Germaine Greer urged to apologise for "all soldiers rape" comment

Galvasean

metrovelvet wrote: »

I know you didnt. Wasnt arguing...just adding to..

Ah, very good. I thought I mentioned it. Must have got lost in my genetics based musings.

Bottle_of_Smoke

I don't think you can compare the genetics of being capable of rape and being capable of becoming an olympian athlete.

Pretty much any guy is physically capable of rape. mentally capable is a different matter, however I do not believe genetics would ever rule a guy out from being a rapist. I just don't see why genes which would contribute to mr.anti-rape would be selected for on any great scale

Its a nice thought but I just don't think it would be true. Certainly not for anything but a tiny minority of men. As has been said if you can turn people into killers there's no reason you couldn't turn them into rapists.

SugarHigh

since personality traits are to an extent predefined I am personally of the opinion that some people carry a genetic makeup that predisposes toward being a person who would commit rape while others quite literally don't have it in them.

And of course you are one of these people I'm guessing?

Okay there could be people who are impossible to turn into rapists but they'd be along the lines of people who are actually mentally handicapped so the normal brain washing doesn't apply to them. Anyone who couldn't be a rapist is so rare they aren't worth considering. I think any normal functioning person can be turned into a rapist. To be completely free of the almost universal traits that allow a person to self delude themselves into justifying their actions would probably mean you'd struggle to function in a normal society. The fact you currently view the actions as being wrong is irrelevant because you would justify them.

We all do bad things we just justify them. Everyone is against bullying but the truth is we've probably all been the bully at one stage we just didn't consider it bullying. We justified it in ways we wouldn't do if we were a neutral party observing it happening. It's basically impossible to live a life without doing bad things so we need to be able to justify them so we aren't constantly overcome with guilt. I just don't believe bad people walk around thinking they are bad people so it's pretty much impossible to judge if you yourself are a bad person.

Galvasean

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »

I don't think you can compare the genetics of being capable of rape and being capable of becoming an olympian athlete.

The mind is every bit as much a product of one's genes as one's body.

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »

Pretty much any guy is physically capable of rape. mentally capable is a different matter, however I do not believe genetics would ever rule a guy out from being a rapist. I just don't see why genes which would contribute to mr.anti-rape would be selected for on any great scale

Anti-social attributes such as being unnecessarily violent hostile to the group can lead to being exiled from the group entirely. In modern terms (when we do catch them, which we often don't I must ad) we lock murderers, rapists etc. in jail away from others or in some cases have them executed. Unfortunately, these violent people do pass on their genes before getting caught (or indeed escape punishment entirely). In fact as often is the case with rape, the very deed itself often results in the siring of offspring.
In the case of those predispositioned to not wanting to murder, rape etc., they would have a very good chance of being well rounded good people in general, which would lead to meeting another similar person and reproducing with them.
Of course, there are countless variables, so no one way is much more prevalent than the other. This would go some of the way to explaining why we see such a huge diversity in people's mentalities, even when they are born of very similar social constructs.
It's kind of like the nature/nurture debate. A combination of genetic and social constructs make us who we are. Of course exactly to what extent each plays in this is still being furiously debated in academic circles. People far smarter than I argue for both sides of the equation.

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »

Its a nice thought but I just don't think it would be true. Certainly not for anything but a tiny minority of men.

Even if only a tiny minority of people are mentally incapable (which would be my opinion) of such acts it completely dispels Greer's assumption that all soldiers are capable of rape.
I'm sure each and every one of us here would like to consider ourselves among that minority, but until (God forbid) we are put into these situations we will never truly know if we are.

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »

As has been said if you can turn people into killers there's no reason you couldn't turn them into rapists.

As has also been stated here there is simply a lot more to raping someone than there is to kill someone. You can kill somebody from a mile off with bombs, rockets etc. To rape someone you need to be much closer. You can't just close your eyes and pull the trigger.

Galvasean

SugarHigh wrote: »

And of course you are one of these people I'm guessing?

You beat me to the punch (didn't realist it took me that long to write a post).

me wrote:

I'm sure each and every one of us here would like to consider ourselves among that minority, but until (God forbid) we are put into these situations we will never truly know if we are

Scanlas The 2nd

metrovelvet wrote: »

Empathy is not static either. If you are angry or tired your empathy levels drop.

I cant imagine in combat they would be at their highest levels.

Great post SUGARHIGH. Rapist don't have empathy for the victim and may not even be aware that what they are doing is rape. It wasnt that long ago either that a husband could not be incriminated for rape.

Womanisers too, dont have empathy for the person they end up hurting, they are just into the game and are not too concerned with the hurt they cause. The pain is all part of the fun for them.

Just how teachers used to hand out severe corporal punishment, no empathy for the children who they felt 'deserved' it. They thought what they were doing was good.

I find labeling people and coneptualizing them as some "other" allows people not to feel empathy for other human beings and allows them to do things they wouldn't normally even imagine doing. I think thats why people can kill so easily in war. It's "them" and "us". In America I notice they say "good guys" and "bad guys" a lot which I can't stand when I hear. Dangerous terms to use for a society.

SugarHigh

In the case of those predispositioned to not wanting to murder, rape etc., they would have a very good chance of being well rounded good people in general, which would lead to meeting another similar person and reproducing with them.

I actually disagree. The skill of being able to justify these actions is one we pretty much all have, the number of Germans who resisted Hitler were far outnumbered by those who supported him. If it's so prevalent it's clearly an important trait. Also keep in mind that just because they resisted Hitler doesn't mean they weren't capable of doing everything the Nazi soldiers did, they probably just felt the Nazi's would have killed them anyway even if they didn't resist. Were there many people who would have benefited from Nazi power who resisted? It always seemed to me that only those with nothing else to lose resisted.

SugarHigh

Galvasean wrote: »

You beat me to the punch (didn't realist it took me that long to write a post).

This is a slight backtrack though isn't it?:D

I'm not a rapist. Believe it or not some people do have morals and behave themselves in a civilized matter out of a sense of morality rather than fear of punishment (I would suggest looking into the evolution of morality for further reading. there is some very interesting research out there).

Were you not suggesting you couldn't be a rapist here?

Galvasean

SugarHigh wrote: »

This is a slight backtrack though isn't it?:D



Were you not suggesting you couldn't be a rapist here?

I did not state that I couldn't be one, merely that I am not one. I did pose the question as to how one would go about turning a person such as I into one and received interesting answers which are providing food for thought.
I am not a tireless refuter. I can and sometimes do change my opinion on matters from time to time in light of further reading/new evidence. There is no shame in changing one's opinion in some cases (something many internet debaters seem to think). I do not view threads like this as an argument to be won or lost, but rather a means of exchanging ideas in order to learn.
So no, I don't think I'm really backtracking, not that there is anything inherently wrong with that. I am however, somewhat coming around to your lines of thinking (however, certainly not to Greer's let it be known!), but not completely.
I am finding this debate very interesting. As you have no doubt noticed I am approaching it from a very biological point of view while you appear to be approaching from a more psychological standpoint.

metrovelvet

^ We are all capable of monstrosity. You can take an innocent person, abuse them in some way, and then lock them into an identifying with the agressor pattern and then they become the abuser later on. No one is immune from this.

Genetic or not, no one is immune to doing horrific things in an absolute sense. There are theories that some people are born without empathy, that there is a genetic pre disposition to, just as there are theories around genetics and alcoholism, but that does not mean its a destiny. Just as empathy can be socialised or beaten out of someone who was not born with such a pre disposition but with a normal capacity for empathy.

If we take your theory that some people are more predisposed genetically to rape than others, that still does not counter the possibility that in some circumstances people can still commit the act. If I go along with the analogy of an olympic athlete, well I would also say that in certain circumstances, we are all probably capable of Olympic type feats if it means survival.

Manic Moran

If we take your theory that some people are more predisposed genetically to rape than others, that still does not counter the possibility that in some circumstances people can still commit the act

The problem with this theoretical statement is that the circumstances presently controlling pretty much preclude the statement that all soldiers will rape, or that letting the British Army loose in Libya will result in British soldiers raping. We have a bunch of 18-30-year-olds on the front lines, the vast majority of whom have been brought up since day one under the concept that rape is wrong. This isn't 1940s Communist farm peasants or a small smattering of ideological racist die-hards in the SS, they are products, just like us, of modern Western society. Even if Private Tommy Atkins would be inclined to rape if he were in the British Army of two centuries ago (a quick Googling for incidents of rape by the British Army in the American War of Independence indicates that the British troops liked sex and looked for women of easy virtue, but reports of raping seem to be less than one would expect, possibly because discipline in the British Army back then would probably not pass Health and Safety review today), his genetic clone of today would not be as inclined.

NTM

metrovelvet

Thats true- the morality around rape has changed.

Also- her language appears to treat it as a destiny.

Yahew

She said

Rape is always present where you have slaughter.
How will we be sure (our ground troops) wont rape as well?
All soldiers, in certain circumstances, will rape.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b011vl9t/Question_Time_09_06_2011/

The last sentence is ambiguous, while watching it I took it to mean ( as the first two) all armies in certain circumstances would rape, but not all soldiers in an army. In any case the controversy is over-wrought.

Logical Fallacy

Yahew wrote: »

The last sentence is ambiguous, while watching it I took it to mean ( as the first two) all armies in certain circumstances would rape, but not all soldiers in an army. In any case the controversy is over-wrought.

I don't think it's over-wrought, i think it's very carefully instigated by Greer. As much as i dislike the rubbish she comes out with she is a clever woman, and she knows exactly what she is doing.

Getting people talking about her.