sapiens

I posted what I intended. "Human nature" is an old term, but what it represents is still alive and well in the fields of biology and psychology. As I said, "Socialization" is not any more scientific than "human nature". You need only read journals ranging from the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, to Psychological Science, to Cognition, to American Psychologist, to Nature, or even Science to realize this. The fields of psychology and biology reflect this.

This is veering off topic. I'll end my threadjack here.

spindles

wtf? should it really matter what she was dressed in? This is like saying "don't go outside - you liable to be raped!". What kind of weird weddings have you been to where the Bride was raped??

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Merlocke

See now schoolchildren wouldn't be so abused if they just took this simple training course.

Ashamed? Maybe. Stupid? Perhaps.
Should the driver of a car that just hit a child playing on the highway be ashamed? A little, but what the hell was the kid doing there in the first place? World peace be damned, a woman traveling alone in a dangerous part of the world for females should really consider her trusting mentality when exposed to the dangers in that environment. Will's right - we should be striving as a whole to make the world a better place, but don't go playing in the proverbial traffic while waiting for the change.

Well - sorta... just imagine, the entire enemy army marching single file through a verdant green forest while wearing pretty little red coats. Wearing a bullseye and then bitching about getting hit should make - some - difference.

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Hain

Sorry Will, but just because it is an outdated term doesn't mean Ustwo is wrong. Human nature is a fairly good blanket description that encompasses that we are affected by our genes and our environment. The human race is like a jungle as it is- we might as well call it nature.

Ngdawg said it best, we are still primates. No amount of wishful thinking is going to help. Maybe if we start it off young then there might be a change. This would only be psychological conditioning towards negative thoughts, and nothing towards a likely genetic factor.

On a sadder note: I doubt the foundations for the utopia that the future will hold wont even be laid within my life time.

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MSD

"Note: Crime statistics are often better indicators of prevalence of law enforcement and willingness to report crime, than actual prevalence."
Crime isn't the victim's fault, but there are many cases in which victims have knowingly placed themselves in dangerous situations and disregarded the likely consequences. This is one of those situations.
You may not like the term, but if you look at statistics and probability, there are certain behavioral patterns whose frequency of occurrence have a narrow standard deviation, and certain traits in which statistical outliers will tend to act predictably. You can also look at the statistics of crimes committed and draw conclusions based on them.

A hitchhiker is more likely to be killed by a driver than someone hiring a taxi, limo, or other form of transportation because someone intent on harming another is more likely to do so when they are less likely to be caught, such as when picking up a hitchhiker. A woman hitchhiking is more likely to be raped or murdered than a man when hitchhiking because she is perceived as less able to defend herself and likely is. Foreigners are more likely than natives per capita to be taken advantage of because they lack the knowledge of the local area that would keep them out of bad situations.

Willravel

Yes, but there are real explanations for said patterns. Many crimes can be explained reasonably and precisely. "Human nature" is neither reasonable nor precise. It does the situation a disservice by not making a real attempt to figure out what went wrong. "Human nature" is a cop out.

Hain

When shit goes wrong despite all preparations, it still doesn't stop anyone from saying, "Murphy's Law." It still went wrong. "Human nature" is no different in my opinion. Despite all preparations there will be people that wont be reached.

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sapiens

I agree. As I said earlier

Saying that something is due to "our primate minds", "our genes", or "the way we were raised" doesn't provide much of an explanation of anything. What particular aspects of "our primate minds" or "the way we were raised" have influenced the behavior under question?

I think that utility of statistics in understanding the underlying causes of violence (as described by MSD) is a separate issue.

MSD

I have a hunch that the standard deviation in occurrences of certain behaviors worldwide would be too narrow to be explained by anything other than genetics. For example, I think that it is natural to arrange people and things into hierarchies and attempt to climb to the top of those ladders.

Willravel

Typically wins separated at birth share some behavioral tendencies, but hardly all of them. Environment does play a role.

abaya

This thread has reached an inordinate level of abstraction... but I guess all threads do that, eventually.

Will, would you go hitchhiking in Mexico (as you said that you have) wearing a big placard that says, "Soy maricón" as a march for gay rights? I mean, really... would you? And if you did, would you really expect to not be attacked in some way, shape, or form?

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Cynthetiq

@ 4:14 Lt. McClane in Harlem with a sign. Maybe she needed to have Samuel L. Jackson there, you know he's got that badmofo wallet...

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LoganSnake

World peace is a rosy pipe dream at this point of human development and in any foreseeable future. This woman was hitchhiking in a developing country trying to prove a point that people are kind? Well, she proved it. Not all of us are. I guess that about sums it up for me.

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Willravel

Not being gay, that isn't my place. If I were gay, I might try to walk across Alabama or something, though. Still, I'd want it documented by a news outlet. Without said exposure (and protection that comes from having a camera near) it would be a useless gesture.

MSD

I never tried to deny that, I'm just saying that I see too many things in common across the world for it to all be based on environment and upbringing.

Willravel

Environment and genetics are connected, though. Certain genetically inclined behaviors are more favorable and are more likely to continue into the next generation. Those behaviors undoubtedly effect the environmental behaviors of others.

abaya

Nice one. I hadn't even seen the movie, nor had I heard of the scene. The parallels are not exact, but close enough...

Will, obviously I know you're not gay. I was using an example of what I consider to be fatal idealism in a place like Mexico, since you said you'd been hitchhiking there.

Cameras do not protect most people, nor do they give meaning to otherwise asinine gestures. Yes, media coverage helps, but it all depends on the particular spin and bent given to that coverage. Nothing is guaranteed, except your own death when doing something like that.

Being a martyr is overrated.

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roachboy

have to say, the piece works doesn't it?
what other point could there have been to it beyond having this kind of discussion?
i mean, no matter how it played out, the piece is an exemplary gesture and the point of such gestures is the discussions they trigger. if she had been able to get to her destination unharmed--sadder but wiser--whatever, there's have maybe been the opposite discussion, with folk being all pissy that something DIDN'T happen to her because human beings mostly suck.

so it's kinda funny: some of you comrades who argue that pippa branca was stupid as an individual to put herself at this kind of risk are doing *exactly* what her project was designed to engender when you say it.

sometimes art is more complicated than you think.
and not all of it is pretty.

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Willravel

Her death was not guaranteed, but if it was then wouldn't that just reinforce my statement that Turkey should be ashamed?
Do I have to bring up MLK, Gandhi, and such again?

Seer666

Neither are humans.

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abaya

No, because nothing reinforces that statement. An entire country cannot be held accountable for one of its random denizens murdering someone else who is taking a hike in a bridal gown. Now, if Turkey started murdering every peace-walker who wandered through their country, then yes, we could start to make a case for that position... but until that happens, no. The power of such figures, at least for me, does not source from their deaths. It comes from what they were able to accomplish while they were ALIVE. Anyone can die, especially for a good cause. The death act in itself does not confer an apotheosis.

To me, it only works if she had a death wish going into the project. This would require cynicism, not naivete--which is what I believe was the real case (from the bits I've read--perhaps I've missed something). RB, again maybe I missed this somewhere, but where is the statement that says what her project was designed to engender? I agree with you, if she indeed intended for her "art" to take place upon her death, but I haven't seen proof of that yet.

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Ustwo

I owe someone some cash.

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roachboy

abaya: i posted the artist statement earlier in the thread (no. 21) and the interpretation that the project is in a bizarre way still operative with this outcome in no. 70.

it's a good project in that sense---while obviously it was not designed to turn out as it did, it still works.

and we are all performing the fact that it does.
except now there's the added twist of wondering whether by doing that, we're aesthetising a rape and a murder.
which we are, no matter what any individual post says--once you start treating this as an example of a type and then shifting to generalized explanations for it, you're in that game. and it is an ugly game.

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it make you sick.

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Willravel

I've already explained this.
It's a "thing are so bad there, someone couldn't even walk across your country without being murdered" thing.
I never said that was where their power came from. No one starts out a martyr. It's what they do before their death that's galvanized by their death. I never would have heard about the wonderful thing this young woman was trying to attempt had she not been killed.

abaya

My apologies then, I must have missed it. I was not following the whole "human nature" discussion of this thread... just had been thinking about it today and wanted to jump back in to the discussion. Do you think that this could not have happened in any country, even in your own backyard? What about that crazy dude who shot up the Amish schoolhouse in PA? Should we Americans be ashamed of him personally? If you think so, then okay... we are really just on different wavelengths here, and no amount of discussion is going to amend that. I'm truly curious... how has this wonderful event changed your daily living, other than inspiring you to post more on TFP? Has it inspired you to walk across Mexico wearing that placard?

Thank you... I did indeed miss the link at the bottom of that post, to the artists' statement. Intriguing, but to be frank, it's just way too postmodern for me to take seriously.

I do agree that we are all performing the fact that it "worked," but I see that as correlation, not a direct result of what the act intended. It is definitely ugly, no bones about that. Isn't martyrdom really about "creating a type," in the end? The act of death becomes bigger than the person... and that is what I dislike about it.

A person died here, tragically. I would never minimize that. The fact that she died from a wholly preventable cause does not increase or decrease my pity for her, but it also does not incite even greater pity for her than it would for the average person being killed tragically, anywhere. It is what it is.

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roachboy

performance art is a curious bidness. of that there's no doubt.

i have no opinion about pippa branca's motives or assessments of risk involved, btw--i don't think they're knowable and they aren't relevant in any event.

like i said, obviously the piece was not designed with this outcome in mind--but it's not the first such piece.
i don't think it was designed around suicide, nor was it designed with the idea that she'd be raped and murdered.

for suicide as art, think mishima.

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spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Willravel

It's extremely unlikely in San Jose. We have a very low crime rate, especially for such a large city. There are some places in the US that are messed up, though, and I do feel badly that they are in such disarray. I'd like to do something about it, in fact.
In some minor ways, yes. We should, even among separatists, promote an open and welcoming environment for children to report sexual abuse. Had the milkman been discovered to abuse young people before the massacre, the lives could have been preemptively saved.
I've become aware that Turkey is possibly a lot more dangerous than I had previously suspected.

abaya

Well, shoot... f you had stated that from the get-go, then I would have seen that point as being more valid than blaming an entire country for one murder.

I've learned, or at least been reminded, that you are extraordinarily stubborn. Not a bad thing, as that would be the pot calling the kettle black, etc. Just an observation...

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genuinegirly

It's actually pretty interesting watching you folks hash out opinions. Seems clarification is key to understanding.

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spindles

Did you see "Top Gear" do their american roadtrip from Florida to New Orleans? I'm pretty sure they were almost killed and definitely chased out of one of those southern states for the slogans they had written on their cars. Obviously the camera crew and the British accents was not enough for the locals to realise they were *joking*.

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Cynthetiq

I think that willravel was ashamed for all Americans and sent a letter to TopGear staff, the BBC, and the Royal Family.

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FuriousAvatar

I don't give a damn if you are predisposed to want to commit crimes-sex crimes or otherwise-at some point, you, as a human being, make a choice. And that, if anything, is human nature: The simple but profound ability to choose your own actions. I have thought a good many despicable thoughts in my life and sure, maybe I'm genetically engineered or somehow society played its part to make me think or want these things, but there comes a point when you decide to do something or not.

I completely agree that society and genetics can play a large role in people's behavior, but I think perhaps that we have forgotten that to be human, you make choices every moment of your life. This woman made a horrible choice, just as the man who raped her did. Yeah, maybe somewhere in the woman's past something instilled in her a foolish sense of trust in humanity, and perhaps the man's genetics urged him to commit this crime.

Choice. It sucks to be human, huh?