Hard News: Poor Choices
241 Responses
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Russell Brown, in reply to
On Peter Williams’ lying:
Am I alone in not being particularly outraged by this? I find it entirely plausible that poor old Pete got -- or was given -- the wrong end of the stick. But it is an example of the way every move turns into a pratfall for TVNZ at the moment.
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Kracklite, in reply to
I don't know if you're alone or not, and being a Scot who can see the funny side of Kafka, listens to Shostakovch and with best friends who are Hungarian and Czech, my sense of humour is not black but fuligin... and still I think that there's no way that Williams could have mistaken the tone of his show. Common decency and basic human empathy should at least have been his guides.
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Jack Cottrell, in reply to
Will refrain from going there, save explaining that I'm judging the action, not the person, motive, or outcome.
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Live-tweeting a parent's death.
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
One reason for the judgement is that some suicides are self obsessed and even selfish acts. Sometimes the things left behind cause a great deal of harm to those living. In those cases, yeah there is some judgypants going on.
OK, and I can respect that framing if that’s what some survivors need to do when working through grief. But what’s not useful or acceptable: People who assume that a newspaper column, or an internet connection, gives then standing to shit on complete strangers as weak-willed narcissistic arseholes because they suffer from depression, or self-harm, or are addicts (have we forgotten Philip Seymour Hoffman already?)
The dead are beyond caring or harm when you decide to model the new season “judgypants”. But it would show a lot of empathy (and common human decency) if everyone thought harder about who’s listening when mental illness and self-harm are treated like they're the result of a lack of dietary moral fibre.
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Morgan Nichol, in reply to
We can respect that without getting into shaming value-judgements of anyone.
Everyone judges everything and some people do shameful things. I will shame and judge as I see fit. And I see you do the same quite often. However usually I don't see suicide as shameful. Or if they are shameful then only in the sense that it's a terrible shame some other option didn't do the trick.
Some suicides though are shameful. Murder suicides, lads who won't let a woman leave them and decide it's better that "no one can have her if I can't have her". And everything's on a continuum around that.
Let's not pretend this isn't the case.
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
in that you can’t think of anyone but yourself
Yup. Been there done that. Literally could not think beyond the boundaries of my head.
However, while that explains why the act is self absorbed it does not excuse the impact it has on others. In that sense it can be selfish. Sometimes.
I'm not saying that there aren't good psychological and even physiological reasons for that state nor suggesting society can dismiss any responsibility. Just noting that there are cases where the harm done to those still alive is real and significant and hence their (judgmental) reaction is understandable and even with some empathy excusable.
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Kumara Republic, in reply to
I like something she wrote in an earlier column - an observation on the 'Just world phenomenon' : the tendency of some people (often right wingers) to believe that the world is just and therefore people get what they deserve.
For a 'just world' theorist, some one who makes (sniff) 'inappropriate life choices' gets what they deserve.Isn't it just a euphemism for Social Darwinism?
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Will de Cleene, in reply to
I know this is hipster blasphemy, but basically everything Hunter S. Thompson published after 1980 was embarrasing.
The dividing line appeared to me to be when HST missed the Rumble in the Jungle. He never seemed to forgive himself for that. He became a self-parody of sorts, throwing in the words atavistic, preternatural and fiend into his prose and passing it off as the good stuff. Poor bastard.
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Deborah Hill Cone fronts about her column. Fair enough.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Snap :-)
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
Fair enough.
Let down by her editors perhaps...
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Strange times indeed - everyone "is" and becomes "news".
It is good to turn the whole social media thing off and get on with the business ofl living - you get more done.
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Virginia Brooks, in reply to
Isn’t it just a euphemism for Social Darwinism?
Very closely related. But social Darwinism is out and proud, politically aware and waving the flag for eugenics. Whereas 'Just world theory' is more like a meme that lurks insidiously and denies political reality. It thrives on tautology, therefore ' the world is just because the world is just'. It pounces when you least expect it. For example, when someone told me over xmas dinner that poverty in NZ is caused by poor people themselves because they are stupid.
Re being 'very closely related' its possibly a case of incest but social Darwinism will never admit it (Just world theory just smiles coyly).
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Noticed that DHC's column seemed to have disappeared entirely from the Herald of late.
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