conversations with a table mountain mugger - groundup article

[Skubarra]

What's also strikes me about the brilliant and nuanced arguments of people like Mr X in debates like this is that it seems even harder for them to shake the effects of their own environmental conditioning than it is for those in hangklip and similar places to avoid the traps of poverty, drugs and criminality. Those spaces produce fewer criminals than the privileged spaces produce criminal stupidity.

 

Let me guess .... D aggregate Christian National Education circa 1984?

 

You certainly hit a nerve there mamil 

 

Liked your comments...

 

I don't see this article as making excuses for criminals. But rather giving some insight into how their worlds work and how they ended up there. Like I said, scary picture, no easy solutions imo.

[Thor Buttox]

You guessed wrong.

 

 

My problem is I get aggro when people justify crime that affects me and calls me part of the problem. Yes.

Noone here is justifying crime, and Norton should be removed from society as quickly as possible. That isn't what I meant by being part of the problem.

[Captain Fastbastard Mayhem]

You guessed wrong.

 

 

My problem is I get aggro when people justify crime that affects me and calls me part of the problem. Yes.

Except they're not justifying it. They're discussing the circumstances in which people like this are more likely to be raised and live, and how best to alleviate or reverse that.

 

Education and employment. Only things that will sort it.

[Mr X]

Nevermind bunny huggers I see the house is full of mugger huggers.

[Thor Buttox]

Except they're not justifying it. They're discussing the circumstances in which people like this are more likely to be raised and live, and how best to alleviate or reverse that.

 

Education and employment. Only things that will sort it.

Let me try it again...

 

If people don't understand this ^^^^, they are part of the problem.

 

(Hopefully, it will go better this time...)

[Mr X]

Except they're not justifying it. They're discussing the circumstances in which people like this are more likely to be raised and live, and how best to alleviate or reverse that.

 

Education and employment. Only things that will sort it.

 

Yes this is not happening. No criminal is a victim of their circumstances, this concept is nonsense, the only victims are the people that the criminals choose to victimize.

[Pikey]

Except they're not justifying it. They're discussing the circumstances in which people like this are more likely to be raised and live, and how best to alleviate or reverse that.

Education and employment. Only things that will sort it.

Agreed,but you need a non corrupt government (not so blatant) before any of this can even begin. Government needs to stop taking for themselves and enriching there own lifestyle . They lead by example & take what they want . What do we expect!

[marko35s]

Let me try it again...

 

If people don't understand this ^^^^, they are part of the problem.

 

(Hopefully, it will go better this time...)

No it wont.

Plenty of people are brought up in similar circumstances to the criminal in the article, the vast majority chose not to be like him.

Being murdering thieving scum is a choice he made.

[Mr X]

No it wont.

Plenty of people are brought up in similar circumstances to the criminal in the article, the vast majority chose not to be like him.

Being murdering thieving scum is a choice he made.

 

YES! The truth! We all are given the choice to choose between good and evil. It is as simple as this.

[Pikey]

Circumstance can dictate a lot of things in life. But murdering someone in cold blood is a choice. A sadistic one !

[Thor Buttox]

No it wont.

Plenty of people are brought up in similar circumstances to the criminal in the article, the vast majority chose not to be like him.

Being murdering thieving scum is a choice he made.

I agree with you. See above - I would want him removed from society as soon as possible. But until we solve the issue of the cyclical nature of crime by breaking the cycle, people will continue to make bad choices. (And no I am not being simplistic enough to think upper class people don't make crap choices.)

 

But like most Hub threads this extreme example polarizes opinion when the real issue is more important. How many people in this community are not necessarily murderers/rapists/etc but are making ends meet any way they can. It's all well and good to do the full 'you effing libtard' thing in the face of an extreme example, but the fact that we celebrate individually those who manage actually to extricate themselves from this lifestyle and in some cases it is actually newsworthy itself, gives me a far better idea that it is also not all 'not everyone makes choices like Norton' in those communities, but that many make compromises to get by. And if you have spent any time talking to people who do live there, you will know how hard it is. My OH's domestic's son was set alight over a computer. I am not unaffected, nor blind.

[Mamil]

How many of us can state categorically that if we had been born to a crack addicted mother and a 26 boss in hangklip that we would be honest law abiding citizens? From birth i was pretty much guarateed a career as a professional. Born to parents who both had three varsity degrees with a white skin at the height of apartheid. I didn't have to make too many good decisions to qualify as a professional. Research councils gave me bursaries not because i was brilliant but because i was a good student in a priviliged space. I would have had to make some really disastrous decisions to end up in prison or ambushing people to score my next methamphetamine fix.

 

It's not moral superiority or strength of character or good decision making that distinguishes me from Norton as mch as it is the random assignation of birth.

 

What we have to realise is that our greedoms are intertwined. We have to really look at thise 2000 murders in Nyanga and the hopelessness of living in places like that. But all of pur attention is absorbed by the dangers on the cycle path. As *** scared as i am of being attacked (again) this frar is nothing compared to what it must be like to live in Nyanga or have to walk the night time dirt road to get to the porta loo in danoon.

 

Individual choice? Hmmmm ... i wonder

[marko35s]

How many of us can state categorically that if we had been born to a crack addicted mother and a 26 boss in hangklip that we would be honest law abiding citizens? From birth i was pretty much guarateed a career as a professional. Born to parents who both had three varsity degrees with a white skin at the height of apartheid. I didn't have to make too many good decisions to qualify as a professional. Research councils gave me bursaries not because i was brilliant but because i was a good student in a priviliged space. I would have had to make some really disastrous decisions to end up in prison or ambushing people to score my next methamphetamine fix.

 

It's not moral superiority or strength of character or good decision making that distinguishes me from Norton as mch as it is the random assignation of birth.

 

What we have to realise is that our greedoms are intertwined. We have to really look at thise 2000 murders in Nyanga and the hopelessness of living in places like that. But all of pur attention is absorbed by the dangers on the cycle path. As *** scared as i am of being attacked (again) this frar is nothing compared to what it must be like to live in Nyanga or have to walk the night time dirt road to get to the porta loo in danoon.

 

Individual choice? Hmmmm ... i wonder

See all the advantages you happily had? I had none of them.

I have yet to stab anybody.

[Mamil]

To reiterate Thor's point, understanding how a violent and unequal society engenders psychopathy is not a justification or an exoneration of Norton's criminality. But it is a challenge to us to acknowledge that it is the way we have structured the allocation of social resources so unequally and for so long and continue to do so that is creating the violence in our society.

[BigDL]

X - WTF did you learn the art of argument? Your level of debate is something to behold.

 

As for Norton, he is a product of society that has been created by historic horrific circumstances and I would be surprised if many people with that start in life were able to break the chain of poverty, violence and drug addiction. Similar to a generation that grew up in the townships witnessing the most horrific violence regularly, the damage can be deep and far reaching. Call me a libtard for understanding how someone gets to where they are if you like, you moron.

 

Having said that, I have witnessed and been involved in stopping, cleaning up or dealing with the consequences of sociopaths like this many times in my life and have, like you I expect, had it effect me and mine personally to a terrible level. Having an understanding of how someone has got to where they are and understanding that we need to do something different to stop creating people like them, has never made me hesitate or not do what needed to be done to stop them or to prevent them doing what they intended. If someone is going to harm my family, I really don't care at the moment that I respond with maximum violence, how they got to where they are. I do, however, have the intelligence to know that without changing our whole society, we are creating more and more Nortons all the time.

 

 

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[Pah Bear]

YES! The truth! We all are given the choice to choose between good and evil. It is as simple as this.

Eish, so sad to hear people still arguing with their heads in the sand.

 

You are a product of your surroundings. Reading that article and seeing the circumstances Norton grew up in, it is very few that will make different choices. No one can excuse or justify the crimes he committed. He had parents that further enforced what his society espoused.

 

I grew up in such an environment and had parents that wished for us better than circumstances provided, so they moved heaven and earth instill in us good moral values and move the family out at he earliest. Today, I can go back there and see friends I grew up with, still stuck in the same circumstance.

 

Society in South Africa has been so skewed by man made circumstances and today, solutions to reverse this situation is bedraggled by a government that unfortunately has lost its way. I trust that not withstanding this reality, as South Africans we will build a better future for all.

 

I should not be surprised by the plethora of views of the "haves" that fail to take into account the reality we come from. Not too many on this forum have experienced what life choices one is confronted with in the ghettos, slums and gang infested badlands of our country.

 

Our past will for a long time haunt us until we come together for the benefit of all our society.

 

Forever hopeful that the opinions like that of "Mr X's" will recede over time. The alternative is to see a perpetuation of life as in Donald (Ducks) America. Please no.