Friday, March 31, 2006

Jill Carroll

Is it just me or do you see Jill Carroll and think Stockholm Syndrome?

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Funny. I thought Patty Hearst.

And now I'm really showing my age.

Amy said...

Totally.

Check out www.sweetness-light.com. They have a pretty good post about her sympathizing and supporting the "insurgents" who held her for three months.

She says she "never felt threatened" by them.

Interesting.

Rick Esenberg said...

She 'never felt threatened?" She really looked threatened when she was crying and begging for her life. Was that an act? Or has she come to identify with them (something that she apparently was prone to do prior to her abduction.)

I'm glad she's safe, but it's a bit weird.

Elliott - I was in college when Patty Hearst was kidnapped.

Anonymous said...

Thank you all for your comments. I thought I was the only one who thought this smelled fishy.

Anonymous said...

Like any of you people have a clue to what this woman has been through.

Anonymous said...

I trust you've all seen this by now. I was surprised that folks drew conclusions so rapidly. It seems, to put it mildly, impolite to make judgements about someone who spends months in captivity and scared for her life.

Rick Esenberg said...

Assuming that this is the video we've been seeing, I think it supports the reaction that I had. Something wasn't right. To say that someone suffers from "Stockholm Syndrome" is not to criticize her or suggest that she was not put through hell (quite the opposite; it is a reaction to being put through hell).

Anonymous said...

The difference, though, is anything but trivial. Stolkholm Syndrome assumes (1) that she's in some way mentally ill and (2) that that mental illness causes her to feel actual (not staged) sympathy for her captors.

The article, to my mind, demonstrates both that Carroll acted deliberately, reasonably, and rationally in order to give herself the best chances for survival and that her sympathy for her kidnappers and for the violent insurgency was never felt, but always staged. Rather than demonstrating the behavior of someone who has to some degree lost control of her mental and emotional self (someone suffering from S.S.), it seems quite the contrary that Carroll maintained acute--even heightened--power of herself throughout.

I didn't mean to imply that the impoliteness of the post was in criticizing her. I'd never assume you believe mental illness to be grounds for criticism. I think the impoliteness was in presuming to diagnose her without anywhere near the necessary amount of information. Clearly something wasn't right, but to pick S.S. from so many available options seemed too much too fast.

The last thing Carroll needs or deserves, especially if she wants to continue her thus far heroic career as a journalist, is for all of her reporting and opinion from this point forward to be second guessed by people who assume she's not in full possession of her senses or her intellect.

Rick Esenberg said...

Is Stockholm Syndrome mental illness? I wouldn't have thought so, although it does imply (temporary) sympathy with one's captive which,as Todd points out, seems not to have existed here,

Anonymous said...

Jill Carroll's statement can be read here.

Anonymous said...

Jill said, The Iraqi Islamic party "broke their word".
I am uncomfortable with that statement.