My sweetie figmentj has written a well-considered rebuttal to my last post, which I think deserves more attention than being buried in a very long comment thread, so I want to point people at it here.
Edited to add: It was a locked post, but it’s unlocked now.
it’s a locked post.
Oops! She’s unlocked it now. 🙂
it’s a locked post.
You don’t have permission to access /128341.html on this server.
Oops! She’s unlocked it now.
You don’t have permission to access /128341.html on this server.
Ditto. No access.
Unlocked now.
This has been a good read and there’s a lot of food for thought on all sides — comments included.
Ditto. No access.
Oops! She’s unlocked it now.
Unlocked now.
Oops! She’s unlocked it now. 🙂
Unfortunately what has said can come off as sounding a lot like victim blaming. If only people had reached out, had not spurned him!
Also, I think it’s so optimistic as to be mis-guided, and possibly detrimental, to take the stance that others can “save” people from mental illness.
I agree, and I don’t think there’s really any way we can say “if only someone did X, that wouldn’t have happened”. We have no way of knowing just how far his problems went, or even the specific direction they went or came from.
He might have spurned all attempts to be “just friends” as many Nice Guys do. He might have been insulted if someone suggested therapy (I know someone in desperate need of therapy and suggesting it only alienated him further because of his views on what therapy represents). Forcing him to get treatment might have merely removed him from society (which would have protected the women) but not actually “fixed” him and would have opened up a much more dangerous precedent regarding when and how and why it is or is not appropriate to “force” mental health treatment.
Unfortunately what has said can come off as sounding a lot like victim blaming. If only people had reached out, had not spurned him!
Also, I think it’s so optimistic as to be mis-guided, and possibly detrimental, to take the stance that others can “save” people from mental illness.
I had 2 difficulties with her post.
1) I don’t see as how your two opinions are necessarily mutually incompatible and
2) When what a person wants is a sexual relationship, simply “reaching out and being their friend and offering support” won’t help, and often compounds the problem.
Take all the complaints from Nice Guys. One of the biggest, most repeated complaints I hear is that they’re sick of women just wanting to “be friends” with them. They want to get laid dammit! (or have a wife, whatever, it’s not “just friends”).
They usually reach the conclusion that the phrase is actually code for “I’m totally rejecting you but I’m supposed to say this to be nice”, so even when it’s said in all sincerity, it is not received that way and fuels their resentment.
And the *reason* for this is because the Nice Guy’s desperation and his feeling of entitlement and his resentment of the “let’s be friends” phrase makes even women who are completely sincere in their desire to befriend them back off over time as their friendship is spurned and pressure is put on them to be something else.
As for my first point, I don’t see why we can’t be both compassionate and concerned for the people who are hurting and alone and *still* think of them at the end of the line, where George went, as assholes.
Maybe they weren’t assholes at the beginning, but, as she pointed out, many people find a way to stop that train from reaching that final destination of killing someone else. So I feel free to call someone who doesn’t an asshole.
I also don’t see why “everyone else is doing it” is justification to not dislike an individual from falling prey to peer pressure.
As an example:
My grandfather skipped my parents’ wedding because my mother is mexican. Eventually he got over it, and my parents forgave him, and I grew up with my grandfather as a loved extended relative that had some “quirks” that were a product of his generation.
When my sister got pregnant as a teenager, although it was quite the shocking event, what pissed off my grandfather was that the baby’s father was half-black. For the first 2 years of my nephew’s life, my grandfather did not acknowledge his presence. As in, when the kid was around, my grandfather did not look at the kid, speak his name, or address him in any fashion.
Eventually, the baby became a child with a personality and a refusal to not be acknowledged and, sheer constant exposure to this little human being eventually dragged my grandfather around and he came to adore my nephew.
My sister forgave him, explaining away his racist behaviour as simply a product of his generation.
I call bullshit. My grandfather was an asshole.
My grandmother grew up in the same era, and she wasn’t a racist (they were divorced before I was born, and I don’t know if it had anything to do with that, but they were as different as night and day in just about every area of life that I was exposed to with respect to who they were). Lots of people who were born at the same time, lived in the same place, fought in the same wars, were not racist. Lots of people who were indoctrinated with racist views let go of those views as reality and experience taught them that the views were wrong.
My grandfather might have had a lot working against him, given his age and upbringing, and I can feel compassion for people who find themselves in environments that do them harm.
But we are *all* products of our environment and people get past that all the time. I can be simultaneously compassionate and saddened for someone in a bad situation and still think they are an asshole for their actions. I can agree that solution is to fix the system, and that it’s a complex and difficult system to fix, and that the system itself has no small part in the development of someone’s assholeness while not letting the asshole out of his own responsibility for being an asshole.
What exactly does “he was an asshole” mean, then? “He chose to behave unpleasantly when he could have and should have known better”?
It means he behaved reprehensively, he took conscious actions that inflicted harm on another human.
The motivations are only relevant when discussing what could be done to minimize future occurances. It does not absolve him from his own behaviour.
Okay. Then what’s the use of the label “asshole” buying us, here? I mean, I don’t think anybody understands it to specifically denote “knowingly and willfully harms others”. And it kind of has this other well-known function of being a bucket we can drop people in where now we know everything important about them; they’re dismissed as human beings, now they’re just assholes.
If it’s being used for that application, I’m dubious that that helps anything.
Asshole ups the ante.
We know, from joreth’s description of her grandfather, that he behaved in ways that “knowingly and willfully harm[ed] others”. We have already established the character sketch of the person being described as an asshole.
Asshole takes a dispassionate argument, conveyed through text, and demonstrates that someone’s upset about something. Or ‘pissed’, if you will.
If joreth were to call me an unattractive person with an oddly-shaped ass who enjoys sexual relations with goats, then she would be relating facts. If she called me a ‘cock-assed goat-fucking shit-face’, then you would know she’s really rather upset that her goats are walking funny this morning. Just so long as she included those other details about her limping goats and my physical deformities, then we’re not dropping me into a bucket; we’re placing me rather firmly into a perfectly-shaped slot.
*blink* To where should I send the bill for my now soda-sodden keyboard?
*applauds* Well done, sir.
“Then what’s the use of the label “asshole” buying us, here? I mean, I don’t think anybody understands it to specifically denote “knowingly and willfully harms others””
That’s the definition I use. I think, ideally, this kind of language serves as social pressure. No one wants to be an asshole (hopefully), therefore if someone does something antisocial, and people call that person an asshole, perhaps they might stop and consider their actions.
Of course most of the language we use to put social pressure on someone, can also be used to dismiss someone. So, it does seem useful to distinguish how you’re using language. Perhaps tacit’s usage *was* dismissive, which was why figmentj chose to look at it from another perspective. And in that, the articles seem to be mutually supportive.
However, forgiveness and understanding notwithstanding – I agree with Joreth that if you can’t call someone who shoots a bunch of innocent people an asshole, then we might as well remove the word from the lexicon.
aclaro wrote: “However, forgiveness and understanding notwithstanding – I agree with Joreth that if you can’t call someone who shoots a bunch of innocent people an asshole, then we might as well remove the word from the lexicon.”
Sure, Sodini is an asshole because he shot people. You cannot just say he shot people because he is an asshole. The first does not explain things, just as the latter does not blame the victim (if you assume society as the victim).
I had 2 difficulties with her post.
1) I don’t see as how your two opinions are necessarily mutually incompatible and
2) When what a person wants is a sexual relationship, simply “reaching out and being their friend and offering support” won’t help, and often compounds the problem.
Take all the complaints from Nice Guys. One of the biggest, most repeated complaints I hear is that they’re sick of women just wanting to “be friends” with them. They want to get laid dammit! (or have a wife, whatever, it’s not “just friends”).
They usually reach the conclusion that the phrase is actually code for “I’m totally rejecting you but I’m supposed to say this to be nice”, so even when it’s said in all sincerity, it is not received that way and fuels their resentment.
And the *reason* for this is because the Nice Guy’s desperation and his feeling of entitlement and his resentment of the “let’s be friends” phrase makes even women who are completely sincere in their desire to befriend them back off over time as their friendship is spurned and pressure is put on them to be something else.
As for my first point, I don’t see why we can’t be both compassionate and concerned for the people who are hurting and alone and *still* think of them at the end of the line, where George went, as assholes.
Maybe they weren’t assholes at the beginning, but, as she pointed out, many people find a way to stop that train from reaching that final destination of killing someone else. So I feel free to call someone who doesn’t an asshole.
I also don’t see why “everyone else is doing it” is justification to not dislike an individual from falling prey to peer pressure.
As an example:
My grandfather skipped my parents’ wedding because my mother is mexican. Eventually he got over it, and my parents forgave him, and I grew up with my grandfather as a loved extended relative that had some “quirks” that were a product of his generation.
When my sister got pregnant as a teenager, although it was quite the shocking event, what pissed off my grandfather was that the baby’s father was half-black. For the first 2 years of my nephew’s life, my grandfather did not acknowledge his presence. As in, when the kid was around, my grandfather did not look at the kid, speak his name, or address him in any fashion.
Eventually, the baby became a child with a personality and a refusal to not be acknowledged and, sheer constant exposure to this little human being eventually dragged my grandfather around and he came to adore my nephew.
My sister forgave him, explaining away his racist behaviour as simply a product of his generation.
I call bullshit. My grandfather was an asshole.
My grandmother grew up in the same era, and she wasn’t a racist (they were divorced before I was born, and I don’t know if it had anything to do with that, but they were as different as night and day in just about every area of life that I was exposed to with respect to who they were). Lots of people who were born at the same time, lived in the same place, fought in the same wars, were not racist. Lots of people who were indoctrinated with racist views let go of those views as reality and experience taught them that the views were wrong.
My grandfather might have had a lot working against him, given his age and upbringing, and I can feel compassion for people who find themselves in environments that do them harm.
But we are *all* products of our environment and people get past that all the time. I can be simultaneously compassionate and saddened for someone in a bad situation and still think they are an asshole for their actions. I can agree that solution is to fix the system, and that it’s a complex and difficult system to fix, and that the system itself has no small part in the development of someone’s assholeness while not letting the asshole out of his own responsibility for being an asshole.
I agree, and I don’t think there’s really any way we can say “if only someone did X, that wouldn’t have happened”. We have no way of knowing just how far his problems went, or even the specific direction they went or came from.
He might have spurned all attempts to be “just friends” as many Nice Guys do. He might have been insulted if someone suggested therapy (I know someone in desperate need of therapy and suggesting it only alienated him further because of his views on what therapy represents). Forcing him to get treatment might have merely removed him from society (which would have protected the women) but not actually “fixed” him and would have opened up a much more dangerous precedent regarding when and how and why it is or is not appropriate to “force” mental health treatment.
What exactly does “he was an asshole” mean, then? “He chose to behave unpleasantly when he could have and should have known better”?
It means he behaved reprehensively, he took conscious actions that inflicted harm on another human.
The motivations are only relevant when discussing what could be done to minimize future occurances. It does not absolve him from his own behaviour.
Okay. Then what’s the use of the label “asshole” buying us, here? I mean, I don’t think anybody understands it to specifically denote “knowingly and willfully harms others”. And it kind of has this other well-known function of being a bucket we can drop people in where now we know everything important about them; they’re dismissed as human beings, now they’re just assholes.
If it’s being used for that application, I’m dubious that that helps anything.
I don’t think the point is that George Sodini’s obnoxious expectations about womens’ duties to him, or those of guys on dating sites, justify anything, or are even okay to hold, okay to project onto others.
I don’t think the point is that George Sodini was anything other than fully responsible for his own actions.
I think the point is that when we routinely treat each other inhumanly, maybe we shouldn’t act quite so surprised when we get the occasional inhuman response.
I don’t think the point is that George Sodini’s obnoxious expectations about womens’ duties to him, or those of guys on dating sites, justify anything, or are even okay to hold, okay to project onto others.
I don’t think the point is that George Sodini was anything other than fully responsible for his own actions.
I think the point is that when we routinely treat each other inhumanly, maybe we shouldn’t act quite so surprised when we get the occasional inhuman response.
George Sodini is culpable for his actions, and all of us should recognize our responsibility in the way we treat each other.
George Sodini is culpable for his actions, and all of us should recognize our responsibility in the way we treat each other.
how do you know that every woman who rejected Sodini did so rightfully? You don’t blame a single one?
Besides you’re taking the micro and making it macro. We are ALL responsible for how we treat each-other, and no one was asking a single woman to “take one for the team” with Sodini. Instead, some of us are saying “it’s a hard, cold world out there, and we could do a lot better then treating each-other like shit.”
George Sodini holds responsibility for this, but so do the rest of us. The Columbine shooters were bullied and tormented. It doesn’t excuse their violence, but it does help to explain it.
I don’t really think it *does* help to explain it, because people are treated in this same fashion ALL THE TIME and do not turn into Columbine shooters or George Sodini. Some other factor must be in place to create a Columbine shooter or a George Sodini when we *all* have to put up with shitty treatement from other people and not all of us, in fact the vast majority of us, do not turn out this way.
I also don’t blame a single woman for rejecting Sodini, even if one could objectively come up with a “not rightfully” reason or if she was a bitch about it. I do not believe that we are “entitled” to any relationship with any person, but I do believe we are “entitled” to decide when we should *not* have a relationship with someone, whether I agree with their reasons for choosing not to or not.
I don’t really think it *does* help to explain it, because people are treated in this same fashion ALL THE TIME and do not turn into Columbine shooters or George Sodini. Some other factor must be in place to create a Columbine shooter or a George Sodini when we *all* have to put up with shitty treatement from other people and not all of us, in fact the vast majority of us, do not turn out this way.
Some people are stronger then others. We’re all different. That’s all. For some people the fear of jail or retribution overcomes the fear of inaction.
I don’t believe that everyone is entitled to a relationship. I do believe that everyone is entitled to be treated with courtesy in their interactions. Since, of course, there’s no record of the women Sodini interacted with, or how they treated each-other, there’s no way to know what did, or did not, have an effect on him, or what those effects were.
there’s no way to know what did, or did not, have an effect on him, or what those effects were.
That’s the whole “some other factor must be in place to create…” that I already said.
But that’s part of my problem with the attitude that “we” (whether one means society or individuals who happened to come across George) could have done something to prevent this.
There’s no reason to assume that we could have because we lack enough data points to accurately assess what went “wrong” and where.
What I answer with is that there’s also no reason to assume that we could NOT have prevented it.
I think there is plenty of reason to assume that we could *not* have prevented it, seeing as how we didn’t prevent it. Short of developing a mind-reading machine and pre-emptively removing people from society for their thoughts, there are TONS of reasons why things cannot be prevented.
His ability to appear “normal” to anyone who might have been close enough to him to actually affect some kind of change is the most likely reason why we couldn’t have prevented it. There was no reason to assume he was a danger to society when he had very similar circumstances and very similar attitudes to people all over the world who do *not* shoot up health gyms.
*tiny cough* What if the gym had a metal detector? Would that have prevented it? I me-WARGHBARGLEWRAAAAH *is devoured alive by joreth rage*
Depends…he seemed like he was pretty smart. If he was aware of the metal detector, i doubt he’d say “Oh, they have ametal detector, I’ll call it off.” Instead, he might have chosen a different target, or figured out a way to circumvent the metal detector, or walked through it with guns blazing…
Heh. Truth.
Although I have found it interesting that all of the posts here focus on the societal ways to prevent such a thing, and not the security ways.
Now, if only I could engineer a misogyny-seeking nanite… (crazy-seeking wouldn’t work, as it would soon turn on it’s maker)
😛 I haven’t even entered anger yet, let alone rage! This is simply mild annoyance at the fact that everyone has completely missed the original point of‘s post.
I find it the height of irony that he is being accused of “dismissing” the problem by calling George an asshole by people who are taking a rather trivial comment out of his lengthy post and dismissing (by missing entirely) the *actual* point he was trying to make…
which is that George’s writings are symptomatic of a societal problem representing mysogyny that underlies certain phrases used by the anti-polyamory crowd …
which of course is yet more irony in the people calling for societal change rather than “blaming” George by calling him an asshole…
Argh! Circular irony hurts my brain.
Um…. Lithium in the water supply?
Violence is, was, and shall ever be. I’ll even do a meta-post and state that, in tacit’s future transhumanist society, the highest level Orc Warrior will truly rule the world.
The argument here seems to come down to where one want’s the locus of control to be. Do you want to place complete and total control and responsibility with the individual or with the population? Obviously, you want a nice, homogeneous mix: the crazies can’t EASILY get their guns, but the sane folk don’t have cameras in their bedrooms watching for sodomy.
I’ve always described it as a continuum from Ayn Rand to Harrison Bergeron. Or, to put it in words I’d actually use, Free Determinism vs Douchebaggery. At which point does allowing a person to do what they want make you a douche? Because that point is where you draw the line on the interaction between the duty of the community vs the duty of the idividual.
And holy sweet jesus am I off subject. I blame ADD.
Actually, I think that *is* the topic that the commenters are all discussing (although it may be off-topic from his original post).
People are throwing around words like “responsibility” of society to prevent shit like this from happening, and I don’t think it’s possible without giving up much of our freedom and liberty in exchange. I don’t see any indication that society, or especially the specific women who rejected George, failed in their responsibility to “reach out” or be nice.
But, getting back to‘s ORIGINAL post, it could be considered a failing of “society” that we have allowed the misogyny to infiltrate to such a deep level that George’s crazy went undetected until it was too late.
And is actually what is doing by making posts like this – learning to understand the root cause of the crazy and bringing it to people’s attention.
The extreme level of crazy in George made it possible for to recognize the thread of crazy and label it “misogyny” (among others), which, in turn, made it easier to detect in the less-crazy (or at least, less-fatally-crazy), such as the “poly is greedy” crowd.
I do, however, think that some of the victim-blaming-sounding arguments might also be a product of some of that misogyny that is so deeply embedded in our society. It’s so deeply embedded that some people can’t recognize it, and that makes it harder to combat and eradicate (and also easier to justify, like saying guys just know better not to be offended by Cosmo, so women should learn not to take things so seriously, y’know, just as a for-instance).
Of course, this is also the same problem with the people who think tighter security and better gun control laws would prevent tragedy.
Someone bent on committing atrocities does not care that it’s “illegal” to carry the weapon used to commit the atrocity. What they care about is that the tighter security means that their victims, the law-abiding citizens, have no way to defend themselves because they’re following the laws.
If health gyms enacted completely arbitrary security precautions, much like rules to prevent feeling bad in polyamory, all that would have happened is that his crazy would have popped up somewhere else – like shooting up the parking lot outside of the gym, or a supermarket or a park with kids, or taking in a plastic knife, or becoming a serial rapist/murderer (which is actually a common response from crazies who blame women for their women troubles), etc., etc.
how do you know that every woman who rejected Sodini did so rightfully? You don’t blame a single one?
And how do you know that they didn’t? I think the point is to not cast blame because we have no evidence of worthy blame being presented. We have a vaccuum of details in regards to the women that he persued; the question I think you should ask yourself is why you are blaming the women?
The Columbine shooters were bullied and tormented. It doesn’t excuse their violence, but it does help to explain it.
Actually, they weren’t bullied as people were led to believe.
how do you know that every woman who rejected Sodini did so rightfully? You don’t blame a single one?
Besides you’re taking the micro and making it macro. We are ALL responsible for how we treat each-other, and no one was asking a single woman to “take one for the team” with Sodini. Instead, some of us are saying “it’s a hard, cold world out there, and we could do a lot better then treating each-other like shit.”
George Sodini holds responsibility for this, but so do the rest of us. The Columbine shooters were bullied and tormented. It doesn’t excuse their violence, but it does help to explain it.
I don’t really think it *does* help to explain it, because people are treated in this same fashion ALL THE TIME and do not turn into Columbine shooters or George Sodini. Some other factor must be in place to create a Columbine shooter or a George Sodini when we *all* have to put up with shitty treatement from other people and not all of us, in fact the vast majority of us, do not turn out this way.
I also don’t blame a single woman for rejecting Sodini, even if one could objectively come up with a “not rightfully” reason or if she was a bitch about it. I do not believe that we are “entitled” to any relationship with any person, but I do believe we are “entitled” to decide when we should *not* have a relationship with someone, whether I agree with their reasons for choosing not to or not.
I don’t really think it *does* help to explain it, because people are treated in this same fashion ALL THE TIME and do not turn into Columbine shooters or George Sodini. Some other factor must be in place to create a Columbine shooter or a George Sodini when we *all* have to put up with shitty treatement from other people and not all of us, in fact the vast majority of us, do not turn out this way.
Some people are stronger then others. We’re all different. That’s all. For some people the fear of jail or retribution overcomes the fear of inaction.
I don’t believe that everyone is entitled to a relationship. I do believe that everyone is entitled to be treated with courtesy in their interactions. Since, of course, there’s no record of the women Sodini interacted with, or how they treated each-other, there’s no way to know what did, or did not, have an effect on him, or what those effects were.
there’s no way to know what did, or did not, have an effect on him, or what those effects were.
That’s the whole “some other factor must be in place to create…” that I already said.
But that’s part of my problem with the attitude that “we” (whether one means society or individuals who happened to come across George) could have done something to prevent this.
There’s no reason to assume that we could have because we lack enough data points to accurately assess what went “wrong” and where.
but women are autonomous and have the right to reject men. It doesn’t even matter if it was cruelly.
Uh, no. People do not have the right to reject one another cruelly.
I do not absolve Sodini one bit. That doesn’t mean that his actions cannot be found to be caused, in part, by outside factors.
He was mentally ill. Ill people deserve treatment.
No one is saying he didn’t “deserve” treatment. The question is how to get it to him? Who is responsible for that? He had a good job with, presumably, good health benefits. There are tons of free or low-cost mental health options. He chose to attend seminars on how to attract young girls and he chose to reject any other form of help, whether it was offered to him specifically or he just avoided looking for it.
For all we know, someone really *did* suggest he try therapy. I know I’ve suggested it to people before … the last time the suggestion was met with extreme disapproval and an admission of the belief that “therapy is for weaklings”. How do we know that George didn’t feel this way? If his blog postings are any indication at all, I’d say it’s not just possible, but likely.
People all over the internet make the kinds of statements that George was making in his blog. That’s the original point was making – that the case of George made it possible for to better understand a depressingly pervasive attitude and belief system in our society.
There is absolutely no reason for anyone to have singled George out of the sea of internet blogs who say all the same kinds of things, as George being particularly likely to have a violent episode over the thousands or millions of others who say the same things and *do not* shoot up gyms.
Since so many other people have similar circumstances and do not shoot up health gyms, I still say there was some *other* factor involved, not just that people were mean to him.
The only thing that I think society can take any blame in, is that if we didn’t condone the kinds of selfish, objectifying beliefs, perhaps George’s crazy would have been easier to see – not that society contributed to making him crazy.
But perhaps he also would have just found a different way to hide his crazy, since he seemed pretty fantastic at appearing “normal” long enough for a man with a blog to *still* go undetected as in need of care.
Oh, and the point was that women have the right to reject men, not that they have the right to be cruel.
The other point was that it doesn’t matter if it *was* done cruelly, right or wrong, that *still* doesn’t absolve him of his own behaviour, which you have already said you are not doing.
Right. It does not matter how people acted toward him for purposes of his accountability. You just plain find something to do other than murder people.
How people acted toward him does matter for purposes of our responsibility in how we treat each other. And I would, in fact, say that people do have the right to reject each other cruelly. But having the right to do it doesn’t mean it’s a good thing.
That doesn’t mean that a woman who rejected George Sodini cruelly has any culpability in his committing murder. What she has responsibility in is being cruel to another human being, full stop. Which in no way resembles murder, but its lack of resemblance to murder doesn’t make it nothing.
but women are autonomous and have the right to reject men. It doesn’t even matter if it was cruelly.
Uh, no. People do not have the right to reject one another cruelly.
I do not absolve Sodini one bit. That doesn’t mean that his actions cannot be found to be caused, in part, by outside factors.
He was mentally ill. Ill people deserve treatment.
What I answer with is that there’s also no reason to assume that we could NOT have prevented it.
Thank you, I was trying to figure out a way to respond that it doesn’t matter if it was “rightfully” or not, but I was having trouble just wrapping my brain around the concept that there *was* a “rightful” reason to reject someone and an “not-rightful” reason.
Although not all men are like this and not all women feel this pressure and not all feel it to the same degree, I do think an awful lot of men really don’t comprehend the enormous, subtle, silent, insidious pressure there is on women regarding their life, their safety, or even their very personhood. Of course some women do physical and emotional damage to men (personally, I think societal awareness of this fact is woefully under-acknowledged). But women are raised to believe it’s inevitable even when the odds of it happening to any specific woman are fairly low, while men are raised to believe it’s unlikely even if the odds of that particular man’s likelihood of encountering physical attack are high.
As a matter of fact, I had a conversation with a co-worker once where he was complaining about his gf. Over the course of the conversation, I gradually learned that she had stabbed him 2 or 3 times, shot at him (but missed) 2 or 3 times, hit him with the car, and close-fist hit him so many times he lost count. I was speechless. When I could talk, I said “you know if the genders were reversed and you did all that to her, you’d be in jail by now, right?”
He actually had to stop and think about that. After a very long pause, he said “yeah, you’re right, I would be. But…” and then continued to justify his staying with her and why he wasn’t in an “abusive” relationship. The bottom line is because “girls can’t abuse guys”. It’s just taken for granted that, because of their on-average larger size, girls are allowed to beat up guys, but guys aren’t allowed to beat up women (personally, I don’t think anyone is allowed to beat up anyone, but if you’re stupid enough to take a swing at someone larger than you, you deserve to get hit back in self-defense).
One of his sweeties said “welcome to what it’s like to be a woman”.
Even, with his “enlightened” ideals, was taken aback that women still feel that way in this day and age, and was forcibly faced with the actual emotional response to being in that position for one’s entire existence.
So no, I don’t “blame” a single woman for rejecting him, even if she was a bitch about it. No one is entitled to a relationship, but everyone is entitled to reject one.
Rejection sucks. Bad feelings feel bad. Welcome to life.
Thank you, I was trying to figure out a way to respond that it doesn’t matter if it was “rightfully” or not, but I was having trouble just wrapping my brain around the concept that there *was* a “rightful” reason to reject someone and an “not-rightful” reason.
Although not all men are like this and not all women feel this pressure and not all feel it to the same degree, I do think an awful lot of men really don’t comprehend the enormous, subtle, silent, insidious pressure there is on women regarding their life, their safety, or even their very personhood. Of course some women do physical and emotional damage to men (personally, I think societal awareness of this fact is woefully under-acknowledged). But women are raised to believe it’s inevitable even when the odds of it happening to any specific woman are fairly low, while men are raised to believe it’s unlikely even if the odds of that particular man’s likelihood of encountering physical attack are high.
As a matter of fact, I had a conversation with a co-worker once where he was complaining about his gf. Over the course of the conversation, I gradually learned that she had stabbed him 2 or 3 times, shot at him (but missed) 2 or 3 times, hit him with the car, and close-fist hit him so many times he lost count. I was speechless. When I could talk, I said “you know if the genders were reversed and you did all that to her, you’d be in jail by now, right?”
He actually had to stop and think about that. After a very long pause, he said “yeah, you’re right, I would be. But…” and then continued to justify his staying with her and why he wasn’t in an “abusive” relationship. The bottom line is because “girls can’t abuse guys”. It’s just taken for granted that, because of their on-average larger size, girls are allowed to beat up guys, but guys aren’t allowed to beat up women (personally, I don’t think anyone is allowed to beat up anyone, but if you’re stupid enough to take a swing at someone larger than you, you deserve to get hit back in self-defense).
One of his sweeties said “welcome to what it’s like to be a woman”.
Even, with his “enlightened” ideals, was taken aback that women still feel that way in this day and age, and was forcibly faced with the actual emotional response to being in that position for one’s entire existence.
So no, I don’t “blame” a single woman for rejecting him, even if she was a bitch about it. No one is entitled to a relationship, but everyone is entitled to reject one.
Rejection sucks. Bad feelings feel bad. Welcome to life.
No one is saying he didn’t “deserve” treatment. The question is how to get it to him? Who is responsible for that? He had a good job with, presumably, good health benefits. There are tons of free or low-cost mental health options. He chose to attend seminars on how to attract young girls and he chose to reject any other form of help, whether it was offered to him specifically or he just avoided looking for it.
For all we know, someone really *did* suggest he try therapy. I know I’ve suggested it to people before … the last time the suggestion was met with extreme disapproval and an admission of the belief that “therapy is for weaklings”. How do we know that George didn’t feel this way? If his blog postings are any indication at all, I’d say it’s not just possible, but likely.
People all over the internet make the kinds of statements that George was making in his blog. That’s the original point was making – that the case of George made it possible for to better understand a depressingly pervasive attitude and belief system in our society.
There is absolutely no reason for anyone to have singled George out of the sea of internet blogs who say all the same kinds of things, as George being particularly likely to have a violent episode over the thousands or millions of others who say the same things and *do not* shoot up gyms.
Since so many other people have similar circumstances and do not shoot up health gyms, I still say there was some *other* factor involved, not just that people were mean to him.
The only thing that I think society can take any blame in, is that if we didn’t condone the kinds of selfish, objectifying beliefs, perhaps George’s crazy would have been easier to see – not that society contributed to making him crazy.
But perhaps he also would have just found a different way to hide his crazy, since he seemed pretty fantastic at appearing “normal” long enough for a man with a blog to *still* go undetected as in need of care.
Oh, and the point was that women have the right to reject men, not that they have the right to be cruel.
The other point was that it doesn’t matter if it *was* done cruelly, right or wrong, that *still* doesn’t absolve him of his own behaviour, which you have already said you are not doing.
I think there is plenty of reason to assume that we could *not* have prevented it, seeing as how we didn’t prevent it. Short of developing a mind-reading machine and pre-emptively removing people from society for their thoughts, there are TONS of reasons why things cannot be prevented.
His ability to appear “normal” to anyone who might have been close enough to him to actually affect some kind of change is the most likely reason why we couldn’t have prevented it. There was no reason to assume he was a danger to society when he had very similar circumstances and very similar attitudes to people all over the world who do *not* shoot up health gyms.
I really couldn’t have asked for a better setup for where my thoughts were going next. Thanks. 🙂
Your response shows beautifully how fucked up society is on this topic, because the conventions around it stop you from even recognizing that I’m not talking about blaming anyone but George Sodini. Our society is nearly incapable of doing anything with analysis of responsibility other than apportioning punishment, and how sick and destructive is that, in and of itself?
Okay. We have a couple of entirely separate considerations here. On the one hand, we have considerations of accountability, blame, and punishment. There are very sensible rules of many kinds that all amount to saying: you do not rape people, you do not murder people. This is not negotiable, I do not give a fuck how bad a day or decade you had, you just do not fucking do it. George Sodini violated that, and he is to blame for doing so, and if he had lived through it he should and would be punished for it, and that is correct and appropriate because you just don’t fucking do that no matter what anybody else did.
Then we have another, unrelated set of considerations which are not about accountability or blame or punishment, they are about responsibility. Responsibility and accountability are not at all the same (and they’re all too often woefully disproportionate). Accountability is something you have because other people have expectations of you and will enforce consequences if you fail to meet them. Responsibility is something you have because you have power; you are responsible to the entire extent that you have power and only to that extent. Recognizing responsibility isn’t about blame or punishment, it’s about owning the role you have in creating the world around you.
If a woman who George Sodini interacted with saw that he went berserk, it is not appropriate that she should blame herself, or anyone other than George Sodini, for that. It is not appropriate that she feel like his actions mean she did anything wrong, for an instant, because his actions belong to him. What she and everybody else should be doing, though, is examining her actions with consideration of how they affect those around her. And hey, probably her actions are perfectly fine. But there are people who are regularly treating others horribly, and the hard line that says you do not rape or murder, ever, does not in any way make treating people horribly okay.
The whole thing here is, recognize what your actions are putting out into the world, and that they have consequences. You aren’t obligated to behave in any particular fashion toward anybody as long as your behavior is inside that very broad set of lines that includes “don’t rape them, don’t murder them”, but you still have power; you still have effects. And if you act fucked up to people all the time, you’re contributing to an environment that has more tendency to push people over the edge than if you acted decently. If that’s what you want to do, well, okay, but if you’re going to be any kind of authentic, can the big surprised act when people lose their shit; that’s the kind of world you’re saying you want, by your actions.
So very, very well said.
My difficulty with this argument is it’s location.
Here, we have two situations. One, we have murder. We have the killing of people. Rape got thrown in there too a couple of times. We have a class of things that are SERIOUSLY NOT OKAY.
Two, we have being nice or horrible to people. Within the context of Sodini, I would say it’s reasonable to assume that the worst possible horribleness he received would be public humiliation. He goes to hit on a girl at the bar, and she turns around, laughs at him, and makes a mean comment about how tiny is Sodini is. Chances are pretty damn good Sodini was never physically assaulted by the women he hated so much.
So, why is location a problem? By putting them together like this, you’re casting them as a problem and solution of equal importance, both semantically and morally. Your list of Commandments for a Happy Society becomes:
1. Thou shalt not rape or murder.
2. Thou shalt be nice to people.
Or
2. Thou shalt be nice to creepy older men in bars.
By having the two issues in such rapid succession, you create a connection between the two of them, and an equivalency which, I would think, shouldn’t be there.
Also, it seems that the arguments warped to accommodate things that everyone agrees are bad. The logical line from Sodini to being horrible to people is one that passes through victim blaming. Therefore, the two arguments are logically unrelated, and probably shouldn’t be debated at the same time.
Back when I lived in Southwest Virginia, they told young Christian debaters not to mention “abortion”, “death penalty”, and “logic” in the same argument. The correlation is that, while both murder and being horrible to people are bad, if you connect them all via Sodini, you end up with victim blaming.
Right. Wouldn’t want to interrupt the usual obligatory orgy of self-congratulatory demonization surrounding a George Sodini event with any suggestion that there could be significant things going on in the situation other than that the perp was Born Chaotic Evil.
Heh. I’m pretty horrible at times at getting across what I’m trying to say; sorry for that.
The point I was trying to communicate had nothing at all to do with the goings-on around Sodini. I was trying to state that the fallacies others had pointed out in your argument seemed to be more a result of standing it up beside Sodini.
Like so:
In the post I responded to, you said “…recognize what your actions are putting out into the world, and that they have consequences.” This statement, by itself and without context, is true. If people were nicer to each other, then the world would be a nicer place. If you’ll allow me a moment of mocking, this would be the point where we all hold hands and hope to hold back the hubris of humanity (I also leaped upon the opportunity for alliteration. Neither here/there).
The difficulty enters when you use that argument within the context of preventing another Sodini. Then, whether or not shooting people is the ‘consequences’ you had in mind when you wrote the original statement, the death of several women is the consequences being discussed. It doesn’t seem like too much of a logical leap to follow the line from the consequences and effects you mention in your post to the consequences and effects of Sodini.
That was the point I failed at getting across; I thought that your argument here was phrased poorly, and would be better served by separating ‘George Sodini was equally a product of societal misogyny and his own special brand of crazy’ and ‘We are all responsible for all of us.”
I mean, you don’t see me going on about how bestiality ruins goat’s spines, now do ya?
I really couldn’t have asked for a better setup for where my thoughts were going next. Thanks. 🙂
Your response shows beautifully how fucked up society is on this topic, because the conventions around it stop you from even recognizing that I’m not talking about blaming anyone but George Sodini. Our society is nearly incapable of doing anything with analysis of responsibility other than apportioning punishment, and how sick and destructive is that, in and of itself?
Okay. We have a couple of entirely separate considerations here. On the one hand, we have considerations of accountability, blame, and punishment. There are very sensible rules of many kinds that all amount to saying: you do not rape people, you do not murder people. This is not negotiable, I do not give a fuck how bad a day or decade you had, you just do not fucking do it. George Sodini violated that, and he is to blame for doing so, and if he had lived through it he should and would be punished for it, and that is correct and appropriate because you just don’t fucking do that no matter what anybody else did.
Then we have another, unrelated set of considerations which are not about accountability or blame or punishment, they are about responsibility. Responsibility and accountability are not at all the same (and they’re all too often woefully disproportionate). Accountability is something you have because other people have expectations of you and will enforce consequences if you fail to meet them. Responsibility is something you have because you have power; you are responsible to the entire extent that you have power and only to that extent. Recognizing responsibility isn’t about blame or punishment, it’s about owning the role you have in creating the world around you.
If a woman who George Sodini interacted with saw that he went berserk, it is not appropriate that she should blame herself, or anyone other than George Sodini, for that. It is not appropriate that she feel like his actions mean she did anything wrong, for an instant, because his actions belong to him. What she and everybody else should be doing, though, is examining her actions with consideration of how they affect those around her. And hey, probably her actions are perfectly fine. But there are people who are regularly treating others horribly, and the hard line that says you do not rape or murder, ever, does not in any way make treating people horribly okay.
The whole thing here is, recognize what your actions are putting out into the world, and that they have consequences. You aren’t obligated to behave in any particular fashion toward anybody as long as your behavior is inside that very broad set of lines that includes “don’t rape them, don’t murder them”, but you still have power; you still have effects. And if you act fucked up to people all the time, you’re contributing to an environment that has more tendency to push people over the edge than if you acted decently. If that’s what you want to do, well, okay, but if you’re going to be any kind of authentic, can the big surprised act when people lose their shit; that’s the kind of world you’re saying you want, by your actions.
Yeah, I agree with that. For the record, George’s thing about how he’d call it off is total horseshit. That wasn’t an opportunity for anyone else to make anything better; it was just a self-justification ploy.
I don’t get what you’re referring to? Would he call it off if a woman expressed interest in him first?
The fun thing about victim status, of course, is that it justifies anything you want it to.
Yeah, I agree with that. For the record, George’s thing about how he’d call it off is total horseshit. That wasn’t an opportunity for anyone else to make anything better; it was just a self-justification ploy.
Right. It does not matter how people acted toward him for purposes of his accountability. You just plain find something to do other than murder people.
How people acted toward him does matter for purposes of our responsibility in how we treat each other. And I would, in fact, say that people do have the right to reject each other cruelly. But having the right to do it doesn’t mean it’s a good thing.
That doesn’t mean that a woman who rejected George Sodini cruelly has any culpability in his committing murder. What she has responsibility in is being cruel to another human being, full stop. Which in no way resembles murder, but its lack of resemblance to murder doesn’t make it nothing.
So very, very well said.
Not blame. Responsibility. We should take responsibility for the way we treat others.
But the assumption in this line of thought is that the women who rejected him and/or society around him is not living up to its “responsiblity” and there is no evidence to justify that.
He seemed to be more or less equally connected to society as anyone else who does not shoot up health gyms. He had a job, he had the internet, he met women, he went to seminars, he had money and therefore access to mental health care. At which point, specifically, did any individual or society fall down on the job?
There is only some vague conjecture that “people should be nice to people”, which could imply that people were *not* nice to George, which can then lead to the assumption that George went crazy because someone wasn’t nice to him, which leads to the victim-blaming accusation.
There’s absolutely no way to test the hypothesis that, if everyone he ever came in contact with was just nice to him, he wouldn’t have gone crazy or his crazy would have been caught before it became fatal.
And I don’t think it’s even reasonable to make that conclusion. Regardless of our “responsibility” to be nice to people, the reality is that some days just suck and sometimes we aren’t nice to people. Everyone else manages to deal with people being mean to us every so often, so there’s no reason for anyone to assume that the solution to George is for people to learn to be nicer, since others are in similar situations and don’t shoot up health gyms.
The problem here is *not* that someone was once mean to him or that society doesn’t do enough to promote niceness. The problem is something else. That may be a mental health issue, that may be that he was “just an asshole” (in the dismissive sense), it may be something else entirely. But society’s responsibility to be “nicer” is a non-sequitor from the case of George.
INTJ’s > INTP’s at forming logical argument structures. XD
You pretty much said everything I’ve been trying to say.
Not blame. Responsibility. We should take responsibility for the way we treat others.
Asshole ups the ante.
We know, from joreth’s description of her grandfather, that he behaved in ways that “knowingly and willfully harm[ed] others”. We have already established the character sketch of the person being described as an asshole.
Asshole takes a dispassionate argument, conveyed through text, and demonstrates that someone’s upset about something. Or ‘pissed’, if you will.
If joreth were to call me an unattractive person with an oddly-shaped ass who enjoys sexual relations with goats, then she would be relating facts. If she called me a ‘cock-assed goat-fucking shit-face’, then you would know she’s really rather upset that her goats are walking funny this morning. Just so long as she included those other details about her limping goats and my physical deformities, then we’re not dropping me into a bucket; we’re placing me rather firmly into a perfectly-shaped slot.
I wouldn’t necessarily say that computers make people more isolated. At the very least, the internet helps people who have unusual interests or problems connect with each other, so they feel less “different” and alone. On the other hand, it also does make it easier for some people to become socially withdrawn. There are positives and negatives, so it’s hard to say whether it’s more one than the other.
I wouldn’t necessarily say that computers make people more isolated. At the very least, the internet helps people who have unusual interests or problems connect with each other, so they feel less “different” and alone. On the other hand, it also does make it easier for some people to become socially withdrawn. There are positives and negatives, so it’s hard to say whether it’s more one than the other.
My difficulty with this argument is it’s location.
Here, we have two situations. One, we have murder. We have the killing of people. Rape got thrown in there too a couple of times. We have a class of things that are SERIOUSLY NOT OKAY.
Two, we have being nice or horrible to people. Within the context of Sodini, I would say it’s reasonable to assume that the worst possible horribleness he received would be public humiliation. He goes to hit on a girl at the bar, and she turns around, laughs at him, and makes a mean comment about how tiny is Sodini is. Chances are pretty damn good Sodini was never physically assaulted by the women he hated so much.
So, why is location a problem? By putting them together like this, you’re casting them as a problem and solution of equal importance, both semantically and morally. Your list of Commandments for a Happy Society becomes:
1. Thou shalt not rape or murder.
2. Thou shalt be nice to people.
Or
2. Thou shalt be nice to creepy older men in bars.
By having the two issues in such rapid succession, you create a connection between the two of them, and an equivalency which, I would think, shouldn’t be there.
Also, it seems that the arguments warped to accommodate things that everyone agrees are bad. The logical line from Sodini to being horrible to people is one that passes through victim blaming. Therefore, the two arguments are logically unrelated, and probably shouldn’t be debated at the same time.
Back when I lived in Southwest Virginia, they told young Christian debaters not to mention “abortion”, “death penalty”, and “logic” in the same argument. The correlation is that, while both murder and being horrible to people are bad, if you connect them all via Sodini, you end up with victim blaming.
“Then what’s the use of the label “asshole” buying us, here? I mean, I don’t think anybody understands it to specifically denote “knowingly and willfully harms others””
That’s the definition I use. I think, ideally, this kind of language serves as social pressure. No one wants to be an asshole (hopefully), therefore if someone does something antisocial, and people call that person an asshole, perhaps they might stop and consider their actions.
Of course most of the language we use to put social pressure on someone, can also be used to dismiss someone. So, it does seem useful to distinguish how you’re using language. Perhaps tacit’s usage *was* dismissive, which was why figmentj chose to look at it from another perspective. And in that, the articles seem to be mutually supportive.
However, forgiveness and understanding notwithstanding – I agree with Joreth that if you can’t call someone who shoots a bunch of innocent people an asshole, then we might as well remove the word from the lexicon.
I think you can say that a society that produces people like George Sodini is probably a society that can be improved, without blaming any individual person – and certainly without blaming any of the women who rejected him.
I think you can say that a society that produces people like George Sodini is probably a society that can be improved, without blaming any individual person – and certainly without blaming any of the women who rejected him.
This has been a good read and there’s a lot of food for thought on all sides — comments included.
Right. Wouldn’t want to interrupt the usual obligatory orgy of self-congratulatory demonization surrounding a George Sodini event with any suggestion that there could be significant things going on in the situation other than that the perp was Born Chaotic Evil.
aclaro wrote: “However, forgiveness and understanding notwithstanding – I agree with Joreth that if you can’t call someone who shoots a bunch of innocent people an asshole, then we might as well remove the word from the lexicon.”
Sure, Sodini is an asshole because he shot people. You cannot just say he shot people because he is an asshole. The first does not explain things, just as the latter does not blame the victim (if you assume society as the victim).
*blink* To where should I send the bill for my now soda-sodden keyboard?
*applauds* Well done, sir.
how do you know that every woman who rejected Sodini did so rightfully? You don’t blame a single one?
And how do you know that they didn’t? I think the point is to not cast blame because we have no evidence of worthy blame being presented. We have a vaccuum of details in regards to the women that he persued; the question I think you should ask yourself is why you are blaming the women?
The Columbine shooters were bullied and tormented. It doesn’t excuse their violence, but it does help to explain it.
Actually, they weren’t bullied as people were led to believe.
I don’t get what you’re referring to? Would he call it off if a woman expressed interest in him first?
The fun thing about victim status, of course, is that it justifies anything you want it to.
But the assumption in this line of thought is that the women who rejected him and/or society around him is not living up to its “responsiblity” and there is no evidence to justify that.
He seemed to be more or less equally connected to society as anyone else who does not shoot up health gyms. He had a job, he had the internet, he met women, he went to seminars, he had money and therefore access to mental health care. At which point, specifically, did any individual or society fall down on the job?
There is only some vague conjecture that “people should be nice to people”, which could imply that people were *not* nice to George, which can then lead to the assumption that George went crazy because someone wasn’t nice to him, which leads to the victim-blaming accusation.
There’s absolutely no way to test the hypothesis that, if everyone he ever came in contact with was just nice to him, he wouldn’t have gone crazy or his crazy would have been caught before it became fatal.
And I don’t think it’s even reasonable to make that conclusion. Regardless of our “responsibility” to be nice to people, the reality is that some days just suck and sometimes we aren’t nice to people. Everyone else manages to deal with people being mean to us every so often, so there’s no reason for anyone to assume that the solution to George is for people to learn to be nicer, since others are in similar situations and don’t shoot up health gyms.
The problem here is *not* that someone was once mean to him or that society doesn’t do enough to promote niceness. The problem is something else. That may be a mental health issue, that may be that he was “just an asshole” (in the dismissive sense), it may be something else entirely. But society’s responsibility to be “nicer” is a non-sequitor from the case of George.
INTJ’s > INTP’s at forming logical argument structures. XD
You pretty much said everything I’ve been trying to say.
Heh. I’m pretty horrible at times at getting across what I’m trying to say; sorry for that.
The point I was trying to communicate had nothing at all to do with the goings-on around Sodini. I was trying to state that the fallacies others had pointed out in your argument seemed to be more a result of standing it up beside Sodini.
Like so:
In the post I responded to, you said “…recognize what your actions are putting out into the world, and that they have consequences.” This statement, by itself and without context, is true. If people were nicer to each other, then the world would be a nicer place. If you’ll allow me a moment of mocking, this would be the point where we all hold hands and hope to hold back the hubris of humanity (I also leaped upon the opportunity for alliteration. Neither here/there).
The difficulty enters when you use that argument within the context of preventing another Sodini. Then, whether or not shooting people is the ‘consequences’ you had in mind when you wrote the original statement, the death of several women is the consequences being discussed. It doesn’t seem like too much of a logical leap to follow the line from the consequences and effects you mention in your post to the consequences and effects of Sodini.
That was the point I failed at getting across; I thought that your argument here was phrased poorly, and would be better served by separating ‘George Sodini was equally a product of societal misogyny and his own special brand of crazy’ and ‘We are all responsible for all of us.”
I mean, you don’t see me going on about how bestiality ruins goat’s spines, now do ya?
*tiny cough* What if the gym had a metal detector? Would that have prevented it? I me-WARGHBARGLEWRAAAAH *is devoured alive by joreth rage*
Depends…he seemed like he was pretty smart. If he was aware of the metal detector, i doubt he’d say “Oh, they have ametal detector, I’ll call it off.” Instead, he might have chosen a different target, or figured out a way to circumvent the metal detector, or walked through it with guns blazing…
Heh. Truth.
Although I have found it interesting that all of the posts here focus on the societal ways to prevent such a thing, and not the security ways.
Now, if only I could engineer a misogyny-seeking nanite… (crazy-seeking wouldn’t work, as it would soon turn on it’s maker)
😛 I haven’t even entered anger yet, let alone rage! This is simply mild annoyance at the fact that everyone has completely missed the original point of‘s post.
I find it the height of irony that he is being accused of “dismissing” the problem by calling George an asshole by people who are taking a rather trivial comment out of his lengthy post and dismissing (by missing entirely) the *actual* point he was trying to make…
which is that George’s writings are symptomatic of a societal problem representing mysogyny that underlies certain phrases used by the anti-polyamory crowd …
which of course is yet more irony in the people calling for societal change rather than “blaming” George by calling him an asshole…
Argh! Circular irony hurts my brain.
Of course, this is also the same problem with the people who think tighter security and better gun control laws would prevent tragedy.
Someone bent on committing atrocities does not care that it’s “illegal” to carry the weapon used to commit the atrocity. What they care about is that the tighter security means that their victims, the law-abiding citizens, have no way to defend themselves because they’re following the laws.
If health gyms enacted completely arbitrary security precautions, much like rules to prevent feeling bad in polyamory, all that would have happened is that his crazy would have popped up somewhere else – like shooting up the parking lot outside of the gym, or a supermarket or a park with kids, or taking in a plastic knife, or becoming a serial rapist/murderer (which is actually a common response from crazies who blame women for their women troubles), etc., etc.
Um…. Lithium in the water supply?
Violence is, was, and shall ever be. I’ll even do a meta-post and state that, in tacit’s future transhumanist society, the highest level Orc Warrior will truly rule the world.
The argument here seems to come down to where one want’s the locus of control to be. Do you want to place complete and total control and responsibility with the individual or with the population? Obviously, you want a nice, homogeneous mix: the crazies can’t EASILY get their guns, but the sane folk don’t have cameras in their bedrooms watching for sodomy.
I’ve always described it as a continuum from Ayn Rand to Harrison Bergeron. Or, to put it in words I’d actually use, Free Determinism vs Douchebaggery. At which point does allowing a person to do what they want make you a douche? Because that point is where you draw the line on the interaction between the duty of the community vs the duty of the idividual.
And holy sweet jesus am I off subject. I blame ADD.
Actually, I think that *is* the topic that the commenters are all discussing (although it may be off-topic from his original post).
People are throwing around words like “responsibility” of society to prevent shit like this from happening, and I don’t think it’s possible without giving up much of our freedom and liberty in exchange. I don’t see any indication that society, or especially the specific women who rejected George, failed in their responsibility to “reach out” or be nice.
But, getting back to‘s ORIGINAL post, it could be considered a failing of “society” that we have allowed the misogyny to infiltrate to such a deep level that George’s crazy went undetected until it was too late.
And is actually what is doing by making posts like this – learning to understand the root cause of the crazy and bringing it to people’s attention.
The extreme level of crazy in George made it possible for to recognize the thread of crazy and label it “misogyny” (among others), which, in turn, made it easier to detect in the less-crazy (or at least, less-fatally-crazy), such as the “poly is greedy” crowd.
I do, however, think that some of the victim-blaming-sounding arguments might also be a product of some of that misogyny that is so deeply embedded in our society. It’s so deeply embedded that some people can’t recognize it, and that makes it harder to combat and eradicate (and also easier to justify, like saying guys just know better not to be offended by Cosmo, so women should learn not to take things so seriously, y’know, just as a for-instance).