Sociopathic Self-Absorption
Canada has experienced more than its share of horrific instances of young girls exhibiting psychopathic tendencies and acting on them, with socially and personally devastating results. The girls involved in tragedies their egos have engineered suffer from personalities resulting from an incapacity to empathize with other people, who consider themselves to be above and beyond anything approximating normal constraints of behaviour, and whose self-indulgence resulted in dreadful deaths.
From the abysmally sad death of Victoria's teen-aged Reena Virk, so anxious for acceptance from her peers, to the brutally demented killings of a twelve-year-old's father, mother and younger brother at both her hands and that of her 23-year-old boyfriend, Jeremy Steinke's. To the latest death last year of a 14-year-old Toronto girl, murdered at the insistent behest of a 15-year-old girl whose like-aged boyfriend felt unable to resist her orders.
Parents really do not always - not even half the time - know what their children are involved with. They see the familial familiarity, the facade that their teens permit them to recognize and feel comfortable with. They have little to no awareness of the hedonistic and heedless lives some of their children indulge in. Nor are they familiar with the conspiratorial and socially aggressive tone some of these activities take.
Parents actually should trust their children. Trust that they have imbued their children, through their own behaviour, with values and moral imperatives that they hold dear, and which their children have been patterned to emulate. Parents cannot, after all, be lingering over their children's shoulders, instructing and informing, berating or congratulating them as they fit themselves into the social contract they draw upon with their peers.
It's difficult all too often for parents to objectively evaluate their children's characters, to determine which elements on display give them pause for second consideration. And having identified some areas that require remediation, where to draw upon for help in steering their children toward a more balanced and acceptable view, one that does not necessarily place their immoderate desires first and foremost.
In the case of Stefanie Rengel, this was a young girl merging into adulthood, whose misfortune was that she attracted the enmity of another young girl, slightly older, whose character was maladapted to personal constraints. The girl whose enmity was aimed toward Stefanie Rengel had a volatile and unforgiving temper, paranoid and vengeful. Capable of turning a young boy's fragile hold on decency toward murder.
The unnamed accused was found guilty of first-degree murder at the trial into the death of Stefanie Rengel. This girl, known only by her initials, was incapable of feeling remorse for the murder she had orchestrated, felt comfortable in what had occurred, thought nothing of taking a life, and demonstrated her approval of what her recalcitrant and moronic boyfriend had brought about on her instructions.
On hearing the verdict brought down by the jury the young woman began quietly crying. Not because of what her imperiously jealous attitude toward someone she had never met had resulted in, but because her freedom has been removed for a significant period of her young life. Her obsession with herself and her vibrant resentment against others whom she felt had wronged her marks a distorted sense of self-involvement.
That she admitted to police after she was detained that she felt glad at the death of the young woman she had ordered murdered speaks volumes about the depths of this young girl's lack of humanity. Both she and the young man whom she conscripted to carry out the murder of Stefanie Rengel represent the depths to which young people may plumb evil without recognizing it as such because its meaning eludes them.
They have joined a short but hideous list of young Canadians whose crimes represent a nightmare scenario for any society.
From the abysmally sad death of Victoria's teen-aged Reena Virk, so anxious for acceptance from her peers, to the brutally demented killings of a twelve-year-old's father, mother and younger brother at both her hands and that of her 23-year-old boyfriend, Jeremy Steinke's. To the latest death last year of a 14-year-old Toronto girl, murdered at the insistent behest of a 15-year-old girl whose like-aged boyfriend felt unable to resist her orders.
Parents really do not always - not even half the time - know what their children are involved with. They see the familial familiarity, the facade that their teens permit them to recognize and feel comfortable with. They have little to no awareness of the hedonistic and heedless lives some of their children indulge in. Nor are they familiar with the conspiratorial and socially aggressive tone some of these activities take.
Parents actually should trust their children. Trust that they have imbued their children, through their own behaviour, with values and moral imperatives that they hold dear, and which their children have been patterned to emulate. Parents cannot, after all, be lingering over their children's shoulders, instructing and informing, berating or congratulating them as they fit themselves into the social contract they draw upon with their peers.
It's difficult all too often for parents to objectively evaluate their children's characters, to determine which elements on display give them pause for second consideration. And having identified some areas that require remediation, where to draw upon for help in steering their children toward a more balanced and acceptable view, one that does not necessarily place their immoderate desires first and foremost.
In the case of Stefanie Rengel, this was a young girl merging into adulthood, whose misfortune was that she attracted the enmity of another young girl, slightly older, whose character was maladapted to personal constraints. The girl whose enmity was aimed toward Stefanie Rengel had a volatile and unforgiving temper, paranoid and vengeful. Capable of turning a young boy's fragile hold on decency toward murder.
The unnamed accused was found guilty of first-degree murder at the trial into the death of Stefanie Rengel. This girl, known only by her initials, was incapable of feeling remorse for the murder she had orchestrated, felt comfortable in what had occurred, thought nothing of taking a life, and demonstrated her approval of what her recalcitrant and moronic boyfriend had brought about on her instructions.
On hearing the verdict brought down by the jury the young woman began quietly crying. Not because of what her imperiously jealous attitude toward someone she had never met had resulted in, but because her freedom has been removed for a significant period of her young life. Her obsession with herself and her vibrant resentment against others whom she felt had wronged her marks a distorted sense of self-involvement.
That she admitted to police after she was detained that she felt glad at the death of the young woman she had ordered murdered speaks volumes about the depths of this young girl's lack of humanity. Both she and the young man whom she conscripted to carry out the murder of Stefanie Rengel represent the depths to which young people may plumb evil without recognizing it as such because its meaning eludes them.
They have joined a short but hideous list of young Canadians whose crimes represent a nightmare scenario for any society.
Labels: Canada, Human Relations, societal failures
posted by Pieface @ 6:20 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home