#but i think back on my childhood and the trauma his untreated mental illness inflicted on all of us

[phoneybeatlemania-bit-the-dust]

@mrspaolina81 - I just wanna say firstly that im not trying to argue or shit on you with this response, but I don’t think its rude for me to just disagree and debate you, so hopefully this doesn’t sound just mean spirited or anything - I just wanted to give my own thoughts in regards to some of your comments:

I don’t tend to get too involved in the “John being a wife beater” discussion, because I don’t really know what to say. If im honest, I think John probably did physically abuse Cynthia more then once - though, in my personal opinion, I don’t think it was a regular occurrence, and id be willing to bet that it stopped sometime into their marriage <<< buuuuuuut I just don’t know! I couldn’t back that claim up entirely, its just how it appears to me. And even if it was only once that he hit her, we should still acknowledge and discuss it, and to some degree hold John accountable for it, whilst also recognising the genuine remorse he felt over his actions, and the fact that his life was cut short so quickly that he was arguably never able to finish developing this remorse into any kind of meaningful reparation for Cynthia. Because his life ended so abruptly, he will forever be an unfinished story.

Personally though, I think that Johns issues with abuse were more related to emotional abuse rather then physical. He certainly had issues controlling his physical impulses, especially in his younger years, but it seems to me as though he was eventually able to tame these impulses, whereas I don’t believe he was ever able to overcome his inner emotional turbulence.

((Julian is also a complicated matter - I think often people think John just fucked off with Yoko and then never spoke to Julian ever again, which is just blatantly untrue - BUT I can still understand and empathise with Julians resentment towards John, and I think he’s justified in feeling this resentment towards his father)) ((I try to also understand the neglect from Johns perspective, but I can do that whilst also recognising Julians pain)) ((Also Yoko blocked Julians phone calls, so thats another thing to note about that situation, but I wont get too deep into the debate here))

There are undoubtedly people who are worse then John Lennon (as you said, rapists, murderers etc.) but I don’t think that means that they are the definition of “bad people” and any outlier cannot be recognised as a pretty crappy person. We can recognise that John was an asshole. He wasn’t just an asshole, he was a complicated human being, with a lot of unresolved childhood trauma, as well as displaying clear symptoms of an untreated mental illness. But, he was also a bit of a knob. On a whole, ive sort of just adopted the philosophy that there are no “bad” people, and certainly no “good” people, because I don’t think that they’re comprehensive words to use in summarising someones entire personality. At the end of the day, id say John was really just a grey area - I can understand why someone would hate the guy, and I wouldn’t put it past them too - but I also think forgiveness, and recognising the disturbing effects that serious, undiagnosed and untreated mental illnesses can have on people is also important.

TL;DR - John was a knob, but he had a lot of unresolved issues and so I personally want to recognise him, not as a “good” or “bad” person, but just as someone with an untreated mental illness, who was sometimes a genuinely kind human being, and sometimes a genuinely nasty person. I don’t think that he is beyond forgiveness (at least not beyond my forgiveness) but if we are going to try and attain a nuanced and empathetic understanding of John, I feel we have to recognise the abuse he inflicted upon others too - as well as recognising that he was was mentally ill, and genuinely remorseful. Thats just who he was as a person, and if you want to get a real understanding of him I think you just sort of have to embrace him with all his faults.