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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   34590 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 30, 2023

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A recent tragic event: Mother accused of killing three children in Massachusetts

A mother is accused of strangling three of her children before she jumped out a window in an attempted suicide at their suburban Boston home, officials said Wednesday.

An arrest warrant had already been issued Wednesday for Lindsay Clancy for two counts of homicide in connection with the deaths of her 5-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son. Her 8-month-old son, who she's also accused of strangling and was "grievously wounded," has since died, NBC Boston reported.

First responders found three children in the home in Duxbury. The children were unconscious and “with obvious signs of severe trauma,” Cruz said. "Preliminarily it appears that the children were strangled,"

The Culture War angle: Following this event some TikTok accounts have released videos in support of the mother and voicing concern over mothers and their mental health, leading to discussion. Examples: https://postimg.cc/NKpX61ty, https://postimg.cc/vxT8d6jK, https://postimg.cc/CnnyNC9w, https://postimg.cc/8FvttKzK, https://postimg.cc/TK6wKhWK, https://postimg.cc/K3cXXSKv

Considering the nature of the crime I find the wording in the TikTok's off putting. This isn't phrased as something the mother, Lindsay Clancy 'did'. It's something that 'happened to her' and that she 'needs support'.

On a tangential note: This reminds me of an older sex war question surrounding female violence towards children and how women are treated in society. Specifically the terminology of SIDS. Sudden Infrant Death Syndrome. Which became a notable issue when multiple women who murdered their own children ended up, after a few years, being released scot-free. Neven Sesardić, a Croatian philosopher, wrote a very interesting article published in the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science. Specifically relating to Sally Clark, a woman in the UK who was accused of murdering two of her children, and some relevant statistical analysis that cast aspersions on the validity of SIDS as it was relied on by expert witnesses to defend Clark in court. Along with leveraging statistical critiques against the Royal Statistical Society.

The tangential relevance here is whether or not Lindsay Clancy will be afforded similar legal leniency on top of everything else. Though with the hellish nature of the crime, one could only really hope for punishments that far exceed all the comforts that a lifetime in a women's prison will afford her.

About the TikTok screenshots;

Other than all speaking from a position where the woman lacks any agency at all, They also state that violent intrusive thoughts are just a step in a series of actions that eventually leads to violence. Is that a valid theory of mind? My model of unexpected acts of violence is akin to a pressure cooker going off. A perfect storm where all the bad things that possibly happened, happened and the person at the center of it lost control and lashed out.

I can certainly see the former model working for let's say.. a stereotypical serial killer. But I think it's off when the person committing the violence tried to take themselves out as well.

E: Unless she was suicidal and wanted to do maximum damage.

I'm someone (a man) who has definitely experienced the twin phenomena of (1) violent intrusive thoughts, including towards my loved ones, and (2) a general lowering of my impulse control in situations where I am stressed or distressed.

Now, (2) has (fortunately) never led me to actually acting out anything that occurs in (1) but I can imagine how it could if the stress or distress were severe enough.

To cohere with your model I think the kind of intrusive thoughts I and the TikTokers talk about would be part of that "perfect storm" of bad things. After all, to do evil things you have to have some idea of what those things are (which may include self harm) and how to do them.

From the lack-of-agency perspective I think it's common to describe people in heightened emotional states such that they aren't acting rationally as lacking in agency. Sometimes we even recognize this lack of agency in the law. For example killing someone may not be murder depending in part on the emotional state you were in when it occurred and what caused that emotional state.

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