Before writing anything about this dreadful case, and before you read my article, it is right to pause to think first about the terrible and entirely undeserved fate of Sarah Everard, and the agony those who loved her must now be suffering.
This tragedy has led me to get into a twitter spat with people who are promoting the line that “all men are potential rapists”. It started when I took issue with a tweet by Stella Duffy (whom I know slightly).
This led to some fierce reactions by feminists, both female and male, then to some more replies by me, and then to quite a few tweets attacking me. As usual when heated debate is precipitated by a single distressing event, passion has been more in evidence than logic.
I think the difficulty lies in an ambiguity of language. The phrase “All men are potential rapists”, or Duffy’s expression “it is what any man might do”, can be taken to mean:
“You cannot tell, by appearance, which man is a rapist” – which is evidently true
or
“Every man is liable to rape” – which I would argue strongly is not true. The large majority of men would never rape, nor commit any other heinous crime.
I suspect that in some of those arguing on twitter, this is not just ambiguity, this is a deliberate conflation of the two concepts. There does seem to be a strain of radical feminist thinking which is anxious to promote the notion that every man is indeed liable to rape. That plainly is misandry – a gross prejudice, in the most literal sense, against people on the basis of their sex.
More interesting have been a number of twitter responses from women stating that they do indeed need to treat every man they might meet as a potential rapist, for their own self-protection, and adopt strategies to avoid dangerous situations. These are interesting because I think the majority of them are genuine iterations of how the writers really feel.
A large proportion of those responses come back to the fact that you cannot tell by appearance who is a rapist. It seems a stock response, judging by my twitter feed, to state that a woman would feel scared of me if she came across me or heard my footsteps while walking alone in a dark place. That is certainly true, and not only women are scared in those circumstances, though I accept they have more cause to fear.
But I am more interested in the sometimes detailed claims it is normal for women to exercise extreme caution in their every day dealings with half of the human race, when not walking in dark streets. One woman on twitter told me, for example, she had long advised her daughters against going out on one on one dates with men.
I have to say, on an every day basis that simply has not been my experience. In 45 years of adulthood, I have genuinely never picked up any sense of a woman being scared of me. In my career in professional situations I frequently had meetings with women, sometimes in my own office or even over lunch, and as a diplomat sometimes over a drink, and I genuinely have almost no recollection of ever being refused or put off, let alone in circumstances where I suspected the person was worried about my intentions. Had I suspected that, it would very definitely have worried me a lot that I gave such an impression. I have always been over-sensitive to what others think of me, to the point of vanity. I have never felt myself suspected of having potential for sexual violence.
I would very frequently offer to escort someone back to their home or hotel if there was any reason to think protection might be helpful, and was seldom if ever refused. On the purely social level, in my younger days I never had the slightest feeling of anyone being scared of me on a date, or to go with me on a date. Every date I ever had was one on one. I just cannot recognise the claims that women routinely in their daily lives treat all mean as a threat, as true in my own experience. Nor does it seem to be true of the women now close to me, in their dealings with other men.
I quite accept that those women on twitter who have told me that they distrust every man, are telling me the truth of their own experience. But I have never found most women, or indeed any women I encountered, to be like that, and I am telling you the truth of my own experience.
It genuinely concerns me that society is now in such a schizophrenic state that it is acceptable to say, in effect, that one half of the human race must never repose trust in a member of the other half of the human race. It ought to be no more acceptable to say that every man must be viewed as a potential rapist, as it thankfully is now unacceptable to label every Roma as a potential thief or black person as potentially violent. People are people.
Of course sexual violence is a terrible problem. Of course conviction rates are worryingly low. That does not mean every man is liable to rape.
That some men are a threat is plainly true. The public shock that it may be the case that a figure of public trust, such as a policeman, would be a danger is entirely understandable. That merely reinforces the truism that you cannot tell who is a potential rapist just by looking at them. But there it ends. The large majority of men are very decent people. To say otherwise is nonsense. It in no way disrespects Sarah Everard to state that she was not negligent, just extremely unlucky. The odds of any woman in the UK being abducted off the street in any given year are one in many millions. Of course women walking alone at night should rightly be cautious; men out at night should be particularly vigilant to avoid situations that may alarm women, more so than ever at present. But there is no rational cause for a general state of fear or a general demonisation of the male sex.
I have never viewed the police as particularly like to be good people in their private lives (I naturally except both my brothers here!)
This may surprise you. When I was about six years old, a fairly senior policeman who was acting as a courier for my father, was caught when a bag of illegal money burst. This had quite profound ramifications for me, not least that my father fled the country and I did not see him again for the rest of my childhood. The Rolls Royce and the Mercedes disappeared (I learnt from an uncle only recently that my father’s share of the black money alone in 1965 had been over £1,500 per day, £25,000 a day in today’s money). After my father left, the rest of my childhood was spent in rural but very real poverty. It also meant I had the great fortune to be largely brought up by my maternal grandfather, a profoundly wise and intellectual old socialist. I often wonder what Craig Murray would have been like if that bag had not burst, and I had instead been brought up as the stinking rich heir to a very dodgy gambling empire. Possibly I would have become not a very nice person.
Anyway, I realised policemen were not all great even before I understood the terrible things they can do in an official capacity. Hearing Cressida Dick’s wavering tones over the alleged policeman’s involvement in the terrible death of Sarah Everard, naturally brought to mind that she was directly in charge of the police operation that murdered Brazilian electrician Jean Charles De Menezes, for the crime of looking a bit like an Arab.
It is also worth stating that everyone, including Cressida Dick, appears to be leaping to conclusions amid a blaze of publicity that is going to make a fair trial very difficult. We don’t know the evidence, or the defence, yet.
I am, I know, out of tune with the times. The politically correct repetition of the mantras of identity politics is the only kind of politics which is mainstream acceptable now. A terrible incident like the dreadful fate of Sarah Everard must be responded to by cries of “all men are potential rapists” and a determined effort to drive deeper the wedges between the two halves of the human race.
Not to quite see it that way may even make me socially unacceptable in some circles. I shall have to be stoical about that.
For me, the great gulf in society remains between rich and poor. In rather different ways, that gap in available resources kills millions across this globe every week. You can find gender components in poverty; much more is race a crucial component; but the prime cause of poverty is inequality.
—————————————————–
Forgive me for pointing out that my ability to provide this coverage is entirely dependent on your kind voluntary subscriptions which keep this blog going. This post is free for anybody to reproduce or republish, including in translation. You are still very welcome to read without subscribing.
Unlike our adversaries including the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, Bellingcat, the Atlantic Council and hundreds of other warmongering propaganda operations, this blog has no source of state, corporate or institutional finance whatsoever. It runs entirely on voluntary subscriptions from its readers – many of whom do not necessarily agree with the every article, but welcome the alternative voice, insider information and debate.
Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.
Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:
Paypal address for one-off donations: [email protected]
Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:
Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address Natwest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB
Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a
Subscriptions are still preferred to donations as I can’t run the blog without some certainty of future income, but I understand why some people prefer not to commit to that.
I haven’t seen any comments yet (though I may have missed some) to suggest that:
Your point 1. You have to wonder why this aspect is being kept quiet. You are not the first person I’ve come across to ask this.
Whilst females are more at risk from rape we should not ignore that boys and men also get raped, suffering similar physical and mental harm.
This aspect of rape seems to be being totally forgotten, earning almost no mention in the current blitz.
Treating rape as a crime rather than a gendercrime means you can’t exploit rape to erode justice.
Can someone please explain why the chief magistrate at Westminster magistrates’ court, Paul Goldspring, told Wayne Couzens in today’s court hearing that “I don’t have the power to consider the question of bail. That will be considered should you wish to make an application to the court on 16 March. You are therefore remanded in custody until that date.” (Emphasis added.)
I get it that murder is a felony and therefore it is not “triable either way” and can only be tried in a crown court. I also get it that bail is extremely rare in murder cases. (The only example I’m aware of is Colin Wallace, formerly of British army intelligence.) What I don’t understand is why the magistrate this morning had no power to consider a bail application. I thought the principle was that the police once they have charged someone must bring them before a court as soon as possible and then if the prosecution wish the person to be remanded in custody they have to make an application to the court accordingly and the defendant has a right to argue that instead of being remanded in custody they should be issued bail.
Has the fact that today is a Saturday got something to do with this?
Couzens was arrested on Tuesday. Normally the rule would be that the police would have to charge or release him within 24 hours, but this can be extended on application to 96 hours in a case as serious as murder. That brings us to today. But this magistrate seems to be using the date of next Tuesday (16 March), which will be 7 days since Mr Couzens was arrested.
Might the authorities be using anti-terrorist provisions? Because one has to wonder why a person is being held for 7 days without being allowed to be heard on the matter of bail.
Also what about the injuries in custody that on two consecutive days caused Mr Couzens to need treatment in hospital? Was nothing about that said in court?
The last question is where is Mr Couzens now? Since prison has not been mentioned, is he back in Wandsworth police station, the same place where he recently suffered two separate head injuries requiring hospitalisation?
Couzens is maybe having a total breakdown as a result of going from pillar of the community, to worst of the dregs, in the very blink of an eye ? So I doubt the dear old bobbies of the metropolis are bashing him on the bonce, its far more likely that Couzens is trying to do himself in rather than face the ignominy. It’s also entirely likely that he knows the game well enough to know that attempts at self harm will ensure a rather different handling from that which the ordinary murderer might expect to receive. Luckily we still live in a country where deaths in the custody of the state are frowned upon.
But why 7 days of detention? What reason other than “prevention of terrorism” makes it lawful to hold a person for more than 96 hours without allowing a bail application? Some government advice is here: “The police can hold you for up to 24 hours before they have to charge you with a crime or release you. They can apply to hold you for up to 36 or 96 hours if you’re suspected of a serious crime, eg murder. You can be held without charge for up to 14 days If you’re arrested under the Terrorism Act.”
@Martinmed would know.
If Couzens kept waving his chopper in a restaurant and now keeps trying to top himself by banging his head against a wall (Spartan “ifs” in both cases), why hasn’t he been sectioned? You’d have thought his fellow police officers would want him to be sectioned rather than them having to be responsible for him.
Two times injuries on the forehead must be bashing his head against the wall. The plods would do other injuries. He was trying to commit suicide, but didn’t have the equipment. Sexual offenders get the worst treatment from their fellow prisoners.
Whoever assessed him after the first injury didn’t do a good job then. I wouldn’t assume the prosecution (if this gets as far as a trial) will assert a sexual element in his alleged crimes. The state has been working overtime hinting at that, though, including by spreading the story that he got his penis out in a restaurant a few days before, which they followed up by having the Attorney General tell people not to repeat such stuff – as if it didn’t come from within the state in the first place. That story also brings in the Independent Police Conduct Authority who are a right bunch of witness-intimidators.
Why was a person who had been held for almost 96 hours before being brought to court (the maximum time permitted unless the Terrorism Act is invoked) not allowed to make a case for bail?
Given who her father is, and her boyfriend too, she could have been kidnapped for reasons that have nothing to do with sex crime.
The guy is a cop who works protecting embassies and buildings on the parliamentary estate. He surely knows about cameras. If this is just about a misogynistic psychokiller, why didn’t he grab a woman off the street in rural Kent or somewhere else where there aren’t cameras positioned every few metres?
Her father is a professor of electronics specialising in microwaves who has received several years’ worth of funding from the weapons company BAE. As a close member of his family she was presumably trained in security procedures. Couzens could have been protecting her, for all we know. That could explain why she got in the car. “There’s a threat. Code Seven. Get in.”
That’s wild speculation of course, but this is not an ordinary constable who deals every day with punch-ups, domestic cases, and shoplifters.
From the Sun: “He was initially based at the [Civil Nuclear Constabulary]’s Dungeness [nuclear power station] site in Kent and also worked on escorts and counter-terror duties elsewhere.” (Emphasis and notes added.)
Counter-terror duties…..hmm……
How many kidnappings for ransom are there in London every year? I don’t know, but it’s far more than many people think – usually the ransom is paid – and there are thousands of people in London who are trained in matters relating to “K & R”.
I wonder what his “counter-terror” work was…
By injuring himself I believe he’s trying to build a rationale for a charge of ‘diminished responsibility’, lighter sentence, better prison conditions and possibly more easily achievable parole. Cunning blighters these plod, they know exactly how to play the system to their advantage.
I have had time to study the couzens case and the timeline does not add up from when he finished shift and Everritt got kidnapped.
Also I wondered if he had spotted something going on at the us embassy which was suspicious, and the yanks wanted to get rid of him.
I also know with murder the local cops have to get a body does not matter whether they are guilty or innocent.
It takes the pressure off the cops if they have the name.
Also last year the spooks were exempt from crimes in the course of work.
At this moment I cannot see enough evidence, motive or reason to arrest this fella.
But I urge everyone to look at the timelines again.
In the social sciences, there is total confusion where it comes to deciphering human behaviour – the eminent late Scottish psychiatrist (who I much respect, but take issue with here) made the assertion that: we are all murderers, rapists, etc. etc. Basically, all humans are capable of these behaviours, according to Laing. It is totally non sensical. First of all, you can not prove such as assertion, no one can, & because this can not be evidenced in any way, it is plain wrong. Second, to say all humans are capable of certain atrocities, under certain circumstances – this also can not be proven factually either. So when a person makes the claim all men are rapists, or all men are potential rapists, they are, to put it mildly, just wrong. The issue here is an age old one – what makes a human being who commits horrendous acts of murder, rape, etc. – what make him/her capable of such behaviour? Also, what are the circumstances that bring this about? Academically, criminology & criminal psychology should have answers to this question, & there are some great works out there (James Gilligan on violence) but it very much remains a mystery – because human behaviour in general remains at the core a mystery because the nature of the mind remains unknown. Of course, by carrying out intensive research one can arrive at some conclusions that have credibility, so for a person with extensive experience of working in the criminal justice system, it becomes apparent that individuals prone to aggressive anti-social & violent behaviour tend to be disturbed in some manner, or have pathological or psychotic tendencies based in some kind of deep trauma that has eradicated their ability to feel empathy. I could go on, but I think I have made my point, to say all men are rapists or potential rapists is an ideological statement, & as such it has no credibility, it is not backed up by evidence or logical argument.
“In the social sciences, there is total confusion where it comes to deciphering human behaviour – the eminent late Scottish psychiatrist (who I much respect, but take issue with here) made the assertion that: we are all murderers, rapists, etc. etc. Basically, all humans are capable of these behaviours, according to Laing. It is totally nonsensical.”
I’m sure Laing meant something entirely different.
Different, that is, both from what Stella Duffy (for example) was saying in her tweet, and what Craig, in his reply, understood her to be saying. It’s something which many other feminists do seem to be saying, although perhaps I have also misunderstood them. On this point, 603362’s comment https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2021/03/what-can-we-learn-from-the-terrible-fate-of-sarah-everard/comment-page-2/#comment-981794 seems accurate to me. (Anyway, it changed my mind.)
As for Laing’s words (presumably from The Politics of Experience, but my copy is a bit inaccessible at the moment), I have always taken them to be metaphorical. Specifically, I guess he meant somethinhg along the lines of: the false self murders the true self, and prostitutes itself to the Other. That would be broadly consistent with Laing’s views (not to mention my own), but perhaps the context does not permit such a reading. (I’ll check, when I can find time. Not that it’s exactly important for this comment thread!)
Sorry, I meant to include the exact quotation at the start of that comment, but forgot:
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/r_d_laing_400332
“We are all murderers and prostitutes – no matter to what culture, society, class, nation one belongs, no matter how normal, moral, or mature, one takes oneself to be.”
— R. D. Laing
More fully. from the Introduction to The Politics of Experience (1967) (I’ve taken this partly from my own copy of the book, and partly from the Wikiquote quotation – it contains many errors, which I’ve corrected here):
“Few books today are forgivable. Black on the canvas, silence on the screen, an empty white sheet of paper, are perhaps feasible. There is little conjunction of truth and social ‘reality’. Around us are pseudo-events, to which we adjust with a false consciousness adapted to see these events as true and real, and even as beautiful. In the society of men the truth resides now less in what things are than in what they are not. Our social realities are so ugly if seen in the light of exiled truth, and beauty is almost no longer possible if it is not a lie.
What is to be done? We who are still half alive, living in the often fibrillating heartland of a senescent capitalism — can we do more than reflect the decay around and within us? Can we do more than sing our sad and bitter songs of disillusion and defeat?
The requirement of the present, the failure of the past, is the same: to provide a thoroughly self-conscious and self-critical human account of man.
No-one can begin to think, feel or act now except from the starting-point of his or her own alienation. We shall examine some of its forms in the following pages.
We are all murderers and prostitutes — no matter to what culture, society, class, nation one belongs, no matter how normal, moral, or mature one takes oneself to be.
Humanity is estranged from its authentic possibilities. This basic vision prevents us from taking any unequivocal view of the sanity of common sense, or of the madness of the so-called madman. However, what is required is more than a passionate outcry of outraged humanity.
Our alienation goes to the roots. The realization of this is the essential springboard for any serious reflection on any aspect of present inter-human life. […]
We are bemused and crazed creatures, strangers to our true selves, to one another, and to the spiritual and material world — mad, even, from an ideal standpoint we can glimpse but not adopt.
We are born into a world where alienation awaits us. We are potentially men, but are in an alienated state, and this state is not simply a natural system. Alienation as our present destiny is achieved only by outrageous violence perpetrated by human beings on human beings.”
@Grobar – What is the difference between your first and second reasons? They both seem to say “The idea that all humans can commit atrocities under certain circumstances can’t be proven, therefore it is wrong”. Which is bad logic.
They are not reasons but two slight variations on the same assertion: all humans are capable of say murder, generally, not needing some exceptional circumstance, as to all humans being capable of murder but under exceptional circumstances. It is a slight nuance but not that important as far as I am concerned as I reject the claim one way or another. As to RD Laing, I am a big big fan, it is many years since I read The Politics of Experience & The Divided Self & I accept his perception of human psychology in the main, the statement at issue – we are all murderers & prostitutes… which Twirlip kindly provided a full accurate quotation for is open to interpretation & yes, it is not necessarily meant to be read literally – but, if not, it is an unfortunate turn of phrase because to deconstruct what Laing is saying as his meaning something else….well, it is a stretch in my view. And the point is this, re: this thread, generalisations about the character of a certain group, say all males being potential murders/rapists – I just don’t accept it, & I say again, no one who is claiming this can prove it. As to the comment some one made here about a soldier being trained to kill, I said nothing about soldiers so I am not getting in to that, suffice to say that soldiers in professional armies are trained to kill in combat & self defence, not all soldiers on active duty in a combat zone commit murder.
Pursuing the sidetrack about Laing a bit further – sorry! – yes, it is an unfortunate turn of phrase. My guess is that it’s a literary reference; but I’m not at all literary myself. I did some Internet searches to see if it might have been a reference to Jean Genet (or maybe something Sartre wrote about Genet?), but I still have no idea. Nor do I have a clear idea of what Laing’s point was.
Still, I remain sure that he can’t have meant literally that we are all equally capable of murder and prostitution. Such an idea would be alien to a passage that is otherwise entirely a depiction of a collective state of alienation. So, whatever he meant, exactly, it must have been something about our alienated state; and it must have been metaphorical.
(By the way, I can’t recall if this Introduction, or the rest of this book of Laing’s – unlike some of his others – made much sense to me when I read it nearly half a century ago, but it rings powerfully true now. Plus ca change …)
If all men are potential rapists and some men are policemen, does it follow that all policemen are potential rapists? Should they be put on 6pm curfew?
“The issue here is an age old one – what makes a human being who commits horrendous acts of murder, rape, etc. – what make him/her capable of such behaviour?”
If it is true that the perpetrator in this case was a member of the armed forces, then he must, at least to some extent, to have been trained to be OK with killing people.
Coincidentally, the media have a report concerning an airman being sexually assaulted as part of an initiation ceremony and the video shared among other airmen. This is not exactly rare or out of the ordinary. Abusive male attitudes towards sex are not limited to their treatment of women.
“Second, to say all humans are capable of certain atrocities, under certain circumstances – this also can not be proven factually either”
Wrong. The fact Nazis easily found millions of people, from two dozen countries, to carry out most bestial genocide in history is proof enough of that. If not all humans (because there was some resistance), then an awfully big number. And it’s not like it’s the only example, Mongols piled mountains of human skulls, Belgians in Congo committed some of the most bestial atrocities in history, infamous machete genocides, really, have you ever opened history book that you’re so certain of your assertion that has a lot of counterexamples and almost nothing supporting it?
Even if we talk about ‘just’ rapes, not all atrocities, the fact mass rapes happen often enough to warrant their own war crime category (and the number of men that were guilty committing them) is proof enough you don’t really need a big push to scrape a thin veneer of civilization off and unless you can provide counterexample, you’re at best in denial, if not outright delusional about your protests.
The nazi genocides were cheap in manpower and as in similar crimes before or since, many of thee perpetrators were cogs in the machine, keeping the act of murder at the end of the production line. The nazis, as now, adapted existing social, economic and transport infrastructure. You might also find that transatlantic slavery was a far greater atrocity than any of the nazi genocides, even the fashionable ones against people considered Jewish according to the nazi racist definition.
She is 33 and disappeared on the 3rd of the 3rd.
I am very bemused by the level of ignorance or denial coming from men who have commented here and elsewhere on this murder.
Many victims of sexual crimes no matter how minor or how serious might be murdered afterwards to stop the perpetrator from being discovered by silencing the witness/victim. My experiences of threats of assault or violence or sexual crimes have – like, I am sure, most women commenting this week – come from total strangers who could not accept a complete stranger on the other side of the street ignoring someone’s advances. It’s worse when there is more than one burly aggressive man trying to get a response: immediately their demeanour goes into death-threat mode.
I have also known people socially who have never understood that I have never had any attraction for them – even people I thought were trusted platonic friends. I have had some nasty moments when out of the blue, after years, their frustration has boiled over into violence … frustration that they can’t impose their will without use of force on the other person. It is this non-acceptance that other people have a right to not be interested, have a right to get from A to B unhindered, have a right to be a ten-year-old child going to a library/friend’s house/homework club without being followed or worse by predators many decades older.
I am now in my fifties and in telling three young boys off for mindless vandalism in front of my house a few weeks ago I was subjected to sexual aggression and the sort of misogynistic comments I got as a young woman trying to get home without being attacked or killed by strangers I ignored. I was in a flat but the main culprit of these boys called his friends, so there were seven laddies within seconds, and they mimed bending over and pulling their pants down in the middle of a road.
Most of my best friends growing up were guys. I worked with guys. I had the same interests as them and not with most women. But the older I get I see less and less respect for women and girls, and now see men through the gaze of other men. Some are decent, but too many cannot be trusted. When I was growing up our school debates discussed if violence on TV would lead to more violence in society. Honest kids decided yes. I would say the availability and nature of porn has added to the misogyny that lies beneath the surface. I have had many tradesmen rip me off and threaten me when I have queried bills and shoddy work. They despise women except their own, cos they see us as lumps of meat who don’t earn enough money to pay them. There is no equality.
My father is nearly 80 and hasn’t spent 5 minutes knowing what it is like to be followed as a child, abused and threatened as an adult, beaten up as a partner or raped as a friend. Never mind folk who just beat people up for fun or money. I think mace should be legal, as it is in France. I was once going to get beaten up by four guys skulking in West Por., I’d gone into a shop that had had its window panned in, cos there was a joiner and the owner there and asked to use the phone, hoping the predators outside would give up and move on; they didn’t. I only had half a taxi fare. I asked if it would get me home and the taxi driver said no, knowing the guys were behind his vehicle.
Men look down on women as poorer or weaker. And yet they want something, or they are jealous sometimes. You can’t even tell some male friends with an ego that you don’t fancy them. Women are often described as ‘damaged goods’ by men … yet it’s the same men who mistreat women so that accumulatively you just stop trusting, you don’t bother going out, because of the journey home afterward. You can’t even have a discussion of extreme male violence towards women without somebody saying “but what about men?”. Why don’t men think about men?? Stand up for women, children, youths….all victims of male predation and violence.
On the idea that “everyone can commit atrocities under certain circumstances”, there are some essential references.
1) Milgram.
The most important one is Stanley Milgram’s electroshock experiment and his 1974 book on it called “Obedience to Authority”. Everyone should read that book. It is even more important than Vance Packard’s “Hidden Persuaders”, possibly even than Bernays’s “Propaganda” too. I can only say to those who haven’t read it: just f***ing read it. It’s even more important than the Stanford Prison Experiment.
2) Asch.
Solomon Asch’s “conformity experiments”.
3) Cialdini.
Some of the stuff in Robert Cialdini’s well-organised book “Persuasion”.
4) Killology.
Stuff on “killology”. Never mind that the word mixes Latin and Greek. “Killology” is the study of why people kill other people. See Dave Grossman’s book “On Killing”. BY FAR the most common reason that a person kills another person is because someone told them to. It’s not because “men are b*stards” or “we’ve all got it in us” or anything like that.
5) The 2012 film “Compliance”.
Just f***ing watch it. It’s an absolutely crucial reference. It is quite amazing that among feminists there were some who picketed this film. It really makes me wonder whether they had actually watched it, and why on earth, if they did, their brains didn’t get into gear. Yes it is true that the main female character is not a strong character and she gets treated like an object throughout. That is exactly the point of the film. It is not shown for titillation or to encourage such treatment. It is precisely the opposite of that. Those who want to fight against the subjugation of women, and against the exploitation and objectification of the large majority of people whether female or male, should praise this film to the skies, not picket it. (For the avoidance of doubt: there is no nakedness in it as far as I can remember. It is not pornographic.) And by the way it is based on a true story. Clearly this is way too “touchy” a subject for some. I should add that I would have thought most women who have ever been in the feminist movement or the women’s movement in whatever “wave”, certainly if they are leftwing, would agree with me about this film rather than with the idiots who picketed it. (I hope this paragraph spurs people to watch it!)
That will do for now. Others could be added.
Those who haven’t got much time should read about Milgram’s experiment, take in the information under point 4 above, maybe also take in the Asch experiment, and then watch the film “Compliance”. Total time required: about 2 hours.
The picture is not all negative. What comes out from both Milgram and Cialdini is that when a large number of people are fooling themselves, acting like scumbags or idiots because somebody told them to, one person or a few people CALLING OUT THE REALITY AS IT REALLY IS can actually make a difference. The classic example is when somebody is being hassled or bullied and there are lots of people present and nobody is helping. Often it only takes one person to “step out of line” and help, to tell the bully to damn well stop right now, and then all of a sudden you find that many people are helping.
And this, dear readers, is where the whole notion of “conspiracy theory” comes in – it impedes that explosion of sanity and decency. It acts like a “damper”, because it encourages “the mass” to view the “person who steps out of line” as an anti-social loony.
I second the recommendation of Milgram’s book. It is truly essential reading, and one of the books that changed my view of the world.
Maybe you should change your views again Milgram’s tests have been debunked quite convincingly since those books
“Our analysis shows that people who believed the learner was in pain were two and a half more times likely to defy the experimenter and refuse to give further shocks. We found that contrary to Milgram’s claims, the majority of subjects in the obedience experiments were defiant, and a significant reason for their refusal to continue was to spare the man pain,” Perry said.
https://www.psypost.org/2019/11/unpublished-data-from-stanley-milgrams-experiments-casts-doubts-on-his-claims-about-obedience-54921
This is also discussed in Rutger Bregman’s book ‘Human Kind’, where he says a researcher called Gina Perry questioned Milgram’s findings and alleged that some of his assistants bullied participants into continuing to administer shocks when they had wanted to stop.
There is a chapter on Milgram in the book along with others on ‘Lord of the Flies’ and Easter island.
Thank you for bringing that to our attention. I admit that it shakes my confidence in the integrity and validity of Milgram’s work.
On the other hand, Milgram’s conclusions still seem (to me, at least) to fit what we know about prople’s behaviour in wartime. (But war is much more complex than an experiment in a laboratory for social psychology, so it is good to isolate some of the factors, if possible.) And Wikipedia’s article on the subject, as well as citing Gina Perry’s work (section 4.3, “Validity”), states:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment
“The experiment was repeated many times around the globe, with fairly consistent results.[6]
[…]
Later, Milgram and other psychologists performed variations of the experiment throughout the world, with similar results.[11]
[…]
Thomas Blass of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County performed a meta-analysis on the results of repeated performances of the experiment. He found that while the percentage of participants who are prepared to inflict fatal voltages ranged from 28% to 91%, there was no significant trend over time and the average percentage for US studies (61%) was close to the one for non-US studies (66%).[2][12] […]”
So the jury isn’t in yet, is it?
I second the reference to Cialdini’s book Persuasion. I very thought provoking book, it changed my life. There is a chapter in it on ‘decisions grow legs’, a classic being ‘we’d better stay together for the children’s sake’.
“And this, dear readers, is where the whole notion of “conspiracy theory” comes in – it impedes that explosion of sanity and decency. It acts like a “damper”, because it encourages “the mass” to view the “person who steps out of line” as an anti-social loony.”
Yes.
I used to wonder what I would do if faced with a Nazi state: go along with or resist. Now I realise its never so obvious. States don’t present as Bad they present as Good. What is very interesting is how people are able to understand or intuit the limits of the master narrative and keep within it knowing or fearing the consequences of stepping outside the boundaries of that narrative. But how is the master narrative determined and communicated? Is it the case that everyone more or less intuits that there is a lie within the master narrative and truth outside and yet decide to turn a blind eye and go along with it? If so then why? Is it just a case of knowing on which side their bread is buttered? If so isn’t this more or less the same as the Milgram experiment result?
Fwl,
it is explained in the quote attributed to Goering.
“Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”
Now here’s the thing – this is all going on right now, we are being told that the enemy is a virus, and ever increasing removals of civil liberties are being demanded on the back of it.
That is the thing to watch for. It can’t be done without removing civil liberties.
So what has been your opinion on anti-mask protestors? Or the looming attempt to mandate injections (the Nuremberg Code forbids medical interventions without consent).
A friend of mine on one of the Trafalgar Square protests reported that the police riot charged a 100% peaceful protest.
A reader
N_ describes a real world out there in which bribery and corruption is orchestrated by intelligence agencies, working in defiance of police and parliament, replacing diplomacy which is an honourable profession with extortion and threatening sovereign nations with our weapons of mass destruction.
That is not the real life either you or I inhabit, but far too many people in this smug little country turn a blind eye to our country’s part in the destruction of a long list of Muslim countries, many of which are rich in oil or minerals, or ports, or road communications.
In fact some of the most dedicated deniers of our destructive and menacing role in the world are de facto neo-colonial who have spent their lives abroad in the neo-colonial industry. If you are one of them, please accept my apologies for re-assembling the pieces of the jigsaw , which it is the sole job of quangos like Integrity initiative to separate.
N_ I think rightly has pointed out that the murder of
Sarah Everard may have had a connection to the state criminal world through her boyfriend. I suspect the police are not part of that criminal world, but they have to cover up for it. All very distressing for you if you are part of that state criminal enterprise. Sorry .
I meant never mind that “killology” mixes Germanic and Greek, not Latin and Greek. Argh! An ugly word for sure.
N_ (13 March, 17.42): thank you for these references. Some of them I am familiar with. However I doubt whether any of them confirm the proposition as you state it. I’d replace ‘everyone’ with ‘many people’.
Doesn’t look like they’re taking much notice of the vigil ban, huge crowds are gathering for it
O/T Just read that you are standing for AFI in the Lothians – great news and best of luck.
I quite agree that women who view all men as potential rapists must have had some very bad experiences early in life to make them think that way. I am the complete opposite. I grew up as the eldest of five children. My four younger siblings were all boys. Most of my cousins were boys. I am more comfortable in the company of men than in the company of women. As a young woman I lived in a communal house of all men other than myself and there was never a time when I felt threatened in any way, or uncomfortable in any way. My roommates were all great guys and I am still friends of some of them after 45 years. It must be emphasized that criminal violent behaviour is the exception, not the rule.
My experience is quite opposite. I’m the younger of 2 sisters. I have also 2 girls cousins, very close relationship.
I grew up in small russian town in 90’s. What I learned from my childhood is sad and scary. The quantity of pedophiles, rapists, violent men is much much larger than you may imagine.
I think it depends on the law. Many cases might have never happened if those men knew the punishment is inevitable.
I also think it depends on a man’s decency. Those who feel strong, self-assured and happy with their lives hardly would do any of that crime. Mostly these crimes are related to domination complex in those men who cannot ‘take the place they deserve in the society’.
I know some great guys and I know some mean guys. That is like it is. People are different.
—
I once was on a business trip with 2 senior and elder male colleagues. Once in the evening we were spending time chatting over a glass of beer and our conversation turned to, well, sexual relations between elder men and younger women. It was never said directly, but using hints and jokes, you know, allusions, as we were not friends, but colleagues in non-formal situation.
They knew I had a boyfriend a year younger than me, while they both were about 15 years elder.
One of them asked jokingly what I think of the popular saying “an old horse never spoils the furrow”. I answered “but an old horse cannot plow deep”.
This allusion was absolutely enough for one of them, a man of dignity and a friend of mine up to today. But it was like a challenge for another, whom I despise for everything he had done to his first wife, second wife and myself.
So, I believe it depends on decency and law. Law for indecent people.
I quite agree with that. Rape is the product of the weakness of men who are unable to control their lives, but still have the hormonal urges.
Rape is a crime committed against people by people; gender is a red herring.
Evidently you don’t understand much about how the human body works.
Enlighten me.
Thank you, Cara (15 March, 19.50), Carolyn Zaremba (13 March, 1930) and Tatyana (13 March, 20.16) for these accounts. What is the solution? Better education? I don’t recall as a schoolboy receiving any training or advice on awareness of other people’s feelings. I just had to figure out how to get along by trial and error. Until my 20s I remained terrified of girls, especially strangers, and would go out of my way to avoid them. Such alienation could have been a risk factor. However I had picked up some attitudes from my parents, such as respect for other people and a distaste for aggression, which may have made it less likely that I would ever pose a physical threat to anybody, male or female, adult or child.
Those attitudes may explain why I feel an affinity with Jeremy Corbyn. Having left the Labour Party when Blair became leader, I promptly rejoined it when Corbyn won the leadership.
Do you feel like you’ve been had?
James Alexander MacLean
March 13, 2021 at 17:12
“She is 33 and disappeared on the 3rd of the 3rd.”
——————————————————-
Well spotted James!
she disappeared on 3/3/21 and 21 is 2+1 which is 3!!!
Spooky or what!
Wait until they introduce the curfew. It will be 6 o’clock on the 6th day of the 6th month. Susan’s body was also found on the 3rd sweep. Once you start to see through their lies, they can never lie to you again.
James, if you have Already listen to the Daniel Morgan murder podcast by Peter Jukes and Daniel’s brother Alistair Morgan.
It’s fascinating, if you’re suspicious of the Met now, you’ll never trust them again after listening to that.
But the police do lie in press releases and give incorrect dates etc, and use coding in the press release, not always nefariously but to coax out witnesses etc.
The dates may be suspicious because the believe it will catch someone out. I’m not defending them at all, but before we leap towards assuming ‘satanic’ goings on there are a number of very different reasons for police releasing false press releases.
But it’s also true that they do it to cover up their own shenanigans too.
Indeed, she was last seen at 9.30
9+30= 39
3+9 = 12
1+2 = 3
Occult meaning of 3
https://www.google.com/search?client=opera&q=occult+meaning+of+3&sourceid=opera&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
The suspect is allegedly 48.
4+8= 12
1+2=3
Way to much coincidence for it to be conspiracy.
Don’t forget the poor woman disappeared on a Wednesday, the third working day of the week. She was also found on a Wednesday.
The 3rd March is week number 9 – which is 3 to the power 3.
Sarah Everard has 12 letters in her name, 1+2 = 3.
Wayne Couzens also has 12 letters in his name.
Obviously this is beyond coincidence.
MAHHAA!
The number of the midget!
She was filmed on the camera of a marked police car at 9.32pm. Then at 9.35pm “a bus camera captured two figures on Poynders Road and a white Vauxhall Astra with its hazard lights flashing.” (Source.)
And her phone cut out.
What colour was the marked police car? Was it red? Not that it would have to be, but interesting if it was.
And where had the car he was driving been earlier that day, in say the hour prior to that time?
What can we learn from terrible fates? Absolutely nothing apparently unless we grasp the elusive fact a policeman has an encyclopedic knowledge of the Law, and yet he broke it; that a 33 year old woman has an encyclopedic of male lust, and yet she chose to tempt it; that this murder appears to be connected in some way to a V.I.P. conference attended by oil- sheikhs who like to use London as a playground for everything they are not allowed to do by their religion, such as sex, drinking and gambling.
So what exactly is going on when the worst crimes are done by the most knowledgeable people? Obviously not ignorance of the rules. Therefore this constant knee-jerk reaction to make more rules is a total waste of time. Is there not a rule that focused nations do not invade other nations, using WMD and shoot-to-kill rules of engagement?
USUKIS made those exact same rules. The problem is categorically not lack of knowledge. Similarly, in this terrible fate of a murdered woman I strongly suspect she was involved in deliberately shredding the rules of safe working with very rich and repressed “”” marketing :”” clients. We will never know, because feminist political correctness informs our liberal democracy to the ridiculous extent that we now enforce the wearing of face coverings, while simultaneously we refuse to acknowledge the safety that hiding a woman’s beauty confers on her when working with tanked up strangers.
If we could only work out how to control temptation…
Shut up you fascist! We are a liberal democracy. We would rather die than control temptation!
Ok, die then. The choice is yours. You wanna create a job in the Scottish Parliament where the Chief Prosecutor also sits in Cabinet, thus enabling him to ” fix ” each and every of his political opponents, using the tools of his day job. Ok, do it. The temptation is too much for a man of average ambition like James Wolffe .
If your liberal values state that you must never limit temptation, reap the whirlwind your freedoms teach you! Do it! The British broke the laws they made with their own hands after Hitler, the Geneva Convention, to do a Hitler on Baghdad.
Do it. And reap the downfall you so richly deserve.
This is manifestly true. The death of Sarah Everard was a tragedy to be mourned, not an opportunity for political hypocrisy. There is no such thing as ‘gender morality’ – each person is unique and changeable from moment to moment. The danger of sweeping generalisations is that they egregiously attack those who are individually not part of the offending group, and that has adverse consequences. If all men are branded morally inferior, why bother to exceed the standard? “As well hanged for a sheep as a lamb” the old saying goes.
I would rather advocate respect for people as people, unique in their lives and roles, judging only by actual behaviour. We need to develop empathy and compassion, particularly for those more vulnerable for whatever reason. But to condemn all men for guilt by association is ultimately disrespectful not only to most men, but also to most women who are, after all, entitled to expect equality, not special protections which remind us unpleasantly of womens’ legal status prior to the Married Women’s Property Act 1882, when (married) women had the same legal status as an insane person or a criminal.
I have no idea whether N_ is correct in hinting in his various posts that there is some kind of conspiracy or “job” at the core of this event.
However the event is taking some unusual turns.
When the “emotion” spigots are turned on full there is ground for suspicion.
A few weeks ago in the town where I live a woman and her adult daughter were brutally murdered in public places (one being a major hospital) by an ex partner who then killed himself in a dramatic fashion. The event registered on the UK wide media for a few hours and then was gone, there was, as far as I could see, no huge feminist outrage at a man wreaking revenge on two innocent women.
Yes, there is the added factor in this outrage of the alleged involvement of a police officer, but does that explain the difference in reaction?
The media always singles out certain disappearances for obsessive attention from near identical ones. It is always based on the racial and class identity of the victim. As to whether N is correct the answer is no.
If a law is passed to make misogyny (but not misandry) a crime then this will be the first law that I know of in a democratic society which favours only the majority population (demographically there are more females than males).
Could this be said to be the tyranny of the majority ( slightly tongue in cheek).
The intake into universities for the professions, medicine, veterinary science, pharmacy, dentistry, teaching, the law has been predominantly female.
I do not see the above reflected in any coverage in the media.
“The intake into universities for the professions, medicine, veterinary science, pharmacy, dentistry, teaching, the law has been predominantly female.
I do not see the above reflected in any coverage in the media.”
I think it is to an extent, girls just do better in their results in general at all levels of education. I guess the question is why. Here is a BBC piece from 2016 but it highlights a few reasons as to why that might be so.
https://www.bbc.com/news/education-37107208
Thank you for the reference.
“Girls, on the other hand, tend to understand the need to knuckle down earlier on – they take a longer view.”(from the article)
If this true as undoubtedly it is, is the cause social or biological (or both)? and should we not actively seek to change something which is perceived to be a negative pattern of behaviour in boys. My impression is that we aren’t.
Whenever you find that “the right to protest is the gift of the State”, you know that the State is no longer fit to govern.
What Can We Learn From the Terrible Fate of Sarah Everard?
And what can the state/Government learn, or has learned since the first vigils happened in the 1960’s/70’s?
The answer is that the neither has learned much and in today’s woke world were normal is a discriminating term the masses on social media latch on to like to a ‘come on’ headline to both, the aghast and the powers to be, such as ‘Vigil crowds vow to defy police ban’.
I will now tell my grandchildren to never bed a woman/man when he or she is drunk, which will probably go into one ear and out the other.
The problem arises when the hangover sets in and one side does not agree to what happened the night before and the state is faced with a situation that can not be solved.
And that describes just one normal act of sexual relations that occurs almost every Friday night after the coffers of clubs and bars and pubs have been filled after cheap drinks all round sent drunken people home.
I do not think that this death at the hand of a police man is going to change the festering inabilities of the state. And I do not think that signing a sexual consent agreement before having sex, as fostered/required by some US universities, will cotton on in society.
We have made sex a complicated affair, which in time, might/will increase celibacy and a reduction of population in the western world.
We have screwed the world to the point of no return, the amazon is now the greatest source of carbon release, rather than taking it up.
Here is my daily Hell headline ‘hope fades of ever getting control of this virus’.
Should we compare last night’s inept show of police masculinity arresting women who wore masks, with last weeks non-existing policing of mainly male and unmasked fans in Scotland? Were they just scared to get a hiding? Or is this the reality of policing, unequal cowardly expressed masculinity?
Separate jurisdictions.
Sorry goose, not a good excuse, do you think Man. City fans would be policed when they win the championship? they might be less drunk, but they would definitely celebrate and a fair amount would take their masks off.
Nevermind, this was my first thought too.
Last week we had mayhem with zero police action.
Versus, a vigil held by women which was a silent protest against male violence. Just seemed too irresistible to go in heavy handed to well behaved protesters, half their size and unlikely to put up a fight.
Women complaining about violence met with bullying. Oh the irony.
Clearly there’s a big difference between alcohol-fuelled football fans, and youngish predominantly middle-class women ?
However, given that the many media photos seem to be be of a couple of women only, one might conclude that the small number who were arrested went to the scene with the deliberate aim of being detained, and photographed whilst being so, no doubt with the aim of furthering their own credentials. And one has to say, it seems their actions to have been spectacularly successful in provoking headlines.
Meanwhile, Kate Windsor states the self-evident fact that cities are dangerous in parts, and garners acclaim for profound thought.
Either we have a lockdown or we don’t. Those attending an illegal event need to be arrested. The stupid and selfish Karens deserve Covid and everything else they get.
This really is a “blind alley” and a pointless discussion. For copious evidence of the latter, please see N_’s contributions.
Question to the mods and Craig. Why do you allow your blog to go in this direction?
N_ is not a frequent contributor here and most of us know this, but facts equaling a blind alley? are you living in the real world? A reader
Yes he is. At one stage he dominated comments almost as much as Sharp Ears, giyane, Habbabkuk, and other crackpots.
I certainly live in a real world, as do most of Craig’s beneficiaries. Do you? Fuck this, it really is a bit silly discussing anything on here. As you have highlighted with your unpleasantly aggressive and amazingly rapid reply.
That fraternity will always fiercely defend its own.
Mystic N_eg “is not a frequent contributor here” – seriously? Between bouts of flouncing off, promising never to post here again, he produces more rubbish, sorry, posts than just about the rest of us put together. OK, him together with Giyane.
The emperors are fully clothed, supplying profound insights and theorems. Your mind is playing cruel tricks if all you see incontinent ravings and incoherent ramblings.
In fairness, Mystic N_eg does produce a few good posts now and then, if you can get past the sneering and bigotry (which takes some doing). However, his prognostications about impending disasters/ mass starvation rarely (i.e. never) pan out, and his denialism combined with an inability to engage make it less than a worthwhile contribution to this blog, on the whole.
Since Mystic N_eg has _so_ much to say on all manner of subjects, I really wonder why he doesn’t get his own blog, instead of taking a rather impudent advantage of a much more popular one to air his many grievances.
I’ll take your word for it on the few good posts. The dominant impression I have is of somebody striving to be an Edge Lord.
https://www.dictionary.com/e/slang/edgelord/
Hi Craig, there seems to be a story doing the rounds that you are standing in the May Holyrood election as a candidate for AFI. Care to clarify?
https://www.thenational.scot/news/19159018.afi-party-looking-max-yes-sees-dozens-people-apply-candidacy/
Deft footwork by the state – creating an “issue” over “policing of vigils” to distract from intelligent discussion of what was going on when an armed cop who guards the parliamentary estate and embassies and who worked guarding a nuclear power station and in “counter-terror” comes away from the US embassy and a few hours later he has the daughter of a weapons company’s hired professor in his hired car and she is later found dead…
…and who seems to have provided the occasion for the authorities to rip up the law on the rights of detainees without getting any commentary whatsoever from either journalists or “opposition” politicians…because the alleged crime is the abduction and murder of a woman.
For any hacks and politicians reading this – you wouldn’t want to upset the Attorney General, right?
Detaining people extra-legally because “we don’t need no stinking badges” is part and parcel of the same development as banning protest demonstrations and the move to introduce pass laws which can only be a few months away at most, but…let’s all lay down some flowers and sing a peaceful song…
One can add too that even the royal family (in the form of some woman whose name I don’t remember but she has long dark hair and I think she is married to the crown prince’s elder son) are getting in on the “Remember Sarah” act. FFS, it’s like the Belgian king and Marc Dutroux (who by the way may soon be released). Makes you wonder who in the royal family ever attended embassy parties or parliamentary-estate events guarded by Couzens.
It is convenient for the royals that something has diverted attention from the Harry and Meghan stuff.
Squirrel
Harry and Meghan are clearly loved and admired by the Queen , who is a feminist and hates patriarchy, pomposity and palace advisors. She is perfectly happy for the Royal image to modernise in the direction Harry and Meghan are taking it.
Patriarchy might be happy for the diversion, but neither the Queen nor her ancestor Queen Victoria had much time for patriarchy. Imho
N_
You , me , Sharp Ears and Heebijeeb are in a fraternity! Pity we are not also in an Egalite or even a Liberte to think our own thoughts. They do seem very keen to tell us fraternuts there is nothing to see here.
I’m finding it a bit weird to be living inside a BBC creation, with fake demonstrations, the US embassy , and Dame Cressida as stars.
The outcome of the Bodyguard apparently was that the Intelligence Services plotted a series of false flag bombings, fearing that politicians were going soft on Empire2 wars. After a whole year of cosy coronavirus briefings from the Prime Minister and others, the Empire2 Tories must be extremely upset at no wars.
No wars for five whole years!
Deep state is bored and stages a murder, and the feminists protest , not against illegal colonial wars, but against men. Where on earth is their evidence that male sexuality caused this murder? Or is no evidence needed in planet Woke any more?
I had to quickly avert my eyes from what appeared to be a spoiler for The Bodyguard.
Twirlip
Forgive me for wearing my hatred of Tory politicians on my sleeve, but if you had seen the right wing prat who took the part of her ex husband, you’d have been cheering the Bodyguard on, not hiding your eyes.
I mean, the recent TV series Bodyguard.
Please, no more spoilers! You do know what a spoiler is, don’t you?
I intentionally haven’t owned a working television set since 2012, but I do watch boxed sets of DVDs of television series, and Bodyguard is one that I want to watch.
Twirlip
No TV either. Is a spoiler something that spoils the story by giving away the plot? I watched bits of the last series in somebody else’s house. But their parental control refused to let us watch Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoiler_(media)
“A spoiler is an element of a disseminated summary or description of any piece of fiction that reveals any plot elements. Typically, the details of the conclusion of the plot, including the climax and ending, are especially regarded as spoiler material. It can also be used to refer to any piece of information regarding any part of a given media that a potential consumer was not intended to know beforehand.
The term spoiler was introduced in the early days of the Internet, and came to prominence in newsgroup conversations. It is still common in internet articles and social media discussions. Early rules of netiquette insisted that spoilers could and should be normally avoided, but if the posting of “spoiling” information was unavoidable, it be preceded by a warning such as “SPOILER ALERT”, or the spoiler itself has to be masked so that it can not be visible to any but those keen for details and not fazed at the thought of such potentially plot-revealing information.
Sometimes, these warnings are omitted, accidentally or deliberately (see below), and some unwitting readers have had literature, films, television programmes and other works that they were looking forward to experiencing “spoiled”. “
I believe some of the women who want to call all men rapists do not fully understand the harm they are doing to other women by creating a culture of terror that would confine women to the home and frighten them from greater involvement in wider society.
Under the old set of precedents of Scots law, a woman could be charged with the crime of rape if she assisted a man in the commission of such an act. Though rare, this often occurred in relationships where a mother formed a new relationship with another man and already had a daughter from a prior relationship. If this logic is fully extended then every man and every woman is a potential rapist – a piece of logic that doesn’t advance our understanding of rape.
A few years before the Alex Salmond case I was frequently encountering viewpoints using the following logic that all powerful men are rapists. It was an appalling viewpoint that belittled many men who have worked hard for women’s rights.. It was an argument that has made the left incapable of responding correctly to the Salmond frame-up.
I have met women who can be frightened by men’s presence. One who had been the victim of a vicious gang-rape, appalling handled by the police, courts and newspapers, had great difficulty being in the same room as any man. I doubt that the rape was the only trauma creating incident, but that the entire legal procedure continued and worsened her situation even more.
On one occasion after a long day at work while walking in a street in Glasgow I remembered I’d forgotten my umbrella. I turned abruptly to go back and a woman about ten feet behind me let out a frightened scream. This, of course, startled me too. Thankfully, she became quickly aware I was no threat. Since then, I have been careful never to give even the slightest gesture that can be interpreted as threatening.
However, the boisterous behaviour of some men can be intimidating. Men need to be more sensitive to these concerns. But in no way are all men rapists or potential rapists.
I also once was walking home in London in really cold weather and late. I started to jog, to both warm myself up and get home faster. A woman at least thirty meters in front of me appeared to freak out and started running ahead of me. I stopped. She then stopped. Somewhat foolishly, I thought she had relaxed and I started jogging again. She then absolutely bolted and I think didn’t look back until she run into a house.
I felt terrible.
More men are raped in the US than women thanks to the industrial prison complex.
Interesting point – any data to support that?
It’s not exactly refuting the “male = rapist” claim, though. Just saying they also rape other men if that’s all they have available…
Yes – the easy misandry of “male = violent rapist” is ridiculous. And not dis-similar to racism: the fear that creates it, the politics that feed off it, the unfairness to those on the receiving end of it.
BUT
It’s still true that so much more can and should be done to prevent violence against women. Violence against any vulnerable group, to be sure, but women undoubtedly get much more than their share. Perhaps men who were physically abused in their childhood can understand what it’s like, but I think many more women than men will know the feeling of being trapped by a much stronger person, taking pain, perhaps from someone who should love them, not sure if they will survive the beating.
What does it have to do with the Sarah Everard case? We don’t know yet, but if it’s shining a light in some way on an area that needs urgent attention then I’ll go with that.
Are all men responsible? No, of course not. But we all have a responsibility to be part of the solution. Especially violence in domestic situations is something friends and family could do much more about. Police have a role, but there’s a lot that’s tolerated and never gets to the police in the form of a case with evidence that can be prosecuted. Until, perhaps, it’s too late.
Is it a crisis getting worse? Difficult to tell. Statistics are unreliable when so much is hidden. Addressing the problem, getting more people to report cases, will actually make the statistics look even worse in the short term. Headline violence and abuse from previous decades – we had the Yorkshire Ripper, Jimmy Saville, pedophile priests – makes me think it’s always been there, perhaps previously even worse than now. But still, two women are killed every week right now by partners or ex-partners in England and Wales. That’s frightening just by itself.
So, Mr Murray, the fight to prevent violence against women might not exactly fit with your own social justice crusade agenda against inequality. But it’s also a fight worth fighting and has good people trying to do good things. As well as some idiots and political opportunists jumping on bandwagons…
I am concerned about the intense police activity down in Kent. While the recovery of Sarah Everard’s body was a success for the police there is now an escalation in forensic activity causing the police to seal off a pathway in a Sandwich wooded area. This procedure is normal for serial killers, but in the case of a serving police officer being charged with murder, it is worrying. The arrested officer is likely to escapee full investigation on the grounds of diminished responsibility. This means that any other bodies of women found and whose fathers work in sensitive intelligence areas will not receive the proper scrutiny. Dr David Kelly is an example of such a cover up..
Monster
Sandwich has a lot of dense, coppiced woodland.
If this murder was sexually motivated why would a policeman get special treatment, unless he had post traumatic stress disorder from military brain-washing and service? The army torture brainwashes its troops to harden them for war. Otherwise there are would be no extenuating circumstances because police are there to protect the public.
Was Couzens being employed to protect the political mafia and caught up in political shenanigans? Or was he a sexual predator? If the police are searching in Sandwich, potentially the latter. Who are we?
I think males have privileges of which they are unaware. Your privilege insulates you from encountering the fear and caution that women live with. In fact, some women don’t experience it either, because they have learned to restrict their movements to within a more limited and safer sphere. I remember when a woman near where I live was viciously attacked and raped, to the point where she was unconscious. She was out and about very early in the morning, before dawn. Not a safe time. But she had taken on the shift of a coworker and for that she was nearly killed.
“Your privilege insulates you from encountering the fear and caution that women live with.”
How much of that fear is due to fear? Men are more likely to be attacked, yet have less fear of it happening.
For biological reasons, women have more to lose and no amount of societal change is going to take that away, so they are right to be more cautious.
Imagination is free and so is knowledge, it’s everywhere. To say that men are privileged is a monstrous insult to humanity, yours in particular.
You have to agree with the fundamental logic of Stella’s perception in its’ depth and profundity, though, and her stress-free penetration of human complexities….
Following on from which:
1) Any woman in politics is capable of being Margaret Thatcher
2) Any Labour MP is capable of being a supporter of anti-Palestinian Apartheid in Israel
3) Any Labour government is capable of being a direct threat to the lives of women and children across the Middle East
4) Etc…
I thought of a few more about politicians but this is the family hour.
In January 1972 13 innocent civilians were murdered on the streets of Derry. In the aftermath a well known Irish Republican woman screeched “This is our Sharpeville”. I was disgusted by this shameless weaponising of a Tragedy. She was apparently unaware, and not caring, that creating “our Sharpeville” needed 13 lives (male lives). Standing on the shoulders of Victims.
Nasty people seeking to exploit the suffering of victims is commonplace.
It is no surprise that Rabid Feminism seeks to exploit the terrible death of a young woman. Rabid feminists, like Vampires, need victims to feed on.
It is a problem, for rabid feminists, that most women and girls are not listening to them. In normal times, pre-pandemic, every weekend tens of thousands of girls and women go out on the town with no fear.
If the streets are so dangerous how come so many women and girls, some of them inebriated, many of them scantily clad, and some both, take the risk? Millions of girls and women have no fear because there is little to fear.
In spite of the efforts of rabid feminism to promote fear and hatred of men and boys, millions of women and girls remain very interested in men and boys. Po faced tyrants, otherwise know as Feminists are attempting to destroy relations between men and women and they are succeeding often with the help of weak males. These tyrants are mainly white, privileged, middle class women who have had every opportunity in life. Privileged women masquerading as victims.
A warning for those benighted beings beings known as male feminists. Don’t bother. They despise you (rightly so). You can never understand their suffering.
Martin Luther King said “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character”. Rabid feminists judge all men to be rapists, not as individuals and not by the content of each man’s character. They hate men. They are irredeemably sexist.
Gabby Logan said at the weekend of Murray Walker “There is not a human on this earth who met Murray Walker who would have anything other than joyous memories and smiles thinking of their time. That voice, that turn of phrase and that enthusiasm for his passions and his life, he was a very special man.” Rabid Feminists say he was probably a rapist.
Rabid Feminists are selective. They only attack men. They will always defend female perpetrators.
Sally Challen struck and killed her husband by hitting him more than 20 times on the head with a hammer in a premeditated attack. Feminists campaigned for her release from jail. They portrayed Challen as the victim and her husband as the guilty party. He could not defend himself as he was dead. It’s okay to brutally kill a man.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/06/08/sally-challen-is-no-hero/ “Jess Phillips said she cried with joy when she heard the news a few months ago that Challen’s murder conviction had been quashed”. No surprise there. “For feminists to turn a killer into a hero suggests they have become seriously and perhaps irreversibly unanchored from moral reason.”
Such consideration for a male killer would create outrage. Thousands of women would take to the streets. There are more cases in the pipeline to free female killers.
“Women who abuse”. Recent Radio 4 programme https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000rcq5 Feminists don’t want you to know about this.
Sitting female MP has to admit domestic violence. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3806018/Ex-husband-Labour-s-domestic-abuse-Minister-nightmares-attack-divorce.html Predictably she blames the man. Feminists keep quiet about this.
Another sitting female MP has to admit domestic violence https://inews.co.uk/opinion/comment/layla-moran-lib-dems-domestic-violence-273416 Yasmin Alibhai-Brown says “Layla Moran was wrong to hit her partner but domestic violence by women is not the same as domestic violence by men”. Challen’s dead husband would be pleased to know this were he not dead. A hammer wielded by a woman is somehow softer. The whiff of hypocrisy is overwhelming.
Feminists don’t want you to know about female violence. Having witnessed my brother being raped emotionally for decades by his wife I am familiar with coercive control. But it’s only men who do that right? Wrong.
I take absolutely no responsibility for an atrocity committed by another man. No more than women should be held accountable for the hate of Rabid Feminists, or for the doings of Killary Klinton, Jean Kirkpatrick, Condoleeza Rice, Madelaine Albright and a host of other female horrors. No more than all black people should be held responsible for the knifings on our streets. It’s okay to launch venomous attacks on white, heterosexual males.
“Sugar and spice and all things nice”. A big lie to be expected from fascists.
There is no point rationalising with who those who hate irrationally. They are beyond salvation. Don’t engage. Leave them to stew in their hatred. They are deeply unhappy and getting evermore so. Leave them to it.
What is the end game for rabid feminists? In prison 96% of prisoners are men. Women commit 20% of violent crime so how come only 4% are in jail? It’s because women get much lighter sentences than men for the same offences and they are much more likely to get a non custodial sentence. Women’s prisons have much better conditions than men’s. With all of the advantages that female prisoners enjoy it’s very surprising that there are campaigns to have fewer women in prison. Isn’t it? Men or their issues don’t matter.
Feminists want more laws and more men in jail. They don’t care at what cost that is achieved. They have no regard for the innocent. There are more than enough laws to cover all offences but feminists want to invent more. Ultimately what bothers Rabid Feminists is that more convictions cannot be achieved due to a lack of evidence. A major barrier to conviction.
What feminists now want is to remove the presumption of innocence, to always believe the ‘victim’ and get rid of Juries. Forget the need for evidence. That is their end game. With a combination of spineless male MPs and misandric female MPs this can be achieved.
Your sons, brothers, fathers are in much more danger than your female relatives. Wake up!!
Nice one.
It occurred to me that had Ben Stokes just slapped a woman rather than knock a man unconscious who subsequently required hospital treatment, he would not have ended up being BBC Sport”s Personality of the Year.
ps
From the BBC
‘Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran has admitted slapping her then-boyfriend at a party conference in 2013, leading to them both being arrested.”
Sorry I posted links to Moran and Sarah Champion in my post but they did not come up highlighted.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3806018/Ex-husband-Labour-s-domestic-abuse-Minister-nightmares-attack-divorce.html
https://inews.co.uk/opinion/comment/layla-moran-lib-dems-domestic-violence-273416
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000rcq5 “Women who abuse”
Thank you Seamus.
On reflection, when I used the term ‘Nice one’, it hardly did your comment justice.
‘They will always defend female perpetrators.’
This is very true. Everything you say makes sense from the experiences I have had. I have seen how women in positions of authority apologise repeatedly for female-inflicted violence on women and girls.
I still want to believe though that there are healthier forms of feminism, and I still believe that rapists (proven beyond doubt) should be castrated, and I still want to believe that there are enough good women and men out there to resist the gender violence that is being stirred up by the media so as to distract from the state-inflicted mass murder that is on the horizon, be it inflicted quickly through wars or slowly through impoverishment, redlining, aid cancellation, etc..
The Genie is out of the bottle. It won’t be put back in as long men stay silent as they nearly always do. Craig has put his head above the parapet with regard to perjury and misandry directed at Alex Salmond.
If I had a £fiver for every time I have been told (voluntarily) by a woman that she prefers to work for and with men, I’d be several £’00s richer. And the female on female bullying is dreadful.