Human Nature

Following in the same vein as a few of the more interesting threads we've seen lately, I'd like to start a discussion of an interesting question that occured to me.

A disclaimer, not pointed at any particular person: if it's your time of the month and you'd like to voice some grievances about the character flaws of another participant in the thread, I'll ask you not to post here. I can't moderate the discussion personally, but that's my request.

Moving along: to call something "human nature" has almost degenerated into a figure of speech. People seem to throw the phrase at displays of anything from sentimentality to brutality. The question: what do you think of as being human nature?

My answer: describing something as according with "human nature" always seems to me like a redundancy. What people do, down to the most random and irrational act, can of course be attributed to the human character, because it was a human who did it. If a person were perceived to have done something that defies human nature, that would simply indicate an incomplete conception of human behavior on the part of the perceiver.

Human beings, true enough, generally follow certain patterns of behavior, but to contradict those patterns is also common. There is a clear example of this in the subject of sex: we have it biologically ingrained in us to pursue sex and reproduction, but many societies and belief systems notoriously discourage copulation and sexual expression.

In short, I think the notion that we can put forward a coherent evaluation of all our behavioral tendencies as a species is ridiculous. Recorded history has, by this point, documented enough contradicting acts of corruption and generosity, carnage and peace, conformity and rebellion, vice and abstinence, that I believe we can't seriously come to a coherent understanding of what we really are.

I suppose my idea of "human nature" is somewhat similar/somewhat the opposite of what Cass just said. Maybe.

I generally feel that it is "human nature" for humans to not be perfect. I feel that it is "human nature" to make mistakes, to do wrong things, to do right things, (wrong and right in this case meaning good and evil) and of course to be curious -- curiosity probably being one of the upper things I just mentioned.

For instance, I would say that it is human nature for somebody to do something dumb just so they can see what the outcome is -- reguardless if they know what they're doing is dumb or not.

A bit of a deep topic for me to think it up in a few minutes -- for now, I'll leave my post as is, and if I can think I can expand on it, I'll post later.

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Breaking the laws of mapping since 2003 and doing a damn fine job at it

interesting thoughts cass.....welcome back...

the "nature in human" would probably be the first angle i'd come from when hit with "human nature"....things primal, things necessary to prolong the species....the basest of instinctual behaviors...food.....procreation.....more food.....warmth.....more food....and on and on.....

more of a concept than an actual tangible charcteristic i suppose.....

youve forced me to ponder yet again cass.... :wink:

Doc B... :dodgy:

With all the diversities of cultural and social pressures, that lead to many different actions and standards and views, to give a definite answer I would have to agree with Doc B on focusing more on the nature in human. Cassius, like you said in your first post, its hard to think of any real actions that can be defined as human nature without finding a contradictory action that also falls under the same category.

I'm sorry I haven't contributed anything additional to this thread, but maybe someone else's post will prompt more thinking on my part.

I sum up human nature in one word: selfishness

I think that everything anyone ever does is for their own selfish reasons. This isn't necessarily, or even commonly bad. It can be selfish to give away 50 billion dollars. how? because the person does it to feel better about themselves, even if its at a minimal or subconscious level.

As far as "human nature" and society, I agree, we as humans want to have sex and beat up anyone who gets in our way. While society says "no bad human!"

I feel that this aspect is driven by people who are regretful of themselves for wanting to follow "human nature." I.e. the person who abstains from chocolate because they are fat. They can't live with being fat, so they live with out chocolate.

The selfishness (again, not necessarily negative) thing is almost perfectly concrete to me. There are few people who really act as true marters (in any sense of the word) in our world.

I thought I'd link you guys to this since it's such an interesting read and can help to explain a lot about what we call human nature.

http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/primer.html

I think human nature is, of course, "The nature of humans" as in, "the way humans operate."

I think that human nature is simply the following: Greed

Anything that it is our first impulse to do is most likely the option that would seem to benefit us most. But, depending on which method of reasoning you use, the first impulse is different. For example, if one is confronted with the choice to save himself only or to go back into a burning building to save someone else, possibly losing his own life, his methods will determine his actions. If he beleives that this life is all we have, he may be motivated to save himself rather than possibly lose his life at the benefit of another. However, if he is an afterlife-believer, he may beleive that his action of going back may benefit him best in the afterlife. I'm not saying that these are the only reasons one would go back, but they are two possibilities. There are the other possibilities that I was talking about which are possibly unexplainable and are also the same reasons that would invalidate Kierkegaard's statements on death and mourning for afterlife-believers.

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I tried sniffing coke, but the ice cubes kept getting stuck in my nose.
http://www.dimebowl.com

human nature is the inability to be perfect
thats how i believe society sees it
i see it as i dunno being urself
not following the ideals of society, because even the people who do "jump on the band wagon" have this inate feeling that they should be themselves and society just sees that as less than perfect
that's what i believe
whether or not it made sense

the way i see it, human nature isn't redundant, but contradictory.. unless you're completely mad, you're ruled by a conscience and consider most actions before actually taking action. very seldom are our actions identical to our natural nature. it's the complete opposite for the majority of the animal kingdom -- which acts on instinct, or nature. i mean, bears kill each other all the time over females, territory, food. we do as well, but not in good conscience. we're an anomoly in the animal kingdom, in that we have governors other than our nature. we have our unnatural nature. ..but the semantics of it aside; this reminds me of a blog i wrote a while ago.. about love, of all things.

"..Not to completely denounce love, however. It?s a goal most of us strive to reach, and most reach in some way. It?s the hole we?re all born with that we try to fill. Whether this is morally acceptable or not is questionable, but love ? no matter how selfless you are ? is just self-satisfaction. We long not only to be loved, but to love. Maybe this is what causes inferiority-stricken people to hate Valentine ?s Day.."

we're a self-centered species.. pleasing every sense, living for endorphines. i think the only way to define human nature, is to contrast it with other 'natures'. maybe 'ant nature'? ants, that would die merely so that the mound can gain a few morsels of food.. selfless beings. no sex, no drugs, no rocknroll.. no pride, no selfishness. this is an extreme opposite, though. something like a pig or a bear would be closer to our side of the spectrum.

..ever wonder what's going through a dying hero's mind before he dies? $20 says it's, "I hope I'm remembered for this". it's my belief that we aren't prone to (capable of?) real selflessness, because it's not our nature to be. are there exceptions? of course. but, then again, cats and dogs are trained to get along all the time. ack, it's late, and i feel convolution coming on. better stop.

my blog, btw, can be found here.. the entry titled, "what makes him super?" might be the most relevant here.

woosh

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the players tried to take the field
the marching band refused to yield

I'm beginning to develop my ideas a little more, and I have to recant, in part, my original post. We are not helpless to make heads or tails of our own behavior; that men consistently reject their own desires only constitutes a behavioral pattern in and of itself.

The conclusion suggests that, if the term "human nature" denotes a complete assessment of all man's past and potential actions, such an assessment of all human tendencies would include our basic forces immediately alongside their intellectual or societal counterforces.

Arrayed in a diagram corresponding to such a conceptualization, sexual desire, for example, would be juxtaposed with the various pressures to temper that desire; our inclination towards security and order would contrast with our want of individual freedom and expression; our pragmatism would be acknowledged as a tendency just as common and valid as our sentimentality.

I still think that saying human action accords with human nature is, in a way, a redundancy, and I'm convinced that history has by now revealed such a number of that nature's extremes - and those extremes are not polar, not the embodiment of either force in a dualistic opposition such as that between the concepts of good and evil, but many and varied - as to confound any attempt to define our behavior as invariably one-sided (or, perhaps, even two-sided - I'll leave that thought for later).

The sum of each human thought and action considered from every conceivable perspective cannot possibly be rationalized as extending from a single basic will. One cannot understand an individual with any semblance of completeness if one only considers his general alignments - his class, his nationality, his politics; in just the same way, one cannot understand a human action without appreciating it in its full complexity. We cannot completely appreciate an act of generosity, for example, if we consider it an extension of pure self-interest. Yes, perhaps, in a certain light, so-and-so contributed to such-and-such an organization dedicated to treating AIDS patients in Africa to sate a hungry ego. However, surely the outlets for such gratification are infinite - surely, too, many of those outlets would not share a donation's beneficence. The choice, in this example, of self-gratification through goodness over less constructive means seems significant enough that the act, as a whole, cannot be wholly dismissed as one of unfeeling self-interest, but one that is positively and negatively motivated at the same time.

I expect a fair examination of many human endeavours would yield a similar picture: one of an action motivated by endless layers of egotism and base desire, yet that retains, at its center, a note of innocent benevolence.

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[Im_invisible] "I would suck a man off, but only for sustenance."

I expect a fair examination of many human endeavours would yield a similar picture: one of an action motivated by endless layers of egotism and base desire, yet that retains, at its center, a note of innocent benevolence.

Well said.

and I thought my "everyone is selfish" was a far out kind of idea :rolleyes:

I agree very much with the layers of reason behind actions. This is the very reason why we really can't blame the actions of anyone on any one 'thing.' It is because each one of us is the sum of the massive equation that is our life, an un chart-able matrix of cause and effect.

but the events of which we are a summation do not control our future actions, they only determine what situations we are in and what decisions we have to make. They are our past, not our constant nature.

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I tried sniffing coke, but the ice cubes kept getting stuck in my nose.
http://www.dimebowl.com

but the events of which we are a summation do not control our future actions, they only determine what situations we are in and what decisions we have to make. They are our past, not our constant nature.

Could you open a door if you never, in your past, learned how to use a door knob?

Could you open a door if you never, in your past, learned how to use a door knob?

if it was your nature to turn doorknobs. =D

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the players tried to take the field
the marching band refused to yield

DrGlass said:
Could you open a door if you never, in your past, learned how to use a door knob?

Yes. All you would have to do is apply knowledge of other round turny-things and figure out that the doorknob turns. It may take a while, but I figure out new stuff all the time. I hardly EVER read manuals on new stuff I get or have to use at work. I just open it up and go.

It's like saying "Why do you like girls instead of guys?" You can't say that it's just your nature because you were BORN liking girls instead of guys, wouldn't you have had to have liked a girl before? There would have to be some kind of previous girl-liking in your past that dictated that you were gonna be that way.

And what about your first thought? thoughts, whether conscious or unconscious, are what control EVERYTHING. if we lose our thoughts, we lose our memories of the past experiences (which you say dictate our lives) AND we would lose the capacity to act on any memories of previous experiences. So what in the past is your mind's FIRST thought based from, if there were no thoughts or memories before then?

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I tried sniffing coke, but the ice cubes kept getting stuck in my nose.
http://www.dimebowl.com

I feel that parents supliment your early years. Chidren born who never know parenting (in some form) don't develope and then can't learn new things. I'll find some links if you don't belive me.

I mean right NOW you could oporate something without ever seeing it or having pre existing knowlage of it, but what I'm saying is that you put a person with no past infront of a door they wont know what to do.

I think its a hard consept to wrap your head around, only the very basic is hardwired in our brain at birth, the rest is compounded over our time on earth.

I wouldn't, personally, put too much stock in studies that say anything about child development along those lines. There is always many instances where their theories are bulls**t.

Just because there's some correlation doesn't mean it proves whatever they were trying to prove, there are always other factors.

What was the percentage and the degree of error? The study could have been bogus to begin with. Like many people try to conduct involving prayer and video game violence and teens, or something else as unprovable. If you want to link them up, there's almost always a way to do so, but it will always be an obviously flawed study.

But, find the link.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

I'm not a big fan of word definitions. I think word definitions are the job of history rather than that of a single person or a group. The "correct" definition would be a democratic survey at best.

Anyway, I often think of human nature as the conflic between our body (including the more instinct-driven parts of our brain) and our intellect. Hardly anything we do today is natural. It's all the result of abstract thinking. The chair I'm sitting on, the food I eat, the clothes I wear. It's all abstract. Our body wasn't made for it (evolutionary). Our body is built to hunt, run away in fear from wild animals. Our instincts aren't made for living in cities with millions of inhabitants. The abstract thinking part of our brain constantly has to control our instincts, hormones and the rest of our body which is built for a life in the woods.

I don't think anybody has mentioned John Locke yet. He was a philospher during the 1600's/1700's. He had many view on human nature, and it ties to government.

This site seems to explain it well.

DrGlass said:
I mean right NOW you could oporate something without ever seeing it or having pre existing knowlage of it, but what I'm saying is that you put a person with no past infront of a door they wont know what to do.

How would such a person know thay need to go anywhere, much less through a door? I agree that you can't operate anything without prior knowledge of SOME kind, but who or what can?

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I tried sniffing coke, but the ice cubes kept getting stuck in my nose.
http://www.dimebowl.com

People can - and, countless times, have - not acted according to patterns of human behavior as we understand them. We understand behavior by what we have seen of it: we cannot possibly say how it will change with time.

An example is in Ecclesiastes: the narrator claims that mankind never really progresses, never really makes anything new. That, certainly, would seem a valid contention in the context of his time and place, but the idea runs counter to the events of the past several hundred years, wherein every society has experienced rapid changes.

Solomon, or his impersonator, made his claim based on information accumulated from his personal experience and then-recorded history, which certainly could have easily suggested the conclusion that mankind never really changes.

The idea of causation is flawed in that way - you can only speak from past experience (which, granted, is a perfectly acceptable judge) when considering what the consequences will be from any action. I'm citing one philosopher or another - my apologies, I don't remember his name - when I use the example of dropping a rock: though every single time you've seen a hand release a rock, the rock has fallen to the ground, the assurance that experience provides you that the rock will drop is incomplete: it is possible, however unlikely, that it won't.

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[Im_invisible] "I would suck a man off, but only for sustenance."

I will read this more thoroughly when I have a chance. Right now, I am just out of time.

My thinking:

Human nature is often confused with human rights, or the perception of rights. We as humans always seem tho think that we have more rights than we actually have. We also believe erroneously, that the rights we do actually have, supersede someone else's exact same rights. Even when those rights contradict each other.

Its human nature to act one way. Its out intelligence that should dictate how we truly need to act. Human instinct says that self preservation is paramount. Human intelligence says we should protect the weaker, if they are more so than ourselves.

Human nature says that we should breed with anything willing. Human intelligence says, to be picky in that conception.

Human nature says to do a lot of things that are just wrong. We should, but seldom do, need to think beforehand.

If I had to say humanities biggest flaw, or put a title on it I'd say that society today doesn't teach the fundamental truth that actions have consequences. ALL ACTIONS!

Very few today think beyond their own immediate wants.

/contemplation.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

I agree with everything you said Orph, but I'm a little confused about your idea that human nature is often confused with human rights. Do you mean perceptions of human rights confuse the issue of human nature, or that people mistake human nature for the concept of human rights?

I dunno exactly how to phrase it.

People confuse rights, that much I am certain of. What constitutes a right and what is perceived as a right are often contradictory.

I really wish that I had a much broader ability to express my thoughts in a concise manner. I know what I want to say, but cannot seem to get it on paper.

Rights and human nature are interconnected but they are not mutually beneficial to each other. Sometimes we must do whats right, over what what one wants to be right.

shrugs

I guess I need to think on it some more.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Orpheus said:
Rights and human nature are interconnected but they are not mutually beneficial to each other.

I think this clarified your original post a bit in my mind. I think I see what you're saying about how human nature (and not thinking things through) could encroach on people's rights. I could be misinterpreting what you said though, since I also know that you don't like when people bitch about having their rights encroached :smile:

http://www.feralchildren.com/en/experiment.php
This is all about Feral Children, thats the concept I base my thoughts off of. I don't have the time right now to read through it, but I'm sure you'll find information on the limited brain development and loss of ability to learn new skills like language.

I agree with orph, all actions have their reactions and people tend to forget that. In that same logic, all reactions must have a cause, and all causes have their own cause, which too has a cause, etc, etc. No one thing can be blamed for the actions of a human. The true bane on this society is the thought that there is some magic "thing" that makes people do what they do and all we need to do is find that.

Take violent video games for instance. They get blamed for kids killing people, but at the same time is it not possible that the violent outlet found in video games stops some kids from acting on their violent tendencies?

Nickel its like this, I think that people follow the law of motion. An object remains at rest until acted on by outside forces. We as humans can't be born and just 'do' we have to be acted on by outside forces. Once we get that jump start our lives are dictated by ourselves, based off of the initial action of our environment. Not that people can't change, or do "new" things. I just feel that we don't pull actions out of thin air. Everything we do can somehow be tied to a past experience.

I think human nature is what humans do naturally without thinking about it.

The problem with rights is, everyone seems to have their own interpretation of what they are. Some have a realistic view of them, some have a more self centered view.

I cannot really put my finger on where that line is, or more specifically where it needs to be but I am certain of one thing... The rights most of us view as our own are not really the rights we have.

The problem I am having right this minute is picking an example to illustrate my meaning. Every one I want to use is, or has been a topic of flames throughout Snarkpit history. I could choose any one of them anyway but the problem would next be one of a rehashing of the old discussions, instead of sticking to this new one.

I feel that this topic is new and fresh enough to NOT want to pollute it with old hurts.

Perhaps, I just need to think harder and pick a topic that is important, without it being one already used before. :sad:

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The best things in life, aren't things.

I'd say that rights are nothing but inverse laws, so they're invented to "form" our nature just like I stated in my original post. I don't think rights are "natural", they're necessary because we live in gigantic, organized groups (that are possible only because of the abstract thinking parts of our brains, not the basic instincts). Rights make sure noone sufficates in these societies.

More on the topic: I think many people consider themselves superior or at least seperated from nature. Every aspect of our acts that can be traced back to our non-"civilized" ancestors, those who we'd still consider to be "connected" with nature, is human nature. We're supposed to work like a clock, a robot. If we actually have to stop and be lazy for 5 minutes and follow our man ape instincts that's human nature (and mostly it's still considered bad).

I'd be interested where you actually heared the word being used. I can't recall any notable mention of this word in a while. Except for the Gondry film which I wanted to see forever but never came around to do so. Might actually be interesting in this discussion, although, from what I heared, it's not as good as his others:
Human Nature (imdb)

I think people get too caught up in "rights" these days. They wanna puch to make everything their right, but they don't care if it's right or not. Like it's a RIGHT for a woman to choose life or death for her unborn baby, but it's still debateable whether making that choice is a right thing to do.

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I tried sniffing coke, but the ice cubes kept getting stuck in my nose.
http://www.dimebowl.com

Human rights and human nature aren't very interconnected. Man created rights, and if you look back at history we can see that past ideas about "human rights" were almost always flawed. I mean, it wasn't so long ago that a large portion of man didn't fall into the category of Human.

The nature of humans is timeless. I think human nature is the cause of all these repeats in history. Humanity seems to make the same mistakes over and over and over again. Just with different Nouns

I think human nature is the cause of all these repeats in history. Humanity seems to make the same mistakes over and over and over again. Just with different Nouns

To an extent -- though I might beg to differ :wink: There have repeats in human history ("repeats" being where simply don't learn from out mistakes and botch everything all up again, or a repeat could be something along the lines of re-inventing the wheel, if you get my drift). I feel that human nature, despite any rehashes it may make, will somtimes/usually result in some sort of change. For better, or (unfortunately) for worse.

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Breaking the laws of mapping since 2003 and doing a damn fine job at it

I think human nature is the cause of all these repeats in history. Humanity seems to make the same mistakes over and over and over again. Just with different Nouns

To an extent -- though I might beg to differ :wink: There have repeats in human history ("repeats" being where simply don't learn from out mistakes and botch everything all up again, or a repeat could be something along the lines of re-inventing the wheel, if you get my drift). I feel that human nature, despite any rehashes it may make, will somtimes/usually result in some sort of change. For better, or (unfortunately) for worse.

your exacly right, allow me to rephrase. While our technology and society may grow and expand we as humans make the same fundimental mistakes as well as the same underlying choices.

gladiators impress woman by beating other men with a stick, power brokers impress woman with a nice car.

I see human nature as 'caveman' like. E.g if you protect yourself, or just get plain p*ssed off.

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting DrGlass</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>http://www.feralchildren.com/en/experiment.php</DIV></DIV>Interesting. After my exposure through karate to a limited Japanese vocabulary - monosyllabic words for yes, no, the numbers one through ten, and various techniques - I got it in my head that there was a "pure" human language such as the one described in the anecdote at the bottom of that page. The oftentimes monosyllabic brevity of hai, ie, rei, and many other such basic exhortations of affirmation, refutation, and command seemed to embody a vehicle for communication superior not only in its concision but in the way it seemed to accord with how I felt that I, had I never been exposed to mainstream language, would have naturally learned to speak - how anyone would have learned to speak.

However, when I tried to map out my pure language, to generate its lexicon, it became apparent that my manufactured words corresponded to words in languages I already knew for the same entities. For example, when I considered my word Im, meaning he, I saw that it shared the word he's vowel and consequently sounded very similar to it. I was like the writer who unwittingly has an idea, which he believes to be original, for a great story, when in truth the idea is the plot of a book he has already read years ago and simple cannot piece to the book itself.

What I took away from the experience is that the human mind invariably associates an entity it perceives with a corresponding word. It is an embodiment of the mind's tendency to compulsively rationalize whatever it encounters. The word light is irreversibly associated in my mind with the visual image of a light (though that image may accumulate other equivalent words - say, lumi?re).

DrGlass said:
gladiators impress woman by beating other men with a stick, power brokers impress woman with a nice car.

Also interesting. A while ago, I heard the idea - which I now firmly believe to be true - that the better part of all human inclinations have a sexual undercurrent. Basic impulses such as the desire to fight down even to the will to produce art can all be interpreted as having some sexual significance - not that they carry subliminal messages, but they affirm a person's biological worth or desirability. A teenage boy compulsively wants to fight because to succeed in physical contest, to the basic man in him, increases his status with potential mates. An artist benefits sexually from his creations - and I think there is some subtext to the act of artistic creation or production - in the same way that a peac**k benefits from the show of his feathers: it demonstrates a positive aspect of his character - one which is perhaps irrelevant to his survival but nonetheless accepted as an indication of sexual status.

Cassius, there's no doubt that there was a "root" language. That is why it has always been easy for us to learn other languages, because they are all similar in some ways. Or at least to thier own groups: American, Indo-European, African, Asian and Pacific. It is what I am currently studying in College. It's really interesting.

Anyway, the same as there was a universal language, there was probably a universal nature, but it has since evolved into multiple separate natures for different types of people.

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I tried sniffing coke, but the ice cubes kept getting stuck in my nose.
http://www.dimebowl.com

Anyway, the same as there was a universal language, there was probably a universal nature, but it has since evolved into multiple separate natures for different types of people.

Thats an intresting idea. I like it.

To me, the evolution of universal nature sounds like the advent of distinct cultures and societies.

Nickelplate said:
Cassius, there's no doubt that there was a "root" language.

Cite your source.

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http://maze5.net

Cite your source.

Ummm... this is an internet forum, lets not let facts get in the way of arguments.
(the text above is light blue)

mazemaster said:
<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>&#149; quoting Nickelplate</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>Cassius, there's no doubt that there was a "root" language.

Cite your source.</div></div>

I don't really have a source. I'm studying linguistics in college and we just learn about lots of theories of Root languages. There are too many coincidences in the languages to leave much doubt.

Also, if you beleive that all 287,655 plants; 10,000 lichens; 1,190,200 invertebrates, 28,500 fishes, 5,743 amphibians, 8,163 reptiles, 9,917 birds, and 5,416 mammals share common ancestor, it is the extreme of hypocrisy to discount the possibility that the 7,300 languages we have are related.

I'm sure you can Wikipedia search for it.

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I tried sniffing coke, but the ice cubes kept getting stuck in my nose.
http://www.dimebowl.com

I heard something on an audio book today that made me think of this thread. Its basically on topic:

Its human nature to blame the victim of a crime more often than the person committing the crime.

I thought about this for a while and decided that thats basically true. The example given were like:

If you walk through a park at night thats notorious for mugging and you get mugged, you deserve it. The person by rights should be allowed to walk anyplace they wish at any time they wish but discretion dictates that if you do not want to be mugged stay the f**k out of the park at that hour.

It went on to give more examples but they all basically followed the same patter, People SHOULD be allowed, but SHOULD also know better.

It made me wonder how the general opinion was for this site.

Who's to blame for a personal injury or crime? The victim or the criminal?

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The best things in life, aren't things.

In our Phychology classes we learn that Rapists feel that thier victims DESERVE it for dressing like sluts. I think that's partially true... Nobody DESERVES to be raped except rapists, but maybe the psycho would not have picked you if ou didn't remind him of a whore.

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I tried sniffing coke, but the ice cubes kept getting stuck in my nose.
http://www.dimebowl.com

All things are your fault. If you didn't go to walk past point A, the rapest would have never got you.

I agree that accountability may be the case, but is "fault" really applicable?

I mean, yes we know that if you weren't there, you couldn't get raped but exactly where is the line drawn between fault and victim?

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Hmm... "blame"... Yea, that's an interesting thought. I don't think it's as much connected to human nature than to nature itself. It's the antelope's fault not the lion's.

Maybe it's human nature that invented blaming the "criminal" (and inventing the word "criminal" itself). Hardly any animal hurts members of it's own species so often.

The lion, as far as I have been told, doesn't rape the antelope.

I understand (i think) your point but it is a question that has plagued me more in my later years than it used to.

I used to be one of those punks that would walk down alley "A" just to dare anyone to try to mug me. I was a bit better built then... Bulk talks even more than male genitalia when it comes to doing really stupid things you see.

Now, I have kids, grandkids and my thinking has altered a bit. I might still walk down alley "A" but now I'd take 10 or 12 friends... That way they could witness my old ass beating the crap outa some puke. Do you have any idea how hard it is to convince anyone that old people can beat the crap outa someone 1/2 his age? :heee:

Seriously, I think the consequences of getting raped, are the end result of the actions the person getting raped did prior to the act. I do not however blame the person being raped. At least not completely.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

What if the rapist breaks into their home?

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"If you talk at all during this lesson, you have detention. Do you understand?"

• My yr11 Economics teacher

wil5on said:
What if the rapist breaks into their home?

I am not a criminologist but I imagine that rape is an opportune crime. People who break into homes are more likely there to rob you. At least I'd imagine that to be a primary goal, with a bit of rape thrown in if the victim is available.

I really don't know how to respond. I live in a neighborhood where doors are seldom locked at night. A rapist would be in heaven here if that were his aim. Yet, I rarely hear about rapes. Doesn't mean they don't occur, but.. shrugs

IMO, you are requesting a definition to an exception. Your time might be better used talking about the norm.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

What if the rapist breaks into their home?

If they never paid for the house and lived in it, they wouldn't have that problem.