On Fri, 6 Aug 2010 06:14:21 am Duncan wrote: > Hmm... perhaps putting it in terms Stallman might understand, given > the quote below (tho the parallel isn't perfect and doesn't in this > pseudoquote reflect the ability to, with work and time, master the > former master)... > > "Every abuse victim now has a lord, a master, that has the potential > to torment them for the rest of their lives. By speaking such > imagery, you awake once again this tormentor. Is that what you > really wish to do?"
Or to put it another way, "Once a victim, always a victim". You should know better. From your above comment, you do know better. So why do you approvingly quote a comment that is such patronising nonsense? Forbidding the use of disturbing imagery is one of the tools of the victimizer. It wasn't the *victims* of abusive priests who argued that they should be forbidden from telling anyone what happened, it was the abusers and their defenders. Arguing that we shouldn't use such imagery because it will -- not even "might", but *will*, in "every" victim -- re-awake their tormentor is simply aiding the victimizer. Every call to censor is made with the excuse that it is for the victim's benefit. It never is. One of the defining moments of my childhood was watching a documentary series on television about the Nazi concentration camps. The documentary could have followed the above advice, and avoided any imagery which could have disturbed victims. They didn't. They showed photos of the piles of emancipated corpses stacked high in graphic detail. They showed photo after photo of starving survivors, their limbs shrunk to barely more than skin and bone, the haunted looks on their faces. Could it re-awake bad memories in Holocaust survivors? Yes, I'm sure it could. Was this disturbing? Absolutely. But I never forgot it. Those disturbing, frightening, horrifying photos of strangers shown on the screen were a million times more real to me than the knowledge that my grandfather's own family had died in those camps. If people had followed the advice above, and kept silent because it would "re-awaken" the tormentor, would we even know the name of Auschwitz today? Silence aids the abuser, not the victim. How many people remember the victims of the Rape of Nanking? How many people remember the genocide of the Armenians? Does anyone think that sexual abuse disappeared in Victorian times because it was socially unacceptable to make dirty jokes? On the contrary, the opposite was the case. Abuse of all sorts was rife. Sexual abuse of household servants was endemic. The more "polite" the household, the more nasty it likely was. Those who ignore the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it. A joke about losing virginity is not even close to film of concentration camp victims. So what should we say? That it's okay to *really* disturb people, but not to disturb them only a little bit? That the *less* disturbing something is, the *more* we should disapprove of it and censor it? That is insanity. Talking truth to power is disturbing, especially to the powerful and those who have accepted their lies. You can't talk truth to power unless you accept that disturbing imagery is *necessary*, and maybe even a good thing. The cost of that freedom to disturb others is that sometimes they will disturb you. -- Steven D'Aprano _______________________________________________ Pan-users mailing list Pan-users@nongnu.org http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/pan-users
