Quote:
Originally Posted by Ashasx
Maybe if they were 13-14 year old kids, I could understand that position.
They weren't kids. They were 18-19 year old adults. I think we should hold them to a higher standard.
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Not excusing anything that transpired but have you met a 17-18 year old?
They don't comprehend the gravity of the consequences of their actions because their values are entirely out of whack at that point in life. Little life experience to draw on to truly "know" anything, still developing physiologically and cognitively, and social desirability front of mind before anything else. Fitting in is often seen as life or death to adolescents (hence the correlation with a spike in suicide and suicidal ideation in that age bracket) because they don't yet understand how big the world is and how little their 17-18 year old peer group will ultimately matter in the larger picture. There are certain things that only life experience can register in a person and at that age that understanding hasn't even begun to be formulated.
Young adults often have a surface knowledge of right and wrong, but they don't yet comprehend it. You do irresponsible things at that time because you haven't lived the consequences of those things, be it health, financial, legal/criminal, etc. But most don't wind up in a situation as severe as this. But I can see how individuals not directly involved may have lingered rather than immediately noping out on guys they perceived to be their close buds.
At the end of the day they need to be held accountable but yeah, it's really tough to argue that kids that age truly grasp the severity of their actions in the moment. They may have a gut feeling about it, but that reasoning isn't yet reinforced with lived experience to actually know like you suggest.