It's not a sign of intellectual rigor, broad-mindedness or virtuous humanity to empathize with career criminals; it's cowardice masquerading as such.

I can assure you none of you would be pleading for nuance if you had had a single experience of the pitiless malevolence with which such individuals operate.

These people ruin lives, communities, entire societies for petty monetary gain. They deserve no sympathy nor quarter. — Tzeentch

For the record, I largely agree with you. However I would like to offer the reminder that most people go through life fully, living and dying in a state of quasi-debilitation never really knowing or understanding the things some of us take for granted in life. Simply put, the lights are not all on upstairs.

"Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity" seems to be the words of a fool in your eyes, no? :smile:

While most people will state they "don't care", the reality of the individual is they simply don't understand. It's like dealing with a dog. It hungers, so it eats. It is blameless until one tries to view it as anything but what it is—an equal—which is unfortunately what you seem to be doing for reasons I cannot imagine.

There's a fine line here. Rogues are people who break the rules and thus evoke sympathy (something like Jack Sparrow). They remain within the rules themselves. The current conversation isn't about morally black (bad) people, but about morally gray people. That is, those who live entirely outside the good/bad paradigm. The phenomenon I'm talking about has a somewhat different nature. These heroes seem bad, but they are a reflection of us—they're just like us, with everyday problems. And we no longer know whether they're bad or not, or whether we can justify them (because we're all a bit like Walter White). — Astorre

I wasn't talking about black and white characters, either. "Morally gray" characters are nothing new, nor is the critics' hand-wringing over the "moral decline". Again, classic epics are a prime example, but if you want something more recognizable and relatable, look no further than nineteenth century literature - plenty of examples there: Thackeray, Maupassant, etc.

I think life is more complicated for many people than you do. Which is fine. I'm not going to change your mind, so there is little point in bothering. — Malcolm Parry

Good point. Some people are happy to judge others from the warm fug of ignorance. I’ve certainly done this myself.

I’ve known many career criminals, some bikies and gang members. Many of them, from what I have seen, didn’t have much of a chance from the start. Would I hesitate to shoot one if I had to? Probably not. But that doesn’t remove my feelings of sympathy, even if it’s qualified.

Do you think we'll see a true survival show by 2035? Like deathmatches or frantic races?
The participants could be death row inmates, debtors, or the terminally ill, and the action could take place in third-world countries. The technical details aren't so important; what matters is whether modern society is ready for such a show.

Ha! We don’t need a structured show for this. It’s probably more about putting cameras in real world hot spots. For a tame example, look at what YouTube makes of Philadelphia.

I think human beings are always ready for barbarism, it’s one of our capacities, along with empathy and compassion. Some of the biggest criminals I have met have been among the most generous. Sentimentality and cruelty go together. Anyway a lot of sci fi stories seem to have taken this plot as a modern day version of the coliseum.

Ever seen Soylent Green? Long before your time, but a chilling dystopian sci-fi.

I always loved the opening title sequence too.

I'll definitely check it out. Judging by the description, it looks interesting.

1. The majority of screen time in such "masterpieces" is dedicated to the aestheticization and heroization of the sinner; the moral justification of atrocities. — Astorre

We love the escapism.

It's an old genre of making criminals to be heroes and then trying to portray the story as a critique of the society. It's the old idea that criminals are forced into crime, because of the economy/society, not being people that actually like crime and voluntarily choose the lifestyle, do like violence for the sake of violence and are actual hideous people like psychopaths are. Usually they are forced to crime, not actively seeking crime and leaving a dull normal life they could totally chosen. And at some stage, they usually show that they still have morals, and aren't the psychopaths they often are.

For example mobsters have been portrayed as rockstars living a life different from us is the perfect escapism for us from our dull safe lives. This was totally obvious even before Coppola and Scorsese, from the films during the time when the US had really a Mafia problem. Only with the exception then that the "Cosa Nostra" remained hidden from the public.



Finally, there is punishment in the end, which is there to make actually the viewer to feel better. The main character has to die, usually with a violent yet glorious ending. Be it Breaking Bad, Scarface or in the gangster movies of James Cagney. Only in very few movies the criminal actually gets away with the murder and the lifestyle without there being any karma or justice. Just as only a few films are the police the actual gangsters, which they easily can be.

This all makes sense, when we understand the underlying reasoning: it's entertainment. A movie like Schindler's list isn't made to entertain you, but "Breaking Bad", "Scarface", "The Godfather", "The Departed", "Goodfellas", they all are there to entertain you. You won't feel bad afterwards. That's the issue here.

Just like with violence itself, people like it as entertainment. The Romans loved the Gladiator games, executions were flocked to see later in history. Quentin Tarantino says the truth about our love for violence: it's entertainment. It doesn't mean that we love actual violence. Not only is there this moral judgement in the end or the fact that the story implies the main character was somehow forced to crime, in the end they are all actors and it's fiction, even if based on a real story. Nobody actually died. Hence we can enjoy it as entertainment. Hence the real object isn't the main character, the real object is for the viewer to feel good afterwards and think the movie was worth wile to see.

It would be totally different if we would have just actual footage of people being tortured to death, being ripped apart into pieces by bomb blast with the viewer understanding that it isn't fake, that it's really innocent children or walkers passing by being killed. Naturally there that actual footage that criminals use to instill fear on others. Many wouldn't finish their popcorn, but throw up and be traumatized from the images.

I doubt it. Real death and violence is not fun to watch (for mentally healthy people, at least). Sports have a tendency of getting safer, with more emphasis on the long-term health and safety of the participants.

Even combat sports are generally enjoyed in the knowledge that the fighters are by and large safe. Deaths or serious injuries in the ring are not celebrated, health risks (like CTE) are taken seriously, etc.

The fantasy violence that people are provided through media is nothing like actual violence, but it has people forming opinions and views on what actual violence must be like. It detaches people from reality, and on a large scale that can start to be problematic.

It doesn't make people more violent (it's hard to imagine a less violent being than a modern western person), it makes them dumber and more ignorant - easier to goad into supporting wars the reality of which they will never have to experience.

"Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity" seems to be the words of a fool in your eyes, no? :smile: — Outlander

When dealing with ordinary people it works fine. When dealing with criminals or politicians, it does not.

While most people will state they "don't care", the reality of the individual is they simply don't understand. It's like dealing with a dog. It hungers, so it eats. It is blameless until one tries to view it as anything but what it is—an equal—which is unfortunately what you seem to be doing for reasons I cannot imagine. — Outlander

I'm not sure what you're saying, exactly.

Are you saying that criminals are essentially subhumans I ought not judge on the same basis as I would ordinary people?

Do you think we'll see a true survival show by 2035? Like deathmatches or frantic races? — Astorre

Not in a world where there is still a semblance of liberal values. If something fundamental happened to the world then mores could change drastically but until then, not a chance. Imho.

Are you saying that criminals are essentially subhumans I ought not judge on the same basis as I would ordinary people? — Tzeentch

There are few people selling drugs who—if they would make as much money selling drugs doing something legal with around the same level of time and energy spent—would still be selling drugs.

This is not to suggest that these are all moral people who toss and turn at night struggling to come to terms with a life they despise yet are forced to live in order to survive, of course not. They like the easy money and likely view the world as a dog-eat-dog place. They don't want their clients to die, but they certainly want their money, and if a man can't go through life and conduct himself like an adult with willpower, that's nobody's fault but his own. The world is a tough place and nobody is going to hold your hand through life. This is the extent to which the average person (criminal or not) tends to "think" about "the world" and anything beyond nominal, trivial, personally-relevant everyday topics.

There's a kind of philosophical paradigm I can't recall right now. Judging by the intent of an action versus judging by the outcome (end result) of an action. If I give a homeless guy $500 and a place to stay so he can turn his life around, and he instead buys a gun with it and goes on a shooting spree, am I just as guilty as If I had literally handed him a gun and drove him to a place he asked to be driven to after telling me he "wants to shoot some people"? According to some people, yes, yes I am.

Bad example. A better example (or at least comparative scenario) would be if I was the person responsible for introducing this woman to the fish she consumed, that she never would have consumed otherwise, that resulted in the amputation of all four of her limbs. Any reasonable person would consider the chain of effects a horrible, one-in-several-million freak accident and perhaps spend as much time consoling me as they would the victim! Again, to some people—and they point to a valid reality and chain of events—if I would have just minded my business, perhaps by being stingy and not giving anyone any gifts, the woman would be fully mobile today. It's true, after all. But is that really fair? Most people would think not.

To answer your question: In my view, most young adults are like children. Large, violent, dangerous children. They don't really know what it is they're doing, at least, the things they do and the resulting consequences of such doesn't mean to them what it means to someone more intellectually-inclined. They know right from wrong, but in an unrefined, rudimentary sort of way. They have a grasp of it, an idea of an idea, per se, not unlike a young child in grade school when it comes to algebra. What's not important is whether the person is smart, dull, a literal child, or a fully grown adult. What's important is bad actions are stopped, equally, and that the punishment (if any) is proportional to the capacity of the individual to understand why what they did was wrong. We don't execute dangerous mentally ill people even if they have killed before. But that doesn't mean we do nothing and let them roam about unimpeded.

Remember, alcohol is just as dangerous as many drugs. It can be addictive, it can be harmful, it can turn a person into a raging out of control danger to themself and others, it can kill a person and even result in the deaths of many persons, directly or indirectly. Should we go around yanking young supermarket clerks, bartenders, and liquor store staff off the streets and placing them all in some deep dark hole somewhere? I don't think so. And neither do you. :up:

UFC has certainly been on the rise the past couple of years. I don't know if we'd see a show where actual lifes are put on the line because human life is still a core value of Western Christian tradition, and things perhaps don't change that fast, but maybe if it's about lifes that aren't considered part of the group. MAGA Christianity for instance seems to be develloping a pagan heresy where Christian universality is questioned.

Do you think we'll see a true survival show by 2035? Like deathmatches or frantic races?
The participants could be death row inmates, debtors, or the terminally ill, and the action could take place in third-world countries. The technical details aren't so important; what matters is whether modern society is ready for such a show. — Astorre

We already have motorsport, don't we? The incidence of fatal crashes actually used to be much higher than it is now, after safety improvements were implemented (in contradiction to the usual world going to hell in a handbasket sentiment).

Showing understanding and leniency towards hardcore criminals on account of them being "large, violent, dangerous children" is the sympathy route.

Why choose sympathy for them over sympathy for their many victims?

Showing understanding and leniency towards hardcore criminals on account of them being "large, violent, dangerous children" is the sympathy route.

Why choose sympathy for them over sympathy for their many victims? — Tzeentch

Perhaps one shouldn't. But now the subject matter has shifted. We are now talking about hardcore criminals whereas before one might consider just another dumb kid who's never even been in a fight who got caught up with the wrong crowd—or perhaps racked up too much of a debt with people you don't want to owe money to or otherwise "has to" lest something very bad happen—as one of these "hardcore criminal" drug dealers you profess to know all there is to know about. This is the disconnect between your apparent sentiment and that of an average person. You presume to know things which you have no way of knowing. Why?

But now the subject matter has shifted. — Outlander

It has not. The main character of Breaking Bad is obviously a "hardcore criminal", and this was the subject from the very beginning.

[...] just another dumb kid who's never even been in a fight who got caught up with the wrong crowd—or perhaps racked up too much of a debt with people you don't want to owe money to or otherwise "has to" lest something very bad happen [...] — Outlander

Again, I'm not interested in sob stories.

I don't view these people as children, victims or sub-humans. I view them as adults who are fully responsible for their actions and I shall judge them as such.

The excuse that they did not know right from wrong is something I simply don't take seriously.

You presume to know things which you have no way of knowing. Why? — Outlander

Making assumptions based on knowledge and experience is a fundamental part of judging the world around us.

I'm not afraid to do so, and I would in fact argue that not expressing genuinely-held beliefs and judgements out of fear of being wrong is exactly the type of moral cowardice I mentioned earlier in this thread.

It has not. The main character of Breaking Bad is obviously a "hardcore criminal", and this was the subject from the very beginning. — Tzeentch

Ah, there we are. I had only joined in after the following page where I responded to your sentiment that in fact had no such mention of any "character" or TV series but only the general concept of drug dealers.

Jolly good to have cleared this up. Funny how these little misunderstandings come about organically and on their own. Another victory for intelligent discourse and rationale. Cheers. :party:

Again, I'm not interested in sob stories. — Tzeentch

That said there's 8 billion people with 8 billion interests who you have no say over whatsoever, so. Not seeing the relevance of your lone opinion as far as anything relevant to the real world and actions in it going forward. But yeah, thanks for sharing. Makes the community even more tight-knit to know our personal preferences such as favorite recipes, colors, and other little personal interests (or non-interests).

I'm not sure if one giving a factual account of dire, human circumstances the majority of people can relate to and sympathize with a title of "sob story" is supposed to remove or lessen the legitimacy or relevance of the underlying facts that constitute a given situation—or convince rational people (who don't have an unmistakably medically-deficient and reduced capability to understand empathy or human emotion)—of anything. It doesn't, by the way. :smile:

Makes the community even more tight-knit to know our personal preferences such as favorite recipes, colors, and other little personal interests (or non-interests). — Outlander

If you want to be dismissive about it, no one on this forum is dealing in anything other than opinion and preference.

It leaves the question of who judges soundly and who doesn't. That's what interests me, and the only reason I'm here.

I'm not sure if one giving a factual account of dire, human circumstances the majority of people can relate to and sympathize with a title of "sob story" is supposed to remove or lessen the legitimacy or relevance of the underlying facts that constitute a given situation—or convince rational people (who don't have an unmistakably medically-deficient and reduced capability to understand empathy or human emotion)—of anything. It doesn't, by the way. — Outlander

If you think it's "dire human circumstances" that give rise to career criminals/organized crime, you are completely mistaken. These people aren't stealing loaves of bread to feed their families, they're shanking your elderly grandma so they can buy fancy cars and new shoes. It's all ego and greed.

Your naive empathy is not a virtue.

Your naive empathy is not a virtue. — Tzeentch

And naivety is no intentional offense. Which means it is not an unreasonable position to hold. So, how will you reach those who are naturally compassionate without ostracizing yourself by attempting to demonize people who only want what's best for those around them and of course the world?

Your naive empathy is not a virtue. — Tzeentch

What kind of empathy/sympathy for a tragic criminal is then not naive? And if there were justified occasions were it wasn't naive could it serve as a virtue on account of what good that empathy might help promote, the greater good? Retributive justice may seem kind of senseless if it just leads to the perpetuation of more suffering.

So, how will you reach those who are naturally compassionate without ostracizing yourself by attempting to demonize people who only want what's best for those around them and of course the world? — Outlander

Calling people naive isn't demonizing them.

What kind of empathy/sympathy for a tragic criminal is then not naive? And if there were justified occasions were it wasn't naive could it serve as a virtue on account of what good that empathy might help promote, the greater good? — Nils Loc

Depends on the person, I suppose.

Career criminals will see a lenient justice system as an invitation to conduct more criminal behavior, as it lowers the costs of getting caught. In such cases, it is naive.

Other people might take their second chance seriously.

Calling people naive isn't demonizing them. — Tzeentch

Is that not the same thing to naive people? If they were perfectly in line with (perhaps what is but your view of) rationality there would be no disagreement or issue on your end now would there?

You're calling them wrong, essentially, which is putting into question not just every single act or non-act they've ever engaged in or disengaged in in the entirety of their life, but their entire life worth altogether (ie. "the meaning of life" itself). That's going to result in an equal if not greater reaction or response than if you intentionally set out to do so as your only prerogative.

It's a profound thing to force someone to question. One's results may vary. Particularly if one is outnumbered by a naive populous. Surely you've processed such base and highly likely future outcomes yourself, yes?

You're calling them wrong, essentially, which is putting into question not just every single act or non-act they've ever engaged in or disengaged in in the entirety of their life, but their entire life worth altogether (ie. "the meaning of life" itself). — Outlander

Complete nonsense. I'm doing nothing of the sort.

Complete nonsense. I'm doing nothing of the sort. — Tzeentch

But it was you yourself who already established these people who disagree or otherwise think differently than you are "ignorant" or "inexperienced" AKA "naive". You can't backtrack or pivot in a way that undoes your main argument. Painting one's self into a corner is part of life, we all do at one point or another. But stepping onto said paint (your argument), then walking into clear hallways (my argument), then acting like your tracks aren't clear as day (the inconsistencies of your argument) is a whole different animal one doesn't need to invoke upon one's self. Introspection, self-reflection is what normal people do, not only when proven (or otherwise told they might be) wrong. Is this natural part of the human experience really so unknown or unfathomable to you?

Calling someone naive is calling someone incorrect or ignorant of things you deem yourself as being correct or knowledgeable of or about. This is but the simple definition of the term.

The problem I often see in movies and TV is a protagonist who hurts (or even kills) innocents (eg persuing cops) because they are on some important mission and see it as the "greater good". And they rarely stop to reflect on what they've done.
In the real world, this kind of "greater good" thinking is often what enables the greatest evils.

That said, the degree to which it is harmful to the audience depends on many factors; I'm not saying that every movie treating an innocent security guard as fodder is necessarily normalizing evil (or violence), but some do.

Finally, I've got to disagree with the OP's characterization of breaking bad. Much of the point of the series was asking difficult moral questions and showing the factors that might lead a formerly good person to "break bad". It's very far from just cheering him on (or his wife being an "empty shrew"). Did you think, for example, when he calls for Gale to be executed, and what that also did to Jessie that we were supposed to find it heroic?