the rats in the steel walls.

[reenka]

As a preface I'd like to say that in a way I agree with this post insofar as obviously there is an important difference between fictional and 'real' pedophilia (and likewise a difference between fantasizing and acting on any fantasy, obviously), but once again, I'm frustrated by how quickly and how thickly people jump to drawing the line between fantasy & reality, as if it's always some 12 foot wall of steel and not a fluttering curtain at times.

There's a line between 'fiction/fantasy cannot influence or become reality' and 'fiction/fantasy naturally will and does consistently influence and become reality' where the actual truth lies, and it's a source of continuous frustration to me that people are so stubbornly binary-thinking about this. :/ I guess it doesn't make a good rallying cry to say 'well, sometimes the right fantasy will affect the right person in such a way that they could catalyze it to become reality, but most times it (probably) won't, but either way it would have happened sooner or later with another form of that fantasy, so you can't really stop it'. :> A good example of this last point is how exposure to kink in fandom has led me in particular to become a lot more laid-back and accepting of my own kinkiness levels in real life. I don't really go out and 'do it', but... neither am I opposed to some of the things slash porn has brought home to me. :P In general, I wouldn't say I write porn I consider... well, non-hot, you know? Heh.

I mean duh, yeah, fiction != reality, the Easter bunny isn't real and the sky is blue, but on another level, what kind of paucity of imagination does this imply in people? This is empirical materialism at its most droll. Meh. :/ Even more frustrating when spoken by writers themselves. The opposite end of the spectrum is of course the faithful fanatic extremists, the ones who think that thoughts are dangerous and the heretics must be BURNED before they, you know, COME FOR US ALL. *eyeroll*


People fear disruptive beliefs and 'dangerous' speech for a reason, no matter how much one goes on about 'fantasy' and 'human rights'-- and that reason is that ideas are fucking powerful. Ideas can move the world, and they may not be real to start with-- I mean, you can make up some stupid fantastical story about overlord Xenu and the Body Thetans that's full of pure grade-A crack, and 50-some years later, Tom Cruise will go on TV loudly proclaiming how he's Seen the Light and You Should Too-- and that, that sort of crazy is as real as it gets. All too real, actually, as in I wish it'd go away and take all the other crazy cults with it. Yeah, right.

Likewise, people go on and go about free speech for even the most loathsome & dangerous concepts for a reason-- and that reason is that once you start repressing and censoring, these ideas actually gain power as they go underground and strengthen through increased opposition. People who're given a real fight rather than dealt with rationally & peacefully tend to fight harder. People are contrary bastards that way. This is why terrorists wet themselves with glee at every bit of mass panic and hatred they can stir up, right? Right, because that's what they need to grow and to prove their point.

The thing is, the painful truth is, that we cannot avoid the dangers of existence, we can't really protect ourselves and we can only sort of protect our kids. We can do our best, and that's all anyone can do, but a lot of times we'll be fucked over anyway and there's nothing to be done about that because 90% of the time the 'solution' is worse than the problem. And I'm not trying to be nihilist, either, I'm just trying to say that the 'solution' is accepting the world as it is-- trying to help without trying to 'fix it', because basically you can't fix it when 'it' is reality or human nature.
    You can deal with it, you can try to go around it or improve it or treat its effects, but you can't... change its basic properties. Therefore you'd have to accept that our greatest freedoms carry within them-- are the flipside of-- the greatest dangers, and that fantasy is indeed dangerous, though not half so much as reality, and there's no such thing-- no such thing-- as a harmless thought. It's only when you fully realize that that it becomes truly meaningful to say that there's also no thought, fantasy or pure desire that should be forbidden.

So basically you end up with a lot of stuff about 'lesser evils' and a lot of people telling themselves that it's safer to allow the dangerous types like pedophiles their imaginary pleasures because after all, the imagination is a powerful thing, and it can, in fact, often be near as good as the real thing. It can stem the urge. It can heal. It can create an outlet. It can defuse the ticking bomb. In short, it's the furthest thing from safe and it has a deeply real effect on the person doing the imagining, but even with all that, it's better than the alternative. And pedophilia is actually a straw man in any discussion about fantasy vs. reality in some ways, because nearly everyone has a very clear knee-jerk reaction against it, right? I know I do; I pretty much hate pedophilia like I hate nothing else human. It's easy to feel separate from it and to say 'I'm nothing like that' 'cause clearly, clearly, you don't want to hurt children.
    Of course, inevitably this leads to murkier waters like 'so obviously I don't want to kill anyone' and 'obviously I don't want kinky sex', etc, where the truth is that whether or not we like murder mysteries, a lot of their potential draw comes from the fact that we can, as human beings, empathize with the instinct to kill if we're honest with ourselves. Most people-- even me-- just need the right incentive for most awful or dark or dangerous things, really. We just need the right push, and that truth is where dark fiction and dark fantasies of all stripes draw their deeply welling power in the first place.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

That's what I was thinking all day yesterday. How I was always angry about all the discussions about sadistic rape fic and especially about people gushing how lovely and hot the delight in real suffering was written. Reading Highsmith now I can't believe nothing ever changed, the truth-seekers are labelled as cruel and hate-filled, those spouting words like love believed to be good people automatically. It seems it's still impossible for anybody to ever admit to what humans are really like and denying what's part of themselves and *gives up again coz really, either people are honest or they can't be made to see*

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

I guess I do think some people are 'purer' and 'kinder' than (most) others (ie, I don't think you can ascripe a single level of 'darkness' to humanity in general), but they attain that kindness and goodness not through righteousness but through heightened empathy and being at peace with themselves, letting go. People who love do not speak of love but rather become love; people who speak of vengeance and of control of various unsavory social elements are always becoming vulnerable to darkness through the will to power.

But you're right-- this was just a rant, I realize people have a lot invested in their denial of their darker natures, though at the same time one of the beautiful things about fiction is its ability to rip through that denial much more efficiently than any essay or argument :> The answer, as I said, isn't to fight-- it's to go around, to inspire and enlighten without confronting people's fears head-on. And fear is what I think it is-- people have always been afraid of themselves first and foremost, and of course of each other, because on some level we do know each other's dark faces and it freaks us the fuck out :>

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

I wanted to link to you but of course I still can't post, third day now, and I realise I answered way too condensed and possibly misleading for people on another wavelength but I've got too many thoughts and they're bursting and not neatly downwritable and as I said, I know either people understand or they refuse to be honest.

I also think some people are kinder due to not being mean; I tend to be hard with myself, but compared to others I know I'm more empathic and cringe from certain actions (but I'm not at peace with myself, so I'd not agree there in general).
When I meant "love" I'm talking the American usage that's everywhere now. It would take too long for me to explain ... what is generally sold under that word is nothing, whereas trying to work with all the myrad of tiny grievances and dislikes and misunderstandings in a relationship to me is the true attempt to love someone and all that blather about of course one loves ones children or parents is the worst lie of all.

Yes, yes, so I'm glad you wrote something up, really am.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Hehee I always think it's kind of cute how we complain to each other about how no one bothers to read our rambles but when you talk to me it tends to be way condensed and um, elliptical. :> I also tend to have many thoughts, so what I end up doing is revising my posts a lot and also rambling :)) Being condensed is generally not a problem, anyway. At least it saves me from being overly sentimental (most times), as it might be a danger to more condensed I got. :> Unless it's angsty poetry :D But that's neither here nor there. ^^;

Hahahah 'due to not being mean' :D :D :D That's condensed in a good way, too :D I love it :D

I meant that um, being at peace would help, not that you'd have to be or even most kind/empathetic/non-mean people are. Few people are at peace, but I figure those that manage it are probably a lot less dark than others :> Of course there's probably not enough people who're fully enlightened Zen monks for us to make a general survey statement with any degree of confidence anyway :D

I knew you meant 'that' love, 'cause we are, in fact, generally on the same wavelength :> The sentimental 'love' is generally what people talk about 'cause they don't really experience the depths of 'real' love or any intense emotion, or if they do they don't have the depth of self-awareness and the philosophic background to speak about it (especially in America, I'll grant you). I do wonder if it's a personality thing as much or moreso than a cultural thing-- I mean, an INFP's (http://www.personalitypage.com/INFP.html) love is really not an ESFJ's (http://www.typelogic.com/esfj.html) love by a long-shot, and I suppose America has lots more ESFJs than say... Japan or England, though it's really that the culture suppresses certain tendencies more, as well. I guess I'm trying to be empathetic and say some people do care about those 'shallow' words and birthdays & greeting cards & baseball games and Hallmark movies, etc. The depth of intense and authentic introverted Feeling that dominates my personality is probably not fair to compare to someone who's just... really different. I guess :>

it doesn't let me post OR comment now; part 1

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

I know - but hey, at least I do talk to you, pffft, you nevah do! ;P Being condensed is my curse, though, and no matter how long I take drafting and editing, only one person gets it.

*ggg* um, yes, well, struth.

I agree with you, in my initial response I was just focussing on me and how that's not the reason for me, but then I'm not most people and so agree that generally the balanced ones are less mean.

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My definitions are, again, far more complicated to understand. I should probably go to the camp of the nihilists and rationalists, but that's completely wrong, because I have always been and still am always looking for love, despite never finding it. What "people" call "love" is just not good enough for me! It's just ... nothing. Hollow, empty, meaningless, a lable slapped onto things, and so when you post about how you want your

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

H/D to be full of hate and no rosy feelings and I think "no, I don't want that" maybe we're both thinking the same but just in different words. What others might read as me being callous or writing two people not caring for each other is me searching for something that goes deeper, acknowledging as many things as possible about our complicated selves and billions of mostly unpleasant thoughts etc. and then, despite, yet, nevertheless, especially then have people care for and about each other.

Which veered from the initial topic, so I'll just add that

4

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

anybody claiming both that they are "normal, healthy" people and that their love for reading about the raping of children is "just fiction" should think about both terms, because a) there is no normal, that's already a dangerous lie, a huge one used to cover a multitude of sins, and it shouldn't be a sin to admit to dark desires, but b) it is one if those are then claimed to be natural and healthy but/YET ONLY AS FICTION, which has noooothing to do with their lives (Nabokov wouldn't be happy to hear that his work had nothing to do with RL, is what I wanted to post but). Two lies don't make one truth.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm talking about 'shallow' or sentimental love when I say (if I say) that I don't want 'love' for H/D. Of course I want Love, I'm in love with Love-- but what most people write as love is just sentimentality and a poor reflection, and 'hate', I suppose-- to me, in that context, it's just another way to add complexity and intensity. It's exactly that-- trying to be honest, searching for meaning, searching for 'something that goes deeper', in spite of darkness, that thrives in the most inhospitable environment and is therefore more real. I probably go overboard sometimes 'cause I'm still attracted to all forms of romanticism, so when I write a 'cute' or affectionate/fluffy H/D fic (and I do!), I feel like I'm slipping or something. *eyeroll* I have this need for things to always be deep and meaningful that even I can't keep up with :>

And mostly I don't comment on anyone's ljs these days since I've pretty much not been 'here' if by here you mean active presence on lj/fandom. ^^; Meep. Either reading fantasy books or (before recently) obsessing with the INFP forum. Ah well, that part's over, at least. I feel more comfortable expressing myself at my lj, where even if people get offended/confused and misunderstand, I feel I have a right to say whatever 'cause it's -my- lj.

(Christ, the Denial of Service attack thing is getting out of control, seriously.)

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

Like other of your replies (lucky you, so long in one box) I got this twice - but the first had an interesting sentence that broke off in the middle instead of this last line (which, grah, in my time zone it's now the fourth day).

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Er, I had a response to that last bit written out but then it... went *poof*, so ^^;;
Suffice it to say that I agree, and that this reminds me of the usual portrait of repressed American suburbia, where everyone thinks what's important is the face you put on and the things you do in public, etc, and even if you've got severed fingers in little jars in the basement at home, everything's fine if you those fingers either aren't Mary's or John's from down the street or alternatively no one knows and the party goes on as planned.

I guess I don't really think of having a Super-ego as something to congratulate someone over? So yeay, you don't go out and kill/rape/pillage, yeah, repression and fear of consequences and civilization in general has done its job? Er? I used to have arguments about the value of actions (as 'reality') vs. feelings/thoughts (as 'reality') often, and people... well, I think they may honestly think that their inner world is 120% less real and significant than the world of what they ate for breakfast and where they went last Sunday, and in fact that's what 'reality' is, just as 'normalcy' is merely resembling the Joneses enough to 'pass'. I don't even think you can call it a 'lie' because it's such a culturally accepted and deeply rooted belief, one that they build entire social orders on. They bring out the 'fiction/desires are dangerous! oppress now!!' thing when people get a little too much religion (and guilt), but basically Western society functions through repression of the individual Id and its subsequent sublimation into 'acceptable' venues.

ah, there's the missing bit! mine in parts *sigh* 1

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

Heh, that sounds a lot like what you hear about Victorian England and Germany of the Burgertime, so not really new either. It's just always scarier without the comforting distance of time - or space, as in the two homies parking in my street now are simply surreal and belong to America, not Middle Europe in my mind.

2

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

Yeah *grimaces* it's fascinating and even if there are books about that phenomenon, I don't think they actually capture eg. all the people I worked with, or my parents' world either. It is about breakfast and holidays and if one of *types/deletes coz circular blabla* okay, leaving aside all the Ids, I think Douglas Adams is the one that nailed it alone, when he makes his heroes admit they don't give a toss about saving the world.
Sorry, I'm dense and elliptical (it's late and Dr. Who annoyed me) but basically,

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

the good of religion is for the masses, so they don't just steal and kill and do what they like, because most people do only care about breakfast and holidays and it needs the guilt and the rules to make them care about other people. But then this, as you say, is the basis of society, and we have the connundrum (?) of seeming "bad" when trying to be really "good".

Yes, thread all lost *waves*

[notrafficlights.livejournal.com]

and that reason is that once you start repressing and censoring, these ideas actually gain power as they go underground and strengthen through increased opposition.

This is dreamland rubbish I suspect has come about via persecuted groups wanting to make themselves seem more important than they are. Human communication and especially resistance culture is not that simple. It depends on the issue, on the individuals in question, the importance of the issue in the wider society, and especially the resources available the the repressed group. Banning Neo-Nazi groups in Australia from being anywhere near the media doesn't do much because they don't have a lot of resources available and the white supremist thing isn't big here (though there is a shit tonne of racism here, it's just not that particularly vicious flavour). Doing it in the US or Europe will just get a whole world of pain and terror landing on your door, because that's how it is. Creating anti-free-speech laws in Germany re:Anti-Semitism is acceptable because duh, touchy subject there. Do the same in certain countries (like England and the US) and again, lot of shit on your door.

Resistance cultures only become strong and powerful through particular factors, especially those relating to utilisation of resources and the number/passion of the people involved. When you go after fandom, you go after a group of people incredibly skilled in utilising resources who are incredibly passionate about their subject matter.

Ditto goes for anyone trying to make a religion out of fantasy. It's not just the simple fact that people believe in it that makes it work. It's the utilisation of resources that makes a religion work. Scientology is a multi-billion dollar business. There's no number big enough to count the economic worth of Catholicism these days. This isn't because of people thinking anything. It's because of them doing things.

There's no such thing as a harmful thought, because thoughts don't make things change in the world. People's combined actions do. Fiction/fantasy doesn't become a reality through existing. It takes an action on the behalf of the fantasiser for it to occur, which is the point of the issue here.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

I knew there were issues with that particular issue, but I was being lazy ><;;; Also, I was using that example as a 'reason' not as a way of saying 'this is what I believe' but as a way of saying 'this is a large part of the practical reasoning I've observed people with these beliefs having', trying to be less idealistic but clearly failing. :> However, it is true that once you ban some book for instance, it seems to become more infamous and sought-after-- if nothing else, it's publicity. It depends though, you're right... I really didn't go into the specifics, but yeah-- banning something like 1984 (the book) is not the same as banning some piece of propaganda by Neo-Nazis (were that to happen), because basically no one cares. You need to have a zeitgeist, a feeling of something vital being cut off in order for the backlash to occur. I was referring to cases like that, because that's where the biggest controversies start-- when there's a debate there, when there are heated feelings, it's generally because the zeitgeist wind is on their back. All I meant, regardless, is that I think that sort of reasoning ('it will make us/them stronger') is something I've seen (even in the case of the latest fandom kerfuffle) as much or more than the more abstract stuff about freedom of ideas being necessary, for instance, but it depends what kind of people you're looking at.

Anyway, I also agree that thoughts don't do anything by themselves, like magical little dustmites :> I do think that the fact is that they can gain power, no matter how outlandish/fantastical, which was more my point-- that that they always do (the opposite binary end) but that they sometimes do. I guess it's not that I disagree that it 'takes an action' but rather that I place a high level of importance on the thought behind the action as a motivator and driving force. Actions and thoughts are interconnected; they're not always connected in such a way that one directly causes the other, but there are many ways that desires 'leak out'. I guess I'm being more psychological in orientation (trying to see the deeper causes and connections) rather than focused on the social justice aspect where there's the binary question of innocence vs. guilt. In discussing the mind, there's no such thing as 'innocence' or 'guilt', more like degrees of either. I guess it's really that I'm not focused on the 'real world' alone? Many actions have a 'history' of possible actions, repressed actions, planned actions, feared/aborted actions, etc., so all I'm saying is that these things tend not to happen out of nowhere :>

[notrafficlights.livejournal.com]

However, it is true that once you ban some book for instance, it seems to become more infamous and sought-after

If it's banned for the right reasons, and the author makes enough noise about it, and the book is well-known enough beforehand.

but rather that I place a high level of importance on the thought behind the action as a motivator and driving force.

This doesn't work either, especially in cases of bigotry and violence against people. There's as many atheists, Buddhists, Jews, and Taoists who are A-grade misogynistic assholes as there are those who cling to the religious texts that most embody misogyny, ie Christianity and Islam. Choice to behave or act out an action is a function of the ego, not the logic or reasoning processes of the brain. Which is why bigotry is dependent on the construction of the identity and the ego, not the logic of the lesser more reasoning parts of the brain.

You're right, things don't happen out of anywhere, but thought isn't a crime. I don't care how bigoted an individual is, as long as they keep those thoughts to themselves, I have no problem with them. Under the human rights treaties signed by the countries they are privileged enough to be born into, they have the corresponding duties and responsibilities (which US citizens always so handily seem to forget about when it comes to the issue of free speech) not to make bigoted remarks or actions, because such actions impinge on the human rights of others. And they countries they reside in have the responsibility to punish them if they do, by the rules of the treaties they have signed and ratified. This isn't a hard equation. Rights = Responsibilities, and a duty to smack someone upside the head if they forget that responsibility, whether they be LiveJournal, some bigoted talkback host who got his ass hauled into court for being a homophobic fuckwad (god, that was a good day), or some Muslim cleric who enjoys calling women "rotten meat that attracts flies".

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

I think we're talking about somewhat different things? Or different aspects of the same things. So it's not that I disagree with you but rather that I just.... Should I just not talk about social issues? Hahaha because I always make 'em personal/individual issues, so it's pretty easy to show how they don't pass mustard as social commentary :> Anyway, I think I sort of said in comments above that personality (ie, ego) has as much if not more to do with how one acts as beliefs/thoughts-- like, umm, well, if you're a kind person, you will fit your greater social beliefs to represent you no matter what they are, and likewise if you're not a kind person no belief system will really help that much (though let's all give a big hand to religion repression and guilt, heh). There's clearly a complex interaction between personality, unconscious acculturation and active belief or desire (vs unconscious/repressed desire), and in no way is it a direct or inevitable equation-- and this messiness of personality vis-a-vis belief or desire, etc was actually something I was meaning to get at. It's in no way a simple transference, and at the same time I don't think there's a simple/clear separation between 'ego' and 'belief' and 'desire', because all these things influence one another.

Also, I didn't mean to refer to 'logic or reasoning processes'; the beliefs/desires/fantasies I was referring to aren't really 'thoughts' in the most straightforward sense, and perhaps I'm more familiar with this fuzziness because my own ego (as an INFP (http://www.typelogic.com/infp.html)) is dominated by introverted Feeling rather than rational thought as its commonly understood anyway. Lots of ways that I act out isn't a 'choice' per se but rather an impulse, a thoughtless gesture, a manifestation of desire-- but it's not completely irrational, either. I agree that bigotry is more dependent on various unquestioned identity constructs & memories rather than logic, but then not a whole lot of things that drive people are based in logic in the first place, and I certainly wasn't talking about logic anytime recently. :))

I definitely would never say (and haven't said) thought is a crime; I was trying to get away from the rhetoric of guilt vs innocence & crime and punishment, though. This is why I said in my post it was a philosophic ramble rather than a cry to action or a discussion of social justice-- because while for the purposes of social justice, people's bigotry is irrelevant if it causes no immediate and direct real world effect, that isn't the case for a discussion of people's psychological make-ups. My point was more related to the abstract concepts of fantasy vs reality as applied within individuals rather than how individuals apply these concepts in real life towards other people. If you know what I mean :> That's what I meant about talking about different things; the criminality aspect is but a side point to me :>

My issue was really that it frustrates me that people take this socially focused materialist pov (it doesn't matter if it doesn't do anything illegal/harmful in real life) and make it a reflection of their own natures. That is, by implication, 'I am normal, this is just fantasy'. I was meaning to challenge the definition both of 'normal' and of 'fantasy' there, mostly because this sort of thing smacks of self-righteousness at times :>

[notrafficlights.livejournal.com]

Social issues are personal/individual issues, but that doesn't lessen their importance.

I really can't have a conversation with you without the Jung-Briggs personality crap coming up, can I? You don't seem to understand that it's not an excuse. It doesn't matter if you're introverted or extroverted or any other flawed non-existent dichotomy cooked up by stupid psychologists, choices are choices, whether you want to take responsibility for them or not.

My point was more related to the abstract concepts of fantasy vs reality as applied within individuals rather than how individuals apply these concepts in real life towards other people.

You took it beyond that boundaries when you started talking about harm & social evils, disruptive beliefs, and real-world examples like scientology.

Why does it frustrate you? I'm still not seeing the problem here. People's self-righteous fantasies don't hurt others. People's actions and behaviours do. How hard is that to understand? Life is socially-focused materialism. People's psychological make-ups (however you wish to classify them) only exist through the complex interactions they have with other people all day every day. Take away that and there's no personality.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Hehe yeah I'm a bit embarrassed about the Myers-Briggs thing but on the other hand, I don't mean it as an excuse, just a way of explaining/classifying personalities. And I agree that there's definitely an intersection between the social & the individual... I was just saying I was focusing more on the individual as the lens rather than the other way around.

Well yes, I do go on tangents and such :D Social evils as examples of disruptive beliefs... I didn't mean to immediately transfer it to the arena of social justice in the applied criminal sense, I guess. I mean, even Scientology-- I don't think it's wrong in the sense that it's criminal or even harmful to others, exactly; it was meant as an example of obvious fantasy being taken seriously, though there are many such examples. It's not that the belief does it through existing alone, but that's the binary set-up I was trying to challenge-- it's not one or the other for me, but rather a matrix of interconnected points. Beliefs and desires and all things illogical and irrational influence without determining or guaranteeing anything, influence most at the 'right time and the right person' (as I said in that second paragraph), yes, but still.

Well, see, that's exactly it-- I know this through my own experience, because I'm sensitive to people's beliefs, fantasies, desires and personalities-- perhaps even moreso than their actions (because I'm always looking for the 'real reason' someone does something, I won't necessary have a 'normal' reaction if someone 'seems' to betray me, or yells at me, or whatever). It's because of that I bring up the Myers-Briggs thing-- it's a shorthand method for explaining a basic difference in that regard, once you understand it.

I mean.....
Life is socially-focused materialism.
You can see how not everyone would agree, right? ...:)) And that's a philosophical difference, not a question of right/wrong that you could prove so easily as something truly empirical like 'the sky is blue', either.

You know, in order to understand people's actions, my point is that you'd need to understand their motivations, no? Taking that statement of yours, I can better understand where you're coming from, for instance, in terms of why you do or believe X. With me, I think it'd be a lot easier to understand the stuff -I- may do or believe if you don't project that same philosophy onto my own ego, and realize that I believe something like 'Life is an individually-focused search for enlightenment and growth as well as a process of communication with others'. This is subjective, but it's what motivates me. People are funny in that the 'objective physical truth' doesn't always apply to their behavior the way it does to the behavior of chairs, for instance :>

Perhaps I have a semi-unique perspective here in that I often go days and weeks without contact with other people (unless calling for pizza delivery counts), and I'm pretty certain I exist & also retain my personality :> Sure, most people are unaware of it (and I think most don't really know who I am even if I do interact with them simply 'cause my experience of myself and my appearance in social interactions are way different 'cause I'm just... shy and suuuper-quiet, if nothing else, whereas really I'm the last thing from someone who has nothing to say or is meek/submissive). By saying I'm introverted and 'Feeling', I'm saying that what hurts me tends to be my own ideas of other people's feelings, because I'm just solipsistic like that :> If you judged me only through my effect on others and you also didn't know me online, you may in fact not notice I exist (most people don't), but, y'know, I exist right :D

[notrafficlights.livejournal.com]

You can see how not everyone would agree, right?

Having an opinion isn't the same as having a valid opinion.

Perhaps I have a semi-unique perspective here in that I often go days and weeks without contact with other people

That's not "unique", that's "pathological".

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Hahah, true, I wasn't saying it was at my most healthy times that I was most solitary, necessarily, but I get an out since I often do that when I'm in the midst of furiously writing, reading, painting/designing, etc. I mean, it's not out of sheer sociophobia, really (...these days). I'd say at those times I feel most myself and most alive. I mean, even at the best of times I don't have that many friends to talk to (not least 'cause most of my friends live elsewhere or... do other things with people who are not me, though I seem most likely to have depressed friends for some reason).

Well, but when you're talking about something like a philosophy of the meaning of life, there's a wider range of valid opinions than say, the scope of valid opinions about whether or not George W Bush is a good president or whether cats and lions have evolved from the same common ancestor :> I'm not proposing anything as questionable as the existence of little green men or claiming Jesus will save your soul-- it's just an interpretation of the facts that values certain things differently. Like if there's an equation where 2(x + y) = 2x / 2y, the structure is valid with several different values for x & y. In this case, I only claimed it was valid within the structure of providing motivation for the behavior of one person as opposed to another-- or, I suppose, I was saying that effectively, if someone disagreed then on some level it doesn't matter if it's 'true' or not because their behavior and actions would be different accordingly.

...Well, I don't know if that makes sense, but anyway :>

[notrafficlights.livejournal.com]

Well, but when you're talking about something like a philosophy of the meaning of life

We're not talking about the meaning, we're talking about the method.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

It gets fuzzy though, doesn't it? (Well, now is when you could say in my head everything gets fuzzy, and I suppose that wouldn't be wrong, but.) There are layers to these things, layers of motivations & causes that put results in context, that make exceptions for most common methods.

Using the empirical/materialist methods, while you can describe the end result of irrational/impossible to prove processes, you can't really track them or make them a part of the story, and therefore data would get lost and understanding suffers. Which is to say, it is not the whole story anymore than the transcript of a play (action, dialogue, perhaps a narrator) is the play. Er? ^^;

Also, um, focusing on the method to the exclusion of context/subtext and such, that in itself confers meaning :>

[notrafficlights.livejournal.com]

you can't really track them or make them a part of the story

Yes you can. Even scientific research has to list processes, failed hypothesis, errors and false-positive data. ;)

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Heh, I was going by your description (so far), not necessarily my idea of the 'scientific method'. Man, I love the scientific method :> But then there are hard and soft sciences, sociology & psychology & anthropology, biochemistry, neurology & biology all trying to explain how people act. That's what I meant about talking about different things-- it's just like different disciplines with different fields of validity. Although honestly I'm not sure what I'm talking about anymore ^^;;;

[whitekitsuneko.livejournal.com]

Mmm, at the moment, I don't think I'm up to make such in-depth comments as those before me, but I do want to introduce myself to your journal because I find your entries make my brain stir and begin to think. So yes, I'm about lurking, call me kit if you like, and I thoroughly enjoy your writings and ramblings.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Hi!
I like the idea of making brains stir (maybe even with a pinch of salt and lemon). Feel free to say anything, doesn't have to be in-depth or 'smart' or anything, haha, thought-filtering isn't a hobby of mine so I don't expect it of anyone else :>

[amalin.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

:))
I guess that's one more vote for something other than "Life is socially-focused materialism" as a pov. I knew you'd understand. :D ♥.

[amalin.livejournal.com]

I can't articulate quite what I mean, but Salman Rushdie said this and it's a little close: "In dreams begin responsibilities. The way we see the world affects the world we see . . . . Daily life in the real world is also an imagined life. The creatures of our imagination crawl out from our heads, cross the frontier between dream and reality, between shadow and act, and become actual. Imagination's monsters do the same thing . . . . In dreams begin irresponsibilities, too."

Not always, no. But I know people who have been hurt by incest and pedophilia and sexual assault and even if I didn't, I think it's something we have to take seriously, because statistics and true stories alone tell us there isn't always a twelve foot wall.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

I love that quote! And I think I've posted about this before, and it was wanky, but mostly it's that it's hard to say without offending people and also with an explanation that makes sense to someone who doesn't experience their daily lives as "also an imagined life". That seems to be something that either makes sense to someone or not; if you live in a world of numbers, appointments and walls between feelings and thoughts, walls between actions and intentions-- as some people seem to-- I guess this concept of the unconscious world being naturally wedded to the conscious daily world is something threatening and alien.

When most people say 'it's something we have to take seriously', I guess they mean you have to write it in a certain way-- like, you have to write it 'realistically' (with 'correct' consequences and so on), and I don't believe that; kink is valid too. I guess to me, 'seriously' is an internal process that merely means continued self-awareness, something that prevents self-righteousness and casual dismissals. Something like a process of paying attention-- rather than taking the form of policing others or demanding change, maybe it's something more difficult for some people, ones who aren't naturally honest with themselves or given to self-reflection. Apparently, you know, there are people who resist certain kinds of introspection even in therapy-- don't want to talk (or, you'd imagine, think) about their own feelings & deeper motivations. I'd have thought those people wouldn't be writers, but-- I guess it's possible. Maybe the person is good at fantasizing and observing the outside, mimicking the inner without being truly aware.

I do think that those statistics don't take the sort of person it is into account, and that's important in this context; your everyday sexual fantasy isn't the same creature as a fantasy in the context of erotica writing. I mean, they're related, but it's still different in terms of motivation and effect to some extent. Also, we don't know the role imagination plays in the lives of your everyday common garden-variety sex-offender; my guess is that there's a wide enough variety, but the majority of people in general (sex offenders or not) aren't very imaginative, so I assume they don't reflect on their desires one way or the other but rather act on them mindlessly, not considering the real effects (especially in circumstantial cases, which are probably in the majority of instances-- ie, not premeditated). Most people (I assume and observe), as in, most 'normal' non-especially-creative people, don't seem to have much of a conscious, active imagination; I'm not sure what precise effect that has-- I just think they don't think about their dreams/feelings that much if they don't have to, so a lot of it's repressed and unconscious.

So what does it mean, as a creative self-aware person, to let your unconscious out to play? Obviously, since people who write erotica or fiction of any sort are in a minority, and sex offenders are also (thankfully) a minority of the population, there aren't going to be many people who're both writers and sex offenders. And so on some level I can see where the indignation comes from-- something about the way writers are, the way we're more comfortable with our darker/deeper levels of imagination, we think of it as harmless 'cause obviously the only person it ever seems to hurt is ourselves (and it's more like a burden in the outside world, rather than some sort of weapon). I think it's much more dangers to not explore it, not write or think about it, in terms of having it get away from conscious control. And yet at the same time I just instinctively feel the thin, worn places where the walls between desire nd impulse to action are worn thin; the thing that's keeping me from action is really my innate nature rather than some safety of fantasy remaining in check by its nature, I guess.