Richard Dawkins receives massive backlash after calling some kinds of rape worse than others - Polidicks

[QUOTE=PolarEventide;45573097]Could we be mad at Dawkins for legitimate reasons like inventing the word "meme"? [editline]2nd August 2014[/editline] This is pretty simple logic, man. Violence outside of self-defense is immoral. Rape is violent. Ergo, the more violent the rape, the more immoral it is.[/QUOTE] Nothing can't be more "immoral" than anything else, it's either moral or it isn't. More damaging, on the other hand, is very real. Maybe there's not much point in discussing what is more damaging of the two terrible and immoral things... but there can be an discussion. SGTNAPALM, I think, presented an example of an argument. That works. And what about "meme". Meme.

[QUOTE=Gentry;45572614]i'm more of a baron of rape[/QUOTE] The Sultan of Statutory, The Duke of Daterape

There's a point to looking at things logically when faced with tragedy. It can comfort those who have survived horrors and help put things in perspective. It can also mitigate future tragedy as well - by raising awareness.

[QUOTE=gudman;45573134]Nothing can't be more "immoral" than anything else, it's either moral or it isn't.[/QUOTE] No, there are definitely shades of morality. One person steals to feed their family, another person kills for their own gain. Are you going to argue they are both equally immoral?

[QUOTE=gudman;45573134]Nothing can't be more "immoral" than anything else, it's either moral or it isn't. More damaging, on the other hand, is very real. Maybe there's not much point in discussing what is more damaging of the two terrible and immoral things... but there can be an discussion. SGTNAPALM, I think, presented an example of an argument. That works. And what about "meme". Meme.[/QUOTE] Dawkins coined the term "meme." He later proved how Internet memes technically don't meet the scientific definition of "meme."

[QUOTE=Thlis;45573158]No, there are definitely shades of morality. One person steals to feed their family, another person kills for their own gain. Are you going to argue they are both equally immoral?[/QUOTE] Well those are two radically different crimes, I was talking about "kinds" of rape. Date-rape and... err... just rape are equally immoral, but one is violent, and as such can be viewed as more damaging.

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;45572775]i don't think the comparison works at all unless you think trauma and emotional damage from surviving violence is non existant, are you saying that? so, again, I ask, are statements like his so bad they're deserving of such criticism? No one here even wanted to talk about what he said, just attack him for it. He literally said the more violent act is the more wrong act. Are you currently saying that is wrong or not worth saying ever?[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=HumanAbyss;45572775]i don't think the comparison works at all unless you think trauma and emotional damage from surviving violence is non existant, are you saying that? so, again, I ask, are statements like his so bad they're deserving of such criticism? No one here even wanted to talk about what he said, just attack him for it. He literally said the more violent act is the more wrong act. Are you currently saying that is wrong or not worth saying ever?[/QUOTE] I saying one compares the suffering from one horrible even to the suffering from another horrible event. It's not hard to grasp. Statements like these are dumb and redundant, as I said. They get no one anywhere and sounds like statements that would come out of an argument in a middle school cafeteria. You can't compare the trauma between two events that are near equally as bad. Well, you can, but why?

[QUOTE=PolarEventide;45573097] This is pretty simple logic, man. Violence outside of self-defense is immoral. Rape is violent. Ergo, the more violent the rape, the more immoral it is.[/QUOTE] what are you accomplishing with this dumb axiom dude? What productive knowledge can be drawn from making a generalization like this? How about instead of saying that nonsense you say: "all rape is bad and it is not my place, as some guy on the internet, to judge which rapes are worse than others" and then you be respectful to the people who have gone through things like that by holding your tongue and resisting your urge to make up meaningless blanket statements about rape, ok? If you get called in for jury duty and end up sitting on a rape trial then you can start making value judgements about [I]that specific case[/I]. You're not accomplishing anything here.

[QUOTE=PolarEventide;45573163]Dawkins coined the term "meme." He later proved how Internet memes technically don't meet the scientific definition of "meme."[/QUOTE] Yeah I understand. I meant, what's the problem with it. Internet took a term and ran with it, happens all the time, what Dawkins has to do with how it's used by a third party?

[QUOTE=gudman;45573167]Well those are two radically different crimes, I was talking about "kinds" of rape. Date-rape and... err... just rape are equally immoral, but one is violent, and as such can be viewed as more damaging.[/QUOTE] Try this one then. Stealing to feed your family, and stealing for your own gain. It's the same crime, it even has the same damage to the person who was robbed. Binary morality cannot function in society.

[QUOTE=gudman;45573134]Nothing can't be more "immoral" than anything else, it's either moral or it isn't.[/QUOTE] Stealing a chocolate from a local shop [B]or[/B] killing a pregnant shop keeper? Which is more immoral? According to you... Neither... Can you explain that?

I really want this guy to fuck up really bad and turn out to be a racist or something just so I can listen to the wails and cries of his neckbeard legion, that would be hilarious

[QUOTE=Thlis;45573188]Try this one then. Stealing to feed your family, and stealing for your own gain. It's the same crime, it even has the same damage to the person who was robbed. Binary morality cannot function in society.[/QUOTE] Well I'm not sure anyone rapes someone to feed their family... it's done for personal reasons (or serious mental illness). I was only talking about rape. Why do you insist on bringing up stealing, that's irrelevant? Yeah I worded my statement wrong, but I corrected myself.

[QUOTE=SigmaLambda;45573175]what are you accomplishing with this dumb axiom dude? What productive knowledge can be drawn from making a generalization like this? How about instead of saying that nonsense you say: "all rape is bad and it is not my place, as some guy on the internet, to judge which rapes are worse than others" and then you be respectful to the people who have gone through things like that by holding your tongue and resisting your urge to make up meaningless blanket statements about rape, ok? If you get called in for jury duty and end up sitting on a rape trial then you can start making value judgements about [I]that specific case[/I]. You're not accomplishing anything here.[/QUOTE] I'm not saying that rapes should be rated on a value scale of immorality or any bullshit like that. I'm saying that rapes can logically be, and there isn't much wrong with what Dawkins said.

[QUOTE=Cone;45572616]dawkins has pretty much always been an utterly monolithic fuckwit tbh. it undercuts his points pretty hardcore when he says things like this in all honesty[/QUOTE] What exactly is wrong with what he said? [QUOTE=Thlis;45573188]Try this one then. Stealing to feed your family, and stealing for your own gain. It's the same crime, it even has the same damage to the person who was robbed. Binary morality cannot function in society.[/QUOTE] Imho a better analogy would be so called first world problems versus survival necessity problems (albeit incredibly banal)

[QUOTE=gudman;45573216]Well I'm not sure anyone rapes someone to feed their family... it's done for personal reasons (or serious mental illness). I was only talking about rape. Why do you insist on bringing up stealing, that's irrelevant? Yeah I worded my statement wrong, but I corrected myself.[/QUOTE] You don't get it, you argued that there is only a binary moral/immoral and I am giving you a situation which breaks that. It shows the fault in having a binary morality. I don't really understand why this is so controversial. Saying date rape is less bad than a brutal gang rape isn't saying that date rape isn't horrible.

Anyone who thinks that Dawkins is a "monolithic fuckwit" clearly is unaware of the important contributions he's made in his life to the field of evolutionary biology. He is up there with Darwin in terms of prevalence and importance in the field.

[QUOTE=Thlis;45573251]You don't get it, you argued that there is only a binary moral/immoral and I am giving you a situation which breaks that. It shows the fault in having a binary morality.[/QUOTE] Oh, yeah, sure, absolutely. There's no binary system for morality, of course. I was just trying to say that rapes would sit on the same place of the scale, but somewhere on the way there my brain flipped out. I'd edit it, but don't have a habit of covering my fuck-ups.

[QUOTE=gudman;45573295]I was just trying to say that rapes would sit on the same place of the scale[/QUOTE] Rape is bad no matter what. Rape is rape. But rape can be coupled with various things: Other brutal violence. Threats of additional torture or death. Kidnapping. Drugging. Blackmail. Verbal abuse. Coercion. These additional acts change the type of rape: Violent rape. Date rape. Gang rape. Marital rape. War rape. Statutory rape. No matter what, a victim was still raped. But other things may have happened to that victim. The labels (date rape, gang rape, etc.) help us grasp what has happened to them in more detail. These differing types of rape can be put on a semi-arbitrary immorality scale, because of their additional aspects.

This whole thing reminds me of this scene from Mitchell and Webb. [video=youtube;lXpmHuCE9Ls]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXpmHuCE9Ls[/video] While what Dawkins is saying is [I]objectively[/I] the truth, it's normally something that doesn't need to be said as it's only going to upset people.

[QUOTE=Kardia;45573622]Rape is bad no matter what. Rape is rape. But rape can be coupled with various things: Other brutal violence. Threats of additional torture or death. Kidnapping. Drugging. Blackmail. Verbal abuse. Coercion. These additional acts change the type of rape: Violent rape. Date rape. Gang rape. Marital rape. War rape. Statutory rape. No matter what, a victim was still raped. But other things may have happened to that victim. The labels (date rape, gang rape, etc.) help us grasp what has happened to them in more detail. These differing types of rape can be put on a semi-arbitrary immorality scale, because of their additional aspects.[/QUOTE] Keep in mind, that rape also has a lot of different definitions and what in some countries is rape, in others isnt, albeit often is still criminal.

It's comments like these that marginalize and end up hurting rape victims all together. Someone I know is afraid to come forward because of these sorts of comments. She's been told by her mother "It could have been worse", and she's been turned away by therapists who say "It's not serious enough". For 6 years and counting she has been forced to live in fear of her attacker, and had to suffer without help. Knowing the blithering, foam-mouthed fanatics that follow Dawkins everywhere, he has singlehandedly helped in the continued repression and victim blaming of those who have suffered sexual violence.

the way im trying to understand it is that "rape" in itself is an entirely separate crime (coercive sex with someone), but that while additional things will make the experience for the victim worse (such as using overt violence), it still doesn't detract from the fact that they were still raped. [editline]2nd August 2014[/editline] [QUOTE=Zillamaster55;45573673]Knowing the blithering, foam-mouthed fanatics that follow Dawkins everywhere, he has singlehandedly helped in the continued repression and victim blaming of those who have suffered sexual violence.[/QUOTE] iirc dawkins was once subject to sexual abuse when he was in school

[QUOTE=Judas;45572604]Richard Dawkins is a fucking idiot[/QUOTE] He's still less of an idiot than you are so..

[QUOTE=Zillamaster55;45573673]It's comments like these that marginalize and end up hurting rape victims all together. Someone I know is afraid to come forward because of these sorts of comments. She's been told by her mother "It could have been worse", and she's been turned away by therapists who say "It's not serious enough". For 6 years and counting she has been forced to live in fear of her attacker, and had to suffer without help. Knowing the blithering, foam-mouthed fanatics that follow Dawkins everywhere, he has singlehandedly helped in the continued repression and victim blaming of those who have suffered sexual violence.[/QUOTE] I don't think he intended to mean some types of rape are trivial - that is certainly not the case. All survivors of any kind of sexual assault - date rape, coercion, violence or otherwise should be taken seriously and given the support they need. However, it is highly likely that a survivor of a slightly less violent form of abuse (e.g. coercion vs gangrape at gunpoint) is less likely to have as severe trauma. Honestly there's bigger fish to fry regarding this subject than an out of context quote by Dawkins (e.g., that a lot of survivors are not taken seriously by police and are, in some cases, threatened with prosecution simply because the police do not believe them)

Eeveryone who's come into the this thread complaining about Richard Dawkins or flying off the scale and saying "fucking idiot!!11" is an utter moron. Maybe read the articles in future and not basing off your sick epic post history of bashing dawkins. I don't like the man, I think he's a cunt. But what he said is a valid point. Some rapes are worse than others. As said earlier, large-pre-planned gangrapes are disgusting and objectively more worse than one person raping another. Both are terrible crimes, but the point Dawkins made was that some rapes are worse than others, and that is a fact.

[QUOTE=Gwoodman;45572633]Just another storm in a glass of water.[/QUOTE] Like tears in the rain.

[QUOTE=Rangergxi;45572629]Scientists aren't good at politics.[/QUOTE] that's why most don't try to get involved in it, unlike Dawkins While I disagree with him most of the time though, he is better at this kind of discourse than the average person, so I don't think you can just disregard any questionable phrasing as "well he's a scientist not a public figure", no he's established himself as a public figure well aware of the consequences of his speech, he definitely understands the ramifications of what he says better than any of us do that being said outside of his blasé attitude I don't see a huge issue with what he said

[QUOTE=Kardia;45573622]Rape is bad no matter what. Rape is rape. But rape can be coupled with various things: Other brutal violence. Threats of additional torture or death. Kidnapping. Drugging. Blackmail. Verbal abuse. Coercion. These additional acts change the type of rape: Violent rape. Date rape. Gang rape. Marital rape. War rape. Statutory rape. No matter what, a victim was still raped. But other things may have happened to that victim. The labels (date rape, gang rape, etc.) help us grasp what has happened to them in more detail. These differing types of rape can be put on a semi-arbitrary immorality scale, because of their additional aspects.[/QUOTE] But that's not what I meant at all. What I'm saying is, the scale of "immorality" of the act is often (and I support it) judged based on the intention/motivation of the perpetrator. In every case of rape it's based on perpetrator's own desires and intentions. You can't say that one case of rape is less or more moral than the other because of that. More damaging - yes, one can possibly say that violent rape is more damaging. But not "less moral" or something like that: violent rapes are often based on attacker's desire to make the victim suffer as much as possible to satisfy his own complexes, and date/drug rapes are based on the desire to lessen perpetrator's own sexual frustration. Which one is worse from the moral standpoint? I think neither, both are based on perpetrator being self-centered and the reason is within themselves.

[QUOTE=Redball4567;45572617]From the title at first I thought this would be him talking about some of the most well-known rapists or something.[/QUOTE] I was curious who the king of rape was.