Reply #204: yes, let's [View All]

[iverglas]

Note where I didn't say anything about this person not being at fault, though. Careful where you put those strawmen.

You said:

It's mysoginist to wonder if the horrors of homeless existence might have turned this man into an animal?

Now, to start with, who's needing to be careful of where he puts those strawmen, eh? Did someone say that it was misogyinst to wonder such a thing?

Seems to me you have a choice here:
(a) you really are too dim to grasp the point that was being made; and
(b) you really are dishonest enough to pretend not to have grasped it.

Perhaps there's a third option; I've never discovered it.

Lovely to see you're one of the crowd lacking the guts to make a statement they know is false without tacking a cowardly little question mark on the end of it.

But back to our point: how exactly would a person who had been turned into something/someone incapable of forming the intent to commit wrongdoing -- "an animal" -- not then be not to blame for what s/he then did?


An existence where all life is devalued and where violence is the mainstay...nah, that wouldn't change anyone.

I would certainly say that a life of brutality is likely to distort a person's perception of the world and increase the likelihood that the person will do bad things to others, and not do good things for others, out of an exacerbated need to protect him/herself or an acting out of anger against targets not responsible for the brutality. I'm not sure why it would make a person a woman-hater. Maybe someone who had suffered long-term brutality at the hands of a woman or women, but yer average homeless person? You've lost me.

This was not a rant about eating the rich. This was not a random outburst of violent behaviour. This was not an expression of hatred of individuals responsible for his plight. This was a rant about sexually brutalizing a woman. A particular woman, and one whom a homeless person could not reasonably see as more responsible for his/her plight than any number of men I could name. And yet he didn't propose to rape Al Sharpton, about whom I understand he also had harsh words.

This issue arises, for instance, in impoverished First Nations communities in Canada where alcoholism, addiction and sexual violence against women and children are endemic. The women and children in question are not inclined, these days, to accept that their function is to be the recipient of the abuse meted out by disadvantaged or distressed men.

That really is what your cryptic comments here come down to. Because Mr. X is disadvantaged and has been brutalized, it is only natural that his own brutality should be directed toward a woman.

I don't disagree that it is not acceptable to exploit the vulnerable or oppressed or exploited for entertainment. In this case, I actually don't have a clue how vulnerable or oppressed or exploited Mr. X was. I certainly don't have anything to indicate that there are reasons for him proposing to violently rape a stranger that would be understandable to a properly sympathetic person.

Obviously, he is not completely responsible. The patriarchal, misogynist society that permits and encourages those attitudes are a contributing factor. I see no reason to think that anyone would spontaneously associate sexual intercourse and face-smashing, or even think of sexual intercourse as something one would subject another person to against his/her will, just out of the blue; those associations have to be learned, and if he had not learned them, he would not likely have spewed them.

Presumably you've been exposed to these notions, and you don't spew things like that. What might it take for you to absolve someone of responsibility for doing something like that -- for actually committing the acts he talked about? Whom would you be willing to excuse for fantasizing aloud to an audience of what, millions? about doing it?

Sure, you didn't absolve him of responsibility. You just want us to consider whether he should be absolved of responsibility, I guess. So I wonder what conditions would have to be present for you to do that.

But anyhow, this wasn't really about him, was it? It was about a society in which the things that he said are considered to be jokes. You just decided to make it about something else, I guess.

Curious that you have nothing to say about what he said, or about the propriety of it being broadcast, or about whether people who create and broadcast this kind of content should be permitted to continue creating content for broadcast and broadcasting content. I thought somebody might at least have deserved a lecture about free speech and all.