Karen Matthews

[poliphilo]

It's remarkable how we all went out of our way not to notice the squalor and fecklessness of Karen Matthew's life- the five kids by different fathers, the stinky house, the rat-like, younger boyfriend (or partner as we respectfully called him). What we saw on screen was a sorry slob, what we pretended to see was a grieving earth mother. There was an unspoken conspiracy to lend her dignity

We just don't know how to relate to the poor- by which I mean the truly poor, the underclass, the ones who are not just short of cash, but short of everything else- culture, education, motivation, ambition. Our merciful, Christian Socialist state should have educated, welfared, social-cared these people off the face of the earth decades ago. But here they still are- an intractable mass- the unlovely proles- the poor who- in the annoyingly prophetic words of the New Testament- we "have always with us."

They're an offence and an embarrassment and we're afraid of sliding down hill and winding up among them. We're also afraid of appearing snobbish- uncaring; it's a terrible quandary they put us in. We get round the problem of looking them in the eye by mythologising them.  They're not to be held to the sort of standards we impose on ourselves because they're either demons- hoodies, gangbangers, pramfaces- or icons of suffering nobility, blameless victims.   And because we turn so squirmingly soft in their presence a halfway cunning lowlife like Karen Matthews is able to con us rotten. 

We should have trusted to first impressions. She seemed to be selfish, stupid, squalid, amoral- and that's just what she is.  And the ratlike "partner" turned out to have kiddieporn on his computer.

Comments

[idahoswede.livejournal.com]

Everything has to have an excuse nowdays and it irritates the **** out of me. A 14-year-old stabs another to death - oh, poor guy, his father used to beat him. Everybody blames everybody else for everything. As an aside, did you see that article about the 50-something woman who had never worked, been on benefits all her adult life, living with her 2 grown children, also non-workers, also on benefits, when asked about her work history she said, "I just somehow never got around to it." Weird. It's a whole cultural thing that I just do NOT understand.

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

Nothing to add, but great post!

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

I didn't know much about Matthews' background until after the verdict - I wonder whether that was a deliberate legal injunction to the press, or just that I don't read the red-top papers.

The question is, how did she get the way she is? Was it her brain biochemistry that failed her from birth or did society and her own upbringing fail her? You might say that nobody "in their right mind" would choose to live the way she did and treat her children the way she did. In many criminal cases it seems that there is no plausible reason for people behaving in the way they do other than simple-mindedness, unhelped and unchecked.

It comes down to the old distinction between madness and evil. One of them excuses a criminal, the other condemns her. We are not in a position to judge her state of mind, although a psychologist somewhere should be, but it surely isn't "normal" by society's standards. I guess she is being (rightly) condemned for that.

[mamadar.livejournal.com]

I think calling this woman "pure evil" was a bit much. She was greedy. So were the guys who ran Enron; they just dressed better and probably sent their kids to nice private schools.

The whole case illustrates for me one of my personal ethical maxims: "Sex is the scapegoat. Greed is the culprit."

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

We could easily tidy up most if not all of these families. The problem is, we could only do it by taking away their autonomy and acting as "benevolent" dictators. One issue we'd have to face is the compulsory sterilisation of the "feckless", because otherwise if you take their babies away, they'll just have more. We'd have to break up families and farm kids out to nice middle-class parents.

But the question is, do we really have the right to do that, and if so, who decides what standards we apply? At what point is someone just a bit disorganised and when do they become dysfunctional enough to step in and deny then any control over their own lives?

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

I do not believe in excuses such as "I had an unhappy childhood, therefore that is why I am making everyone else miserable." Or: "I was abused as a child, and that is why I abuse my kids." Those are such LAME reasons for bizarre and harmful behaviors. And it really baffles me how a mother can abduct her own child and keep her a prisoner, then go on the media and plead with her "abductors" to return her. Amoral? I guess so.

[michaeljohngrist.com (from livejournal.com)]

If we don't blame society, what else can we blame? Choice blah blah- I don't really believe in choice, nor even that much do I believe in free will. We're just incredibly complex organisms, influenced by such a myriad of million tiny bits of complexity, all of which play into our cost/benefit decisions- that we project the illusion of choice.
Or something like that. The point is- isn't our great merciful socialist state to blame for these welfare-poor, this underclass of Morlocks waiting to drag us down into their filth?
Yes, of course it is. The State gives free money- people take the free money and grow fat and lazy, hate themselves because they are such pointless bags of waste and they know it, and spiral that hatred and anger out to drag others down- so they don't feel so worthless themselves.
So can they blame society for their psychopathic stuff? Well, they can try- but any program (read- person) that knows enough to blame someone else for their actions has enough knowledge of self and world to be considered responsible.
Can we break this cycle. Of course, and yes it is evolution, but not of genetics, but of our brain-generated complexity, our ideas. Welfare is broken, bam. It's too cushy. Things should not be given for free. Ignorance and laziness should not be rewarded. Neither should they be punished outright. It's the responsibility of society to provide a ladder for these people to climb out of the slum. If they refuse to climb the ladder, well- it's our job to find a ladder they do want to climb. If we can't find any ladder for them- some way for them to contribute and connect and raise their own value, then we fail them, they fail us, and they'll end up on the streets or in jail.
We need a little more social Darwinism, and a lot less coddling.