One thing that concerns me about anti-racism/feminism is that people who support them don’t seem to have a vision of what success would be like.
I’m not sure whether this is particular to those groups. I would expect that most Democrats, Republicans, environmentalists, animal rights activists, human rights activists, transhumanists, LW-style rationalists, or for that matter anyone who wants to change society in a certain direction, don’t have a clear vision of what success would be like, either.
Nor do I know whether I’d consider that an issue. To some extent, not having such a vision is perfectly reasonable, since there are lots of opposing forces shaping society in entirely different directions, and it can be more useful to just focus on what you can do now instead of dreaming up utopias. Of course, a concrete vision could help—but people could also be helped if they had a clear vision of where they want to be (with their personal lives) in ten years, and most people don’t seem to have that, either. Humans just aren’t automatically strategic.
My reason for being concerned about the lack of a positive vision is related to my experience reading RaceFail—it felt like being on the receiving end of “I can’t explain what I want you to do, I just want to stop hurting, and I’m going to keep attacking until I feel better”.
This does not mean they were totally in the wrong—one of the things I realized fairly early is that there are two kinds of people who could plausibly say “you figure out how not to piss me off”—abusers and people who are trying to deal with a clueless abuser.
there are two kinds of people who could plausibly say “you figure out how not to piss me off”—abusers and people who are trying to deal with a clueless abuser.
I submit that the latter who react that way are still abusers—abuse in self-defense is still abuse.
This sounds like “I wouldn’t use the word obligation, but I would make the prediction that if abuse victims coach their abusers in how not to be abusive, they would make the abuse less likely to occur.” Would you agree with that restatement?
Fair enough, yes. My use of the word obligation tends to revolve strictly around the personal, so I can see why you’d prefer this version if you use the word in the more typical sense. (Sorry about the confusion. I tend towards egoism, and have a tendency to redefine words to fit the philosophy.)
That would only work if the abuser would prefer not to be abusive. (One characteristic of many abusive relationships is that the abuser gets angry regardless of what the victim actually does—there really isn’t any way to avoid making them mad and “triggering” more abuse.)
Consider the number of people on this forum looking for ways to overcome personality defects, and repeatedly failing.
Not to say that abused people owe it to their abusers; they may or may not owe it to themselves, however. The number of abused people who go out of one abusive relationship directly into another suggests they need coaching/counseling just as much, and perhaps examining where they are is a good place to start in getting to where they need to be.
I agree that providing support for abuser self-improvement is likely to reduce the frequency of abuse—and thus a very worthwhile policy.
Why should abuse victims be responsible for providing the support themselves? For example, if anger management course are effective, is there reason to think they are more effective if taught by an abuse victim?
Further, expecting good results from a victim attempting to educate his own abuser seems particularly unlikely to work—because of all the other social dynamics and history at play. Even if your father was the best therapist in the country, would you feel comfortable doing talk therapy with him?
(Alternatively, mandatory counseling for both abusers and abuse victims. As odd as it seems, I think this would be harder to push on a societal level, however.)
Depends on whether you intend the anger management course to teach the student or the instructor.
If the only lesson that is learned is by the abused, and the lesson is that “This won’t work,” that’s worth learning, too. A lot of abused people think they can fix things. I don’t think merely switching to another fix-me-up relationship is a solution, and that seems to be the standard procedure for abused people.
I just don’t see much, if any, commonality in the curriculum between the abusers’ classes and the victims’ classes. What little there might be seems unlikely to be sufficient to justify creating a common classroom, given the potential downsides.
I’m not sure whether this is particular to those groups. I would expect that most Democrats, Republicans, environmentalists, animal rights activists, human rights activists, transhumanists, LW-style rationalists, or for that matter anyone who wants to change society in a certain direction, don’t have a clear vision of what success would be like, either.
Nor do I know whether I’d consider that an issue. To some extent, not having such a vision is perfectly reasonable, since there are lots of opposing forces shaping society in entirely different directions, and it can be more useful to just focus on what you can do now instead of dreaming up utopias. Of course, a concrete vision could help—but people could also be helped if they had a clear vision of where they want to be (with their personal lives) in ten years, and most people don’t seem to have that, either. Humans just aren’t automatically strategic.
My reason for being concerned about the lack of a positive vision is related to my experience reading RaceFail—it felt like being on the receiving end of “I can’t explain what I want you to do, I just want to stop hurting, and I’m going to keep attacking until I feel better”.
This does not mean they were totally in the wrong—one of the things I realized fairly early is that there are two kinds of people who could plausibly say “you figure out how not to piss me off”—abusers and people who are trying to deal with a clueless abuser.
I submit that the latter who react that way are still abusers—abuse in self-defense is still abuse.
Are you saying that abuse victims have an obligation to coach their abusers in how not to be abusive?
I would say… yes, actually, insofar as they want that abuse to end while changing nothing else about the dynamic.
This sounds like “I wouldn’t use the word obligation, but I would make the prediction that if abuse victims coach their abusers in how not to be abusive, they would make the abuse less likely to occur.” Would you agree with that restatement?
Fair enough, yes. My use of the word obligation tends to revolve strictly around the personal, so I can see why you’d prefer this version if you use the word in the more typical sense. (Sorry about the confusion. I tend towards egoism, and have a tendency to redefine words to fit the philosophy.)
That would only work if the abuser would prefer not to be abusive. (One characteristic of many abusive relationships is that the abuser gets angry regardless of what the victim actually does—there really isn’t any way to avoid making them mad and “triggering” more abuse.)
Consider the number of people on this forum looking for ways to overcome personality defects, and repeatedly failing.
Not to say that abused people owe it to their abusers; they may or may not owe it to themselves, however. The number of abused people who go out of one abusive relationship directly into another suggests they need coaching/counseling just as much, and perhaps examining where they are is a good place to start in getting to where they need to be.
I agree that providing support for abuser self-improvement is likely to reduce the frequency of abuse—and thus a very worthwhile policy.
Why should abuse victims be responsible for providing the support themselves? For example, if anger management course are effective, is there reason to think they are more effective if taught by an abuse victim?
Further, expecting good results from a victim attempting to educate his own abuser seems particularly unlikely to work—because of all the other social dynamics and history at play. Even if your father was the best therapist in the country, would you feel comfortable doing talk therapy with him?
(Alternatively, mandatory counseling for both abusers and abuse victims. As odd as it seems, I think this would be harder to push on a societal level, however.)
For the abused, the practical limit is not personal willingness, but financing and social stigma.
Depends on whether you intend the anger management course to teach the student or the instructor.
If the only lesson that is learned is by the abused, and the lesson is that “This won’t work,” that’s worth learning, too. A lot of abused people think they can fix things. I don’t think merely switching to another fix-me-up relationship is a solution, and that seems to be the standard procedure for abused people.
I just don’t see much, if any, commonality in the curriculum between the abusers’ classes and the victims’ classes. What little there might be seems unlikely to be sufficient to justify creating a common classroom, given the potential downsides.