22
Aug
If I had to pick a favorite DS9 episode, I think it would have to be “Far Beyond the Stars”. It’s one of the few episodes in any of the series where Trek pulls back the veil, and tells the viewer point blank what Star Trek is about, and, I think, why its stories are so important. Trek is about hope. It’s about being better than we are.
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*** Why I think that that letter-writing guy is a red-flag douche *** tl;dr summary (2 paragraphs): This post begins with a comment I made in a discussion of this article [http://ift.tt/1DVPtwI] on my wife’s FB. I’m expanding it a bit here so that I can clarify my position on what the guy wrote, and how and why I think the letter is completely out of line. There’s a difference between being “honest” about a situation, and and being cruelly and abusively factual. This guy’s letter falls into the latter category. So, while I agree in a very limited way with people who are saying “I’d be glad to get this letter after a first date”, and cite that the guy is being honest, that’s not the reason why I’d be glad to get it – it’s because it’s fucking transparent and tells me what a complete shitheel the guy is, and allows some conclusions — which may be ultimately be incorrect, but I’m working from a single letter — to be drawn about his character. First, the guy’s writing show a pattern of praise statements followed by retractions and insulting statements. The buildup/teardown or praise/insult pattern of that guy’s writing is both a part of the pickup-artist/pimp culture (lookup books like “The Game”), and one of the fundamental foundations of a behavior pattern used to establish emotional control of another person. Unfortunately, a large number of people have accumulated the kind of damage that makes them susceptible to this crap. Also unfortunately, there is no shortage of people who are broken enough to exploit that damage. A similar approach to manipulation is also used as both an interrogation tactic and cult-indoctrination method suggests that this is not good behavior — it’s intended to create a power imbalance. The practice is intended to establish emotional control of a person by building them up, and then pulling the rug out from under them by giving them this “one thing” that they need to change for you, or the first tiny piece of information or cooperative behavior. …and then you asks for one more thing …and then another, ad nauseum, until the desired object is achieved. This is a kind of conditioning process and has a bunch of names which vary according to the context in which it’s applied, but what should be understood is the process creates and facilitates the continuation of an abusive dynamic in the relationship. Think about it as a game of “keep-away” or “Monkey in the Middle” where validation is kept just out of reach — and the closer the person in the middle gets, the harder they try — because until they quit, they can’t have failed. The pattern in this person’s letter is “you’re special, but broken” with a subtext of “if you fix this broken thing, I’ll accept you”. This is a shining an example of principle that allows emotionally abusive persons to create victim-dependence on them. It’s why abuse victims of all kinds become dependent on their abusers, and unwittingly and unwillingly compliant in their own abuse – because asking for help means admitting failure to ‘earn’ the validation of the abuser, it means admitting that they can’t have the thing that they’ve invested time, and energy in trying to get. Those random moments of validation and encouragement that show up can, given time, create an emotional hole somewhere between obsession and addiction. This is the trap. The author of the letter uses all kinds of distancing language when the author refers to himself – ‘I think your awesome, but my body doesn’t’; ‘honest — not shallow or cruel’ as way of ‘softening’ both his rejection and retracting his false-apology. He does this by relying on what, in practical terms, is a false dichotomy. The philosophical mind/body distinction is too finely diced to apply to daily life, where we are integral actors. But here, it seems the writer wants to make a claim that his ‘mind’ is culturally elevated, but that the mere material body is failing him — as if aesthetic judgments are formulated in the body alone. This also entails this weird notion that he’s a victim of his own body: “…but I have this awful feeling that when we got undressed my body would let me down”, which I shall paraphrase for you as “It’s not me, it’s my dick”. Horseshit. He’s avoiding responsibility for his feelings. This disingenuous little twerp can’t even carry his own fucking water. The letter also races to the social end-games of sex and marriage and tells her that these are currently unattainable goals, while implying that *if she changes for him* it’s a discussion that can be revisited — especially since he implies that he wants to remain friends. “See? I’m giving you a chance to change for me!” This is pushing some serious culturally conditioned buttons – fear of loneliness, fear of achieving cultural social milestones, the whole psychobiology of mating and all that enduring relationships entail. It’s just additional manifestations of manipulative behavior. The letter is full of self-praise when the author refers to himself and his feelings – his language is loaded with all sorts of pseudo-alpha male crap. The weird white-knighting of ‘I want to protect you from embarrassment when you fail to arouse me’, his pretense of an internal struggle in which some form of rationality and compassion lead him to ‘honesty’ and a sham of ‘self-awareness’. All of which culminates with this fucking gem at the end with such a massive bullshit density it’s nearly a Byronic black-hole of self-delusion: “I’m a man… With all the red hot lusts of a man and all the failings of a man and I’m sure of my own body and its needs.” Look at that statement for what’s really being said- ‘I’m more man than you deserve’, while making a false-confession to ‘failings’ and still using distancing language to separate the ‘real person’ from his body. Since I don’t particularly care to spare the guy’s feelings should he read this, I’ll say point blank that I read this guy as likely candidate to emotionally abuse any long term partner. He doesn’t want a relationship, he wants a hostage with rapid onset Stockholm Syndrome. →