Yikes

[cjsmith]

I have recently faced the idea that there may be people I have met and liked who honestly believe that attacking the innocent and the powerless, especially girls or young women, is a good way to get things done.

I do not know if I am misunderstanding the person in question. It seems likely. I could be taking things too literally, a common failing of mine.* I could be misunderstanding in some other way. But even supposing this one is a misunderstanding, I've now faced the idea, and it's not at all pleasant.

Maybe I was in the Army too long. (I honestly believe the vast majority of US soldiers hold this value as strongly as I do.) You don't DO shit like that. You don't even THINK about THREATENING to do shit like that.

_____________
* If I'm starting to get ticked off, it could be nothing more serious than my belief that what you say is what you mean. A useful tactic might be to remind both of us of this pattern. Humans are neither robots nor computers, and I forget that too often.

Comments

[ladyqkat.livejournal.com]

Learing uncomfortable things about people you genuinely like is always disturbing. I think possibly because it makes you examine your values and principles and how far you are willing to let them slide to accomodate someone who, in most other aspects, may be a fairly good person.

I think we are given challenges like this not only to grow ourselves, but to see if we can gently persuade that person to examine something they never even think about. Not necessarily to change them but to make them more aware of how something they perceive as a non-issue or non-problem is perceived by others.

Good luck in sorting this out.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I'm usually surprisingly live-and-let-live. I may choose not to wait around for person A because he's never less than an hour late, and I may choose not to trust person B with my money or person C with my cat; those are choices I can make so as to avoid points of disagreement becoming problems.

But I find I have a real hard time feeling live-and-let-live about this one. I guess I have some pretty strongly held values.

[jupiter29.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, I didn't mean it. I swear. :)



(Silly random comment because I have no idea what this post is about. On a more serious note, I hope you come to a conclusion, of one sort of another, that gives you more comfort in your life.)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

You terrible human being! ;-)

Thanks. I *think* it's all about me believing that what is said is what is meant. That's what I'm going to try to presume, anyway, if I get no further information.

[jupiter29.livejournal.com]

That's more difficult than it should be, unfortunately. On the one hand, the best gauge you could possibly use to understand a person is themselves, the things they say and do. So it should be pretty obvious that people mean what they say.

On the other hand, we tend to say stupid things at times or at least I know I do. And I'd like to think that friends would give me the benefit of the doubt and judge me on all they know over time more so than a particular thing I said or did.

So sometimes it becomes a balancing act of giving someone the benefit of the doubt over and over again until you just can't anymore and your opinion of them changes. And that can be a rather unpleasant situation on many levels. :(

Wow, what a depressing topic even if I am understanding your situation correctly, and there is probably a good possibility I am not. In which case, I am just babbling on and depressing myself. :)

We should talk about more fun topics. What would you do to punish me for being a terrible human being? ;)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

It is indeed difficult. If I cannot believe a person's words or actions, I'm left with not a whole lot. So I do put a lot of stake in what someone says and does. The only thing I can do, really, is gather more of this kind of data, and build a fuzzy-logic sort of picture over time. "One out of two times, he kicked the cat. One out of a hundred... one out of a thousand... okay, maybe that other one was a mistake."

Gee, I don't know: are you into punishments? ;-)

[jupiter29.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think that's all anyone can do. We (well, really , *I* brought it up) throw around the phrase "benefit of the doubt" but to me that's really something you earn rather than are given. If a random acquaintance at work says something objectionable, that's probably the end of things right there. No matter how off the wall it might seen, it's the only evidence I have and it points in a bad direction.

For someone I've known longer, as you say, I find it easier to chalk things up to a bad day or (more likely) an unfortunate attempt at a joke.

Gee, I don't know: are you into punishments? ;-)

As a general rule, no. :) I am, however, 1) in a very strange mood, 2) not particularly feeling like working, and 3) not very good at casual flirtation. :) So I took the opportunity that presented itself.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Yeah, "benefit of the doubt" is worth something only if there's "doubt". One data point out of a set of one may not be the whole picture, but it's the whole picture I have, so I'd have to make an effort to generate doubt. There are people I'm willing to do that for and people I'm not. :-)

As a general rule, no. :)

Ah; that makes a difference to the approach, of course. Shall you be sentenced to eat a minimum of two chocolate chip cookies today? ;-)

[jupiter29.livejournal.com]

One data point out of a set of one may not be the whole picture, but it's the whole picture I have...

I knew once we hammered this down to a mathematical discussion, it would be much easier to figure out. :)

Well, you know, I'm all about expanding my horizons. What would you suggest if you thought I would enjoy the punishment aspect? ;)




Wow, how sad is this? I knew my cookie willpower was almost nonexistant, to be sure. But I actually sat here and seriously debated accepting two completely imaginary cookies in lieu of flirting further. I am a sick, sick man!

[datagoddess.livejournal.com]

I take most things literally, too, unless it's obviously not ("I died laughing" being a good example of that ;-)

Is this something you can ask the other person for clarification about, saying that you think you misunderstood something? If it's someone who I otherwise think highly of that's the approach I'd take. If it's a casual acquaintance who you know but don't interact a lot with, I usually let it go and take a wait and see attitude.

Either way, yeah, disturbing.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Casual acquaintance. I, um, disagreed strongly, but without insulting the person (only the idea). We'll see. I hope I haven't just made an enemy of a person I honestly thought I liked.

[apparentparadox]

A few thoughts:

1) Communication is a really tenuous thing. I'm thinking of something in my head, which I translate into words (written, spoken). You then take in those words (possibly mis-reading or mis-hearing) and then translate the whole thing into your own world model inside your brain. Sometimes I wonder at all that communication seems to work (or maybe it really doesn't, but the dis-connects are so small that they don't affect everyday life).

2) The world isn't black and white. You'll find traits that you like in people you don't like and vice versa. It's quite a balancing act to decide whether some set of traits push someone from one side of the scale to another -- and it can be quite disorienting when you discover "bad" traits in someone you like. People generally do things that fit into their world model of "what's right", but may not fit into your model of "what's right". I'm pretty sure that my own "judging" of people is pretty fluid and is predicated on many factors.

In your example of attacking the innocent & powerless, it would obviously make a difference to me if the person was talking about making more corporate profit or if they were using an argument like "bombing Japan in WWII killed innocent people, but it also saved more lives than were lost, because it ended the war earlier". It would also matter to me whether the person had themselves been the victim/target of such an attack. Imagine someone raised by the sole survivor of an ethnic cleansing -- to them, none of the "enemy" are really innocent, and women who give birth to more "enemy" are perpetuating the oppression.

I do, however, question your belief that the vast majority of US soldiers don't even think about threatening to attack innocents & women. I believe that the thought crosses their minds quite often, but is pushed back most of the time. I don't think that they are different from any other US citizen in this manner -- they are just exposed to more situations and deprivation that bring it all out of the theoretical.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

1) I agree. Communication breakdown is a powerful force for problem-causing. :-)

2) I'm often pretty much live-and-let-live about a lot of stuff, particularly if I feel I can make choices that avoid the disagreement areas entirely (as a made-up example, "don't lend a book to CJ because she won't take care of it"). Then there are some things that really get my dander up, and I guess this is one of them.

I definitely agree that the person's past and the goals in mind make a difference. I'm prone to get all angry before I know whether the speaker has survived an ethnic cleansing or is hoping to save lives, and that too is a powerful force for problem-causing. (wry smile)

I'll stick with my thoughts on the soldiers a little longer. Boy, were we ever taught that was seriously wrong. Attack combatants. It's sort of like -- awful example alert -- I really, honest to goodness, don't consider engaging in incest. I just don't think about it. Now I may have a more powerful censor in my head than some folk do, and God knows I haven't been in combat myself, so I'm not the best example to go by. Maybe many soldiers think it but will have a harder time talking about doing it.

WARNING: My knowledge of the military comes mainly from "Asterix the Legionaire"

[shoutingboy.livejournal.com]

'I'll stick with my thoughts on the soldiers a little longer. Boy, were we ever taught that was seriously wrong. Attack combatants.'

I think what makes it blurry is that in unconventional war, it's really really hard to tell who the combatants are. So a soldier out in the field is thinking about attacking innocents all the time--because he doesn't know if they're innocent. Smiling ten-year-old Iraqi is running towards the convoy--the soldier has to be asking himself questions like, "Does he have a bomb? How much time will I need to shoot him if he does have a bomb? What's the longest I can take to work that out?" Then the kid stops running and waves, and the soldier thinks "whew, he was an innocent after all" and throws him a Hershey bar.

That's the sort of thing the Geneva conventions were meant to fix. If all the soldiers wear uniforms, then everyone not wearing a uniform is a civilian, and is safe. The soldiers have agreed to wear "shoot me" signs, to protect the non-soldiers. So if one side stops fighting in uniform, they're deliberately hiding behind the civilians.

Sorry... rant over now.

Re: WARNING: My knowledge of the military comes mainly from "Asterix the Legionaire"

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Yes, groups who strap bombs to kids are something I've heard of too. I don't know how I'd respond if I'd been there.

[airporter.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on this; I grew up one of them (in a house of men, I was the 90 pound weakling) and I've gained an absolute disrespect bordering on uncivil displays for anyone who'd pick the wings off butterflies.

I'm rigid enough about it that I can't contemplate such situations without an angry response; occasionally, that makes it difficult to consider the thoughts of others that might seem to excuse or balance the scales. Learning to accept that the circumstances are fluid is a key.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I'm prone to the belief that human beings would be a lot more decent to others if everyone had to spend some time as the 90 pound weakling.

[vito-excalibur.livejournal.com]

If I'm starting to get ticked off, it could be nothing more serious than my belief that what you say is what you mean.

It's one of my most firmly held beliefs that if you want to know what a person is like, just listen, because they'll tell you.

(Not that misunderstandings don't happen - but that I believe they happen far more often because one hears what one wants to hear and not otherwise, than because one hears what isn't actually said.)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I know that I can be terribly imprecise with language, so it would make sense for me to remember that asking for clarification could be useful. But absent that sort of thing... yes. What you said. If someone says it and means it, then to me, that's real.