Young South Korean Men Revolt Against Feminism in South Korea

Satinavian

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I am not actually talking about a fantasy world. I know I said I was, but that was for your benefit. I am talking about the political substructure of the real world, I am talking about belief. Not conscious, deliberate belief, but belief in the assumptions that exist but never get questioned because they are so normalized that noone ever looks at them too closely. I am not talking about silly stereotypes of cartoon jocks bragging about their sexual conquests. If the hierarchy (which is a deliberate oversimplification of hegemony) I was talking about were so fragile people had to brag about it, it wouldn't be worth talking about. If it were so organized that it required people to consciously sort and order themselves by rank, it would have been immediately destroyed. If it couldn't incorporate nice middle aged Christian men in stable marriages, it would have alienated a significant proportion of the men who actually have power within this culture. Of course, nice middle aged Christian men still rape women..
belief but not conscious...
exists but never gets questions and none ever looks at it closely...

You bare basically using lots of worlds that boil down to "It totally is there, just believe me. It is just that no one sees it or knows it even if they are part of it. "

And now it is suddenly a hegemony and hierarchy was the wrong word ? What is that even mean in this context ? Are their some super sexy men having influence about all those around them by controlling all women ? Who is the hegemon ? Or are you just backtracking from men competing for status with each other via control over womens sexuality and now it is suddenly the community of men working together to keep women down, filling the role in the same way the word "class" is usually used ?


It is more and more obvious that you do not have a consistent worldview, just some strange but deep seated hate towards men and are looking for justifications, how flimsy they might be.

James Bond is a fantasy.
JB is a fantasy that includes being irresistible to and getting laid a lot by attractive people. That is a far cry from men controlling womens sexuality to establish a hierarchy.
 

tstorm823

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I'm definitely not, I find terminal's takes interesting and insightful and to come from a place of genuine intellectual authority - he's just lost me in the conclusions he's making here, if I even follow the argument in the first place (I probably don't). Though I find validity to much of his critiques of cultural manhood, I feel the conclusion a bit too extreme in this case - though I don't doubt he has real-world experiences that led him to it.
I'm personally inclined to believe that every post they make here is silly, pretentious nonsense, covering up frequent inaccuracies with hefty rhetoric.
 
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Silvanus

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JB is a fantasy that includes being irresistible to and getting laid a lot by attractive people. That is a far cry from men controlling womens sexuality to establish a hierarchy.
Eh... according to Fleming, Bond "cures" Pussy Galore of lesbianism through "a laying-on of hands". That seems to be pretty much literally controlling a woman's sexuality.
 

Dirty Hipsters

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Do I need to repeat myself again?

If it's not clear yet, what is repeating it one more time supposed to do? I feel like I've already repeated myself a whole bunch.
You've been saying a lot of words that don't add up to any kind of coherent argument.
 
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Terminal Blue

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It's very telling you are bringing up James Bond and people fantasizing about being James Bond..
I think I was pretty explicit there that I don't think most people who enjoy James Bond fantasize about being James Bond. That was actually really integral to the point I was making. I don't think James Bond is an identification fantasy, I think he's a lot closer to the parasocial relationship you might have with a professional athlete you admire.

I think men actually tend to have a very clear understanding of who they are and how they differ from the masculine ideals they idolize, because masculine ideals are not normative prescriptions. They're not something every man has to try and be. They are simply idealized models for what our culture likes to imagine power looks like. In reality, the men in our society who actually have the most power typically don't resemble James Bond at all, and their control over women tends to be far less mysterious in nature, but again ideals don't match reality, and that is actually the problem.
 

Seanchaidh

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Have you considered the possibility that you're having trouble communicating because you're attempting to talk down, and literally everyone else in the conversations is above you?
I would advise Terminal Blue not to waste their time considering that possibility, because it's clearly ridiculous. Indeed, Terminal Blue's posts in this thread are some of the only actually interesting things to read on this forum.
 
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tstorm823

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I would advise Terminal Blue not to waste their time considering that possibility, because it's clearly ridiculous. Indeed, Terminal Blue's posts in this thread are some of the only actually interesting things to read on this forum.
The only things that interest you are fantasies and delusions, so that actually adds up pretty well.
 

Agema

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I'm personally inclined to believe that every post they make here is silly, pretentious nonsense, covering up frequent inaccuracies with hefty rhetoric.
I think this is one of the occasions where "pretentious" means "using theories and critical analyses I don't know or understand".

Pretentious assumes a person is somehow being dishonest or pretending to better than they are. However, many people go away and do studies that make them well-versed in certain disciplines that can be quite esoteric to the general public. This is not pretentiousness, it is being highly educated and choosing to use it. For that reason I would say Terminal Blue (whether I agree with them or not) writes some of the most intellectually developed and interesting stuff on this forum.
 

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I think this is one of the occasions where "pretentious" means "using theories and critical analyses I don't know or understand".

Pretentious assumes a person is somehow being dishonest or pretending to better than they are. However, many people go away and do studies that make them well-versed in certain disciplines that can be quite esoteric to the general public. This is not pretentiousness, it is being highly educated and choosing to use it. For that reason I would say Terminal Blue (whether I agree with them or not) writes some of the most intellectually developed and interesting stuff on this forum.
I agree. I mean - all men are rapists because James Bond. It's mind-blowing stuff. Such dazzling insight. I'm just about ready to renounce my masculinity now!
 
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Terminal Blue

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I'm definitely not, I find terminal's takes interesting and insightful and to come from a place of genuine intellectual authority - he's just lost me in the conclusions he's making here, if I even follow the argument in the first place (I probably don't). Though I find validity to much of his critiques of cultural manhood, I feel the conclusion a bit too extreme in this case - though I don't doubt he has real-world experiences that led him to it.
Thank you for that. I think I've handled this thread very badly. At the same time, I feel like a lot of the criticism I'm getting here is just men being defensive, and that's just not something I ever react well to, especially when the topic in question is about sexual violence.

The fundamental criticism that kicked this whole thing off was me pointing out that I don't like attempts to compartmentalize the societal prevalence of sexual violence (or "toxic" behaviour in general). It's way, way too easy to just point to some other cultural group and say that they're responsible, that you can clearly distinguish bad men from good men from their cultural expression.

I don't think Dwarvenhobble is right very often, but there is some kind of grain of truth in what he's saying when it comes to toxic masculinity. The "toxic masculinity" conversation is mostly being lead by liberal feminist women and profeminist men. Despite the perception among conservatives that "toxic masculinity" is about attacking men, it's really much more about affirming "non-toxic" men (who coincidentally generally behave and act like profeminist men). It comes from a political position that has a vested interest in the idea that you can clearly identify "good" men from the way they behave and the cultural niche they fit into.

But you can't.

There are men out there who absolutely behave like "non-toxic" profeminist men, who appear to be sensitive and in touch with their emotions and who show affection and who know all the right words to say to position themselves as feminist allies, but who in their private lives are also extremely predatory. There are so many of them, in fact, that it is kind of a noticeable cultural trend.

Does this mean I think Dwarvenhobble is right, that profeminist men are the "real" predators and that all other men are blameless. Well, no. I think actually most of the evidence that leads to that conclusion stems from the fact that predatory men who move in feminist circles tend to get caught more often. But more importantly, I think that argument is just doing the exact same thing in reverse. It's picking on this group of men who are culturally distinct and saying "look at them, they're the real predators, it's not us, we're fine, no predators here - just avoid those men and you'll be okay". Again though, that's not true.

My point is, the responsibility for sexual violence is always something that gets pushed onto other people. Often, it's demonized minorities like immigrants or racial and religious minorities. There are always men willing to tell you not just that they're personally not a rapist (which is probably true) but that men like them can't be rapists. It's all those other men over there who are toxic/decadent/foreign/promiscuous/immoral, they're the rapists. They're the ones you need to watch out for. Of course, it's never, ever true.
 
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Terminal Blue

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I don't get why that would make anyone angry, but here's my best guess. I think the point of all these arguments is to avoid responsibility. It's not like saying "yeah, there are predators who behave like me and have the same cultural norms as me" would mean you were a predator. Rapists would still be a minority. But acknowledging that you are not culturally immune to being a rapist would require some introspection. For one, it would require acknowledging that you could become a rapist, or that you could be creepy and predatory. It means being aware that the line you would have to cross is actually very thin, and simply having the "right" culture or belief system or values will not protect you from it. I know that I look back at my behaviour in the past, and I now see that line clearly enough to know that it was a lot closer than it seemed at the time (yeah, don't think I'm exempting myself from any of this, because that's kind of my point, noone can).

Being vigilant towards our own behaviour is a responsibility we should all be taking. It's something we all have to do. It kind of doesn't matter whether or not we think we're a good person, or whether we're the type of person who commits rape or not, because that fundamentally doesn't change anything. That line is not always clear and crossing it is not always going to feel wrong even to the "right" kind of person. It's very easy to make excuses for yourself that you shouldn't be making.

But yeah, let's get to the really spicy stuff that I think is really making everyone mad.

Taking responsibility also means acknowledging that even if you are not a predator, even if you've never hurt anyone, the fact that you culturally resemble people who do is not an accident. Let's leave aside hegemonic masculinity for a second because it's clearly tripping people up and I don't want to have to explain it (even though it's incredibly formative of my position) because at this point it's become work. The important thing is, the culture we live in is full of sexual predators, most of whom are men and most of whom are completely indistinguishable from other men. There are many different cultural niches which men can fit into, that's why it's so easy to blame all the problems on other men who are culturally different. But if we accept that predators can look like us, that they can share the same cultural expression and cultural identity as us, then we have to ask an incredibly difficult and troubling question. What is it about our behaviour which makes it possible for predators to be predators and still look like us? What is it that we do which can camouflage predation? How do we fit into a culture that allows predators to thrive?

We can all sit down and do the work of answering that question. But ultimately, as different as we all are, there are going to be commonalities, there are going to be things that we share because they have enormous cultural traction.

Heck, let's do me as an example. When I was young, I desperately wanted the approval of other men, and the way I found to get the approval of other men was to be successful with women. There were plenty of other rewards. It turns out I really like women so that was convenient, but I developed a very instrumental attitude to relationships which kind of went beyond my own enjoyment. The number of people I slept with mattered to me. That was the success. It was a way of protecting myself against the painful memories of all the times someone had come for me for being too feminine, or being gay. Of course I wasn't gay! I had a list to prove it.

But what I'm saying is that I had internalized the idea that I had to make people sleep with me, that it was my job to overcome any resistance, that it was my job to put on a persona that made people feel safe and relaxed, that I had to be in control. I wasn't coercing anyone, or deceiving them, but someone who was doing those things wouldn't necessarily have looked very different to a cursory examination. I'd probably have looked at that person and thought "wow, they seem to be very good at this".

My point is not that every man is like me. Every man will have a different answer to that question, every man will fit into a different niche, every man will have adopted a different behaviours and a different mentality. In some ways, my experience is very atypical (if nothing else because I'm not actually a man). But there will be commonalities, there will be threads that run across our experiences because we do live in a society. That instrumentality, to a greater or lesser degree, will be part of many men's experiences. Even if it's not part of our personal experience, we can see it in the culture around us. James Bond has a really long list. Noone's going to call him a ******.

So, what do we do with this? I don't know. I could tell you what I think, but this post is well over a thousand words. But it is something that I think is important, and I think sharing the cultural responsibility makes it easier than dealing with it alone.
 
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Dirty Hipsters

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Thank you for that. I think I've handled this thread very badly. At the same time, I feel like a lot of the criticism I'm getting here is just men being defensive, and that's just not something I ever react well to, especially when the topic in question is about sexual violence.

The fundamental criticism that kicked this whole thing off was me pointing out that I don't like attempts to compartmentalize the societal prevalence of sexual violence (or "toxic" behaviour in general). It's way, way too easy to just point to some other cultural group and say that they're responsible, that you can clearly distinguish bad men from good men from their cultural expression.

I don't think Dwarvenhobble is right very often, but there is some kind of grain of truth in what he's saying when it comes to toxic masculinity. The "toxic masculinity" conversation is mostly being lead by liberal feminist women and profeminist men. Despite the perception among conservatives that "toxic masculinity" is about attacking men, it's really much more about affirming "non-toxic" men (who coincidentally generally behave and act like profeminist men). It comes from a political position that has a vested interest in the idea that you can clearly identify "good" men from the way they behave and the cultural niche they fit into.

But you can't.

There are men out there who absolutely behave like "non-toxic" profeminist men, who appear to be sensitive and in touch with their emotions and who show affection and who know all the right words to say to position themselves as feminist allies, but who in their private lives are also extremely predatory. There are so many of them, in fact, that it is kind of a noticeable cultural trend.

Does this mean I think Dwarvenhobble is right, that profeminist men are the "real" predators and that all other men are blameless. Well, no. I think actually most of the evidence that leads to that conclusion stems from the fact that predatory men who move in feminist circles tend to get caught more often. But more importantly, I think that argument is just doing the exact same thing in reverse. It's picking on this group of men who are culturally distinct and saying "look at them, they're the real predators, it's not us, we're fine, no predators here - just avoid those men and you'll be okay". Again though, that's not true.

My point is, the responsibility for sexual violence is always something that gets pushed onto other people. Often, it's demonized minorities like immigrants or racial and religious minorities. There are always men willing to tell you not just that they're personally not a rapist (which is probably true) but that men like them can't be rapists. It's all those other men over there who are toxic/decadent/foreign/promiscuous/immoral, they're the rapists. They're the ones you need to watch out for. Of course, it's never, ever true.
I think that the reason you're getting men in this thread being defensive is that you presented your argument as "all men have the potential to be rapists" which implies that every man deep down in their soul would be rape if presented the perfect opportunity. I'm not sure that's actually what you meant, but that's how the argument you presented sounds, and quite frankly that's a really silly argument to make, because in that case basically every man WOULD in fact rape because we are all presented opportunities to rape during our lives which the vast majority of us would never even consider taking.

Now I think the argument you're actually making is that there is no specific set of circumstances that can be used as a guide for what kind of person is or is not a potential rapist. This is a much more correct argument that I think we can all agree on. It doesn't matter whether someone is black or white, rich or poor, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, liberal or conservative, all of these groups have rapists included in them. There is no specific distinguishing feature of what a rapist is, which means that those who fear rape end up having to be on guard against everyone.

This isn't even an issue of culture or masculinity, because I don't think that there is a single culture on earth that doesn't have rape in it, and that includes cultures that don't necessarily conform to the standard western concepts of what is or is not masculine. In essence that's why I would say that the term of "masculinity" that you used in your argument is overbroad to the point of being meaningless.
 

Satinavian

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Thank you for that. I think I've handled this thread very badly.
Ok, starting over.

The fundamental criticism that kicked this whole thing off was me pointing out that I don't like attempts to compartmentalize the societal prevalence of sexual violence (or "toxic" behaviour in general). It's way, way too easy to just point to some other cultural group and say that they're responsible, that you can clearly distinguish bad men from good men from their cultural expression.
Something you might want to be aware of is that I and many others have Dwarvenhobble on ignore. If we are responding to your statements, we are responding to what they mean at face value not in context of DHs statements.
That is also the reason DH might not get as many disagreeing answers as you do even for more outlandish assertions.
But you can't.
Indeed.
My point is, the responsibility for sexual violence is always something that gets pushed onto other people. Often, it's demonized minorities like immigrants or racial and religious minorities. There are always men willing to tell you not just that they're personally not a rapist (which is probably true) but that men like them can't be rapists. It's all those other men over there who are toxic/decadent/foreign/promiscuous/immoral, they're the rapists. They're the ones you need to watch out for. Of course, it's never, ever true.
Agree. You can't identify rapists or potential rapists easily. But what do we do with this ?

I don't get why that would make anyone angry, but here's my best guess. I think the point of all these arguments is to avoid responsibility. It's not like saying "yeah, there are predators who behave like me and have the same cultural norms as me" would mean you were a predator. Rapists would still be a minority. But acknowledging that you are not culturally immune to being a rapist would require some introspection. For one, it would require acknowledging that you could become a rapist, or that you could be creepy and predatory. It means being aware that the line you would have to cross is actually very thin, and simply having the "right" culture or belief system or values will not protect you from it. I know that I look back at my behaviour in the past, and I now see that line clearly enough to know that it was a lot closer than it seemed at the time (yeah, don't think I'm exempting myself from any of this, because that's kind of my point, noone can).

Being vigilant towards our own behaviour is a responsibility we should all be taking. It's something we all have to do. It kind of doesn't matter whether or not we think we're a good person, or whether we're the type of person who commits rape or not, because that fundamentally doesn't change anything. That line is not always clear and crossing it is not always going to feel wrong even to the "right" kind of person. It's very easy to make excuses for yourself that you shouldn't be making.
If you want to say everyone should be always aware of boundaries, and no culture, class, demeanor, sex or gender is immune to crossing those, sure, why not, But if everyone could be a rapist and has to be vary of it, it doesn't have much to do with masculinity, toxic or not.
Taking responsibility also means acknowledging that even if you are not a predator, even if you've never hurt anyone, the fact that you culturally resemble people who do is not an accident. Let's leave aside hegemonic masculinity for a second because it's clearly tripping people up and I don't want to have to explain it (even though it's incredibly formative of my position) because at this point it's become work. The important thing is, the culture we live in is full of sexual predators, most of whom are men and most of whom are completely indistinguishable from other men. There are many different cultural niches which men can fit into, that's why it's so easy to blame all the problems on other men who are culturally different. But if we accept that predators can look like us, that they can share the same cultural expression and cultural identity as us, then we have to ask an incredibly difficult and troubling question. What is it about our behaviour which makes it possible for predators to be predators and still look like us? What is it that we do which can camouflage predation? How do we fit into a culture that allows predators to thrive?
How is that any different from all the other crimes ? Why should a non-rapist feel more connected to a rapist than a non-burgler or non-murderer to a burgler or murderer ? Sharing culture is not sharing reponsibility. Sure, people like to believe their whatever ingroup to be morally superior and that is why burglers as well as rapists and even murderers tend to get associeted with unpopular minorities so often.
Heck, let's do me as an example. When I was young, I desperately wanted the approval of other men, and the way I found to get the approval of other men was to be successful with women. There were plenty of other rewards. It turns out I really like women so that was convenient, but I developed a very instrumental attitude to relationships which kind of went beyond my own enjoyment. The number of people I slept with mattered to me. That was the success. It was a way of protecting myself against the painful memories of all the times someone had come for me for being too feminine, or being gay. Of course I wasn't gay! I had a list to prove it.
That is your experience. As you said, other had other experiences. What you can't do is arbitrarily decide which parts of your life are normal and shared and which are not.

When I was young, status was all about academic achievements. In retrospect far more than it should have been or was particularly healthy. That was becaus i and my peers grew up in a highly competitive, test based socialist education system and continued that attitude even afterwards.

But what I'm saying is that I had internalized the idea that I had to make people sleep with me, that it was my job to overcome any resistance, that it was my job to put on a persona that made people feel safe and relaxed, that I had to be in control. I wasn't coercing anyone, or deceiving them, but someone who was doing those things wouldn't necessarily have looked very different to a cursory examination. I'd probably have looked at that person and thought "wow, they seem to be very good at this".

My point is not that every man is like me. Every man will have a different answer to that question, every man will fit into a different niche, every man will have adopted a different behaviours and a different mentality. In some ways, my experience is very atypical (if nothing else because I'm not actually a man). But there will be commonalities, there will be threads that run across our experiences because we do live in a society. That instrumentality, to a greater or lesser degree, will be part of many men's experiences. Even if it's not part of our personal experience, we can see it in the culture around us. James Bond has a really long list. Noone's going to call him a ******.
No, i think this kind of thinking and instrumentality is your personal experience, not something common to men's experiences.

That is also why people got defensive. You are extrapolating your past, even if only a past you have distanced yourself from now, to others. While you did not say that everyone is a rapist, you basically implied that men in general secretly admire them for getting their way. That they want to control women and respect those that seem to to. That is what people take offense for.

I mean, as agender i really don't feel any need to defend masculinity. I just seriously think you are quite wrong about how our culture works.


As for James Bond, when i still watched it, it was the guy with the cool gimmiks and those romances were just annoying, because seriously, if i actually want to believe that world saving plot that guy should do his work, not flirt around.
 

Generals

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I think I was pretty explicit there that I don't think most people who enjoy James Bond fantasize about being James Bond. That was actually really integral to the point I was making. I don't think James Bond is an identification fantasy, I think he's a lot closer to the parasocial relationship you might have with a professional athlete you admire.

I think men actually tend to have a very clear understanding of who they are and how they differ from the masculine ideals they idolize, because masculine ideals are not normative prescriptions. They're not something every man has to try and be. They are simply idealized models for what our culture likes to imagine power looks like. In reality, the men in our society who actually have the most power typically don't resemble James Bond at all, and their control over women tends to be far less mysterious in nature, but again ideals don't match reality, and that is actually the problem.
But that wasn't my main point either.
The main point was what you twisted 007 into. Because again, this idea that people may admire James Bond who is a murdering womanizer is still telling about the way you distorted a well known character to fit your worldview. Why would you leave out the fact this parasocial relationship may be about the fact he's a savior of the world rather than just a cold blooded killer who has all the women he wants?

I don't think a murderer who has a lot of sex with a lot of different women is what our culture likes to imagine power looks like (or at least "positive" power). However having a significant impact on the world is. And you can see that very clearly all the time with all the conspiracy theories involving individuals controlling people's lives or just even people continuously pointing towards the "elites" who determine the fate of the world. (whether from the right or left)
And in a sense that is what James Bond is, a man who can shape the future of the world by preventing extremely powerful criminal organizations from taking over or exterminating millions/billions. That is the power fantasy/ideal. The sexual attraction and the fact he's the best at what he does (being a field agent) just adds to the mythos of James Bond being the best.
 
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Generals

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I think this is one of the occasions where "pretentious" means "using theories and critical analyses I don't know or understand".

Pretentious assumes a person is somehow being dishonest or pretending to better than they are. However, many people go away and do studies that make them well-versed in certain disciplines that can be quite esoteric to the general public. This is not pretentiousness, it is being highly educated and choosing to use it. For that reason I would say Terminal Blue (whether I agree with them or not) writes some of the most intellectually developed and interesting stuff on this forum.
There is actually not that much intellectual merit in forcing real life events, statistics and alike to fit your worldview, no matter how many technical words you have learned during your curriculum you attach to it. Anybody can nitpick certain phenomena and take the one interpretation that would confirm their pre-made conclusion while ignoring all others. It seems that what determines how interesting the theories are is a matter of bias towards the posited theory and person presenting it.

Take the following: " Taking responsibility also means acknowledging that even if you are not a predator, even if you've never hurt anyone, the fact that you culturally resemble people who do is not an accident. "

If used by a (far) right wing person regarding issues prevalent among the muslim community for example, it suddenly would lose all its intellectual merit and I am certain the person saying it would receive a lot of negative labels by the same people who are defending this line of thought right now.

"But if we accept that predators can look like us, that they can share the same cultural expression and cultural identity as us, then we have to ask an incredibly difficult and troubling question. What is it about our behaviour which makes it possible for predators to be predators and still look like us? What is it that we do which can camouflage predation? How do we fit into a culture that allows predators to thrive?"

This part is a further development on the guilt by cultural association. However, crimes of all kind have existed throughout history and across cultures. As such it becomes quite clear it cannot be a mere matter of "our culture" and that there is quite likely a lot more to it. Culture doesn't entirely dictate which behaviors can thrive or not unless it is in total control. Human psychology is not determined solely by "culture"; genes, specific events, parental education, friends and many more can impact people's behavior. And while I understand specific events, parental education and interactions with friends are impacted by the general cultural environment none of those necessarily entirely fit the prevailing cultural norms. You just need to look around you and see the different types of educations people who are culturally similar to you can get from their parents.

This is not to say there is no merit in trying to understand how prevailing norms, values and ideals in a society in order to better contextualize certain behaviors and phenomena. But one shouldn't try to force the world to fit their views and sometimes overestimate the influence of the overarching cultural environment. I guess I could summarize it by saying that sometimes you need to stop looking at things on a macro scale and look a bit more on a micro scale (at the very least on a sub cultural level) otherwise it easily leads to generalizations and guilt by association.
 
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Agema

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I think that the reason you're getting men in this thread being defensive is that you presented your argument as "all men have the potential to be rapists"
Isn't that true though? Or at least, very close to true?

which implies that every man deep down in their soul would be rape if presented the perfect opportunity.
Because I think this is not where the problem is. I don't think this needs to be about rape, it can be about any sin or crime as I think we all have the potential to do anything bad: rape, theft, murder, etc.

We have a way of talking about serious crimes as if they are carried out by people fundamentally aberrant: mentally ill, psychopathic, etc. However, I think we'd also have to accept that "normal" people do bad things too, in certain circumstances. Most people have moral standards not to harm others, but most people can also have points of lowered inhibition, opportunism, impulsivity, carelessness, pressure, and at such points of weakness may cross the line. As was mentioned in an earlier post, I think this is the point of post #114 early in this particular tangent o the thread: what excuses do "normal" people have to pretend they didn't actually cross a line, or not realise where the line is?

I think we do need to confront the fact that within ourselves lies a deep capacity to do the wrong thing, accidentally or deliberately. I suspect we have probably all stolen stuff, even if just at a level of pens from the stationery cupboard. Most of us would need the strongest pressure to commit murder. It would take similar extreme situations for most of us to violently assault and rape another person. But when we get into the territory of date rape, excessive pressuring, drunk partners, this becomes the area where I think a lot of "normal" people might do something wrong.

To an extent that's what moral conduct is all about. Trying to make sure we do the right thing requires both that we learn what is wrong and accept that we might can do something wrong.
 
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