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Cryosite wrote on 2010-10-05 16:37
I like how the immediate defense to this boy being called a coward is/was "maybe he was weak."
In my mind, that's sorta the same thing. Neither are admirable. He was a coward for comitting suicide. He was weak for not overcoming the situation and rising above it.
I was bullied from around 3rd grade through 8th. In middle school some kids even got me suspended for a few days because they concocted a story that I said something racist to a black student. There were times I would walk through the halls and someone would throw a basketball at the back of my head hard enough to knock me to the ground.
I'm still alive.
Am I saying that bullies should be tolerated? No. We most certainly should do anything we can to stop this tradition. But I'm not going to respect someone, victim or otherwise, who takes their own life. To me that's a trump card that says you were not worth being alive to begin with. Good riddance. Hopefully his death serves at least some small purpose in affecting the lives of these kids so they stop being bullies. About the only positive thing I can get out of it. I sure as hell hope no one else tries this method of stopping bullies though.
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Rebel wrote on 2010-10-05 16:45
Quote from Cryosite;176224:
I like how the immediate defense to this boy being called a coward is/was "maybe he was weak."
In my mind, that's sorta the same thing. Neither are admirable. He was a coward for comitting suicide. He was weak for not overcoming the situation and rising above it.
Maybe I read things differently, but I didn't get that at all from people's responses.
The underlying point was, not to blame someone for handling a situation differently than you would have...there are tons of other circumstances that we are not aware of as readers that could have been in play to push this boy to the brink of self destruction.
I was bullied from around 3rd grade through 8th. In middle school some kids even got me suspended for a few days because they concocted a story that I said something racist to a black student. There were times I would walk through the halls and someone would throw a basketball at the back of my head hard enough to knock me to the ground.
I'm still alive.
Still applies.
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Phunkie wrote on 2010-10-05 17:12
You just gotta be open-minded. Can't close your mind to all possibilities, just because people are different from you.
That's what I'm trying to advocate.
If you don't go skydiving because you feel scared, it's not because you're a coward. Gosh, it's because you don't think you can handle that sort of experience. You may be terrified of falling, for example.
But someone else who is pro at skydiving can't call you a coward for that.
It's about being compassionate, guys. I feel for this boy. I can place myself in his shoes and I understand what he was going through. Even though I wouldn't have made the choice he did, I don't blame him.
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Cryosite wrote on 2010-10-07 17:20
I look at it this way. I hold human life pretty dear. My own and others. But if someone proves they value their own life so little as to throw it away, almost regardless of circumstances, I am forced to agree with them that their life is worthless.
My exceptions to the above are very limited. Terminal cancer patients unable to live without untreatable agony. People who while alive by medical terminology can't be considered to be really living. Conditions that an unbiased observer would agree aren't really living, and are inescapable.
I offered my own experiences to show that I have received experiences similar in nature (with no claim on severity) as the boy. Much like we don't know the extent, you also don't know the extent of my own experiences.
Until it is revealed that there was something more to the situation, I can't have compassion or offer any empathy. The kid threw his life away. He may have been the victim of the bullies, but those close to him are the real victims. Where is the empathy for his parents and any siblings he might have had? His friends? The people he abandoned and caused grief to?
That is what I am advocating. Far from closing my mind, I'm just not giving in to tunnel vision.