Why don't we admit the fault of victims?

[Curious George]

I also said that I don't like using words like "fault" or "responsible" because the baggage those words carry generally fail to accurately represent my view.

I would not say: "well, they did go to school, it's their fault too they were killed".

I would say: their presence at school that particular day and at that particular moment provided the opportunity for them to be shot at that location.

That's the hard, objective fact of the matter; presence or absence is a contributing causal factor in events. I don't see the point in denying this, and I find it downright dangerous to do so. Part of conducting a risk analysis is making an honest appraisal of contributing factors, as well as assessing costs and benefits.

Taking this example further, say you're a parent trying to decide if you want to home school your child. If you are concerned about your child being killed in a school shooting, that would be a risk factor that influences your decision to home school them. If they don't go to public schools, they can't be shot in that location, ever. You'll mitigate or eliminate that risk.

Again, this really is not about who or what is "responsible" or "to blame" or "at fault." It's about objectively and impartially assessing risks, then making an informed decision about safety.

is there not irony in the fact that risk mitigation requires free will?

 

[Alceste]

I think you post excellent questions and I agree with you. I don't support victim shaming in any way, but, I too, feel that there can be benefit to questioning the choices of a victim and the circumstances surrounding a crime.

In example, if I decided to go out late at night by myself, without telling anyone, without a cell phone and without any form of personal protection on my person and was assaulted - I think it foolish to not address that which may have been done differently to yield a different outcome.

If I had not been alone, would I be at less risk of being attacked? Would it have helped, if I had a cell phone or a weapon or something for self defense?

I don't think that asking these question have to translate to victim shaming or victim guilt. By reviewing circumstances, we can identify patterns.

Bottom line - we can never control the action of others. We are only responsible for our own choices. We are not invincible.

True, but if you ever ARE assaulted, torturing yourself over what you could have done differently to stop the attack from happening will make your recovery much more painful and difficult than it needs to be.

It may cause you to delay reporting the crime to police, or even not report it at all. It may even prevent you from realizing you have been sexually assaulted at all, despite your awareness that the experience was deeply traumatizing.

By taking responsibility for being attacked for fairly random, arbitrary factors with no correlation to rape, like forgetting your cell phone or not mentioning where you were going, you statistically increase the likelihood that you will cope with the trauma by self-destructive behavior, drug or alcohol abuse, self-harm, and keeping risky company.

For me, it's not worth it. I go out without telling anyone where I am all the time. It's one of my greatest pleasures. A few lost hours doing whatever I feel like doing, wearing whatever I feel like wearing, leaving my phone behind, and I feel completely content and restored.

Here's what I do to reduce my risk of being assaulted: I avoid people who are broadcasting aggression through their body language. Seriously, I just cross the street. I also freely tell men to **** off in no uncertain terms if they approach me the wrong way, and off they ****. Except in Paris, where I had to learn to tell them to go **** their mothers in French.

 

[brokensymmetry]

And that doesn't include bouncing in a guys lap, spending his money, and then going home with him?

Sorry, I have more respect for the power of women. And I have seen them use it in ways as disgusting as men often do.

Tom

Suppose he was coming onto her all night. Touching her, telling her things etc. Then they finally get to her place and something about her turns him off. He wants to leave, she becomes angry and belligerent. Now you can think of any scenario you want. She ******* him out, she hits him with a bat, she drugs him and sexually exploits him, etc. Was he being a ******** by refusing her sexual favors that she was led to expect at the end of the evening?

I would put it this way. He had an attractive woman bouncing on his lap. Most guys pay for that favor. He should have been happy he at least got that for his troubles. The fact that she let him come home suggests to me, actually, that she even had genuine intentions of having sex with him. However, something happened to turn her off that course. She's not allowed to change her mind if it no longer sounds fun? If something happens or she notices something that disgusts her? It sounds like she was right to refuse him since he is the type of person to rape. Perhaps he creeped her out and instinctually she realized this is a dangerous person. He got ****** off she would deny him intercourse at the end of the evening and took it by force. What a ********.

By the way, I would also suggest that behavior like that ruins it for everyone else. Everyone knows that many pretty women at bars/clubs flirt in exchange for drinks. Instead of being able to freely flirt and have the attention of people of the opposite sex, now women should have to worry about getting raped if they hang around some guy. Rather than that, how about, everyone realizes that sex is never a guarantee, and if you want to spend money buying drinks for someone it may or may not go how you are wanting so you'd better be enjoying your present time.

I have no sympathies for this piece of **** at all and honestly I don't even see that this woman did anything wrong at all. This is one person who was wanted something from another, something the other didn't want to give, so took it by force. Everyone knows that is wrong.

If anything, this is an example of precisely why faulting the victim is a terrible idea.

 

[Quintessence]

is there not irony in the fact that risk mitigation requires free will?

There is indeed.

 

[dawny0826]

True, but if you ever ARE assaulted, torturing yourself over what you could have done differently to stop the attack from happening will make your recovery much more painful and difficult than it needs to be.

There's a marked difference between acknowledgment and torture, Alceste. If something happened to my children, I could easily see myself succumbing to such internal torment. However, I know that I would also seek therapy to overcome. I want to live. I want to overcome. I don't want to be a victim. Part of that is very much mental.

It may cause you to delay reporting the crime to police, or even not report it at all.It may even prevent you from realizing you have been sexually assaulted at all, despite your awareness that the experience was deeply traumatizing.

Doesn't personality come into play here at all? I'm sure that I would be traumatized. I'd also be angry as hell and want the piece of ****'s head on a spike.

I want to see my children grow up and live to an old age with my husband. You can defile my body, but, you can't touch my spirit and the venom that will come forth if you're stupid enough to let me live. I would want to kill someone who was assaulting me. My husband and father would want to kill anyone who assaulted me.

Am I the only person who thinks this way? Don't you know marshall arts? Don't you have this fighting spirit in you? My weapon of choice would be a tazer or a firearm, though.

By taking responsibility for being attacked for fairly random, arbitrary factors with no correlation to rape, like forgetting your cell phone or not mentioning where you were going, you statistically increase the likelihood that you will cope with the trauma by self-destructive behavior, drug or alcohol abuse, self-harm, and keeping risky company.

I wasn't suggesting that anyone should take responsibility for being attacked in any context. Where the hell did you get that from?

For me, it's not worth it. I go out without telling anyone where I am all the time. It's one of my greatest pleasures. A few lost hours doing whatever I feel like doing, wearing whatever I feel like wearing, leaving my phone behind, and I feel completely content and restored.

Good for you! But, this doesn't lessen the risks of someone in the East End of my city getting mugged or worse by going out alone at night.

Here's what I do to reduce my risk of being assaulted: I avoid people who are broadcasting aggression through their body language. Seriously, I just cross the street. I also freely tell men to **** off in no uncertain terms if they approach me the wrong way, and off they ****. Except in Paris, where I had to learn to tell them to go **** their mothers in French.

I do the same.

But, you're kidding yourself if you think that such attitude and posturing makes you invincible. That's all I'm saying.

 

[Quintessence]

Your world view is completely flawed.

Kashmir, you don't ruddy understand my worldview. You keep throwing words like "fault" and "blame" around in your responses, which tells me you do not understand. I can't for the life of me figure out how to explain it so you'll get it, and with the venom you've started spewing at me, I'm done trying. Go twist around someone else's posts.

 

[Debater Slayer]

There is indeed.

I'm a determinist as well. When I use words like "responsible," "fault," etc., I generally intend them to mean "the cause of" or "being a part of the cause of." Heck, my lack of belief in any concept of free will sometimes makes it tricky to even define to others what I mean by "thank you."

 

[Curious George]

I'm a determinist as well. When I use words like "responsible," "fault," etc., I generally intend them to mean "the cause of" or "being a part of the cause of." Heck, my lack of belief in any concept of free will sometimes makes it tricky to even define to others what I mean by "thank you."

But with pure determinism, one cannot mitigate risks. Any assumptions of fault, blame, and responsibility fall by the wayside. I struggle to see how this thread would even be relevant to someone who did not acknowledge some degree of freewill.

 

[Debater Slayer]

But with pure determinism, one cannot mitigate risks. Any assumptions of fault, blame, and responsibility fall by the wayside. I struggle to see how this thread would even be relevant to someone who did not acknowledge some degree of freewill.

Risk mitigation itself would be part of the deterministic cause-and-effect chain.

That's a rather involved subject, though, so I think discussing it here might derail this thread. I'm willing to discuss it elsewhere if you or anyone else is interested in pursuing it further.

 

[Curious George]

Risk mitigation itself would be part of the deterministic cause-and-effect chain.

That's a rather involved subject, though, so I think discussing it here might derail this thread. I'm willing to discuss it elsewhere if you or anyone else is interested in pursuing it further.

Probably right about the derailment. I shutter at creating another determinism v. Freewill thread, but I will.

 

[Father Heathen]

Yes. And nobody is arguing that. I'm talking about how not getting murdered because...oh I don't know, they wore a shirt somebody didn't like or had shoes that somebody wanted.

And no one is arguing your straw men, either.

I provided my own suggestion for people not to get raped by staying the hell away from rape apologists.

Who here is a rape apologist? I know you're not speaking of me, considering that I made it rather clear that rape victims are not at fault for nor deserve their assault, nor are rapists excused or justified. I find the crime to be horrifying. I also find the fact that so many are allowed to get away with it equally horrifying. In fact, I wouldn't mind personally castrating them with dull, rusty instruments, sans anesthesia.

Apparently that's not enough for some people. They'd like to get into how not to dress, how not to drink to excess, how not to provoke in some way when it comes to the thread about responsibility on the victim for getting raped in the first place.

You oversimplify the point in an attempt to dismiss it. Allow me to redirect you to my hitchhiking example that you must've missed:

Take hitchhiking or picking up hitchhikers for example. No one would deny that it's a very risky and dangerous thing to do. Now when someone falls victim doing so (raped, robbed, murdered, etc.), of course they don't deserve it, nor is the assailant excused or justified. However you cannot say that the that the victim doesn't bear some responsibility for taking a dangerous risk by hitchhiking or by picking up a hitchhiker.

Is it inappropriate to suggest that hitchhiking and/or picking up hitchhikers is a risky, dangerous, and dumb thing to do? Or is it only risky, dangerous, and dumb up to the point that things end in rape, thus absolving the victim of that particular responsibility?

Or, as an other example, drawing attention to oneself in a impoverished neighborhood with a high crime rate by wearing expensive clothing, jewelry, etc. It would still be an inexcusable injustice if you got robbed, of course, but would it really be out of line to suggest that venturing into that neighborhood in such a manner a was very risky, dangerous, and dumb thing to do?

No one deserves to be victimized, nor are they at fault for being a victim. Likewise those that victimize are never excused or justified.
However, the point is that, in some cases, people increase the chance of being victimized by being careless or reckless.

If a stranger pulled up beside you in a car, acting all creepy and suspicious, offering you a ride, wouldn't you consider accepting the ride to be a dumb move? Now let's say the following day that he attempted it again with another woman who actually accepted his offer, with it not ending well for her. You would still consider accepting the ride a dumb move, correct?

 

[Alceste]

There's a marked difference between acknowledgment and torture, Alceste. If something happened to my children, I could easily see myself succumbing to such internal torment. However, I know that I would also seek therapy to overcome. I want to live. I want to overcome. I don't want to be a victim. Part of that is very much mental.



Doesn't personality come into play here at all? I'm sure that I would be traumatized. I'd also be angry as hell and want the piece of ****'s head on a spike.

I want to see my children grow up and live to an old age with my husband. You can defile my body, but, you can't touch my spirit and the venom that will come forth if you're stupid enough to let me live. I would want to kill someone who was assaulting me. My husband and father would want to kill anyone who assaulted me.

Am I the only person who thinks this way? Don't you know marshall arts? Don't you have this fighting spirit in you? My weapon of choice would be a tazer or a firearm, though.



I wasn't suggesting that anyone should take responsibility for being attacked in any context. Where the hell did you get that from?



Good for you! But, this doesn't lessen the risks of someone in the East End of my city getting mugged or worse by going out alone at night.



I do the same.

But, you're kidding yourself if you think that such attitude and posturing makes you invincible. That's all I'm saying.

I'm telling you statistical correlations backed by research I've looked into. Embracing rape myths like the idea that what you wear can cause you to be raped, is strongly correlated with being assaulted, and the outcome is strongly correlated with the effects I described. I don't know what you, personally, would do, but neither do you. Statistical correlation and the anecdotal evidence of others is all we have to go by unless we have been in such a situation ourselves.

Yes, I have studied martial arts, and I'm the last person on earth anyone who knows me would accuse of lacking a fighting spirit. I don't know what that has to do with the subject though.

By avoiding people who broadcast aggression, we both lower our risk of getting into any kind of unanticipated trouble. That's also a statistical correlation though, not a guarantee. Any additional precautions you might like to take is up to you, and I fully acknowledge that people are different. But some of those precautions are not statistically correlated with an increased risk of assault, like telling people where you're going all the time or wearing sexy clothes. So to pick a factor like that to attribute partial responsibility for an attack to the victim is pointless and destructive.

Others, like staying out of violent places, make complete sense.

But really, who lives their life constantly assessing the risk of being assaulted in any given situation? Just steer clear of sketchy characters and you've pretty much done what you can.

 

[Quintessence]

I'm a determinist as well. When I use words like "responsible," "fault," etc., I generally intend them to mean "the cause of" or "being a part of the cause of." Heck, my lack of belief in any concept of free will sometimes makes it tricky to even define to others what I mean by "thank you."

That's why I raised the question earlier about how belief in free will or lack thereof plays into our perspectives on this topic. I think part of the reason I'm not getting through to folks like Kashmir is that it's difficult to compute the angle I'm coming from. But hey, I have difficulty computing the free will angle, so... heh.

I think another thing that is conflating people's thinking about this are notions of crime and punishments for them. Maybe I should have said something about that in the OP, but by recognizing how targets contribute to a situation, in no way do I mean to suggest they should be punished, held responsible, or blamed in any formal, legal fashion. I disagree with "justice" systems that revolve around punishment in general. Not just because it makes no sense from a deterministic point of view, but because punishment is demonstrably ineffectual compared to, say, reinforcement or reform. But that might be another tangent.

 

[kashmir]

Kashmir, you don't ruddy understand my worldview. You keep throwing words like "fault" and "blame" around in your responses, which tells me you do not understand. I can't for the life of me figure out how to explain it so you'll get it, and with the venom you've started spewing at me, I'm done trying. Go twist around someone else's posts.

Yes I do, you said if parents kept their kids home they would less likely be involved in a school shooting.
That doesn't mean a thing, because someone can break into their house and kill the kids as well.
A gas leak can occur and blow up the house.
A kid can trip and fall down the stairs and die....
Choke on food
And on and on and on and on......


Should of, could have, might be better to, means nothing in a real world view.

Basically, you are trying to show how one can prevent evil situations and you cant, even moving to a remote island with no one on it, has its issues too.
You cant escape weather or illness or simple accidents.

How about we figure out why kids bring guns to school and kill people and/or try to see the signs ahead of time and prevent it from happening?

 

[Pegg]

This thread is in many respects an extension of this one, only the intent here is to consider perpetrators and targets of crimes more broadly. In that thread, I'm noticing a worrying tendency for some to to completely absolve targets of crimes of any contribution to the event. Although I suspect some of this is due to choice of words and semantics, it is very concerning to me that people are able to ignore causal variables simply because they are centered on the victim of a crime.

Being a target of a crime does not magically erase the fact that aspects of that person's behavior or personality contributed to the situation. Suggesting so is unscientific, unwise, and potentially downright dangerous. It nullifies our ability to conduct an impartial, objective risk analysis of crime and its causes, and in particular it won't allow us to develop ways that we can protect ourselves from becoming targets. After all, if we can't bother to acknowledge how we, as targets, contributed to the situation, we're going to be blind to how we can change our behavior to reduce our risk. We need to take responsibility for ourselves too, not just engage in rubbish finger-pointing exercises.

Thoughts?

When someone opens up a shop and fills it with all sorts of goodies, are they asking for thieves to come an steal from them?

They've opened the doors, right? So is that an invitation to a thief to come and steal??

 

[Bunyip]

This thread is in many respects an extension of this one, only the intent here is to consider perpetrators and targets of crimes more broadly. In that thread, I'm noticing a worrying tendency for some to to completely absolve targets of crimes of any contribution to the event. Although I suspect some of this is due to choice of words and semantics, it is very concerning to me that people are able to ignore causal variables simply because they are centered on the victim of a crime.

Being a target of a crime does not magically erase the fact that aspects of that person's behavior or personality contributed to the situation. Suggesting so is unscientific, unwise, and potentially downright dangerous. It nullifies our ability to conduct an impartial, objective risk analysis of crime and its causes, and in particular it won't allow us to develop ways that we can protect ourselves from becoming targets. After all, if we can't bother to acknowledge how we, as targets, contributed to the situation, we're going to be blind to how we can change our behavior to reduce our risk. We need to take responsibility for ourselves too, not just engage in rubbish finger-pointing exercises.

Thoughts?

I can see your point, and it does have great merit - but how could we go about addressing it? You are correct in that the victim often plays a role and had they behaved differently the crime may not have occured, but I would hate to be the person tasked with having to point that out.

 

[Poisonshady313]

Why disprove a claim I don't make?
In your posts to me, are you having a conversation with someone else?

Your post to me was a response to my post mostly directed toward the original post, which seemed to imply the claim I addressed in my previous post.

 

[Revoltingest]

Your post to me was a response to my post mostly directed toward the original post, which seemed to imply the claim I addressed in my previous post.

I'm lost here. But it doesn't seem worth pursuing.

 

[Poisonshady313]

I'm lost here. But it doesn't seem worth pursuing.

To sum it up, we're not really in disagreement with each other.

 

[Revoltingest]

To sum it up, we're not really in disagreement with each other.

Ahhhh....I like that.