Since the discussion in the “Not Feminism 101” topic was locked, I can’t reply as a separate topic. So I am manually spinning it off into a different one. FFS, I don’t understand how people can have a topic with that name, and throw fits about discussing matters of sexual ethics, sexism, identity, autonomy etc - unless they fit within some narrow criteria.
Since this one is my topic, I am designating it as a bicker-free zone for people to discuss aspects of the issues at hand without dismissive complaining that others might happen to be saying things that you don’t agree with. Try to participate in the dialectic process instead of dogpiling and preventing others from speaking. If you aren’t mature enough to handle that, the topic isn’t for you. I don’t know how many people that will leave to participate, but we’ll see…
That works great as a confirmation of the status quo, and I don’t disagree with it as far as that goes. But this and mindysan33’s responses both sidestep addressing the main contextual difference that I was talking about ethical sex being typically framed from an individualist perspective, versus a collective one. Of course, within that paradigm there is the position that some self-interests are legitimate, and some are not. But - as I was saying - this does not address those who do begin from an ethical framework which isn’t based upon individualism. The “selfish” connotation that some self-interest is more/less legitimate than others isn’t necessarily applicable from a collectivist perspective.
Maybe this is an intersection of feminism and communism that leftist boards aren’t ready to handle yet. It’s supposedly “Not Feminism 101”, but we’ve backtracked to “rape is bad”. But you did touch upon the comparison I made between individualist models of consent with propertarianism. That “if you don’t try to own it, somebody else will”, which demonstrates how both systems strive to avoid anything like real resource management, and are pre-scientific pseudo-systems which are so feral as to seem actively anti-social.
My approach to dealing with rape has been to deal with it not as a personal violation, but rather a societal one. For some people, treating sex as a matter of personal desire and preference might work well enough. But that cannot preclude others of us pursuing more systematic organizational methods to encourage ethical treatment. It’s not unlike other complaints people have about communism that it has to be everybody, or nobody, which is not the case. If it is a society of individualism, free choice, marketplace of ideas, etc - then “individuals” are free to choose to form collectives, and choose collective identities, without that being a threat to others’ way of life. But through some roundabout route, that is what happens, others insist that you as an individual are beholden to their individualist ethics - or else you are a scary bad garbage person.
What it amounts to is a lack of an agreement to disagree about how to form societies, and coercion of probably well-intentioned people to universalize their way of life for those who don’t subscribe to it.
Any society that we set up is going to have some individualistic tendencies. After all, humans, while social animals, are individuals.
And the most basic individual right you can have is the right to control of self: your body, your mind, your will. If you discard the idea of private property, all other crimes come from violations of this right: inflicting injury is impinging on someone’s control of their body; coercion is violating one’s control of their own actions; slipping someone a roofie is to diminish their will; to murder is to destroy their self entirely.
I can see us overcoming the need for personal property as a species. We’ve done it, in smaller scales, in the past: early Christian societies, some aboriginal groups, and more recently, in collectivist communities. It’d be a social change, not a biological one.
But to subvert the sense of self-preservation entirely, subjugate it so that every individual is an interchangeable, disposable part of a larger whole: that’d require a massive rewrite of how our minds work. It’s exactly what all the “lizard brain” parts of our cognition, that tell us to survive, reproduce, and protect our offspring at all costs, are supposed to stop from happening.
I’m all for dreaming impossible dreams, but this goes past “the ideal human society” and into “at this point, are we even human anymore?”
I am drunk right now, unable to articulate words properly. Forgive my rambling.
Oneida is the ultimate proof that all attempts at subjugating individual will with that of the collective are doomed to cause far more pain to members (and injury to the whole).
There will always be some authority in charge. In our - Canadian - society, this is Rule of Law. The ultimate arbiter of justice is the Supreme Court of Canada which effectively prescribes and proscribes codes of law.
In Oneida, theirs was God. Well, you know, the same way as the FLDS. But with more “individual freedom” and “free love”. Which, in practice, is slavery… Slavery to violence. Physical sometimes, but mostly social.
I’m Canadian. I recognize that our laws are not perfect. But - to misquote Twain - it is better than all the systems tried thus far. In absence of a strong legal system, humans will always resort to direct violence.
I chose to devote my time to build a commune virtual. I choose which societies to participate in. And the right to choose is what I choose to fight for.