![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Jun. 30th, 2005 10:04 amThis may not go down overly well, but it is something that interests me:
In the recent news reports of the young man who killed his parents and went off with their credit cards, every single news report I've seen begins "The public schoolboy who murdered his parents"
Presumably they define him as a public schoolboy because that shows he is part of a minority, and helps to identify him in the public consciousness.
But imagine if a news story began "A black man who murdered his parents..." or "A homosexual who murdered his parents" - you'd be able to hear the outcry from space.
The argument is, I assume, that as a public schoolboy, and therefore from a priveliged background (though the popular press assumption that all public schoolboys come from homes the size of Blenheim Palace is wearing a bit thin), which makes his committing murder even more bereft of social mitigation. This raises two issues, one specific and one general:
i) the murders were committed in large part due to a rare personality disorder. Do we therefore assume that these are less prevalent or excusable in the rich than the poor?
ii) does this mean murder among the not-priveliged is less shocking than among the priveliged?
If we cut through all the self-moralising and bullshit, the honest answer to (ii) for ther popular press is "yes". It's one of those things, like the ratio of importance of British casualties to other nations, that we know but don't talk about.
In the recent news reports of the young man who killed his parents and went off with their credit cards, every single news report I've seen begins "The public schoolboy who murdered his parents"
Presumably they define him as a public schoolboy because that shows he is part of a minority, and helps to identify him in the public consciousness.
But imagine if a news story began "A black man who murdered his parents..." or "A homosexual who murdered his parents" - you'd be able to hear the outcry from space.
The argument is, I assume, that as a public schoolboy, and therefore from a priveliged background (though the popular press assumption that all public schoolboys come from homes the size of Blenheim Palace is wearing a bit thin), which makes his committing murder even more bereft of social mitigation. This raises two issues, one specific and one general:
i) the murders were committed in large part due to a rare personality disorder. Do we therefore assume that these are less prevalent or excusable in the rich than the poor?
ii) does this mean murder among the not-priveliged is less shocking than among the priveliged?
If we cut through all the self-moralising and bullshit, the honest answer to (ii) for ther popular press is "yes". It's one of those things, like the ratio of importance of British casualties to other nations, that we know but don't talk about.
