Posts you had second thought about and decided not to post - put them here

I agree that "why do abusers engage in abuse?" is an important question worth addressing. I also think it HAS been addressed, extensively, in our discourse for years and years now and while that doesn't mean it's been somehow "solved" it does imo mean that a constructive conversation about the topic should start from somewhere stronger than "well here's my theory". It also shouldn't be the immediate sole focus when news of abuse comes out, which is why I'm glad soref didn't post this on the original thread it was meant for.

Re: exposure, I am myself interested in this topic, but exclusively in the context of "talking about traumatic childhood experiences with my therapist" and "reading research papers/well-researched articles". It is interesting but this here is the wrong forum for it, imho.

i guess for me the downside of what i'll call the "rawhide" approach to abusers is that it sort of presupposes the _existence_ of a just society. like, you know, masturbating non-consensually in front of someone else is a clear violation of moral norms, if someone does that just...

just what, exactly? i mean what do you _do_ with someone like louis c.k.? or whoever the latest guy is, or paul rubens (or maybe paul rubens doesn't count to you!), or...

because the truth is that _not_ everyone has the same moral norms, some people _are_ of the opinion that just because someone non-consensually masturbates in front of their employees doesn't mean you shouldn't see them in concert, some people will be like "come on! they're _funny!_". and if i have to deal with _that_ sort of moral reasoning, you know, why should i draw the line at the moral reasoning of someone who non-consensually masturbates in front of someone else??

and i can choose not to, i can choose to say "well anybody who does that is wrong and anyone who makes excuses for someone who does that is wrong and..."

and what? it's me against the world? i don't _have_ to make compromises, i don't _have_ to spend a lot of time slowly explaining to well-meaning cis people why they shouldn't buy the harry potter game, but to some extent i _can_, and i feel like it's of benefit to me to do so. and if i'm going to do that, i have a hard time doing that without getting into the motivations and mindset of the person who is doing The Bad Thing.

of course it's going to be different for other people, and there is a question of appropriate venue. the original thread itself, i agree, probably not the place for that discussion. here? to me this is a good place, this is a thread that's kind of implicitly _for_ metadiscussion.

to be fair, paul rubens was jacking it in a porn theater, which seems like an appropriate venue for that sort of behavior

Let me just say, I posted that above in a moment of exasperation because I for one am tired of giving that much head space to the motivations of predators. I've spent more than half my life in it, it hasn't brought me any closer to understanding.

My thoughts exactly. I thought your post was fine and otm.

Likewise, you said it much more elegantly than I did.

I kind of resent the implication that a lack of interest in going over this again means you must subscribe to a worldview where some people are driven by pure evil and it's totally incomprehensible that feels like a huge strawman

I don't see anyone implying that here.

It can be naive to boil down every enemy / bad person motivation as "because: evil"

can we start a separate "this is the thread where we strawman" thread for this latest detour

this seems like a mischaracterisation of the it's not that deep position which would (I assume) be more interested in how this behaviour reinforces patriarchy in X industry or society than in the deeply boring and massively overindulged posited internal struggles of these men xp

xp what we talk about when we talk about strawmanning and why we shouldn't talk about it anymore because it's deeply boring and if you don't find it deeply boring then that's not ok, here's why

If there’s no curiosity about the behavior then yes, the conclusion is usually to portray the evildoer as having cartoon character motivations, which complicates conversations about how to deal with the consequences of that behavior in industry and society. It’s actually a circle not a straight line.

we live in a society

Yes well there's your strawman - the idea that the frustration itt comes from a lack of curiosity rather than frustration at these motivations being re-analysed over and over in ways unlikely to bring up new results.

xpost

straight line is actually a kind of circle (Ex: what is the radius?)

everyone's brain works differently - some people feel compelled to understand the human motivations behind abhorrent behavior, other people don't - there is no "correct" way of approaching it

xps in other words we can understand how eg gender relations are structured and enforced without having to posit some unknowable evil at the core (we can but it's not necessary on a descriptive level) but the obsessive focus on the individual psychology (of guys who must be loving all this attention) seems in practice to have a mystifying effect on this understanding (not least because individual psychology isn't really a thing)

crut otm

also when was the point of ilx to "bring up new results" ?

When an album is repolled iirc

Yes well there's your strawman - the idea that the frustration itt comes from a lack of curiosity rather than frustration at these motivations being re-analysed over and over in ways unlikely to bring up new results.

xpost

― Daniel_Rf, Tuesday, June 6, 2023 11:31 AM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Well idk we're not all caught up equally on these supposed conversations where we figured all that motivation stuff out already! Congrats on your hard work.

But anyway, indeed if you don't identify with the strawman I'm describing then you aren't who I'm referring to. I do suspect some people are that person though.

it's not a question of hard work to notice that every time abuse from a celebrity is reported there is a whole lot of writing and thinking about what that means for and about the abuser, in a way that easily dwarfs any talk about the victim; there are obviously reasons for that but it's still a fucked up dynamic, even when the ppl engaging in these discussions are well intentioned. as I've said above this doesn't mean the question of these motivations has been solved or that I have the answers.

I'm not a fan of the clunky way those conversations unfold and how often they're missing the point. I totally agree there!

the most boring historical debate is "what really motivated hitler?" as if antisemitism isn't a good enough answer and we need to delve into his parental issues and sexuality for some reason

discussions are clunky and point missing by design on this thread it's all drivebys that's what it's here for

it is a pretty bad thread idea tbf, I was thinking of mentioning recent discourse to my wife but realised the concept of the thread itself would provoke such eyerolling that I wouldn't get far past that

Threads you had second thought about and decided not to post

See you could have discussions about anything on ilx, but those threads tend to get taken over by people taking up all the oxygen of the discussion with repeatedly asking for basic concepts to be explained; or you might (just as an example!) make a reference to violence that targeted a group you’re a member of only to have that mocked; or you might just not feel like the derailing of serious topics that happens frequently enough that it’s just not worth it. Stop trying to ascribe other motivations than that, it’s really not complicated.

Speaking of boring and oversimplified, unironically fulfilling Godwin's Law is an interesting choice, but I feel like this knee-jerk resistance towards analyzing human behavior is due to the way it inevitably humanizes in the process, and if that's true it supports the point I was making.

Anyway! I'll go back to lurking and making occasional dumb joke posts.

I think you have very different experience of some of the posters itt if you think they’re resistant to analysing human behaviour.

They aren't! I don't think that. I'm talking about who we do and do not want to be reminded are also humans.

disclaimer: that acknowledgement is not synonymous with sympathizing

here's the thing from my POV, in general the problem with these discussions is contextual:

as posters who have been criticizing this discussion have alluded to, many times these discussions have taken place on threads that should be centering the victims, rather than the abuser/person who did the harm. This is not the case here. Everyone who was talking about the contested subject was conscientious about not taking up space on a thread where the topic infers the victims should be centered.

This discussion isn't even happening on a "general subject" thread where people are reading/wanting to participate in discussion about other things but a discussion they find frustrating and pointless and perhaps privileged is taking up space. (e.g. Politics threads, an ILM thread about a specific musician or genre)

ILX's structure is fairly non-hierarchical, except for recency. Like, there isn't a "featured thread" or some algorithmically determined thread that has greater import and status than other threads. The closest thing to that is "why is this thread always at the top of SNA?" ... but in this case, the thread title has nothing to do with this discussion, so ... it isn't the same as say the "Cancelled" thread that some of the same posters were objecting to recently.

IRL people have conversations in real time, at for example, meetings, where they have to sit through discussion about such things and feel frustrated. But this is a text based message board ... it isn't even like people are posting youtubes or twitter embeds that are taking a bunch of time to load.

So as I see it, this is contextually different, and the posters who are complaining are maybe just used to seeing it in problematic contexts and having a pattern-based response without thinking about this particular context.

I'm talking about who we do and do not want to be reminded are also humans.

It's interesting to me. It happens at our expense over on whatever counts as bizarro ILX.

xps if that's the case (that it could be an error of recognition) then how are we supposed to know? assuming every space is safe until proven otherwise hasn't worked out great and if we're serious about rejecting the moral dualism some are being accused of then it doesn't matter who we think is a good person because there are dynamics at work that are much bigger than us

[sideways gesture at whole spiel about godwin's law not prescriptive use as such example of anglo-european discourse exceptionalising nazism blah blah blah]

godwin's law was repealed around 2016 iirc

is there anyone here who thinks ["bad people"] are a different species because it would be interesting to hear from them

[ACTIVITY NOTIFICATION] EVAN69 you've blinked 235646 times today. Goal almost reached - keep it up you got this! Let's go! [WINK NOW to receive 20% off your next UBER EATS order - deal expires in: 3 DAYS]

xps if that's the case (that it could be an error of recognition) then how are we supposed to know? assuming every space is safe until proven otherwise hasn't worked out great

what is this in response to? I don't want to respond as if it was addressed to my post if it wasn't? Because I'm kinda unclear on what you're asking if it was in response to my post.

Tbh I think digging into the background of "H" is maybe helpful in the sense that there has to be pathology involved, and I suspect many of the worst members of the n*zi party would have comfortably found a home hating another group, in another era, in another place. Not that antisemitism doesn't attract the worst of the worst as far as that goes.

I was thinking abt a former friend recently whose low key demeanor was probably cloaking a sublevel iciness and cruelty I didn't notice, and who seems like a guy who is perfectly at home in the alt-right but might have enjoyed a spot working for Goebbels or driving his listeners to murder on a Rwandan radio station.

xp it was the gist of it is like if this discussion is worth having but maybe it superficially resembles others that aren't worth having and some people are taking it the wrong way and the same could be said for this meta-(meta-?)discussion then idk i lost my train of thought

I don't think people are misperceiving anything people are just perceiving different threads and connections due to different experiences temperaments motivations etc

https://media.tenor.com/lqkPTYGvvGYAAAAC/divorce-divorce-babe-divorce.gif

One thing you can’t deny — my threads put numbers on the boards

You are a popular poster, who will never be banned

xp who cares about what black posters might feel about the WELL ACTUALLY of racial slurs right?

I do

Treeship otm

the prize for winning Best Bully of ILX is absolutely nothing ... maybe a mere reprieve from a ban due to enough people being intimidated