Ugh, my life D:

[fushigi_na_chou]

~.: My LJ is turning out to be a bipolar ranting space. 8D At any rate, I don't really wanna talk about how depressed I am over my finances for the umpteenth time. I have no money, you all know it, life goes on sucking

Comments

[windup_bird]

Unfortunately there is a flaw in your belief that people should never be punished -- if people are not punished in some way for wrong behavior they will continue to repeat that behavior. In general this is the way it goes. This is why there are things like spanking, time outs, and grounding of children and the same basic ideas at the very least need to be taken with adults as well.

People are not inherently good, unfortunately, which is why there are rules and punishments in place. Guilt alone is not enough punishment because you can't trust everyone to feel guilty, or if they do to have it bother them in any way.

That being said I still stand by my view that people should be left to feel guilty for their actions. They should. They did something wrong and should feel guilty for it. That is the correct reaction and it's a kind of self-punishment. No one should make them feel better for committing an act that was wrong. Removing their guilt shows them that the act is okay when it is most definitely not.

[fushigi_na_chou]

Perhaps that's the paradox of forgiveness. I agree people should feel guilty when they do something wrong, but how long a person is made to feel guilty about something -- it's sort of arbitrary, isn't it? Everyone is going to have differing opinions about how bad an action is (and I'm not saying that what happened wasn't bad, or that guilt shouldn't be felt at all), it's just, how long is long enough? Who makes that decision

[windup_bird]

I believe there should be guilt until the person wronged is ready to forgive them for their actions. The person who committed the action is not a victim (aside from possibly a victim of their society but that in and of itself creates a paradox because you can't change society without punishing wronged actions

[fushigi_na_chou]

Well, no, I realize it's not my forgiveness to give, but insofar as I'm affected by his actions, I've given that forgiveness. Ultimately, you're right, it's up to the party who was wronged the most to give forgiveness, if they so choose. But I also don't believe that, in lieu of not receiving forgiveness, a person should hate themselves, or be hated by others forever

[windup_bird]

But see the problem is that you're acting like what he did was okay, at least as far as I can tell, in your sticking by him. I honestly can't understand how someone who seems to be so passionately for women not being treated as objects by men (or other women but it's a man in this case) can just be like "oh but he's really a good person" and leave it at that. I guess that's what this boils down to. Because he treated Jenna as an object, drunk or not, and tried to use her for his personal enjoyment even though she was obviously not up for it. That is what bothers me most is that you seem to nonchalant about it all now. "Oh he did this bad thing but I swear he's good" doesn't come off as sincerely finding fault in what he did

[fushigi_na_chou]

Ah. Well, that makes sense. In my head it's more like one crime led to another: he got blackout drunk (which I'm fine with, so long as people don't get hurt), which caused him to do what he did. I 100% believe his "personal enjoyment" had nothing to do with it. If I felt he'd done it with malice, or like it was something he was capable of sober, then I would feel exactly as everyone else does. But the fact that he was not cognizant of it changes things for me, if only because I feel he would never, ever do anything even close to that sober, and that he has no desire to hurt anyone, or use anyone for his personal enjoyment. That's why when I talked to him about it, I stressed he stop drinking, because I feel drinking is what caused this. I hold him responsible insofar as he allowed himself to get so drunk that he would perpetrate a crime against someone like that. If he remembered doing it, again, I would feel as strongly as everyone else does, but he doesn't, which means, to me, he wasn't in control of his actions at that point; if he

[fushigi_na_chou]

But the thing is, whenever I do try to tackle it, I can see how bothered he gets by anyone assuming that he could be capable of something so horrible. I don't know, my automatic reaction to that much hurt is, "Okay, okay, so you're not that person. It was a horrible mistake, you didn't mean it. Just understand that what you did is still wrong, and you hurt someone, and it won't be as easy to fix as apologizing. There are deeper issues at work here, and you'll just have to wait and do nothing until people are ready to forgive you." And all that time, I empathize with him, because I feel like it could just as easily be me in his place.

[fushigi_na_chou]

But I don't know how to address the act objectively. :x

[windup_bird]

But the thing is, whenever I do try to tackle it, I can see how bothered he gets by anyone assuming that he could be capable of something so horrible.

This bothers me more than I can possibly say. The fact that he denies himself capable of an act that he has already committed is a problem. He is obviously capable; he's already done it. His denial of this is frightening to me.

He cannot fix the problem, or get the help I personally think he needs, if he so staunchly denies this.

[fushigi_na_chou]

I don't see why it's frightening, but I can understand it being frustrating, annoying, and even somewhat perplexing. This is what we've been talking about the most, recently, because this does keep coming up. I will agree and say he's in denial of the whole thing, probably and mostly because he doesn't want to think he'd ever hurt another person, especially not like that. But one thing I realize I need to learn before I can even expect him to understand is, in spite of having done this thing, he's not a bad person. I've been clinging to the notion of "He's not a bad person, therefore it couldn't have happened, I don't want it to have happened, and even though it did happen, I refuse to believe it has any bearing on who he is as a person." I'm trying to make myself think more like "It did happen, exactly as Jenna said it happened, it was a very bad thing, and obviously he is capable of trying to take advantage of another person, particularly women." There are so many other implications in there, stemming from just that, and even any "

[windup_bird]

It's frightening because denial of an act can cause the repetition of said act. We've seen it happen over and over in history and the same is said about people's individual actions as well. He also cannot truly be working on those parts of himself if he denies they exist, which is essentially what he is doing if he's so staunchly denying what he did.

And there are differences in levels of hurt. There are actions that may hurt someone in a temporary way that does not leave them feeling threatened in anyway and then there are actions that actually threaten an individual's person. Anything that leaves someone feeling frightened, vulnerable, unable to remain in control of their body or themselves is definitely worse than some other wrongs people can commit. This does not make those bad actions good but there is definitely a scale on the wrongness of an act. To say there isn't is naive.

[fushigi_na_chou]

Okay, yes, now I see why it's frightening. I hadn't thought of that. Point taken.

And sorry, I think I totally excluded the point I was trying to make with all that. There are different levels of hurt, and depending on the victim, they are worse or less worse (I don't wanna say better, there really is no "better" hurt ^^;). But at the same time, hurt is hurt. It's all bad, and what Guille did is especially bad, but it doesn't make him any worse as a person for committing a crime. Yes, he may be in denial, and that makes the whole situation worse and far more complicated, but I don't find it surprising. If someone had accused me of the same thing, I'd probably be in just as much denial, and I'd be questioning my goodness as a person because of it. But maybe the why doesn't matter. Perhaps it was just some carnal flashback to our less inhibited ancestors. Alcohol completely separates the rest of a person's brain from the center of judgement that says "this is wrong," which, in and of itself, makes the situation all that much scarier

[windup_bird]

Well it sounds like you've come some way into accepting what he did as wrong so I'll commend you on that. I even mostly agree with you on it not necessarily making him a bad person. If I honestly believed that he was a horrible monster I, personally, would've urged Jenna to call the cops and would have ruined his life over it. Because it was bad enough that it could've warranted that, honestly, but I didn't feel that was necessary.

I also just wanted to say that anything I have said about this situation has not been out of malice or anger or hatred but out of concern for you. I'm just afraid of you being around someone that we know is capable of such a thing. I'm also afraid to be around him which is why I've chosen not to be; not because I actively hate him or anything like that.

[fushigi_na_chou]

No, I trust you, at least, of all people to never prejudge, or even post judge someone to be a horrible person. You and I are alike in that way -- we hardly ever think of people as inherently bad or evil. :) Tis why I love you