Advice for the Individual vs. Society

You make an excellent point here. Excellent.

In regards to your daughter and her self defense; one word : Ju-Jitsu. It makes a person dangerous from the rape position. And if the lessons are devopled at a young age, the vocabulary and grammar of those movements stick around for life. I just recently fell off my bike, highschool ju-jitsu kept me from breaking my wrists… 😉

Oh, and Rhonda Rousey may be the single best role model for women since Maya Angelou.

I am always astonished at how your advice is exactly what I need at precisely the right moment. Thank you.

As I recall, there were a number of large-scale attempts at “eliminating the wealth gap” in the 20th century, and the result was that everyone became poor. I’m a little baffled by communist sorcery, since to me the sorcerer is the opposite of a communist, being an enterprising, creative individual who strives to create gaps between herself and the rest of society. Maybe talk to some people who have actually lived under systems that tried eliminate the wealth gap, and ask them how magical their lives were…

Great post and great thoughts. I would offer additionally that the scenario isn’t binary. Things aren’t good for me OR good for society. What it sounds like you’re saying is that to strengthen the self can be perceived as at odds with society at large. I’ve definitely had that thought process myself. What your post (and previous work) has helped me realize is there’s a false dichotomy regarding self vs society. My own studies and experiences have resonated with this idea. Strengthening the self is a different process than taking action on a global scale; however, as society is a collection of disparate “selfs”, doing work to make yourself a stronger person physically mentally or spiritually can only contribute to society in a way to strengthen it. Two logical fallacies I saw myself falling into when I started examining my reticence to do work on myself “at the expense of the whole” was (1) not recognizing that strengthening myself IS helping society, just one individual at a time, and (2) An assumption that I understood the consequences of my actions and those consequences were limited in energy and potential–for example if I do a working to get a job, I’m necessarily and unfairly stopping someone else from getting a job, and that’s the end of the story. Logically, my “IF this THAN that” concept was wrong. It was a limiting world view. It’s not necessarily true that’s the way it works–For example, once that job connection is made, “reality” has changed. Perhaps I’ll rocket to the top of the organization and create jobs along the way. Perhaps the person that got passed over will create their own company that’s a better fit for their skills. Perhaps the hiring manager will love me and that other person so much they’ll hire two people. Perhaps passed-over-guy will get a different job and meet the love of his life. None of those things might have happened, had I not done my working. Of course, things may not come up roses for anyone–maybe I’ll have a horrible wretched boss and that person that didn’t get hired won’t have to deal with that…etc. The point is, I love this article because it highlights how individual and social needs are different but not necessarily at odds, and even if the course of action or advice might be different on a social level or individual, there can be a universal observation that when looking to create change in conformity with Will, it’s more helpful to focus on the actor than the victim. Thanks for writing!

Thank you for this well written post, Jason. As a survivor of multiple rapes, I’ll tell you, and your readers in all honesty that even if this product were on the market way back then, I’d never thought to use it! No one I knew would ever do a thing like that to me, surely not!

What most people forget is that only a very small fraction of rape/sexual assaults are “stranger danger” type events, although date rape certainly happens… yet not always in the kind of environment in which someone could use this product.

With this being said, most of us go out believing nothing like that is going to happen to us. It’s only when we’re, quite unfortunately, proven wrong when a product like the nail polish begins to make sense, yet by then, the perpetrator has already achieved their main goal: stolen something they had no right to take by forcing (or coercing) to gain power over another.

This is oppression. Though I agree the four guys came up with a good idea in general, it isn’t a solution to a societal, and institutional (military and college, especially) problem.

This is the first time I’ve enjoyed an article on social issues. This makes sense to me. Very useful. I generally get pretty bored of politics and social issues but this was great!

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