Forum Post: Recommend: Learning to See in the Dark: The Roots of Ethical Resistance
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 16, 2011, 5:01 p.m. EST by stopthat
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http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/729
Learning to See in the Dark: The Roots of Ethical Resistance by Carol Gilligan
I like this. It was a pivot point for me. I worry about patriarchy because men are taught that they are over women and children and even other men if they are different than themselves (crosses many cultures), and that good men are soldiers. If we keep teaching that, we are going to have men going to wars forever trying to be good. I worry about that.
They are taught lies before they even have a language. It's all they ever knew (if you ask them about it, they start talking about animals bad behavior and such...that's not it). It's because the mom is trying to teach the baby not to imitate her so she starts to tell the boy what society thinks he is (but they are lies, big fat lies. yes, boys do cry. and they have to dissociate to even go to some of this stuff...wars in particular.). And we aren't treating men fairly. Women are aware of it. Men not so much. We have training issues. Let's deal with those.
It would be good to understand more about trauma. A lot of patriarchy is trauma. Boys have problems earlier in life and are often lonely later in life because of it. (not to mention jails) Girls are told lies of patriarchy later in life (no need for mom to tell them right away) when they actually have a language. It just makes them mad. That means something. (see trauma. ptsd often shows up as anger. trace that back to the original trauma. people with ptsd are usually struggling with re-trauma...not keeping trauma with the original abuse/r. and are often triggered by things that remind them of the original, bosses, spouses, etc. but they don't understand where it is coming from. it's because people with ptsd have some work to do. that's a different topic, but it would be good to understand trauma before you read the books.)
The books are better. They can only say so much in a lecture. In A Different Voice, The Birth of Pleasure, and The Deepening Darkness: Patriarchy, Resistance, and Democracy's Future. The Deepening Darkness will get to soldiers, but you need to understand everything that happens before that first. Read all the way to the end. Even if it doesn't seem like it applies to you, or is belaboring a point. It all snaps together in the end.)
Patriarchy looks like oppression to me. I would like to see it weeded out of our system and move on to a real democracy as described in the lecture...where all voices are heard, not just a few.
Thanks for this.
It gets to much of what I've been wondering about.
definitely read the books. I'm convinced this is the root of a lot of our problems. DON'T overlook trauma. ptsd. it should probably be taught early in school, but we aren't. that's a problem. this stuff doesn't just go away. that's not how our brain works. people remember different things in trauma. and our brain has different parts that remember at different speeds (part of why people can't talk about it - sometimes the parts aren't talking to each other so they have a hard time forming words even). That's also why listening to people tell their story (can actually make you a witness to a crime in some cases) is critical. They need to learn to put that together so they can file it safely in the past where it belongs. But very innocent people can mess that up for people because although they are being well intentioned when they tell them to just forget it and move on...it doesn't work that way in real life. (they will often get mad at them because they can't resolve it correctly) The tendency is to bring it forward whenever they perceive a trigger. Could be their boss or spouse. But, it won't make sense to them because they aren't the original abuse. So, people with ptsd need to learn to keep those with the original abuse/r and not drag it forward to everyone under the sun. anyway...it seems to help get us out of the past and into the future anyway. books will say it better than i can.
Thanks again.
I think you're getting to the roots of our problems. We seem to know what's good for people (or, what's better than what we have now), but we can't seem to actualize some of these things.
We'll get there. Training issues take time. I used to work for a large company and just getting a few thousand through training can years. We have something like 7 billion on the planet. so...we'll work on our corner.