| follow up |
[Mar. 11th, 2009|09:54 pm] |
Bearing in mind the responses to my last post about this link:
http://thingsarelookinup.com/Abuse/test.shtml
I suspect it would be an interesting exercise to go through it again with an extra tickbox, as to what behaviours you consider perfectly acceptable? Not just in relationships, either, outside of the canal world I generally find the way people treat each other, strangers as well as friends, increasingly despicable. No, it's not just the way people treat me, let's just take that as read.
Meanwhile, it's interesting to consider which concepts people consider subjective, and objective. On challenging a blogger recently on an outrageously sexist post that celebrates spring because young women dress to please the old men, he replied suggesting that I might think that was sexist, but he didn't. How fluid are such things, or is it merely a case of interpretation, spin? The BNP deny being rascist, say, even though they have policies which clearly show they are? Applying this directly to the above, some aspects of behaviour are obviously perfectly acceptable to some and beyond the pale to others. Normally that doesn't matter - who cares if we say loo, toilet or bog - but when it's how we treat each other, that's different. If there's two (or more) people involved, a giver & receiver, if you like, and I guess if they have compatible ideas of acceptibility, does that make it right, even if the behaviour itself could be objectively seen as unreasonable? |
|
|
| Comments: |
I've been thinking about this ever since talking to you earlier, in a vague and unfocused way.
Behaviours that I find acceptable? This is a tricky one because I can't seem to get back into the site to look! In the past I have been quite flattered by jealousy (although I know that is isn't fundamentally healthy in a relationship); I think a certain amount of argument and debate can be a good thing (but not if it is malicious); I think that honesty can be hurtful, but is fundamentally a good thing.
Behaviours that I personally find despicable: people being judgmental; manipulative; talking behind others' backs (oops! - this is rarely acceptable, but sometimes difficult to avoid if you care about someone and don't know if what you are doing/thinking is right); undermining a partner in private or in public; bullying; physical violence (for me this includes violence towards children, but I know that few people in this country agree with me); lying (I can think of occasions where discretion may be the right thing, but none where out-and-out lying is acceptable).
The BNP deny being rascist, say, even though they have policies which clearly show they are
They deny this in public in order to be seen as mainstream and reasonable, so that people who might think that they were mainstream and reasonable but who are inherently racist (but would never say it out loud) can justify any support to themselves. It's the 'but some of my best friends are Jews' argument (or, as I once had someone say to me, 'I'm not racist, I just don't like Pakistanis in Peterbotough').
While I was working for my sexist racist homophobic xenophobic ex boss I came to the conclusion that in order to make comments that were all of those things you were more likely to be thinking that way than being clever clever. To make a racist or sexist comment - in my book - pretty much makes you racist or sexist.
If there's two (or more) people involved, a giver & receiver, if you like, and I guess if they have compatible ideas of acceptibility, does that make it right, even if the behaviour itself could be objectively seen as unreasonable?
On balance, in public, it is probably not right (In private - if it's consensual - then that's a different matter). Because in public - then other people ( who don't know that it's consensual - might get the idea that there is some kind of license to behave in an unreasonable way. | |
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}