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"You’re so vain, you probably think this song is about you..."

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sea storm:
All men are not evil. Of course they aren't. I just wish that men would collectively stand up for women and abused children. I wish that men would speak up when they see another man behaving badly to a woman or to a child. If this is man bashing ... well it is not meant to be.
There is an epidemic of assaults on women and children. All over the world. If this is man bashing....  there are good men of course.
 why is this such a touchy subject? what's it to you? It is  one of those subjects that gets hidden under a rock. People would rather help dogs and cats than abused and neglected children.

Hopalong:
I understand Sea's straightforward fed-up anger, Mud's offended defensiveness, and Tupp's reminders of the broader view, I am pretty sure...

But as an editor-type I'd like to point out that the "you should feel ashamed if you're a man" is PURE what is called in the industry--click bait. A really repulsive trend in online journalism
where the most divisive, pot-stirring, resentment-rousing kinds of phrases are intentionally used in headlines to get emotional reactions that will draw readers in to: 1) read the article, 2) feel or opine something, and 3) NOTICE THE ADS that pay for the publication.

It's pretty repulsive and it's part of the toxic stew the culture and discourse and politics have become. Where disagreements or differences in perspective become instantly personalized and binary and so we either: 1) leave in a huff or 2) can no longer see a person behind either the blinders or the bifocals, as the case may be.

love
Hops

mudpuppy:
I found the 'click bait' idea that I should be ashamed as a man because other men mistreated Carly Simon far preferable to being told I am actually partially responsible for child molestations and rapes.

Considering the large number of people here whose story is of cruel and horrible mothers abusing their own innocent kids while relatives and friends of both sexes stood by doing nothing I would have thought this was one place where this kind of gender stereotyping and collective shaming would not occur.

There is evil in every person's heart. There always has been and there always will be and every society and culture in history has been 'fractured' by it and I suspect every one far into the future will be too.
And throughout history, regardless of how supportive or dismissive of either the perpetrators or the victims of evil a time and place might be, it always has and always will come down to whether each one of us individually will suppress that evil and do good to his fellow man or allow it free rein. Unless one is so clinically insane they do not know right from wrong, which is exceedingly rare, the individual choice is where responsibility and guilt starts and ends.
If the family that hid Anne Frank could do so under those circumstances then it's hard for me to have any sympathy toward the idea some guy who doesn't knock the teeth out of every jerk who tells a dirty joke is therefore responsible when the jokester mistreats a woman. To try and place some of the responsibility on others necessarily reduces the responsibility of the abuser and actually makes it easier for them to rationalize choosing evil; "my daddy hit my mama so what am I 'upposed to do? Poor little me din't know no better." Sure he did. He  chose to hit his wife knowing it was wrong but he wanted to.
Neither man nor woman has a solution for that kind of moral depravity.
If anyone did it would have disappeared long ago.

mud

Hopalong:
I hear you, Mud. Click bait just offends me immensely as a writer. Corruption of communication trickles through everything, even relationships.

I think I'm kind of in-between on the issue of collective vs individual responsibility. I agree with you that each person is responsible in the most
direct sense for their own behavior and not for anyone else's. In a kind of legalistic way, all our hands are clean if we're not directly participating
in abuse, or belittlement or blaming of victims, or minimization of harm. But I think hyper-individualism can morph into one way to justify not truly
imagining the weight another walks under.

I also believe I share in a collective moral responsibility that I choose to accept or at least recognize. I don't always manage to do it, or do it consistently.
But my own concept of morality does include speaking up as often as I can when I hear or witness injustice. Sometimes, though, I'm too tired. Too depressed
by how ubiquitous it all is. Too overwhelmed by 65 years of wishing the world/systems/assumptions weren't sexist or racist in such massive part, for example,
despite notable and wonderful and I hope growing exceptions.

Or I feel hamstrung by an imbalance of power (do I challenge my boss every time he manipulates or exploits people or says sexist things, when I know he'll harm
me intentionally as a result?). No, I don't. But so much bullying and devaluing happens out of sight, in the dark...it's easier on us to not face it the way someone
on the front lines of the devastating damage does.

I'm too cowardly to speak always, act always, defend those who deserve defending always, guide or try to correct the nastiness of others always. I've got enough of
my own nastiness to focus on.

But I do believe in collective moral responsibility. I think the combination of empathy plus courage is what brave people need to create change. One without the
other doesn't do much good.

love to you,
Hops

mudpuppy:
1. Attempting to impose responsibility on others, which after all is what asserting there is a collective responsibility amounts to, presupposes we know what others should be responsible for or needs fixing. Do I have the right to impose a moral responsibility on someone who disagrees with my version of morality? If people consider different problems from different moral perspectives, as they most certainly do, how does it become collective and who gets to decide who is responsible for what?
In the case of rape or child molestation or other just plain repulsive behavior as Carly Simon detailed, admittedly there isn't exactly a legitimate "pro" side, but there is for any number of other issues primarily seen as moral ones. And even if we posit that this person should be doing something, who gets to decide what that person should be doing?

2. Assuming we do have a moral responsibility to speak up in defense of those we believe are victimized or oppressed why is that any more a collective responsibility than not victimizing or oppressing in the first place? By all means, if people want to voluntarily band together to collectively feel or enact some responsibility then they should do so. But where does shaming or involuntarily enlisting into the group someone else who may already be doing far more individually or may not share that moral viewpoint come into it?

3. How, especially over the internet but also in our everyday lives, do we presuppose what someone else has done or not done in some area we wish them to engage?
If we don't know what someone believes or has done we haven't the slightest business telling them they haven't done enough or are part of the problem. For all we know we're lecturing someone who has done ten times more than we ever have or ever will.

4. Most of the issues discussed have as part of their evil, the theft of the other person's free will or choice. I believe trying to deprive third parties of their free will by asserting they must act because they are already partially guilty is a method that makes things worse not better.

5. Many people's moral viewpoints change over time. What kind of morality is it to try and force people into some collective guilt or responsibility and action one minute and then when we've changed our mind turn around and try and compel them to do the opposite?

Taking someone's freedom to act or not act by compulsion, either through the law or societal pressure, is no way to set other people free.
If anyone disagrees with that, they are perfectly free to; I will neither try to compel or shame them into supporting my view despite how destructive I may feel their perspective is. They have a conscience and a brain and will act as they see fit. My responsibility is to see that I follow my principles, not to compel my neighbor to follow them. The road to hell is paved by the good intentions of people deciding they have the right to decide for others what they should do or  think.

mud

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