I believe in rehabilitative justice first and foremost because I was in a cult.
Yeah, I talk a lot about my liberal pacifist upbringing and my community’s condemnation of Middle East invasion shaping my relationship to the Evil Other. All of that is true and salient. But the most formative element by far was the experience of being seduced by incorrect beliefs and finding my way out the other side.
(decently long effortpost below cut)
I used to be a fascist and endorse this post.
People, even very smart people, believe in those kinds of lies because it is what seems to make sense at the time, and various social conditions can make people more vulnerable to them.
If that figure is to be believed, that’s about ten per cent of the country’s population dedicated to drug dealing, extortion, and mayhem—so what do you do? Again and again, I heard the same solution being offered, sometimes blithely, sometimes through jaws clenched in rage: kill them all. Kill their girlfriends and their families. Kill their children. One man apologized as he proposed this solution—he found it unseemly to be advocating genocide—but most did not. One young woman, soft-spoken, exceedingly polite, detailed her life in a gang-ridden neighborhood on the outskirts of the capital. It was one terrifying encounter after another, each delivering the same dispiriting lesson: she was helpless in the face of the gangs and their malevolent power. She had done everything she could to avoid them, and still they found ways to control her life. Her father was forced to pay extortion money to one of the gangs—she wouldn’t say which one. By the end of our conversation, she was almost weeping with fury. “I’m a Christian,” she told me, “but those people aren’t my brothers. I would burn them all.”
(Quote from this article.)
In my country of birth, many people have given up on rehabilitation and want to try death squads, mass executions, and dictatorship instead. I was one of them, and so were my parents.
Sacrificing the idea of mercy and rehabilitation pushed us, and many others, to accept such authoritarian and dangerous measures for the sake of punishing bad guys. This was all driven largely by anger, empathy for the victims, and a desire for justice.
At the same time, it’s important to note that I changed. I’m as far as you can get from pro-genocide now, and I’m not a special case either. People can change.
It’s not easy if they have become fanatical and suspicious of information that contradicts their beliefs and what they have observed about reality, but it can be done, and I would say that it is the best outcome.
Thanks for this. I find that having undergone a big change in beliefs really boosts a person’s epistemic humility. You’re a great example of that.
Tag: important
One thing that helps me not feel awful about intrusive thoughts:
Those thoughts are
intrusive because they’re unpleasant to you. That’s part of the definition. So, if you have violent intrusive thoughts? That does not mean you’re a violent, cruel person – in fact, it means the thought of violence is unpleasant to you. Sexual intrusive thoughts? You’re not a pervert – if you were, those thoughts wouldn’t be
intrusive!
you know, there’s a lot of ace positivity posts about how you’re not broken or mentally ill if you’re asexual, and how it’s not a disorder.
and that’s true. and it’s great that people realize that it’s just the way some people are.
but i’ve yet to see any asexual positivity directed towards people who ARE asexual as a side effect of mental illness or trauma or even, as a friend of mine has told me he deals with, a result of dysphoria.
so here it is.
if you’re asexual because you have a mental illness that crushes sex drive and sexual attraction, you’re still ace. you’re still one of us.
if you’re asexual because you have a sensory processing disorder and the concept of sex is too overwhelming in a sensory manner, you’re still ace. you’re still one of us.
if you’re asexual because you have dealt with sexual trauma, you’re still ace. you’re still one of us.
if you’re asexual because of gender dysphoria, you’re still fucking ace.
it’s okay to be asexual no matter the reason behind it, and if you’re asexual, you’re a member of the aro/ace community.
and this goes for aromantics too.
It’s ok if you’re aromantic because you were abused and you can’t even trust people much less love them.
It’s ok if you’re aromantic because of abuse or trauma or mental illness and you can’t feel anything at all.
Abuse does not make you a broken monster
Our culture often sends the message that if you were abused as a child, you’ll inevitably abuse your children.
It’s not true. I know multiple people personally who grew up in violent homes who have chosen not to be abusive. They experienced violence as children; they do not commit acts of violence as adults. It is possible, it is happening, and people making that choice deserve more respect and recognition.
It’s easier to learn how to parent well from growing up with good parents. It’s also possible to learn from other people. I know this because I’ve seen people do it. To some extent, *everyone* learns from people other than their own parents. (Including their own children. Kids are born with minds of their own, and people who respect their children learn a lot from them about how parenting can and can’t work.)
It’s a matter of degree. Everyone needs some degree of help and support in learning how to parent; some people need more help and support. Abuse (among other things) may mean that someone needs more help learning parenting; it does not mean that someone will inevitably become an abuser.
I think we need to talk about this more. Abuse survivors should not be treated as broken monsters. Violence is a choice, and abuse survivors are capable of choosing nonviolence. Abuse survivors are full human beings who have the capacity to make choices, learn skills, and treat others well.
When you say you’re the victim of abuse you are supposed to, by the common understanding, be able to bring up very specific episodes of that abuse in order to “prove its really abuse”.
But a lot of abuse just doesn’t work that way.
Sometimes they just wore you down constantly. Sometimes you couldn’t put your finger on it, but felt all of effects none-the-less. Sometimes its so plain awful that you’ve repressed it. Sometimes it was so damn insidious that you normalized it until one day years later you mention it and someone gives you a look of shock and you realize it wasn’t normal.
All of you. Any of you.
You are all just as valid as someone who wrote a whole damn memoir on the thing.
The stories coming out of this post are absolutely heartbreaking.
thank you for this post
okay so like. something being a coping mechanism doesn’t make it healthy or exempt from criticism. drug abuse is a coping mechanism, self harm is a coping mechanism, alcohol abuse is a coping mechanism, violence is a coping mechanism, all sorts of dangerous and unhealthy things are used to cope. being used to cope does not make these things healthy or okay. there are lots of healthy coping mechanism and the evil antis y’all hate so much just want you to move to a healthier coping mechanism.
Okay, look. I want to go easy on this because op is 14, but there’s something really important that he and everyone else that thinks this post makes sense needs to understand.
If you treat addiction or self harm the way I’ve seen antis treat cope shipping, you’re going to do more harm than good.
I don’t cope ship, so I can’t really make a comparison out of this, but since op already has… I’ve self harmed for almost seventeen years. I’m well aware it’s not healthy. I’ve been in therapy for longer than I’ve been hurting myself. Most mental health professionals I’ve worked with over the last decade are aware that I do this.
Do you know what they do when I bring it up? They don’t rant to me about how unhealthy it is. They don’t tell me I’m a horrible person for hurting myself. They ask if I’ve taken care of the wounds. They ask if I feel unsafe. They ask me to talk about it if I’ve done it rather than being secretive about it. They ask me about my feelings around it and what I felt caused me to do it that time.
Something being not healthy does not mean the answer is berating the person who does it. Nor does making them feel guilty and pressuring them to stop. Most of the time, all you’re going to do is push them deeper into that hole. If they try to promise they’ll stop and they slip up, that’s just more guilt and crappy feelings for their brains to cite as good reasons to keep up the self destructive behavior.
You don’t personally have to be supportive of people’s self destruction, and certainly distance yourself from them if they’re hurting you, but if you’re aggressive about how bad it is that they’re hurting themselves, you’re not going to make them stop doing it, you’re just going to give them more reasons to keep destroying themselves.
And here’s the other thing, OP.
It just isn’t up to you.
You don’t get to single people out and make them do what you think they should be doing instead.
A coping mechanism can be problematic or unhealthy, and still better than what someone could be doing instead. If you’re not intimately familiar with their life? You don’t know. Even if you are? You don’t get to control other people like that.
If they are hurting someone else? By all means offer help and support to that person if you feel you’re in a position to do so. If they’re hurting you? You can protect yourself however you need to, you can look for support to help you do that.
But if you just decided that their coping mechanism isn’t healthy and you want them to have a different one?
Not up to you. Not your division. Not your circus, not your monkeys.
You can have opinions, but you just don’t get to make those decisions for other people.
Also a lot of people have had experiences with their mental or bodily autonomy being violated “for your own good,” and if you’re just gonna recreate those dynamics, it’s not gonna help. It’s not gonna help them and it’s not gonna help you. It’s really, really not.
and this idea that people who worry about people who are surrounded bigotry becoming more entrenched in it are just like…prioritizing evil privileged people over the marginalized people who REALLY deserve their compassion
no, i worry about it because i was a scared queer kid in a conservative cult-church and i was lucky enough to get out because i got to interact with compassionate people who exposed me to new (better) ideas without making me feel like a shitty person.
and i want other scared kids to get out too. i want them to know that there’s a whole world outside their bubble filled with kind and compassionate people. i want them to know that even if their family relationships become strained or break altogether, there is a new family who will love them on the other side.
and i don’t want you scaring them away and making them feel even more trapped, because i know what that’s like too. i don’t want you putting even more locks on their door.
like i’m not even saying you personally have to reach out to them, just allow other people to do so without threatening to take away their Progressive Card.
holy shit this
When I was in 1st grade my teacher had to put my desk next to hers, away from the other kids, because I kept talking and disrupting class. It didn’t change until my mom came to open house and was appalled because that is, by far, one of the worst solutions to handling an ADHD child ever. That was the catalyst to me getting diagnosed. I just wanted to share because people don’t realize how much harm they can do; and I still think about this over a decade later and it still hurts.
I want to reframe this for you.
Your teacher didn’t have to put you there. She chose to do that. She may not have had any other tools at the time, but that doesn’t make it okay. There are absolutely better ways to deal with your behaviour, and I’m glad your mom got you assessed and got you out of that situation.
-J
hi tumblr!
this lovely person’s ip address is 68.145.254.239, they live in calgary, alberta, canada, and their internet service is shaw communications. do with this information what you choose.
additionally, you can reroute them to a screamer or jumpscare if they try to visit your blog – just follow the instructions here: http://freehostedscripts.net/blockip/
reblogs appreciated! 🙂
Shaw uses dynamic ip adresses for residential customers so the ip adresses anon used may very well also be used by a completely innocent third party as well. It also means the location may be off, when my family was using a dynamic ip it look liked we live about 2 hours from where we actually were.
While I would still block the ip adress in order to stay safe it maybe a good idea not to reroute them to a screamer or jumpscare since other people could end up getting caught in the middle.
Incidentally, this is a great example of why it is absolutely vital to defend human rights in all cases; the instant people work out which categories are publicly viewed as indefensible, they start figuring out how to fold other types of undesirables into those category.
Eg. Pornography criminalized? Great, information about birth control, sexual education, and writing by feminists and LGBTQ people are all pornography now.
Terrorism? Literally all activists are terrorists if you put a good enough spin on it! Easy.
And, of course, “sex offenders” includes teenagers who take nude selfies, sex workers of basically all kinds, LGB people in jurisdictions that criminalize gay sex, often trans people in ones that criminalize crossdressing…
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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