demand that human life make it convenient for ethics to be done. Rather human life takes the forms that it does: and if ethics wants to be a part of that, then it has to track and map human life in the forms in which it obtains. People define violence in different ways, because there are so many forms of violence in human occurrence; and their are so many forms of violence because human occurrence is so varied.
Humpty-Dumptiism, as defined by Louis Carroll. You are defining violence to mean something other than what it is, so you can cast a shadow on activities you disagree with by connecting them with a negative concept. There is nothing violent about calling out a mother who uses her son the way Long did. It is responsible, and an ethical duty to do so. Harmful and unethical conduct that is tolerated and uncriticized becomes the norm. Violence has nothing to do with it.
I won a million dollar bet with myself when you finally wrote “hegemonic”—I’m surprised it took you so long.
So what’s your beef with the term hegemonic? For me its an everyday working concept. It is simply the case that some individual and collective psychology works to absolutely preclude particular perspectives; and its that which indicates hegemony, as I understand the concept and use the term. Autistically presenting people can be viewed in deficit terms, if and as the perspectives taken recourse to autistically can be precluded by the hegemonic action of a contextual social; so that’s my ground for the use of the concept and term. So why would you so viscerally object to that usage on my part.
The word’s fine. It’s just that it is a guaranteed marker of a cliched ideological bent that all of your comments exemplify in classic fashion, so I knew it was on the way.
Humpty-Dumptiism, as defined by Louis Carroll. You are defining violence to mean something other than what it is, so you can cast a shadow on activities you disagree with by connecting them with a negative concept. There is nothing violent about calling out a mother who uses her son the way Long did. It is responsible, and an ethical duty to do so. Harmful and unethical conduct that is tolerated and uncriticized becomes the norm. Violence has nothing to do with it.
I won a million dollar bet with myself when you finally wrote “hegemonic”—I’m surprised it took you so long.
I agree with you entirely, Jack. When “critique” becomes conflated with “attack,” there is no room for ethical discussion. I’ve been critiquing Liza Long’s decision to go public about her son, along with the decision by a writer in Australia to publicly compare her brother with Asperger’s to Adam Lanza — despite the fact that her brother with Asperger’s has never been violent at all. In both cases, I’ve been accused of “trashing” and “attacking” the person. It really concerns me, because I take great care to not cast aspersions on people, but only to talk about the ethics and real-life implications of what they say and do. If I’m silent about unethical behavior that has the potential for harm, then I’m guilty of an ethical lapse. Speaking up about it, so long as I don’t start casting personal aspersions and throwing ad hominems around, is an ethical stance, as far as I’m concerned.
It is an ethical stance, and you are admirably more restrained in your rhetoric than I am. People feel they should be immune from criticism, and that unethical conduct made public shouldn’t be criticized, out of a warped reading of the Golden Rule. That paves the road to cultural rot. You are doing the right thing. Don’t let it get to you.
It is great to read Jack admiring your care to be restrained in your rhetoric when offering an ethical critique.
I admire it. That doesn’t mean that I always care to emulate it. Or feel that it is appropriate to do so.
Could unrestrained rhetoric like ‘despicable’ and belittling points of view with terms like ‘Humpty-Dumptiism’ and ‘gibberish’ be considered a form of verbal violence? Is it ethical to critique people’s own behaviour choices with ‘unrestrained rhetoric’? Would you advise ethics students to use these forms of critique?
1. “Humpty-Dumptyism” a precise and useful reference, and the best I know, to describe the practice of using words to mean something other than what they really mean. You might look it up. The reference is from “Through the Looking Glass.”
2. Despicable is a perfectly good word to describe miserable conduct that good people should despise. I don’t use the term lightly.
3. Believe me, my rhetoric is very restrained.
Jack, what you say about the meaning of words, flys in the face of current academic understanding of language. That understanding would suggest that language is a complex mediating process, which evolves and changes, and across which there are a plurality of grounds (attaching to community and ethnicity and even individuation, from which language is constantly worked and reworked. To argue that words have a correct meaning, of which you your ethical community are the guardians, seems rather medieval, absolutist and fundamentalist.
“That good people should despise”. Now that sounds like morality for a community, rather than ethics which transcends ideology.
I agree with thenance that your rhetoric should be considered violent and belittling. I’m not condemning that recourse on your part; but I do need to understand why you consider it a necessary part of debate and discussion and analysis.
While firm cleaving to integrity is required in these things, I’m not convinced that rhetorical violence and belittling should be part of the discipline in which any students should be trained.
I’m not convinced that your rhetoric is restrained. It seems to me that your claim here is rhetorically declaimed rather than demonstrated. I’d be interested to see what ethical reflection and reasoning becomes within parameters of less rhetorical restraint.
I’m not on your couch, and again, your analysis of me or my personal style on the blog is of no interest to me at all; perhaps it is to others. You’re not convinced that my rhetoric is restrained? I don’t have to convince you, nor is it especially important whether it is or not. As I told Nancy, I know it is restrained, because I am fully capable of writing acid polemics that would burn your eyes out, but that is not my role here.
Language should be used for clear communication, and I do not trust, nor should anyone trust, those who intentionally use words to confuse, obscure, or manipulate meaning.
“That good people should despise”. Now that sounds like morality for a community, rather than ethics which transcends ideology.” I confess to not crafting every reply with the precision of a publishable treatise. I’m answering many commenters on dozens of posts. Still, your interpretation is erroneous. Society’s decisions about ethics are communicated through single, then collective expressions of disapproval, and subsequent conduct consistent with those assessments. Conduct “that good people should despise” means that the ethical verdict on such should be obvious to anyone whose ethical compass isn’t faulty, a condition which I summarize as “good.” You think that would require ideology because you don’t believe in ethics.
Jack, you say: “You are defining violence to mean something other than what it is, so you can cast a shadow on activities you disagree with by connecting them with a negative concept.”
I wasn’t aware that violence is a negative concept. Nature and evolution is violent. Processes anihilate one form in order to secure the emergence of another. Feeding is violent across the whole of the food chain. If we look inward and earthward, or outward and to the universe, everywhere we encounter this violence. Technology and industry involved the mastery of violent processes. Violence is the action of ending something in order to secure the beginning of something else.
Such violence can threaten our sense of who we are as human beings, and that makes us sometimes fearful, and generally sees us shielding our vulnerable beings from the rawness of such violence. Time and mortality are violent, inexorable in their progression; and eventually they see us absolutely transformed.
So yes, I think it is possible to review and define violence to reflect that full spectrum.
Incidentally, the ethical actions you seem to reccomend are fundamentally violent. You seem to intend ethical action which will see collective life much transformed, and taken in directions other than others intend.
I’m glad this amuses you. It’s just quibbling. You want to call this or that violent, be my guest. Speak as metaphorically or obscurely if you like. When you say things like “I wasn’t aware that violence is a negative concept,” your credibility is blown. You referred to violence in the context of violent treatment of human beings. I would guess that this has a thoroughly negative connotation to all human beings who aren’t active psychopaths. Sure you’re “not aware of it.”