{"id":29357,"date":"2010-10-01T13:11:07","date_gmt":"2010-10-01T18:11:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=29357"},"modified":"2010-10-01T16:55:44","modified_gmt":"2010-10-01T21:55:44","slug":"the-price-of-a-collective-loss-of-respect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/daily-astrology\/the-price-of-a-collective-loss-of-respect\/","title":{"rendered":"The Price of a Collective Loss of Respect"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor’s note:<\/strong> I was working on tying together some threads on the topic of LGBQT teen suicides when this comment on the post below came in from Fe Bongolan. I’m promoting it to its own post because it broadens the discussion succinctly on the point that the issues surrounding Tyler Clementi’s recent suicide (along with four other teens in September who identify as LGBQT in the US, two as young as 13, according to Democracy Now!<\/a>) are not just a matter of straight vs gay. – amanda<\/em><\/p>\n

Eric:<\/p>\n

I spent most of the day yesterday commenting on this diary by arodb<\/em> at Daily Kos on the Rutgers incident.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Read it and the comments, for I think they are quite compelling and synchronous to the Venus-Mars conjunction in Scorpio (and a little Sun-Saturn in Libra as well!), and totally supports what you have written.<\/p>\n

Here is a comment I made near the top of the thread:<\/strong><\/p>\n

We\u2019re watching a decline in valuing other people\u2019s sensitivities, and exchanging the value of one\u2019s privacy with that of what can you expose as entertainment with this technology we have at our disposal.<\/p>\n

I think arodb has a great point \u2014 this is an event worth \u201cfeeling\u201d in our consciousness. We may, as a society, have taken a wrong turn away from respecting each other, and instead have turned to bullying \u2014 as a way to belong.<\/p>\n

On an individual level and a societal one, we need to be very very wary. This signals to me a kind of social sickness. A moral decline.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

and here is a response to it by a blogger named phaktor:<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is a moral decline and a very serious one. It has happened to me. First, nobody is much qualified to talk about this unless it has happened to them. Those who are psychoanalyzing Tyler make me laugh, especially when they suggest it was the \u201couting\u201d that bothered him. It has nothing to do with that. It is the violation of personal privacy during our most vulnerable moments. There is no way most people can understand the experience. Their opinions are empty intellectualizations. The suicidal reaction is intense and almost automatic for anyone with normal sensibilities. This is not the same as performance or someone knowing when they are observed. It is a terror beyond comprehension because the person did not know they were observed and had no opportunity to conceal what an actor or exhibitionist would be able to conceal. It\u2019s not \u201creality tv\u201d.<\/p>\n

If you can make it through the first few days you will have to develop a strength of character which most mere mortals will never comprehend \u2014 including those who did it to you.<\/p>\n

It will be a shame if this becomes a gay\/straight thing with gays claiming the high road and the victim status; because the people who did it to me, and most of those who participated in the festivities afterward, were gay. This is not something straights dreamed up to do to gays. It is something self-centered, callous people do who have either not considered the pain which it inflicts or who don\u2019t care. It is, like arodb reflects, a serious issue about our fundamental respect for the human rights of others as a society.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The commenter Fe quotes describes an incident of gays bullying one of their own, making the lack of support services for LGBQT students on college campuses that much more glaring. According to an interview on NPR this morning with Sue Rankin<\/a>, associate professor of education at Penn State, only 7%<\/strong> of higher education campuses in the US have visible support services for these students; many who are out in high school go back in the closet in college because they fear an un-supportive roommate.<\/p>\n

But as phaktor says, “This is not something straights dreamed up to do to gays. It is something self-centered, callous people do who have either not considered the pain which it inflicts or who don\u2019t care.” With the prevalence of online bullying growing among many age groups (from middle schoolers to college students, who may attack professors as well as peers, to adult coworkers), this points to a lapse in the development of empathy and the need for support and awareness at all levels.<\/p>\n

Eric has noted before that our technology has outpaced our understanding, and now we see more evidence that our use of it is outpacing our respect and empathy for each other — in addition to our notions of ‘privacy’ as he investigates in today’s issue. We’ve had bullying for eons; it’s just easier now. The sooner we can get past the illusion of remove and anonymity online, the sooner we can start to see only ‘us’, and understand the pain we can cause others is our own.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor’s note: I was working on tying together some threads on the topic of LGBQT teen suicides when this comment on the post below came in from Fe Bongolan. I’m promoting it to its own post because it broadens the discussion succinctly on the point that the issues surrounding Tyler Clementi’s recent suicide (along with … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":191,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29357"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/191"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29357\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}