Do we really know Oscar, even after the long trial?
Clinical psychologist takes a look at Pistorius’s behaviour before and during his trial
DESPITE the athlete’s murder trial being broadcast live, many questions about Oscar Pistorius remain.
Forensic evidence can answer the question of what took place, but for justice to prevail the context has to be understood.
In the Pistorius case, people’s reactions have been more interesting than the case itself.
Opinions have been worlds apart, despite being based on identical information. This is because people look for singular explanations to define the character of a person.
Human beings are full of contradictions. To understand a person you need to be able to see all their multifaceted layers.
Consider the recent incident when Pistorius was involved in a scuffle at a nightclub. Does it show a person who is arrogant and lacking any real remorse?
Or does it show someone who is prone to self-sabotage because of his despair at the ruination of his career and poor self-esteem?
Another possibility is that he has accepted that he is going to jail and is just making the most of his last days of freedom.
Or perhaps he has such a sense of entitlement and omnipotence that he sees the world as his personal playground and does not believe he will ever be made to face the consequences.
The enormous complexity of human behaviour is such that the truth could be a combination of any or all of these options, or something else altogether.
The meaning of any behaviour can be understood only by making reference to the context in which it took place.
Meanings attributed to behaviour also change retroactively in the presence of new incidents that show those behaviours in a different light.
In a New York Times article by Michael Sokolove headed “The fast life of Oscar Pistorius”, the writer describes the character he witnessed and quotes the athlete’s manager talking about his high-risk behaviour.
Celebrity athletes who achieve fame through meteoric success do not have time to mature and grow into the demands of the role
The observations potentially take on new implications in the light of the history that has unfolded.
The issue of disability has also been confounding. Pistorius stated that when his prosthetics are attached they make him feel whole, but without them he feels embarrassed. It could be that the same disability that empowers and emboldens the Blade Runner on the athletics track makes him feel defective and inadequate in the bedroom.
Celebrity athletes who achieve fame through meteoric success do not have time to mature and grow into the demands of the role.
We may not have all the answers, but we can learn more about the one attribute that seems to have been conspicuous by its absence throughout the trial — empathy. It means you feel pain in the face of the suffering of another. That pain holds you back from causing further suffering.
Empathy takes you out of the trance of believing that it is all about you and alerts you to the predicament of the other.
This case has been an exercise in judgment, but it has also been an opportunity to try and betterunderstand the issue of empathy and the frailty of the human condition.