Anyone else get here from reddit
deathtokoalas
hi. can you and all your reddit friends reply on my profile somewhere so i can block you? thanks.
Sunday, September 7, 2014
Hjalmar Nyman
Anyone else get here from reddit
deathtokoalas
hi. can you and all your reddit friends reply on my profile somewhere so i can block you? thanks.
Anyone else get here from reddit
deathtokoalas
hi. can you and all your reddit friends reply on my profile somewhere so i can block you? thanks.
at
09:19
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
publishing give ‘em hell, harry / strung out (inri051)
i'm jumping ahead just a wee bit, so i can get a better handle on the shape of things to come. this was an idea i was working out in the fall of 2001. inri032...
--
credits:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/give-em-hell-harry-strung-out
1) this one was built up out of the sequencer/sampler in cool edit, which allows a user to create a melodic passage out of harsh noise. if the sample is particularly harsh (as this is) the sequencing can get a little messy, which is a bonus.....
the spoken word part at the end is some free trade protester on cbc. created in the fall of 2001
2) so, the pun here is that it's a lot of guitars going off out of tune, representing how the government is stringing us to dry by taking away our rights in the (not so) chaotic aftermath of 9/11. one of the samples is william de la hunt; i did not record who the other person is. created in the fall of 2001
--
i don't
have an exact date for these files, so i'm picking november 11th. as
others were, i was concerned about the president abolishing the magna
carta after 9/11 and congress doing little more than helping him do it.
however, this was meant to be a more encompassing project that combined
harsh noise with political sampling that was pushing an anarchist
agenda. the name of the project (ftaa) was chosen as a pun - it could
either be the free trade agreement of the americas or about fueling true
anarchy in the americas. i ended up dropping the sampling aspect and
just focusing on the noise for the project's completion (which is the
ftaa release in mid 2004: jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/ftaa
), so i'm going to upload these two pilot tracks (with the sampling in
tact) as an introductory single and place them in this more topical
chronological space.
in hindsight, i think there's something profound about juxtaposing the fair trade movement with the 9/11 attacks as, looking back, it really sucked the life out of the movement.
created in the fall of 2001. resequenced and rereleased on sept 7, 2014. as always, please use headphones.
in hindsight, i think there's something profound about juxtaposing the fair trade movement with the 9/11 attacks as, looking back, it really sucked the life out of the movement.
created in the fall of 2001. resequenced and rereleased on sept 7, 2014. as always, please use headphones.
credits:
j - noise generators, cool edit, sequencers, guitars
(electric, nylon, acoustic), mandolin, effects & processing,
digital wave editing, sampling, production
released november 11, 2001
released november 11, 2001
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/give-em-hell-harry-strung-out
1) this one was built up out of the sequencer/sampler in cool edit, which allows a user to create a melodic passage out of harsh noise. if the sample is particularly harsh (as this is) the sequencing can get a little messy, which is a bonus.....
the spoken word part at the end is some free trade protester on cbc. created in the fall of 2001
2) so, the pun here is that it's a lot of guitars going off out of tune, representing how the government is stringing us to dry by taking away our rights in the (not so) chaotic aftermath of 9/11. one of the samples is william de la hunt; i did not record who the other person is. created in the fall of 2001
at
08:01
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
re-uploading most of thru (inri070)
1) written late 2000 & early 2001. initial instrumentation and render completed mar 7, 2014. minor instrumentation changes to facilitate a small wind section were implemented in late april, 2014. final render completed on april 27, 2014.
2) written early 2001. drastically rearranged in june, 2014. final render completed on july 4, 2014.
3) written early 2001. this render is actually from may 13, 2001.
4) written june, 1998. reimagined june, 2001; the render is from june 18, 2001.
5) written late 2001. this render is actually from sept 22, 2001; it was very mildly edited for continuity on october 1, 2014. note that it was put through some reverb at that time.
at
08:00
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
deathtokoalas
i see john's still pissing people off...
lennon's treatment of women is complex and paradoxical. was he a piece of shit for the way he treated the women in his life? unquestionably. is this song a statement of solidarity? equally unquestionably.
there's a glaring contradiction underlying it, but it shouldn't negate the value of the song. lennon blamed his upbringing, the drugs, the money - a lot of things. he claimed he changed. i'm not sure the evidence indicates he ever did.
but he seems to have tried to.
consider this: perhaps john lennon was mirroring a more general social evolution, and perhaps he had some effect on it's unraveling.
but, he's dead now. and it's certainly possible to separate the art from the person that created it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Asf4InKVo8k
fwiw, it's still true. and you should still be angry about it and want to do something about it.
John Stark
I certainly do think he tried in his latter years to become a better person, it is a shame we never got to see the man he could have become. This song in itself doesn't cancel out his failings to raise his first children in the way he should have. It does however show that he listened to Yoko as if she was his equal and was happy to proclaim her message to the world.
Daniel Howell
maybe there is something im not privy to here...how was he shitty to women? Really, Im coming with respect here, I just dont know what it is you are referring to. Because he divorced his first wife ?
deathtokoalas
john lennon's abusive relationships with both of the women that he married are well documented.
it's not that yoko worked her way into the sessions. it's that john wouldn't let her out of his sight.
---
(deleted post)
deathtokoalas
how many of the white boys in the audience are going to listen to angela davis say the same thing? it's one thing to say "don't speak for me when i'm standing beside you". it's another to say "don't stand up for me to people that otherwise wouldn't listen to me as a direct result of their existing prejudices".
there was a context to this idea and it had to do with agency. the argument is valid in that context. but you're misapplying it by taking it out of context. it was meant to give a direct voice to the oppressed, not to exacerbate and further racial segregation.
i see john's still pissing people off...
lennon's treatment of women is complex and paradoxical. was he a piece of shit for the way he treated the women in his life? unquestionably. is this song a statement of solidarity? equally unquestionably.
there's a glaring contradiction underlying it, but it shouldn't negate the value of the song. lennon blamed his upbringing, the drugs, the money - a lot of things. he claimed he changed. i'm not sure the evidence indicates he ever did.
but he seems to have tried to.
consider this: perhaps john lennon was mirroring a more general social evolution, and perhaps he had some effect on it's unraveling.
but, he's dead now. and it's certainly possible to separate the art from the person that created it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Asf4InKVo8k
fwiw, it's still true. and you should still be angry about it and want to do something about it.
John Stark
I certainly do think he tried in his latter years to become a better person, it is a shame we never got to see the man he could have become. This song in itself doesn't cancel out his failings to raise his first children in the way he should have. It does however show that he listened to Yoko as if she was his equal and was happy to proclaim her message to the world.
Daniel Howell
maybe there is something im not privy to here...how was he shitty to women? Really, Im coming with respect here, I just dont know what it is you are referring to. Because he divorced his first wife ?
deathtokoalas
john lennon's abusive relationships with both of the women that he married are well documented.
it's not that yoko worked her way into the sessions. it's that john wouldn't let her out of his sight.
---
(deleted post)
deathtokoalas
how many of the white boys in the audience are going to listen to angela davis say the same thing? it's one thing to say "don't speak for me when i'm standing beside you". it's another to say "don't stand up for me to people that otherwise wouldn't listen to me as a direct result of their existing prejudices".
there was a context to this idea and it had to do with agency. the argument is valid in that context. but you're misapplying it by taking it out of context. it was meant to give a direct voice to the oppressed, not to exacerbate and further racial segregation.
at
01:44
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
hey, i've still got a PIII kicking in my living room hooked up to the tv as a youtube box (my main pc is in the recording studio and i'm typing this on a much newer laptop...), but i pulled it up to the board max on ram (1 gb). old ram like that nowadays is worth pennies. and honestly? if firefox wasn't such a pig with resources, and so many websites weren't so picky about browsers, it'd be entirely useable as a day-to-day machine.
and load time is roughly thirty seconds if i take the large external full of mp3s out, and a little more than a minute if i keep it in.
somebody's gotta port off like firefox 2.0, do what sites like youtube need done for access without the whistles and maintain it for old machines....
but, if anybody asks about those old asus boards? yeah, they last. and that quantum fireball 20 gb drive from about 2001 is still spinning...
and load time is roughly thirty seconds if i take the large external full of mp3s out, and a little more than a minute if i keep it in.
somebody's gotta port off like firefox 2.0, do what sites like youtube need done for access without the whistles and maintain it for old machines....
but, if anybody asks about those old asus boards? yeah, they last. and that quantum fireball 20 gb drive from about 2001 is still spinning...
at
01:17
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
deathtokoalas
but, you're interpreting the world through a moral/religious filter and demanding it behave the way you deduce it "should" rather than interpreting it through an empirical filter of evidence and reacting to it the way that it actually is. this is a fundamentalist type of thinking (which was labelled "ignorance" in the enlightenment, but has undergone a rehabilitation in reputation since the boomers decided to scrawl over everything in magic marker) that is not going to be successful in eliminating the causes of rape, it's just going to lead to yet another group of self-righteous religionists scratching their head in bafflement over why their axioms don't work. it really seemed like we were past this kind of thinking. it's going to be interesting to see what a future historian writes about the collapse of empiricism and rise of faith-based reasoning in america over the last quarter of the twentieth century. for now, the question is grappling with how we return to empirical reasoning. unfortunately, we may have to learn the hard way...
there's no independent thought in this video, it's just repeating the ideas of others as they have been presented with a collection of rolling eyes and snotty inflections because everybody knows that if you read something in a book at a university then it must be true, like, duh, right?
it's frustrating because it's not going to make women safer for them to walk around thinking they live in a utopia when the reality is that we're collapsing into the post-capitalist chaos of advanced neo-liberalism and self-defense is becoming more and more - rather than less and less - necessary.
there's a few things that all young women should have drilled into their head by the time they're ten.
1) there's no santa claus.
2) photoshop is ubiquitous and, no, nobody seriously looks like that.
3) babies come from sex. diseases do, too.
4) you cannot trust men not to rape you, no matter how well you think you know or trust them.
marx would have labeled this kind of thinking as "utopian socialism" and rejected it as delusional and consequently unable to meet the challenges that it intends to meet. he would have been right, too. whether his solutions were actually scientific or not is less clear, but he had the right idea in approaching social problems using the power of empiricism rather than the arbitrary, utopian dictates of moralism.
wollstonecraft's argument was always that women only seem less intelligent because they're kept in ignorance and that the solution is to educate them the way men are educated. it's such an obvious observation that it's hard to believe it took as long as it did to be taken seriously. it's a very sad - but entirely reversible - orwellian twist of history that feminism has now become the tool to keep women trapped within naive and ignorant utopian fantasy realities, where their little heads don't have to grapple with how awful men in the real world actually are.
(deleted response)
deathtokoalas
before the rise of the "new left" (which is right-wing liberalism masquerading as leftism), leftists would generally argue that "rights" are an imaginary concept that can only be enforced by an authoritarian state that will always prioritize the "rights" of the ruling classes. this goes back to marx' polemics against rousseau. the leftist approach is not to argue that we ought to have all these rights but to attack the social conditions that lead to the inequalities underlying the injustices.
you're technically correct when you state there's no contradiction between not assigning blame to the victim and suggesting precautions are necessary in a violent and unequal society. there's nothing inherent in the core ideas of feminism that equate the suggestion of precaution with victim blaming; in fact, if you follow the arguments of systemic patriarchy, the actual rational deduction is that it implies precautions are necessary. but this isn't what is being taught nowadays. it's a very common rhetorical approach (and logical fallacy fwiw, but i don't want to get into that) to hear young feminists make that connection (i have firsthand experience of it being taught) - and it's certainly made in the video.
when you hear somebody state "i ought to be able to wear what i want and feel safe", there's nothing really contentious about the statement. but there's a lot of things that ought to be true, but really only exist or ever will exist in our minds.
(deleted response)
deathtokoalas
the statistics are clear: most rapes are carried out by people the victim knows and trusts. sorry.
justforcomment1
We fight for how we want the world to be, to show it what it can be if we all work together. It's not a matter of ignoring what the reality of the situation is in the moment but wishing, striving and working towards it being other than it is. It's not an act of deluding ourselves, but one of hope. It's called progress and it applies whether you're talking about it from a scientific, economical or sociological standpoint. What it seems like you're advocating is stagnation because we should accept that the reality of it is immutable, point blank and period. As history has proven time and time again, that just isn't the case.
deathtokoalas
what you're doing is describing every failed utopian movement that has ever existed and learning absolutely nothing from the mistakes of the past. the world is not there for you to create anew, it's there for you to adjust and adapt to. this is the great insight of nineteenth century science, an insight that america has only ever fought against and that it's inability to accept will be it's ultimate demise.
hope is another word for delusion. it's not possible to build a workable, fair society on such nonsense - it's the tried and tested algorithm to push off advances to some future time, be it the next generation or some kind of afterlife, and spin around in perpetual circles. change must occur through analyzing data and adjusting strategies to react to that data, not by placing hope in the faith of social progress.
stagnation is what happens when you don't adjust to evidence - when you place your plans for the future in ideas like hope.
Shanockdotcom
Had I more than one like to give, I would give it.
deathtokoalas
i can agree that strategies are required to address rape. in order to develop those strategies, we need to understand it better. it's something that seems to come out of a combination of biological impulses and hierarchical social organization. from that basic understanding, what we need to do is abolish the hierarchical organization of society and develop pharmaceutical approaches that minimize those biological impulses. while we're studying this, it's important that we teach our young women how to minimize the risks involved - not to play into the lies that uphold the liberal state and expect that a hierarchical patriarchy designed to negate female rights and reduce them to vessels is somehow going to uphold them, in the face of all evidence to the contrary.
i don't want to blame anybody for being the victim of somebody else's criminality, but if there's a point of failure here in getting the messaging across it isn't in what people are wearing or where they're going or in how much they're drinking - it's in falling for the lies of liberalism, and being tricked into thinking we live in a free society. any slave will tell you they ought to be free. but, there has to be a shift in the economic basis of society to allow for that. and, in the meantime, a slave needs to be careful if it wants to avoid being beaten - or take the beating as an act of defiance.
Mark
She's discussing and promoting a change in approach. Which is evidence based beacuse we can see rape statistics change in places with different policies and cultures around rape. It's reasonable to discuss ideals, it's not religious, if she was saying that the world was safe for women that would be religious. I do agree that there will always be rape, just like there will always be murder and violence but we can greatly reduce rape statistics and make the world safer without having women sacrifice their freedom in order to do so. This is what is: I'm a man and I could be raped but it's unlikely enough that I can go around not worrying about it which gives me more freedom than women and that is an unethical imbalance. If we only talk about what is we can't make progress. Women should be taught self defence, and they should be made aware that the world is dangerous and that the greatest danger that women face is violent men but men should also be taught to control themselves, and to recognize when they are thinking like a rapist. All people should learn to protect one another and society/the state should take a greater role in providing protection and should stop promoting a culture that nudges men toward rape and that then blames women for it. We also must offer comfort and empathy to people who are victims rather than blame, if someone were to rob me tonight people would ve sympathetic and offer support but if my fiancé was raped tonight there would be people who blamed her in order to protect the establishment and that is sick and could be fixed.
deathtokoalas
there was actually a report released yesterday or the day before that indicated rape statistics in the united states are increasing. there's no doubt a partly cultural basis to this and it does need to be addressed, but an evidence-based response to that report would be that women need to take greater precautions for defense - even as various cultural concerns are addressed. what pisses me off isn't the suggestion of approaches - i advocate those - it's this idea of teaching teenagers that they don't need to protect themselves because they're protected by their rights, when the evidence suggests the exact opposite - that the system continually ignores and tramples all over their rights, and will continue to do so so long as it exists in the socio-economic context that it exists within.
this is why it's very difficult to talk about the state taking action, law enforcement responding or even the courts adjusting. we live in a patriarchal society that is designed to enforce male dominance. the role of the courts is not to abolish that existing order, but to maintain it. the role of the police is to enforce it. the role of the state is to exploit it.
...and, if you're going to challenge that order, it's going to beat you up.
like it or not, this neo-liberal fabric of society places that responsibility on the individual to avoid harm. that doesn't place blame in the victim, but it does mean it's absolutely necessary that young women understand the way that society is ordered - which is not an order of egalitarianism and social unity but an order of violent, competitive individualism and exploitation.
we don't live in a society where anybody can claim it's somebody else's responsibility to ensure their well-being, safety or responsibility. we live in a society where the individual must adapt or die. it's been designed that way very carefully.
i don't like that. i think we should fight to change it. but it's of fundamental importance that people understand it.
you can't change behaviour within the system, which produces the behaviour in the first place. you show up on the state's door and say "umm, guys, you're turning all our boys into violent, misogynist pieces of shit" and the state's response is "well, yeah. asia's pretty big, and we need some soldiers to conquer it.". you go to the state and say "gee, you're taking away reproductive rights. da fuck?", and the response is going to be "you're not making enough slaves for us, so we don't want you aborting anymore.".
all of this produces a context where being a woman is dangerous. denying that doesn't make people safer, it just creates a mindset that puts sheltered young women at risk - until they're forced to deal with reality in ugly, disturbing ways.
Mark
Oh I see what you mean. I agree with you but I think you can make a difference (although not a very big one) within the current system and that we should do that while we work to usurp the establishment. Is oppression here to stay as long as the current system exists? Yes but the oppression is in many ways growing more comfortable with time which is thanks to the hardwork of good people. Starvation is the lowest it's ever been, equality amoungst groups that aren't economic is the best it's ever been, and education and information are more accessible than ever. But you're right that sometimes these movements under the establishment can make people blind to real danger. The revolution isn't tomorrow but what can happen in the mean time is work to relive the oppressed but that has to be done responsibly. It is my opinion that revolutionaries should build alternative communities and then use them to help others thus showing and promoting a practical and alternative model, testing and exploring their hypotheses, developing a basis for revolution and providing intimedate help to those in need. I think this is also the path to a revolution that doesn't involve doing violence or forcing our ideas on others.
deathtokoalas
but just to address the religious aspect a last time: the root of her argument (it's all about choice) is not coming from any kind of social science, but from a basis in christian morality. all that stuff about choice is really just straight out of sunday school. we live in a system with all kinds of imbalances and injustices, then create rules to keep those imbalances in place. in most cases, crime is a result of those imbalances, not a choice to turn away from god.
it's important that we get back to understanding that if we want to actually address some of these issues, rather than just continue to stomp them out through police state tactics.
Mark
yes very true. Rapists come from their experiences they don't just out if no where decide to rape someone. In fact I'm sure that many probably don't understand what they have done. That said rapists and abusers are the ine group of people that I hate, I don't want to hate them, and I can see I'm not being reasonable, but when three of the four women I love have been victims of rape and all the women I love have been badly abused by men in some way I can't help but have an emotional response and it's hard not to blame their choice to do what they did rather than the forces that lead them there. That said liberal feminists do oppose many of the direct forces that create rapists which is useful. Victim blaming is one of those forces. However they are only symptomatic of deeper sociatal issues. Justice is a false idol but it's one that's very easy to embrace when you are as upset as I am about this issue.
deathtokoalas
i think the changes you're describing are the result of technology increasing distribution. i identify as a social anarchist, but i largely hold to marx' idea about revolution being in the mode of production. that is, i don't think there's really a way to change the existing order within the realities of existing productive capabilities. if you look at all of the places that have tried, they end up with the same thing - because it follows as a corollary of the productive order. there's little tweaks that can be made - should workers own their own factories? - but in the end, there's not a way to avoid that division of labour and the class divisions that come out of it.
i think the only thing that's going to really get us out of this is automation. we're getting to a point where we may be able to finally abolish the slave/worker class and take communal ownership of production, at which point the shape of society will irreversibly alter. it's not just the slave class that evaporates with automation, it's the managerial and financial sectors that oversee them that get abolished as well.
but, so long as we have the order we have, and so long as it continues to be enforced by the state to maintain it's own hegemony, there is not a way out of this besides taking matters into your own hands.
i don't know if i'd go so far as to deny an understanding. i'm not really comfortable with the normal feminist idea of rape as power. it's an idea that was kind of pulled out of thin air and then backed up with deductive philosophy - there's no science underlying it. the science seems to indicate that it's true in some cases, but really only extreme ones - serial rapists, serial killers...the really disturbed scenarios.
the science underlying date rape (the most common form of rape) is pretty conclusive that it's driven by sexual impulse, not desire for power or control. but there may be a hierarchical underpinning to the idea of date raping women, specifically.
we can be certain at this point that there's a biological basis for rape. we're not clear exactly how strong it is yet. i'm not one for using genetics to explain behaviour, but i'm a strong advocate of the idea of using hormones to explain behaviour, which are controlled by genes. so, that's an indirect genetic thing.
again, you've gotta go back to this kind of christian (or even randian) kind of thinking that explains all criminality in terms of bad choices, and reject it as unscientific. humans are driven by all kinds of impulses. we're not at the point where we can prove it yet, but the science is leaning towards the idea of certain genetic predispositions placing some men in heightened hormonal and cognitive states that they really can't control any more than a dog or a gorilla can. yes, that directly contradicts the idea of humans as rational beings - but it's an idea that's so obsolete now that it shouldn't even raise an articulated opposition.
there's a solution to this in hormone blocking. if the genetics can be identified, it could even be diagnosed before it causes problems.
but we have to start thinking about the problem in the right way before we can get to these solutions. and, in the mean time, we need to understand the depth of it (i mean, we're talking about 20% of women - indicating nearly as many men are rapists) and take steps to keep us out of harm.
the way i'd hypothesize the hormones working (and i'm basing it on studies i've read, but it's my idea) can be explained a little like this...
you've probably had sex a few times. you may have noticed (or you may have not, pay more attention next time) that there's a point where you get into it where you sort of just start going. you might want to call this something like "flow". it's probably the single most defining characteristic of good sex. but what is it, in scientific terms?
it could very well be a hormonal response that is taking over your consciousness and driving it to an end point of passing on those genes.
now, for "normal people", two things are true - or at least we'd like to think these things are true for most people:
1) that doesn't kick in until you're well into the process.
2) it's relatively easy to turn off. although if you're honest, you know it's a bit of a challenge sometimes.
i might suggest that some rapists (not all rapists. like any complex phenomena, rape has multiple causes.) experience this hormonal takeover before they get into it, and lack the ability to turn it off as easily.
again: i wouldn't really take that to the point of not understanding. i've read some case studies where you're dealing with rapists with fas or something (it's a significant problem in the canadian aboriginal community, for example) where there really is a lack of understanding, and it's something else entirely.
but the level of control may not be a simple as something that can be portrayed as a "choice" that should be "punished".
Amy
So, we should just accept rape as it is? The way it's treated in court, the way it's treated in the media, the way victim's are treated? You're cool with that? What a fucking complacent way to live.
deathtokoalas
that's not what i'm saying. what i'm saying is that the forces underlying rape culture cannot be removed through a shift in social attitude or pushing rhetoric, it's going to require an entire reworking of society from the bottom up. there's no bandaid solution to rape culture. you gotta blow everything up.
but what i'm really saying is that it's irresponsible to present this kind of messaging to young girls, and have them learn the hard way. i'm not going to blame a 14 year old for being a 14 year old, but i might blame laci for convincing her she has more freedom than the society we live in actually grants her.
PinkPenguinPajamas
But rape culture is exactly that. A social attitude. So by shifting the victim blaming attitude to an enlightened "hey, you're not going to get away with that" attitude, things will change. No, that doesn't mean that rape will never happen. And it certainly won't stop over night. The point is that the way these situations are handled will change for the better, and on top of that, the number of perpetrators will go down. Sexual assault or harassment will, unfortunately, never stop, but if we stop victim blaming and instead blame the person responsible, things will change.
And no, Laci's message is NOT harmful to young girls. What's harmful, and what will hinder the movement and make things worse, is telling a young girl "You shouldn't do that, you'll be asking for it," or "You did WHAT?! Well, of course he did that, you weren't very smart now, were you?". She'll cower down and be afraid her whole life, and that's no way to live. You don't live by the freedoms society grants you, you live by the freedoms the law gives you. And if anyone tries to take that away, you fight tooth and nail to prove them wrong and make them live with the consequences for trying to hurt you and keep you down.
I'm not saying go to town, get black out drunk in the ghetto in a bikini and a mini-skirt and then act surprised if you're assaulted (it's not the smart thing to do, but it happens). But by all means, if that happens, you don't let them get away with it. And that's the point of this video. Sexual harassment happens, but you don't let the assailants get away with it just because just because society says you were "asking for it". Don't settle because "that the way things are", push forward and fight back because that's not how they should be.
deathtokoalas
there's been a lot of studies done asking the question of if disincentives (or "deterrents") work in reducing crime, and the answer is that they very clearly do not. it's a christian-derived faith-based "rational" argument that does not hold up to any kind of empirical analysis. effective approaches will deal with issues of prevention from both angles.
PinkPenguinPajamas
While victim blaming and slut shaming women is a very Christian view, the US is changing. Tons of things that were thought scandalous and immoral are slowly changing to be more open and rational, even if some places are stuck in the past. The only logical thing to do is to change with the rationals, and if we feel that the progress is stagnant, keep changing for the better anyways. There is no reason to digress when progress isn't visible; it doesn't sense. It only ensures change will never come. Letting people get away with things when they're very clearly wrong only ensures that they will not pay the consequences, meaning they'll do it again and encourage others to act out as well. You have to be the change, and others will follow.
deathtokoalas
but you're not understanding that the empirical data makes it clear that tougher sentences have no effect on rates of recidivism. getting "tough on rapists" is not going to reduce rape, and nobody thinks it will except the fire & brimstone types listening to rush limbaugh.
the things that do have an effect on rates of recidivism have to do with social and economic factors and have solutions that lie in broadening the scope of social programs and rehabilitation measures.
further, all we've seen is social regress since about 1985. the period of progress that you're referring to is not just long over, it's largely been reversed.
Scott
so how about you present this almighty empirical data. Because up till now it's all just been rhetoric. Point me to the studies, show me the actual data. By all means make your points and present a view we can all benefit from. Show us the folly of our thinking. We need to know when popular belief and cultural tendency is out of step with statistical reality. But please don't tell me reality is different than what I think it is WITHOUT SHOWING ME REALITY! Because otherwise I might begin to think you're "just repeating the ideas of others as they have been presented with a collection of rolling eyes and snotty inflections because everybody knows that if you read something in a book at a university then it must be true, like, duh, right?"
deathtokoalas
this is a youtube comment section, i'm not sorting through journals searching for citations. if you'd like to contradict something, i'll take the time to rebut it but it's ultimately not my responsibility to educate you. sorry.
what you'll find, if you take the time to look into it, is that nothing i'm saying is contentious and that sources are mostly accessible through basic google searches.
Scott
"there was actually a report released yesterday or the day before that indicated rape statistics in the united states are increasing." Surely you could at the very least state which study you are referring to.
deathtokoalas
i think i saw it on google news. i don't remember the site that hosted the article.
this was quick to find, but i'm not going to spend my monday morning searching through journals, i already wasted all day yesterday doing this when i should have been mixing atonal choir parts...
http://www.refinery29.com/2014/09/74038/how-many-women-raped-sexual-assault-statistics?utm_source=feed&utm_medium=rss
Carrick
what kind of name is deathtokoalas
deaathtokoalas
koalas demonstrate a perverse cuteness that cannot be tolerated by any advanced civilization.
i just want to clarify what "prevention" means in a way that is not oppressive to individual rights. i'm not really interested in standing up for rights theory, exactly, and i think the idea is being rather abused here - there's nothing in the universal declaration about the right to be drunk or the right to wear short skirts - but i do agree that trying to regulate that sort of behaviour is oppressive. i'm going to explain what not to do by way of example of something i once did...
i was out dancing in a gay bar in ottawa one night a few years ago, went down for a cigarette and bumped into somebody that offered to smoke me on a joint in the park. much marijuana is smoked in that park, and i didn't think much of it. i was also at the point in my gender transition where i was beginning to "pass", and wasn't yet really cognizant of the different social realities attached to existing sexually as a female in a public place. so, i went and smoked the joint.
a few minutes into the conversation, buddy pulls it out and starts whipping it. now, i'm an open-minded person - i actually reacted by laughing at him. i wasn't offended as much as i was amused. had he tried to touch me, that's a different story. and had i been somebody else, he could have gotten himself into some trouble. in actuality, by the time he was done, i realized that he was extremely drunk and wasn't really safe to leave passed out in the park. what actually kicked in was my sense of empathy; instead of knocking him out, i helped him back out to a safer place on the road with lights and a bench before i very briskly walked off.
he seemed more embarrassed by my reaction than sorry about it.
but, the behaviour is arguably legally harassment, and the situation could have been rather different if the dude was a more aggressive person.
now, if something unfortunate would have happened, would i be to blame for it? no. but, i can look back at the situation and conclude it wasn't a safe thing for me to walk to the park with the guy in the dark and smoke some drugs of unknown origin or content (although my nose is pretty good on the last one). i've shifted my behaviour since then, and would not do that again.
does that in some way restrict my "right" to get stoned in the park on a friday night? in some abstraction, perhaps. but, i realize that it's something i should be less haphazard about for the benefit of my own well-being. there's some give and take on the issue.
i recognize i'm only describing a small class of possible rape scenarios. i didn't know this guy. but, the idea can be extrapolated more generally in terms of protecting drinks, staying in lighted areas, being wary of the dudes you think you trust, etc.
and that point needs to be gotten across just as loudly as safe sex needs to be gotten across, as part of a basic sex education.
but, you're interpreting the world through a moral/religious filter and demanding it behave the way you deduce it "should" rather than interpreting it through an empirical filter of evidence and reacting to it the way that it actually is. this is a fundamentalist type of thinking (which was labelled "ignorance" in the enlightenment, but has undergone a rehabilitation in reputation since the boomers decided to scrawl over everything in magic marker) that is not going to be successful in eliminating the causes of rape, it's just going to lead to yet another group of self-righteous religionists scratching their head in bafflement over why their axioms don't work. it really seemed like we were past this kind of thinking. it's going to be interesting to see what a future historian writes about the collapse of empiricism and rise of faith-based reasoning in america over the last quarter of the twentieth century. for now, the question is grappling with how we return to empirical reasoning. unfortunately, we may have to learn the hard way...
there's no independent thought in this video, it's just repeating the ideas of others as they have been presented with a collection of rolling eyes and snotty inflections because everybody knows that if you read something in a book at a university then it must be true, like, duh, right?
it's frustrating because it's not going to make women safer for them to walk around thinking they live in a utopia when the reality is that we're collapsing into the post-capitalist chaos of advanced neo-liberalism and self-defense is becoming more and more - rather than less and less - necessary.
there's a few things that all young women should have drilled into their head by the time they're ten.
1) there's no santa claus.
2) photoshop is ubiquitous and, no, nobody seriously looks like that.
3) babies come from sex. diseases do, too.
4) you cannot trust men not to rape you, no matter how well you think you know or trust them.
marx would have labeled this kind of thinking as "utopian socialism" and rejected it as delusional and consequently unable to meet the challenges that it intends to meet. he would have been right, too. whether his solutions were actually scientific or not is less clear, but he had the right idea in approaching social problems using the power of empiricism rather than the arbitrary, utopian dictates of moralism.
wollstonecraft's argument was always that women only seem less intelligent because they're kept in ignorance and that the solution is to educate them the way men are educated. it's such an obvious observation that it's hard to believe it took as long as it did to be taken seriously. it's a very sad - but entirely reversible - orwellian twist of history that feminism has now become the tool to keep women trapped within naive and ignorant utopian fantasy realities, where their little heads don't have to grapple with how awful men in the real world actually are.
(deleted response)
deathtokoalas
before the rise of the "new left" (which is right-wing liberalism masquerading as leftism), leftists would generally argue that "rights" are an imaginary concept that can only be enforced by an authoritarian state that will always prioritize the "rights" of the ruling classes. this goes back to marx' polemics against rousseau. the leftist approach is not to argue that we ought to have all these rights but to attack the social conditions that lead to the inequalities underlying the injustices.
you're technically correct when you state there's no contradiction between not assigning blame to the victim and suggesting precautions are necessary in a violent and unequal society. there's nothing inherent in the core ideas of feminism that equate the suggestion of precaution with victim blaming; in fact, if you follow the arguments of systemic patriarchy, the actual rational deduction is that it implies precautions are necessary. but this isn't what is being taught nowadays. it's a very common rhetorical approach (and logical fallacy fwiw, but i don't want to get into that) to hear young feminists make that connection (i have firsthand experience of it being taught) - and it's certainly made in the video.
when you hear somebody state "i ought to be able to wear what i want and feel safe", there's nothing really contentious about the statement. but there's a lot of things that ought to be true, but really only exist or ever will exist in our minds.
(deleted response)
deathtokoalas
the statistics are clear: most rapes are carried out by people the victim knows and trusts. sorry.
justforcomment1
We fight for how we want the world to be, to show it what it can be if we all work together. It's not a matter of ignoring what the reality of the situation is in the moment but wishing, striving and working towards it being other than it is. It's not an act of deluding ourselves, but one of hope. It's called progress and it applies whether you're talking about it from a scientific, economical or sociological standpoint. What it seems like you're advocating is stagnation because we should accept that the reality of it is immutable, point blank and period. As history has proven time and time again, that just isn't the case.
deathtokoalas
what you're doing is describing every failed utopian movement that has ever existed and learning absolutely nothing from the mistakes of the past. the world is not there for you to create anew, it's there for you to adjust and adapt to. this is the great insight of nineteenth century science, an insight that america has only ever fought against and that it's inability to accept will be it's ultimate demise.
hope is another word for delusion. it's not possible to build a workable, fair society on such nonsense - it's the tried and tested algorithm to push off advances to some future time, be it the next generation or some kind of afterlife, and spin around in perpetual circles. change must occur through analyzing data and adjusting strategies to react to that data, not by placing hope in the faith of social progress.
stagnation is what happens when you don't adjust to evidence - when you place your plans for the future in ideas like hope.
Shanockdotcom
Had I more than one like to give, I would give it.
deathtokoalas
i can agree that strategies are required to address rape. in order to develop those strategies, we need to understand it better. it's something that seems to come out of a combination of biological impulses and hierarchical social organization. from that basic understanding, what we need to do is abolish the hierarchical organization of society and develop pharmaceutical approaches that minimize those biological impulses. while we're studying this, it's important that we teach our young women how to minimize the risks involved - not to play into the lies that uphold the liberal state and expect that a hierarchical patriarchy designed to negate female rights and reduce them to vessels is somehow going to uphold them, in the face of all evidence to the contrary.
i don't want to blame anybody for being the victim of somebody else's criminality, but if there's a point of failure here in getting the messaging across it isn't in what people are wearing or where they're going or in how much they're drinking - it's in falling for the lies of liberalism, and being tricked into thinking we live in a free society. any slave will tell you they ought to be free. but, there has to be a shift in the economic basis of society to allow for that. and, in the meantime, a slave needs to be careful if it wants to avoid being beaten - or take the beating as an act of defiance.
Mark
She's discussing and promoting a change in approach. Which is evidence based beacuse we can see rape statistics change in places with different policies and cultures around rape. It's reasonable to discuss ideals, it's not religious, if she was saying that the world was safe for women that would be religious. I do agree that there will always be rape, just like there will always be murder and violence but we can greatly reduce rape statistics and make the world safer without having women sacrifice their freedom in order to do so. This is what is: I'm a man and I could be raped but it's unlikely enough that I can go around not worrying about it which gives me more freedom than women and that is an unethical imbalance. If we only talk about what is we can't make progress. Women should be taught self defence, and they should be made aware that the world is dangerous and that the greatest danger that women face is violent men but men should also be taught to control themselves, and to recognize when they are thinking like a rapist. All people should learn to protect one another and society/the state should take a greater role in providing protection and should stop promoting a culture that nudges men toward rape and that then blames women for it. We also must offer comfort and empathy to people who are victims rather than blame, if someone were to rob me tonight people would ve sympathetic and offer support but if my fiancé was raped tonight there would be people who blamed her in order to protect the establishment and that is sick and could be fixed.
deathtokoalas
there was actually a report released yesterday or the day before that indicated rape statistics in the united states are increasing. there's no doubt a partly cultural basis to this and it does need to be addressed, but an evidence-based response to that report would be that women need to take greater precautions for defense - even as various cultural concerns are addressed. what pisses me off isn't the suggestion of approaches - i advocate those - it's this idea of teaching teenagers that they don't need to protect themselves because they're protected by their rights, when the evidence suggests the exact opposite - that the system continually ignores and tramples all over their rights, and will continue to do so so long as it exists in the socio-economic context that it exists within.
this is why it's very difficult to talk about the state taking action, law enforcement responding or even the courts adjusting. we live in a patriarchal society that is designed to enforce male dominance. the role of the courts is not to abolish that existing order, but to maintain it. the role of the police is to enforce it. the role of the state is to exploit it.
...and, if you're going to challenge that order, it's going to beat you up.
like it or not, this neo-liberal fabric of society places that responsibility on the individual to avoid harm. that doesn't place blame in the victim, but it does mean it's absolutely necessary that young women understand the way that society is ordered - which is not an order of egalitarianism and social unity but an order of violent, competitive individualism and exploitation.
we don't live in a society where anybody can claim it's somebody else's responsibility to ensure their well-being, safety or responsibility. we live in a society where the individual must adapt or die. it's been designed that way very carefully.
i don't like that. i think we should fight to change it. but it's of fundamental importance that people understand it.
you can't change behaviour within the system, which produces the behaviour in the first place. you show up on the state's door and say "umm, guys, you're turning all our boys into violent, misogynist pieces of shit" and the state's response is "well, yeah. asia's pretty big, and we need some soldiers to conquer it.". you go to the state and say "gee, you're taking away reproductive rights. da fuck?", and the response is going to be "you're not making enough slaves for us, so we don't want you aborting anymore.".
all of this produces a context where being a woman is dangerous. denying that doesn't make people safer, it just creates a mindset that puts sheltered young women at risk - until they're forced to deal with reality in ugly, disturbing ways.
Mark
Oh I see what you mean. I agree with you but I think you can make a difference (although not a very big one) within the current system and that we should do that while we work to usurp the establishment. Is oppression here to stay as long as the current system exists? Yes but the oppression is in many ways growing more comfortable with time which is thanks to the hardwork of good people. Starvation is the lowest it's ever been, equality amoungst groups that aren't economic is the best it's ever been, and education and information are more accessible than ever. But you're right that sometimes these movements under the establishment can make people blind to real danger. The revolution isn't tomorrow but what can happen in the mean time is work to relive the oppressed but that has to be done responsibly. It is my opinion that revolutionaries should build alternative communities and then use them to help others thus showing and promoting a practical and alternative model, testing and exploring their hypotheses, developing a basis for revolution and providing intimedate help to those in need. I think this is also the path to a revolution that doesn't involve doing violence or forcing our ideas on others.
deathtokoalas
but just to address the religious aspect a last time: the root of her argument (it's all about choice) is not coming from any kind of social science, but from a basis in christian morality. all that stuff about choice is really just straight out of sunday school. we live in a system with all kinds of imbalances and injustices, then create rules to keep those imbalances in place. in most cases, crime is a result of those imbalances, not a choice to turn away from god.
it's important that we get back to understanding that if we want to actually address some of these issues, rather than just continue to stomp them out through police state tactics.
Mark
yes very true. Rapists come from their experiences they don't just out if no where decide to rape someone. In fact I'm sure that many probably don't understand what they have done. That said rapists and abusers are the ine group of people that I hate, I don't want to hate them, and I can see I'm not being reasonable, but when three of the four women I love have been victims of rape and all the women I love have been badly abused by men in some way I can't help but have an emotional response and it's hard not to blame their choice to do what they did rather than the forces that lead them there. That said liberal feminists do oppose many of the direct forces that create rapists which is useful. Victim blaming is one of those forces. However they are only symptomatic of deeper sociatal issues. Justice is a false idol but it's one that's very easy to embrace when you are as upset as I am about this issue.
deathtokoalas
i think the changes you're describing are the result of technology increasing distribution. i identify as a social anarchist, but i largely hold to marx' idea about revolution being in the mode of production. that is, i don't think there's really a way to change the existing order within the realities of existing productive capabilities. if you look at all of the places that have tried, they end up with the same thing - because it follows as a corollary of the productive order. there's little tweaks that can be made - should workers own their own factories? - but in the end, there's not a way to avoid that division of labour and the class divisions that come out of it.
i think the only thing that's going to really get us out of this is automation. we're getting to a point where we may be able to finally abolish the slave/worker class and take communal ownership of production, at which point the shape of society will irreversibly alter. it's not just the slave class that evaporates with automation, it's the managerial and financial sectors that oversee them that get abolished as well.
but, so long as we have the order we have, and so long as it continues to be enforced by the state to maintain it's own hegemony, there is not a way out of this besides taking matters into your own hands.
i don't know if i'd go so far as to deny an understanding. i'm not really comfortable with the normal feminist idea of rape as power. it's an idea that was kind of pulled out of thin air and then backed up with deductive philosophy - there's no science underlying it. the science seems to indicate that it's true in some cases, but really only extreme ones - serial rapists, serial killers...the really disturbed scenarios.
the science underlying date rape (the most common form of rape) is pretty conclusive that it's driven by sexual impulse, not desire for power or control. but there may be a hierarchical underpinning to the idea of date raping women, specifically.
we can be certain at this point that there's a biological basis for rape. we're not clear exactly how strong it is yet. i'm not one for using genetics to explain behaviour, but i'm a strong advocate of the idea of using hormones to explain behaviour, which are controlled by genes. so, that's an indirect genetic thing.
again, you've gotta go back to this kind of christian (or even randian) kind of thinking that explains all criminality in terms of bad choices, and reject it as unscientific. humans are driven by all kinds of impulses. we're not at the point where we can prove it yet, but the science is leaning towards the idea of certain genetic predispositions placing some men in heightened hormonal and cognitive states that they really can't control any more than a dog or a gorilla can. yes, that directly contradicts the idea of humans as rational beings - but it's an idea that's so obsolete now that it shouldn't even raise an articulated opposition.
there's a solution to this in hormone blocking. if the genetics can be identified, it could even be diagnosed before it causes problems.
but we have to start thinking about the problem in the right way before we can get to these solutions. and, in the mean time, we need to understand the depth of it (i mean, we're talking about 20% of women - indicating nearly as many men are rapists) and take steps to keep us out of harm.
the way i'd hypothesize the hormones working (and i'm basing it on studies i've read, but it's my idea) can be explained a little like this...
you've probably had sex a few times. you may have noticed (or you may have not, pay more attention next time) that there's a point where you get into it where you sort of just start going. you might want to call this something like "flow". it's probably the single most defining characteristic of good sex. but what is it, in scientific terms?
it could very well be a hormonal response that is taking over your consciousness and driving it to an end point of passing on those genes.
now, for "normal people", two things are true - or at least we'd like to think these things are true for most people:
1) that doesn't kick in until you're well into the process.
2) it's relatively easy to turn off. although if you're honest, you know it's a bit of a challenge sometimes.
i might suggest that some rapists (not all rapists. like any complex phenomena, rape has multiple causes.) experience this hormonal takeover before they get into it, and lack the ability to turn it off as easily.
again: i wouldn't really take that to the point of not understanding. i've read some case studies where you're dealing with rapists with fas or something (it's a significant problem in the canadian aboriginal community, for example) where there really is a lack of understanding, and it's something else entirely.
but the level of control may not be a simple as something that can be portrayed as a "choice" that should be "punished".
Amy
So, we should just accept rape as it is? The way it's treated in court, the way it's treated in the media, the way victim's are treated? You're cool with that? What a fucking complacent way to live.
deathtokoalas
that's not what i'm saying. what i'm saying is that the forces underlying rape culture cannot be removed through a shift in social attitude or pushing rhetoric, it's going to require an entire reworking of society from the bottom up. there's no bandaid solution to rape culture. you gotta blow everything up.
but what i'm really saying is that it's irresponsible to present this kind of messaging to young girls, and have them learn the hard way. i'm not going to blame a 14 year old for being a 14 year old, but i might blame laci for convincing her she has more freedom than the society we live in actually grants her.
PinkPenguinPajamas
But rape culture is exactly that. A social attitude. So by shifting the victim blaming attitude to an enlightened "hey, you're not going to get away with that" attitude, things will change. No, that doesn't mean that rape will never happen. And it certainly won't stop over night. The point is that the way these situations are handled will change for the better, and on top of that, the number of perpetrators will go down. Sexual assault or harassment will, unfortunately, never stop, but if we stop victim blaming and instead blame the person responsible, things will change.
And no, Laci's message is NOT harmful to young girls. What's harmful, and what will hinder the movement and make things worse, is telling a young girl "You shouldn't do that, you'll be asking for it," or "You did WHAT?! Well, of course he did that, you weren't very smart now, were you?". She'll cower down and be afraid her whole life, and that's no way to live. You don't live by the freedoms society grants you, you live by the freedoms the law gives you. And if anyone tries to take that away, you fight tooth and nail to prove them wrong and make them live with the consequences for trying to hurt you and keep you down.
I'm not saying go to town, get black out drunk in the ghetto in a bikini and a mini-skirt and then act surprised if you're assaulted (it's not the smart thing to do, but it happens). But by all means, if that happens, you don't let them get away with it. And that's the point of this video. Sexual harassment happens, but you don't let the assailants get away with it just because just because society says you were "asking for it". Don't settle because "that the way things are", push forward and fight back because that's not how they should be.
deathtokoalas
there's been a lot of studies done asking the question of if disincentives (or "deterrents") work in reducing crime, and the answer is that they very clearly do not. it's a christian-derived faith-based "rational" argument that does not hold up to any kind of empirical analysis. effective approaches will deal with issues of prevention from both angles.
PinkPenguinPajamas
While victim blaming and slut shaming women is a very Christian view, the US is changing. Tons of things that were thought scandalous and immoral are slowly changing to be more open and rational, even if some places are stuck in the past. The only logical thing to do is to change with the rationals, and if we feel that the progress is stagnant, keep changing for the better anyways. There is no reason to digress when progress isn't visible; it doesn't sense. It only ensures change will never come. Letting people get away with things when they're very clearly wrong only ensures that they will not pay the consequences, meaning they'll do it again and encourage others to act out as well. You have to be the change, and others will follow.
deathtokoalas
but you're not understanding that the empirical data makes it clear that tougher sentences have no effect on rates of recidivism. getting "tough on rapists" is not going to reduce rape, and nobody thinks it will except the fire & brimstone types listening to rush limbaugh.
the things that do have an effect on rates of recidivism have to do with social and economic factors and have solutions that lie in broadening the scope of social programs and rehabilitation measures.
further, all we've seen is social regress since about 1985. the period of progress that you're referring to is not just long over, it's largely been reversed.
Scott
so how about you present this almighty empirical data. Because up till now it's all just been rhetoric. Point me to the studies, show me the actual data. By all means make your points and present a view we can all benefit from. Show us the folly of our thinking. We need to know when popular belief and cultural tendency is out of step with statistical reality. But please don't tell me reality is different than what I think it is WITHOUT SHOWING ME REALITY! Because otherwise I might begin to think you're "just repeating the ideas of others as they have been presented with a collection of rolling eyes and snotty inflections because everybody knows that if you read something in a book at a university then it must be true, like, duh, right?"
deathtokoalas
this is a youtube comment section, i'm not sorting through journals searching for citations. if you'd like to contradict something, i'll take the time to rebut it but it's ultimately not my responsibility to educate you. sorry.
what you'll find, if you take the time to look into it, is that nothing i'm saying is contentious and that sources are mostly accessible through basic google searches.
Scott
"there was actually a report released yesterday or the day before that indicated rape statistics in the united states are increasing." Surely you could at the very least state which study you are referring to.
deathtokoalas
i think i saw it on google news. i don't remember the site that hosted the article.
this was quick to find, but i'm not going to spend my monday morning searching through journals, i already wasted all day yesterday doing this when i should have been mixing atonal choir parts...
http://www.refinery29.com/2014/09/74038/how-many-women-raped-sexual-assault-statistics?utm_source=feed&utm_medium=rss
Carrick
what kind of name is deathtokoalas
deaathtokoalas
koalas demonstrate a perverse cuteness that cannot be tolerated by any advanced civilization.
i just want to clarify what "prevention" means in a way that is not oppressive to individual rights. i'm not really interested in standing up for rights theory, exactly, and i think the idea is being rather abused here - there's nothing in the universal declaration about the right to be drunk or the right to wear short skirts - but i do agree that trying to regulate that sort of behaviour is oppressive. i'm going to explain what not to do by way of example of something i once did...
i was out dancing in a gay bar in ottawa one night a few years ago, went down for a cigarette and bumped into somebody that offered to smoke me on a joint in the park. much marijuana is smoked in that park, and i didn't think much of it. i was also at the point in my gender transition where i was beginning to "pass", and wasn't yet really cognizant of the different social realities attached to existing sexually as a female in a public place. so, i went and smoked the joint.
a few minutes into the conversation, buddy pulls it out and starts whipping it. now, i'm an open-minded person - i actually reacted by laughing at him. i wasn't offended as much as i was amused. had he tried to touch me, that's a different story. and had i been somebody else, he could have gotten himself into some trouble. in actuality, by the time he was done, i realized that he was extremely drunk and wasn't really safe to leave passed out in the park. what actually kicked in was my sense of empathy; instead of knocking him out, i helped him back out to a safer place on the road with lights and a bench before i very briskly walked off.
he seemed more embarrassed by my reaction than sorry about it.
but, the behaviour is arguably legally harassment, and the situation could have been rather different if the dude was a more aggressive person.
now, if something unfortunate would have happened, would i be to blame for it? no. but, i can look back at the situation and conclude it wasn't a safe thing for me to walk to the park with the guy in the dark and smoke some drugs of unknown origin or content (although my nose is pretty good on the last one). i've shifted my behaviour since then, and would not do that again.
does that in some way restrict my "right" to get stoned in the park on a friday night? in some abstraction, perhaps. but, i realize that it's something i should be less haphazard about for the benefit of my own well-being. there's some give and take on the issue.
i recognize i'm only describing a small class of possible rape scenarios. i didn't know this guy. but, the idea can be extrapolated more generally in terms of protecting drinks, staying in lighted areas, being wary of the dudes you think you trust, etc.
and that point needs to be gotten across just as loudly as safe sex needs to be gotten across, as part of a basic sex education.
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