From: farthing@leland.Stanford.EDU (ljf)
Subject: Re: Choices and victims
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 92 10:24:08 GMT

dpaxton@ut-emx.uucp (Debi Paxton) writes:
>farthing@leland.Stanford.EDU (ljf) writes:
>>bright@nazgul.UUCP (Walter Bright) writes:
>>(deleted stuff about choices and victims)
>>
>>This worked so well for the mugging of Leon Gross, I had to see how it
>>works for someone who was abused as a child.  So, let's see...

>I do not believe that any of the people who have posted on this topic
>to date--responsibility for one's choices--have implied that abused
>children are responsible for their abuse.

No, neither you nor Bright said that.  However, I firmly believe that
telling Leon Gross that he had to take responsibility for his actions
wrt being mugged at gunpoint is analogous to telling children the same
things after they've been abused.  It's pointless.  Worse than that,
it's harmful, showing a 'blame the victim' mentality.  Gross was as
much a victim of his mugger as a child is of her/his abuser.

>However, often abused children grow up into adults who, consciously
>or maybe more often unconsciously, perpetuate that abuse because they
>allow themselves to continue to be abused.  After all, if the most
>love and attention you've received was accompanied by abuse, it's
>a logical assumption that to get love you have to withstand a certain
>amount of abuse.  And so, these adult children of abusive families
>often stay in abusive love relationships, accept abusive behavior
>from employers, acquiantences, etc., that adults who learned healthy
>self-protective behaviors would not tolerate.

Agreed, but none of this applied to Gross being mugged.

>Part of recovery from the lasting effects of growing up abused is
>learning what we are responsible for and what we are not.  We are
>not responsible for everything that happens to us, but we are
>responsible for how we react, and whether we give someone the
>opportunity to abuse us twice.  Taking responsibility for our
>actions is really empowering, because it allows us to see choices,
>and thus make changes and get out of unhealthy situations.

Agreed.  But being told of your responsibility after you've been
mugged at gunpoint as if there were a reasonable way of avoiding the
mugging is not empowering.  It's blaming the victim.  As Gross
pointed out, he could have avoided being mugged by killing himself
years ago.  But that certainly is an unreasonable approach.

>When I was kneedeep in a lot of shit I really resented those who
>seemed to imply that I was perhaps responsible for some of it.
>(I am speaking as an *adult* and not as a child.)  It was not
>pleasant to look at myself and acknowledge that I was repeating
>a lot of learned, self-defeating behaviors.  But the only way
>to change that behavior was to first take responsibility for it.

As long as Gross doesn't wander dark, dangerous streets, flashing lots
of cash, he has shit to take responsibility for.  He was clearly a
victim in this case.

This whole thread reminds me of an interview of Shirley MacLaine
(spelling?) I once read.  She appears to be very insistent that people
make their own lives, causing whatever happens to them to happen.  It
was interesting to find that the first thing she said to the
interviewer was, "And I won't answer questions about the Holocaust."
I guess it's just too difficult to try to convince us that millions of
people brought that horror upon themselves.

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