Motivations Behind Rape

[Hope]

VF, my post was not a personal attack on you or your character. I apologize if it came across that way. Moral equivalency is not a new idea. We are told that if we hate in our heart we are guilty of murder. I don't think this means we have, physically, killed someone. I think what it does is point out a fundamental human flaw. We desire to avoid dealing with our own sins by comparing them with others'. So long as I am focussed on saying to myself..."well, I did horrible x but at least I didn't do awful y, therefore I am better or not as bad as him/her" I can't honestly see myself and my condition. Without that sight repentance is hampered or impossible. I have only covered up or diminished to myself my flaws.
The innate flaw, our selfishness, is obvious by how we as humans relate. We covet, damage, steal, lie...etc. The people of the Land did far less (if any) of these things. When Covenant sees what humans "should be" and when his basis of comparison is jerked out from under him, he changes.

[iQuestor]

VF, my post was not a personal attack on you or your character.

I really dont think it was taken that way at all. I think VF was just making a point.

[exnihilo]

I really like what Donaldson has to say about rape being a metaphor. But I don't think this is the same as saying that rape is morally equivalent to cheating on your taxes, even if you are metaphorically screwing the Federal government without permission and, by extension, the rest of us.

I'm not sure that the moral issues at stake can be adequately handled in a debate format either, because many of these issues are consequent of attitudes that are either primal or are formed at an age prior to the emergence of rationality. Society's attitude towards women and the role of men in protecting them certainly plays a role, but the role of human emotion is an organic reality not an abstraction. All we can say with certainty is that we are conditioned either by a combination of nature and nurture to have a certain attitude towards rape; it is possible that there could be wide differences between societies, just as it is equally possible that there certain universals that are more or less present in every society. Human fathers generally oppose violence done to their daughters, and I would surmise that this attitude extends to most blood relations, with a relatively direct relationship between kinship and the intensity of this protection.

This attitude has been abstracted out into the general case in our society (i.e., that rape is never permissible), but this doesn't seem to be universally true. Some societies seem to take an opportunistic view towards the rape of women outside of the kinship circle, and there are numerous historical examples to cite among our antecedent societies(take the Sabine rape for starters).

I think the horror we ascribe to rape is artificially heightened by what are still underlying repressive and puritanical attitudes towards sexaulity -- sex being viewed as animalistic, corrupting, and even inhuman. As an example, it is usually assumed that a molested child's life is ruined. However, most psychologists will tell you that this social stigma itself is the largest barrier to recovery for these children, not the act of molestation.

Rape too carries a stigma, and apart from the possible burden of pregnancy, for a generally well adjusted woman the heaviest price is not physical or even psychological, it is social. The stigma and taint of rape, and the patronizing label of victim, is another level of violence that continues well after the rape is over. Who is to blame for the consequences of this attitude? After laying the proximate cause at the feet of the rapist where it belongs, we can see that the attitudes society holds very greatly aggravate an already tragic situation.

Rape is a very bad thing. Is it morally equivalent to genocide or a sadistic murder? Does it matter if it is or isn't?

[Trapper]

IIRC it's called "Effort after Meaning" in Psychology.

SRD put in the Rape scene to make it harder for TC to accept the land as real.

Would you want to believe in a reality in which you were the worst type of monster?

If Covenant hadn't portrayed himself as the Unbeliever he would have had to answer to the stern back of Atiaran as she selflessy led him to Revelstone, denying her thirst for vengenance in a way that he must have felt mocked his un-belief. And so he strengthened it.

If he was to accept The Land as real he would have to accept her hatred.

The same theme was revisited in The Wounded Land. Only now he knew that the Shades of Atiaran, Trell, and Lena were real, or even if not, something he HAD to accept.

The whole point of the books to me is that if Covenant is to fight for The Land, he must first accept what he has done. And for good reason.

That in his 'real world' all he has done is contract leprosy is what makes the story particularly poignant.

"Leper, outcast unclean" is shown in sharp relief.

In his own world he is an unfortunate victim (of disease).

In the world the Creator wants him to fight for he feels some empathy with Foul. Hence his internal "how could you do it, you bastard?" dialogue with the Grey Slayer/Fangthane/Corruption. Who never answers.

It is only when he repudiates his own (self) Despite that he is able to win such a battle.

[wayfriend]

It is only when he repudiates his own (self) Despite that he is able to win such a battle.

I agree. But I like your angle on it.

And Donaldson himself has said:

... only a person who has truly experienced the consequences of his/her own destructive actions is qualified to evaluate--is, indeed, capable of evaluating--his/her future actions in order to make meaningful choices between destruction and preservation. Hile Troy is an interesting example. He's "innocent" in a way that Covenant is not: he's never done anything even remotely comparable to the rape of Lena. As a result, he's bloody dangerous. He literally doesn't know what he's doing: he hasn't learned the kind of humility that comes from meeting his own inner Despiser face-to-face. Therefore, in spite of all his good intentions, he makes decisions which bear an ineluctable resemblence to Kevin's.
(07/13/2004)

Which I take to mean generally the same thing: only some who has confronted their inner despiser could hope to defeat Foul.