The standing girl does it for what she considers to be right. The ones taking a knee, do it for what they consider to be right. Then all play, side by side, as a team.
We, the ‘spectators’, take sides. And tear the society apart in the process.
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Blame is something which is attributed while responsibility is something which is assumed.
Let’s return to rape. The recurring question here being:
As stated by the Chinese proverb above, victim blaming will get us nowhere. For as long as we’ll ‘blame first, ask questions later’ we’ll never understand what’s going on. Remain stuck in ‘status quo’. Where some of the victims will feel entitled to say:
Can you blame them? Should we blame them? After all, the broadness of the accusation ultimately reduces it to a shot in the foot… But haven’t we agreed earlier that blame will not move us forward? No matter how we feel about the whole thing?
How about ‘manning’ up? How about each of us, men and women, assuming responsibility? Each their own!
Why?!? Simply because it is us who have to deal with the consequences! We, the women who get raped. We, the fathers, brothers, partners, sons, friends, etc. of the raped women. And we, the mothers of the raped women.
We, all of us, have ‘condoned’ a society where male children are taught to be assertive. Chivalrous, maybe, but, certainly, assertive. And, simultaneously, a society where female children are taught to behave nicely and to refrain from becoming a ‘nuisance’. These are, roughly, the gender roles our society – read ‘we, the parents’, continue to imprint upon the young generation. The Dolce and Gabbana advertisement above being only one of the myriad examples which illustrates this fact.
What next?
In the name of ‘playing it safe’ are we going to presume that each male (?!?) is a potential rapist? And take the ‘necessary’ precautions?
Ooops! How is a potential victim going to protect herself against a (close) acquaintance? What kind of clothing are they supposed to wear and what kind of a behavior should they adopt in order to avoid being raped by a “current or former spouse, boyfriend or girlfriend (?!?)”
OK, let’s consider we’re done with the ‘blame-game’. Let’s play ‘responsibly’ now. Who should assume it?
We! As in ‘All of us’. For the simple reason that it will always be us who will ‘foot the bill’. Have to deal with the consequences!
From having to overcome the experience of being raped to helping towards healing the wounds to actually bearing the costs – not only the financial ones, of so many people being hurt.
We, the parents, need to educate our children in such a way as to understand that rape – in any shape, way or form, is unacceptable. We, both men and women, need to educate ourselves about what to do when in ‘dire straits’. How to avoid ‘dangerous situations’ – from not going to ‘sleazy’ bars to not taking our dates to ‘unsafe’ places. We, all of us, need to educate ourselves towards openness. Towards coming forward when something like this happens. Towards helping those who suffer it. As in being an ‘active’ participant instead of pretending nothing happened. And, last but not least, we – all of us, need to learn how to overcome this. And how to help the victims to overcome their tragic experiences.
Well, all knowledge is, ultimately, false. Or, at least, incomplete.
Bearing this in mind, we understand there is no such thing as false knowledge. Only people unwilling to adapt their understanding of things to the newly discovered facts… In this sense, it’s not the false knowledge which is dangerous, it’s those who worship ‘self made idols’! Those who are so convinced that what they know is enough. That their understanding of the world is so right and so complete that it has reached ‘perfection’. That their Weltanschauung is, hence, ‘sacred’. ‘Worship-able’, if you’ll allow this word.
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The above phrase makes a lot of sense. Every beating which had become ‘public knowledge’ does make life ‘easier’ to those men who are known to be ‘peaceful’. In a sense…
On the other hand, every beating which becomes public knowledge but the beater isn’t chastised for his actions makes life harder for everybody. For women. The beaten ones are discouraged from making their plight public. Those not beaten yet are taught that being beaten isn’t such a big deal. For men. Those who already do it, feel no compulsion to stop. Those who would do it feel encouraged to ‘experiment’. Those who would like to do it but cannot – for whatever reasons, feel frustrated. Those who abhor it feel ashamed for belonging to the same gender. And discouraged from doing anything about it. For the entire species. Violence become normalized. Socially accepted. Expected, even… Mothers and fathers don’t teach their sons that this is an unacceptable behavior while teaching their daughters to not be ‘surprised’ if it happens. All the more so when children witness their mother being abused while nobody does anything about it. Not even the abused mother… Not even when the abusive husband abuses the children along with the mother…
So what ‘awards’ are we talking about here? What’s the real meaning of “All men benefit from the actions of violent men”? Or the real meaning of the phrase is that there is no such thing as a really good man?
Another logical ‘extension’ would be ‘All people benefit from the actions of thieves. This is why locks are being built and the police is being paid’. For humans are, by definition, nothing but sinners… right?
How about doing something about the whole situation instead of peddling in double edged memes? Because the only explanation for women – along with children and peaceful men, being abused is the lack of social reaction whenever a beating – or any other form of abuse, becomes public knowledge.
30 years ago – 32, to be precise, Francis Fukuyama had come up with the notion that people – as in the human race, had finally realized that liberal democracy was the only reasonable way forward. Hence ‘the end of history’. The end of conflict… the end of ‘misunderstanding’ between people…
“WASHINGTON (AP) — The Democrats’ sweeping attempt to rewrite U.S. election and voting law suffered a major setback in the Senate Tuesday, blocked by a filibuster wall of Republican opposition to what would be the largest overhaul of the electoral system in a generation.” “The bill, known as the For the People Act, would touch on virtually every aspect of how elections are conducted, striking down hurdles to voting that advocates view as the Civil Rights fight of the era, while also curbing the influence of money in politics and limiting partisan influence over the drawing of congressional districts. But many in the GOP say the measure represents instead a breathtaking federal infringement on states’ authority to conduct their own elections without fraud — and is meant to ultimately benefit Democrats. It failed on a 50-50 vote after Republicans, some of whom derided the bill as the “Screw the People Act,” denied Democrats the 60 votes needed to begin debate under Senate rules. Vice President Kamala Harris, the first Black woman to hold her office, presided over the chamber as the bill failed to break past that filibuster barrier.”
The end of misunderstanding between people?!?
During the Cold War – the end of which had prompted Fukuyama to draw his conclusion, the ‘misunderstanding’ was dividing the two ideological blocs. Between those who had learned to value of the individual and those who didn’t yet had a real chance at doing this.
Nowadays the misunderstanding had seeped deeper. Way deeper… The two parties of the country which had been the stalwart of democracy during the Cold War don’t see eye to eye as to how the electoral process should be organized. The Guardians of the Revolution and the Supreme Leader do not agree – at least apparently, on who should be approved to run for office.
Meanwhile, Putin enjoys the limelight….
The end of history, eh?!?
Maybe, but not the one envisioned by Fukuyama…
PS Fukuyama must be so fed up about this… Well, I don’t think he was wrong! I do see liberal democracy as the only reasonable way forward. The enthusiasm with which the world had met his work was a very strong signal that things were going in the right direction… The problem resides in the fact that other people had other plans. Had identified other ‘opportunities’. And in the fact that we, the people, have been sleeping with out boots on!
LE. The Moldovan officials in charge with running the 2021 snap legislative elections are tying hard to keep the Moldovan citizens living abroad away from the polling stations.
Last minute edit The Electoral Committee, CEC, had unanimously decided that 150 polling stations will be organized, despite the Foreign Ministry asking for 191 and the Supreme Court ordering them to comply…
Do you see a pattern here? Well. I see a question mark! If things like gerrymandering and voter suppression can happen in America, what chances are that authoritarian wannabees won’t spring up all over the world?
Some of them, the self styled ‘scientists’, study reality as if it was an ‘exterior’ fact. At the other end of the spectrum, other people are convinced reality is nothing but a projection/illusion.
To me, this whole thing is yet another example of ‘which came first’, only simpler. Way simpler…
You need a chicken to lay an egg to hatch a chicken. This is indeed complicated…
‘Reality’, on the other hand, is, first and foremost, a human concept!
There was no such ‘thing’ as ‘reality’ until one of our forepersons had come up with the word/concept!
‘And where did that foreperson came ‘in’ from, huh?!?’
Have you noticed the scare marks?
The ‘thing’ we identify as being ‘reality’ had existed since… the Big Bang… I don’t know…. But I do know that nobody called it that – or thought of it in that manner, until somebody did! And until the peers of that person agreed to use the term and to think about ‘it’ – the ‘thing’, not the word – in that manner.
‘Does this mean that we made ‘reality’?
No, not exactly made it… more about this later… Only ‘found’ it and ‘measured’ it. Named it, to put it in a simpler form.
As for who made it… this is another good question.
God? I argued, in my last post, that ‘God’ – the concept, is yet another human artifact. The only bridge we could trust to take us to the future.
I don’t know, with absolute certainty, whether the whole thing we call ‘reality’ has been made (is constantly being made, as according to the Ash-Arite tradition) by an ‘outside’ agent or it had evolved naturally. But I do know that if our ‘reality’ had been made by somebody then a ‘small’ question begs to be asked.
Who made that somebody’s reality?
I can accept the notion that we are lab rats. Playing in a pen made by some experimenter. Just as we do with/to our lab rats. But exactly as I’m trying to find an answer to ‘how did we come about’, the moment I’ll accept that we’ve been made by some agent will be the moment I’ll start wondering about ‘who pulled this creative agent out of the proverbial hat!’.
Let’s stick with the naturally evolving reality! The alternative is far too complicated…
‘But if it had evolved naturally, then nobody made it… right???!’
…No…, not exactly, anyway! It may have evolved naturally but that doesn’t preclude any factors – and even agents, from chipping away at it!
‘What?!? Are you gonna make up your mind? As in once and for all???’
No, I can’t promise you anything like that! My mind will never be ‘made up’. My understanding is a work in progress. I’m constantly adjusting my opinions according to the evidence ‘presented’ to me by ‘reality’.
‘And what about this constantly evolving reality? What/who drives this ‘evolution’?’
What do you see here? A ‘Nature Made’, volcano whose flanks had been eroded by naturally occurring factors. The debris had been transported to lower altitudes, by other naturally occurring factors and then transformed into fertile soil by a different class of equally naturally occurring factors. The factors belonging to the first class had been rain, freeze, wind and gravity while in the second class we point out algae, microbes, plants and animals. On top, literally, of these natural occurrences we find the consequences of our own actions. Of our own agency. Of our own choices!
The buildings you see, the farms you know are there, the roads people take when going from their houses to their farms… and so on, up to the top of the mountain. Where we find snow full of other ‘evidence’ of our own existence. Soot, various industrial dust, etc., etc.,…
So. We live at the intersection between the natural evolution of things and the consequences of our previous existence/choices.
We live in a reality increasingly influenced by our own existence. Are we truly aware of this?
Are we conscient enough? Enough to realize how much of our reality is of our own doing?
Yet we perceive it as being ‘exterior’. As including the others but not ‘me’. ‘I’ determine what’s real and what not, hence I’m above ‘mere’ reality.
We perceive ourselves as being distinct from the (rest of the) reality yet each of us continuously shares substance and energy with it. We breathe, eat, drink, excrete. We bask in the sun whenever we can during winter and use wind and water to cool ourselves down during hot summer days.
We feel overwhelmed whenever we think about it yet we constantly chip away at it. We build shelters and roads, we grow crops and raise animals, we dig up minerals and transform them into consumer goods. In time, we had displaced most of the ‘Nature’ we have evolved in and replaced it with ‘Man Made’.
Berger and Luckmann had famously – yet somewhat convolutedly, demonstrated that ‘reality’ was a (social) construct. That what we know about the reality and what we have built based on that knowledge are the consequences of our common effort.
What I’m interested in is the ‘complicated’ manner in which we, each of us, interact with ‘reality’.
We grow up learning about reality. From those around us. During this process, we simultaneously accumulate knowledge and develop the instrument with which we gauge reality. Our consciences. Along with this process we also change, together with our teachers and siblings, the very reality we learn about.
Interesting, isn’t it?
We depend, for our dear life, on something we don’t fully understand. We extract sustenance from it and throw back at it the results of our cravings. Since our individual knowledge is severely limited, we depend on others – our peers, to complement our understanding of what’s going on around us. Yet in our attempts to fulfill our cravings we mislead some of our siblings.
Reality has been shaped by life from the very first moment. Only in those times, the process was driven exclusively by ‘needs’. The living things of yore did change their reality only they were doing exclusively what they had to in order to survive. Nowadays, while the rest of the living world continue to follow the ‘time proven traditions’, we – the conscient, and presumably rational, humans, transform the reality according to our wishes. While we don’t exactly understand what’s going on….
Then how come we’re so snug about the whole thing?
And what’s the meaning of the Adenium Obesum I used to illustrate this post? I live in Romania. The Desert Rose is a native of the Arabian Desert. Yet one grows, and flowers, in my home. Only because I afford to heat my ‘shelter’ during winter. And to spend some of my time caring for it. I don’t really need that plant in order to survive. Yet I’ve changed the reality around me to such an extent that that plant is able to thrive. Almost 4000 km straight North from its native desert…. I’ve been taking care of it for some 4 years now. And I’ve learned only 5 minutes ago that its sap is toxic… What was I telling you about us not being fully aware of our actions?
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One of the hardest decisions an agent gets to make is to choose between
and
Otherwise put, are we to allow evolution to proceed?
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The market had become free. Free for more and more people to search for new ways to meet their needs. This freedom had allowed the market to become efficient enough for more and more people to be able to satisfy some of their wishes, on top of most of their needs.
Agora had become free. So free that politicians had to solve more and more of the real problems encountered by the society at large. Life had become so free that states had become prosperous.
And more and more of the people were happy!
Now, the market is so free that more and more people have started to search for ‘really’ new ways to meet their wishes. Eventually, they came to be known as ‘financial engineers’. The market is no longer the place where people meet to satisfy their needs but the place where some of them accrue huge sums of money while more and more of the rest find it harder and harder to survive.
The Agora is also at its freest. ‘Political marketeers’ have taken over from the ‘the old school’ – and ‘real’ politics have been replaced with ‘give the people what they want’. Political life is no longer about solving problems. It has become a relentless quest for power. Keeping things ‘afloat’ is no longer THE goal, only a cost.
Is this sustainable?
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You cannot explore the limits of something without knowning what that something is. You might not know how that thing works, or came to be, but you need to have at least some idea about what that thing is!
So, ‘What conscience is?’
Huh?!?
‘Cognitive function…’, ‘ability to tell right from wrong’, ‘self awareness’… you name it. Rathern confusing, isn’t it? Specially when you already had a clear idea about what the word used to mean… Or was that only an impression?!? An ilussion, actually?
Let me introduce you to my version of things.
Everything that surrounds us has a ‘discrete’ nature.
Both matter and energy are, ultimatelly, made of quanta. Certain theoretical considerations suggest that time and space are multiple of Planck time and space units, respectivelly. Any lenght, in time and/or space, smaller than a Planck unit not having any sense. The argument being the facts that the speed of light is limited and that matter/energy itself (which fills the space and generates time) is of a discrete nature. As in ‘made of quanta’.
And this ‘discrete nature of things’ is visible at every level.
We have quanta, quarks and other elementary particles, atoms, molecules/crystals. And ‘objects’. We have substances, membranes, cells, organisms, species. And individuals.
When our scientifically minded forefathers first tried to make some sense of what we had already learned about the world, they had come up with the notion of ‘states of matter aggregation’. Or ‘phases of matter’. At first, there were three of them. Solid, Liquid and Gaseous. Currently, we recognize five. Solid, Liquid, Gaseous, Plasma and Bose-Einstein Condensate. The first four are deemed to be ‘natural’ while the last is considered to have been ‘made by man’.
The main difference between them being the manner in which the components ‘stick’ to each other. The amount of force with which each of them interacts with its neighbors. The same ‘level of internal interaction’ governs the way in which various ‘objects’ interact when they ‘meet’. Two clouds of gas interact differently than two bodies of water. Which interact differently than two rocks. Furthermore, a stream of gas interacts differently with a liquid than with a solid object. And so on….
My point being that the ‘phase of matter’ one object belongs to determines the manner in which that object interacts with its exterior.
‘OK, somewhat interesting but rather hard to follow… anyway, what has any of this to do with ‘conscience’?!?’
Given what I’ve already written, where would you put a living organism? In what ‘phase of matter’? Is it solid? Liquid? Gaseous? Plasmatic?!? Or, given the fact that it contains all three ‘classic’ phases it’s closer to a Bose-Einstein condensate?
For lack of a better word, I consider ‘conscience’ to be a ‘state of matter aggregation’.
We’ve associated ‘being conscious’ with self awareness. With the human version of self-awareness… the one described by Humberto Maturana. ‘The learned ability to observe ourselves in the act of observing‘. I suggest that we point our attention towards any other living organism. And notice that it acts as if it was aware of itself. It keeps its inside separate from the outside. It choses what to ingest. What of it to digest. And what to excrete. Sometimes even where to excrete. Then it passes the instructions according to which it had performed all these tasks towards the next generations.
Or would it be more suitable to consider ‘life’ itself as a ‘state of matter aggregation’? And consciousness as a property of life? As hardness is for solids and viscosity is for fluids/gases?
‘And what about ‘the discrete nature of things’? What has this to do with ‘conscience’?’
You see, I’ve just proposed ‘conscience’ as ‘state of matter’. That ‘phase’ where life takes place. That place where individual organisms interact, among themselves and with their environment, attempting to survive. And to pass on the information contained in them. We, humans, have taken ‘conscience’ to the next level. Our conscience is far more than the natural tendency to uphold the functionality of the individual organism. We observe ourselves in the act of observing. We set what is good, and bad, for us. We set goals.
Sometimes without being aware that our goals might hurt us. The individual ‘us’. And the collective us. The collective us which makes us, individuals, possible.
Primum non nocere!
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As much as I love writing, I do have to eat. And to provide for my family. Earning money takes time. If you’d like me to write more, and on a more regular basis, hit the button. Your contribution will be appreciated!
As much as I love writing, I do have to eat. And to provide for my family. Earning money takes time. If you’d like me to write more, and on a more regular basis, hit the button. Your contribution will be appreciated!
nicichiarasa 