Off My Chest
RULES:
I am looking for mods!
1. The "good" part of our community means we are pro-empathy and anti-harassment. However, we don't intend to make this a "safe space" where everyone has to be a saint. Sh*t happens, and life is messy. That's why we get things off our chests.
2. Bigotry is not allowed. That includes racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, and religiophobia. (If you want to vent about religion, that's fine; but religion is not inherently evil.)
3. Frustrated, venting, or angry posts are still welcome.
4. Posts and comments that bait, threaten, or incite harassment are not allowed.
5. If anyone offers mental, medical, or professional advice here, please remember to take it with a grain of salt. Seek out real professionals if needed.
6. Please put NSFW behind NSFW tags.
view the rest of the comments
I've seen this sentiment around a bit, and while I'm not going to tell people their feelings are wrong (I did not like the guy and while I would have preferred something else happen to him over murder, he did help support the set of circumstances that made his assassination possible), I find it confusing enough that it makes me question if either my brain works differently around this or if I'm misunderstanding what feeling empathy actually refers to, because to me, it doesn't seem "voluntary" like that.
Like, for me, if something unpleasant happens to someone, I can't really help but to start imagining it and going over what it might be like to be in or around that position and getting emotionally worked up, pretty much automatically. It doesn't really even matter if I'm glad the guy is gone at some level or hated them, my brain gets the immediate gut twist of "damn, that seems like a horrible experience" all the same. Like, it could be someone as heinous as literal Hitler, and even then if some documentary gets into the details of his end my first gut reaction is likely to be a sense of discomfort and something like "it would really suck to wake up one day as someone that's done all that and brought themselves to such a position, imagine what would be going through your head in that situation".
I haven't watched the video as I don't handle blood and gore and such well, and I don't mean this as some kind of judgement or assertion of virtue, it's just a bit confusing to me when people say things like "I have no empathy for guys like that" or "you shouldn't feel empathy for fascists because they don't deserve it" and I'm like, okay, but how? Does your brain just let you decide not do that? Mine seems to just do it automatically regardless of if it feels appropriate or not.
Feel your feelings. Do what's right for you. Nobody else makes that decision for you.
I've spent the last eight years infiltrating white supremacists on social media. I have seen people like Charlie and what their conversation is like when they're among their own and the masks are off. That's why I don't feel bad for him, I have seen their true faces.
You dont need to feel bad for him. You dont need to mourn and you can be happy that he is dead. But if that video of him dying didnt make you feel awful, because you just watched somebody die, then dont you think you might need to take a look at yourself? How much snuff content have you watched to get to a point where somebody gushing blood from their neck doesnt feel bad, you actually feel good watching it? Dont you see how thats a little bit disturbing?
I dont think we are talking about the same thing here. Im not evem sure you read my comment properly.
I am glad he is gone. He was a abhorrent piece of garbage.
But i dont take pleasure in watching people die. Thats what the sentiment is here. Joy and pleasure at watching people die.
I also dont know i can agree about me having a sheltered life. I have witnessed and experienced the death of others in my life. And it is always foul. I guess not living in the US being surrounded by death and mass shootings on an weekly basis means i still find it sickening.
I just think that feeling happy someone died and feeling happy watching someone die are two different things
One is joy that someone evil has been ended, one is joy at watching blood explode from someones neck.
I hope you see my point.
Edit: i feel i need to clarify. Death is gross to me. No matter how "quick", "painless" or "deserving" it was.
So your humanity is on a sliding scale? Death is only gruesome and foul if it happens to good people? Is there a specific point where it flips from ok to not ok?
Hating someone and wishing they were dead is not the same as taking pleasure in watching them die. My comment is responding to the original post about OP taking joy in watching the video. You are straw-manning my point. Twisting it into something else.
Do you see what i am saying?
I followed this stuff very closely. I know who kirk was. I despised him outright. You are mistaking my disgust for murder for empathy. I hated him. But i dont want to watch him explode blood from his neck.
Cant you see how foul that is? You are really gonna compare it to the frankly archaic practice of death row and watching people get killed? What is this the fucking 1800s?
No sense of irony in that response.
How are you going to accuse me of not understanding other peoples feelings on a matter when you are responding in the exact way that you describe.
I am struggling to see it your way. Yes. But what makes it more difficult is you dont want to try to help me understand. You just want to attack me, attack my character and throw me aside because you dont seem to be able to deal with me having a different opinion to you.
I am trying to understand how someone can feel pleasure watching someone gush blood from the neck. Please stop calling me sheltered, its innacurate and offensive.
I completely understand finding joy in kirks death. 100% he was a monster. I dont know how many times i have to say it.
But watching someone die and knowing someone died are completely different things. The joy that is felt from each comes from very different places.
Cant we just talk about this instead of fighting about it? I'm serious. Take a step back, think about this. Charlie kirk has died and we are here arguing about it despite both hating the man.
I personally draw a line between being happy a bad person died, and sitting there watching him die in a gruesome way and enjoying the sight of it. I dont think it makes you better because you can stomach watching that. But thats what it feels like you are saying.
I hope you understand i am trying to just talk about this. Im not trying to cause more anger.
Ok, so looking past the condescension. What im hearing is you have been personally affected by this or at least by something similar, and you have personal feelings of hatred that surpass your natural humanity and allow you to be ok or even enjoy watching this person die.
What ever you want to belive about my personal situation and experiences, is of no consequence. If it looks like, from your perspective that i am taking a moral high ground, i apologise, as thats not my intention. I would argue that its possible that you might be in two minds about your own stance if you think that my stance is a "high ground" i personally dont see it that way.
I want to understand what makes someone capable of enjoying murder. I dont personally think it matters who is murdered. Watching it is disgusting to me and makes me feel sick. Even if i am happy that someone has died, i cant watch it happen because it makes me feel sick. And i dont think thats a marol standpoint. I think its just the default. I think you need to be desensitised to things like this to be able to reach a point where not only does watching it not bother you, it actually makes you happy.
Im not trying to put you down. I apologise for any time i made it seem that way.
I just want to understand.
Sorry, but you haven't explained how you are desensitised to it. You said he affected you family or you directly, but I go into detail.
But again. I am not arguing the point of being happy he died. Because again, i agree. I am talking about finding joy in watching that happen. Not joy in knowing he died, joy in watching someone die in a gruesome way.
I don't know how to be more clear in that distiction.
I don't know what it is, either i am not being clear, or you are too annoyed with me and angry with kirk for it to click.
I am glad he is dead. I felt sick watching his neck explode. And i agree with people who are happy he is dead but i wish i understood why people can enjoy watching that.
Because of justice (or perceived justice). Just like if you see an old man knocked out by a angry 30 year old, you'd feel badly for the man, except if that 30 year old just caught the old guy molesting your kid, then your sympathy ends.
That's what empathy is, it's automatic, reason doesn't factor in. There is nothing wrong with you.
Reasoning how to feel afterwards is something different.
You described it pretty perfectly as I experience it. Charlie Kirk was an awful piece of shit, and also violence is bad. I watched the video but shouldn't have. I truly cannot understand how people are so gleeful. I certainly get being glad that he's dead. He didn't deserve life. But as you said, empathy isn't voluntary. People are either devoid of it or overriding it. America fucking sucks and probably will never get better.
Same! I think curiosity and sleep depravity got the better of me when i sought out the video.
Then i instantly and continuously regretted watching it as it was fucking foul! I cant get the image of the neck snap and blood exploding from his neck our of my head.
I absolutely despised this guy, but watching anybody die should have a natural effect on anyone.
I cant get behind this sentiment of wanting to watch him die for pleasure. That makes me think there are a lot more sick people on this platform than i had previously believed.
I absolutely agree. And the smug self righteousness here is even worse than reddit. People really disappoint me sometimes. This feeling I have right now is similar to the two times trump won. I always thought people were better than this.
Then just when you cannot think more badly of people, some dick will come along and tell you that you support fascism. Because that's clearly what being disgusted by watching a murder means, right? The lack of empathy for even the living is palpable.
The justifications are just ways of shutting down empathy. You can stop feeling those things automatically if you work at closing them off. It's a great first step at becoming a psychopath, if you want.
So, I don't think it's entirely voluntary either way, it's just a matter of where your perspective defaults to. I consider myself a fairly empathetic person and I happen to sit on the opposite side of this. As much as I try, I cannot feel empathy for him.
When I try, the empathy I feel is for everyone he advocated to subjugate and kill. I cannot fathom being in the shoes of someone so pointlessly, shamelessly hateful. When I put myself in his shoes, there is no connection that makes it in any way feel like a real person's understandable perspective. If he had changed at some point? That would be understandable. Imagining that makes me feel empathy for the person he could have been, but that person doesn't exist, never existed and may never have. I feel more empathy for that hypothetical person than I do the actual Charlie Kirk, someone who himself felt that feeling empathy was a sickness and wanted to eradicate me from society.
I struggle to find anything to empathize with there.
With that said, I watched the video. It made me feel sick to my stomach. But that didn't change the immense relief I felt knowing there was one less person in the world that thought I should be stoned in the street. I don't think you're wrong for feeling unsettled by someone taking glee in it though. It's hard to imagine the kind of pain someone has to go through to get to the point where someone's death is something to celebrate as a relief.