"Insulting the dead is in extremely poor taste."

[dondon151]

this is eclipse's closing sentence after locking the facebook suicide thread.

i'm not interested in continuing that exact topic of discussion (and please don't continue it here), but i actually found this statement somewhat objectionable. the dead do not automatically deserve respect. there are many instances in which i believe that it is perfectly legitimate to insult the deceased, particularly if the deceased possessed extraordinarily poor character when he was alive.

i'm reminded of when many people criticized christopher hitchens for showing a lack of respect after the death of jerry falwell. this is one instance in which i think that hitchens's actions were justified. in many respects was jerry falwell a terrible person and by no means did he deserve the unwavering esteem that he received upon his death.

obviously one has to draw the line somewhere. for example, in no way would i condone protesting at funerals or actively confronting the mourning over a matter of respect for the deceased, nor would i condone passing judgment on someone whom one didn't know at all, but i do not think that it is necessarily in poor taste to disrespect the deceased.

what are your thoughts on the subject?

[Lord Raven]

I think personally that disrespecting the dead part was minor, because the thread wasn't headed anywhere at all given that nobody wanted to discuss the matter at hand - they just wanted to call the poor girl we knew almost nothing about a pussy.

Otherwise, I don't believe in celebration of death no matter what the circumstance. I could never celebrate a death, but if I didn't like the person and personally didn't respect them at all, then I would feel overall neutral and just decline to comment myself. I wouldn't go nearly as far as some of the comments in that thread, though, but it's not like I won't talk about it.

Edited October 27, 2013 by Lord Raven

[eclipse]

You're right, it should've been worded as, "Insulting anyone, dead or alive, is in extremely poor taste." If you wouldn't say it to their face, keep it to yourself.

[Nobody]

I don't think insulting the dead is any bigger deal than insulting an alive person. Actually, I think it's even less than that, since the dead person can't be offended for obvious reasons, but that probably has to do with my religious belief (atheism), which means I think there is absolutely nothing after you die.

I can, however, understand why insulting a dead person is terrible for someone related to that person. It must be extremely painful for someone to see someone they like and is gone forever being bashed. Protesting in funerals is one of the most despicable things someone can do, IMO, since that's the special moment for the relatives/friends to remember of someone they liked.

Still, if someone did terrible things when they were alive, they deserve to be criticized, and being dead shouldn't prevent anyone from bashing them or their actions.]

That said, I do not agree on calling someone a "pussy" over a suicide, because their reasons are never as simple as they might look

Edited October 27, 2013 by Nobody

[Espinosa]

As they say, speak only the good things about the dead or nothing at all.

Behind many people's abstinence from commenting negatively on such matters is something not of this world - either a superstition or maybe some unphrasable mystical knowledge. A person is likely no longer present in what we see as objective reality and is seen as entering an entirely different realm that earthly descriptions do not give justice, if they can even reach the thing they're trying to describe. The one reason people do feel alarmed when they're tempted to figuratively lynch somebody's corpse in verbal form is because they feel responsible for and involved in the person's ultimate way to their destination, and at this point it really is the thought that counts, in contrast to any moment before demise. Hitchens lacked such a sense and with it any obstacle in his way of reprimanding the deceased. He was rather abrasive in general, I think we can agree, but I can't deny that I liked him somewhat. He must've got some of the same treatment upon his demise himself, but I wouldn't know.

Outside of that, it mostly comes down to how much you value others' feelings if at all. If Breivik offed himself having done the things he did, would people keep quiet? Don't think so. So we draw the line somewhere. The personal and the public interact in pretty complicated ways sometimes, so you can't separate right from wrong in a definite way; there are shades of grey.

As for that girl, I don't think cowardice had anything to do with her last deed (the whole manliness discourse tagged as 'pussy' did not make any sense at all), but it's explainable easily enough without any appeal to mental illness. It was plain bratty behaviour and she hadn't learnt (or accepted) that things in life just don't go the way you'd like to. Immature? Indeed, and it's a pity she never matured to pass what most people would see as a laughable barrier. Of course, I can't claim to know what was inside her mind much like anybody else's (I have enough trouble with my own at times), but it's a news item made public we're supposed to make sense out of and move on, so any reasonable interpretation is better than nothing.

[Rehab]

The thing I got out of Eclipse's statement was more that we are so incapable of knowing this particular woman that to ascribe weakness to her entire character is just a bad idea.

With regard to this particular instance, suicides are in many cases planned meticulously, but just as significant a number of them have also been impulse reactions to stimuli that would have triggered a much different response from the same person under different circumstances. While I can't be sure that her suicide was such a case, I think it's a distinct possibility, to say nothing of what else other than facebook in her life might have helped to put her under so much stress.

I think that one of the bigger reasons that doing something like insulting this woman in death is deplorable is that when people commit suicide, others have a tendency to forget that they had lived entire lives before-hand, and, instead of thinking about them in terms of that life and what could have happened in that context to make them want to end it (which we certainly can't presume to know a drop about here, aside from what we can gather from one article that said little more than "she was an Indian woman of college age, used facebook and had her access to it restricted by her parents"), to effectively reduce their identity to their suicide. And then, on top of that, they're often faulted for the weakness, the character flaws they're assumed to have possessed, often as if they intentionally aggrieved another person. In essence, a load of hot, victim-blaming garbage gets thrown around at people who often have scant voice to defend themselves, with little regard to how it could be proven that they deserve it.

As far as relating this woman's story to any other person who may die, have their life analyzed and be judged, as people naturally tend to do, I think a fundamental categorization that ought to take place before doing so, regardless of the specific case or the conclusions, is what effect the person in question had on anybody else, particularly whether and to what degree they ever aggrieved anybody else. Breivik directly hurt a lot of people, and at a bare minimum some of the people Hitchens had words at like Falwell also helped to cause a lot of hurt, and one could go into great length on the gory details of the effects both their shit had, but this woman had very little in common with them in that sense. I can imagine a sort of collectivist view which might argue that she harmed her family and community by taking her own life, but trying to prove how her suicide directly and unjustly harmed anybody, to the extent that her name deserves to be spat on, sounds to me like an angry, insensitive fool's errand, and the whole enterprise of insulting her just seems disingenuous and pointless.

Especially when we could be talking about Jerry Falwell.

Edited October 28, 2013 by Rehab

[Dark Sage]

this is eclipse's closing sentence after locking the facebook suicide thread.

i'm not interested in continuing that exact topic of discussion (and please don't continue it here), but i actually found this statement somewhat objectionable. the dead do not automatically deserve respect. there are many instances in which i believe that it is perfectly legitimate to insult the deceased, particularly if the deceased possessed extraordinarily poor character when he was alive.

i'm reminded of when many people criticized christopher hitchens for showing a lack of respect after the death of jerry falwell. this is one instance in which i think that hitchens's actions were justified. in many respects was jerry falwell a terrible person and by no means did he deserve the unwavering esteem that he received upon his death.

obviously one has to draw the line somewhere. for example, in no way would i condone protesting at funerals or actively confronting the mourning over a matter of respect for the deceased, nor would i condone passing judgment on someone whom one didn't know at all, but i do not think that it is necessarily in poor taste to disrespect the deceased.

what are your thoughts on the subject?

@bolded: that is pretty much the reason why that topic was closed. People can be fucking savages about people they a) don't even know and b) don't know the context of their actions involving their death.

Then again, they're probably the same people who laugh at shit like America's Funniest Home Videos and 1000 Ways to Die

[dondon151]

You're right, it should've been worded as, "Insulting anyone, dead or alive, is in extremely poor taste." If you wouldn't say it to their face, keep it to yourself.

i think this statement is even more objectionable. this is almost akin to saying that one can't be scathingly critical of someone else, even though there are many people that deserve such treatment. what's wrong with associating negative descriptors to people who have perpetrated negative actions?

As for that girl, I don't think cowardice had anything to do with her last deed (the whole manliness discourse tagged as 'pussy' did not make any sense at all), but it's explainable easily enough without any appeal to mental illness. It was plain bratty behaviour and she hadn't learnt (or accepted) that things in life just don't go the way you'd like to.

well, no, you don't know that for sure.

[Narga_Rocks]

i think this statement is even more objectionable. this is almost akin to saying that one can't be scathingly critical of someone else, even though there are many people that deserve such treatment. what's wrong with associating negative descriptors to people who have perpetrated negative actions?

I think there's a difference between stating that a person's actions are objectionable and being insulting. If someone does something you don't like, I don't see why you couldn't say "that was bad", but at the same time I don't see how you'd be justified in saying "you are an idiot" or other statements like that.

And what does "scathingly critical" mean to you? Give an example. Depending on what you mean by it, then I'd say you shouldn't be "scathingly critical" even to the worst criminal. Most likely, "scathingly critical" is hopefully not nearly as bad as I'm imagining, and being scathingly critical about what some bad person did is fine. But I don't think that Eclipse was saying "you can't tell anyone they did wrong for anything", and I don't know why you constantly insist on reading things in the worst possible light. It's like you search for something to object to so badly that you twist whatever is said so that you can say "that is wrong".

[Esau of Isaac]

Saying that someone is weak or even cowardly for committing suicide is debatable, and can lead to many a heated argument. Referring to someone that was driven to suicide as "a pussy" is beyond any reasonable limits of decency and is ridiculously inflammatory. To say I felt disgust at reading such idiotic commentary in that topic is a massive understatement. It isn't critique, it isn't constructive, it isn't anything other than poor, petty insults from fortunate children.

We don't hold the dead in reverence or respect because of superstition, but because the person is no more. What we have to remember them by is all that remains, and those memories will never change. Such childish commentary isn't tolerated because its only objective is to trample on those memories with reckless abandon. For some reason a minority of the population tolerates it, as though their deaths are somehow felt less because they perished in a way society deems ignoble. I don't know why. Picking up the pieces afterwards hurts whether they died by nature's hand or their own.

[eclipse]

i think this statement is even more objectionable. this is almost akin to saying that one can't be scathingly critical of someone else, even though there are many people that deserve such treatment. what's wrong with associating negative descriptors to people who have perpetrated negative actions?

Does your "criticism" help the other person, or attempt to put yourself in a higher position in relation to the other person? There's a difference between "your actions are harming yourself" and "you're a fucking idiot that deserves to die". One states the intent to improve the other person; the other has no use except to bring the other person down.

We don't hold the dead in reverence or respect because of superstition, but because the person is no more. What we have to remember them by is all that remains, and those memories will never change. Such childish commentary isn't tolerated because its only objective is to trample on those memories with reckless abandon. For some reason a minority of the population tolerates it, as though their deaths are somehow felt less because they perished in a way society deems ignoble. I don't know why. Picking up the pieces afterwards hurts whether they died by nature's hand or their own.

To add to this, there's also how the deceased was perceived by the survivors. The kid that died in an accident may have been a prick at school, but meant everything to his/her parents. To insult that person is to tear a new wound into the parent's heart. Empathy is important, and should never be skimped on!

[Raven]

A little cunt who was a local troublemaker, got into all sorts of shit and also happened to eat the icing off my 16th birthday cake over 8 years ago whilst passing through the kitchen after my mother let him use the bathroom (my mother is friends with this guy's auntie) was stabbed and killed last year.

Needless to say I was happy with the news, on behalf of my hometown having to deal with one less waste of space, and my 16th birthday cake (RIP). And I feel nothing for speaking ill of this shitbag.

Edited October 28, 2013 by AVERAGE RIVEN PLAYER

[Phoenix Wright]

Yikes, Raven (if srs. can't tell tbh).

Anyway, I'll insult the dead if I personally feel they deserve it (ie, people in history like Hitler, Stalin, blah blah blah blah blah), but for us normal, everyday folk, I find insults to be extremely petty--almost as if insulting them is only meant to make the insulter feel better about himself/herself. Pathetic, to put it bluntly.

(Incidentally, this is also why I responded the way I did in that aforementioned topic, for giving those two folks any bit of a serious response would have been a ridiculous choice on my part.)

Ultimately, I feel nearly the same way you do, dondon.

Edited October 28, 2013 by Phoenix Wright

[dondon151]

I think there's a difference between stating that a person's actions are objectionable and being insulting. If someone does something you don't like, I don't see why you couldn't say "that was bad", but at the same time I don't see how you'd be justified in saying "you are an idiot" or other statements like that.

And what does "scathingly critical" mean to you? Give an example. Depending on what you mean by it, then I'd say you shouldn't be "scathingly critical" even to the worst criminal. Most likely, "scathingly critical" is hopefully not nearly as bad as I'm imagining, and being scathingly critical about what some bad person did is fine.

how do you so readily dissociate a person's actions from the person himself? say that i portray joseph kony as a ignorance-propagating, child-raping murderer. by most accounts, that would be considered both critical of the person's actions and insulting towards the person himself. i reserve the right to label a deceased person as a terrible human being if i have evidence of that (except, of course, joseph kony is not dead).

But I don't think that Eclipse was saying "you can't tell anyone they did wrong for anything", and I don't know why you constantly insist on reading things in the worst possible light. It's like you search for something to object to so badly that you twist whatever is said so that you can say "that is wrong".

i would advise you to both read my post and eclipse's post again. i don't know why you constantly insist on reading things incorrectly. let me clearly outline it for you:

You're right, it should've been worded as, "Insulting anyone, dead or alive, is in extremely poor taste." If you wouldn't say it to their face, keep it to yourself.

eclipse literally said that one shouldn't insult anyone (with the caveat of allowing insults directly to one's face, which is an odd line to draw).

To add to this, there's also how the deceased was perceived by the survivors. The kid that died in an accident may have been a prick at school, but meant everything to his/her parents. To insult that person is to tear a new wound into the parent's heart. Empathy is important, and should never be skimped on!

yes, empathy is important. let me go one step further on the topic of empathy, then. in your specific example, why are the considerations of the parents designated at a higher priority than the considerations of the people whom the person hurt? to censure insult of that person is to pour salt in the wounds of those who suffered at the hands of the deceased. a simple role reversal invalidates your pathos here.

Edited October 28, 2013 by dondon151

[Espinosa]

to censure insult of that person is to pour salt in the wounds of those who suffered at the hands of the deceased.

Why are you so sure that anger is a necessary means of tolerating grief? I don't see its remedial effect at all.

[dondon151]

Why are you so sure that anger is a necessary means of tolerating grief? I don't see its remedial effect at all.

i'm not sure if this is a serious question. anger is the second stage of grief. i also did not suggest that anger is a necessary means of tolerating grief.

[blah the Prussian]

A little cunt who was a local troublemaker, got into all sorts of shit and also happened to eat the icing off my 16th birthday cake over 8 years ago whilst passing through the kitchen after my mother let him use the bathroom (my mother is friends with this guy's auntie) was stabbed and killed last year. Needless to say I was happy with the news, on behalf of my hometown having to deal with one less waste of space, and my 16th birthday cake (RIP). And I feel nothing for speaking ill of this shitbag.

Are you saying he deserved to die? I respect your opinion, but theft is NOT a capital crime.

[BK-201]

Saying that someone is weak or even cowardly for committing suicide is debatable, and can lead to many a heated argument. Referring to someone that was driven to suicide as "a pussy" is beyond any reasonable limits of decency and is ridiculously inflammatory. To say I felt disgust at reading such idiotic commentary in that topic is a massive understatement. It isn't critique, it isn't constructive, it isn't anything other than poor, petty insults from fortunate children.

I think this is the important angle to approach it from. Sure there are some instances where the deceased parties are guilty of crimes not absolved by death (the above historical examples I can agree with). The problem with the thread is that many people took such an angle that it became a display of immaturity and complete lack of constructive behavior that doesn't fit underneath the guidelines provided. While I don't take a fully reverent position in terms of the dead, I believe discussion focused more on whether or not Facebook was the cause of her suicide or merely the final straw was more productive than a post merely labeling the individual as a pussy.

I agree that insulting the dead is in poor taste. It was anything but constructive commentary about the dead, but merely a barrage of insults aimed at a dead person. I think there is a fine line between highlighting the negative actions of the dead and mere insults.

[eclipse]

yes, empathy is important. let me go one step further on the topic of empathy, then. in your specific example, why are the considerations of the parents designated at a higher priority than the considerations of the people whom the person hurt? to censure insult of that person is to pour salt in the wounds of those who suffered at the hands of the deceased. a simple role reversal invalidates your pathos here.

I get the feeling you're pissed off about. . .something that I said. . .probably something that you do. You're looking for a fight at this point. You're not getting one.

[Phoenix Wright]

from an outside perspective, i don't really feel like dondon is "looking for a fight," so to speak. more of a discussion.

[Light-Heart]

Saying that someone is weak or even cowardly for committing suicide is debatable, and can lead to many a heated argument. Referring to someone that was driven to suicide as "a pussy" is beyond any reasonable limits of decency and is ridiculously inflammatory. To say I felt disgust at reading such idiotic commentary in that topic is a massive understatement. It isn't critique, it isn't constructive, it isn't anything other than poor, petty insults from fortunate children.

I have to agree alot with Esau of Isaac here.

Calling somebody who has clearly been triggered to give up her own life a " Pussy " is ignorant, childish and disgusting.

You don't even know the person and what she has been through. You can't really judge somebody when you know 1 % about them.

Not to mention " Pussy " as being used as a insult is a rather sexist term, and is just as bad as comments like " Women only belong in the Kitchen ".

Edited October 29, 2013 by glenncoco

[dondon151]

I get the feeling you're pissed off about. . .something that I said. . .probably something that you do. You're looking for a fight at this point. You're not getting one.

you made 4 presumptions about me in this post and exactly 0 of them are correct.

if you were going to make a claim, i expected that you were willing to defend it if i put it under scrutiny. i did not show any indication that i was angry at something (much less at something that you said), nor did i even remotely suggest that i was looking for a fight. somehow both you and narga are under the impression that i habitually go around taking people's quotes out of context and challenging them with feigned or real indignation. this is absurd. i asked you a real question with acceptable rhetoric and you decided not to take me seriously.

[Makaze]

I get the feeling you're pissed off about. . .something that I said. . .probably something that you do. You're looking for a fight at this point. You're not getting one.

Be careful of appealing to motive.

His point makes sense to me. Empathy is a two way street. Empathizing with someone who has intentionally caused harm shows a lack of empathy with the victims. It seems impossible to empathize with both parties without being disingenuous.

Edited October 29, 2013 by Makaze

[eclipse]

you made 4 presumptions about me in this post and exactly 0 of them are correct.

if you were going to make a claim, i expected that you were willing to defend it if i put it under scrutiny. i did not show any indication that i was angry at something (much less at something that you said), nor did i even remotely suggest that i was looking for a fight. somehow both you and narga are under the impression that i habitually go around taking people's quotes out of context and challenging them with feigned or real indignation. this is absurd. i asked you a real question with acceptable rhetoric and you decided not to take me seriously.

It's a statement that was used to close a thread, not a challenge, and after seeing your side of the argument, it's better to let it rest. You are free to debate this with other people, and you are also free to think of this statement as you will.

The fact that you can't tell whether the indignation is real or feigned is part of the reason why I refuse to discuss this further with you.

[Phoenix Wright]

You're right, it should've been worded as, "Insulting anyone, dead or alive, is in extremely poor taste." If you wouldn't say it to their face, keep it to yourself.

Does your "criticism" help the other person, or attempt to put yourself in a higher position in relation to the other person? There's a difference between "your actions are harming yourself" and "you're a fucking idiot that deserves to die". One states the intent to improve the other person; the other has no use except to bring the other person down.

To add to this, there's also how the deceased was perceived by the survivors. The kid that died in an accident may have been a prick at school, but meant everything to his/her parents. To insult that person is to tear a new wound into the parent's heart. Empathy is important, and should never be skimped on!

It's a statement that was used to close a thread, not a challenge, and after seeing your side of the argument, it's better to let it rest. You are free to debate this with other people, and you are also free to think of this statement as you will.

The fact that you can't tell whether the indignation is real or feigned is part of the reason why I refuse to discuss this further with you.

what about those two statements above? especially the first, where you restated what you said in the previous topic but with an addendum? the point of posting in these srs discussion topics is that any and all posts are subject to scrutiny wherein discussion should arise. if you never wanna actually discuss anything ever (which has been the case in many topics as of late), why post at all? this isn't an attack (i ain't evn mad brah!), i'm genuinely curious. so many people here post without actually discussing their points when questioned, or are extremely hesitant and defensive when they do. why post at all if you just wanted to state an opinion and leave?

Edited October 29, 2013 by Phoenix Wright