|
「自由意志」與「隔離制度」：「開膛手傑克」新身份的聯想
|
瀏覽1,275 ｜回應2｜推薦1 |
|
|
|
下面轉載《每日電訊報》關於「開膛手傑克」新嫌犯身份的報導。「開膛手傑克」有他專屬的網頁和研究學會；相信他是刑偵史和犯罪學上最頂頂有名的真實人物之一。如報導中所說，當時警方有100名左右的「嫌犯」。
如果霍膯女士的調查屬實，我有兩個感想：
1. 開膛手傑克的行為可能是他癲癇症發作所導致的後果
這讓我聯想到另一位赫赫有名的癲癇症患者 – 達斯妥也夫斯基。用文學或哲學術語來說，達氏將自己的「痛苦」/悲劇「昇華」為不朽的作品；而開膛手傑克則將自己的「痛苦」/憤怒發洩到無力保護自己也不受社會保護的弱勢族群。
當然，兩者行為/反應上的差異，一定受到社會經驗以及基因組合等其他層面因素的制約。以目前的知識水準，我想也不能排除「意志」的作用；換句話說，就是一個人在自己價值系統/人格特質兩者指導/影響下的決策。
2. 隔離制度
「後『現代』思潮」大師之一的傅柯有兩本分別討論監獄和精神病的著作。我對這兩個主題沒有很大的興趣，所以沒有拜讀。不過，從介紹他思想的書中，大致知道兩書的主旨(傅柯1、傅柯2、傅柯3)。
在討論「自由意志」與「行為責任」關係的拙作中，我有以下這兩個評論：
如上所說，不論我們是否有「自由意志」，也不論我們如何闡釋「自由意志」，一般人在15歲以後，大概知道自己的處境，也知道自己的行為會產生什麼樣的後果。觸犯了法律、規則、或規範，不論我們是否「自願」接受該行為的後果或「承擔責任」，我們都會受到某種程度的處罰或責備。換句話說，只要在社會中活動，一個人沒有不「承擔」責任的「自由」。人之所以「說謊」、欺騙、或裝聾作啞，就是因為我們不願意承擔責任。 -- (《淺談「自由意志」》，該欄2013/10/03)
霍布士指出，人們接受威權和法律的管束，是為了避免叢林世界的運作模式，增加各自存活的機率；而不是因為人賤或有奴性。一個人的行為損害到其他社會成員權益時，對方或社會將採取某種「反制」措施。因此，我們生活在社會中需要「守法」，或需要面對「不守法」的後果。這個現實和我們有沒有「自由意志」並不相關；它是多數人在「(我們大家)同意有維持社會秩序的必要」這個觀念或意志下所形成的共識。如果一個人缺乏「自由意志」、「判斷能力」、或「(對)行為(負責)能力」，她/他仍需要面對「被隔離在社會之外」的處置。 -- 《重談「自由意志」》
第一段是受到沙垂、卡木等「存在主義」大師的影響，強調「人必須面對自己行為後果並對其負責」。第二段則是針對上述傅柯兩本書主旨的回應。我的重點不在受害者的權利跟施暴者的權利具有同等價值；而在於：社會的秩序、和諧、與穩定運作凌駕於任何個人權利之上。
在這篇報導中，有以下這段話：
「亥姆斯(新嫌犯)在1889年初被關進倫敦北部的芤尼．赫啟精神病院，直到1913年他過世為止。『開膛手傑克』的罪行從1889年起不曾再現。」
如果將來確認亥姆斯就是開膛手傑克，上一段話可以佐證我(加害他人者應該)「被隔離在社會之外」的觀點；也反證傅柯這方面思路的只知其一，不知其二。
本文於 修改第 4 次
|
|
犯罪、社會環境、與社會改進 - Michael Natale
|
|
|
推薦1 |
|
|
|
這篇關於「開膛手傑克」報導中提到的業餘偵探，以及她所認定的嫌疑犯，和本欄第二篇文章所提及的兩者分別是同一個人；它並另外報導了一個有趣的相關事件。
在子標題：”Who Did Jack the Ripper Kill?”、”What Was Jack the Ripper’s London Like?“、和 ”How Did Jack the Ripper Change the World?” 等三節中，作者從「社會」這個角度來思考「開膛手傑克」的故事。他以「進步」、「工業化」、和「現代性」等概念，和「貧窮」、「貧民窟」、和「強凌弱，富暴窮」等現實做對比。
我目前沒有時間申論這個議題，未來有機會討論「現代性」課題時，再回顧作者這一部分的分析。
索引：
Isambard Kingdom Brunel：布瑞婁 (1806 – 1859)，英國土木及機械工程師；工業革命時期教父之一。
Liu Pengli：劉彭離
Jidong：濟東，今山東省東平縣
morbidly：病態
pithy：言簡意賅的，簡潔有力的，
ruminate：深思，反覆思考
Two Case-Shattering Clues Point to the Real Name—and Face—of Jack the Ripper
A dusty artifact may be the key to solving one of true crime’s oldest mysteries.
Michael Natale, 01/05’24
This story is a collaboration with Biography.com.
The legendary mystery of Jack the Ripper’s true identity, an enigma that has endured for over a century, may be coming to an end thanks to the re-emergence of an old memento and a new theory proposed by a former police volunteer.
Are true crime obsessives headed down yet another tantalizing shrouded alley, only to find a dead end? Or will there finally be a proper face put to the notorious name that, once whispered in fear, is now shouted by endless tour guides in the Whitechapel district of London?
Perhaps the most famous cold case in history, the mystery of Jack the Ripper’s real name has attracted more sleuths, professional and amateur, than any other case of the last 130 years. That the identity of the killer has remained unknown all this time has allowed him to slip into the realm of the morbidly fantastical, like the fictional occupants of penny dreadful novels such as Sweeney Todd and Springheel Jack.
Jack the Ripper has inspired films, novels, operas, and video games. He’s even tousled with Batman on the illustrated page. After all, innumerable theories abound as to the identity of London’s most infamous killer, and since we’ve long been left wondering who he was—or what he even looked like—we’ve let our minds imagine anyone, real or fake, wandering the foggy streets of Whitechapel.
But now, we may actually be close to answering the impossible question: Just who was Jack the Ripper?
What Are the New Clues That Reveal Jack the Ripper’s Identity?
A newly rediscovered artifact that once belonged to Frederick Abberline, a detective who investigated Jack the Ripper back in 1888, is the first intriguing development.
As the New York Post reports, a custom-engraved walking stick that Abberline owned had long been held within the Police College in Bramshill, Hampshire, but it “...was feared lost when the institution was shut down in 2015.”
However, the cane recently reappeared when staff members at the College of Policing’s headquarters Ryton were “searching through memorabilia.” The cane itself, in addition to being photographed and posted online, is now on display at the College of Policing “to highlight advancements in police technology to recruits.”
This walking stick is significant because Abberline had carved into the cane the only existing composite image ever made of Jack the Ripper, based on witness testimony. While the cane alone doesn’t tell us who the infamous killer really was, its rediscovery does allow us to put a face to the Jack the Ripper.
A single cane from the 1800s may not close the case by itself, but a former police volunteer believes that combining the same kind of witness testimonies that led to that composite image with a close examination of medical records of the era could lead to a suspect long overlooked in the investigation.
As noted in The Independent, Sarah Bax Horton, the grandchild of an investigator who worked on the Jack the Ripper case, believes she has found the man responsible for the grisly Whitechapel murders.
Through examining medical records of the era, Horton says she has identified cigar maker Hyam Hyams as the real man behind Jack the Ripper. While Hyams’ profession likely means he was proficient with a knife, the weapon used in the Jack the Ripper killings, Horton’s theory relies more on the maladies that afflicted Hyams, both mental and physical, which align with what we know about Jack the Ripper.
“For the first time in history, Jack the Ripper can be identified as Hyam Hyams using distinctive physical characteristics,” Horton told The Telegraph regarding her theory. Reviewing medical notes for Hyams, Horton found that he had “an irregular gait and an inability to straighten his knees, with asymmetric foot-dragging.” Eyewitnesses in the Jack the Ripper investigation noted that the infamous killer also had an irregular gait.
Horton also notes that Hyams had a documented history of mental illness and violent outbursts. The Independent notes that Hyams “...repeatedly assaulted his wife, fearing she was cheating on him, and was eventually arrested after attacking her and his mother with a ‘chopper’.” Records of Hyams from across a number of infirmaries and asylums indicate that “his mental and physical decline coincided with the Ripper’s killing period, escalating between his breaking his left arm in February 1888 and his permanent committal in September 1889.”
Of course, this triangulation of medical records and century-old eyewitness reports is unlikely to be enough to get most self-described “Ripperologists” to declare “case closed.” But one has to wonder: At this point, what would be enough?
Is it possible that there could ever be a satisfying conclusion to the world’s most famous cold case? And why does it continue to captivate true crime enthusiasts all these decades later?
Was Jack the Ripper the First Serial Killer?
Jack the Ripper, a moniker adopted for the unidentified murderer, was not by any means the world’s first “serial killer.” History, unsurprisingly, is littered with figures who would fit that bill depending on how specific a definition you choose.
Liu Pengli, the Prince of Jidong in the 2nd century B.C., slaughtered over 100 civilians. Dame Alice Kyteler, the “Witch of Kilkenny,” poisoned four of her husbands in 1300s Ireland. Joan of Arc’s comrade-in-arms Gilles de Rais confessed to the killing of over 100 children. Countess Elizabeth Báthory’s alleged killings of servant girls had already become the stuff of macabre folklore by the time the Whitechapel murders began. And there are countless figures in history who could be rightly categorized as serial killers, despite their victims being viewed as “property” or “subhuman” by the ruling governments of the time.
But while Jack the Ripper wasn’t the first serial killer by any means, he was the first to become a media sensation, and the subject of fascination on a global scale. He may not have been the first serial killer by the literal definition, but in the manner in which we view the macabre topic, the exploits of the unknown man behind the moniker set the template for more than a century of morbid speculation and fascination.
Who Did Jack the Ripper Kill?
There are five “canonical” murders attributed to Jack the Ripper: those of Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly. (Of course, as is the case even today in cold case investigations, there are other killings that are at times theorized as also being at the hands of the same murderer.) Biography notes that these murders all took place from August 7 to September 10, 1888, all within one mile of each other, and all targeting women of the same profession: sex workers.
As Biography points out, typically “the death or murder of a working girl was rarely reported in the press or discussed within polite society.” One might think that the “sadistic butchery” of the Jack the Ripper killings might have pushed their discussions further to the fringes of societal conversation, rather than to the center of public fascination. Instead, the newly affordable mass media of the time allowed the Jack the Ripper saga, including a series of mocking letters the killer reportedly sent to Scotland Yard, to serve as a macabre mirror to a society that had been otherwise priding itself on its progress and achievement.
What Was Jack the Ripper’s London Like?
The 19th century, at least in the eyes of high society, saw the United Kingdom launch itself into modernity. The era of Queen Victoria saw England’s streets becoming bathed in gaslight, the skyline filled with smokestacks from the Industrial Revolution. It was Isambard Kingdom Brunel connecting the nation through the Thames Tunnel, the Great Western Railway, and the SS Great Briton, amongst others. To stand in some parts of London by the latter decades of the 19th century must have felt as though one had stepped into the future, with wonders and marvels of modernity accessible to the many rather than simply the few. This was the side of London that Great Britain wanted the world to know about.
But of course, London is a big city. And the bright lights shone on some parts also cast shadows on all the rest. Such is the case in Whitechapel and its surrounding areas, where Jack the Ripper stalked his prey.
Here’s how Biography sets the scene:
"In the late 1800s, London's East End was a place that was viewed by citizens with either compassion or utter contempt. Despite being an area where skilled immigrants, mainly Jews and Russians, came to start a new life and start businesses, the district was notorious for squalor, violence and crime. Prostitution was only illegal if the practice caused a public disturbance, and thousands of brothels and low-rent lodging houses provided sexual services during the late 19th century."
In Victorian Parliament’s push for progress, poverty became a consequence. This industrial projects displaced a large number of people, such that even Conservative Party members were demanding social reform to repair the damage done. “Laissez-faire is an admirable doctrine,” Conservative Party leader Lord Salisbury said in an 1883 National Review article entitled ‘Labourers’ and Artisans’ Dwellings, “...but it must be applied on both sides.”
Much was made of the squalor in which the poor and working class were living while the wealthy in London lavished in the height of modernity. Parliament passed The Housing of the Working Classes Act 1885, which allowed them to condemn buildings they deemed slums. But this was merely a cosmetic action; the 1885 act did not allow for the government to create any new residences for the now-displaced people within them.
How Did Jack the Ripper Change the World?
The Jack the Ripper murders served as a wake-up call for Great Britain and the world, as the details of these grisly, monstrous crimes were contrasted against the supposedly advanced society that had inadvertently created the circumstances that had allowed them to fester.
The same forces and actions that allowed for the creation of the London Underground also created the seedy London underbelly that fed victims to craven creatures like Jack the Ripper. In much the same way the Manson murders in America 80 years later would be contrasted against the optimistic “Flower Power” movement of its era, Jack the Ripper forced the public to reconcile with the consequences of the steam-powered era of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, and wonder if this utopian vision wasn’t terribly unstable as well.
The mystery of Jack the Ripper casts a long shadow over London to this day. Clearly, amateur sleuths still puzzle over the identity of the man who wielded a knife on the streets of London, and claimed the lives of innocent women struggling to get by. But the most significant consequence of the killings isn’t a century of true crime speculations, nor the many books, films, and walking tours it inspired.
The reporting in the press on the Jack the Ripper killings led to a public outcry amongst the populace for social reforms to protect the most vulnerable. Reacting to the outcry, Parliament passed, amongst other acts, the Housing of the Working Classes Act 1890, which now gave them the ability to purchase land and build new housing for those displaced by the condemning of buildings deemed to be in poor condition.
In a bit of pithy commentary, playwright George Bernard Shaw declared in The Star that Jack the Ripper had, in his brutality, led to more social change than any academic or activist of the era:
“Now all is changed. Private enterprise has succeeded where Socialism failed. Whilst we conventional Social Democrats were wasting our time on education, agitation, and organisation, some independent genius has taken the matter in hand, and by simply murdering and disembowelling four women, converted the proprietary press to an inept sort of communism.”
Why Are We Still Searching for Jack the Ripper?
Like Sarah Bax Horton taking her grandfather's cause into the 21st century, we culturally cannot let go of Jack the Ripper. You can chalk it up to a fascination with serial killers and true crime. You can attribute it to its inseparability from the “steampunk” vibes of 19th century London. And of course, it will be argued that the mystery of Jack the Ripper’s real identity is what keeps us coming back to the sordid tale.
But our fixation may well mask a deeper question raised by the story of the Whitechapel murders, one on which it’s far less fun to ruminate. Abberline’s cane—the one with the supposed face of the killer—is on display at the College of Policing not in the hopes that someone might walk past and suddenly solve the case, but rather, to inspire a reflection on that dark past, and how far “advancements in police technology” have come.
Jack the Ripper, in absence of a biography of the killer to cling to, is instead a composite of the world he inhabited: the gaslights, the poverty, the easy prey, and the depravity that kept a country darkly fascinated. And as long as we must settle for the setting of the crimes in absence of facts about the killer, then staring at a carved face or corroborating medical records raises a question more lurid than, “Who was Jack the Ripper?”: that of “How did a supposedly great society allow such horrors to happen?”
And that’s a scarier thought than any walking tour or comic book could conjure.
本文於 修改第 4 次
|
|
「開膛手傑克」身份被「再度」指認 ---- Dalya Alberge
|
|
|
推薦1 |
|
|
|
Jack the Ripper's identity 'revealed' by newly discovered medical records
Dalya Alberge, 07/16/23
A former police volunteer claims to have discovered the identity of the figure behind some of the most shocking crimes in British history, unmasking the 19th-century murderer who terrorised the nation as Jack the Ripper.
Sarah Bax Horton – whose great-great-grandfather was a policeman at the heart of the Ripper investigation – has unearthed compelling evidence that matches witness descriptions of the man seen with female victims shortly before they were stabbed to death in 1888 in the East End of London.
Her detective work has led her to Hyam Hyams, who lived in an area at the centre of the murders and who, as a cigar-maker, knew how to use a knife. He was an epileptic and an alcoholic who was in and out of mental asylums, his condition worsening after he was injured in an accident and unable to work. He repeatedly assaulted his wife, paranoid that she was cheating on him, and was eventually arrested after he attacked her and his mother with “a chopper”.
Significantly, Ms Bax Horton gained access to his medical records and discovered dramatic details. She told The Telegraph: “For the first time in history, Jack the Ripper can be identified as Hyam Hyams using distinctive physical characteristics.”
Witnesses described a man in his mid-thirties with a stiff arm and an irregular gait with bent knees, and Ms Bax Horton discovered that the medical notes of Hyams – who was 35 in 1888 – recorded an injury that left him unable to “bend or extend” his left arm as well as an irregular gait and an inability to straighten his knees, with asymmetric foot dragging. He also had the most severe form of epilepsy, with regular seizures.
The victims were prostitutes or destitute. Their throats were cut and their bodies butchered in frenzied attacks with the authorities received taunting anonymous notes from someone calling himself Jack the Ripper. They are some of the most infamous unsolved crimes.
At least six women Martha Tabram, Polly Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elisabeth Stride, Kate Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly – were killed in or near Whitechapel between August and November 1888.
Hyams’ medical notes, taken from various infirmaries and asylums, reveal that his mental and physical decline coincided with the Ripper’s killing period, escalating between his breaking his left arm in February 1888 and his permanent committal in September 1889.
“That escalation path matched the increasing violence of the murders,” said Ms Bax Horton. “He was particularly violent after his severe epileptic fits, which explains the periodicity of the murders.”
She added: “In the files, it said what the eyewitnesses said – that he had a peculiar gait. He was weak at the knees and wasn’t fully extending his legs. When he walked, he had a kind of shuffling gait, which was probably a side-effect of some brain damage as a result of his epilepsy.”
Witness accounts of the man’s height and weight were similar to the details in Hyams’ medical files, Ms Bax Horton discovered.
“They saw a man of medium height and build, between 5ft 5in. and 5ft 8in. Tall, stout and broad-shouldered. Hyams was 5 foot 7 and a half inches, and weighed 10 stone 7 lbs… His photograph demonstrates that he was noticeably broad-shouldered,” she said.
She has concluded that Hyams’ physical and mental decline – exacerbated by his alcoholism – triggered him to kill. The murders stopped at the end of 1888, around the time Hyams was picked up by the police as “a wandering lunatic”. In 1889, he was incarcerated in the Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum, north London, until his death in 1913. Jack the Ripper never struck again.
Various suspects have previously been suggested as the man behind the killings, including the artist Walter Sickert, who painted gruesome pictures of a murdered prostitute.
Hyams had been on a “long list” of around 100 culprits, but Ms Bax Horton said he had been discounted because he had been misidentified. “When I was trying to identify the correct Hyam Hyams, I found about five. It took quite a lot of work to identify his correct biographical data. Hyam Hyams has never before been fully explored as a Ripper suspect. To protect the confidentiality of living individuals, two of the Colney Hatch Asylum files on patients, including Hyams, were closed to public view until 2013 and 2015.”
What makes her research particularly extraordinary is that it was prompted by her chance discovery in 2017 that her own great-great-grandfather, Harry Garrett, had been a Metropolitan Police sergeant at Leman Street Police Station, headquarters of the Ripper investigation. He was posted there from January 1888 – the murders’ fateful year – until 1896.
Ms Bax Horton, who read English and modern languages at Oxford University, is a retired civil servant who volunteered with the City of London Police for almost two decades until 2020. She had no idea of her ancestor’s history until she began researching her family and found herself studying the Ripper case.
She will now present her extensive evidence in a forthcoming book, titled One-Armed Jack: Uncovering the Real Jack the Ripper, to be published by Michael O’Mara Books next month.
It is written in tribute to her ancestor and his police colleagues.
Paul Begg, a leading Ripper authority, has endorsed it. “This is a well-researched, well-written, and long-needed book-length examination of a likely suspect. If you have an idea of the sort of man Jack the Ripper might have been, Hyam Hyams could be it,” he said.
Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month, then enjoy 1 year for just $9 with our US-exclusive offer.
本文於 修改第 4 次
|
|
|
本城市首頁
看回應文章
等級：8
