Woodreads 8
So why does Gr’Zl pursue Syr’Nj, if he’s not really into women? Well, he doesn’t understand that he’s gay, and he does like the idea of being married off, having a girl who loves him and a girl he loves. So even though he finds himself strangely unmotivated about certain aspects of that fantasy, he’s going to go through the motions. And chasing is pretty much like hunting, so these are “motions” he actually enjoys.
Not to blame the victim here, but walking away was a misinformed strategy on Syr’Nj’s part. Had she tried to bore him with talk of her books or “woman things,” she might’ve eventually overcome his tendency to interrupt enough to dull his interest. But she couldn’t have known that.
This passage is based strongly on the following quote from Jose Ortega y Gasset’s Meditations on Hunting:
One does not hunt in order to kill; on the contrary, one kills in order to have hunted. If one were to present the sportsman with the death of the animal as a gift he would refuse it. What he is after is having to win it, to conquer the surly brute through his own effort and skill with all the extras that this carries with it: the immersion in the countryside, the healthfulness of the exercise, the distraction from his job.
Okay so Hosaort’Ga is Jose’ Ortega. Thanks for the book cover, T, that made it easy.
I can proudly say that I managed to figure it out before I scrolled down.
And then I had to google “Josè Ortega” because I had no idea who he was. ^_^
I, on the other hand, knew who he was, but didn’t make the connection with the name. Ouchies all round.
You might take a look at “The Tuttle Twins”. They cover a variety of topics including a fair amount of philosophy as applied to everyday circumstances so that children who aren’t into abstract thought yet have a way to evaluate it.
It’s mainly Libertarian philosophy, so you decide if that’s right for you.
I’ve always been annoyed at the modern assessment of victim/perpetrator relationships. Sticking your hand in a lion’s mouth is a bad idea. Yes, a well-trained lion won’t bite it off, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a stupid idea.
Modern society seems fixated on piling all the blame for bad things on one side or the other with no acknowledgement that, in most cases, both sides have done something stupid.
There’s nothing wrong with blaming the victim for whatever bit of idiocy got them into the predicament (assuming there was one, occasionally random crap happens.) Just remember that the victim doing something stupid doesn’t absolve the perpetrator(s) of responsibility for their part of the mess. Everything doesn’t have to boil down to being entirely one person’s fault. The world’s not that simple a place.
There are some crimes where shared blame between victim and perpetrator is very much not applicable, simply because what people give as a reason for the crime would not have stopped it from happening in the first place.
I feel like that’s an important distinction.
I will add to this, that modern society’s fixation on blame is often overstated, if not misplaced – to the extent that we would rather punish the perpetrator than help the victim, confuse a punishment for the provision of help, and/or fail to adequately pursue both causes.
But yes, as Amaster says, and as you seem to admit, as well: shared blame is not applicable in some cases.
For example, cases where the victim as an individual was never the perpetrator’s main objective, but merely provided a convenient and accessible means to the end of committing the deed; where the victim as an individual is hypothetically interchangeable with any random person. This would not be an instance where the victim shares responsibility with the perpetrator.
Cases where the victim’s appeal as a target may have been argued to incite the crime are also not, without further context, legitimate instances of shared blame – whether or not that appeal could have been offset by a simple choice like a different change of clothing, manner, or presence.
This is primarily because the perpetrator’s individual desires, and lack of impulse control re: satisfying them, are a violation against societal norms and any reasonable expectations the victim might have had of any random person in their proximity.
Now if you want to talk about a specific case, like someone with a house obviously full of valuables leaving all their doors and windows open and unlocked, in a crime-ridden neighborhood, that you’d have to be living under a rock to not know is infested with thieves… yeah, that’s their own damn fault, and also the criminal’s.
Doesn’t mean they should remain deprived of anything stolen that was keeping them alive, though, or be re-victimized after getting it returned or a replacement.
Society kinda has a responsibility to fix that problem and prevent such loss in the future, if it is any kind of functional society at all.
So… it’s fine to blame you for bringing this mountain of disdain down on yourself?
Except, of course, you’re not a victim here. Just someone who mistakes their own distorted views for something others can accept or tolerate.
The rest of this thread seems like a perfectly civil discussion to me.
Of course. It was my choice, and in modern society I have every reason to expect a negative response.
On the other hand, unless I’m much mistaken, I seem to be getting more agreement with clarification than disdain.
Walking down a dark alley alone, at night, in a crime-ridden neighbourhood is a stupid thing to do. That does not excuse the mugger who lurks there, but if nobody ever points out to victims that the problem could easily have been avoided or mitigated (through any of several methods) for fear of being accused of “victim shaming” that does the victim a grave disservice. If they honestly don’t realize they could have avoided the situation then they are doomed to a repeat performance in the future. Furthermore, it could be seen as somewhat insulting. Denying that the victim could possibly have made a mistake puts them half into the category of mere objects which things happen *to* rather than people who make choices.
The idea that victims should always be held entirely blameless is an overreacting backlash against high-profile attempts of perpetrators to use the victim’s actions as justification for having wronged them. As such it is understandable, but reversed stupidity is not intelligence. Put the blame for the crime on the perpetrator where it belongs, but don’t laud the victims for having made themselves targets (if they have done so). Weakness and stupidity aren’t things that should be encouraged.
To clarify: I am in no way suggesting that foolishness on the part of the victim excuses a rapist or any other who willfully harms another without cause. I’ll cheerfully accept the “defense” that a rapist is just a wild animal who can’t control himself, but that will necessarily go along with insisting that he be treated like a dangerous, wild animal and be caged, banished, or put down. We wouldn’t let a pack of feral dogs roam our streets and bite people. A pack of feral humans is not significantly different.
At the same time though, refusing to even acknowledge any mistakes the victim may have made that caused them to be the specific target is to deny their agency over their own life. Spend long enough treating someone like they’re just a hunk of meat that things happen to with no choice or control and you’ll cause them far more damage than telling them that they did something stupid.
Your post is a perfect example of the dichotomy that annoys me so much. The “shared blame” crowd you hate aren’t sharing the blame. Not really. They’re wanting to put it all on the victim with just enough of a token chastisement of the perpetrator to claim they’re being “fair.” (And it’s less a chastisement and more just a straight up excuse.) Most of them are leaders who have what would be considered an abusive amount of power over their followers in any kind of relationship that wasn’t politics. They are despicable people and we would all be much better off if we just ignored them completely on most, if not all, subjects.
Meanwhile the frame of reference for discussing this has been warped to make it appear that the only two possible positions are “the victim is to blame for practically all of it” and “the victim is a soulless, mindless animal with no control over their own life”.
Both positions are designed to keep people subservient. Get people used to the idea that “if a criminal attacks someone it must be because they deserved it” and how much more likely will they be to assume that when Dear Leader’s minions assault someone they must also have “deserved it”?
Those who can’t or won’t accept that get herded into the other camp where victimization is just something that happens to you and your personal choices are, ultimately, irrelevant. Give the people in this second group a few bogeymen to really hate and they will dump all their frustrations there and never seek a way to get out from under the thumb of Dear Leader.
No, I’m not a conspiracy theorist. There’s no cabal of people pulling the strings here. A lot of this is due to human social instincts. You’ll see the same patterns everywhere from school-age cliques to the governments of nations. We all will fall into traps like this, either as victims or setting them ourselves. It takes training and practice to avoid them.
So, to tie it back to the comic, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with saying that it was foolish of Syr’Nj to run from a hunter who likes to chase things. It was not a course of action that would get her what she wanted. Hopefully she learns from the experience and chooses a different strategy for such situations in the future. It’s hard to say whether it’s wrong of Gr’Zl to chase her, that depends a lot on cultural elements we haven’t seen yet and whether or not he knows she’s trying to avoid him as opposed to playing some kind of game. I guess we’ll see what happens next…
*thinks about discussing the idea that Young Syr’Nj ought to use “feminine wiles” on a young person she doesn’t like in order to dissuade him from pursuing her instead of just trying to avoid him; decides to put worm can and can opener back on shelf*
Nothing to see here. Also, Ortega y Gasset is right up there with Hannah Arendt IMHO.
Man, who the heck has been putting worms in cans anyway? We should all go after THAT guy!