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Notes -
The subjective experience of infanticide
I am not American, but I couldn't help but hear about the Lindsay Clancy trial and the subsequent controversy about the jurors.
What I personally found interesting was not necessarily the case itself; as others have pointed out, LC is not a particularly novel case and women getting kid gloves treatment for infanticide is nothing new and literally enshrined in the law of several Anglosphere countries; but rather the reactions of different parties and of the jurors.
Violence against children has, understandably, a massive cultural taboo attached to it. It's de facto banned in entertainment unless portrayed as tragic and child killers are said to get particularly bad treatment in prisons. In the ubiquitous cultural environment of society, one is implicitly taught that it is a moral abhorrence of the highest order to harm or even kill a child. At least that was my experience.
So I think for many it is shocking to see that both the legal system and a decently large group of women seem to be able to excuse this. I think what many people, particularly men are experiencing is a state of misalignment, where a system that is built to enact, at least in principle, justice seems to be fine with something that we all thought to understand as a moral abhorrence of the highest order.
I personally thought it was insightful to think about both the difference in moral values of those that would excuse child killing women and what their subjective experience of violence would be.
I believe for the now known to be black hold-out juror, violence is an immediate and known quantity. When hearing about the killings, he envisioned what it would take to brutally murder 3 children, how much force it would take, the anger one would feel. Hence the reenactment with the water bottle. The world of that juror is probably a physical one and as a male one is quite well acquainted to violence, even if in a minor form. So the heinousness and violence of the act takes on an immediate form. Also as a man societal rules seem unbending and strict; one does not get away with murder generally, though there are notable restrictions here too.
For the female juror and LC supporters, the world seems to take shape more in a form of social relations, of saying the right thing, of empathising and to be less charitable, of "luxury beliefs". The concept of a sociopathic or evil woman does not exist; society or her spouse must have done her wrong. The act of violence is far removed from subjective experience, at least physical violence. Indeed, the case is a way to advocate for the never-achieved and never-achievable emancipation of women. The law need not be unbending and strict, as we need to take the rights of the victim into account. The children are not perceived to be people deprived brutally of their right to life, but have been likened to "vases" being smashed during a tantrum.
I think what makes this such an incendiary case is that inferential gap between the two camps; for one, life is lived in the physical realm and the violence takes the forefront; for the other, life is lived in the realm of social relations and violence is not thought of. I personally find it repugnant that a legal system would find it hard to convince a person like LC, but apparently a decent chunk of the American people support her and child-killing is not such a taboo after all. Or maybe we have finally killed god enough that the sanctity of human life is being thrown to the wolves.
I like your thesis but I would like to quibble with something else.
Maybe I live under a rock, but I've only seen TheMotte and X (because that's where I hang out) claim women are excusing this. Does excusing mean they buy the postpartum psychosis story? Is this that widespread? Where? I worry we're reacting to especially crazy online women and fairly normal women are like "LC be guilty".
(I do think MA law is peculiar enough that if you apply it strictly enough Clancy had a strong case, and that's probably more MA's fault than women in the jury, but I don't expect most supporters to argue these points)
Yeah I think the Motte is missing a bit on this most of Lindsay's supporters want her to be committed to a mental hospital. On the face of it's not that big a deal, the steelman would be this is a woman on a huge cocktail of psychiatric drugs, who had just been committed to a mental hospital and because she was extremely mentally ill killed her kids. I mean on the face of it strangling your kids with exercise bands is not terribly sane. Now I don't think she was legally not guilty by reason of insanity but I don't think it's crazy to think she was. I do think it's crazy to form a "fandom" and donate to her defense.
Also the real crazy women are saying the husband did it which is surprisingly wide spread. I feel like this has been ignored on the Motte because it doesn't fit the narrative of women excusing child murder and rather gets to the heart of the issue which is white feminist misandry and entitlement, with huge amounts of ingroup favoritism and women are wonderful dolloped on top.
It almost seems like it's their...motte and bailey.
I think the real bailey there is that women feel like men dismiss their inner experiences too readily, be it their feelings, physical pain, mental health... And that what Lindsay did is the loud scream of despair that cannot be ignored that they wish they could do (not the deadly result, in most cases, but doing SOMETHING that forces men to take notice of their inner experiences). And it pisses them off that men are trying to "sweep it under the carpet" as just the criminal acts that criminals do.
Uh, welcome to the human experience?? Claiming it's more common for women to have their inner experience ignored and dismissed, than it is for men, is an absolutely deluded stance from these people.
It's particularly egregious to make Clancy a figurehead for this fight, when she was so well resourced.
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