No, I will not pity someone who you, and or society may determine to be 'disabled' for one thing or another. I will appreciate TempleOS as much as the author's other works including the rants for they are one and the same, expressions of self. So guess what, this is an interesting piece of work, you know what else? I don't like being called racial slurs. I'm not going to show any respect for anyone who thinks they can call me or my brethren a racial slur, disabled or not. To tell me to respect someone like that IS insanity. So no, no respect given.
Respect is probably an incorrect word to use here. You rightly shouldn't be expected to respect someone's epithets regardless of the cause.
As has been mentioned, this man has a disease that is causing him to act in a way that in almost every other way he probably wouldn't otherwise act were he to not have this disease.
There was a man several years ago who was convicted of attempted rape. He had no prior history of anything like this yet when he was incarcerated he was constantly propositioning the female officers. It cost him everything including his wife and family. And rightly so. Except, just before his sentencing he was diagnosed as having a brain tumor. When it was removed the predatory behavior ceased and he was a normal man again. Two years later the tumor returned and he started trying to force sex on every woman he saw.
Was he a rapist? Technically, had he succeeded in raping a woman, yes. Should he be imprisoned for it? Probably hospitalized actually but either way I'm sure you'd agree he should not be allowed back into society.
So instead of "respect" how about "compassion"? Can you have compassion for a man who is provably brilliant but also suffering from a debilitating mental illness that just may be the source of his racial slurs?
Ah I know this story well and it sheds light on why we feel one way when someone presumably has no choice over actions (mentally ill) and another when we assume that they have a choice. To answer your question: I don't know. I can envision scenarios where I do empathize and sympathize with someone afflicted, and others not so much. It is mostly dependent on whether the afflicted is self-aware. I don't know how much pain and suffering people cause each other is our own choice or something that we could just 'cut away' with some surgery.
His brain is physically deteriorating. It's schizophrenia. His brain matter is rotting away. It's not an illness like the flu. His thoughts are not his own in the same way yours or mine are. We are all just collections of cells, but his are haywire. He is incapable of choosing to give respect in the same way he's incapable of not hearing voices.
I find it abhorrent that you are offended by the words of someone who clearly has no control over themselves. Are you that insecure that you will take the rants of a schizophrenic and use them to play the race card?
A word almost solely employed by racists, when expressing dislike about the fact that anyone dare identify a racial component in anything, anywhere. Just FYI.
People have a right to be offended by derogatory words, especially -- but not only -- if they are directed towards themselves or people like them. The issue here is that Terry most likely doesn't have the ability to use a different word, or express his fear/anger in controlled way. His vocabulary is an expression of the culture in which he lives -- if he were in Russia he would be expressing fears about the KGB, not the CIA, for example.
Someone else compared his writings to a Markov chain -- the n-word is part of the input corpus to his diseased mental processes then. I personally don't infer intent on his part.
Being offended by racist speach from someone with Schizophrenia is like being offended because the guy with Alzheimers couldn't remember your name.
Taking offence to those things isn't a good thing at all, it just shows a massive lack of sympathy and understanding in the people who chose to take offence to it.
Sorry I was typing on a mobile device and probably didn't choose the best words to describe my intent. What I meant by "the race card" was taking a situation that has nothing to do with race relations (ie. Temple OS) and turning it into a discussion about race.
So wait, I'm expected to take TempleOS at face value for what it is regardless of the mental health conditions of its creator, but I can't take his religious or racial rants at face value? Seems somewhat arbitrary from my position.
To answer your question: No. I'm not. If I was, I'd be having a lot more altercations with the homeless in LA and SF. Though to play devil's advocate I could totally make the argument that one should heed the words of the racist mentally ill, as bad things can happen: (See Hitler). Having said that, If someone commands that I should show or 'give' respect and somehow separate the wheat from the chaff in arbitrary fashion to the benefit of the doubt of the mentally ill because he 'clearly has no control' seems somewhat like a disservice with that special treatment tied in, that's just an acknowledgement that this is acceptable. My stance is that it's not, regardless of your condition. How you handle that and prevent it is beyond the scope of this.
You need to get over yourself. The author of those clearly awful comments has a mental illness. For you to take those comments at face value and hold the author completely accountable is something I literally can't understand as an empathetic human being. You are simply being self-righteous at the expense of someone with a mental illness. That is a level of selfishness, obtuseness, and ignorance I can't understand.
