Think about Free Speech. People have the right to lie to you, to say anything they want to you. A stranger can walk up to you on the street and say horrible, uncomfortable, distress-causing sequences of words and symbols to you, and theres not really much you can do to stop it. Why should a person be allowed to say to you a thing that is not true, a thing that you do not want to hear, just in the interest of his own free expression? Now just include sexuality to be included under the umbrella of free expression, blur the lines between mental and physical pain and discomfort, and there you go. And before anyone assumes that this kind of reasoning makes me at all pro-rape or sympathetic to the idea of it, please know that i personally consider Free Speech laws to actually be in their ultimate effect, regressive and detrimental to veracity within the sociopolitical spectrum. That which is true is sustained by its own evidence and merits, only insanity and falsehood needs establishment power to prop it up.
We are just simply too good at taking our own norms for granted. Thank you for explaining this in a way I can really get behind.
I think we sometimes forget that not only is all ethics relative, but that we have skewed weightings based on what is ‘normal’. The number of people driven to depression and suicide by legal means...
I wonder, if certain negative strains of human social interaction were made illegal, and guiltworthy, while rape was made legal, and we waited for a couple hundred years, would people still rank them in the same order? If rape was something to ‘get over’, while surprise polygamy (trying for a word with as few connotations as possible—couldn’t find anything) and bullying were horrible events to ‘survive’...
Hmm, it’s certainly a good question. Now, since I’m not a rape victim, I couldn’t presume to guess very accurately, but perhaps the knowledge that it’s a bad thing reinforces that it’s a bad thing? I can’t help but draw a rather unfortunate parallel with the broad range of human experiences that are scary at first, and then enjoyable. Before I get voted down into submission, consider that I have used the most physical descriptions I can, since those are the ones we are less likely to change.
In the least offensive way possible, would we want to go bungee jumping (again) if it was treated as a terrible thing? If we were told it was terrible our entire lives, then forced into doing it? Traumatic in the extreme. Consider, however, that some people are pushed in these heights-based sports. Off cliffs, out of airplanes, onto ziplines. They enjoy it in the end, so it’s ok, right? Would they enjoy it if they weren’t supposed to? If it was rape?
Interesting questions.
Don’t worry for my morality, if this musing leaves you fearing for your orifices. I’m a perfectly well-adjusted nihilist, who values his continued (enjoyable) existence enough not to do anything silly.
Think about Free Speech. People have the right to lie to you, to say anything they want to you. A stranger can walk up to you on the street and say horrible, uncomfortable, distress-causing sequences of words and symbols to you, and theres not really much you can do to stop it. Why should a person be allowed to say to you a thing that is not true, a thing that you do not want to hear, just in the interest of his own free expression? Now just include sexuality to be included under the umbrella of free expression, blur the lines between mental and physical pain and discomfort, and there you go. And before anyone assumes that this kind of reasoning makes me at all pro-rape or sympathetic to the idea of it, please know that i personally consider Free Speech laws to actually be in their ultimate effect, regressive and detrimental to veracity within the sociopolitical spectrum. That which is true is sustained by its own evidence and merits, only insanity and falsehood needs establishment power to prop it up.
We are just simply too good at taking our own norms for granted. Thank you for explaining this in a way I can really get behind.
I think we sometimes forget that not only is all ethics relative, but that we have skewed weightings based on what is ‘normal’. The number of people driven to depression and suicide by legal means...
I wonder, if certain negative strains of human social interaction were made illegal, and guiltworthy, while rape was made legal, and we waited for a couple hundred years, would people still rank them in the same order? If rape was something to ‘get over’, while surprise polygamy (trying for a word with as few connotations as possible—couldn’t find anything) and bullying were horrible events to ‘survive’...
Hmm, it’s certainly a good question. Now, since I’m not a rape victim, I couldn’t presume to guess very accurately, but perhaps the knowledge that it’s a bad thing reinforces that it’s a bad thing? I can’t help but draw a rather unfortunate parallel with the broad range of human experiences that are scary at first, and then enjoyable. Before I get voted down into submission, consider that I have used the most physical descriptions I can, since those are the ones we are less likely to change.
In the least offensive way possible, would we want to go bungee jumping (again) if it was treated as a terrible thing? If we were told it was terrible our entire lives, then forced into doing it? Traumatic in the extreme. Consider, however, that some people are pushed in these heights-based sports. Off cliffs, out of airplanes, onto ziplines. They enjoy it in the end, so it’s ok, right? Would they enjoy it if they weren’t supposed to? If it was rape?
Interesting questions.
Don’t worry for my morality, if this musing leaves you fearing for your orifices. I’m a perfectly well-adjusted nihilist, who values his continued (enjoyable) existence enough not to do anything silly.