Belkira the Tulip wrote:
I think I may be in the minority here, but it sounds like what Thumb did is pretty @#%^ed up.
And I'm almost certain that if a male poster had said he'd done any of those things, someone would've labeled him an abuser.
Maybe it's just me.
I was a mess as a teenager, and I started physical fights with my boyfriend a few times before I got ahold of myself. I'm thoroughly ashamed of myself in retrospect, but It's important that there is an explanation, which is not an excuse. Firstly, I had a lot of extremely poor modelling, and almost no modelling to help me have positive skills in handling problems and problematic emotions. Emotional/mental illness very often kicks in properly in your late teens, and that's when my genetic birds came home to roost in at least two different ways. Firstly Borderline Personality Disorder. Secondly POS which messed my hormonal balance right up. Both of those things were desperately not helpful in the absence of any emotional skills. But there's no question I abused my boyfriend. It's no excuse I had no other way to express the despair and frustration I felt during those domestic fights.
No, I haven't killed anyone. Do I think I could? I believe in the force +1 rule. It makes sense to me. If someone imminently threatened my life or some innocent other, I could kill that person. Knowing myself, I strongly suspect I wouldn't feel bad about it. In fact it's a strong possibility I'd never feel in any way bad about it. AT the same time, my community theoretically encompasses the whole world. I've bumped up against some unexpected prejudices, which I've had to strip out of myself. Everyone is "in the circle". Ideally each individual judged on their own merits, although I do classify people into cultural subgroups when they share certain beliefs or behaviours.
I've had to undergo a lot of training to overcome my mental problems. This includes training in Assertion, and Saying No. I believe I'm less susceptible than average in relying on authority figures, both near and far, to take up my moral burden. I'm strongly in the habit of assessing a situation from first principles, and making my own decisions and assessments. This has put me in minority positions frequently vis a vis Australian politics, and friends' and relatives' and professionals' opinions. I believe strongly in civil disobedience, and I have once removed my youngest sister temporarily from my mother's house.
At the moment I think that Mulims occupy the same social scapegoating niche that Jews occupied before the holocaust. Most western politicians are merrily using these scapegoats without thought. I think the majority of the population has fallen for the groupthink scapegoating. I believe there is a sizable minority who hasn't, who wish desperately for the civil story to be different, but who are swamped by the size and vehemence of the most popular media and the prevailing political winds.