The Path To Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions
December 27th, 2024
< Sorry for the weird introduction, this paragraph has been removed, I was previously vaguely alluding to something, that turned out to be wrong. It's irrelevant to the rest of the post though, which is why this blog post still stands. Thanks for understanding! >
But... the most likely reason is that this person holds viewpoints that scare me. There's many people who fit this category, too many that I've often forgotten the reason why I've blocked them (I oughta start using Akkoma's private notes features, to be honest). To which you all may be asking... what are these supposedly dangerous viewpoints? Well. It's the idea that there are certain groups who "deserve" certain kinds of abuse, punishment, outright death that other people do not deserve. I'm not talking about people who are in higher positions of power than all of us, I'm talking about lateral violence; violence against those who are just about as well off as any of us.
Let's give an example, I will provide a story of some fictional folks, to give you an idea of what I'm talking about.
Let's paint a picture.
Let's just imagine a certain type of person. Let's call this one Jane. This is someone who, for all intents and purposes, does not want to wish ill-will against anyone else. By all means, Jane is someone who actually supports her own community, actively contributing and helping others out. But... she has certain kinds of thoughts. They are not thoughts that she ever wishes to act upon, but they exist regardless. It's something that bothers Jane on a near-daily basis, thoughts that get to a point of actively harming their day-to-day life. Jane decides to talk to a therapist, and brings up all these concerning thoughts she has. When this is brought up, alongside her own past, the therapist points out this is definitely caused by abuse she's faced previously in her life. The therapist recommends a variety of ways to cope with dealing with these thoughts. One of these suggestions is to draw artworks that depict said actions. It's a form of catharsis, being able to let out these thoughts in ways that do not harm anyone.
Now, let's say Jane decides to publish their art. After all, part of the human experience is sharing your experiences, and this is to also offer this form of catharsis to people in a similar situation to her. The artist has some disclaimers saying they would never ennact any of this in the real world, and acknowledge that this behavior is very, very bad. Now, enter the picture: Luna. Luna is someone who has had a past plagued with trouble, she has found herself constantly surrounded by abusive people, looking to take advantage of her vulnerabilities. In the current day, she is not someone who typically puts up with anything even remotely related to this. She stumbles upon Jane's art, and is mortified. Despite all the disclaimers, she does not legitimately believe what Jane has to say about how she never wishes to ennact this in real life. Luna starts vague-posting about Jane, saying that this kind of artwork is "repulsive", something that is "dangerous to soceity". She never mentions Jane by name at first... but then the act drops.
Luna makes a lenghty callout-post on Jane, outing her artwork to everyone in her friendgroup. What happens next is a rapid deteoriation of the friend group, a few people stay, but many people leave for various reasons. Some leave because they take Luna's side whole-heartedly, and agree that this artwork is morally repugnant. Others leave because they don't know what to think, and just take the side of the most supporters. And some others leave to protect their reputation with friends; they very much disagree with Luna, but they need their support network, so they don't speak up.
In the end, Jane is left devastated. What was meant to help her cope with her thoughts ended up back-firing spectacularly, due to someone who doesn't know her past, nor what she truly believes in, chiming in and making everryone else believe a differently crafted narrative. She is left further traumatized, and will suffer life-long trust issues that may or may not ever get resolved. Luna, however, is left in better standing, having called out someone that society has deemed "dangerous", she has done a good deed in the eyes of many.
There are many other variations of this story that could've played out, but it ultimtately ends the same. Where does this story come from? It comes from my lived experiences, and many of my friend's lived experiences. It comes from many true stories of people, unfortunately, being ousted for things that are proven to reduce suffering in people who have intrusive thoughts, whether they're caused by past abuse or not. And the accusers often don't do it out of complete and utter malice, they do it because they've experienced this same kind of abuse. But instead of believing the story of someone who could've had an identical story to them, they choose to "expose" them in spectacular fashion, making it a big deal to "get rid of this dangerous individual".
They are two sides of the same coin. One chose to cope with fictional artwork, and decided to share it. The other has weaponized their abuse to fuel the fire of antagonistic anger towards the world for dealing them a shit deck of cards.
What do we conclude from this?
It's absolutely understandable to be enraged by the world around us. People like Luna exist not out of an intent to harm others, but out of an intent to try to protect others from the horrible life they faced. But that doesn't mean what they're doing aligns with their end-goals. What they end up doing is pushing people away, they end up stripping those who need a support network, people who, for all intents and purposes, have the same lived experiences as them.
This is why I'm writing this blog post. This has happened to me before. I've had my trust broken countless times by people, but the most damaging thing that's happened to me was people trying to strip me away of my support network, people trying to punish me for perceived thoughtcrimes I have. When the reality is, I'm just as beat up and broken inside as they are. And I'm scared shitless of it happening to me again, no matter how strong my current support network is, I'm always afraid that one day, it'll be ripped away from me.
As I said before, the story has many variants, there are Lunas who never actually faced serious abuse in their life, but they still act on the goodwill of "preventing harm", there are Janes who also never faced abuse in their life, but find the aesthetic of the art charming. There are Janes and Lunas who have paraphiliac attractions, one copes by making fictional art, the other copes by trying to stop others from existing. Once more, two sides of the same coin.
But it all ends the same, with someone getting hurt. And it's not to say there are perfectly innocent Janes out there either, far from it. Some Janes go too far and have their fictional art leak into the real world, that is to say, they end up doing harm. Some other Janes do end up promoting dangerous ideologies, whether by integrating themselves with groups that promote said ideologies, or by bolstering certain groups that promote abusive ideologies. In which case... yeah, it's hard not to oust them, since they legitimatley are being harmful. This is a whole topic in of itself that I don't wish to delve into though, since that's besides the point of this blog post, I just bring this up to say not every Jane is innocent.
It's just that, at the end of the day, the Lunas of the world are misdirecting their anger. Instead of targeting their ire at the people in power, those who are ultimately responsible for what came of them, and how they may have never gotten true justice for what happened... they target their ire at people on the same level as them. This is the aformentioned "lateral violence" I discussed earlier. This is where all my issues stem from, people who misdirect their firey laser and hurt some of their own kin.
There's not much more I can say, other than to exhibit some form of empathy for things you do not understand. Why is someone saying they're doing this, when they don't want to do this in the real world? Ask them. Talk to them. They'd be more than glad to fill you in, especially if you both share the same traumas. Who knows, maybe you'll also get a new coping method. Or maybe you'll just walk away with more understanding, and better compassion towards others in this painful society. There's too much pain and suffering out there, it's best to not contribute to it if you can help it.
