Further to Normalcy
Oct. 29th, 2009 09:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lenora_rosePeriodically, I get these navel-gazing bits. This was actually word for word my comment on a recent Jim Hines post.
Before you read a word of mine, go read his post:
Rapists and Abusers (If I have to warn people it might be triggery, you didn't read the title.)
Shorter him: People prefer to talk about rapists as if they were a whole other species of human, not potentially normal. And this can be very bad when the rapist doesn't fit the profile of evil, when he looks like any other guy. And he talks about the bell curve, the possible slope connecting people who commit abuse with other people.
And the very first comment he got was from someone who pretty much tried to argue that ebcause she can't imagine committing that behaviour, and because of statistics about how many people are mentally ill, rapists, or at least horrible gang-rapists of fifteen-year-old girls, *are* a different species.
Her justifications rang false to me. Partly because of the Milgram Experiment and its ilk already suggesting some aspects of that slope. But also.... because I am normal. (I've discussed being normal before. It's a state to treasure, but not a compliment to myself, because I didn't earn it. It's one of those things earned for me.)
And by her logic, if I'm normal... I'm not capable of violence.
And thus, though I didn't answer her directly, I wrote this:
_________________
This ... is very true.
because I come at it from the perspective of a person who had a physically violent temper in her teens. As in, yes, I sometimes took a swing when I was mad.
I fought badly, and I did few people any actual harm. And I knew, when not in a temper, that it was wrong, and tried to rein it in alone. And I was a geek and a weakling, so I was more likely to be the target of derision, not to try and deride others. And I was considered intelligent and got good grades, and did art and writing, and had family who came to parent-teacher days, or talked to the school after an incident, so the teachers thought me worth taking the time on, because they saw me throwing away real potential. (And right there, I suspect, is a whole other post on assumptions about who's worth it...)
However, looking back at myself, I've realised something. I *could* have slid into being the bully. I could have gone far enough to turn into the person who abuses their SO or their spouse.
In this world, every peer I respected or liked turned colder to me if I lashed out. Every authority figure I respected, and every family member I loved discouraged me in every way possible, and tried to find alternate releases.
If, instead, I had a teacher I'd respected who told me I was justified because the people I took a swing at were the *real* bullies, or friends who told me it was cool, and offered to teach me how to fight for real (And not for self-defense alone - and there, the damage would not be in the teaching, but that one casual lash-out could have truly hurt someone, and created worlds more regret than the little scuffles.) If mom hadn't cared, or had made excuses so she could see me as her good girl. If the resource teacher had said nothing. If the Vice-Principal whose name I hold up as *the* person at exactly the right turning point had shrugged me off as incorrigibly violent and not worth trying to help - I might have been a much much worse person.
And yes, even at that, even had I gone that way, I would have found gang-rape appalling. But I see the bell curve. I see the gradients, the small steps.
I have my bitchy side. But I stopped swinging at people regularly by thirteen, did it at all only a handful of times through the rest of school, and have swung at NOBODY since 1995 (And that one, in itself, was a serious outlier.) And I've had people since be impressed by how much I can hold in my temper and act patient in the face of provocation.
_________________
I didn't write this, but I should have:
I am fairly sure I could still do violence. I hope only to defend someone I care about. I PRAY never against anyone I care about. I seem to have lost the ability to get *that* mad about anything,
but I don't trust its disappearance. Nobody has threatened me in that real a way, because few things could be done to me that could call for it. And so far, the support and help my friends have needed have been in all the other forms. Forms which, for the most part, were direct polar opposites to violence. Building up. Creating. Mending. Giving a roof and a bed in need.
May it stay so.
Before you read a word of mine, go read his post:
Rapists and Abusers (If I have to warn people it might be triggery, you didn't read the title.)
Shorter him: People prefer to talk about rapists as if they were a whole other species of human, not potentially normal. And this can be very bad when the rapist doesn't fit the profile of evil, when he looks like any other guy. And he talks about the bell curve, the possible slope connecting people who commit abuse with other people.
And the very first comment he got was from someone who pretty much tried to argue that ebcause she can't imagine committing that behaviour, and because of statistics about how many people are mentally ill, rapists, or at least horrible gang-rapists of fifteen-year-old girls, *are* a different species.
Her justifications rang false to me. Partly because of the Milgram Experiment and its ilk already suggesting some aspects of that slope. But also.... because I am normal. (I've discussed being normal before. It's a state to treasure, but not a compliment to myself, because I didn't earn it. It's one of those things earned for me.)
And by her logic, if I'm normal... I'm not capable of violence.
And thus, though I didn't answer her directly, I wrote this:
_________________
This ... is very true.
because I come at it from the perspective of a person who had a physically violent temper in her teens. As in, yes, I sometimes took a swing when I was mad.
I fought badly, and I did few people any actual harm. And I knew, when not in a temper, that it was wrong, and tried to rein it in alone. And I was a geek and a weakling, so I was more likely to be the target of derision, not to try and deride others. And I was considered intelligent and got good grades, and did art and writing, and had family who came to parent-teacher days, or talked to the school after an incident, so the teachers thought me worth taking the time on, because they saw me throwing away real potential. (And right there, I suspect, is a whole other post on assumptions about who's worth it...)
However, looking back at myself, I've realised something. I *could* have slid into being the bully. I could have gone far enough to turn into the person who abuses their SO or their spouse.
In this world, every peer I respected or liked turned colder to me if I lashed out. Every authority figure I respected, and every family member I loved discouraged me in every way possible, and tried to find alternate releases.
If, instead, I had a teacher I'd respected who told me I was justified because the people I took a swing at were the *real* bullies, or friends who told me it was cool, and offered to teach me how to fight for real (And not for self-defense alone - and there, the damage would not be in the teaching, but that one casual lash-out could have truly hurt someone, and created worlds more regret than the little scuffles.) If mom hadn't cared, or had made excuses so she could see me as her good girl. If the resource teacher had said nothing. If the Vice-Principal whose name I hold up as *the* person at exactly the right turning point had shrugged me off as incorrigibly violent and not worth trying to help - I might have been a much much worse person.
And yes, even at that, even had I gone that way, I would have found gang-rape appalling. But I see the bell curve. I see the gradients, the small steps.
I have my bitchy side. But I stopped swinging at people regularly by thirteen, did it at all only a handful of times through the rest of school, and have swung at NOBODY since 1995 (And that one, in itself, was a serious outlier.) And I've had people since be impressed by how much I can hold in my temper and act patient in the face of provocation.
_________________
I didn't write this, but I should have:
I am fairly sure I could still do violence. I hope only to defend someone I care about. I PRAY never against anyone I care about. I seem to have lost the ability to get *that* mad about anything,
but I don't trust its disappearance. Nobody has threatened me in that real a way, because few things could be done to me that could call for it. And so far, the support and help my friends have needed have been in all the other forms. Forms which, for the most part, were direct polar opposites to violence. Building up. Creating. Mending. Giving a roof and a bed in need.
May it stay so.
