http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/2011/07/05/whitey-bulgers-situation/ Wed, 22 May 2013 05:13:32 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/2011/07/05/whitey-bulgers-situation/#comment-24511 Wed, 06 Jul 2011 16:27:45 +0000 http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/?p=14201#comment-24511 Wow! There is a pretty big distance (I hope) between sophomoric sexual behavior about which you lied to your spouse (and who wouldn’t be embarrassed to admit they’d done something like that?) to multiple murders! There is fallen and then there is FALLEN. I am not sure it is helpful to lump such disparate cases together, although perhaps it doesn’t really matter since the observations about what causes people to sympathize or even root for an alleged wrong-doer seem correct to me. The principle may apply across the spectrum of behavior varying only in how much support falls away as the severity of the crime increases. But I suspect at some point of notoriety the dynamic runs in the other direction, that is, as the wrong-doer because more famous AS a wrongdoer (such as Al Capone, Charles Manson, etc.) there are some people who become more sympathetic but it has more to do with projection and fantasy than real sympathy.

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