Reading about this nightmare makes me wonder, who is the bigger infant in this story... [my translation from the original French-language news report]:A 19-year Spaniard who had killed his girlfriend's baby because he was bothering him during his video game, has been found guilty Friday by a tribunal. His sentence will be announced next week.
The young man confessed to having struck the baby but without intending to kill him. He was charged with having committed his act after the baby touched him, which then caused the young man to lose the video game he was playing.
He then laid on top of the baby for several minutes. When the baby stopped moving, the young man started a new game. The mother discovered the dead child upon her return.
Attorney for the defense pleaded that his insensitivity was caused by several consecutive days spent playing video games, an argument that was not sustained by the court. The young man could face 25 years imprisonment.
"All sins tend to be addictive, and the terminal point of addiction is what is called damnation." ___W.H. Auden
4 comments:
Sickening.
Undoubtedly, even though this wasn't sustained in court, this will be used by those who are against video games being played by their children, as if one particular medium could alter someone's thought processes that much.
I certainly hope that this guy gets exactly what he deserves.
What a child indeed.
This is not because he was playing video games, but because he was a selfish SOB.
I hope he gets the maximum, but I wouldn't count on it. They will probably give him probation.
This story goes to show that "a-musement" truly means to take the "muse", thinking/reasoning, out of something; an absence of thinking.
(Just as being "a-moral", means having no morals... an absence of morals. The "a" at the start of the word means that you're removing what comes next...)
I agree with you Walker, video and computer games are not bad in themselves, it's the value system guiding the mind of the person using them that is either good or bad. It would be hypocritical for me to imply that playing these games is wrong, since I play them myself, usually while I'm listening to the news over the radio when I get home from work.
I can no more imagine playing these games for days at a time, however, than I could imagine myself going on a lost weekend, binge-drinking bender.
After a stressful day dealing with so many people, it's soothing to tickle one's mind for a short while, to regain balance. A laugh to balance against the tension.
A game, like a drink, can do that.
Then, mission accomplished, back to reality again.
Goes to show that selfishness can be explained as "an addiction to oneself"... and like most addictions, the self-centeredness tends to bring a preoccupation with the present moment at the expense of the past and the future.
This seemingly-casual killing of infants is not uncommon in the U.S. among the younger parent set. Since they are, for the most part, immature beyond description they cannot conceive that the infant victim of their own infantile rage is entitled to any consideration.
Insufficiently socialized for survival, evidently. And the video game playing had little to do with it, in my opinion, as the majority of the cases here in the U.S. have no common fact pattern, apart from a very general one that the infant's behavior - e.g., crying - was disturbing the killer's sensibilities and "made him angry". A lack of remorse and at least an initial apparent inability to discern the seriousness of their actions is another common feature of such cases. One is tempted to the easy diagnosis: pathological narcissism in the murder.
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