Joss Post at Whedonesque

POSTED BY: FireflyPassenger
UPDATED: Monday, June 11, 2007 08:49
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CHRISMOORHEAD

Monday, May 28, 2007 12:57 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by redhead:

And, Chris, I would argue with you that it is “the military, who solves {problems}, not college kids with picket signs.” I would say that what is happening in Iraq is a pretty good indication of how many problems military intervention solves. (I have nothing but respect for men and women risking their lives. I just don’t think they are succeeding in solving problems there).

That doesn’t mean that military action never solves problems just that it rarely does. Those same “college kids with picket signs” are following in the fine tradition of Ghandi and Martin Luther King, Jr. While I don’t see Whedon on a par with either of these men, his blog is a cry from the same tradition. He asks, as do those great men, that we reach out to change our own behavior. I, for one, intend to try.

It's easy to point to the most recent failure and say "look, it didn't work!", but how long has that land been unbalanced in the presence of warfighters and peace talkers? The only problem I see is the same thing everyone else has been saying, that we didn't hit it hard enough with our military. Turning that area into one giant sheet of glass would very much stop the violence there, but even I'm not an advocate of such brash, unthinking violence, even if it would solve the immediate problem.

How about you look at everything military intervention did stop? How about the spread of fascism and the possibility of a One World Order? Sure, for every one thing our military did right, you could bring up 10 that another country's did wrong, but we're arguing effectiveness here, not moral right and wrong. The bottom line is that military action has achieved the means of whoever was using it historically on a much more consistent basis than any other extension of diplomacy (And yes, I use Clausewitz' definition of war as being an extension of diplomacy).

[IMG]

Ride down from Asgard to the battlefield,
Bringer of the valiant dead who died but never yielded,
Carry we who die in battle over land and sea,
Across the rainbow bridge to Valhalla,
Odin's waiting for me.

SIRI

Monday, May 28, 2007 2:59 PM

Hi KayleeWannabee,

Quote:
... What if, on some level, you allow, promote or create everything that happens to you?...

That's a great question. I, too, use NLP techniques in my practice. I would also consider myself a femisinist altho I'm not sure exactly what that means today. That is much of what I was trying to say. A person has to be ready to hear, accept and take action when asked that sort of question. I would guess your counselor knew you and had worked with you enough to believe you were there and was also present to help you move on.

This topic is challenging on so many levels. We want to make it simple because it hurts our brains as well as our hearts. Yes, victims and perpertrators are indeed two sides of the same coin - the human being coin. I've worked with perps, too. Sometimes they can and want to change. Sometimes they don't. They most often come from environments of conditioning and victimization. If it's too deep and entrenched they can't seem to move out of it. For both the victim and the perpetrator it feels normal to live and be in the situations they are in.

I was listening to Jesus Christ Superstar CD and was reminded of the story of Peter's denial of Christ after he was arrested. The people keep saying "I saw you with him." "You were with that man." His response to Mary Magdalene "I had to do it. Don't you see? They would have come for me." CD movie version but that's pretty much the story. Well, he did go on to become the first pope. Some would say the church later became the oppressor but that is another thread.

Conditioning can be changed. People can be changed. They can learn to experience their world and their place in it differntly and choose to act differently. It's easier for an individual working with a therapist or trusted friend. It's much more difficult changing a culture. Can it be done with might and force? It's been tried a few times over the centuries .... I'd say the results are mixed.

Thanks for the discussion. It's one way for us (including me) to expand our worldview. JoHari's window is opening a tiny bit.

Siri

SIRI

Monday, May 28, 2007 3:17 PM

PonyXpressInc,
Wow! I just responded to KayleeWannabee so will make this short. Your summation of pack mentality is quite astute. Your personal story of your family dynamics and journey is amazing and illustrative of many others although the endings vary. I strongly advocate self-defense as well as introspection for personal growth. I salute you for finding your way, your voice, your strength and sharing it with the rest of us. It shines a light on alternatives to the internalized victimziation and a way out. Very shiny indeed!

Siri

REDHEAD

Monday, May 28, 2007 3:26 PM

Chris, the military can solve some problems as I said. But, I think in most cases it causes more problems than it solves. When we look back in history, it is easy to see the bloody swath of military action, less easy to see the delicate caress of non-violent diplomacy. Therefore people often disregard the non-violent actions that lead to change.

And, I think for me, effectiveness must be tied to morality. It is not effective to turn the Middle East into a "giant sheet of glass" in order to change the way women are treated there. I realize you are not advocating that but that would be the result of 'solving' problems without thinking of the moral consequences of our own actions. (Which is what led us into the Iraqi tragedy in the first place.)

Pony,
You described--powerfully!--what happens to make women victims--how hard it is to change one's conditioning. The Jesuit quote you were looking for is "Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man."

You also explained clearly why many women who remain victims, choose to remain victims--the consequence of trying for freedom can be literal death. Thank you--you've said it all.

PONYXPRESSINC

Monday, May 28, 2007 3:45 PM

Quote:
"You also explained clearly why many women who remain victims, choose to remain victims--the consequence of trying for freedom can be literal death. Thank you--you've said it all."

Thank you Red, I would just like to add that I do not see this as specifically a woman’s problem.

My brother stayed in an abusive relationship for years. His wife would physically and mentally abuse his daughter if he wasn't there to be the brunt of her rage. He was just as vulnerable, even though he was relatively big and strong his wife could control him through his love for his child and his desire to prevent his child from coming to harm.

His daughter is now twenty years old. Fifteen to twenty years ago his wife would almost certainly have got custody of the children (there was a son as well) in the event of a divorce.

Plus she would have tried to blame him for the abuse.

He was in the RAF, served in the Falklands, so not a weak man. But he was prevented by his own decency from hitting back at a woman however violent she was. He just had to stand there and take it. Because then his daughter didn't have to.

His wife was just as guilty of weilding power for her own ends as those men who stoned the girl. She was just more subtle about it.

PONYXPRESSINC

Monday, May 28, 2007 3:55 PM

Thank you Siri

Quote:
I strongly advocate self-defense as well as introspection for personal growth.

I don't think I ever made the connection before because I didn't leave immediately. But I think throwing him that time actually made me see that there was no way he could control me. So yes, I agree with you, anything that gives an otherwise physically vulnerable person (I don't want to say women specifically, physical bullying/abuse is something that men suffer from as well) confidence in their ability to defend themselves is a good thing.

Anyway, he was a very sad little man, who is no doubt facing his fifties alone. (Small bitchy moment

)

REDHEAD

Monday, May 28, 2007 4:10 PM

Victims of domestic abuse can be male and female (though there are overwhelmingly more women then men being abused), the elderly and the young, and members of any race. However Pony, we were just speaking in this post mainly about women so I focused on them.

In addition to men being damaged by abuse themselves, I think that being the abuser also leads to obvious and not so obvious self damage. Earlier in this post were several discussions about how a sense of entitlement damages the victim and keeps her(him) from making necessary changes.

Well, similarly, those who contribute to oppressing women also suffer by not reaching for the lasting satisfaction of self mastery instead focusing on the temporary pleasure of dominating others.

PONYXPRESSINC

Monday, May 28, 2007 4:25 PM

Quote:
"However Pony, we were just speaking in this post mainly about women so I focused on them."

You are absolutely right and my response was more about being comfortable with myself, rather than implying that men were being ignored unfairly. If that wasn't clear I apologise.

I agree with the "sense of entitlement," In my experience the abuser deludes/rationalises themselves into believing that they are in the right.

People are strange creatures.

"The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed."
-- Stephen Biko

J1M

Monday, May 28, 2007 6:56 PM

You can all argue over the pros and cons of military action all you like, fundamentally what this all comes down to is the fact that Dua Khalil was murdered in Iraq, in full view of the public and in such a way, that the people involved thought it was the right thing to do! All in the name of Religion or specifically a religious belief.

The myth has been perpetuated for hundreds if not thousands of years that women are the weaker sex, its a belief that has been bred into the human race, and its the kind of brain washing on a global scale that will take another hundred if not thousand years to breed out of us.

Im not saying that organised religion is wholy responsible for the way our belief systems work or the way our attitudes relate, but just try for a second to comperhend that women have been portrayed as a morally questionable sub-species in virtually every endorsed religious text in some way or another. Yes im talking about the Bible too! Just look at the Catholic witch hunts for a hundred years after 1550, women were burned alive in the name of religion in Europe on a huge scale. In the main for just being women!

It wasn't always this way though, before being a 'Pagan' was more commonly assoiciated with being a devil worshiper than an Earth-mother to anyone who didn't know any better, women were seen as the infinitly better half of mankind, for the fact that they ARE able to perpetuate the human race, they are able to bring life into this world, the most beautiful gift anyone can give. (I wont go into 'the sacred feminine', i'll leave that for Dan Brown to do in the Da Vinci Code.) And yet over the millenia this gift has been peverted.. by men, who, when it all comes down to it are just bloody jealous of women, because essentially we men ARE inferior! Unfortunatly those that have realised this deal with it in many ways, one of which because us men are stronger physically: is to beat women down, and if we cant do it physically we do it mentally. A practice which still goes on everywhere around the world, probably even in your street...now.

Yes men and women are supposed to be equal and men that can't accept this use the only means on their power to make themselves feel better, their anger and their fists, those 'men' in Iraq while killing Dua Khalil (if you want to go into physcology) probably didn't care what she'd done or not done they had an excuse to beat a woman and they took it, i can go a step further and say they were thinking about a competely different woman when they were doing it, their wife, sister or whoever they have a deep seated emotional problem with.. probably their mothers if you want to get Freudian. Those men know they're the weaker sex, they just cant deal with it and neither can most of the rest of us, but they can hide behind religion.

Its this systematic smearing of women over the centuries that have lead us all to the point we are now, that people in a country far away from us and our comfortable little lives can publically beat, kick, stamp, and stone to death a woman who did nothing wrong apart from be seen in public with a man of different faith.
Im sure we can all sit here infront of our computers and be horrified and thank whichever god it is we prey to that things like that 'dont happen over here' and that in some way THAT country isnt the same as the more enlightened one that we can call home, and talk about THAT country in a condesending tone that impilies that its people are in some way to be pitied and saved by our obviously more supirior, evolved and enlightened nations, well we're all guilty of being patronising hypocrites because 'honour killings' as they are called happen worldwide, yes, in your country...now. All in the name of religion.

Dua Khalil being murdered in the name of a belief is most likely somthing that is way beyond your comprehension if you're all honest with yourselves, as much as it is to me. And if you watch the vid of it you will feel horrfied and sick as i was because we mostly are 'fairly evolved' But watch it

CHRISMOORHEAD

Monday, May 28, 2007 8:25 PM

Quote:
And yet over the millenia this gift has been peverted.. by men, who, when it all comes down to it are just bloody jealous of women, because essentially we men ARE inferior!

I don't care how you slice it, or about the fact that you're male, this is sexist. If I expressed the same idea publically about women I would be chastized to no end for it.

I'd also like to note how sick I am of this sentiment that it is women alone who perpetuate existance. Last I checked, they still NEEDED a seed to be planted in their garden, so to speak. Without that seed they're just as useless in reproduction as a man. You can flower it up however you want with the 9 month bond the woman has with life growing inside of her, but fundementally, she's just as incapable of that as a man if he's not there to give it to her.

[IMG]

Ride down from Asgard to the battlefield,
Bringer of the valiant dead who died but never yielded,
Carry we who die in battle over land and sea,
Across the rainbow bridge to Valhalla,
Odin's waiting for me.

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