The Indiana Torture Slaying, John Dean

Very thorough examination of the case, but I have a couple things I want to say. 

 

Point 1) I can't bring myself to believe that Sylvia started the prostitution rumors. Stephanie's testimony seemed to be full of rubbish. I have a feeling they falsely accused her of a lot of things just to find excuses to punish her. 

 

Point 2) I think Sylvia (and Jenny) didn't seek help when the violence was escalating because, like the children who abused her, they truly believed the punishment was legitimate. I know from personal experience that when you're a child and a "parent" yells at you daily for any small mistake you make, your self-esteem goes south and you start believing everything they tell you; e.g., that you're worthless, pregnant, a slut, etc. You believe that you deserve all the punishment the parent deems necessary. Call it a weak sense of identity, but unfortunately, it's easy to manipulate fragile children who can't fight back, even ones as old as 16. 

Sylvia Likens Torture-Murder

    Recently I read about the gut-wrenching true story of Sylvia Likens, a 16-year-old victim of a two-week torture-murder in Indiana in 1965.  Ever since I read the perplexing story I can’t get it out of my head.  If you don’t know the story and you're brave enough, read it here.

    How could someone so innocent be thoroughly abused by so many people and go unnoticed for that long?  It is an absolute failure of parenting, a monstrous pinnacle of neglect, and a travesty in the history of humanity that so many children, apparently without consciences, could inflict that much pain on someone who didn’t do anything wrong.  I know there are other cases like this that have happened, but I think this one stands out for me because Sylvia reminds me of myself in a lot of ways; curly hair, round face, full lips, delicate, attentive, generous, misunderstood, neglected, the older sibling, etc.  That’s not to say my abuse was anywhere near this extreme.  I watched the movie An American Crime, a film that tried to stay accurate yet candy coated the actual events, and she looked eerily similar to who I was in home videos recorded 20 years ago: it felt like I was watching myself.  I guess that’s why I feel for what happened to Sylvia more than other cases.  She was innocent, like me; a saint in an environment of anger, whose glowing grace ignited the jealousy of those she lived around.  She didn't understand why she was being treated that way and neither did I.  Now I am aware that no matter what you do or say people will hate you if you are attractive, generous and intelligent; a combination that seems to make people want to destroy you, something beautiful yet modest, something they can never be, whether they are children or not.  Their failure to be like yourself reminds them of all the rotten things they've done, and if they were abused themselves, they'll use you as a scapegoat and take out their misplaced anger on you physically and emotionally. Gnarlodious solidly explains this phenomenon in an e-mail reply to me called The Twisted Fate Of Angels:

"To watch the TeeVee and other items of propaganda, you would think that an angel on this earth would be adored and revered. In reality it would be just the opposite. Angelic persons have always been ridiculed, tortured and murdered. After that they are slandered, called witches or pagans, and shamed for all eternity. If there are any angels alive and in the flesh, they are hiding out.  Our social norm of nurturing the weak AKA "Liberalism" is a recent evolutionary phenomenon. The vast majority of our history has been marked by rivalry, scapegoating and sacrificing the innocent to absolve the guilty."

    She's right: it is the archetypal story of Jesus echoing through history.  It could even be extended to the sociological realm; in Nazi Germany people made Jews the scapegoat and one of the most atrocious genocides in the history of the world took place.   These deluded and fearful masses, the "collective Judas"*, don't think it's fair that you should go through life without being subjected to the same misfortunes they went through.  But to go overboard like that; to torture and kill someone is sad beyond words.  Sorrow brings wisdom where the soul lay tormented, but Sylvia couldn't escape and she couldn't show us why.

*term borrowed from the Tool song Wings For Marie part 2

Small Gods, Terry Pratchett

Small Gods is Terry Pratchett’s finest work, and not because it’s the funniest. Well, it may be the funniest if you’re a down-to-earth monk or a lethal atheist who enjoys mocking the religious sector. But aside from that, this book makes you think, which is a tall order for any book based on magic or comedy. There’s a genius in the way this story unfolds, which might have a little to do with the fact that there are four geniuses at the core of the plot. A monk with a photographic memory, “Brutha” (mind you, this name sounds a lot like Buddha), is befriended by a very convincing villain- head of the Omnian Inquisition Vorbis, to confront a barbarous foreign nation: the philosophical, pagan paramount of Ephebe. But along the way Brutha hears a voice in his head, which doesn’t mean he’s crazy... this is Discworld after all... it means that an ironic surprise awaits the fate of the Omnian Empire. Along the way we meet Didactylos, a blind philosopher who is crazy by all means, but insanity often accompanies genius, so the intrigue is mutual. There’s also his rigid sidekick Urn, a naive inventor who probably belongs in the Aristotelian denomination of philosophy. Could a book like this possibly be written without Death? No; he makes his usual cameo. 

The reason I consider this as a work of genius is because the cosmogony of science, religion, and philosophy are meshed together perfectly, while at the same time being confounded by the fact that every certainty is a ridiculous waste of certainty... er, yeah. Terry proves that an outrageous wit isn’t the only thing you need to write books that people will buy over and over again; he also has a unique way of illustrating deep insight among the creative plot shifts of his bizarre world. I’m still hooked. Going to read Discworld books until I fall off its edge. 

 

A Fable, William Faulkner

Faulkner is starting to grow on me like unfamiliar music that gets better each time you hear it. It’s unbelievable that A Fable didn’t get the kind of attention it deserved when it was released in 1954. Although it won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, it was panned by critics across the board (is this only possible in literature?). A dark allegory to The Passion of Christ, its setting in the trenches of World War 1 was probably unsettling to the vast majority of its (Christian) readers. But don’t be fooled; Faulker spent 9 years writing it, and some of the passages in here are as starkly powerful insights on the human condition as have ever been written. You can tell he was trying to write the capstone of his career, a career that as profound as it was couldn’t settle for less than divine testimony. A talent such as his gone through life without a perspective on religion or escaping the south just wasn’t meant to be. Many of his fans dismissed the novel because of its unfamiliar setting, but aren’t writers supposed to push the envelope and explore new territory? That’s what writing is. Whenever I’m writing I carefully make sure I’m not repeating myself; and it’s easy because I only get the drive to write when it’s about something I haven’t explored before.  A Fable faced a lot of scrutiny for all the wrong reasons, and it’s unfortunate that it’s not recognized among Faulkner’s better known works. 

 

My interpretation of the ending (SPOILER ALERT): The last part at the General's funeral might have confused a lot of people. I think The Runner was the guy on the ground and the Quartermaster was the man above him weeping. The Runner represents the influence of the Corporal, who in turn represents Jesus, while the Quartermaster represents the influence of the General, who in turn represents God. To me the most powerful part of the book was the General's monologue to the Corporal before he sentenced him to death: 'forsakes' him, if you will. It was as if God, the Father (and he was biologically his father in the novel), had been talking down to his naive, rebellious son, bargaining with him and demanding conservatism. Maybe this was what turned off a lot of Christians; Jesus and God were on the same side in The Bible, but in A Fable God is depicted as a merciless tyrant holding up the infrastructure of a war driven society. It might be safer to say that this is not an allegory but an allegoric interpretation of The Passion. Anyways, in the last scene we see there is a reconciliation between the two men, which suggests that God and his son finally came to terms even though it happened post-mortem through different people.