Student gets charged for essay (Die Free Speech Die!!! )

[Fake Boris]

Not necessarily, though nearly always.

Anyway, the guy wanted to demonstrate that his reader was a dumbass because he would misinterpret him, that he'd get trouble for that, and that's exactly what he did. Kudos to treating art as real-life experiment instead of a reassuring pre-defined domain.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Ecthy
Being a rebel would at least make you normal for your age...

Not necessarily true. In fact, IIRC your political views are actually correlated with your parents'. And socioeconomics also argue against me being a rebel.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
Anyway, the guy wanted to demonstrate that his reader was a dumbass because he would misinterpret him, that he'd get trouble for that, and that's exactly what he did. Kudos to treating art as real-life experiment instead of a reassuring pre-defined domain.

I interpreted him as an emo attention whore who can't write. I wouldn't aspire to trick people into thinking that about me.

[Kuciwalker]

If I wanted to read that stuff I'd join myspace.

[Ecthy]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

Originally posted by Ecthy
Being a rebel would at least make you normal for your age...

Not necessarily true. In fact, IIRC your political views are actually correlated with your parents'. And socioeconomics also argue against me being a rebel.

50%. Socioeconomics yes, as for the other thing... I had a friend in kindergarten and primary school who was from a really well-off background. His father was an architect and his mother I don't know what but they lived fairly well and were arch-conservative. His brother was also studying architecture and was very "do the right thing" (is this what Boris referred to as 'bland'?) and all that. My friend on the other hand was a rebel lost rebel and hung out with punks and all that, being very lefty and blah blah. Never figured this one out.

[Fake Boris]

Kuci xpost

That's where you don't get it... he handed it to his prof.

[Fake Boris]

BTW, do you see the parallelism he built ?

'stab stab stab s..t..a..b puke' = 'i had a dream where I was shooting people, not really'

where blood and stabbing (primitive passion) is interrupted by puke (bodily excess) and a dream (unconscious) of gun murder (product of civilization) is interrupted by conscience (excess of civilization, i.e. humans need conscience where there are so many of them that you need to bring to conscience your passions so as to make them sociable).

[Fake Boris]

Honestly, shame to all the folks who came in and had nothing better to say than 'the guy's stupid for landing himself in trouble'.

[Kuciwalker]

Challenging orthodoxy for the sake of challenging orthodoxy is, well, silly. And if he actually believed what he said in the essays then he's disturbed. That doesn't put him in a good position.

[Fake Boris]

He challenged orthodoxy with a statement that didn't really (stabbing leads to bodily breakdown, dream of murder leads to him waking up).

Besides, don't put your head in the sand. You've dreamt that you killed people (or did other bad stuff), most assuredly. I have, and anyone on these boards who could claim the opposite is more disturbed than this guy.

[korn469]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Challenging orthodoxy for the sake of challenging orthodoxy is, well, silly. And if he actually believed what he said in the essays then he's disturbed. That doesn't put him in a good position.

I don't think the excerpt from the essay was very good. However, I don't think it was criminal. How is writing an essay about stabbing, shooting, and puking, oh wait it's only a joke challenging authority? Also if it truly is only a joke, then how is the kid disturbed?

Violence is a part of human life. Murder, wars, ethnic cleansing on one end of the spectrum with UFC, shouting matches with your neighbors, crazy shoppers trampling each other for the best deals on black friday at the other end. We encounter violence on TV, through music, in movies, and video games, so why shouldn't people have the opportunity to explore it in an essay without getting criminal charges? Even if this person is a pyscho who's stockpiling guns and ammo so he can gun down his school then why are the police involved instead of mental health professionals (as Wernazuma III and Siro already noted)? I think the teacher is a rather poor teacher who overreacted, and then the school board infringed on this person's freedom of speech by charging him with a crime for his writing which sounds more like inflammatory musings instead of direct threats of imminent danger.

[Aeson]

The paper deserves a failing grade. Not jail time.

The teacher should have written "WTF?" at the top of the page in red, and cirled the "F".

[korn469]

Originally posted by Aeson
The paper deserves a failing grade. Not jail time.

The teacher should have written "WTF?" at the top of the page in red, and cirled the "F".

That sounds like a much better resolution to this story than what actually happened!

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by korn469
I don't think the excerpt from the essay was very good. However, I don't think it was criminal.

I agree on both counts.

How is writing an essay about stabbing, shooting, and puking, oh wait it's only a joke challenging authority? Also if it truly is only a joke, then how is the kid disturbed?

If it's only a joke then he had an idea what the consequences would be. He's obviously doing this because he knows it will upset/disturb the teacher and (as OB says) hopefully get him in some amount of trouble.

The reaction of the teachers is wrong, but the kid was literally asking for it.

[notyoueither]

The reaction of the system is what's wrong.