Moral discussions
Nov. 17th, 2002 10:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
andrewduckerWarning, this started as a conversation between Erin and I because of an event on Buffy. Should the thought of this morally repulse you or you don't know about Season 6 Buffy (and will watch it sometime) or you just don't care, read any further.
Ok, you're still with me, so here's the background (skip about 5 paragraphs if you've seen the season). Spike's a vampire who can't hurt people (due to a chip in his head) and has become likeable due to (a) his inherent coolness (British accent and all), (b) the fact he's turned out to be 3 dimensional, torn between a variety of different emotions and his vampire bloodlust and (c) he's been very useful and has saved lives on numerous occasions. During season 5 he fell inexorably in love with Buffy, as she treated him like a human being. She, of course, spurned him as being intrinsically evil.
At the end of Season 5, Buffy dies saving the world. Start of season 6 she's brought back from the dead. It turns out that she wasn't in Hell (as everyone assumed) but Heaven and didn't cope entirely well with being brought back. She entered a depressive spiral and the only person she felt she could turn to (without hurting their feelings) was Spike. To cut a long story short, she had an affair with him, while constantly lying to her friends about it and telling herself (and him) that it wasn't anything 'real'.
He, of course, coped badly with this. It was similar to real life events I've seen, where A loves B, B doesn't reciprocate the love but has sex with A, and A goes slowly mad from the emotional pain of being almost, but not quite, where they want to be. In the end, she snapped out of her self-destructive funk and told him that she was just using him and it had to stop. He tried to cope with this for a while, convincing himself more and more that they had had something and that he could make her feel it again. This wasn't helped by the fact that she had attempted to break up with him before, but relapsed. Several times he'd come on to her, she'd said no initially, but changed her mind after he worked on her.
He was completely convinced that he had to go to her and show her that she really did care for him and that if he went to her and made her give in to him, she'd realise this. Cue a pretty horrible attempted rape scene when it went wrong and he lost self-control. She throws him out, he goes off to get up to things that aren't actually important to the discussion.
--------
To sum up - Spike is a cool character that most viewers like who goes on to commit a very nasty act.
The reason that this caused much discussion is that despite the fact he attempted rape, Erin found herself unable to stop sympathising with him and feeling sorry for him when nasty things happen to him later. This, to her, is a complete breach of the way that she ought to feel. Erin's frequently got a very black and white way of looking at the world - people who commit evil acts are bad people (and people who commit stupid acts are stupid and people who commit clumsy acts are clumsy, etc.).
A large part of her was telling her that
a) Spike was utterly evil because he'd attempted rape
b) Empathising with evil people means that you're condoning their crime
c) Understanding leads inexorably to forgiveness, so she shouldn't try to understand or empathise with his actions
d) She was therefore betraying those people who had been raped and was evil herself
Now, to me this doesn't make sense, because
a) There's no such thing as 'evil', just acts that a person (or group of people) don't like.
b) No single act defines a person. Certainly, in some senses, to do is to be - we are defined by our acts, but ordinary people do extraordinary things, both positive and negative. The Stanford Prison Experiment shows this most clearly, but then it's been shown time and time again that most people will do almost anything if the right leader tells them how in the right way. And that most people will commit terrible acts if they think they can get away with it. Of course, they will also commit wonderful acts, but that's irrelevant to the present situation.
c) Empathising with someone doesn't mean condoning their crimes. Understanding someone doesn't mean forgiving their acts. I understand the reasons why all sorts of terrible things happen. It doesn't make them right and it doesn't mean they should happen. I believe in striving to understand terrible acts so that we can prevent their reoccurence. After all, if you don't know why something happens how on earth are you going to spot it's antecedents and prevent it at the source of the problem rather than at the last moment (or not at all).
d) The world isn't a with-you or against-you place. Despite what George Bush might have you believe, it is possible to not stand shoulder-to-shoulder with people and without being against them. Yes, some people will be utterly scarred for life by rape, but that doesn't mean that everyone has to lynch an attempted rapist on sight. I've made my feelings on rehabilitation clear before, so I'm not going to go over them again.
Erin also felt that Rape was the worst crime that could possible be committed by one person against another. Now, I'm not a woman and I've never been raped, so my response will obviously be different to some others, but in my opinion, any crime that leaves you alive and capable of enjoying life is less bad than a crime that leaves you dead. Rape can ruin lives and some people are emotionally scarred for life over it. Some people are also physically scarred for life and it's a terrible, terrible thing to happen to anyone, but (to me) it's not as bad as completely ending someone's life.
I think that possibly this is down to my lack of religious beliefs. If there's no afterlife then ending someone's life is defacto the worst thing you can do. After all, they can't be said to be at peace, or be in a better place. They just aren't any more. Whereas if you believe that after death we go on to our just rewards then you might think that death would be a release from terrible things and therefore not as bad as them. The only time when death would be a good alternative is when your remaining life will be entirely negative, with no chance of a positive future at all. Believing that this is the case with rape would be a terrible betrayal of those women who have managed to rebuild their lives and be happy people following an attack.
Anyway, I've rambled on about this, but I think it highlights the difference between my rather flexible "all shades of grey" approach to life and Erin's "good and evil" approach.
Ok, you're still with me, so here's the background (skip about 5 paragraphs if you've seen the season). Spike's a vampire who can't hurt people (due to a chip in his head) and has become likeable due to (a) his inherent coolness (British accent and all), (b) the fact he's turned out to be 3 dimensional, torn between a variety of different emotions and his vampire bloodlust and (c) he's been very useful and has saved lives on numerous occasions. During season 5 he fell inexorably in love with Buffy, as she treated him like a human being. She, of course, spurned him as being intrinsically evil.
At the end of Season 5, Buffy dies saving the world. Start of season 6 she's brought back from the dead. It turns out that she wasn't in Hell (as everyone assumed) but Heaven and didn't cope entirely well with being brought back. She entered a depressive spiral and the only person she felt she could turn to (without hurting their feelings) was Spike. To cut a long story short, she had an affair with him, while constantly lying to her friends about it and telling herself (and him) that it wasn't anything 'real'.
He, of course, coped badly with this. It was similar to real life events I've seen, where A loves B, B doesn't reciprocate the love but has sex with A, and A goes slowly mad from the emotional pain of being almost, but not quite, where they want to be. In the end, she snapped out of her self-destructive funk and told him that she was just using him and it had to stop. He tried to cope with this for a while, convincing himself more and more that they had had something and that he could make her feel it again. This wasn't helped by the fact that she had attempted to break up with him before, but relapsed. Several times he'd come on to her, she'd said no initially, but changed her mind after he worked on her.
He was completely convinced that he had to go to her and show her that she really did care for him and that if he went to her and made her give in to him, she'd realise this. Cue a pretty horrible attempted rape scene when it went wrong and he lost self-control. She throws him out, he goes off to get up to things that aren't actually important to the discussion.
--------
To sum up - Spike is a cool character that most viewers like who goes on to commit a very nasty act.
The reason that this caused much discussion is that despite the fact he attempted rape, Erin found herself unable to stop sympathising with him and feeling sorry for him when nasty things happen to him later. This, to her, is a complete breach of the way that she ought to feel. Erin's frequently got a very black and white way of looking at the world - people who commit evil acts are bad people (and people who commit stupid acts are stupid and people who commit clumsy acts are clumsy, etc.).
A large part of her was telling her that
a) Spike was utterly evil because he'd attempted rape
b) Empathising with evil people means that you're condoning their crime
c) Understanding leads inexorably to forgiveness, so she shouldn't try to understand or empathise with his actions
d) She was therefore betraying those people who had been raped and was evil herself
Now, to me this doesn't make sense, because
a) There's no such thing as 'evil', just acts that a person (or group of people) don't like.
b) No single act defines a person. Certainly, in some senses, to do is to be - we are defined by our acts, but ordinary people do extraordinary things, both positive and negative. The Stanford Prison Experiment shows this most clearly, but then it's been shown time and time again that most people will do almost anything if the right leader tells them how in the right way. And that most people will commit terrible acts if they think they can get away with it. Of course, they will also commit wonderful acts, but that's irrelevant to the present situation.
c) Empathising with someone doesn't mean condoning their crimes. Understanding someone doesn't mean forgiving their acts. I understand the reasons why all sorts of terrible things happen. It doesn't make them right and it doesn't mean they should happen. I believe in striving to understand terrible acts so that we can prevent their reoccurence. After all, if you don't know why something happens how on earth are you going to spot it's antecedents and prevent it at the source of the problem rather than at the last moment (or not at all).
d) The world isn't a with-you or against-you place. Despite what George Bush might have you believe, it is possible to not stand shoulder-to-shoulder with people and without being against them. Yes, some people will be utterly scarred for life by rape, but that doesn't mean that everyone has to lynch an attempted rapist on sight. I've made my feelings on rehabilitation clear before, so I'm not going to go over them again.
Erin also felt that Rape was the worst crime that could possible be committed by one person against another. Now, I'm not a woman and I've never been raped, so my response will obviously be different to some others, but in my opinion, any crime that leaves you alive and capable of enjoying life is less bad than a crime that leaves you dead. Rape can ruin lives and some people are emotionally scarred for life over it. Some people are also physically scarred for life and it's a terrible, terrible thing to happen to anyone, but (to me) it's not as bad as completely ending someone's life.
I think that possibly this is down to my lack of religious beliefs. If there's no afterlife then ending someone's life is defacto the worst thing you can do. After all, they can't be said to be at peace, or be in a better place. They just aren't any more. Whereas if you believe that after death we go on to our just rewards then you might think that death would be a release from terrible things and therefore not as bad as them. The only time when death would be a good alternative is when your remaining life will be entirely negative, with no chance of a positive future at all. Believing that this is the case with rape would be a terrible betrayal of those women who have managed to rebuild their lives and be happy people following an attack.
Anyway, I've rambled on about this, but I think it highlights the difference between my rather flexible "all shades of grey" approach to life and Erin's "good and evil" approach.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2002-11-17 03:47 pm (UTC)rape's really one of those things that is universally wrong to me, and it's not simply because i'm a survivor. emotionally wounded or not, desperation aside, spike is much less of a tortured bastard to me now (even with a soul, which seems to be a rather generous punishment for poor behavior) and much more despicable. it's not something my brain will get past, and i hope that doesn't change.
no subject
Date: 2002-11-18 02:57 pm (UTC)Ok, first of all, I believe that there is a god. I had a real, and personal relationship with him, a-la christianity, and was amazed to find out that he's very real etc etc etc. I hit a glitch in the Christian Philosophy, and am still waiting for an answer from him, other than "I am a god of Love" or "All should come unto me". Suffice to say that the glitch was deeply personal, and although I am intrinsically wrong, I feel like I'm doing the right thing.
Ok, so having come to the conclusion that God can't justify right from wrong, apart from "it just is", I realised that I didn't haev to subscribe to those particular ideals. I don't believe in right and wrong. I believe in wants and desires. (which is odd, considering how little I want. 1 thing, honestly. And I know if I had it, it wouldn't be any different.)
I live my life entirely by "wants". If I want to eat, I have to go to work and earn money. I could also steal food, say. But I don't want to be caught stealing. So I choose the wanting that fits me best.
Different people may prefer to steal, over working (and clearly some do).
I have on several occasions wanted to kill someone. Usually as a passing whim, rather than out of rage, or anger. Infact, never out of anger. I'm just interested in what it would be like to kill someone. I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to do it. At the same time, (I'm glad to say) I have a huge number of counterbalancing wants, such as the want to stay out of jail, the want to preserve my psyche, etc etc.
It's a lot more complicated than right and wrong.
Rape, amongst all other things, unfortunately falls under the category of "just a bunch of stuff". When I was 5, a group of 4 other children held me down in a backalley, and kicked me repeatedly in the genitals. They also stole my Fred Flintstone watch. It was a severely traumatising experience. But at the same time, when I die, no one will remember. It's just a bunch of stuff. When this universe implodes on itself, and everything is nothing again... It's still just going to be a bunch of stuff. Rape is clearly unpleasant. I'm deliberately not being sensitive here, but it's just something which happened. No different from putting out the trash, decapitating a rabit, or driving a plane into a building, in the scheme of things. Because nothing matters.
Except what you want, and what other things you want, which influence that.
I want to have sex. It's an instinct. I don't want to cause someone un-necessary grief or pain, so I don't turn to rape.
Spike wanted Buffy. Their relationship had been a violent one, filled with deceit, and anger. He wanted sex. He is pretty much above the law. What wants would influence Spike not to rape her?
So were you really surprised? Did you really expect anything else?
Buffy, on the other hand, never considered the possibility of being raped when she decided to use, abuse, and generally walk all over Spike, using his admitted feelings for her like a leash.
So you tell me... who's really the evil one?
Adam
no subject
Date: 2002-11-18 03:36 pm (UTC)To be honest, not really. I was surprised the show went as far as it did tho. People do tend to forget that Spike is a demon possessing an undead human body and that he slaughtered his way across Europe.
He kills for fun - why on earth would people think that he'd be above doing anything?
Oh, and I wouldn't in any way say that Buffy was evil. Callous, careless and stupid, yes. But that was clearly the point (as was hammered home repeatedly). I really hope she's wised up in Season 7.
On a related subject...
Date: 2002-11-20 08:04 am (UTC)Highly reccomended.