On Exploitation of Exploitation.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Exploitation isn't necessarily a bad term.  Resources are exploited...They have to be, or we'd all starve to death.  But you may have noticed that at some point in the 1980s, humans became resources.  The Personnel Departments in corporations were changed to "Human Resources".  Nowdays, instead of saying, "Put more people on that project", it is instead "Add resources to that project."

And the only reason to call humans "resources" is to make it acceptable to exploit them.

The simple fact is, you cannot live in Western society without taking part, actively or passively, in exploitation of other people.  The clothes you wear were most likely made by slaves in Myanmar.  The food you eat was mostly harvested by badly-abused "illegal aliens".  The electronics you are reading this on were probably made by 12 year old slaves in China.

You can't, realistically, avoid this, at least not right now.  What you CAN avoid is actively exploiting people, and avoiding those passive exploitations that can be avoided.  Do you need a new Ipod, for example?

For another example, consider porn.  Pornography is the commodification of human sexual behavior.  Porn stars are fungible resources with a definite shelf life.  Prostitution is the same thing, only far more brutal.  Child pageantry is another example, where parents basically convert their children into show dogs...The child isn't benefiting at all, quite the opposite.  The parent(s) do, in a sick sort of way.

I don't accept slavery as acceptable.  It is at its most basic level, the ultimate expression of the exploitation of humans; humans reduced to draft animals, the monetization of misery.  And if that's not acceptable, then how can the other examples above be acceptable, given that they are driven by the same principle (ie, humans as goods and services, rather than humans)?

There's another kind of exploitation to consider as well...The exploitation of exploitation itself.  That particular kind of "activist" that requires the abuse they "oppose" as a means by which to validate their own existence.  An example of this is the reaction of PETA to the development of vat-grown meat.  If the PETA members in question were actually interested in SOLVING the problem of animal cruelty, they would have welcomed vat-grown meat as the answer that makes everyone happy.

But that's not what happened.  What happened was that they lost their shit, because if vat-grown meat replaced livestock-derived meat, then the PETA folks in question would no longer have a cause by which to make themselves feel special and elite.

This isn't to say that all activists think this way.  Typically, activists ARE interested in ending the problem they oppose, especially when they themselves are on the receiving end of the problem (see: Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King, Gloria Steinem, etc).

But every activist should examine their motives.  I am NOT stating that anyone who finds those motives to be closer to PETA's way of thinking should quit being an activist, but rather that they should continue their activism while working on improving the way of thinking that drives them.

Because, in the end, exploitation is exploitation, and the specialness or importance of a cause doesn't change the nature of the beast.

Or Kill Me.

[LMNO]

If an enemy does not exist, then an enemy must be invented.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

If an enemy does not exist, then an enemy must be invented.

Yep.  And allies are to be shunned, as the more people involved, the less special the person in question feels.

This same mentality is codified by the hipster ethic:  I was doing this before it was popular, or I was doing this until it became popular.

Once it's popular, it is no longer special.  This is why only the very purest activists are to be tolerated, and the "cookie seekers" driven into the wilderness.  Coalitions solve things; a certain type of person doesn't want them solved.

(If that looks like a stab at Garbo, it may be...but it's incidental.  The terms she used are perfect as a description of the mentality of which I'm speaking.)

[LMNO]

Paradoxically, the lengthening of the LGTB(QZYXOMGBBQ) banner seems to also have that narrowing effect.  I think.

[Pergamos]

Paradoxically, the lengthening of the LGTB(QZYXOMGBBQ) banner seems to also have that narrowing effect.  I think.

Well yeah, they aren't lengthening the banner to include more people, they're dividing the already included people up into smaller and smaller categories.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Paradoxically, the lengthening of the LGTB(QZYXOMGBBQ) banner seems to also have that narrowing effect.  I think.

As does CISHET.

In both cases, the underlying message is of division.  LGBT says everything that needs to be said.  If I'm an ally, then I am in their camp with respect to the rest of the world, if not with respect to LGBT folks (which isn't actually possible, as I am not LGBT).  But the important part is "with respect to the rest of the world".

And it's what makes allies so offensive to certain people.  If I'm in the camp with them, then I am a distraction from their limelight, as it were.  And if a whole mob of people are in the camp, they might not get noticed at all.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Paradoxically, the lengthening of the LGTB(QZYXOMGBBQ) banner seems to also have that narrowing effect.  I think.

Well yeah, they aren't lengthening the banner to include more people, they're dividing the already included people up into smaller and smaller categories.

More to the point, it says, "these people back us, but we'd like You People to recognize that they're NOT us, and therefore not special like us."

Hence my argument that LGBT is a perfectly acceptable term if you're interested in getting things DONE, and LGBTXBBTYRMEFGHYD!Y is better if you personally want attention.

[The Johnny]

"exploitation of exploitation" makes me think of something that is called "pornography of misery": this can be done by brutal documentaries that show the very most morbid and violent acts perpetrated to a certain group instead of focusing on informing and getting the unheard voices heard; an example is some documentary i saw about Brasilian Favelas, where it was just an external narrator as if it was going thru a zoo.

there's also the "victimization of the victim" so to speak, in which victims are portrayed as helpless, useless objects that are subject to either virtuous or evil deeds in which they cannot act or say anything about it.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

"exploitation of exploitation" makes me think of something that is called "pornography of misery": this can be done by brutal documentaries that show the very most morbid and violent acts perpetrated to a certain group instead of focusing on informing and getting the unheard voices heard; an example is some documentary i saw about Brasilian Favelas, where it was just an external narrator as if it was going thru a zoo.

there's also the "victimization of the victim" so to speak, in which victims are portrayed as helpless, useless objects that are subject to either virtuous or evil deeds in which they cannot act or say anything about it.

Marquis De Sade victims, then.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Paradoxically, the lengthening of the LGTB(QZYXOMGBBQ) banner seems to also have that narrowing effect.  I think.

Well yeah, they aren't lengthening the banner to include more people, they're dividing the already included people up into smaller and smaller categories.

If you can't put seven hundred capital letters together in the correct order, you're part of the problem!

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Paradoxically, the lengthening of the LGTB(QZYXOMGBBQ) banner seems to also have that narrowing effect.  I think.

Well yeah, they aren't lengthening the banner to include more people, they're dividing the already included people up into smaller and smaller categories.

If you can't put seven hundred capital letters together in the correct order, you're part of the problem!

I think Signora Paesor, Garbo, and a few others did a lot of harm to their own cause in that thread.

[Cainad (dec.)]

Paradoxically, the lengthening of the LGTB(QZYXOMGBBQ) banner seems to also have that narrowing effect.  I think.

Well yeah, they aren't lengthening the banner to include more people, they're dividing the already included people up into smaller and smaller categories.

If you can't put seven hundred capital letters together in the correct order, you're part of the problem!

I think Signora Paesor, Garbo, and a few others did a lot of harm to their own cause in that thread.

Sounds like I missed something while I was in purgatory.

[The Johnny]

"exploitation of exploitation" makes me think of something that is called "pornography of misery": this can be done by brutal documentaries that show the very most morbid and violent acts perpetrated to a certain group instead of focusing on informing and getting the unheard voices heard; an example is some documentary i saw about Brasilian Favelas, where it was just an external narrator as if it was going thru a zoo.

there's also the "victimization of the victim" so to speak, in which victims are portrayed as helpless, useless objects that are subject to either virtuous or evil deeds in which they cannot act or say anything about it.

Marquis De Sade victims, then.

I might be a reference that maybe everyone should get, but I havent actually read Sade.

Another example would be PETA people making a documentary about how animals are skinned alive, with the priority of shocking the viewer and supposedly forcing him to be empathic and thus forcing the viewer to get interested, get informed and act; the problem is that its a bunch of assumptions on what you are showing will affect the viewer, and if you take away all those assumptions of effect, the fact is they are doing mordid gore porn.

I know this example does not follow exactly the previous ones, but i think the "assumption effect process" is similar.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

"exploitation of exploitation" makes me think of something that is called "pornography of misery": this can be done by brutal documentaries that show the very most morbid and violent acts perpetrated to a certain group instead of focusing on informing and getting the unheard voices heard; an example is some documentary i saw about Brasilian Favelas, where it was just an external narrator as if it was going thru a zoo.

there's also the "victimization of the victim" so to speak, in which victims are portrayed as helpless, useless objects that are subject to either virtuous or evil deeds in which they cannot act or say anything about it.

Marquis De Sade victims, then.

I might be a reference that maybe everyone should get, but I havent actually read Sade.

Another example would be PETA people making a documentary about how animals are skinned alive, with the priority of shocking the viewer and supposedly forcing him to be empathic and thus forcing the viewer to get interested, get informed and act; the problem is that its a bunch of assumptions on what you are showing will affect the viewer, and if you take away all those assumptions of effect, the fact is they are doing mordid gore porn.

I know this example does not follow exactly the previous ones, but i think the "assumption effect process" is similar.

1.  Don't bother.  De Sade is cheap rape porn, without a shred of artistic value.  The victims are VICTIMS, and you feel no sympathy for them.  The villains could be picked out of any prison for the violent & mentally deficient.

2.  Yeah, you pretty much nailed it.

[LMNO]

I still feel that deSade was Swiftian, without the talent or skill.