(image courtesy of kevinbywater.com)
Dr. Mike Adams
Professor of Sociology and Criminology at the University of North Carolina – Wilmington
Posted on 11/18/2013 8:02:35 PM PST by servo1969
Ideas have consequences and bad ideas have bad ones. I’m often reminded of that when I have a conversation that broaches the subject of human evil. As most of my readers already know, the denial of human evil is a very real problem among younger generations of Americans. Just last week, however, I had a conversation with a college student that really stopped me in my tracks. I have reproduced it below but not for anyone’s entertainment. I have some observations that follow. I hope you’ll give them careful consideration after you read the following exchange:
UNC-Wilmington Student: What courses do you teach at UNCW?Me: Right now, I’m teaching Law of Evidence and Trials of the Century, a course that focuses on famous American criminal trials. Student: What case are you covering now?
Me: We’re discussing Charles Manson.
Student: I sort of admire Charles Manson.
Me: What do you mean by that? Is it the murderer part or the racist part you admire most in Manson?
Student: Well, he didn’t actually murder anyone.
Me: Actually he did. Under the vicarious liability rule of criminal conspiracy, the act of entering a conspiracy substitutes in place of the act of killing in order to fulfill the actus reus requirement. Add the intent or mens rea elements and we have the two major ingredients necessary for a crime.
Student: That’s just a technicality.
Me: The same thing applies to Hitler. Certainly, you would have no reservations calling Hitler a murderer in a purely moral sense. Calling Hitler a murderer doesn’t rest on a technicality just because he had others carry out the acts.
Student: Well, the Manson family was different. They didn’t follow Manson’s instructions. He just wanted people killed. He didn’t want them butchered.
Me: I won’t concede that you are right about that but I want to better understand your position. Are you saying that gratuitous murder is reprehensible but that clean and efficient murder is admirable? Help me out, here.
Student: Manson dabbled in Buddhism and I think that put him at peace with what he did. If he’s fine with it then that’s all that matters.
Me: Once again, I’m not going to accept your factual premises but I want to get something straight. Are you referring to the Buddhist principle that evil is an illusion? Is that what you believe?
Student: (Silence).
Me: Well, let me put it another way. Since it is Veteran’s Day, let me ask you to imagine the following. An American soldier goes to liberate a Nazi concentration camp. He sees piles of bodies lying around everywhere. He smells the stench of death all around him. Are those sights and smells mere illusions or would someone visiting the same camp at the same time see and smell the very same things?
Student: Well, I’m not going to deny the Holocaust. It certainly wasn’t an illusion.
Me: Then what does Manson’s subsequent state of mind have to do with anything?
Student: I’m not following you.
Me: Well then let me help you. Just imagine that you and I get really drunk and I decide to rape you. In the morning, I can’t remember anything that happened. I was just too drunk to remember anything. Since I don’t remember the rape, I’m totally at peace with it. I can’t be upset out about it if I don’t remember that it happened. But didn’t it really happen?
Student: Yes. In the scenario you described there was a rape.
Me: Just remember that whenever you make Manson’s peace of mind an issue you insult the murder victims and their families just as you would be insulted by someone denying your rape with similar logic.
Student: Okay, I don’t admire Charles Manson.
This kind of twisted moral reasoning isn’t totally new among America’s youth. Were it so there never would have been a Manson family in the first place. As a new ex-con, Charles Manson went to Haight Asbury in 1967 because he knew it was a place where morally confused young people gathered. He knew he could find runaways who were victims of abuse or who had fallen prey to addiction. He also knew he could find youths caught up in rebellion against everything their parents had taught them.
The ideas Manson taught were not welcomed on college campuses in the 1960s. There were protests to be sure. But the campuses were not yet steeped in moral relativism. Our universities were still classically liberal. That liberalism was built on a foundation of tolerance. And, by definition, true tolerance presupposes a moral judgment. Relativism simply did not fit into the equation.
Of course, the universities have changed a lot within the last twenty years. Multicultural centers started to pop up on campuses everywhere during the early 90s. Unfortunately, the multicultural worldview (read: cultural relativism) is no longer confined to those centers. New majors have popped up with strange names, which usually begin with the name of a particular cultural group and end with the word “studies.” Basic studies requirements in areas such as “life sciences,” “natural sciences,” and “social sciences” are being replaced with strange new categories. For example, my university now has a basic studies concentration requirement called “living in a diverse world.”
We all need to be prepared for where this is going. If you think debating the question “is abortion murder?” is frustrating then imagine debating the question “is murder is really wrong?” You won’t have to imagine much longer. This is the direction in which we are headed. But those debates won’t be with strung out teenaged drug addicts on the streets of San Francisco. They will be with young adults who have college degrees. And with their multicultural education will come some degree of cultural influence.
A general rule of thumb is that the trends taking place on our campuses today will be taking place in the broader culture in twenty years. The question as always is how the church will respond. It has merely reacted to the culture for far too long. That is good news for the high priests of multi-cultural diversity.
I deal with that kind of sophistry from students.
He murdered ‘Shorty’.
>>I deal with that kind of sophistry from students.<<
When children think they can shock their elders with what in their mush-filled brains pass for logic they cannot hold it in.
If they are fortunate, they have a wise and gentle mentor as the OP. If they are unfortunate, they are encouraged by the 90% of others who screw said children up forever.
Welcome to post-Clinton America.
Sheesh, in my days on campus, we were discussing ‘If you had a chance to assassinate Hitler, would you do it - or is any murder morally wrong.’
Did they ever find a body or part thereof?
Young people today have been so warped that these are the kinds of things we need to get used to.
My five year old grand daughter thinks she can shock me ... and she does! I'm caught flat footed, then two minutes later she's wailing like a baby for some unknown reason. It's a beautiful world. And I mean that sincerely.
Heck, we had such sophistry from two newbies a few years back that were named liup and vion.
In the TV show based on the investigation and trial, there was an interview with the guy who had left the group, but gave lots of details about Manson’s ideology in a long scene where they go through the parallels with the Beatles and Revelation, and so on. At the end of the interview, the cop asks the guy, “Why did you stay so long?” or something to that effect. He answers, “I thought Charlie was Jesus Christ.”
So, I’m just saying, don’t put it on “today’s youth.”
Yes, they did find his body.
The story is the family, en masse, under Charlies orders and Manson present, did it.
http://www.cielodrive.com/donald-shea.php
Hmmmmm. Interesting. Was Manson ever charged?
She was a very beautiful sweet person, everytime I hear a Dionne Warwik song from the 60’s, Sharon comes to mind. Her mother Doris, her sis Patti, her father have all passed now, and they are all buried in the same plot with her. The baby that Sharon was expecting is buried in his christening outfit that Sharon got for him and is buried with his mother arm’s around him in the same coffin. I wouldn’t be surprised if Sharon had lived, she would probably lean Conservative today.
Incidentally, the Manson gang was looking not for Doris Day's home but for that of her son (also deceased now) Terry Melcher, which home might have been owned by Doris, I don't know, but the point is that they were looking for Terry, who in some way had failed to satisfy the ambitions of the aspiring songwriter Manson.
Well the only surviving sibling is Debra Tate. She stated that now that her family has passed she will continue the fight and her daughters too. So there is hope that these scumbags are not let lose. Also there are many who were kids when Sharon was murdered and I have not forgotten the news. I do know some of the family have been released except the ones who were involved directly in the murders. Susan Atkins died of Brain Cancer, and she was begging to be released so she can died at home. She was denied thank God. However I think Susan later in the end was sad and now regrets but she may have found God. There is a video of her saying a prayer on her death bed. I hope she realize what she did to Sharon and the others was evil but I do hope she found peace when she took her last breath. As Debra Tate that is up to God and I agree.
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