Ubiquitous Damage

[ysabetwordsmith]

I found a couple of good posts about ubiquitous damage.  These are cases where abuse is so widespread that it is treated as normal, it's difficult or impossible to avoid, and is presented as the price of having a life at all.  You either "willingly" submit to the abuse or you don't get to be a part of most of society.  Objecting to it, trying to change it -- you can do those things, and sometimes make a little progress, but it also makes you a target and means there are many things you can't or won't do.

These include user abuse and employee abuse.

I have a tendency to look at abusive situations and say, "I am not that fucking hungry."  I've passed a lot of opportunities because they were more toxic than I would tolerate.  True, I'm not a very good fit for this culture.  But I maintain that "It is no great sign of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society."

Comments

Awareness

[dialecticdreamer]

Most people aren't a very good fit for this culture. It's abusive. In fact, the underlying PRINCIPLE of this society can be summed up as "top dog", which IMPLIES a systematic abuse and neglect of everyone who ISN'T said "top dog".

We can't opt out of everything-- otherwise, my tax dollars would NOT go to a government that ever issued formalized language to make TORTURE "acceptable", in any way, shape, or form. But hey, I pays my taxes 'cause I don't like the consequences.

Until more people wake up to how pervasive the underlying notion is, the more we'll get "Teach boys not to rape", rather than a positive "This is what consent looks like. This is how to give or withhold consent, clearly. This is how to accept consent graciously. (Or decline it just as graciously, just to be sure there's that option in there.)"

Force or the threat of force is what pushes this culture in a million different ways.

I hate it.

But I'm stuck surrounded by it, carving out bits of non-violent life amid the BS.

We need more interconnections between non-violent, alternative answers to major problems. Right now, the "fair tech use" guys don't talk to the "informed consent" moveent because "that has nothing to do with us."

You're breathing? Got a pulse?

Then this affects you, too.

Re: Awareness

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> Most people aren't a very good fit for this culture. <<

It used to be that most people could get by in it, though. Now look at the rates of divorce, suicide, anxiety, depression, etc. and it's clear that this society tends to break people. But the farther you are from its favored categories, the harder to survive.

>> It's abusive. In fact, the underlying PRINCIPLE of this society can be summed up as "top dog", which IMPLIES a systematic abuse and neglect of everyone who ISN'T said "top dog". <<

"Devil take the hindmost" is NOT a society. It's a feeding frenzy.

>> We can't opt out of everything-- otherwise, my tax dollars would NOT go to a government that ever issued formalized language to make TORTURE "acceptable", in any way, shape, or form. But hey, I pays my taxes 'cause I don't like the consequences. <<

Funny how the people arguing that taxes are coercive (they are) who don't want to pay for women's health care, or anyone's health care, bitch up a storm if someone else says they don't want to pay for war or corporate welfare.

>> Force or the threat of force is what pushes this culture in a million different ways. <<

True, and the problem with force is that it only works as long as you can keep applying it. If people ever have an alternative, you've made them hate you, and they will destroy you if they can. History indicates this is probable.

>> We need more interconnections between non-violent, alternative answers to major problems. Right now, the "fair tech use" guys don't talk to the "informed consent" movement because "that has nothing to do with us." <<

One of the more subversive things I do is teaching people to draw connections between things that look unrelated on the surface, and showing how those ARE everyone's problem.

[mdlbear]

Thanks for the links. User abuse is all too common; some of it comes from sites where the users are the product rather than the customer, but not all. Microsoft and Adobe come to mind.

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

At this point in time, society itself is rather toxic.

One characteristic both those situations, and the more general sociological one, have in common is that the people in charge, i.e defining the cultural rules and standards of behaviour, are essentially sociopathic or modelling sociopath behaviour traits. But then if you look at it more closely, that's because they're the same people. I.e Business leaders, CEO's and so on...