Well we’ve all been disrespected at one time or another, so
I think that my two cents could at least count for something. I had a friend
who was suicidal and got cat calls all the time, and of course it’s sad (to say
the least) to hear about, but I’m not going to let it affect how I treat people
because that would be neither ethical or logical. It’s like when people posted
videos for crush fetishists on MySpace and the “norm” was to describe all the
terrible things one would want done to the culprit, even though to preach such
kind of violence as a punishment was in fact a hypocritical power attitude. And
one of my friends wouldn’t talk to me for a few days because I was “defending”
the woman in the video and preaching peace.
Different people respond differently to different behavior,
and not all social deviance is poorly received. Some people even prefer to be
treated with social deviance, such as in the case of a fellow I knew who was a
social deviant as well and preferred to be filmed without being asked first.
People are not crazy or “bad”. One just has to get to understand them.
I certainly never understood the whole “picking up girls”
thing but I’ve heard about both sides of the perspective, and all though I found
it silly myself I would not feel entitled to pass judgement upon the souls of
the people involved so much as the actions. There have even been books written
on pick-up artistry, one of whom I encountered in the home of a married couple
whom I respect, and the argument in favour of this deviant behavior is that a
minority of women will be receptive to it. But that minority is its self
therefore a kind of social deviance and it would be bullying to say that such a
woman is a whore or something.
I am sorry about your feelings and all I can suggest is that
you do what you can to deal with it. That’s not a put-down; “dealing with”
things by my definition is one of the most noble enterprises in life and can be
done in a number of ways. I wouldn’t be presumptuous but I all ways tend to
suspect that all though every individual goes through radically unique
experiences they are all so more or less universal. As Watts said: “What you do
and what happens to you are the same,” and all though this sounds like
victim-blaming in a sociological context, speaking in the context that it was
used in it means that rather than feeling disempowered or offended people
should try to see the matter with as much objectivity as humanly possible. The
shame of having wronged someone is arguably worse than the pain of being
humiliated, and a basic trust in people will tell you that no one can escape
his or her own conscience. That’s me preaching Buddhism, et cetera, but
hopefully it creates a clearer context for what I said. Just don’t think I have
not thought about this and how it affects people, both men and women, and the
culture that it creates, in both its raw form and the reactionary movement that
emerged out of it. Notice that I never once said that feminism was bad, but I
wouldn’t embrace any ideology as universally good because that is fanaticism by
definition, and it is contrary to intellectualism and freedom. That kind of
thinking leads to fascism and suffering for all, and I think a more enlightened
society would tend not to create so much division betwixt people. Frankly moralizing
does that too, so I’m sorry for having done so in my self-defense.
Respectfully,
Dmitry.
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