'Hate crime' labelling as problem avoidance
Yet another public conversation that helps no one, but scares people
A particularly sordid murder recently resulted in the conviction of a couple of young people in Britain.
It was especially vile; from the premeditation and violence involved to the obvious failings of appropriate safeguarding authorities who might otherwise have prevented it.
It reminds me slightly of a case from 1993, involving two ten-year-old boys torturing and killing a two-year-old they had abducted.
This time the kids involved are older, but seem similarly dysfunctional.
When James Bulger was murdered 31 years ago the inevitable media and political chatter revolved around what the case said about 'society', which anyone who thought about it for more than 10 seconds would conclude nothing.
The fact that we were so revolted by what had happened said that our society was fine. Doubtless it helped that we didn’t have social media to rile us up, then.
This time the victim was a 15-year-old natal male who identified as female, diagnosed with ADHD and autism, was active on TikTok and apparently worked to support other people to access hormones to help them to switch gender. In other words, an icon to a certain class of person.
One of the 15-year-old killers was permanently excluded from her school, after poisoning a pupil and was simply admitted to another school, where she befriended the victim.
Her 15-year-old male accomplice was described by police as profoundly autistic and was later diagnosed with 'selective mutism' after ceasing to speak to anyone except his mother. He was fascinated with knife blades. One of which was used on the victim. He gave his evidence in court by typing into a 'chat box' on a computer.
They weren’t ordinary kids.
Among the killers' favourite topics of conversation were poisoning people and medieval methods of torture.
The media and political chatter this time is mostly about all the hate crimes committed against transgender people.
It doesn't seem to matter that the killers discussed four other murder plots, before settling on the trans kid. Or that one of them told the other that she wanted to keep some body parts from one of those intended victims as mementos.
No. It's a hate crime and the main feature of it is said to be how it highlights the discrimination and violence suffered by trans people.
Much less comment revolves around how dysfunctional the perpetrators were and how hard it is to predict when morbid teen fantasy might become dangerous. Or how you get away with poisoning someone at school by just changing schools.
Precious little thought is given to the fact that this crime really only gets its own Wikipedia page because it's exceptional. Like the Jamie Bulger murder was.
There are now campaigns to limit access to various places online where bad things are portrayed and discussed, along with more proposals to limit access to social media. And, of course, to raise public awareness of 'transphobia'.
The odd thing, if you think about it, is that the actions of a pair of badly messed up teenagers are seen as requiring measures that affect everyone.
This is perhaps an illustration of how little recognition there is, among those most eager to engage in public chatter about the solutions to such aberrations, of the locus of internal control concept.
If someone does something terrible it is rare to hear a consensus opinion that it has nothing to do with the rest of us. That they alone were responsible for their actions and not this diffuse concept of a 'society' that apparently encourages (or fails adequately to disincentivise) the terrible thing.
This is why we layered ‘hate speech’ laws onto existing protections from harm. No one in a position of influence thinks that anyone has resilience to stupids saying stupid or mean things about them. It’s all about the locus of external control.
This thinking all seems very human. It shares a quality with conspiracy theorising.
Wanting to prevent occasional horrible things and being determined to attribute bad things to hidden forces both speak to a fear of acknowledging the random and messy.
And the need for a narrative falls into the same frame. Someone from a 'protected' group falls prey to genuinely f***ed up people and there is comfort in seeing it as a pattern. Paradoxically, because portraying it as a pattern - with or without evidence of such - doubtless causes unnecessary anxiety among countless other people.
This always happens.
The only genuine pattern that I'm seeing is the reassuring fact that everyone is consistently horrified by these momentary glitches in the fabric of a pretty safe civilisation, here in the developed world.
But it's probably comforting to some people to think that these - let's face it - inscrutable teenage murderers were somehow shaped by external forces.
Such a story provides a kind of protection from the awful thought that there but for the grace of God go our own kids. Or even ourselves. Read the writings of Freddie deBoer on what it's like to become psychotic, if this makes no sense.
Insofar as this tawdry episode represents any kind of pattern in 'society' it seems to me to highlight our collective coping mechanisms in the face of the ineffably vile behaviours of a tiny minority.
The something must be done impulse. Bless us, eh.
George S. Patton wouldn’t get away with these words today
The 'Searching for Troop A' project continues (new readers, check the previous three Rarely Certains to catch up).
TL;DR? First, photographs and family messages to help my town of St Pierre Eglise commemorate the 80th anniversary of liberation in June 1944. Second, a website, featuring a full timeline from December 1943 until the end of 1945, showing every step of the 24th Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron. Third, ultimately a book.
This work is painstaking but rewarding.
The other day we were walking Youna on a sunny beach at the end of a busy afternoon when my phone rang. It was the son of one of 'my guys', who served in Troop A. It was a genuinely emotional moment, talking with a guy whose dad came ashore, just 40 minutes down the coast in 1944, to fight his way nearly 1,200km to Germany - liberating my little town along the way.
More on that in future newsletters.
But just to share an amusing tangential thought ...
I was perusing the Facebook page of a US army unit partly descended from 'my' 24th Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron this week. I was struck by how ... nice ... was the portrayal of this particular modern cavalry outfit.
Their page is all about people being commended for being helpful and kind, exhortations about how important family life is on their base, celebrating a black-culture art exhibition someone there is now staging.
It all seems thoroughly modern and far removed from the business of war. This is not a criticism. I'm not being snarky, either. These look like great people. Professional and thoughtful. They've been in places I wouldn't want to go near, let alone serve a tour of duty in.
But later I was reading the speech that General George S. Patton gave to the US Third Army on the eve of D-Day.
It's a hell of a speech. It pulls zero punches. And it is very much of its time, with references to masculinity and brutality as necessary qualities in an army faced with an implacable foe.
I particularly appreciate his reassurance that ‘only’ about one in 50 of the men he's addressing will die in the time ahead.
But I'm genuinely surprised by how close to the bone Patton got. And I love it.
The entire speech is recommended reading. But here is the bit that stands out for me.
"We're not just going to shoot the bastards, we're going to rip out their living goddamned guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks. We're going to murder those lousy Hun cocksuckers by the bushel-fucking-basket."
Now that’s what I call hate speech and I approve of it.
At this point, I've seen enough Killed In Action reports and field hospital admission cards for the men whose story I'm researching for that sentiment to seem entirely reasonable.
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