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KOM: Mucus posited that playing Cowboys and Indians after watching violence take place on television was a more apt comparison.
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: When actors take their clothes off and get naked, that's not staged, that's their actual bodies. Even if the sex is staged and the actors don't have feelings for each other, the physiological response to seeing sex taking place is stronger than violence.
Most of the sex on TV and film is more staged and less "real" - and more CGI - than you might imagine.
I would bet that the actors in sex scenes feel real arousal less often than the actors in fight scenes feel real pain.
Even in porn the sex is more staged than one would think. Yes the actors do preform sex acts on each other but trick angles, creative editing, multiple takes and..well "stuntmen" make the whole affair very different from what you are witnessing on screen.
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quote:As a corollary, maybe the fact that you feel masturbation is more similar to sex is a consequence of the culture. Maybe in a culture where the reverse of the above is true, it would be the violence that would be more shocking/bodily affecting and the sex that would be common and un-shocking.
Historically speaking, does such a culture exist? And if not, is that evidence that sex has tended to provoke a greater response than violence and hence is kept on a tighter leash?
There have been at least tribal cultures, where nudity was standard, and violence was rare. And these cultures have existed during the last century, I'm pretty sure in some still survive, in places like South-America and the Pacific Islands.
In my understanding they've also often have had a pretty easy-going attitude towards sexual acts.
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quote:Originally posted by Mucus: Indeed, there's an interesting story:
quote:In Ashes of Time, cast as a martial-arts scoundrel, he ably anchored a film of top Chinese stars and rapturous visual splendor. In the not-so-gay drama Happy Together he taught Tony Leung Chiu-wai how an actor prepares.
The film opens with a stark scene of the two main characters having sex. "When we tried to shoot the love scene it really shocked Tony," Cheung recalls. "He refused to do it. For two days he was miserable, lying on his bed. So I went up to him and said, 'Look at me, Tony, I've gone through so many scenes kissing, touching girls, grabbing breasts, do you think I really enjoyed it? Just treat it as a job, a normal love scene. I'm not going to fall in love with you, and I don't want you to really have sex with me. You're not my type.' So he agreed to do the scene."
Meanwhile, I'm pretty sure that Jackie Chan gets a pretty huge rush from doing his own stunts and fights.
scifibum: Maybe thats just desensitization. Maybe if we played games with hundreds of sex incidents (rather than games with hundreds of incidents of violence), it would be similarly unsurprising.
Well if you see someone say a roomate or friend nude the first time you may check them out or get embarrassed but you see them nude a few more times and you don't even notice anymore. Same goes in school when you shower with you classmates. So yes there is a desensitization. But I would still say in real life seeing a nude person doesn't make you lose control while encountering violence in real life certainly does.
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Also, I agree with Mucus' point: If nudity was common and everywhere around us, it wouldn't raise any particular sexual feelings. It's not possible to be in heat 24/7.
If every woman you see on the street would have bare breasts, seeing bare breast simply wouldn't be that exciting, or titillating anymore.
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quote:As a corollary, maybe the fact that you feel masturbation is more similar to sex is a consequence of the culture. Maybe in a culture where the reverse of the above is true, it would be the violence that would be more shocking/bodily affecting and the sex that would be common and un-shocking.
Historically speaking, does such a culture exist? And if not, is that evidence that sex has tended to provoke a greater response than violence and hence is kept on a tighter leash?
There have been at least tribal cultures, where nudity was standard, and violence was rare. And these cultures have existed during the last century, I'm pretty sure in some still survive, in places like South-America and the Pacific Islands.
In my understanding they've also often have had a pretty easy-going attitude towards sexual acts.
Could you be a bit more specific? Essentially every single culture that exists today began as a "tribal culture." Thousands more have existed without any record of their attitudes or social mores.
quote:If every woman you see on the street would have bare breasts, seeing bare breast simply wouldn't be that exciting, or titillating anymore.
Tahitians traditionally did not cover their women's breasts, and yet their attitudes concerning sex were significantly more relaxed than say Captain Bligh and the crew of The Bounty.
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quote:Originally posted by Armoth: Scholarette - Your assumption is that sex is better than violence so sex on tv is better than violence on tv.
But what we have been trying to establish is that sex hits home a lot harder than violence when observed on tv. At first glance, you can take a logical ideological view - symbolically, since violence is worse than sex, we should portray more sex than violence on tv. But a deeper argument is that violence on tv is always staged (as opposed to sex where you do see actually nudity), and that because of our drives and personalities, sex has more of an effect on us on screen than does violence.
Bringing it back to the religious element, as we were defining "losing control" - Religiously, for me at least, it is forbidden to think sexual thoughts outside of your relationship with your spouse. It is viewed as an inappropriate expression of your creative energy that should be limited to the special relationship you have with your spouse. As such, sex on tv is again more invasive because it brings one to experience such "forbidden" thoughts.
It is also forbidden to fantasize about performing violence against another person. However, viewing violence on tv almost never translates to such a transgression, even if one were to think cool martial arts moves.
I have a hard time understanding this point of view. It's not really possible to control your thoughts. The important thing is to control your actions. So what if you think someone is cute as long as you don't stray? If someone can't resist everyday temptation then do they really love their partner? Yes I understand that some people have this belief as is their right. In my opinion the danger with it is that people with that belief so often try to censor what others see because they don't want to be temped themselves.
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quote:As a corollary, maybe the fact that you feel masturbation is more similar to sex is a consequence of the culture. Maybe in a culture where the reverse of the above is true, it would be the violence that would be more shocking/bodily affecting and the sex that would be common and un-shocking.
Historically speaking, does such a culture exist? And if not, is that evidence that sex has tended to provoke a greater response than violence and hence is kept on a tighter leash?
There have been at least tribal cultures, where nudity was standard, and violence was rare. And these cultures have existed during the last century, I'm pretty sure in some still survive, in places like South-America and the Pacific Islands.
In my understanding they've also often have had a pretty easy-going attitude towards sexual acts.
Could you be a bit more specific? Essentially every single culture that exists today began as a "tribal culture." Thousands more have existed without any record of their attitudes or social mores.
Have you ever seen any documentaries on modern world tribal cultures? People who live a very primitive life in the jungle. There are still fairly many people living like that, in South-America, Africa and Pacific Islands at least. Of course those tribal cultures are slowly dying away, but they still exist, and are gonna exist for some time.
If you've seen those documentaries, you might have noticed that in many villages just about all women walk around bare-breasted. They also breast-feed in the plain sight of everyone. Children are very often completely nude. Most adults cover their genitalia, but even to that there are exceptions, and people don't thing it's a big deal that a man, or a woman, is completely nude in plain sight of everyone.
I've also read a lot of articles about the lifestyles of different, modern world tribal cultures. I can google for links, if needed.
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quote:Tahitians traditionally did not cover their women's breasts, and yet their attitudes concerning sex were significantly more relaxed than say Captain Bligh and the crew of The Bounty. [/QB]
What do you mean? I'm not familiar with the story.
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I don't think nudity itself is the issue, it's the presence of titillating material in entertainment that we're discussing. If everyone was nude all the time then we might be concerned about the wearing of latex masks or whatever thing was sexy or titillating and not present in everyday public life that showed up in entertainment.
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quote:Originally posted by Tuukka: If every woman you see on the street would have bare breasts, seeing bare breast simply wouldn't be that exciting, or titillating anymore.
So when you think about it, everybody should wear burkas, so that there would be a massive thrill to getting naked.
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quote:I have a hard time understanding this point of view. It's not really possible to control your thoughts. The important thing is to control your actions. So what if you think someone is cute as long as you don't stray? If someone can't resist everyday temptation then do they really love their partner? Yes I understand that some people have this belief as is their right. In my opinion the danger with it is that people with that belief so often try to censor what others see because they don't want to be temped themselves.
I may be putting words in Armoth's mouth here, but let me give this a try.
First of all, I disagree that you can't control your thoughts. It's a lot harder than controlling your actions, but it is possible, through practice to try and think about other things or nothing at all. (It's reasonably common among men who can't afford to be visibly "aroused" at the moment to try and think about, say, dying puppies or something to keep the hormones in check).
That said, I think this is a different situation. It's hard to control your thoughts when confronted with particular stimuli, BUT it's easier to control said stimuli. When you see an attractive, sexual person, you're going to have an emotional response. And that's not inherently a bad thing (well, Armoth might think so but I don't think it's the main point he was going for).
The points is not to avoid a bad thought ("i.e. wow look at that pair of legs"). The point is to encourage a particular kind of good thought ("Wow, look at my wife, the most amazingly beautiful woman in the world"). Avoiding other sources of sexual stimulation creates an emotional connection with your spouse that is far more intense than if such stimulation was common in your life.
I think that's the point. I have no idea whether it really works out that way, or whether it's worth the effort, but I don't think it's a crazy idea.
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Yeah, Raymond got it right, i think for the most part anyway.
1) I do believe you can control thoughts. It is a major premise of my religion, and trust me - I'd be outta here ages ago if it weren't possible. It is difficult, but it is an amazing feeling when you can control thoughts to the level that you can. You feel like you can master the self.
2) You are supposed to avoid bad thoughts. But what makes a thought "bad?" Sex isn't EVIL. So the religious concept of bad thoughts is that sex is a natural and beautiful thing, but it is sanctified, set aside specifically for your spouse, the one you love and whom is special to you. The main act is the powerful love between husband and wife - sex, we believe, is an incredibly powerful physical pleasure that serves as the background to the beautiful emotional intimacy in teh relationship. Thus, all other sexual expressions are deemed bad because they are "wasteful."
Looking outside your marriage for sexual stimulus cheapens the special nature of your own marriage.
And you are all correct, seeing breasts everyday would make it not titillating to see them again. However, we would like them to remain titillating - so that they can be used as a powerful component of sex, (this is so weird as I'm typing this) of the intimacy between husband and wife.
It is an entirely different culture that I can imagine that someone who isn't in would be totally foreign to. But we try not to expose ourselves to sex outside the bedroom for this reason.
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quote:The mind should develop a blind spot whenever a dangerous thought presented itself. The process should be automatic, instinctive. Crimestop, they called it in Newspeak.
He set to work to exercise himself in crimestop. He presented himself with propositions -- 'the Party says the earth is flat', 'the party says that ice is heavier than water' -- and trained himself in not seeing or not understanding the arguments that contradicted them.
quote:Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop, in short, means protective stupidity.
Setting aside Amroth's religious motivations for controlling one's thoughts, surely you can imagine some reasons that aren't* stupid, dangerous, or biddable for controlling one's thoughts?
At an extreme end of things, certainly it could prove very worthwhile for someone with certain especially strong impulses generally regarded as bad-drug addiction, for example.
ETA: *Not that I think they are, of course, but any conversation remotely approaching religious concerns with KoM is going to include the idea that they are, as reliable as a Swiss watch.
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Controlling thoughts and controlling actions are not very far apart.
Both are difficult, thought not impossible. In fact, many diet books, or self-help books will teach you not only to control your actions, to get yourself to the gym, or to spend more time with your kids, but to control your thoughts. Positive thinking, motivation, clarity of identity, self-esteem.
All things are dependent on introspection, meditation, spending time with yourself and reminding yourself of your values. Because humans are flawed - we forget ourselves in our desires, and to express our most ideal selves, we need to overcome the other conflicting identities within us.
Religion has many such ideal goals - stuff that gets in the way of natural and base desires. For instance, I often have to keep my negative opinions to myself lest I transgress the prohibition on speaking ill of your fellow man. I probably fail more often than I succeed. There, I have conflicting desires - the desire to talk about a disloyal friend, or my crazy parents, and the desire to not dramatize a problem by externalizing it, and not to color other people's opinions of said individuals through hearsay and gossip. If I remind myself that I truly desire the latter, it helps me to not desire the former.
Also, God hates science and global warming, so we have to control our thoughts about that too.
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Sure, but I'm not about to let that get in the way of a literary-allusion snark. Further, although the Dark Arts can in principle be used for good purposes, they will always end by corrupting the user.
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I'm pretty sure it was sarcastic, and I think the rest of his post made pretty decent sense from a secular perspective.
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Armoth: I completely agree, there are plenty of good reasons for controlling one's thoughts even if we are removing religion from the equation.
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quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: I'm pretty sure it was sarcastic, and I think the rest of his post made pretty decent sense from a secular perspective.
And yet... somehow... it turns out that opposition to global warming and to science in general is very strongly correlated with religion. The Dark Side is subtle, and works all the better when it is mocked.
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quote:Sure, but I'm not about to let that get in the way of a literary-allusion snark. Further, although the Dark Arts can in principle be used for good purposes, they will always end by corrupting the user.
While that was also literary-allusion snark, it was also a pretty accurate (though stylized) representation of your own beliefs, KoM.
Basically anything you could care to name, if applied too widely, will be a bad thing, KoM. Your case against thought control, such as it is, is pretty darn feeble so far.
quote:And yet... somehow... it turns out that opposition to global warming and to science in general is very strongly correlated with religion. The Dark Side is subtle, and works all the better when it is mocked.
Oh, so now we've got correlation. Isn't there a saying about the link between correlation and some other thing, starts with a 'c' rhymes with 'ausation'?
---
quote:Most of those people are "opiate of the masses" folks.
Heh, good luck arguing that distinction, dude:)
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Armoth: I completely agree, there are plenty of good reasons for controlling one's thoughts even if we are removing religion from the equation.
My husband is reading a book right now kind of on thought control. One of the major claims is that by trying to avoid thinking about something, you actually end up spending more time thinking about it. If you tell someone to not think about pink elephants for 2 minutes, they are going to think about pink elephants. And then after that, you tell them to think about whatever they want, they still think about pink elephants.
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quote:Oh, so now we've got correlation. Isn't there a saying about the link between correlation and some other thing, starts with a 'c' rhymes with 'ausation'?
Yes, yes, the first refuge of the internet arguer. If you have a correlation between A and B, it does not follow that A causes B; fine. But you do have to pick from these options:
a) A causes B (the correlation is causation) b) B causes A (the correlation is causation) c) Both are caused by a third factor (in which case there is a correlation you missed, and that correlation is causation) d) Your correlation is a statistical artifact.
Setting 'A' to 'thought control' and B to 'religion', which of the options would you like to argue for?
quote: If you tell someone to not think about pink elephants for 2 minutes, they are going to think about pink elephants.
This only shows the weakness of bad thought control. If you genuinely wanted someone not to think about pink elephants, you would tell them to think about green mosquitos instead. Or just shut up and let them think of whatever.
quote:I'll posit that many who have issues with science and global warming are not skilled at the type of thought-control I am speaking of.
They are certainly very skilled, as a general rule, at looking only at evidence they agree with.
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Armoth: I completely agree, there are plenty of good reasons for controlling one's thoughts even if we are removing religion from the equation.
My husband is reading a book right now kind of on thought control. One of the major claims is that by trying to avoid thinking about something, you actually end up spending more time thinking about it. If you tell someone to not think about pink elephants for 2 minutes, they are going to think about pink elephants. And then after that, you tell them to think about whatever they want, they still think about pink elephants.
Well that's hardly following the instructions. KOM figured out that you don't simply tell somebody not to think about something, rather you fill the void with something else.
If I'm instructed, "Don't think about somebody else's spouse sexually, if it comes into your mind, dismiss it and remind yourself why it's wrong." That's completely different than saying, "Pink elephants must not be thought about." One instruction is a way of perceiving the world, the other is simply an object.
Arbitrarily saying that ideas ought not to be entertained is of course stupid as a person unconvinced that an idea is dangerous will have no intention of obeying, and indeed might start wondering why you're trying to stifle the idea.
I believe one's actions are a product of what they put into their mind. Entertain uplifting, intelligent, and useful thoughts and you will be all those things. Entertain base, depressing, immoral thoughts, and again you will be all those things.
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quote:They are certainly very skilled, as a general rule, at looking only at evidence they agree with.
That's not thought control, though. That's 'who do you believe' control. It's not as though the folks who disbelieve in such things are actually coming to a realization, "Hey, I'm wrong! It's true!" and then having their biddable thought-control kicking in and reverting. They never get to the 'it's true' point in the first place.
quote:Yes, yes, the first refuge of the internet arguer. If you have a correlation between A and B, it does not follow that A causes B; fine. But you do have to pick from these options:
a) A causes B (the correlation is causation) b) B causes A (the correlation is causation) c) Both are caused by a third factor (in which case there is a correlation you missed, and that correlation is causation) d) Your correlation is a statistical artifact.
Setting 'A' to 'thought control' and B to 'religion', which of the options would you like to argue for?
Option C, though you describe it incorrectly. Rather say '(in which case there is a correlation you missed, and that correlation happens to be causation)'.
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quote:Originally posted by Armoth: All things are dependent on introspection, meditation, spending time with yourself and reminding yourself of your values. Because humans are flawed - we forget ourselves in our desires, and to express our most ideal selves, we need to overcome the other conflicting identities within us.
This isn't a cure-all for flaws. The very same principle can be used to convince one of patently false things, and to believe them unshakably. When we "remind ourselves of our values" in this fashion we are simply programming ourselves in a fashion dictated by the supposed authority to ensure that we are mentally compliant with what the authority claims.
It is, in fact, frequently abused.
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Sam, I don't follow. I'm not telling you to repeat a mantra so that you blur out your desires and cause yourself to follow something blindly because you brainwashed yourself into it.
I'm talking about clearing your mind so that you can allow yourself to think and choose logically. Say that you're interested in cheating on your spouse - I'm not telling you to brainwash yourself into moving past that so that you can conform to societal norms and not deal with the inconvenience of an affair - I'm talking about introspecting and clearing your mind of the desires that may cloud your judgment in the specific area. Said introspection may lead you to conclude that an affair would be a great idea - the point is though, that your highest self is in control of that decision instead of letting your instinct do the talking.
It's odd, and it too me a while to grasp, that there are multiple identities within me. My desires often conflict. It is my life's work to sort it out so that I control my own identity - whether I am religious or not. I want to be the guy who goes the gym, not the guy who plays video games - even though sometime the urge to do the latter is difficult to overcome.
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While what I'm talking about isn't brainwashing, the connection I make is one I make because "clearing your mind" is different than "reminding yourself of your values."
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That's not clearing your mind, though. That's fixating on a value you want to reinforce. What you're doing is a form of psychological reinforcement, a fixed-point meditation, that you are engaging upon with the purposeful intent to tell yourself that something is true and reinforce the notion and alter your behavior and perspective through the exercise.
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quote:That's not thought control, though. That's 'who do you believe' control. It's not as though the folks who disbelieve in such things are actually coming to a realization, "Hey, I'm wrong! It's true!" and then having their biddable thought-control kicking in and reverting. They never get to the 'it's true' point in the first place.
Actually, if you look at some deconversion stories, you'll find that people often do realise that creationism is false long before they are able to admit it to themselves, much less to others. The fear of Hell will do that. I also invite you to consider the phrase "wrestling with doubt". Genuine doubt annihilates itself. You only 'wrestle' with it if you don't like your conclusion.
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quote:That's not thought control, though. That's 'who do you believe' control. It's not as though the folks who disbelieve in such things are actually coming to a realization, "Hey, I'm wrong! It's true!" and then having their biddable thought-control kicking in and reverting. They never get to the 'it's true' point in the first place.
Actually, if you look at some deconversion stories, you'll find that people often do realise that creationism is false long before they are able to admit it to themselves, much less to others. The fear of Hell will do that. I also invite you to consider the phrase "wrestling with doubt". Genuine doubt annihilates itself. You only 'wrestle' with it if you don't like your conclusion.
I agree with KOM on this one. When an idea is ingrained in your head so pervasively it's easy to refuse to see the obvious. Ask many people raised during Mao's chairmanship, the propaganda was everywhere and it was pushed into their minds so forcefully that when surrounded with destitution and starvation, they could conceive on any explanation save it being Mao who was a bad guy. It's a very interesting concept that the book Wild Swans by Jung Chang discusses quite often.
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The thing is, while I agree that this technique is exactly what totalitarian dictators take advantage of, it's also exactly what I think decent people everyone in the world use to resist their basic instincts, and I don't think that's a bad thing.
Now, I've been raised to keep an open mind and think about new ideas critically. So when presented with a situation where I'm not sure what to do or think I may be doing the wrong thing, the core moral principal I remind myself is exactly that. Which is the opposite of what a dictator would want you to do, but I think the technique is essentially the same, if you were to replace "keep an open mind" with "what would Mao want me to do?" or whatever.
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