..To be mortified at the treatment of rape victims at the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre?

Have only had time to skim read posts since I was last on this thread (imo derailers are best ignored as it clogs up a thread and it only encourages them!) so my comments relate to earlier points.

I think I posted a while back that it was a shame the other women's services providers haven't commentated.

Yesterday Rape Crisis (England & Wales) that share / co authoted the guidelines that federated RCCs are meant to abide by, have said they are going to review what happened in Scotland as in theory it couldn't have happened had the agreed guidelines been followed.

And worth remembering that despite msm headlines and women journalist who are all jumping in to comment, not having support RCCs remaining women only, that they dont always represent what is happening.

ie an article is being shared today which lazily says there would be no women only RCC services in Scotland without Beira's Place being set up.

This is factually incorrect. There are 3 RCCs in Scotland that are women only, who have had to struggle really hard against sector pressure to be trans inclusive, and political and financial pressure as well.

Just because women who have acess to newspapers haven't written about them, they do exist and many women have had intense personal pressure to maintain the founding principles of RCCs.

We need a system where women locally should be able to support without interferring, local DV projects and RCs, so as to confront local councillors who say women only services are too expensive.

If the past months I've read of at least 5 women's refuges being closed just because they are too costly and it is assumed a generic homelessness project will be sufficient for women fleeing domesstic violence.

Never forget the sucess of TRAs sucess is based on the underlying much older misogyny of MRAs. If men's rights wasn't the default social norm, TRAs would never have got a foothold.

After all if society respect women, TRAs would have been laughed out of existence. It is the underlying lack of respect for women, let alone their right to autonomy, that made it possible for people to accept that if a man says he is a woman he must be right.

The review notes the “damage done” by ERCC to victims and survivors, but that damage needs to be owned by all who supported and pushed these policies.

this cannot be said enough. Those telling others to be kind , to not point out that males remain males and to call males who for whatever reason need to be referred to as female, need to take ownership of their demands.

Looks like it

A huge amount of Christian teaching on these issues was strongly shaped by Greek attitudes anyway.

Did you miss the bits about the ancient Greeks, Romans, Buddhists etc?

The "being kind" morality is a straw man, no one believes in it as a sole basis for morality.

Actually I'm not sure that's true. What do you think people's base for morality is?

The author wants to replace learning about right and wrong with learning what the Church teaches, and, especially, confessing to a celibate male priest when you have deviated from it.

I think what is most interesting about it is the broader concept of morality that the author draws attention to that's expressed through the Christian virtues. These aren't 'catholic dogma' by the way, they're central to all Christian thinking

Because it is not really attacking an imaginary morality based only on "being kind". It is attacking a moral system where virtues opposed to the Ten Commandments are supported. The "being kind" morality is a straw man, no one believes in it as a sole basis for morality. The author just doesn't like some of the "progressive" causes the school is promoting. The author wants to replace learning about right and wrong with learning what the Church teaches, and, especially, confessing to a celibate male priest when you have deviated from it.

If all you are drawing from it is that some "progressive" causes are ill thought out and silly or immoral then fair enough.

And actually, it references lots of different cultural ways of thinking about virtue from all over the world.

I think some of the points are very interesting about the balancing out of virtues. I think it's an odd position to throw out everything the article is saying because it references older forms of thinking about virtue. Why not read it and analyse the points it's making instead?

@NoBinturongsHereMate I think you are being scolded for Wrong for the Wrong Reasons? At least, not for Unseemly Tone nor for Impoliteness.

Or honest, or honourable.

(needs context; sorry)

This is a good one too

unherd.com/2023/10/the-tyranny-of-pathological-kindness/

It's an interesting essay. Have you read it?

I've heard said: "My enemy's enemy is my friend." but I'm surprised you seek support from an article representing the dogma of the Roman Catholic patriarchy.

It was made quite clear that being right for the wrong reasons was very nearly as much of a sin as being wrong for the wrong reasons. Whereas being wrong for the right reasons would still leave that poster on the side of virtue.

And we see this in the idea of "disinformation" from the BBC etc, there's scope creep in moving from combating "fake news" which is objectively not supported by evidence to combating stuff that might be true but isn't virtuous and doesn't suit the "progressive" agenda. And we can fib or lie by omission to do that, is left unsaid.

I'd rather people strove to be fair.

Very interesting. And ties in to some extent with what I've been thinking about recently about the deification of 'kindness' being childish. Or at least infantilising.

'Be kind' is a handy shorthand if you need to quickly encourage a 6 year old to lend their classmate a pencil sharpener. But it's far too simplistic a basis for a whole social framework. There's no way for 'kind' to cover balancing of rights, individual versus collective good, short term versus long term effects etc. We do need all those other 'virtues' the article mentions - and more -in order to have a balanced, grown up conversation about what is 'right', or 'best', or 'reasonable and practicable'.

Which will no doubt result sometimes in being 'right for the wrong reasons' if you have defined 'wrong' solely as 'kind' (which so often means 'complies with what a particular individual wants in that moment').

The review notes the “damage done” by ERCC to victims and survivors, but that damage needs to be owned by all who supported and pushed these policies.

So very much this. Wadhwa will be/ has been hung out to dry, but he's just a stark example of the much bigger issue.

Woman= adult human female. All of the harm that's been done, from pretending otherwise.

Oh yes that's a good one.

I found some bits of this article v interesting

https://unherd.com/2024/09/the-cult-of-kindness/

It was made quite clear that being right for the wrong reasons was very nearly as much of a sin as being wrong for the wrong reasons. Whereas being wrong for the right reasons would still leave that poster on the side of virtue.

I think there's something interesting about people wanting to feel that they have the moral high ground and even when faced with the problems created by 'their side' it's hard to give that feeling up.

It points to a broader problem. Being 'kind' isn't robust enough (by itself) as a moral framework for how we live. We need more thought to broader societal needs, implications for the longer term.

Being 'kind' prioritises short term fixes over longer term ones, it responses to the individuals drawing the most attention over society as a whole. And it seems to fall most heavily on women to facilitate - to their detriment.

They proudly declare they don’t know much, but at least they know how to be kind and how to take a prod at those they declare are not kind. But then insist that they should be welcomed and embraced for expressing their opinion because they are the kind ones after all.

And also despite being proud of not caring what we think or our concerns and thinking we are unkind, many seem to want to give us unsolicited advice to improve our communications and make our campaigning more effective. Which is odd, to say the least.

That one still regularly pops into my head several years later. How anyone could type those actual words...

It was made quite clear that being right for the wrong reasons was very nearly as much of a sin as being wrong for the wrong reasons. Whereas being wrong for the right reasons would still leave that poster on the side of virtue.

We get posters like this more often than you would think likely.

They proudly declare they don’t know much, but at least they know how to be kind and how to take a prod at those they declare are not kind. But then insist that they should be welcomed and embraced for expressing their opinion because they are the kind ones after all.

What is quite humorous after a while is that they seem to think they might be unique. And that they have the solution!!! All while censuring on tone and sadly, their solution has been deemed as horrifically transphobic as it was proposed a decade ago. But they are kind and they are righteous and should have their uninformed opinion heard.

And yet, if they ever stepped off their righteous step and fucking even read anything, they might understand that they are fucking adding to the harm they say they can actually recognise.