as i see it, rape incidence is UP and reporting is DOWN. -and that's disaster.
it always means a societal return to the shameful stigmatization of the victim and the conformity of contempt for the helpless at every social strata.
in the abstract Human Life, to have been raped is a horrible but essentially meaningless condition, because it is not, absolutely and also without question, at all within the even astonishingly broad parameters of Human Action. that acknowledged, no life is abstract and no rapist cares for Humanity.
and rape is UP! this affects you.
even if it affects you unbeknownst. the effects of secondary social stigmatization have now been demonstrated for decades and information abounds; so you have heard the stories, at least.
and it DOES affect you.
every rape, once known of, colors your own singular view of the right and of the possible for your own individual and irreplaceable life, even if perhaps, you have been momentarily distracted by the lurid details.
this notice is to alert the artist as each person.
to those who understand the value of that particular quality of Human Consciousness.
this is the aspect of Humanity that is capable of envisioning a world one may be proud to live in, in complete surety of one's own sovereign value, and the confidence of each other person's recognition of it.
this is of course not the condition of the world that our generation of life is experiencing. certainly that world has never been real, and possibly this world may never be lived in by any, but to allow the degeneration of that world's potential existence to dissolve unchallenged
and to allow the erosion of Humanity's demonstrable and right progress, while claiming the lie of ignorance,
or succumbing to despair or the gluttony of apathy, is to cast oneself out of the category of the Human.
this may not be allowed, at the least by me.
i am an artist. i see the world. add to this, i am honest and i recognize the lie.
i am chilled to understand that the concept i had of the world where rape was an historic likelihood and a current possibility is rapidly becoming conceived of, or has already become, a world where rape is an expected certainty and concurrently an action for which those responsible for commiting it are to be forgiven and fostered in comfort and care.
how have people come to regard this action as so divorced from the actors that it is regarded as "a difference of culture and perspective"; - to the extent of regarding it as
"just something that most guys do and all guys are capable of"?
actually i know how, and that was a facetious and ill mannered sneer.
i wrote it so that in print one, meaning YOU!, can evaluate it on its own terms without inflection or semiotic reinforcers. essentially, the metaphysical items are indisputable but the single addition of the word "just" denotes the modern moral EVALUATION of this truth. and this may not be condoned.
the next step in this reasoning is to regard this action a "social phenomenon". this would mean that because men and women
are in some proximity to each other that rape would inevitably strike like some hidden jungle beast or the lightning from a moody, vengeful sky.
i wish i was kidding, but i've felt the slithering brush of precursors in conversation.
everyone alive, or to be so, should understand very clearly that not so long ago in Human History, many were certain that the sky was a thing that one could lay one's hands on.
i have begun blogging, which i find to be quite a departure from my convicted ethics. i have good reason. please investigate and please make whatever good you can.
http://blog.myspace.com/spvix
thanks for reading this far
and be great,
don
