Can we talk about female violence? I need to get my response straight

[GrassIsSinging]

I know this is celeb rubbish, but am finding my blood boiling over comments from FB friends and the like over the Solange Knowles -punching-Jay Z debacle.

Lots of seemingly conscious, smart, reasonable people condemning violence of any sort (great, agreed), but then saying things like 'the double standards in society sicken me...Chris brown beats Rihanna and he is a monster...Solange attacks Jay Z and people dont respond in the same way'. Others (people I thought were decent) saying 'You couldnt have blamed him for hitting back...people have a right to defend themselves' etc.

This riles me massively. Am I a freak for thinking that male violence against women IS often (not always, but very often) much more devastating than vice versa? Because men are usually physically stronger...because male violence against women is a huge problem in this world...? And that a decent man will not hit a woman, even if provoked. Is this an 'old fashioned ' view now?

Feminism doesnt mean we now have to accept men punching us, ffs!

Depressed...

You introduced the comparison to drinking in a post to Basil before I posted in response to you.

I do not accept that violent acts towards others are innate. If you can not separate the experience of stress from the desire to violently express that feeling then I think you're in trouble.

I recognise culture is biological; we're only making this tiresome quasi distinction between physiological violence and social.violence at your insistence.

Speaking as someone who has taught literally hundreds of people.to punch, I can assure you, punching is not an innate pattern of movement the way that walking is.

This whole discussion is tiresome and circular an I don't see it changing because you are so wedded to the idea that violent acts, or at least the desire to commit them are.innate to the possession of limbs. I think that makes you an apologist for violence, or at least an apologist for the desire to be violent. Really, violent urges are not an inevitable part of being a human shaped consciousness. Because people manage their stress differently than that, they do. And if you just can't imagine that, then you've got a problem. I think Dervel had it earlier, you are wrong.

OutsSelf may I congratulate you on your endless patience and forbearance in continuing to engage with the self-indulgent and pointless ramblings with which this poster is regaling us.

I can't even get past the first para.

Ha, I cross posted with you Basil, you pretty much nailed it there. I have a brother who speaks like this and I'm always falling into the trap of interlocution with him, too. It's like he's trying to gaslight you, except he does it in full view of a room full of people, so everyone's just left going, huh?

you nailed it with blah, you were just being polite when you were talking about my patience, I'm obviously wasting my time here

" self-indulgent and pointless ramblings"

It's quite telling that persons who seemingly have nothing left to contribute to a discussion insist on maintaining their presence. It is easy to do, I understand. You would fit in well with 13-year-old trolls on 4Chan.

"You introduced the comparison to drinking in a post to Basil before I posted in response to you."

Actually, dervel was the first to mention it. So there you go.

"I do not accept that violent acts towards others are innate. If you can not separate the experience of stress from the desire to violently express that feeling then I think you're in trouble."

If violent acts are innate, then some subset of violent acts must also be innate. It's as simple as that.

"we're only making this tiresome quasi distinction between physiological violence and social.violence at your insistence."

I pointed it out to help us see why precisely violence is innate. Again, if physiological violence is innate, then social violence too must be innate, unless you explicitly posit some fundamental difference between violence directed at a human and violence directed at a beast or an object.

Speaking as someone who has taught literally hundreds of people.to punch, I can assure you, punching is not an innate pattern of movement the way that walking is."

Because punching according to a technique is not innate punching is not innate? Ludicrous, and you've already made a mistake along these lines before. Physical trainers will often teach that there are particular ways in which one should breath to maximize efficiency, but that clearly does not mean that breathing is unknown until taught. I really should not have to point this out...

"This whole discussion is tiresome and circular an I don't see it changing "

My thoughts exactly. But I always hold out hope that my interlocutors have something to teach me.

"violent acts, or at least the desire to commit them are.innate to the possession of limbs. "

To the functional organization of the central nervous system, more immediately.

" I think that makes you an apologist for violence, or at least an apologist for the desire to be violent. Really, violent urges are not an inevitable part of being a human shaped consciousness. Because people manage their stress differently than that, they do. And if you just can't imagine that, then you've got a problem. I think Dervel had it earlier, you are wrong."

I've already addressed this point. Please do not continue to mischaracterize my arguments; I've made this as plain as possible.

The simple point is that, like pretty much any other animal, humans have retained the instinct that allows them to attack or defend. Obviously, as I explicitly noted, social conditioning modifies the expression of violence by introducing things like context, foresight, propriety, and so on. Again: I am not saying that violence is inevitable or unchangeable or must be tolerated or anything like that. Come on...

I do posit that violent acts toward other humans are not a subset of violence but a category of their own. Human brains develop mirror neurons which make other humans a special.class of other being in which I see.myself reflected in the other in a way incomparable with other things in the world.

I'm totally done here. What a huge derailment this was.

Breathing is now comparable with punching? Mental.

"I do posit that violent acts toward other humans are not a subset of violence but a category of their own. Human brains develop mirror neurons which make other humans a special.class of other being in which I see.myself reflected in the other in a way incomparable with other things in the world."

That humans are processed specially in human brains actually tells us nothing about whether violence is innate in itself, only the obvious observation that context makes a difference in behavior. Just think once again of the abusive partner who is nothing but charm and good will in public.

There is no plausible rationale for considering interpersonal violence as a different category from other violence.

I'm still here because I'm hoping that you'll exhaust yourself with all your windbaggery and the thread will move on to the interesting discussion it was before you hijacked it with your irrelevant, boring de-railing Montmorency.

Nothing you have posted has shed any light on the original subject of the thread, which is female violence in the context of patriarchy, sparked by the Solange JayZ event.

You've almost killed what was in fact a really interesting thread. Which I suspect was your intention.

Actually, I've spoken pretty-much definitively on that issue earlier with reference to female violence in romantic relationships. Whether or not you disagree with the points I raised - and if you do, I'll do the favor of not attributing that to malice or stupidity - you must admit that I covered the subject extensively, and that the subject falls under the ambit of "female violence in the context of patriarchy".

As for the Solange/JayZ incident itself, I have no idea what that is about as I don't follow celebrity news. I know just enough about JayZ to note that he does in fact have 100 problems , but otherwise I'm happy to assume that it was a typical celebrity thing, two overprivileged chuckleheads either staging a spat for publicity or otherwise some pointless disagreement that no one would take note of were the participants not famous.

Anyway, it's rather audacious of you to complain that I've killed the thread when you yourself have abdicated reasoned discussion in favor of complaining about this or that or thumbing your nose at me. Try contributing something other than snark, as it seems to be your primary output these days.

You think I can't match you in wallowing? Harrumph

Montmorency1 ok now we appear to have had the climax to your prolonged bout of mental masturbation out of the way, I just thought I'd chime in on something you said I agree with:

"I am not saying that violence is inevitable or unchangeable"

Care to weigh in what progress can be made in this area? As I have already stated changes to environment are key. Do you agree and if so what changes would you suggest? If not what other measures in your view can be taken.

1. Reduce exposure to heavy metals in the general population, in part by regulating the supply-side evenly throughout the world.

1. Tolerate "rough-housing" in children, but make clear that it should be limited to play and should not bleed into conflict-resolution.

1. Sequester habitually and impulsively-violent individuals away from society in special contained units (or at least invest in providing them extensive psychiatric care).

That's just some ballparking, I don't really know what I'm talking about. I suspect none of us should be let anywhere near the levers of policy, if you know what I mean.

P.S. Could someone delete a couple of those GIF-posts? That multi-post was the result of some board error.

Mont, if you want posts deleted, hit "Report" on the post and request it from MNHQ.

Yeah, Buffy put it better

That's Slayers for ya.

Buffy is "warrior" violent not "street" violent though; her violence comes from training and rational decision making, not as a stress handling device.

We'll its a start. Another crucial component is emotional management. There is this perception that anger, fear and frustration are negative and people tend to absorb unconsciously the notion that they themselves are unacceptable because of those feelings. Some people will repress anger thus becoming depression, others will be prone to violent outbursts in response.

Neither is particularly healthy either for the individual or society, so I think we could do more to teach children to accept their feelings and be able to experience those feelings and find positive ways to work through them. When we talk about violent people we have this idea that there are a few bad apples ruining it for the rest of us, when in some ways it's the barrel that's rotten and that is where we should look to affect the most significant change.

I am not saying for a second we shouldn't expect people who have crossed the line to be culpable, and society should protect itself from dangerous elements, but in addition to this we need to take a broad brush view of the conditions under which negative actions take place.

Consider this TED talk, you may be aware of the prison experiment where random volunteers were assigned prisoner/guard roles and it wasn't long before those with authority were abusing this talk is by the guy who run that experiment. Whilst it's not explicitly about what is under discussion here it is illustrative of my environment point, and also where I get the bad barrel vs bad apple analogy from:

www.ted.com/talks/philip_zimbardo_on_the_psychology_of_evil

In that view, the dramatized violence serves as both diverting and cathartic. Putting them opposite each other for convenience:* on one end of the spectrum are blockbuster action movies like Transformers or Fast and Furious, which are, so to speak, all flash, and things like the TV serial Dexter or the movie Carrie, which feature violence for the sake of slaking our bloodlust in the face of injustice, or something like that.

*Disclaimer: I have not seen any of these movies or shows, and am going off stills I've glimpsed, and synopses and commentary I've read.

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