Power Dynamics

[lisa123414]

Start talking about power and dynamics and you are going to give Lisa a woodie...

 

[bronzeage]

Today someone suggested I live a monastic life; I corrected them as they confused me with you. I told them, I'M NOT INTO LITTLE BOYS.

You would do well in a monastery. Your prison experiences would serve you well.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

You would do well in a monastery. Your prison experiences would serve you well.

You just gave me an idea for a story...thanks!

 

[bronzeage]

You just gave me an idea for a story...thanks!

We'll never see it.

 

[sr71plt]

I agree with the premise posted by the OP. I think the one least invested in the relationship is most leveraged in power over the other. That doesn't presuppose how they will use that leverage.

(I think Cosby was just making a self-deprecating joke--the kind he made a lot of money from.)

 

[bronzeage]

I agree with the premise posted by the OP. I think the one least invested in the relationship is most leveraged in power over the other. That doesn't presuppose how they will use that leverage.

(I think Cosby was just making a self-deprecating joke--the kind he made a lot of money from.)

Okay, you have power and leverage.

How is it used? What do you do with it?

 

[sr71plt]

Okay, you have power and leverage.

How is it used? What do you do with it?

That's a new issue (and I sort of posted that already, didn't I?) It's not covered by the OP.

 

[amicus]

What fascinates me in relationships is the concept of moral authority, the ability of one partner to assume a position of inherent righteousness or correctness.

In most modern American middle-class relationships (marriages, for example), most of the moral authority generally belongs to the woman. Middle-class American values include reverence for marriage, family, monogamous fidelity, sobriety, religiosity, and sexual conservatism. As Christopher Isherwood points out, all of these are basically feminine values.

Isherwood claims that these values didn't become prevalent until the rapid industrialization that followed the Civil War, when men went to work and left women in charge of the home. The home thus became a female bastion where feminine values prevailed, and have ever since.

Now that things are changing, many of these values are being challenged, but they're still potent enough to confer moral authority on those who uphold them, and make Tiger Woods look like a sleazeball.[/QUOTE]

~~~

I thought not to participate in this thread after reading it from the beginning, as few appreciate my usual obstinate insistence upon certain aspects of human behavior. However...Dr. Mab continues to make his point,.which is, essentially, that human behavior, ethics and morals are situational and are not rooted in any basic behavioral patterns of the species.

From the very first paragraph, Mab challenges anyone holding a concept concerning the innate 'rightness or wrongness' of any given human action.

Although the make-up of this forum is decidedly skewed towards non-belief, there is a healthy number of religious members who look upon moral issues as righteous and do make decisions involving the right or wrong of things.

I also challenged the concept: "...basically feminine values...", I suggest that the masculine gender was more instrumental in defining those values than was the feminine. I suppose JBJ offered the defining characteristic of a male/female relationship, in that power resides in the masculine. Anyone with a smidgeon of exposure to the roots of human civilization will immediately see the connection.

Mab also continually posits that the Industrial Revolution was responsible for instituting a new code of morality that did not exist before. I suggest that even before biblical times, that part of recorded history we can actually read about; and before, in view of the general, innate, and basically unchanging nature of the relationship between male and female, based on family, nurturing and safety, has remained essentialy the same.

I am fond of sweeping generalities as they permit one to address a large subject, but that does not mean one ignores the exceptions and there are many.

There are most likely as many different kinds of relationships as there are couples, but that still does not forbid one from attempting to understand the basic nature of man, sans emotion and bias, which I trust this commentary will be accepted as.

Amicus

 

[LaRocha]

Every culture has similar masculine and feminine values. The problem is when you start equating masculine and feminine values with man and woman traits.

Mothering children is a feminine value, over the last twenty years many men have come to represent this feminine value. They aren't feminized. Gender roles often reflect, "What's going to be most useful for our group situation."

To make man only this and woman only that doesn't benefit anyone. Overt acts of power vs. subvert acts of power is the story of man and woman in the last century. Women have new ways to protect themselves and their children from the fact of sexual dimorphism. Hasn't changed human physiology.

It's not a stretch agreeing with you that there are human universals. Most of them start in biology and slowly branch out to the guessing game of group behavior and morality. The problem is when anyone starts talking about morality based in the universal human condition you can't take them seriously. That's a realm even the lightweights in the social sciences fear to venture, the science isn't there.

 

[Brute_Force]

What fascinates me in relationships is the concept of moral authority, the ability of one partner to assume a position of inherent righteousness or correctness.

In most modern American middle-class relationships (marriages, for example), most of the moral authority generally belongs to the woman. Middle-class American values include reverence for marriage, family, monogamous fidelity, sobriety, religiosity, and sexual conservatism. As Christopher Isherwood points out, all of these are basically feminine values.

Isherwood claims that these values didn't become prevalent until the rapid industrialization that followed the Civil War, when men went to work and left women in charge of the home. The home thus became a female bastion where feminine values prevailed, and have ever since.

Now that things are changing, many of these values are being challenged, but they're still potent enough to confer moral authority on those who uphold them, and make Tiger Woods look like a sleazeball.[/QUOTE]

~~~

I thought not to participate in this thread after reading it from the beginning, as few appreciate my usual obstinate insistence upon certain aspects of human behavior. However...Dr. Mab continues to make his point,.which is, essentially, that human behavior, ethics and morals are situational and are not rooted in any basic behavioral patterns of the species.

From the very first paragraph, Mab challenges anyone holding a concept concerning the innate 'rightness or wrongness' of any given human action.

Although the make-up of this forum is decidedly skewed towards non-belief, there is a healthy number of religious members who look upon moral issues as righteous and do make decisions involving the right or wrong of things.

I also challenged the concept: "...basically feminine values...", I suggest that the masculine gender was more instrumental in defining those values than was the feminine. I suppose JBJ offered the defining characteristic of a male/female relationship, in that power resides in the masculine. Anyone with a smidgeon of exposure to the roots of human civilization will immediately see the connection.

Mab also continually posits that the Industrial Revolution was responsible for instituting a new code of morality that did not exist before. I suggest that even before biblical times, that part of recorded history we can actually read about; and before, in view of the general, innate, and basically unchanging nature of the relationship between male and female, based on family, nurturing and safety, has remained essentialy the same.

I am fond of sweeping generalities as they permit one to address a large subject, but that does not mean one ignores the exceptions and there are many.

There are most likely as many different kinds of relationships as there are couples, but that still does not forbid one from attempting to understand the basic nature of man, sans emotion and bias, which I trust this commentary will be accepted as.

Amicus

I don't buy your point of view. If you think "sweeping generalizations" are effective, then there's a problem. But, if you think they offer answers to life's big questions, then there's an even bigger problem. If we all relied on this kind of intellectual short-hand to guide us, we'd never have left the caves and would still be running around trying to preserve our fire sources and never even learn to speak.

This discussion was never intended to be a gender issue. I wasn't thinking in those terms. Power dynamics can be an issue in any relationship, male-male, female-female, or male-female. I'm not interested in the gender roles as much as I am in the issue of love and how it can alter the way people relate.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Every culture has similar masculine and feminine values. The problem is when you start equating masculine and feminine values with man and woman traits.

Mothering children is a feminine value, over the last twenty years many men have come to represent this feminine value. They aren't feminized. Gender roles often reflect, "What's going to be most useful for our group situation."

To make man only this and woman only that doesn't benefit anyone. Overt acts of power vs. subvert acts of power is the story of man and woman in the last century. Women have new ways to protect themselves and their children from the fact of sexual dimorphism. Hasn't changed human physiology.

It's not a stretch agreeing with you that there are human universals. Most of them start in biology and slowly branch out to the guessing game of group behavior and morality. The problem is when anyone starts talking about morality based in the universal human condition you can't take them seriously. That's a realm even the lightweights in the social sciences fear to venture, the science isn't there.

Dear Reader,

He's arguing the 2 Headed Snake Fallacy; that is, he saw a 2 headed snake in a magazine therefore all snakes have 2 heads or represent the majority of serpents.

 

[sr71plt]

I fail to see where man/woman are connected with the premise of the OP. Although I think that it's the one in the relationship who has the lesser committment to the relationship who is the one with the greater leverage in the relationship, I don't see a gender connection. I've seen both men and women in both leverage (which is power) relationships.

 

[Dragonlipz]

Dear Reader,

He's arguing the 2 Headed Snake Fallacy; that is, he saw a 2 headed snake in a magazine therefore all snakes have 2 heads or represent the majority of serpents.

The Times They Are A-Changin' lyrics

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.

 

[LaRocha]

It's a bit cheezeball posting Bob Dylan all over the place like no one has ever heard of him. Music has never had any real part in social change, BD would be the first to agree. If Pete Seeger wasn't already preaching to the choir he would have been hanged any number of times pre-commercialization.