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Oct. 24th, 2013
Abuse and perceptions
Oct. 24th, 2013 01:32 pmA week or so back, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fayanora made a post:
Fri, 23:57: "There’s a form of mental torture called 'gaslighting,' its name taken from a play in which a man..." http://t.co/bMtUp2LccQ
Full quote from the post:[blockquote]"There’s a form of mental torture called 'gaslighting,' its name taken from a play in which a man convinces his wife that the gas lights in their home she sees brightening and dimming are, in fact, maintaining a steady glow. His ultimate goal is to drive his her into a mental institution and take all her money, and soon the woman ends up in an argument with herself about whether she’s losing her mind. American race relations have a similar narrative: An entire set of minorities confident that the everyday slights they’re seeing are real and hurtful, and an entire set of other people assuring them that they’re wrong.
Kanye West Knows You Think He Sounded Nuts on Kimmel (via interweber)
Abuse survivors deal with this a lot. and even more so when they are still being abused.
It's due to a major disconnect most folks have.
They (wrongly) believe that *intent* matters. So if it wasn't intended as abuse, it's not actually abusive.
But in reality, intent *doesn't* matter. You can do something with the best of intentions and still hurt someone if they are wired that way.
A good example is allergies. I don't care *how* much care and love you put into that dish of X. If I'm allergic to something in it, you'll put me in the hospital (or the morgue) by making me eat it.
Same thing applies to abusive behavior. Even the racial stuff and GLBT stuff.
But people will fight bitterly to avoid acknowledging this. Because if they do, it means they have to accept several things that they don't want to.
That good intentions don't matter. That other people are not like them, and thus don't react like they do. And worst of all, that being different that way is *not* wrong.
And that last is why so many reactions to getting called on stuff boil down to "you're doing this just to be contrary"
I blame the golden rule for a lot of this. It *inherently assumes* that other people are just like you. The allergy example I used above points out the problems with that.
And gee, ever notice how many people don't *really* believe that allergies exist, they think that they are just people being unreasonably "picky".
Funny how that looks like the folks who claim that they aren't being insensitive/abusive.
The version of the "golden rule" used in metalaw works better but people really hate it:
Do unto others as they would have you do unto them.
People immediately jump to "but they can abuse that for all sorts of things". Which says a lot about how they think.
fayanora made a post:Fri, 23:57: "There’s a form of mental torture called 'gaslighting,' its name taken from a play in which a man..." http://t.co/bMtUp2LccQ
Full quote from the post:[blockquote]"There’s a form of mental torture called 'gaslighting,' its name taken from a play in which a man convinces his wife that the gas lights in their home she sees brightening and dimming are, in fact, maintaining a steady glow. His ultimate goal is to drive his her into a mental institution and take all her money, and soon the woman ends up in an argument with herself about whether she’s losing her mind. American race relations have a similar narrative: An entire set of minorities confident that the everyday slights they’re seeing are real and hurtful, and an entire set of other people assuring them that they’re wrong.
Kanye West Knows You Think He Sounded Nuts on Kimmel (via interweber)
Abuse survivors deal with this a lot. and even more so when they are still being abused.
It's due to a major disconnect most folks have.
They (wrongly) believe that *intent* matters. So if it wasn't intended as abuse, it's not actually abusive.
But in reality, intent *doesn't* matter. You can do something with the best of intentions and still hurt someone if they are wired that way.
A good example is allergies. I don't care *how* much care and love you put into that dish of X. If I'm allergic to something in it, you'll put me in the hospital (or the morgue) by making me eat it.
Same thing applies to abusive behavior. Even the racial stuff and GLBT stuff.
But people will fight bitterly to avoid acknowledging this. Because if they do, it means they have to accept several things that they don't want to.
That good intentions don't matter. That other people are not like them, and thus don't react like they do. And worst of all, that being different that way is *not* wrong.
And that last is why so many reactions to getting called on stuff boil down to "you're doing this just to be contrary"
I blame the golden rule for a lot of this. It *inherently assumes* that other people are just like you. The allergy example I used above points out the problems with that.
And gee, ever notice how many people don't *really* believe that allergies exist, they think that they are just people being unreasonably "picky".
Funny how that looks like the folks who claim that they aren't being insensitive/abusive.
The version of the "golden rule" used in metalaw works better but people really hate it:
Do unto others as they would have you do unto them.
People immediately jump to "but they can abuse that for all sorts of things". Which says a lot about how they think.