Harold Shipman

[coggles]

has been found hanging in his cell - easy way out or not?

[WaldoMcFroog]

abfandango makes a fine point, imo. Our natural inclination when encountering such behaviour is to recoil from it and brand it disgusting in some way with out trying to understand it. Indeed, just yesterday, I read that the emotion of disgust is one that developed as a way of keeping us healthy - a disgust of incest, cannibalism and snakes all contribute to ensuring the longevity of the individual.





However, there's a problem with this behaviour, however natural and genetically determined it is. When we brand something as 'evil', that often becomes sufficent of itself as a reason why something occured - 'Oh yes, of course Shipman murdered becuase he was evil, you know.' But that tells us nothing of *why* he did it. Nothing of how we can spot it in someone else. Nothing of how we can stop it in someone else. I honestly think that the expression 'The banality of evil' is quite one of the most discriptive ever, but we (and I include myself) rarely consider what the phrase actually means. Not only does it point out that evil acts most often result from the most banal of intentions, but I think it also concerns the dangers of labelling everything bad as 'evil' - it's hiding behind a word.

[WaldoMcFroog]

This isn't about excusing what was done - Shipman holds responsibility for his actions, after all, as we all do - but it surely is sensible to investigate what causes a person to do this. For example, we now know curing clinical depression isn't just a case of 'gettting on with it and stopping being so miserable', but a case of an imbalance in brain chemistry, best cured by drug therapy (not disregarding human assistance, though, of course). To get to the point, we label Shipman 'evil' at our peril. To do so, simply excuses us from investigating its causes and potentially stopping another doing the same. Moreover, it stops us looking at ourselves too deeply; it's possibly too much to think that we're just a single chemical reaction away from doing something similar. To be evil is seen as cause enough of itself.

Well, Shipman was certainly dangerous and possibly mad, but no less culpable for all that. As for whether his actions were taking an easy way out, without firm proof of how and why it happened, we simply cannot know, it's merely idle speculation.

[branchinghen]

i fancy harold shipman

[jonjo]

depending on what you believe he has probably not escaped justice at all.