We all know that former Reverand Phelps died recently. The GBTQ community has been a twitter with conflicting ideas about what to do:
Ignore, protest, offer bland condolences, be thankful for his galvanizing effect on our community, Be thankful for his highlighting the "crazy" that is "blaming gays for all the woes of the world" OR that is "GOD hates ..." (wouldn't have mattered what he put at the end of that most of us don't think of God as a hater.)
All these have been thrown out for consideration.
Then there was this counter protest against his former church protesting in their usual fashion recently.
Simple, elegant, empathetic, and ironic.
Brilliant.
It takes the higher ground and shows that we're far better people than they are.
But wait there's more, the reactions of WBC member Mr. Drain are telling.
Check out the article.
Westboro Baptist Church Protest Met With 'Sorry For Your Loss' Sign
To repeat the end of the article:
The message didn't get across to all Westboro members.
"I don't even know what they're saying,"
Westboro Baptist Church member Steve Drain said.
So Mr. Drain can't understand this simple sentence? He probably understands the sentence at face value. So he must be struggling with the deeper meaning.
Empathy and irony.
Empathy:
Does he not understand the concept of empathy? (i.e. Recognizing anthers emotional state and being able to connect with that and mirror it.) That would explain a lot in the actions of Westboro on every level. Or does he mean that he doesn't understand that they can actually have the empathy to realize
that some of the WBC members (if not all of them) might actually be
morning for Fred. Does he not understand that they could actually be so fully developed as humans that they posses such a fundamental trait as empathy, and the natural drive to express it.
But I'm more concerned that it his lack of understanding empathy, implies he has none of his own.
Lack of empathy is a troubling pathology shared by sociopaths. Normal humans develop empathy very early in childhood. It's a very important part of how humans can interact in a complex ever changing society. Yet he seems to be saying he doesn't get it.
Ironly:
Could he be missing the irony that the people his group has been trying to get oppressed can still have sympathy for him? That would mean that they have empathy, and know how to act correctly in a social situation when confronted with the death of somebody's loved one or friend. Does he not understand that this is normal for them as they are fully developed people?
Or could he be missing the the irony that these people protesting his protest, have chosen not to be over the top negative and confrontational, that these people have chosen to be appropriate in their actions regarding the social situation at hand. Something his group has not done on any level.
The WBC protest signs didn't say anything relevant to most of the situations they were presented at, and were as offensive as possible. They were very inappropriate in their choice of protest sites. They tried to stir hate against people that were all too often not even remotely related to the event at hand (military funerals.) Yet the people they tried to get the rest of the country to heap hate upon are there offering them an appropriate sign of condolence and sympathy, in effect showing empathy for the haters. Either he actually gets the irony of that and denies it in a vain attempt to steal its power, or he really doesn't see the irony of that.
It's worth noting that irony is another higher brain function that develops later in a child than empathy. Mr. Drain seems to lack this understanding of the subtlety of irony as it relates to this situation. Again this concerns me because the irony here is not built on much complexity just normal behavior contrasted with the WBC standard practices. (that is to say he doesn't need to have a subtle understanding of some esoteric knowledge to see the irony, just basic social skills.) So his understanding of irony is barely extant at all. So I am concerned again that his brain might be underdeveloped (if not even sub human.)
So we have a man who is under developed in empathy and irony. Assuming he was the only one so challenged, had no one else in WBC explained what was going on with the counter protest to him? Or was there no one in WBC with the capacity to explain it to him? Or worse yet was he just a typical WBC member so none of the others would see anything to explain to him?
In any case we have at least one mentally deficient, emotionally underdeveloped individual allowed to speak to reporters for WBC.
OR we have one sociopath as a representative of a group of sociopaths.
