(no subject)
Jul. 6th, 2005 06:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
In the big discussion on my journal today, I made a sweeping generalization I should not have. I retracted it later, but still, I'm very disgusted with myself.
I guess I should learn how to let myself be wrong sometimes, but it's so hard. Especially when it is an error I should not have made, in light of the volunteer training I just went through. I feel like I have to go back to square one now.
I guess I should learn how to let myself be wrong sometimes, but it's so hard. Especially when it is an error I should not have made, in light of the volunteer training I just went through. I feel like I have to go back to square one now.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-06 10:05 pm (UTC)Everyone slips up now and again!
no subject
Date: 2005-07-06 11:22 pm (UTC)Square minus one.
Date: 2005-07-07 12:39 am (UTC)I am reminded of why I didn't follow the original discussion. Gender politics, especially of the kind that pops up regularly in your writing, I find distasteful in the extreme.
But that's neither here nor there. My comment apropos is that, for someone who spends so much mental energy decrying the "dehumanizing" nature of "dualist" world-views, you seem to miss a glaring fact: that all Aristotelian generalizations (that is, generalizations of class) create dualities and inconsistencies. Aristotle himself got around these by very precise and quite pedantic rules of thought that today we call "logic".
Statement :: IF "no {B} is not {A}" THEN "all {A} are {B}".
Does not follow!! But this fallacy is ubiquitous, and utterly, violently aggresive when applied to human beings.
As genteel and constructive critique, may I suggest a thorough brushing up on your study of logic? This way you may avoid instinctively lashing out with the very sword of your enemies.
Re: Square minus one.
Date: 2005-07-07 01:54 am (UTC)I also know its limitations. Did you read the entry I wrote on "listening to anger"? The main point in that post is that language is meant for expressing human experience, not just logic. Logic does not give us a yardstick by which to measure every single utterance. It is a useful tool, but I see it also misused as a tool by which to distract from the real topic, when the topic is oppression.
I do strive to be logical and rhetorical, but it doesn't always happen. I've been very straightforward and contrite about that, and apologetic about every lapse. In response you have brow-beat me several times for "failure in logic" on the topic of sexual politics, when I was explicitly describing experience that I admitted from the outset was not logical. I said at the time, that I was not proud of my feelings, I was not happy about my experiences, but they are what they are, because I've been traumatized.
The human brain doesn't care about logic when you're being raped, okay? It doesn't care about logic when you're trying to figure out how to incorporate fear into your life and learn how to deal with human beings that you're afraid of. Talk to me about logic all you want, it has no bearing on fear and trauma. It cannot make fear and trauma magically disappear.
An honest discussion on this topic has to include feelings and perceptions, and why those feelings and perceptions are what they are.
Re: Square minus one.
Date: 2005-07-07 07:40 am (UTC)Look out, she's armed with... a LiveJournal! And she's not afraid to use it
Date: 2005-07-07 02:15 pm (UTC)So in your eyes, that makes me Just As Bad?
So, having now been characterized as an insensitive clod (and a probable rapist, given half the chance), I cannot now include myself in your thinking in an agreeable way, for the same limbic reasons you alude to.
Are you seriously trying to imply that any indignation you've endured here, reading the words I and others write in my journal, is traumatic? You're going to need therapy to help you cope with the flashbacks, the despair, the self-scorn you feel after reading my LiveJournal?
BTW, when I mentioned rape, I was not referring to it in a rhetorical way. I was not trying to imply, as you apparently read it, that I take criticism of me as metaphorical rape. Sometimes it's triggery, but that wasn't what I referred to either. I don't use rape as a metaphor, because there is no metaphor for being pinned down and trapped in a way you can't breathe while being forcibly sodomized when you're eleven.
On top of that, there's no metaphor for having parents who spend 20 years making sure you know they disapprove of any effeminacy you might display, feeling justified in doing so because it's what the church, the government, and the culture wants.
So, I don't know what "non-existent metaphorical" rape you thought I was talking about. Why did I bring up rape at all? Because the emotion it's left me with is my constant companion. It makes me less than perfect, it makes me flop around and respond in illogical ways, it makes me feel guilty for that and leaves me scratching my head wondering why I do it.
And you'll note, in all of the things I've written about "dehumanizing" "dualism," I never said I'm above it. As I wrote recently, this is not me as guru expounding from a hilltop about things I have transcended, this is me in the thick of it trying to make some sense out of the world, including my own faults. Maybe the fact that I'm articulate is some kind of curse.
Re: Square minus one.
Date: 2005-07-07 01:59 am (UTC)If you can get that through to my limbic system, I would be very grateful. I've been trying to get it to listen for years, but it's stuck in a loop.
Re: Square minus one.
Date: 2005-07-07 05:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-07 12:52 am (UTC)The amount of deletions says a lot. Especially the triggery topic it covers.
I occasioally notice that you are as serious as a heart attack across certain core issues. Upon reflection of what little I've gleaned from your life experiences from your LJ, if you weren't as worked up as you were we'd have to check you for schizophrenic fugue.
Are you at a point in your life were occasionally you don't take yourself so seriously? Is that even a possibility for some one who has been thru what you've been thru.
To be blunt, I don't think you should edit yourself when dealing with something like this. Whether you share it with others is main question you have to ask yourself.
But it is better to kick it around, right or wrong, than to leave it in the back of the fridge to get all green and furry.
The one issue you and all of the respondants gyre'd on, that all men are potential rapists...I get this vibe (being big and bear like and physically intimidating just walking down the street) from women a lot, especially since one of my early spiritual teachers taught me to look people in the eyes and learn their life thru their faces...many folks cannot handle that close an interaction in passing.
The Xara event I went to back in April completely dissolved this interaction...men and women looked at each other, in the face, made eye contact, and no one exchanged bad vibes and phobias.
Then again, we were simulating a future agrarian utopia where all of the social stumbling blocks we deal with today were long forgotten...and it worked for three days.
Coming back to this distopia was a bit hard.
Don't flog yourself to hard over this. Live and learn. Mistakes are good for that, as long as they are not fatal, wound your body or psyche perm, etc.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-07 01:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-07 02:03 am (UTC)Part of this that is kind of triggery for me, is that when I was younger I had a severe case of misandry. I saw my own male bits as a colony in my own body of rape and oppression and capitalist exploitation, and so I saw sex reassignment as a way to rid my body of all that ugliness and evil. I still haven't quite recovered from all that.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-07 01:40 pm (UTC)Chalk that up to the "Benny Hill" that was just kicking when I commented...passed out shortly there after.
hi
Date: 2005-07-07 03:05 am (UTC)hi there i'm jim and i have been lurking on your lj for many moons now. i feel the need to point out the slight arrogance of your statement. do you honestly think you are only wrong sometimes? logic is hardly foolproof. i am wrong a half dozen times per day.
"going back to square one" seems like something i need to do on a daily basis. i interpret going back to square one as returning to a humble place of not knowing.
i think its a sign of strength to be wrong. so many people are afraid to speak up because of fear of appearing foolish or wrong. its almost like an anxiety left over from high school of looking stupid in front of our peers. i wish more people were less afraid to be wrong. its not a sin.
**steps off soap box**
Re: hi
Date: 2005-07-07 04:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-07 10:52 am (UTC)The people who should apologize are the ones who won't listen.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-07 05:13 pm (UTC)that starts with but a single step
The only time one must return to the start
due to misstep
Is when the misstep
is your first step.