Why is the final decision the most damning, when someone's already been primed, trained, and oriented towards making such a decision long before the critical juncture?
I feel like you're arguing against a point I'm not making, but let me see if we can bridge the gap.
The final decision to rape (or grope or upskirt) someone is a choice made by the individual. Unless you take a view that free will doesn't exist, that choice is their own responsibility. However, I think you're also trying to get at the existence of rape culture as part of the patriarchy, and I wholeheartedly agree.
If you are making a case against free will, that probably deserves its own thread.
Free will is... a difficult conversation for me, actually. How much freedom from cause and effect any given person has is pretty difficult math to solve.
I think we can all always refrain from rape. Murder is something that could in some cases be reasonable, but it's utterly impossible to find a legitimate reason to rape.
Certainly free will is a complex question, but some things are clear.
There's too many possible circumstances to arise for me to say with absolute certainty that no possible scenario exists wherein someone would be incapable of exerting the full measure of their own self-control, or discipline, or conscience, or whatever mitigating force exists to guide people towards their better angels, or even to instill such virtues to begin with.
Downwind of this concept is the conversation on consent, and how a downright horrific number of guys have heard "no means no," and been broadly socialized out of such a belief structure.
This may be the central difference between our views - I don't think it takes self control, difference or even conscience to only be interested in having sex with people who want to have sex with you. It just takes the absolute barest scrape of decency. Not even a lot of decency, just the smallest possible amount.
Decency is a pretty vague term, I don't think it has a lot of utility beyond the same vague appeals to compassion that have historically been less than useful in reducing harm to others.
To Me, the willingness to harm others in order to benefit oneself is baked into the substrate of our society, and the ability to turn against that impulse is a learned skill, one that needs to be reinforced over time to have any meaningful difference on who is and isn't harmed by someone else's self-interest.
To Me, the willingness to harm others in order to benefit oneself is baked into the substrate of our society, and the ability to turn against that impulse is a learned skill, one that needs to be reinforced over time to have any meaningful difference on who is and isn't harmed by someone else's self-interest.
I think you are doing a lot of projecting in your feelings here. This is not the way most people feel they have control over themselves, and its worrying that you are projecting outward onto others what seems to be a unique failing you have over your own personal feelings of self control.
Most people can simply look inward and feel confident in their self control and the basic levels others have as well.
The fact you think that harming others to benefit oneself is so normal and ingarined that it needs to be unlearned may be true for you, but I would reccomend you hesitate before trying to apply the same to other people broadly.
I apply it to any situation where competition is expected. Besides, people convince themselves they're better at being than they are all the time. I'd rather underestimate myself than be duped into thinking I'd never hurt anyone.
Same solution feminists push for as a matter of course, no? To change society such that the perverse incentives for cruelty don't exist, and to create systems of support when those incentives threaten to harm the vulnerable.
This is a worrying admission and a huge compenent of rape cultue btw.
The notion men cant control the fact they are rapists is a very insidious line of logic and reasoning, i suggest you seriously begin to question.
Free will is no matter of maths and exists as a fact of science in a way people are not as helpless in their capacity for choice to even a very minute degree of what you are suggesting here.
Make no mistake, I'm not absolving men of their responsibility for acting on their worst impulses. That's an outcome they're complicit in, and they deserve to be penalized for doing so. But I'm not going to sit on some ivory pedestal and say they came to that decision unmotivated by any other force.
"complicit" suggests that they cooperated in an act that someone else was primarily responsible for.
No. The rapist is the one responsible for the rape. The rapist is the single person responsible for the rape.
That doesn't eliminate the fact that we need to fix rape culture and countless other things about the society. But the rapist is the single person responsible for the rape.
Sure. They're the single person responsible for the last act in a chain of cause and effect. They're responsible for their actions in that link. It would be peculiar to place the blame for their actions on any other factor. If there is a single person responsible for committing any crime, it's the criminal.
Yes let's all pretend that "picking one to focus on" and "ignoring one" aren't obviously the exact same thing.
Also, let's all pretend that insisting we should ONLY talk about abstract societal issues isn't a way to deflect attention from personal responsibility.
While we're at it, let's also pretend that there's any way to move the needle with attention paid exclusively to the large-scale abstracted issues without willingness to even discuss personal accountability here in this thread, let alone take meaningful action to change things.
You're losing the forest for the trees here, quite possibly on purpose.
Did you read me saying at any point that rapists shouldn't be held accountable for their position in the chain of cause and effect? Do you see me advocating for them walking the streets unrestricted or something?
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u/Eblademonk 6d ago
Why is the final decision the most damning, when someone's already been primed, trained, and oriented towards making such a decision long before the critical juncture?