A Brilliant Mind Lost

On the surface, Jim Holt’s Code Breaker  tells of the life and death of Alan Turing.  But there is so much more to this essay.  It talks of isolation, loneliness, rejection. Turing parents chose to give their son up and place him in the care of a retired Army couple. He was rejected at birth. Undoubtedly, his childhood was considerably different from that of his peers; he was adopted, had no siblings, and his caregivers were much older then his peers' parents.  Setting him apart even further was an interest in “exploring esoterica like Einstein’s relatively theory” (Holt, J. in The New Yorker, February 6, 2006).  Although he managed to have one friend who shared his interest that friendship only lasted a year before the friend died and “Turing seems to have been left with an ideal of romantic love that he spent the rest of his life trying to duplicate” (Holt, 2006)

Due to his sheltered life, Turing's college years proved no different.  He wasn’t accepted by the aesthetic set so spent his free time performing solitary sports like as rowing and long distance running.  He was also an intellectual and spent hours contemplating abstract concepts which didn’t require the companionship of others. He devised the ‘turing machines;’ by the age of 23 he had “dispatched the decision problem…;” had a Ph.D. by age 26; managed to break the German coded messages in WW2 and finally conceptualized the early computer.  He was brilliant.  However, he was a homosexual which, in the early 1900's when views of sexuality were much less liberal then today was unacceptable.   These people were referred to as diseased and much like the leppers who were sent to Darcy Island to be set apart from society so were homosexuals. They needed "... treatment by a duly qualified medical practitioner” (Holt, 2006)  and Turing was no exception.  He was rejected by society and under an 1885 act, he was persecuted for “gross indecency. The  crime … punishable by up to two years’ imprisonment.” (Holt, 2006). Turing was forced to submit to a chemical castration to ‘cure’ him.  Holt continues saying that although Turing’s crime received no national attention he descended in “a slow, sad descent into grief and madness”  and committed suicide three years later during a period of societal anxiety about spies and homosexuals. Turing, a man capable to enormous scientific accomplishments may have deduced that the only solution to treating his sexuality was that of death.   Do you think Turing’s death was an escape from his homosexual tendencies? 

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/02/06 

(Sorry everyone - I have misplaced my course textbook and had to find the story on the web)

Women: A casualty of war

Jennifer Turpin’s essay “Women Confronting War” looks at the negative effects  war has on the lives of women. In fact, if war were defined as a sex it would be male.  Women are passive participants in war.  They are not involved in war in the physical way men are,  nor do they die  a noble death fighting alongside their comrades against a visible enemy. Rather, women take care of family and homes yet it does not prevent them from suffering agonizing treatment and abuses at the hands of men. War dehumanizes women and provides men with a vehicle to totally dominate women.   At the hands of men, women suffer  “sexual abuse and torture, and losing loved ones, homes and communities” (Turpin, 325). And sadly “attitudes of military personnel often support the sexual abuse of women and girls” (327).  Rape in wartime appears to be a used as some kind of tool. Firstly, rape seems to be some kind of reward or payment to those who are supposedly helping women.  Turpin points out that women and girls who find refuge in camps are sexually abused and forced into prostitution.  She continues saying, even UN peacekeepers who are supposed to be protecting civilian rights have raped or committed sexual abuses against women (327).  Secondly, rape is used as a method of control towards women.  Here, Turpin describes details of women who because of their political activities are imprisoned and   then repeatedly raped in an attempt to break them down   And finally rape is a way to demoralize women. To support this belief, Turpin speaks of the anguish women experience having to carry a “child who was both their own and the enemy’. (326). Even prostitution is supported by “militaries around the world” (327) for its potential to boost the economy and ‘service’ soldiers. 

Unfortunately, even women who don’t live in these war-torn countries can be subjected to  increases in domestic violence. Statistically speaking, Turpin says there is an “increase in the number of sons who commit violence against their mothers … an increase in violence in marriages where the husband and wife’s ethnicity differ … an increase in alcohol consumption among men returning from combat” (p. 328) during wartime.  There are many reasons put forward to explain this behavior however, if sexual domination is supported by military heads, UN troops, refugee camp guards, etc., in countries at war how can we expect men’s attitudes towards women to change when they return home. 

Women hold ranking positions in the military.  Do you think during their tour they’d turn a blind eye to activities such as prostitution or rape or is it an accepted activity of war?

Ignoring the Lesson

Gary Kleck’s essay There are no Lessons to be Learned from Littleton, criticizes the  solutions government officials conjured up after several  publicized high-school massacres.   Journalists, and “…other writers of every ideological stripe explained to their readers what lessons were to be learned from Littleton or, more broadly, from this cluster of massacres” (Kleck, 211).  Unfortunately these lessons or causes and solutions were put in place because they simply fit the media theme which was a “trend” in youth/school/gun violence” (212).  In addition, because these crimes are publicized in lots of detail to a very large audience it becomes a believeable message.   However, in actuality, the ‘trend’ in school gun violence shows a decline which would suggest that the media treated the incident for the wrong disease.   Thus, the disease could return when we least expect it.

How could no lessons be learned from such horrific events.  Kleck points out that “… the more bizarre an event, the less likely it is to be repeated” (212) so creating solutions is much harder to do.  However, in a 'normal' shooting there are patterns  so solutions are possible. .  However what does  appear to be consistent in these multiple massacres is: the media attention they receive, the emotional state of the population viewing the event on TV or listening to it on a radio, and  finally, the public outcry for an immediate solution.  But, as Kleck points out “frightened people often favor actions that make them feel better over those that would actually make them safer, if the actions can be implemented quickly and easily and are touted as producing results immediately” (215) which can lead to the wrong solution.  For example in the Littleton case analysts proposed restricting the sale of guns at gun shows even though  the guns used in the event were not purchased at a gun show and therefore had nothing to do with the Littleton massacre.  Or, after the West Paducah massacre the newspaper “… reported that the school system was  considering installing metal detectors “ (213).  However, in the Paducah massacre the attacker shot his way into the school so this ‘fix’ wouldn’t have prevented the Paducah-type massacre from happening again. 

Although Kleck, who has a background in criminology, doesn't agree with the solutions the analyst put in place to prevent future massacres from happening he does see some merit in them - in a general sense. Guns have been at the root of all these massacres.  However, youth were responsible for the committing the crime.  Kleck does not down-play the need for gun control and gun legislation but suggests  that a better understanding of youth and social order in schools, cultural background and economic background are important in determining why these events happened.. Issues such as “… school bullying … male-on-female teen dating violence, and violence-saturated entertainment …” (215) are complex and should be reviewed prior to providing a solution which will see an end to any future massacre. 

If gun's weren't available to youth through any kind of market do you think these mass killings would end?

Television: Lens to Violence

Aggression: The Impact of Media Violence written by Sissela Bok identifies a relationship between the growing number of violent acts performed by and to women and children with to  increases in opportunities to view media violence.  However, without conclusive evidence to support hers and others claim of this correlationship, media coverage of violence and shows/video games displaying explicit violent acts continues to increase .

At first, Bok hypothesizes that there is a coorelation  between viewing preferences and real-life behaviours making specific references to media violence.  She cites Oliver  Stone’s movie Natural Born Killers  as a prime example of inspiration for two youth to go “on a killing spree with the film’s murderous, gleeful heroes expressly in mind” (Bok, 85). Additionally, she states that the viewer’s ability to identify with the aggressor rather then the victim helps to make the aggressive behaviour  seem more acceptable. However, she then provides evidence that argues the correlation.  She says “Most investigators agree that it will always be difficult to disentangle the precise effects of exposure to media violence from the many other factors contributing to societal violence” (87).  She reports that others studies that drew conclusions similar to hers are also being challenged.  Again, not taking into account all factors, in addition to media violence viewing, are credited for pulling theories apart. 

Bok appears to be arguing with herself.  Copycat crimes and child crimes are on the increase but further study must do done to determine the primary causes.  Media representatives are particularly resistant to change if no definite link  between media violence “… and real-life violence” (p. 88) can be established.  The only conclusive statement  Bok  makes is that “the television screen is the lens through which most children learn about violence” (p. 89) which is unfortunate as this repeated exposure at a young age impairs their ability to censure the brutality of it.  

Do you think violence by cartoon-like characters in video games will encourage violent behaviour in youth?