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Old 03-18-2008, 12:52 PM   #42
Marc Abrams
Dojo: Aikido Arts of Shin Budo Kai/ Bedford Hills, New York
Location: New York
Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 1,302
United_States
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Re: Very Disturbing news about Clint George

Jennifer:

I understand and agree with your point about women's rights in different cultures. We simply need to recognize that we view our lives from the cultural context in which we were raised. You and I do not agree about, or condone the arranged marriages of 13 y/o women, nor lack of real rights. That is OUR view point that represents OUR culture. Their are NO moral absolutes in how cultures assign worth to people, regardless of age or gender.

I do not take politically-correct stances when viewing people's actions when I am wearing the "hat" of psychologist. I look at behaviors from a perspective of trying to understand the variables/events that led to certain behaviors. The "seductive teen/child" defense and the "evil" creature offense fall within those realms in my opinion, and provide us with nothing towards coming to understandings that can help prevent future incidents, or even better, predict future incidents.

As a parent of a daughter and grandparent of a grand-daughter, I know where my thoughts and fantasies go when I project what I would want to do if someone harmed them in manners alleged. I strongly condemn these types of abuses and would want people REALLY punished. As a psychologist, coach, teacher, parent, grandparent..... I care about the well-being of those whom I have been entrusted to serve some role in which there is an inequity-power relationship. Wearing the "hat" of psychologist, I try and step back from those other roles and look at human behavior from a perspective that helps to gain understanding in order to make positive changes in helping people to function in healthier and more pro-social roles.

Robert Jay Lifton, M.D., wrote a book "The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide". This book is a remarkable example of a person removing moral judgments and examining the worst of human behavior in order to better help in our understanding of these types of behaviors. With a better understanding, should come better tools to identify and preventing future behaviors (unforutately, recent world history indicates that we are not learning from our mistakes). This model is the one that I am employing when I ask us all to step back from the moral and personal values that we are using to look at these allegations. I hope that we can continue to discuss this topic in a manner that continues to help us understand the behaviors better so that we can better protect ourselves, our children.....

Marc Abrams
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