View Single Post
Old 08-28-2012, 09:11 AM   #158
Steven Lyle Jordan
Grand Sorcerer
Steven Lyle Jordan ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Steven Lyle Jordan ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Steven Lyle Jordan ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Steven Lyle Jordan ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Steven Lyle Jordan ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Steven Lyle Jordan ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Steven Lyle Jordan ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Steven Lyle Jordan ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Steven Lyle Jordan ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Steven Lyle Jordan ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Steven Lyle Jordan ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Steven Lyle Jordan's Avatar
 
Posts: 8,478
Karma: 5171130
Join Date: Jan 2006
Device: none
Quote:
Originally Posted by djulian View Post
I'm not trying to be dim here, but I'm not sure I understand your answer.
What I mean is that everyone reacts differently to stimulus, so you can't apply a "standard formula" to determine their behavior. Nor can we accurately determine what is happening inside someone's brain, so we have no way to determine what causes or even constitutes a behavioral change. Even overt and obvious changes in behavior can be caused by myriad and often unidentifiable causes, not just the obvious.

Suppose a man had read rape magazines for years, for its personal titillation, but had never raped or had rough sex with a partner. Then, one day, he had a really bad day that culminates in his girlfriend telling him she'd been fooling around with another man; and that angers him so much that he just snaps, and rapes her.

What, exactly, caused his behavior: A buried desire to rape a girl, even though he knew he shouldn't; an impression, however suppressed, that rape was okay because he enjoyed thinking about it; his having eight really bad things happen to him before lunch; his anger at his girlfriend's admission; or something else that happened to him a decade ago, finally causing him to snap today? And what prevents another person having the same background and the exact same day to just walk away? Even psychoanalysts have problems with that answer.

This is why there are no models or meters that can work for everyone, why blanket censorship or banning of anything isn't effective on all of the population, and why censorship and bans do not address the real issue in the first place. The issue is the behavior: What makes a person act counter to a social and moral acceptability that they, themselves, should understand and follow.

All we can do is take cases individually: We can investigate the causes of bad behavior; we can analyze and define it; but most importantly, we must find ways to prevent bad behavior.
Steven Lyle Jordan is offline   Reply With Quote