Dr. Herb Ruhs & grandson
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Rape, on a societal level
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by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News
Sept. 10, 2007
I get a little nauseated listening to all the pundits, left and right
alike, drone on stupidly about "compassion fatigue" or "voter
apathy." My impression is that these people are all either actual
professional liars spreading the idea that the mass of people are
mere helpless waifs, or, worse in a sense, gullible but sincere
people doing the work of the paid propagandist by spreading their
lies.
Granted, people are confused beyond belief and put into a near
coma by a welter of conflicting information and disinformation. But
what would we expect of a population caught in a perpetual blizzard
of a professional lies?
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Of course we are confused about world and
national events, and even about local and personal events. This in no
way can be considered an accident or reflective of some inherent
mental weakness in the US population. This is by design. This is a
planned result of the domestic propaganda war, and has been achieved
by stripping the language of terms and concepts that we can use to
make sense of every day experience.
Personally I find it useful to ignore all the strum and drang that
confronts me in the mainstream media (which at this point I almost
totally ignore), and the relentless hopeless handwringing and wild
mind fever I find on the internet, in favor of simpler constructs
that appeal to my basic observations about the nature of the humans
around me. I enjoy a little deliberate oversimplifying now and then
for the dissipating effect it has on brain fog, as long as it conforms
to observations made from experience.
A very useful observation for
me is to note how people relate to the idea of rape. The legal
definition of rape was devised by rapists, so I will ignore it. I
will follow the common understanding that rape has to do with someone
forcing themselves on another for the purposes of personal
gratification. I will also, by analogy, extend the definition to
include a rapist attitude toward any source of gratification.
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Over historical time, religious institutions have been taken over by rapists, and set to
serving their agenda.
That's why most religious traditions sanctify the rape of women
under the guise of male superiority and male control of women's
bodies and reproductive capacities, or even of children.
This same basic attitude of
condoning and enabling rape can be found in all powerful institutions,
because rapists inevitably come to control them.
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The
natural world is being raped.
Nations, such as Iraq, are being
raped. Helpless women, children and men are being raped everywhere
you look, but, in my experience only a small minority of people
display a rapist attitude. Most people, in their daily lives, are
quite decent towards each other. Most people in every part of the
world reject the idea of using force in their relationships to get
what they want. So how come there's so much rape, literally and figuratively?
The answer, I think, is that rapists are power addicts who have a
tremendous incentive to enable each other. Rapists are actually very
insecure people who do not believe in their innate ability to meet
their needs without the use of force. Like Willie Sutton's comment
about robbing banks, they rape because that is where they experience
the power that they inwardly lack.
Consequently, rapists have a
tremendous drive to slake their lust and bury their insecurities by
taking control. On a personal level, rapists take control from women or children, and on a societal level the same rapist mentality wants and takes control of institutions.
Over historical time, religious institutions have been taken over by rapists, and set to
serving their agenda.
That's why most religious traditions sanctify the rape of women
under the guise of male superiority and male control of women's
bodies and reproductive capacities, or even of children.
This same basic attitude of
condoning and enabling rape can be found in all powerful institutions,
because rapists inevitably come to control them. Consumers are raped
by corporations and financial institutions at the behest of their
directors. Prisons become a cacophony of rape. Torture, which is
less than useless as a means of gaining information, is a form of
rape and inevitably includes frank sexual rape in its bag of tricks.
It is done not for the information but for the kicks. And so forth.
This same attitude toward resolving urges and meeting needs through the
use of violence extends to every aspect of "civilized culture." The
rapist sees nothing wrong with destroying things. In fact, the
rapist is always insecure about the degree of control he is really
exerting over the objects of his desire; hence the insane idea
surfaces that you only own what you can destroy. Destruction itself
becomes a means of emotional release, and people, animals and other
"possessions" are destroyed merely to prove to one's deepest emotional
self that one is indeed a master and not a slave, a perpetrator and
therefore not a victim. It is practically a daily matter that we hear
about some jilted lover killing his object of desire, rather than giving
up the control the failing relationship represented. To the rapist,
whether he is a corporate CEO or some dumb jilted lover, other people are
objects to be used and discarded at will. Derrick Jensen explores this
concept most deeply and I highly recommend his latest work, Endgame,
for those wishing to pursue this idea further.
So, in a very over simplified but clarifying way, we can confront our
confusion by sorting out what events and stories signify the
expression of the rapist attitude, and which do not.
One of the
pitfalls in this analysis is that essentially all of us, leaving out
a few saints and fully actualized individuals, harbor some rapist
tendencies that we deny. If we were ever traumatized as children we
tend to harbor some sick impulses, and the desire to exert control over
others, by whatever means necessary, is a common symptom of childhood
emotional trauma. When we have this area of denial it leaves us
vulnerable to being manipulated by people dominated by their rapist
tendencies. We risk becoming useful as deluded tools in their rapist
acts.
Hidden even deeper in the denial systems of many people who
were maltreated as small children (a nearly uniform experience at one
level or another of children in some cultures) is a desire to be
raped for the sick emotional benefit that comes from being chosen by
the powerful as an object of desire and hence identified as something
of value.
Some would say war (or some other heralded problem) is the
most pressing problem we face. I would say that war is just the most
extreme form of rape. Climate destruction is rape of the earth.
Patriarchy is institutionalized rape of women. Great discrepancies
in personal wealth are in the service of rape. Fundamentalism is the
enabling of rape. Authoritarianism is the ideology of rape. And so
forth. Try to argue with me about this and I will not rape your mind and
force you to agree with me. I only seek to
persuade. Forced compliance has no allure for me. I only welcome
fully willing partners.
Now to try to get our "elected representatives" and chief executive
to stop raping the Constitution.
© by the author.
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