the Manson murders of the late 1960s

Originally posted by kevcvs57
[...] I am giving my opinion on your assertion that anybody who remembers or is still affected by the Manson family murders (of which I am one) has somehow been dehumanised.

Anybody who remembers or is still affected by the Manson family murders is dehumanized? This is not the assertion that I made, as you well know. My assertion is on page 5. You claimed identifying with the deaths of 20 or so Vietnamese villagers to a greater extent than you do the deaths of millions of Cambodians is your "common humanity" at work. I would describe it as the effect of dehumanization. "Common humanity" is where our capacity for empathy, our interdependence and perception of the value of human life, transcend our race, ethnicity, nationality, political partisanship, chosen TV channel or postcode.

Choking on a genocidal number of victims that was every bit as much a product and expression of American culture in 1970 as Manson was, and asking "Why do you think that we should be more upset about the death of a million people than one individual person?", while talking about being able to "connect emotionally with a smaller number of faces" is - if anything - the antithesis of "common humanity". Undoubtedly the same kind of dehumanization affects me too at times as the world and its events rush by in the 24/7 news cycle. But I don't try to make the excuse that it's my "common humanity" at work.

Originally posted by FMF
Anybody who remembers or is still affected by the Manson family murders is dehumanized? This is not the assertion that I made, as you well know. My assertion is on page 5. You claimed identifying with the deaths of 20 or so Vietnamese villagers to a greater extent than you do the deaths of millions of Cambodians is your "common humanity" at work. I would describ ...[text shortened]... cycle. But I don't try to make the excuse that it's my "common humanity" at work.

fmf to lolof page 1

"That sounds like an awful psychological trap for you to fall into. How can you preserve your humanity if you can identify with only one or a few victims, but you do not identify with hundreds of thousands or millions of innocents slaughtered?"

I take it you have decided that page five is the cut off point for this discussion.

It is you who keeps setting yourself up as the arbiter of a the subjective definition of 'common humanity' whilst I have tried to restrict the discussion to Human psychology/nature in an effort to explain to you that someone can have a different reaction to a historical event than you due to intra psychic reasons without actually being less human than you.

The Manson murders were news worthy partly because of the celebrity status of the vicxtims, and possibly because they were not about Americans bombing the crap out of S.E Asians which the western media had fed it's audience a conveyor belt diet of long before 1970. Rather than your slant that the manipulative media had dehumanized us, perhaps we were suffering from compassion and outrage fatigue regarding the Vietnam war and the Manson gang pushed some fresh emotional buttons and has remained significant for the same reasons.

Or perhaps you can give a toss about a pregnant woman being slaughtered in her own home even if She is a blond haired, blue eyed US citizen, if you cannot maybe you should not be preaching about our 'common humanity'. Either way it is not, or should not be, an either or situation.

Originally posted by kevcvs57
fmf to lolof page 1

"That sounds like an awful psychological trap for you to fall into. [b]How can you preserve your humanity if you can identify with only one or a few victims, but you do not identify with hundreds of thousands or millions of innocents slaughtered?"[/b]

That's right. It takes its toll on our humanity - surely? - if we dehumanize hundreds of thousands or millions of innocents that have been or are being slaughtered.

Originally posted by kevcvs57

The Manson murders were news worthy partly because of the celebrity status of the vicxtims, and possibly because they were not about Americans bombing the crap out of S.E Asians which the western media had fed it's audience a conveyor belt diet of long before 1970. Rather than your slant that the manipulative media had dehumanized us, perhaps we were suffering from compassion and outrage fatigue regarding the Vietnam war and the Manson gang pushed some fresh emotional buttons and has remained significant for the same reasons.

Yes, and I find this appalling. This has been more or less my point all along.

Originally posted by kevcvs57
It is you who keeps setting yourself up as the arbiter of a the subjective definition of 'common humanity' whilst I have tried to restrict the discussion to Human psychology/nature in an effort to explain to you that someone can have a different reaction to a historical event than you due to intra psychic reasons without actually being less human than you.

In other words, not everyone agrees with me? You are saying someone can have a different reaction to a historical event than me? Gosh.

Originally posted by kevcvs57
Or perhaps you can give a toss about a pregnant woman being slaughtered in her own home even if She is a blond haired, blue eyed US citizen, if you cannot maybe you should not be preaching about our 'common humanity'.

I see the point you're trying to score by querying whether I "give a toss about a pregnant woman being slaughtered". But I don't quite see what point you're trying to score with this thing about her being "a blond haired, blue eyed US citizen".

Originally posted by FMF
In other words, not everyone agrees with me? You are saying someone can have a different reaction to a historical event than me? Gosh.

Without being diagnosed as suffering from dehumaization in relation to you fmf.

Originally posted by kevcvs57
Without being diagnosed as suffering from dehumaization in relation to you fmf.

Well I have listened to what you've had to say and I think your notion of "common humanity" is crooked. Do you think it's a view that I shouldn't express?

Do you think that we should be more upset about the deliberate killing of a million people than one individual person? I take it your answer is 'no'. If so, I cannot pretend that I find your stance humane.

Originally posted by FMF
I see the point you're trying to score by querying whether I "give a toss about a pregnant woman being slaughtered". But I don't quite see what point you're trying to score with this thing about her being "a blond haired, blue eyed US citizen".

The point I am trying to make, rather than score, is that it is irrelevant where the victim comes from, (other than my assertion regarding geographical proximity) or how many other victims share their fate, we do not allot our empathy for any given victim based on a mathmatical equation.

It is you that is equating empathy for the Manson victims with a lack of humanity on the part of the empathiser.

Originally posted by kevcvs57
It is you that is equating empathy for the Manson victims with a lack of humanity on the part of the empathiser.

I have done no such thing. I can understand empathy for any murder victim. The diminishing or dismantling of common humanity kicks in when empathy decreases because the number of victims increases, to the point that they say things like what you have said. There was no lack of "geographical proximity" when those hundreds of thousands of people were slaughtered; America had planted itself in those countries and was right there, full-on geographical proximity, as it were. Like I said earlier, the slaughter was every bit as much a product and expression of American culture in 1970 as Charles Manson's murders were.

Originally posted by FMF
I have done no such thing. I can understand empathy for any murder victim. The diminishing or dismantling of common humanity kicks in when empathy decreases because the number of victims increases, to the point that they say things like what you have said. There was no lack of "geographical proximity" when those hundreds of thousands of people were slaughtered; ...[text shortened]... s much a product and expression of American culture in 1970 as Charles Manson's murders were.

Well I would say it was an expression of Imperialist culture rather than specifically American culture but I do not understand where you have got the idea that I or anyone else thinks that the deaths of millions of civillians in the Vietnam or Cambodian war is anything less than a tragedy on a grand scale rahter than the more intimate tragedy of the Tate murders in an objective sense, but my central point is that human emotional reactions are subjective by their very nature.

Originally posted by kevcvs57
Well I would say it was an expression of Imperialist culture rather than specifically American culture but I do not understand where you have got the idea that I or anyone else thinks that the deaths of millions of civillians in the Vietnam or Cambodian war is anything less than a tragedy on a grand scale rahter than the more intimate tragedy of the Tate mu ...[text shortened]... nse, but my central point is that human emotional reactions are subjective by their very nature.

I have not denied that my reaction to this topic is subjective. So if your "central point" is that "human emotional reactions are subjective by their very nature" then that may be the biggest case of 'dog bites man' we've had on this thread.

One more little slew of queries about your "Why do you think that we should be more upset about the death of a million people than one individual person?" thing. If Manson had killed more people do you think the outrage would have decreased 'accordingly'? If Manson had killed, say, a million people, do you think there would have been "compassion and outrage fatigue" and that some double murder could have caught the nation's imagination and pushed Manson's million victims off the TV screens?

edit: 'dog bites man' not 'man bites dog'. I don't how many times I have typed this the wrong way around without at first noticing!

Originally posted by FMF
I have not denied that my reaction to this topic is subjective. So if your "central point" is that "human emotional reactions are subjective by their very nature" then that may be the biggest case of 'dog bites man' we've had on this thread.

One more little slew of queries about your "Why do you think that we should be more upset about the death of a million ...[text shortened]... many times I have typed this the wrong way around without at first noticing!

"I have not denied that my reaction to this topic is subjective"

Then explain how a phenomenon that you accept as an integral aspect of human nature can at the same time be a symptom of 'dehumanization', again nobody has said that they were not affected by the deaths of millions of innocents in S.E Asia at the hands of the US war machine, my question which you avoided before, is how much more upset do we need to be to satisfy your yardstick for a 'common humanity'







"One more little slew of queries about your"

"If Manson had killed, say, a million people, do you think there would have been "compassion and outrage fatigue" and that some double murder could have caught the nation's imagination and pushed Manson's million victims off the TV screens?"

No I dont expect it would fmf, which is a variation of the question I asked you earlier and have reiterated above, I believe that there could have been an earth quake on the US mainland killing a million people and I would still have been affected by the Tate Murders without it diminishing my ability to empathise with the victims of the earth quake, any more than looking into the face of a young girl covered in napalm burns diminished my ability to empathise the millions of other victims of that war, I dont know why, maybe I have been dehumanized.

Originally posted by FMF
edit: 'dog bites man' not 'man bites dog'. I don't how many times I have typed this the wrong way around without at first noticing!

Perhaps you have a latent desire to bite a bulldog. 😉

Originally posted by kevcvs57

No I dont expect it would fmf, which is a variation of the question I asked you earlier and have reiterated above, I believe that there could have been an earth quake on the US mainland killing a million people and I would still have been affected by the Tate Murders without it diminishing my ability to empathise with the victims of the earth quake, any more than looking into the face of a young girl covered in napalm burns diminished my ability to empathise the millions of other victims of that war, I dont know why, maybe I have been dehumanized.

As you said: "Why do you think that we should be more upset about the death of a million people than one individual person?" And as I said, this clearly involves - requires - dehumanizing the million people you mentioned. I have no doubt that taking this stance comes at some cost to your own humanity, and to mine too in so far as I might take a similar view in certain situations.