Feeling Sorry for Tsarnaev

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/05/the-dzhokhar-tsarnaev-empathy-problem.html

by l33tbro • 13 years ago

36 30 13 years ago

patio11• 13 years ago

"They excuse the fact that he killed people, because he is attractive" seems to be a sanity-saving reading of the anecdotes, here. The much more straightforward reason is "They are attracted to him because he is a killer."

You could find a hundred kids at MIT who fit his general description. What's your estimate on the mean number of Facebook groups created by fawning fangirls they each have?

ghshephard• 13 years ago

Well, to be more generous, "They are attracted to him because he is famous and attractive."

sk00byd00• 13 years ago

Or perhaps, "They are attracted to him because he is infamous and attractive"

mecha• 13 years ago

Well, Obama murders way more people with his Drones and yet he is attractive well spoken and very likable. And liking Obama is very sane.

PavlovsCat2• 13 years ago

How the FUCK does that get modded down? Because it might distract from a trivial topic with discussion about something serious and real? God forbid...

Of course it's extremely easy to say, the heck with it. I'm just going to adapt myself to the structures of power and authority and do the best I can within them. Sure, you can do that. But that's not acting like a decent person. You can walk down the street and be hungry. You see a kid eating an ice cream cone and you notice there's no cop around and you can take the ice cream cone from him because you're bigger and walk away. You can do that. Probably there are people who do. We call them "pathological." On the other hand, if they do it within existing social structures we call them "normal." But it's just as pathological. It's just the pathology of the general society. -- Noam Chomsky

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets. -- Voltaire

DannoHung2• 13 years ago

The biggest distinction is that he has been entrusted with the authority to order the deaths of people. No one gave Tsarnaev carte blanche to kill. About 66 million people gave it to Obama.

dantillberg• 13 years ago

I've felt this myself - said to myself and others a number of times, "I kind of feel bad for him" ... "it was really his older brother that was the psycho villain."

I would contribute that in addition to superficial qualities which may have swayed my judgment more than I've been aware, the mostly-unchanged narrative since the day of his capture has been that his older brother was the real sociopath/nutjob... that they both had poor family support and appear to have been vulnerably "alone" in the US... that Dzhokhar would have looked up to and depended on his brother, and that in a way Dzhokhar may not be an arch-villain so much as a treacherously loyal younger brother duped into acting as a sociopath/nutjob.

Presumably, we'll hear words from Dzhokhar himself in the future and come to second-guess our current judgments, but until then, his silence does himself a favor.

That all said... I do wonder how much my story above is really the majority of the thought process I went through, or whether it's just a shallow justification for a superficial judgment.

venomsnake• 13 years ago

Whatever we hear from him will be the narrative his lawyers decide to present to the public.

return0• 13 years ago

Thats why one should be skeptical with "public opinion" that is often taken into account in making decisions such as for example science or bio-ethics. Informed or expert opinion is better.

xianshou• 13 years ago

Reminds me of a conversation my friend and I had on the same subject. "He seemed intelligent, talented, attractive, well-adjusted - why would he throw everything away?" By far the easiest story to tell was that of a disturbed older brother coercing his younger brother into an act of twisted loyalty. But that narrative was created by the pictures...a halo effect run awry.

jebeng• 13 years ago

Am I the only one who looks at the picture and sees an arrogant, deluded, asshole?

rdl• 13 years ago

I am pretty sure I would have thought "hipster douchebag tool" based on his photo, even without the bombing, rather than attractive, but it's admittedly hard to test this scientifically now that he's so closely associated with the jihadist murders in my mind.

lmm• 13 years ago

How well does your notion of "hipster douchebag tool" correlate with the general (female) population's notion of "attractive"?

Decade2• 13 years ago

I didn't feel sympathy for Tsarnaev because of his cute face. I felt sympathy because his case is under the jurisdiction of Carmen Ortiz, and from Aaron Swartz we know what happens to people who cross Carmen Ortiz.

cookiecaper• 13 years ago

>we know what happens to people who cross Carmen Ortiz.

They get prosecuted, kill themselves in angst, and then are unjustifiably made into martyrs by the tech community?

Decade2• 13 years ago

No. From his friends' improvised performance art piece, "How Not to Destroy Evidence," I'm guessing that Dzokhar deserves to have the book thrown at him.

It's just that it should be the book that's thrown at him. Legally. Ortiz has a history of trying to win at all costs, even if it would destroy the lives of harmless people.

I don't really care about Dzokhar. I worry about the continual erosion of civil rights. Used to be that being an American citizen meant something. It meant having the rights guaranteed by the 5th and 6th Amendments to the Constitution. If the Bill of Rights does not apply to Dzokhar, then it doesn't apply to anybody.

tunesmith• 13 years ago

This guy is conflating empathy with something else. Not sure what the word for the something else is, but it's when you're charmed by someone attractive for no good reason. That isn't empathy.

ritchiea• 13 years ago

Point well taken but don't we also communicate with our facial expressions something greater than our genes? You are born with the color of your skin but you are not born with the ability to listen to others, and listening is a state of being generally communicated with your facial expressions.

I won't take this as far as it being a good idea to empathize with Tsarnaev but there are definitely important aspects of human communication one has to ignore to suggest facial expressions are as arbitrary as skin color.

camus• 13 years ago

Dont feel sorry for him, he has a brain , did not use it that much.He could have been anything he wanted , he seems handsome and smart , yet he chosed to kill for nothing. He is responsible for his own mistakes and should pay the price. Violence is never a solution. He hates what USA is doing abroad ? then what he did wont change anything , it will just bring more hatred toward the muslim community in US. The right way to do things is to get political , in a non violent fashion , freedom of speech is here for a reason, Killing is not freedom of speech.

saber_taylor• 13 years ago

I DNRTA, but I was listening to the radio and the lyrics sung were sung to the contrary but I wasn't sure which one I agree with: "By a lady in black / And I held my tongue / As she told me 'Son, / Fear is the heart of love'".

Not sure what to make of the number 72 being featured in the new Star Trek film though since I only read the plot on Wikipedia.

acqq• 13 years ago

Funny, the first time I've read about that, I've remembered the lyrics of Beatles'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwells_Silver_Hammer

		Rose and Valerie, screaming from the gallery
		Say he must go free
		(Maxwell must go free)
		The judge does not agree and he tells them
		So, o, o, o.

		But as the words are leaving his lips,
		A noise comes from behind.

		Bang! Bang! Maxwell's silver hammer
		Came down upon his head.
		Clang! Clang! Maxwell's silver hammer
		Made sure that he was dead.

rbanffy• 13 years ago

I feel bad because this is not about religion or someone's deep convictions. It's about politics and religious bullying turning people vulnerable to it, who, in other circumstances could have lived unremarkable, moderately happy, lives, into wannabe mass murderers. I feel bad for the victims, who did nothing to deserve what happened, and for the society that tried to integrate an immigrant family and failed without really doing anything wrong to them.

I feel bad because I can't quite get rid of the feeling all this could have been easily avoided.

Feeling Sorry for Tsarnaev

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