Personal responsibility and logical vs illogical consequences.

[SmartAleq]

I guess someone had to start it.

So, it being Raep Month and all the subject has been omnipresent with the victim blaming and the judicious allocation of blame for being victimized and whatnot--so let's just hash it out, shall we?

My big problem with rape apologists and victim blamers is that such apologia appears to be an attempt to make an illogical consequence seem logical.

The difference? Let's say someone goes out hiking alone in the desert in July and does not carry any water, wear a hat or put on sunblock. Also wears flimsy flipflops. Logical consequences of these actions are dehydration, sunburn, heatstroke, rattlesnake bite, blistered feet and death. Anyone positing that the person who got those consequences kind of asked for them is not likely to get much in the way of argument.

Another example--a person drinks a fifth of whiskey in fifteen minutes, gets into the cockpit of an airplane and zooms off into the wild blue yonder. Logical consequences are alcohol poisoning, crashing the plane and likely death. Again, no room for argument here.

Illogical consequences would be if the person out in the desert has the drunk in the airplane crash right on top of them. Nothing they did wrong leads to the logical consequence of having a drunken plane driver crash on their heads.

In my opinion, there is no logical consequence to a person's actions that results in another person committing a crime on their person. Calling someone a nasty name does not excuse the insulted person slugging you in the face. Getting drunk does not excuse the rapist who takes advantage of that incapacitation. Being out at night does not excuse a hit and run driver killing you. These are not logical consequences and the victim bears zero responsibility. The entire weight of fault rests on the person who chooses to commit a crime against the person of another. End of story. Why do we even try to shift this around? It makes no sense whatsoever, unless the person shifting blame is feeling uncomfortable because they feel more sympathy for the criminal than for the victim--maybe those shoes feel a tad too comfortable and that produces cognitive dissonance and distress that needs to be assuaged by asserting that it's the fault of the person who "made you" do it.

Domestic abusers are big on that--the "you forced me to fuck you up, you know you shouldn't make me so mad." Where's the personal responsibility there? And yet there's another arena where victim blaming is rampant--plenty of blame for the person who doesn't "just get up and leave," very little for the one who engineers the entire scenario to gain power and control over another person to feed their own sickness.

Seriously, WTF is up with this, anyway?

[Radical Edward]

I really don't have an answer for you, except that we as a culture.... ok, I got nothing. The world is full of assholes. That's pretty much it.

[SmartAleq]

Huh, that does rather sum it up there, Ed! Wanna go get a beer?

[Uthrecht]

Well, I'm glad we had this talk.

[Radical Edward]

I'd prefer rum, actually.

For serious though, I don't understand this mentality. My mom has it, my stupid husband has it. One day he got mad and picked up my jewelry box and threw it across the room and it exploded. That was oh, six years ago? Last week we were talking about that and he says, "You have the ability to make me SO angry." Like it was somehow my fault? No comprende, man.

Let me go ahead and point out that while he broke my shit, he was not physically abusive and he never hit me. If he ever had, it would have been because I'd hit him first.

[Elyanna]

The Just World Fallacy.

[stormie]

hmmm . . . two choices here . . . drinks with Uthy, RadEd, and my alternate mind (with whom I completely agree) or pedantry . . .

Pedantry!

When the violence is about power, we as a culture like to side with the powerful; when it is against women, we (as a society) side with men, when against black people, we* side with white people . . . . We are a culture of the individual; we rate individual rights more highly than group rights, assign results to individuals rather than teams . . . . We want to be 'empowered' and do not like to be 'victims', we want to (in my view, pretend that we) control what happens to us. Everybody contributes to the events that befall them!

Only the stupid hiker did not contribute to his death by drunk pilot, and there are many other times Things Happen to us or to other people that we or those people cannot control.

Taking these ideas together, we seem to Want both members in a crime Or an accident to have an active role. We also like categories of victims - sure, that guy was shot to death on the street by that girl, but he was a bad guy, so he is only sort of a victim. She may have been assaulted, but look what she was wearing. Nuns over age 60 get a free pass, but the rest of us are seen to be responsible for being attacked, or ill.

Here's why it's a lie: IF we state that individuals must take responsibility for their actions, THEN aggressors are responsible for their aggression.

So that's one rum and Coke, gin and it for me, what are you two having? Should we get some appetizers?



*as a society, k? FFS!

[Mr. Plumbean]

Good discussion so far (and great link, Ely).

[Mr. Plumbean]

I agree with Stormie that it often comes down to defending privilege. Say a middle-aged black guy shoots an unarmed white teen... would he become a folk hero? Would people point out that the autopsy shows the white teen had been at a beer blast the previous weekend? Would politicians openly mock the victim of the shooting? Hell no. There are some people so drawn to defending privilege they have actually done all of these things when it went down the other way around.

There's also an aspect of people trying to rationalize why that won't happen to them. They read about something horrible happening to someone for no reason and they look for reasons why it won't happen to them. "Oh, well, they had bad connections." "I would never go into that part of town at night." Etc. It is closely related to, but not precisely, blaming the victim. It is more about distancing themselves and their imaginations from being in the same hapless situation.

[Uthrecht]

Originally Posted by stormie

drinks with Uthy

Nothing for me, thanks. I don't want to get raped.

Originally Posted by Elyanna

The Just World Fallacy.

My favorite quote from Babylon 5:

"You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe."

[SmartAleq]

Everything I've ever read about the Just World Fallacy points to the hidebound, conservative authoritarians as the major proponents and quite frankly I see nothing in the world to contravene this. The news media, no matter what sort of stupid whining goes on about its supposed "liberal bias," is overwhelmingly controlled by right wing authoritarians and that's where so very much of this institutionalized victim blaming comes in. Then regular folks, who might very well not agree with this mindset on account of being empathic people who don't believe everyone gets what's coming to them gets shouted down because the Very Important People On The TV say differently. And the window shifts further and further in favor of glorifying the criminal while blaming the victim.

People jump on feminists for pointing this out and being critical of the mindset but you can't easily be a feminist without a bit swat of empathy. We know damned well that shitty things happen to people who don't deserve it, perpetrated by people who ought to know better but who do them anyway knowing that the majority will side with them and exclude the victim/goat. It makes the world a very uncomfortable place to exist.

[Panacea]

Thank you Smartie for this thread.

[Panacea]

Speaking of siding with the powerful, this is why we see the posts and tweets from other girls calling the victim a whore and shifting blame to her. If these girls illustrate to the powerful ones that they will toe the line, then maybe they won't be victimized by them.

I think this is common human behavior, not just in rape cases but in other cases as well. It's those in power/control bullying people in order to keep order in the rank and file.

[Uthrecht]

Originally Posted by SmartAleq

Everything I've ever read about the Just World Fallacy points to the hidebound, conservative authoritarians as the major proponents and quite frankly I see nothing in the world to contravene this. The news media, no matter what sort of stupid whining goes on about its supposed "liberal bias," is overwhelmingly controlled by right wing authoritarians and that's where so very much of this institutionalized victim blaming comes in. Then regular folks, who might very well not agree with this mindset on account of being empathic people who don't believe everyone gets what's coming to them gets shouted down because the Very Important People On The TV say differently. And the window shifts further and further in favor of glorifying the criminal while blaming the victim.

So, which period in the past should we aim for, to reverse this trend of victim-blaming?

[Mr. Plumbean]

I don't think it is getting worse... progress is gradual but it is being made. I think feminism and the gay rights movements are powerful, they have changed our culture and our awareness.

[SmartAleq]

Assuming you're not being disingenous--obviously we can't change the past but we can call it for what it is and refuse to go along NOW. I'm certainly hoping we can all agree that excusing rapists who violate young girls while blaming those girls and making them complicit in their violation is a pretty bright line--if we can agree on that maybe we can make some progress in not victim blaming adult women for "getting themselves raped" too. Gotta start somewhere, right?

ETA: In response to Uthrecht, obviously.

[AuntiePam]

Originally Posted by Cricetus

There's also an aspect of people trying to rationalize why that won't happen to them. They read about something horrible happening to someone for no reason and they look for reasons why it won't happen to them. "Oh, well, they had bad connections." "I would never go into that part of town at night." Etc. It is closely related to, but not precisely, blaming the victim. It is more about distancing themselves and their imaginations from being in the same hapless situation.

This makes a lot of sense to me. Also what Stormie said about wanting to believe we have control, that if we aren't careless about our person and our property, we'll be safe. It's too scary to think that even if we lock our doors and never leave the house except to go to church, we could still be victims.

Also, all our lives we're told "everything happens for a reason" and the corollary to that -- that we control our own destiny. We've got to stop thinking that way about things we can't control, like other people's actions.

[Uthrecht]

Originally Posted by SmartAleq

Assuming you're not being disingenous--obviously we can't change the past but we can call it for what it is and refuse to go along NOW. I'm certainly hoping we can all agree that excusing rapists who violate young girls while blaming those girls and making them complicit in their violation is a pretty bright line--if we can agree on that maybe we can make some progress in not victim blaming adult women for "getting themselves raped" too. Gotta start somewhere, right?

ETA: In response to Uthrecht, obviously.

I wasn't being disingenuous, but maybe I was misreading you based on your response. Your final sentence seemed to be suggesting that things were getting worse and worse vs. historically, and I disagreed with that.

[SmartAleq]

Well, to me it's worst because it's getting so damned out in the open--sure, these are things people have said and thought for pretty much forever but it disheartens me that people feel so justified in their position that they'll blarf it out in front of god and everybody assuming (possibly correctly) that they won't risk social disapproval, let alone ostracism, for their views. That's the scary part.

[Panacea]

I'm glad when it's out in the open. That makes it easier to see where we need to focus efforts on informing people and changing the mindset.

[Parthenokinesis]

Openness is a good thing. It's because of openness that those boys were tried and convicted. It's because of opneness that we get to have this conversation and address the horrors of the blame the victim mindset. Having the assholes whine over their lost privilege is a good thing.

ETA yeah, what 9T said.

[SmartAleq]

Yeah, but it's like that one time when you turn on the kitchen light and about a million roaches scurry for the corners. Sure, you'd seen a roach here and there but all of a sudden you realize you're hip deep in the fucking things and it's tempting to think that maybe it would be simpler and easier just to burn the damned house down rather than deal with it by conventional methods.

[Uthrecht]

Well, I admit it was easier back in the 50s when the misogynists and the bigots could just float along without being seen and everyone understood their place in the social strata, but life gets better when you turn the lights on and start baiting the roach motels.

[SmartAleq]

I know that, and I do keep on with my little teaspoons, but as a survivor sometimes this shit really gets to me and it's hard to realize there are people on my side of the equation. Seems like the assholes are all there is. [/pityparty]

[Mr. Plumbean]

The Internet definitely gives people a way to harass and threaten others without consequences. So maybe that aspect is worse. I feel like generally we white dudes are a lot more aware of our privilege than we used to be and I hope it makes at least some of us more self-aware and less piggish.

[SmartAleq]

And to be fair, in face to face interactions there's a lot fewer people willing to be assholes out loud. For example, one guy at work, one of those lovely MRA types, had the gall to inform a table full of women that he broke up with his girlfriend because he found out she'd been raped and lost respect for her because she didn't prevent this from happening. There are extremely few women, and actually darned few men as well, at work who will voluntarily socialize with this prick. I'm sure he blames the feminazis for turning the "real men" against him.

[Pere]

Good lord.

At least the girlfriend is rid of that bastard.

[Mr. Plumbean]

Sounds like a real winner.

[SmartAleq]

Yeah, that's actually a demonstration of his more charming side. I'm surprised he doesn't spend half his time in HR.

[Solfy]

Originally Posted by AuntiePam

This makes a lot of sense to me. Also what Stormie said about wanting to believe we have control, that if we aren't careless about our person and our property, we'll be safe. It's too scary to think that even if we lock our doors and never leave the house except to go to church, we could still be victims.

Also, all our lives we're told "everything happens for a reason" and the corollary to that -- that we control our own destiny. We've got to stop thinking that way about things we can't control, like other people's actions.

This is the same reason people look for motive in mass shootings. We want to believe that there is a reason people do horrible things. If there's a cause, maybe we can stop it. If the shooters did it because they were bullied, maybe we can prevent bullying and there won't be any more shootings. If it was because of mental illness, then we must lock up all the mentally ill people. It's human nature to want things to follow logic, and sometimes they just don't.

I'm not saying we shouldn't do anything to try to prevent tragedies, only that we must recognize that despite our best efforts, shit happens.

[Salambo]

This leads right into my thoughts on the matter, and I confess at the onset, this is speculation, but I think it deserves discussion. Say we somehow managed to teach our girls this nebulous responsibility to prevent their own rapes. I would be willing to bet that rape statistics would still not go down, or if they did, it would be very slight. Certainly, one less rape is a victory. But it doesn't solve a goddamned thing. I've been in dangerous situations wherein I utilized quick thinking to get myself out of a bind. Was I about to get raped? Robbed? Beaten? Killed? Or was I just being paranoid? I couldn't tell you, because nothing happened. Bully for me. But in familiar surroundings, where I felt safe, I was still raped.

Now I'm getting personal and anecdotal. I don't usually like to talk about this, so forgive me if I'm off the track a little bit. But I do feel that it doesn't matter how prepared we are, how risk-responsible we are, it's not going to make much, if any, real difference. The full responsibility needs to be placed on attackers, with greater consequences both legally and socially, so that it becomes a risk--for them--not worth taking.

[SmartAleq]

Yup, it's not sensible to insist that risk avoidance is the only right tactic when risk consequence escalation is not only effective as hell but fairly easy to accomplish. It's like insisting the only answer to a deficit is to cut tiny allocations of the budget out because they assist marginalized people when even a miniscule increase in taxation of the mega-wealthy would provide an exponential boost in both deficit reduction and the ability to increase other needed assistance without the wealthy ever noticing the difference. You have to be firmly entrenched in privilege to think this is a sensible solution.

Privileged people see any abrogation of their privilege as a threat and aren't shy about making it incredibly unpleasant for anyone who makes the attempt to rein them in. The reaction is about as disproportionate as shooting dead anyone who inadvertently jostles you in a crowd--but yet this reaction is defended by people on all parts of the privilege spectrum and even encouraged as being proof of "strength." Sucking up to the privileged is one part of our monkey behavior I sure wish we could get rid of.

[Panacea]

Let me ask something else.

Do we think that people have a duty to remain vigilant or at least aware of their surroundings? Is a person who drinks remiss because they let their guard down? Consider a man who gets robbed in a bad part of town for example. Is walking around drunk in Criminal Town as bad as hiking the desert without water?

[SmartAleq]

Duty? No. Every single one of us has built in blinders and failures of attention sometimes and it's not a question of fault--we're meat machines and we don't always operate at peak capacity. Besides, peak capacity for one person is sometimes another person's barely functional level so who's at fault there? If I have perfect vision but bad hearing am I "at fault" because I didn't hear the train coming as I was yanking the blind person out from under the falling piano?

Unless we're all uniform robots of exactly equal ability that just doesn't hold validity. Sure, we should all TRY to be vigilant, but not all of us are actually capable of it in all instances.

[Old Overholt]

Originally Posted by NinetyWt

Let me ask something else.

Do we think that people have a duty to remain vigilant or at least aware of their surroundings? Is a person who drinks remiss because they let their guard down? Consider a man who gets robbed in a bad part of town for example. Is walking around drunk in Criminal Town as bad as hiking the desert without water?

If the robber was brought to trial, the fact that his victim was drunk and in a bad part of town would not be much of a defense.

So, no.

[Panacea]

So the place we want to reach is that place where those things aren't brought up in rape trials either.

[Mr. Plumbean]

I agree. That is the place we want to be.

[Solfy]

It would also be nice if people could bring charges against their robber without worrying about receiving death threats for ruining the thief's life.

[Mr. Plumbean]

...from strangers who have no stake in it, no less.

[Pere]

No stake? That mugger was a lock for a scholarship to State. Society is owed the benefits of his skills. I'm thinking a shot at the conference championship.

[hatesfreedom]

It'd be nice if people didn't lie too.

[Mr. Plumbean]

It'd me nice if people didn't troll, too.

[SmartAleq]

Please proceed, ferret.

[Salambo]

hatesfreedom has a valid point also worthy of discussion. While we're wishing for things that flow at a glacial pace to ever bear decent fruit, he can have concerns, as well.

... while I make a hobby out of mixing metaphors.

[hatesfreedom]

I didn't intend to troll. I just figure the primary trouble with sex assault cases is the lack of evidence or any witnesses. So.. character assassination. I don't like it anymore than you mates do.

Also, I'd really like it if they stopped publishing names/pictures/info about ongoing cases and instead wait until conviction. The entire spectator sport nature of it is weird to me.

[Mr. Plumbean]

I agree with all of that. It was hard to know what your post meant without context; it could have been "oh, yeah, well womens have to stop lying about rape too." You can certainly find that sentiment expressed without irony all over the Internet.

The public attention in Steubenville didn't make it any better for the victim, that's for sure.

[JackieLikesVariety]

The full responsibility needs to be placed on attackers, with greater consequences both legally and socially, so that it becomes a risk--for them--not worth taking.

this sums it up for me.

[Glazer]

[eleanorigby]

Originally Posted by SmartAleq

Yeah, but it's like that one time when you turn on the kitchen light and about a million roaches scurry for the corners. Sure, you'd seen a roach here and there but all of a sudden you realize you're hip deep in the fucking things and it's tempting to think that maybe it would be simpler and easier just to burn the damned house down rather than deal with it by conventional methods.

This x 1000.

[stormie]

Elyanna's link "You want to feel in control, so you assume as long as you avoid bad behavior, you won’t be harmed."

That's a lie we should stop telling.

I want to give everybody on this thread a snugly blanket and a cup of hot chocolate. really.