Identity Loss (not the "roll for pick pockets" kind)

[Ed_Laprade]

I cannot speak to the others, but let's have a little compassion. Pat Pulling's son took her revolver and shot himself in the chest.

I sure hope that if you ever lose a child to violence in your own home, that nobody accuses you of trying to profit off of their death.

I'll appogize for saying that it was her primary motive. I assume that her primary motive was to prove to everyone, including herself, that she wasn't a Bad Parent. However, the fact that she clearly had no clue as to what the thing she blamed her son's death on was all about, thus showing that she had no clue as to what her son was all about, proves that she was! (A very hefty overstatement, probably, but that's pretty much what she was doing. And what's good for the gander is good for the goose.) Don't have any kids.

 

[Umbran]

I assume that her primary motive was to prove to everyone, including herself, that she wasn't a Bad Parent. However, the fact that she clearly had no clue as to what the thing she blamed her son's death on was all about, thus showing that she had no clue as to what her son was all about, proves that she was!

I don't think it is at all that simple. I am not in a position to say if she was a bad parent, or a normal parent with a kid who had problems.

Without supporting evidence, I don't think we can simply connect her behavior after her son's death to her behavior before - the death of a child is traumatic, and can bring on major behavioral changes.

Your take on it still seems... cynical. Unnecessarily prejudgemental. Are parents who join anti-drunk-driving groups driven first by a desire to prove they aren't bad parents?

If her son had fallen in with a person who was a bad influence, and that had led to her son's death, and she went on a spree to discredit or kill that person, would you say she was driven by a need to prove her own worth? I would think revenge, a desire for justice, or to protect others from that same influence would rank well before proving self-worth on initial guesses. I think the analogy holds pretty well.

*shrug* I didn't know the woman, so I cannot say.

 

[Wolf1066]

Pat Pulling's son took her revolver and shot himself in the chest.

Yet it was RPGs she blamed, not firearms that are stored in such a manner that they can be accessed and used.

I'm not remotely "anti-gun" - I own a number of rifles and shotguns and would happily own pistols if I had the money and time for all the licensing/security requirements.

My point is: to blame the firearm or its accessibility would be a ludicrous thing to do - you can't say "the firearm" (or "the presence of the firearm") "made him kill himself."

Still, the anti-gun lobby makes those sort of ludicrous statements every day, blaming the device when the blame rests with the person who misused it.

Likewise blaming Patricia is pointless - lots of people have screwed-up parents or have been mentally/physically mistreated by parents, teachers, peers etc and not all of them commit suicide or turn to drugs or run away and become prostitutes or whatever.

No matter how screwed up she was, it was ultimately her son's decision to take his own life.

Blaming firearms or RPGs for his death are equally ludicrous.

 

[El Mahdi]

..."And again today, 10,000 RPGers had a quiet time and didn't commit suicide or slaughter anyone, that makes this the 10th outbreak of exemplary behaviour in the last month."...

I'm putting this in my signature.

 

[El Mahdi]

I'm sorry, but that woman was a monster.

Her illogical and erratic thinking was probably directly responsible for the environment that led to her son's suicide.

I feel sorry for the son and the situation, but based on her actions, I have no compassion for Pat Pulling.

I understand how you feel. I'd like to just grab some of those people and shake the hell out of them. Of course though that's just an emotional reaction. But...

Lashing out at something you don't understand in the midst of great traumatic pain is what I would call misguided and tragic, although quite common and a relatively normal reaction. Doesn't make it right, just makes her human.

But a "monster"...that seems like illogical thinking to me.

 

[Insight]

The truly lost are those intractable souls utterly convinced that they know all despite never having dipped their toes even once in RPG waters. Nothing you could say could convince these delusional people that they were wrong about D&D (and other RPGs, though few even knew other RPGs existed or could name one).

On the one hand, you have to feel sorry for people so blindly passionate in their views. On the other hand, these people are pretty ignorant. Shouldn't they find out the truth about something before simply hating it and protesting against it?

 

[Wolf1066]

I'm pretty sure you'd be better off being vilified for imaginary faults rather than effectively glorying in real ones, surely?

I'm egalitarian - I glory in my good points and my faults alike.

 

[Umbran]

Blaming firearms or RPGs for his death are equally ludicrous.

Nobody said she was reasonable. Clearly, she wasn't operating at the height of human dispassion and clarity of thought. However, pain and loss will make people do some terribly unreasonable things - often far worse than just vilifying a game.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

I don't think it is at all that simple. I am not in a position to say if she was a bad parent, or a normal parent with a kid who had problems.

You seem to have missed the part where I admit that what I said was probably a pretty hefty overstatement. The point I was trying to make was that, by her own logic, she was a Bad Parent. Was she really? I don't know either.

 

[Wolf1066]

Nobody said she was reasonable. Clearly, she wasn't operating at the height of human dispassion and clarity of thought. However, pain and loss will make people do some terribly unreasonable things - often far worse than just vilifying a game.

True, and (like Dausuul), I cut her rather more slack due to her being in an obviously traumatised state than I do for the likes of Chick who's in the business of tearing down people with deliberate falsehoods to push his own agenda.

At the time, tho', the last thing we needed was some rabidly hysterical person screaming to all the world that a game made her son commit suicide.

Especially since a large number of sheep out there - who don't have her reasons for acting unreasonably - don't have the cognitive ability to work out that an object, book, game, song, idea, philosophy or whatever can't make someone do anything that they don't already want to do.

You can't reasonably blame the bible for the Crusades or the Inquisition or Jonestown, nor the Quran for suicide bombers, nor Acid Rock for drug use and killings, nor firearms for murder - and with a bit of reasoned thought you'd realise that the people engaged in the action would have found another excuse or means if those things had not been in existence.

Trouble is, there seems to be a distressingly large segment of the population that is incapable of that reasoned thought and are fodder for the likes of connivers like Jim Jones or Jack Chick and hysterical people like Pat Pulling.

And the above logic applies "downstream"- Jim Jones, Jack Chick and others are successful because the sheep want to be told what to believe and want to believe what they're told. Jack Chick's tracts were only effective on those who wanted to believe there was some dark Satanic Conspiracy whose members could be easily identified by such signs as playing RPGs, listening to certain music, reading certain books etc. Chick's tracts don't make anyone a bigoted moron any more than D&D makes people "satanic" - the bigoted morons were merely cherry-picking whatever stupid propaganda agreed with their existing views.

The tracts and the ravings sure as Hell didn't prevent us or turn us away (tho' I've occasionally wondered how many rebellious teens were bitterly disappointed because they joined D&D games hoping to become magical servants of satan and thus annoy/"punish" their parents...) and they didn't convince those who are disinclined towards prejudice.