Living as an Accidental Killer
November 29, 2018 9:27 AM Subscribe
“How can you recover from the trauma of accidentally killing someone?” (SLTG) Shame and guilt are constant for many who, without intention, have caused others to die. This can have consequences that last a lifetime and sometimes beyond. (Trigger warning—graphic descriptions of accidents.)
My grandfather took his father’s brand-new 1910 Studebaker, the first automobile in his community, out for a drive as a young man and drove over a small child. This accident shattered him; his longtime girlfriend shunned him and he ended up in an unhappy marriage which produced my mother (who was also told that she was an accident), whose anger at growing up exposed to constant frustration was transferred to my sister and I. My grandfather’s sadness haunted generations of our family and likely influenced my sister and my decisions not to have children, effectively ending the family line.
My grandfather took his father’s brand-new 1910 Studebaker, the first automobile in his community, out for a drive as a young man and drove over a small child. This accident shattered him; his longtime girlfriend shunned him and he ended up in an unhappy marriage which produced my mother (who was also told that she was an accident), whose anger at growing up exposed to constant frustration was transferred to my sister and I. My grandfather’s sadness haunted generations of our family and likely influenced my sister and my decisions not to have children, effectively ending the family line.
Thomas Nagel and Bernard Williams write about moral luck. If you are a Nazi but emigrate for career reasons before the party takes power and then realize overseas how wrong you were, you are morally better off than your Nazi brother who stayed home and was complicit, but through no act or choice of your own. If you made a mistake that could have killed someone but didn't, you are morally better off than the person who did kill by making a mistake, but again through no act or choice of your own. This is unsatisfactory, but so are all alternatives.
I can't resolve the central problem, but I am a little surprised the author didn't conclude that he had hit his quota for killing people in car accidents, and either stop driving or take many safe driving courses and refresh his safe driving skills regularly. It would not make a lot of sense, but it would make people around him a tiny bit safer, and by so doing put his guilt to some good use. If a demon is going to follow you around scourging you, you might as well arrange to be driven somewhere worth going.
posted by ckridge at 9:52 AM on November 29, 2018 [13 favorites]
I can't resolve the central problem, but I am a little surprised the author didn't conclude that he had hit his quota for killing people in car accidents, and either stop driving or take many safe driving courses and refresh his safe driving skills regularly. It would not make a lot of sense, but it would make people around him a tiny bit safer, and by so doing put his guilt to some good use. If a demon is going to follow you around scourging you, you might as well arrange to be driven somewhere worth going.
posted by ckridge at 9:52 AM on November 29, 2018 [13 favorites]
Years ago, I heard a This American Life episode with a guy who, in high school, was driving along a highway when a girl from his high school, cycling ahead of him, swerved into his path. I think about that every time I'm driving and there are cyclists in the vicinity. I didn't get my drivers' license until about 2 years after everyone else in my age cohort, because I was terrified of the lethal power of the steering wheel.
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 10:06 AM on November 29, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 10:06 AM on November 29, 2018 [4 favorites]
When I was 21 I was responsible* for a car accident that did not but very easily could have killed or seriously injured the woman in the other car. The scariest few moments of my life were the immediate aftermath, because the hood of the car I was driving had popped up and I couldn't see who or who had run into me or what condition they were in, and I remember thinking "Did I just kill someone?" I still have the occasional nightmare about it.
* I was sober, but made a left turn without looking because I was tired and she t-boned my parents' much-larger car. Thankfully she was wearing a seatbelt, nobody else was in her car, and she suffered no injuries, not even whiplash.
posted by The Card Cheat at 10:16 AM on November 29, 2018 [4 favorites]
* I was sober, but made a left turn without looking because I was tired and she t-boned my parents' much-larger car. Thankfully she was wearing a seatbelt, nobody else was in her car, and she suffered no injuries, not even whiplash.
posted by The Card Cheat at 10:16 AM on November 29, 2018 [4 favorites]
I mean... he didn't accidentally kill someone, though. He changed lanes without looking. He didn't intend to kill someone, but he was reckless all the same.
posted by Automocar at 10:16 AM on November 29, 2018 [8 favorites]
posted by Automocar at 10:16 AM on November 29, 2018 [8 favorites]
I have gone on three decades without learning to drive for exactly this reason (well, and all the others).
I am a bit frustrated by this angle on things, as we continue as a society to forgive and excuse people who kill with their cars yet vilify anyone who rides a bicycle without wearing a styrofoam hat.
Yes, motorists are also victims of the deadly motoring culture and its norms, but we continue to make excuses when people kill with their cars. Good luck getting a jury to convict anyone of vehicular manslaughter, even when the evidence is plain. And judges will just forgive motorists who should have had their licences revoked several times.
And all of this because at one point an entire industry took over and re-engineered our very cities to be inhospitable to humans. It's little different in my mind to Big Tobacco, and I find it infuriating.
So how do we convince our society to actually feel the power of guilt caused by this death and destruction before they buy a car or a gun?
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 10:17 AM on November 29, 2018 [38 favorites]
I am a bit frustrated by this angle on things, as we continue as a society to forgive and excuse people who kill with their cars yet vilify anyone who rides a bicycle without wearing a styrofoam hat.
Yes, motorists are also victims of the deadly motoring culture and its norms, but we continue to make excuses when people kill with their cars. Good luck getting a jury to convict anyone of vehicular manslaughter, even when the evidence is plain. And judges will just forgive motorists who should have had their licences revoked several times.
And all of this because at one point an entire industry took over and re-engineered our very cities to be inhospitable to humans. It's little different in my mind to Big Tobacco, and I find it infuriating.
So how do we convince our society to actually feel the power of guilt caused by this death and destruction before they buy a car or a gun?
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 10:17 AM on November 29, 2018 [38 favorites]
The Card Cheat, thank you for linking your sobriety to your responsibility there. The one case in which our culture puts full responsibility on motorists who kill is when they are "under the influence". We only seem to shelter lucid motorists from responsibility, despite their actual decision processes being more relevant to the collision they caused.
But there's a redemptive path for people with substance abuse problems, as we have systems to treat that as an illness and help people make amends (however inspiring or flawed you may think those institutions). I don't think there's a good path for people whose fundamental flaw was vehicular hubris.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 10:21 AM on November 29, 2018 [2 favorites]
But there's a redemptive path for people with substance abuse problems, as we have systems to treat that as an illness and help people make amends (however inspiring or flawed you may think those institutions). I don't think there's a good path for people whose fundamental flaw was vehicular hubris.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 10:21 AM on November 29, 2018 [2 favorites]
At least the first two examples are motor vehicle collisions involving young people. Include Laura Bush that's three examples.
Almost as though the title should be “How can you recover from the trauma of accidentally killing someone with your car?”
A friend of mine, whom I've known since childhood, who married a high school friend of mine, whose two kids now go to the same schools as my two sons and come over to hang out, was struck by a man driving a truck in a marked crosswalk, on a walk signal, in a school zone, with a cross guard in the crosswalk stopping traffic. She was walking her son to elementary school.
My friend survived, but if she and her son had exchanged places, god knows what would have happened.
The driver (driving a fucking F-150) didn't get ticketed. "The sun was in his eyes."
You want to kill someone? Do it with a car. Every time we get behind the wheel we should remember that we can change our life, and the lives of complete strangers just as soon as we leave the driveway.
Little to no recognition of this in our cavalier car culture in North America.
posted by JamesBay at 10:23 AM on November 29, 2018 [46 favorites]
Almost as though the title should be “How can you recover from the trauma of accidentally killing someone with your car?”
A friend of mine, whom I've known since childhood, who married a high school friend of mine, whose two kids now go to the same schools as my two sons and come over to hang out, was struck by a man driving a truck in a marked crosswalk, on a walk signal, in a school zone, with a cross guard in the crosswalk stopping traffic. She was walking her son to elementary school.
My friend survived, but if she and her son had exchanged places, god knows what would have happened.
The driver (driving a fucking F-150) didn't get ticketed. "The sun was in his eyes."
You want to kill someone? Do it with a car. Every time we get behind the wheel we should remember that we can change our life, and the lives of complete strangers just as soon as we leave the driveway.
Little to no recognition of this in our cavalier car culture in North America.
posted by JamesBay at 10:23 AM on November 29, 2018 [46 favorites]
My mom would often say "that was a mistake, but it wasn't an accident" when my carelessness, thoughtlessness, or recklessness caused harm to myself or others.
posted by muddgirl at 10:24 AM on November 29, 2018 [47 favorites]
posted by muddgirl at 10:24 AM on November 29, 2018 [47 favorites]
I used to do legal marketing focusing on personal injury law. Never, ever used the words "car accident", because there are no accidents when you take command of a two thousand pound hunk of metal.
posted by JamesBay at 10:28 AM on November 29, 2018 [9 favorites]
posted by JamesBay at 10:28 AM on November 29, 2018 [9 favorites]
Fighting for a world where the consequence of a momentary mistake isn't death would be a much better way to expiate guilt than pretty much anything I can think of.
We don't have to accept this. There are clear ways to stop the carnage, and our governments at every level are failing to pursue them, because the convenience of people behind the wheel of an automobile is considered more important than everyone's safety.
posted by asperity at 10:29 AM on November 29, 2018 [10 favorites]
We don't have to accept this. There are clear ways to stop the carnage, and our governments at every level are failing to pursue them, because the convenience of people behind the wheel of an automobile is considered more important than everyone's safety.
posted by asperity at 10:29 AM on November 29, 2018 [10 favorites]
Vision Zero is an initiative that focuses on understanding where and why crashes occur, and designing danger out of street systems. In that way, it's a shift of responsibility that's probably helpful for people who cause collisions - it reinforces that, well, even though they're not accidents, the perpetrator isn't entirely at fault: street design plays a major role, too.
Though from my review of the crash stats that US states report, "failure to yield" and "excessive speed" are two of the most common causes of collisions; while design helps reduce those, it needs to be part of a broader culture shift around driving that lowers people's entitlement to public space.
posted by entropone at 10:35 AM on November 29, 2018 [10 favorites]
Though from my review of the crash stats that US states report, "failure to yield" and "excessive speed" are two of the most common causes of collisions; while design helps reduce those, it needs to be part of a broader culture shift around driving that lowers people's entitlement to public space.
posted by entropone at 10:35 AM on November 29, 2018 [10 favorites]
Also: thank you, kinnakeet, for your personal story about the effects traffic violence can have across generations. It's hard to think about how we're setting up more families for this kind of pain every day.
posted by asperity at 10:45 AM on November 29, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by asperity at 10:45 AM on November 29, 2018 [4 favorites]
What will happen to fix our cavalier car culture is self-driving cars. We will get a generation of kids who say "What? Why?" when asked to learn to drive, and that will be that.
Humans are not competent to handle a thousand pounds moving at 65 mph. If you set up a factory that had as many opportunities to kill yourself and others as a car in traffic does, OSHA would be on your ass like white on rice. Any human whatever has moments of complete incompetence. Designing machines that let people kill themselves and each other in those moments and then blaming it on human error is safety engineering so bad as to be insane.
Our intuitions about physics don't apply at the speeds at which cars move. I talked to an ER doctor once who said that one of the hardest parts of her job was explaining to parents that it was not true that if they had just held on a little harder, their baby wouldn't have flown out of their arms when the car crashed. They just could not register that no human is strong enough to hold onto a baby that has just gone from zero to sixty in a second.
Fact is, though, that most people have to drive in order to work. That means that for the foreseeable future, they will kill each other accidentally with cars and then be racked with guilt.
posted by ckridge at 10:46 AM on November 29, 2018 [8 favorites]
Humans are not competent to handle a thousand pounds moving at 65 mph. If you set up a factory that had as many opportunities to kill yourself and others as a car in traffic does, OSHA would be on your ass like white on rice. Any human whatever has moments of complete incompetence. Designing machines that let people kill themselves and each other in those moments and then blaming it on human error is safety engineering so bad as to be insane.
Our intuitions about physics don't apply at the speeds at which cars move. I talked to an ER doctor once who said that one of the hardest parts of her job was explaining to parents that it was not true that if they had just held on a little harder, their baby wouldn't have flown out of their arms when the car crashed. They just could not register that no human is strong enough to hold onto a baby that has just gone from zero to sixty in a second.
Fact is, though, that most people have to drive in order to work. That means that for the foreseeable future, they will kill each other accidentally with cars and then be racked with guilt.
posted by ckridge at 10:46 AM on November 29, 2018 [8 favorites]
I am a little surprised the author didn't conclude that he had hit his quota for killing people in car accidents, and either stop driving or take many safe driving courses and refresh his safe driving skills regularly. It would not make a lot of sense, but it would make people around him a tiny bit safer, and by so doing put his guilt to some good use.
It's common and understandable for those who have had a tragic accident to want to withdraw from ever doing that activity again. It's equally common for others to feel that they ought to do that, and that doing so would make everyone else safer.
If someone was careless, remains so, feels no remorse and hasn't learned their lesson, then sure - the world is safer without them. But for anyone who feels guilt, shame and blame for what happened, I think this viewpoint is completely, utterly and diametrically wrong. Those who have learned that brutal lesson don't scare me. Going through that - for anyone who isn't a total piece of shit - instils a special kind of carefulness in someone for the rest of their lives.
It's people who have never had an accident that terrify me. Because at some level, they always think it can't happen to them. And they're so determined to believe it, that whenever someone else gets unlucky, they will swear up and down that that person must have been doing something wrong, must not have been paying attention, that somehow they were less safe than everyone else, and that if they would just go away then everything would be okay.
The uncomfortable truth is that humans are fallible and make mistakes even when acting with full care and attention.
Most people will never truly understand that unless and until it happens to them. I hope it never happens to you.
posted by automatronic at 10:48 AM on November 29, 2018 [13 favorites]
It's common and understandable for those who have had a tragic accident to want to withdraw from ever doing that activity again. It's equally common for others to feel that they ought to do that, and that doing so would make everyone else safer.
If someone was careless, remains so, feels no remorse and hasn't learned their lesson, then sure - the world is safer without them. But for anyone who feels guilt, shame and blame for what happened, I think this viewpoint is completely, utterly and diametrically wrong. Those who have learned that brutal lesson don't scare me. Going through that - for anyone who isn't a total piece of shit - instils a special kind of carefulness in someone for the rest of their lives.
It's people who have never had an accident that terrify me. Because at some level, they always think it can't happen to them. And they're so determined to believe it, that whenever someone else gets unlucky, they will swear up and down that that person must have been doing something wrong, must not have been paying attention, that somehow they were less safe than everyone else, and that if they would just go away then everything would be okay.
The uncomfortable truth is that humans are fallible and make mistakes even when acting with full care and attention.
Most people will never truly understand that unless and until it happens to them. I hope it never happens to you.
posted by automatronic at 10:48 AM on November 29, 2018 [13 favorites]
I know that if a driver ever kills someone I love, the rage I will feel will destroy me. I hope that we in the US run the NRA into the ground and then move on to this car culture that kills over 35,000 people each year.
I stopped driving about 20 years ago. And it significantly improved the quality of my life and my ability to control my temper. The flip side is a growing terror of drivers. I do the only thing I can do--I give money to Vision Zero advocacy groups in my town; I call my neighborhood level government to request crosswalks, speed enforcement, parking reductions. I call my state and federal government to improve transit.
Of course, I'd probably be a terrible driver now, if I had to. Which is why I think everyone should have to take a driving course and pass a road test at a minimum every ten years to retain their license. 35,000 people a year die because we don't take driving seriously.
posted by crush at 10:51 AM on November 29, 2018 [4 favorites]
I stopped driving about 20 years ago. And it significantly improved the quality of my life and my ability to control my temper. The flip side is a growing terror of drivers. I do the only thing I can do--I give money to Vision Zero advocacy groups in my town; I call my neighborhood level government to request crosswalks, speed enforcement, parking reductions. I call my state and federal government to improve transit.
Of course, I'd probably be a terrible driver now, if I had to. Which is why I think everyone should have to take a driving course and pass a road test at a minimum every ten years to retain their license. 35,000 people a year die because we don't take driving seriously.
posted by crush at 10:51 AM on November 29, 2018 [4 favorites]
Thank you for posting this. The author's descriptions of rituals and ceremonies to come to terms with such traumas, especially for veterans, was really moving.
posted by lazuli at 10:55 AM on November 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by lazuli at 10:55 AM on November 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
Mod note: Car culture is not really the subject of the post and it's something we have had many other posts about. Let's try to have a conversation about the actual subject of the post - accidentally causing death - and not about transit facts and car culture. Thanks.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 11:15 AM on November 29, 2018 [23 favorites]
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 11:15 AM on November 29, 2018 [23 favorites]
I know that if a driver ever kills someone I love, the rage I will feel will destroy me.
My brother was the passenger in a car driven by his good friend when they ran into a tree. The crash killed my brother, while the other passengers only received minor injuries. No intoxication was involved. At the funeral, my mother approached the driver and told him that she didn't blame him. That he should forgive himself and live a good life. She told me later that by forgiving the driver she was releasing herself from years of despair and rage. Her approach meant that I never blamed the driver either. In fact I felt great compassion for him. We had to live with the loss of my beloved brother. He had to live with knowing that his moment of inattention killed his good friend. He was the one living with the real 'what-ifs', not us.
In many ways, loss is easier to live with than guilt.
posted by Thella at 11:21 AM on November 29, 2018 [54 favorites]
My brother was the passenger in a car driven by his good friend when they ran into a tree. The crash killed my brother, while the other passengers only received minor injuries. No intoxication was involved. At the funeral, my mother approached the driver and told him that she didn't blame him. That he should forgive himself and live a good life. She told me later that by forgiving the driver she was releasing herself from years of despair and rage. Her approach meant that I never blamed the driver either. In fact I felt great compassion for him. We had to live with the loss of my beloved brother. He had to live with knowing that his moment of inattention killed his good friend. He was the one living with the real 'what-ifs', not us.
In many ways, loss is easier to live with than guilt.
posted by Thella at 11:21 AM on November 29, 2018 [54 favorites]
What is of interest about the digression into killing people with cars is that sometimes some people just have to drive, and thereby open up the possibility of killing someone accidentally. That is an unusual state of affairs. Shooting a firearm opens up the possibility of killing someone accidentally, but it is unusual for someone to just have to own or shoot a firearm. I once had a chunk of rotten granite come off in my hand and almost hit a climber below me, but I didn't have to be climbing that rock. Most activities that involve the possibility of accidentally killing someone are uncommon and voluntary. I can think of only one that is well-nigh universal and that is often simple necessity.
posted by ckridge at 11:25 AM on November 29, 2018 [8 favorites]
posted by ckridge at 11:25 AM on November 29, 2018 [8 favorites]
A childhood neighbor of my mother accidentally killed her toddler sister with a tractor (she was a teenager at the time). My mother told me about going to the funeral, and how the baby's mother threw herself on the casket sobbing. I felt such a pang for the daughter, seeing the grief she had caused.
Her siblings still live within a mile of the family farm, and her parents lived there until they died, but she left the farm and spent her life elsewhere.
This topic reminds me of a Barbara Kingsolver quote about making difficult choices: Give me any day the quick hand of cruel fate that will leave me scarred but blameless.
posted by Emmy Rae at 11:30 AM on November 29, 2018 [17 favorites]
Her siblings still live within a mile of the family farm, and her parents lived there until they died, but she left the farm and spent her life elsewhere.
This topic reminds me of a Barbara Kingsolver quote about making difficult choices: Give me any day the quick hand of cruel fate that will leave me scarred but blameless.
posted by Emmy Rae at 11:30 AM on November 29, 2018 [17 favorites]
If you made a mistake that could have killed someone but didn't, you are morally better off than the person who did kill by making a mistake, but again through no act or choice of your own.
No. No. No. No. No. No. Nuh-uh. Nyet.
The moral burden is based on the risk of killing someone with the choice you knowingly made. Whether or not someone actually dies may be of more impact emotionally and legally, but choosing to text while driving near pedestrians is a moral failure whether you hit them or not. Because we are imperfect judges of risk, we usually have to ascribe different consequences (opprobrium, civil and criminal penalty) to actual harm caused vs risk of harm, but that doesn't change what is or is not moral.
posted by BrotherCaine at 12:05 PM on November 29, 2018 [7 favorites]
No. No. No. No. No. No. Nuh-uh. Nyet.
The moral burden is based on the risk of killing someone with the choice you knowingly made. Whether or not someone actually dies may be of more impact emotionally and legally, but choosing to text while driving near pedestrians is a moral failure whether you hit them or not. Because we are imperfect judges of risk, we usually have to ascribe different consequences (opprobrium, civil and criminal penalty) to actual harm caused vs risk of harm, but that doesn't change what is or is not moral.
posted by BrotherCaine at 12:05 PM on November 29, 2018 [7 favorites]
To analogize, winning a lottery jackpot doesn't mean a decision to buy a ticket was smart if the mathematical expectation was less than the cost. A medical procedure that kills a patient was not a bad idea if the probabilities pointed to a net increase post procedure in lifespan.
posted by BrotherCaine at 12:38 PM on November 29, 2018
posted by BrotherCaine at 12:38 PM on November 29, 2018
This is why I, a non-driver, don't look forward with any enthusiasm to the idea of (re)learning to do so. I am terrified of this kind of scenario. I don't think I could bear it, even though I know, rationally, that it is simply not possible to drive day in, day out, without ever making an error in a split-second that could cascade into a series that leads to death. (As distinct from driving while intoxicated, texting, speeding--really culpable forms of negligence that involve a deliberate bad, selfish choice.)
As a lawyer, sometimes you make mistakes that don't rise to the level of malpractice but that nonetheless can really affect people's lives. I still get cold sweats thinking about some of my near-misses.
posted by praemunire at 12:38 PM on November 29, 2018 [3 favorites]
As a lawyer, sometimes you make mistakes that don't rise to the level of malpractice but that nonetheless can really affect people's lives. I still get cold sweats thinking about some of my near-misses.
posted by praemunire at 12:38 PM on November 29, 2018 [3 favorites]
Back in high school some kids three years ahead of me were hanging out after school at someone's home. They were "rough housing" and one kid ended up falling, breaking his neck, and dying. I often wonder what happened to the guy who caused the fall. He was one of those big dumb asshole bullies.
posted by Brocktoon at 12:51 PM on November 29, 2018
posted by Brocktoon at 12:51 PM on November 29, 2018
With the parable of the Good Samaritan, we are asked to consider, "who is my neighbour?", which is the underpinning concept of the English common law of negligence.
So when we consider "accidents", often the shortcoming is the appreciation of "who is my neighbour?" When I am in charge of a tonne or two of steel and power, my neighbour is a much larger orbit than when I am running down the street. Which is probably why being Amish does wonders for reducing stress levels.
Similarly, my kitchen knives need to be handled carefully, but your shotgun has the potential to strike far more widely and so you need to be far more concerned for your neighbours than I do for mine.
As a mother, I railed, and continue to rail, against "accidents" as I considered that they were evidence of the failure of forethought and consideration.
posted by Barbara Spitzer at 12:57 PM on November 29, 2018
So when we consider "accidents", often the shortcoming is the appreciation of "who is my neighbour?" When I am in charge of a tonne or two of steel and power, my neighbour is a much larger orbit than when I am running down the street. Which is probably why being Amish does wonders for reducing stress levels.
Similarly, my kitchen knives need to be handled carefully, but your shotgun has the potential to strike far more widely and so you need to be far more concerned for your neighbours than I do for mine.
As a mother, I railed, and continue to rail, against "accidents" as I considered that they were evidence of the failure of forethought and consideration.
posted by Barbara Spitzer at 12:57 PM on November 29, 2018
I am terrified I'll kill a lane-splitting motorcyclist.
posted by aramaic at 1:01 PM on November 29, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by aramaic at 1:01 PM on November 29, 2018 [2 favorites]
If you made a mistake that could have killed someone but didn't, you are morally better off than the person who did kill by making a mistake, but again through no act or choice of your own.
No. No. No. No. No. No. Nuh-uh. Nyet.
The moral burden is based on the risk of killing someone with the choice you knowingly made. Whether or not someone actually dies may be of more impact emotionally and legally, but choosing to text while driving near pedestrians is a moral failure whether you hit them or not. Because we are imperfect judges of risk, we usually have to ascribe different consequences (opprobrium, civil and criminal penalty) to actual harm caused vs risk of harm, but that doesn't change what is or is not moral.
This argument proceeds as though we've agreed that moral evaluations are made on an exclusive moral/immoral or permissible/impermissible binary, but it's clear from their context that ckridge is making a claim about the relative moral status of activities along a continuum. Once you have admitted the possibility of margins, it's not an obviously wrong view that our moral evaluations of actions can be properly influenced at the margins by actual outcomes. Philosophers have not, as far as I'm aware, ceded the entire terrain of moral discourse to the Kantians in the ten years that I've been away.
posted by Kwine at 1:02 PM on November 29, 2018 [5 favorites]
One day rock climbing with three friends, my best friend from high school, and my best friend from junior high and his little brother, we decided to do some bouldering and went to Flagstaff 'mountain' just above Boulder to climb a ~40 ft. route on a rock with a fixed pin on top that could be approached on foot from behind so that the climber could be belayed from the bottom.
I was chosen to belay, as usual, because I was quite a bit the heaviest, and picked a spot where I could brace my feet against a rock about as big as me which was embedded in the ground.
Everything was fine for my two best friends, who essentially down climbed rapidly with the rope under heavy tension after they reached the top. But when my friend's little brother got to the top, he stood straight out perpendicular to the rock face and prepared to walk down backward. The rock then popped out of the dirt, and the rope around my body lifted me off my feet and spun me around like a top as I lost my grip on it. But as I came back around there was the rope right there in front of me like a vibrating black strand bisecting my visual field, and I somehow managed to grab it with both hands. It dragged me at speed down to the base of the climb "right through the yucca plant," as my HS friend remarked when the two of them caught up to me a moment before a couple of other climbers who'd been watching from below pelted up to us to help.
The little brother hadn't even noticed; he said later that he simply thought I'd decided to let him down fast. But I was deeply humiliated and ashamed, and after that the friendship with my junior high friend was blighted, almost as if I was 95% still his best friend, but like 5% the guy who'd killed his little brother. I don't think he felt that way, but I was never able to get past it.
posted by jamjam at 1:17 PM on November 29, 2018 [8 favorites]
I was chosen to belay, as usual, because I was quite a bit the heaviest, and picked a spot where I could brace my feet against a rock about as big as me which was embedded in the ground.
Everything was fine for my two best friends, who essentially down climbed rapidly with the rope under heavy tension after they reached the top. But when my friend's little brother got to the top, he stood straight out perpendicular to the rock face and prepared to walk down backward. The rock then popped out of the dirt, and the rope around my body lifted me off my feet and spun me around like a top as I lost my grip on it. But as I came back around there was the rope right there in front of me like a vibrating black strand bisecting my visual field, and I somehow managed to grab it with both hands. It dragged me at speed down to the base of the climb "right through the yucca plant," as my HS friend remarked when the two of them caught up to me a moment before a couple of other climbers who'd been watching from below pelted up to us to help.
The little brother hadn't even noticed; he said later that he simply thought I'd decided to let him down fast. But I was deeply humiliated and ashamed, and after that the friendship with my junior high friend was blighted, almost as if I was 95% still his best friend, but like 5% the guy who'd killed his little brother. I don't think he felt that way, but I was never able to get past it.
posted by jamjam at 1:17 PM on November 29, 2018 [8 favorites]
A few years back I was walking alongside a country road after dark, on the shoulder facing traffic, in a little lane for hikers set off behind a white line, and a car came speeding up with its near wheels right on that white line. I was right in his headlights. I spread my hands in one of those "What the fuck!" gestures and stepped one foot off into the ditch so that he missed me. Damned if he didn't swerve a little more to smack my arm with his lead fender; no harm done, just an abrasion and maybe a bruise. I thought it was a hick being a dick, but the guy pulled over twenty feet down the road, ran and looked under his car, and then saw me and ran back to me almost in tears. He was a kid, and evidently he had just not seen me till he heard the smack, looked over, and saw a face. We wanted to hug me for not being dead and drive me to the hospital in case I was dead after all. Evidently I had been invisible to him. He had not been able to conceive that there could be anything on the road but cars.
I wasn't mad at him. He was just a kid, and no harm was done. We both learned something, me about relying less on the competence of strangers, and him about taking due care. Neither of us had to pay full price.
Had he broken bones, I would have been more angry with him, and most people would say I would have had more justification. That is the kind of moral judgement we do in fact make every day. It doesn't make sense, at least not to me, but it is what we do.
posted by ckridge at 1:19 PM on November 29, 2018 [9 favorites]
I wasn't mad at him. He was just a kid, and no harm was done. We both learned something, me about relying less on the competence of strangers, and him about taking due care. Neither of us had to pay full price.
Had he broken bones, I would have been more angry with him, and most people would say I would have had more justification. That is the kind of moral judgement we do in fact make every day. It doesn't make sense, at least not to me, but it is what we do.
posted by ckridge at 1:19 PM on November 29, 2018 [9 favorites]
Thinking too hard about how tiny choices can have big consequences it why I left emergency medicine.
Agatha Christie would have you believe that most murders are calculated things, but really the vast majority are just momentary lapses of ethics or reason.
posted by poe at 1:22 PM on November 29, 2018 [6 favorites]
Agatha Christie would have you believe that most murders are calculated things, but really the vast majority are just momentary lapses of ethics or reason.
posted by poe at 1:22 PM on November 29, 2018 [6 favorites]
This is the number one thing holding me back from doing the practice I badly need to finally get my drivers license (in my 30s). AskMe told me I should never ever drive because of my adhd, so that was very encouraging, though at least I'm not reckless, I guess.
I don't really know how to deal with this possibility, whether it's caused by bad decisions or a "moment of inattention" which is not really something I can choose to never have, or even if I drove perfectly and it was unavoidable. It would destroy me. I really wish I could avoid driving forever but in my area that isn't really feasible in the long term (my 1.5h/3-bus commute each way is manageable for now, but in the future I will likely need to recover the extra 2.5h a day I could get by getting a car, plus the ability to drive may be needed in an emergency).
My utopia would have excellent public transit and self-driving cars.
posted by randomnity at 1:49 PM on November 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
I don't really know how to deal with this possibility, whether it's caused by bad decisions or a "moment of inattention" which is not really something I can choose to never have, or even if I drove perfectly and it was unavoidable. It would destroy me. I really wish I could avoid driving forever but in my area that isn't really feasible in the long term (my 1.5h/3-bus commute each way is manageable for now, but in the future I will likely need to recover the extra 2.5h a day I could get by getting a car, plus the ability to drive may be needed in an emergency).
My utopia would have excellent public transit and self-driving cars.
posted by randomnity at 1:49 PM on November 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
a thrown rock, a dead climber deserves a whole topic all by itself. I have no idea how to sort that one out.
posted by ckridge at 1:53 PM on November 29, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by ckridge at 1:53 PM on November 29, 2018 [2 favorites]
Look before heaving rocks off a cliff? Seems pretty simple. If you're doing something with an unpredictable outcome (driving, heaving rocks off a cliff), take precautions.
posted by agregoli at 1:55 PM on November 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by agregoli at 1:55 PM on November 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
It took me into my 30's to learn to drive and I was always paranoid about killing someone if I fucked up, which is why it took so long. How do I deal with this possibility? Because it truly handicaps your life to not drive. It's like going through life as the Black Knight from Monty Python with one limb remaining if you can't get yourself places and public transport isn't there to help you most of the time. I would have a vastly different, more independent life and definitely a different career had I not had to pick my career with the number one factor being "how can I get to work without a car?"
So you deal. Most people don't end up killing anyone, if that helps. Maybe it will be you, maybe it won't.
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:59 PM on November 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
So you deal. Most people don't end up killing anyone, if that helps. Maybe it will be you, maybe it won't.
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:59 PM on November 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
"Locals say the Leg Lake Cirque attracts maybe one climbing party a year."
It would be so easy to think you were alone in the wilderness.
posted by ckridge at 2:01 PM on November 29, 2018
It would be so easy to think you were alone in the wilderness.
posted by ckridge at 2:01 PM on November 29, 2018
a thrown rock, a dead climber deserves a whole topic all by itself. I have no idea how to sort that one out.
I wanted to post the entire series as an fpp but it's all so grim and unpleasant that I feel like maybe it's not the best for us all right now.
posted by poffin boffin at 2:02 PM on November 29, 2018 [7 favorites]
I wanted to post the entire series as an fpp but it's all so grim and unpleasant that I feel like maybe it's not the best for us all right now.
posted by poffin boffin at 2:02 PM on November 29, 2018 [7 favorites]
I'm 49 and have never learned to drive. Although I do have a leaner's permit, I've never been behind the wheel, and this is one of the reasons why (others include: multiple vision struggles at times when I should have been learning; no adult at home available to teach me when I was a teenager; and seeing all the fallout from the deaths of my uncle-by-marriage's parents in a car crash when I was a wee thing). I am heartened to see there are other MeFites who do not drive.
I have managed so far throughout my life; I have a partner who drives and I take public transport by preference, taxis, lifts from friends and family. So many jobs these days automatically require you to have a current driver's licence even if there is apparently no driving involved, though. One of the things that disturbs me is that although I work at a university with a lack of parking spaces, green action plans and encouragement for carpooling, people give you the weirdest looks when you say you come to work by PT.
posted by andraste at 2:04 PM on November 29, 2018 [3 favorites]
I have managed so far throughout my life; I have a partner who drives and I take public transport by preference, taxis, lifts from friends and family. So many jobs these days automatically require you to have a current driver's licence even if there is apparently no driving involved, though. One of the things that disturbs me is that although I work at a university with a lack of parking spaces, green action plans and encouragement for carpooling, people give you the weirdest looks when you say you come to work by PT.
posted by andraste at 2:04 PM on November 29, 2018 [3 favorites]
And not to abuse the edit window - I really do want to learn to drive! But admitting to not having learned something that everyone seems to have learned at their parent's knees is so humiliating.
posted by andraste at 2:08 PM on November 29, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by andraste at 2:08 PM on November 29, 2018 [3 favorites]
I am terrified I'll kill a lane-splitting motorcyclist.
I was rear-ended by a lane-splitting motorcyclist. He was going too fast in stop-and-go traffic, I was changing lanes (WITH SIGNAL), and neither of us clocked each other until it was too late. I saw him hit my bumper and fly into the air, while his bike fell over and spun around, and then he landed.
Thankfully, his bike was just scratched, he was wearing full leathers and a helmet, and he only broke (or maybe even sprained) his hand. But I still can close my eyes and see him in the air, crashing to the ground. It was the most terrifying, sickening moment of my life.
So now I am extra-EXTRA careful around all motorcycles and repeatedly check and leave my signal on for AGES before I change lanes. And I thank all that is holy that the motorcyclist was relatively unharmed, because I don't think I could have handled the guilt.
posted by elsietheeel at 2:36 PM on November 29, 2018 [2 favorites]
I was rear-ended by a lane-splitting motorcyclist. He was going too fast in stop-and-go traffic, I was changing lanes (WITH SIGNAL), and neither of us clocked each other until it was too late. I saw him hit my bumper and fly into the air, while his bike fell over and spun around, and then he landed.
Thankfully, his bike was just scratched, he was wearing full leathers and a helmet, and he only broke (or maybe even sprained) his hand. But I still can close my eyes and see him in the air, crashing to the ground. It was the most terrifying, sickening moment of my life.
So now I am extra-EXTRA careful around all motorcycles and repeatedly check and leave my signal on for AGES before I change lanes. And I thank all that is holy that the motorcyclist was relatively unharmed, because I don't think I could have handled the guilt.
posted by elsietheeel at 2:36 PM on November 29, 2018 [2 favorites]
But admitting to not having learned something that everyone seems to have learned at their parent's knees is so humiliating.
At their parents knee's may be a stretch - while many people learn young, myself - I had no interest until I turned 19 (legal drinking age here), then I took a course through my highschool.
It is a skill and there is no shame in learning it at any point in life. If anything, you will be a much safer driver, because you understand mortality and the consequences of actions much better than most young people.
And, it's not likely you will try to impress anyone or succumb to peer pressure and engage in risky behavior.
Would you tell someone else to be ashamed if they were learning to read as an adult? No way - you encourage and nurture them, it's never to late to learn anything.
posted by jkaczor at 2:37 PM on November 29, 2018 [3 favorites]
At their parents knee's may be a stretch - while many people learn young, myself - I had no interest until I turned 19 (legal drinking age here), then I took a course through my highschool.
It is a skill and there is no shame in learning it at any point in life. If anything, you will be a much safer driver, because you understand mortality and the consequences of actions much better than most young people.
And, it's not likely you will try to impress anyone or succumb to peer pressure and engage in risky behavior.
Would you tell someone else to be ashamed if they were learning to read as an adult? No way - you encourage and nurture them, it's never to late to learn anything.
posted by jkaczor at 2:37 PM on November 29, 2018 [3 favorites]
In high school a pal of mine went partying with her best friend. They drank and dropped acid, then took a long faded drive to a lakehouse party an hour away. When they were almost there they found themselves in some woods. Wouldn't it be fun to run around in the forest? They got out, laughing and hallucinating, blasting tunes from their truck. Only they got separated, and the best friend got lost. My pal looked for a half hour but couldn't find her. She wasn't answering her cell, the reception was bad though. Maybe she had gone ahead to the party. Everyone knew best friend was brash and impulsive like that. It was what they loved about her.
My pal was tired and cold, it was four in the morning. Instead of going to the party she drove home. Her bestie could catch a ride back with their boyfriend, she figured. He was a wild kid, his night was probably just starting.
The next day the cops got a call to a ranch house near the lake. It was miles out from where the party had been. The owners woke up late and found a mess in their backyard. The lid to their pool was a bit askew. Huh. They flipped it open. Best friend lay drowned at the bottom. Somehow in her oblivion she had slipped under the cover and couldn't get out.
I don't know that my pal ever forgave herself for that night. Her personality changed. She turned down all her college scholarships, did a lot of drugs for a few years and then sobered up completely. I don't think she ever really dated after that. Last I heard she was living in a sunny city in New Mexico, working at a coffee shop, teaching yoga classes and spending her weekends hiking and riding her motorcycle. I hope she's happy.
posted by fritillary at 3:03 PM on November 29, 2018 [9 favorites]
My pal was tired and cold, it was four in the morning. Instead of going to the party she drove home. Her bestie could catch a ride back with their boyfriend, she figured. He was a wild kid, his night was probably just starting.
The next day the cops got a call to a ranch house near the lake. It was miles out from where the party had been. The owners woke up late and found a mess in their backyard. The lid to their pool was a bit askew. Huh. They flipped it open. Best friend lay drowned at the bottom. Somehow in her oblivion she had slipped under the cover and couldn't get out.
I don't know that my pal ever forgave herself for that night. Her personality changed. She turned down all her college scholarships, did a lot of drugs for a few years and then sobered up completely. I don't think she ever really dated after that. Last I heard she was living in a sunny city in New Mexico, working at a coffee shop, teaching yoga classes and spending her weekends hiking and riding her motorcycle. I hope she's happy.
posted by fritillary at 3:03 PM on November 29, 2018 [9 favorites]
About twenty years ago, I was driving to church one Sunday morning. The church was the only non-residential building on a neighborhood street. As I approached the parking lot, I looked to my left for a second to see how many people were there and then looked ahead at the road and saw a member of the church, an older woman, kneeling in the road and waving for me to stop.
When I did, I noticed what had happened. A toddler in a home on the right side of the road had crawled out of the house, into the front yard, through a ditch and into the road. His pajamas were filthy from the water in the ditch, so he was basically the same color as the pavement.
If that woman had not seen what was happening, jumped out of her car, and flagged me down, I have absolutely no doubt that i would have run over and killed that boy. Two decades later, the memory of how close I came still makes me sick to my stomach.
My heart breaks for those who experience tragic loss and those who live with such unbearable guilt.
posted by 4ster at 3:13 PM on November 29, 2018 [12 favorites]
When I did, I noticed what had happened. A toddler in a home on the right side of the road had crawled out of the house, into the front yard, through a ditch and into the road. His pajamas were filthy from the water in the ditch, so he was basically the same color as the pavement.
If that woman had not seen what was happening, jumped out of her car, and flagged me down, I have absolutely no doubt that i would have run over and killed that boy. Two decades later, the memory of how close I came still makes me sick to my stomach.
My heart breaks for those who experience tragic loss and those who live with such unbearable guilt.
posted by 4ster at 3:13 PM on November 29, 2018 [12 favorites]
Kwine, I think the phrase through no act or choice of your own implies an apples-to-apples comparison where the only difference between the situations compared is random and external to one's control. I would hold that implies the person's action is morally identical regardless of outcome A or B. If I put Schrodinger's cat in the box I'm 100% asshole, not 50% asshole. If I make two separate decisions of unquantifiable risk then I agree the outcome is probably the best proxy for whether it was a morally good or bad decision.
posted by BrotherCaine at 3:32 PM on November 29, 2018
posted by BrotherCaine at 3:32 PM on November 29, 2018
The Kantian position that you are outlining is a position that is threatened by the Nagel/Williams work that ckridge references. That work might not be right, but it's not ludicrous. You might be interested in the SEP article on moral luck, which provides a very nice overview of this territory.
posted by Kwine at 4:53 PM on November 29, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by Kwine at 4:53 PM on November 29, 2018 [3 favorites]
Fact is, though, that most people have to drive in order to work. That means that for the foreseeable future, they will kill each other accidentally with cars and then be racked with guilt.
I am 33 and don't drive precisely because I'm terrified I'll murder someone. I've had a few lessons but they just show me that it's too much information overload for me to really be safe enough for me to be comfortable with such a responsibility. I've managed to accomplish a lot despite it.
Except job stability.
Because EVERY DAMN JOB requires you to have a functional driver's licence and a car before you even apply.
And it's not like I live in the middle of nowhere! I'm in a major metropolitan city with multiple options for public transport and rideshares! A lot of these jobs are office jobs! But my learner's doesn't count. My experience navigating alternative forms of transport doesn't count. I'm not allowed to interview, let alone get the job, because no car, no licence.
I desperately want self-driving cars to be a thing. But they'll probably be adopted only when I'm too old to work. Even though finding work is hard right now, like it always was. Gah.
posted by divabat at 4:57 PM on November 29, 2018 [3 favorites]
I am 33 and don't drive precisely because I'm terrified I'll murder someone. I've had a few lessons but they just show me that it's too much information overload for me to really be safe enough for me to be comfortable with such a responsibility. I've managed to accomplish a lot despite it.
Except job stability.
Because EVERY DAMN JOB requires you to have a functional driver's licence and a car before you even apply.
And it's not like I live in the middle of nowhere! I'm in a major metropolitan city with multiple options for public transport and rideshares! A lot of these jobs are office jobs! But my learner's doesn't count. My experience navigating alternative forms of transport doesn't count. I'm not allowed to interview, let alone get the job, because no car, no licence.
I desperately want self-driving cars to be a thing. But they'll probably be adopted only when I'm too old to work. Even though finding work is hard right now, like it always was. Gah.
posted by divabat at 4:57 PM on November 29, 2018 [3 favorites]
This reminds me of a short story "Test" by Theodore Thomas.
posted by apex_ at 4:58 PM on November 29, 2018
posted by apex_ at 4:58 PM on November 29, 2018
I have a friend who drives trains who tells mostly secondhand tales that in themselves would turn your (my!) hair white, concern they near misses, deers or otherwise.
Insofar as I've killed a non zero number of people, well, I worked a job which involved selling alcohol to alcoholics for years, so that's a no-brainer. Only one haunts me, more should. Wanted to write something better here, they deserved that.
posted by I'm always feeling, Blue at 5:31 PM on November 29, 2018 [4 favorites]
Insofar as I've killed a non zero number of people, well, I worked a job which involved selling alcohol to alcoholics for years, so that's a no-brainer. Only one haunts me, more should. Wanted to write something better here, they deserved that.
posted by I'm always feeling, Blue at 5:31 PM on November 29, 2018 [4 favorites]
At Vanderbilt, a nurse’s error killed a patient
Making a medication error, missing a sign that a patient is declining, overlooking something...these are some of my greatest fears.
posted by pecanpies at 6:09 PM on November 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
Making a medication error, missing a sign that a patient is declining, overlooking something...these are some of my greatest fears.
posted by pecanpies at 6:09 PM on November 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
I talked to an ER doctor once who said that one of the hardest parts of her job was explaining to parents that it was not true that if they had just held on a little harder, their baby wouldn't have flown out of their arms when the car crashed. They just could not register that no human is strong enough to hold onto a baby that has just gone from zero to sixty in a second.
I would have said "Maybe if you hadn't been holding your baby on your lap in flagrant defiance of infant car-seat laws, which are in place to keep your children alive in the event of a car collision, your kid wouldn't be dead now."
I would make a very poor ER doctor.
posted by tzikeh at 7:37 PM on November 29, 2018 [3 favorites]
I would have said "Maybe if you hadn't been holding your baby on your lap in flagrant defiance of infant car-seat laws, which are in place to keep your children alive in the event of a car collision, your kid wouldn't be dead now."
I would make a very poor ER doctor.
posted by tzikeh at 7:37 PM on November 29, 2018 [3 favorites]
In many ways, loss is easier to live with than guilt.
Thella, that's lovely.
Living in Portland, OR makes me terrified that I'm going to kill a pedestrian with my car so this is an intriguing conversation. I'm very paranoid when crossing the street, I look both ways, look for cars in every possible direction, pause in crosswalks to make sure that every car hurtling toward me comes to a complete stop, don't look at my phone and so on. And still, I'd much much much rather be hit by a car than to hurt or kill someone with mine.
posted by bendy at 1:05 AM on November 30, 2018
Thella, that's lovely.
Living in Portland, OR makes me terrified that I'm going to kill a pedestrian with my car so this is an intriguing conversation. I'm very paranoid when crossing the street, I look both ways, look for cars in every possible direction, pause in crosswalks to make sure that every car hurtling toward me comes to a complete stop, don't look at my phone and so on. And still, I'd much much much rather be hit by a car than to hurt or kill someone with mine.
posted by bendy at 1:05 AM on November 30, 2018
Kaine, thank you for the article. Reading it makes a tiny dent in my huge ignorance of philosophy. I reject the idea that resultant luck should make a difference in my moral calculus (it does anyway, I'm flawed like anyone), but I agree that constitutive & circumstantial luck do make a difference. Although I'd possibly nitpick that constitutive luck in the form of ignorance essentially takes choice off the table completely. If we're uninformed and unable to assess the risk of an action are we responsible for the outcome? Circumstantial luck can force us into an endless series of suboptimal choices between morally burdensome acts. Does someone drive to work exhausted or work fewer hours and let their family go hungry? When I judge myself or others I try to think about context in the sense of circumstantial luck (imperfectly again).
posted by BrotherCaine at 10:04 AM on November 30, 2018
posted by BrotherCaine at 10:04 AM on November 30, 2018
I only learned to drive at 29 and was actually terrified of doing so until this year, at 33. Every time I get in the car I marvel at my ability to do so despite the terrifying prospect of me making a mistake that could kill someone. It paralyzed me for years and in some ways ought to paralyze all of us.
However, I’ve realized that my independence depends on being able to get from point a to point b in a vehicle since I live in the rural suborbs with nary a sidewalk in sight. I still don’t drive on highways and I still don’t switch lanes unless I absolutely have to. Driving is one of the biggest sources of stress in my life and yet I am dramatically happier and healthier since I started driving. I hike at dawn and it’s thanks to my driving there, I take my kids to daycare, go to the grocery store, leave the damn house, because I can drive. It’s a hard bargain to deal with.
posted by lydhre at 5:11 PM on November 30, 2018 [1 favorite]
However, I’ve realized that my independence depends on being able to get from point a to point b in a vehicle since I live in the rural suborbs with nary a sidewalk in sight. I still don’t drive on highways and I still don’t switch lanes unless I absolutely have to. Driving is one of the biggest sources of stress in my life and yet I am dramatically happier and healthier since I started driving. I hike at dawn and it’s thanks to my driving there, I take my kids to daycare, go to the grocery store, leave the damn house, because I can drive. It’s a hard bargain to deal with.
posted by lydhre at 5:11 PM on November 30, 2018 [1 favorite]
I'm late to this thread as usual. But I wonder if anyone else keeps thinking of Little Men? There's this plot point that bothered me so much the first time I read it that I didn't read it again for years, despite truly loving the Little Women series. When I went back and reread it as an adult, it bothered me all over again.
Dan, the orphaned 'bad boy' that Jo takes in, mostly has a really positive arc and is portrayed as very kind to animals and children and loving. But he is ultimately excluded from the possibility of being 'one of them' or considered worthy to marry into the family because he accidentally kills someone in a bar fight. We only read about it third hand, but I think the idea is that it was a bad situation to be in and he lost his cool and fought too fiercely or something.
But! at a different point in the story Rob, the son of the family, lost his cool and let/sicced a dog suspected of being rabid on his brother (I think I'm getting my characters straight). Everyone was very worried but then it turned out the dog didn't have rabies and everything was fine. But that was pure luck. I think he was younger than Dan was a the time of the fight, but it was less of a melée with plausible self defense/adrenaline and more of a losing one's head in temper thing.
Once everything is fine and his brother lives, everyone treats him just like normal and he is welcome and beloved in the family.
To me as a youth, and I guess still now, it felt like the situations were so similar - losing one's head and doing something with potentially terrible consequences. In one case by an outsider and it goes wrong, and he is basically in soft exile. In one case by an insider and it goes all right, and he stays an insider.
I think Alcott was pretty involved with philosophical thinking in her time. And she was so smart. Jo was kind of her avatar character I thought, for a bunch of the books, but Jo did not come off to me very well in how these two things were dealt with. I wonder whether there was some purposeful uncomfortable pushing in this aspect of the novel. The more I reread the series and the more I read about Alcott the more plausible I think it is, there is some pretty sophisticated subversive critique throughout.
I can't believe I'm still upset about poor Dan!
posted by Salamandrous at 8:21 AM on December 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
Dan, the orphaned 'bad boy' that Jo takes in, mostly has a really positive arc and is portrayed as very kind to animals and children and loving. But he is ultimately excluded from the possibility of being 'one of them' or considered worthy to marry into the family because he accidentally kills someone in a bar fight. We only read about it third hand, but I think the idea is that it was a bad situation to be in and he lost his cool and fought too fiercely or something.
But! at a different point in the story Rob, the son of the family, lost his cool and let/sicced a dog suspected of being rabid on his brother (I think I'm getting my characters straight). Everyone was very worried but then it turned out the dog didn't have rabies and everything was fine. But that was pure luck. I think he was younger than Dan was a the time of the fight, but it was less of a melée with plausible self defense/adrenaline and more of a losing one's head in temper thing.
Once everything is fine and his brother lives, everyone treats him just like normal and he is welcome and beloved in the family.
To me as a youth, and I guess still now, it felt like the situations were so similar - losing one's head and doing something with potentially terrible consequences. In one case by an outsider and it goes wrong, and he is basically in soft exile. In one case by an insider and it goes all right, and he stays an insider.
I think Alcott was pretty involved with philosophical thinking in her time. And she was so smart. Jo was kind of her avatar character I thought, for a bunch of the books, but Jo did not come off to me very well in how these two things were dealt with. I wonder whether there was some purposeful uncomfortable pushing in this aspect of the novel. The more I reread the series and the more I read about Alcott the more plausible I think it is, there is some pretty sophisticated subversive critique throughout.
I can't believe I'm still upset about poor Dan!
posted by Salamandrous at 8:21 AM on December 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
Salamandrous, I have never read Little Men, but that is very interesting. One of the parts of Little Women that stayed clear in my memory is the scene where Jo doesn't tell Amy that the ice is thin, and then Amy falls through the ice and Laurie saves her life. Perhaps Louisa May Alcott had a history with accidental death or accidental near-death.
posted by Emmy Rae at 9:29 AM on December 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Emmy Rae at 9:29 AM on December 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
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This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
"Meeting the Man I Killed" [BBC 4]
"The Sorrow and Shame of the Accidental Killer" [New Yorker]
posted by ryanshepard at 9:37 AM on November 29, 2018 [2 favorites]