I owe Carol Costello for this one, which she unveiled today while explaining why it was unfair to criticize Janay Palmer for marrying Ray Rice, the pro football star who punched her lights out in a hotel elevator when they were engaged. “It’s complicated,” Carol said, as her entire argument, as if this settled the issue. My rationalization alarm immediately began clanging. Then I thought about all the other times I have heard that explanation used to avoid accountability or blame for wrongful action. Thus Ethics Alarms will add to its useful and always growing Rationalizations List…
45. The Abuser’s License: “It’s Complicated”
Costello later noted that the decision to stay with a potentially deadly partner was related to the emotion of love, as if love deserves an ethics pass that other emotions do not qualify for. In this context, “It’s complicated” is a matched set with #23. Woody’s Excuse: “The heart wants what the heart wants.”
Love does not get a pass, or warrant one. Love is one of the most powerful of the non-ethical consideration magnets that stop ethics alarm clappers from moving when they should, and the sentimental, warm and fuzzy tradition of excusing harmful, irresponsible, clearly wrongful conduct because it might have been motivated by love is a rejection of ethics in favor of romance. Love is not the most benign of impediments to sound ethical reasoning, but rather one of the most insidious. Some of the worst crimes in human history have been rationalized by lovers. If the the coded meaning of “It’s complicated” is “it’s love, and we can never plumb the mysteries of the heart!”, the sentiment should be received with exactly the same contempt as “It’s greed,” It’s hate,” or “It’s revenge.”
Fine: Ray Rice’s fiancée will allow him to escape accountability for criminally assaulting her, thus putting herself and other women in mortal peril as well as encouraging similarly irresponsible and reckless conduct from similarly deluded and vulnerable women. It may be complicated, but it’s still wrong. If we don’t criticize people who do obviously wrongful, self-destructive, anti-social things, like marrying domestic abusers and allowing them to avoid the consequences of their actions, then such conduct appears to be acceptable in the eyes of society.
“It’s complicated” has broader uses, however. The implication is that “yes, this looks bad, but if you knew all of the details, history and considerations, you would understand.” The meaning, however, is simpler still: “This was a difficult decision, so we shouldn’t judge it.”
Of course we should.
Ethics decisions are often difficult and complex; if they are easy, then there is seldom a problem. Complexity doesn’t change the nature of right and wrong. When an ethical dilemma or conflict is complicated, that is when special care, thought and analysis is mandatory. When the wrong resolution is chosen, the fact that the issue was complex is irrelevant to the fact that the final decision was unethical. If it was unethical, it is important to say so, to make certain that nobody labors under the misconception that it was the right thing to do when they face similar decisions.
“It’s complicated” is also lazy. Let’s tackle the complicated ethical issues, dive into them, and solve them. Abortion is complicated; capital punishment is complicated; the Israel- Palestinian problem is complicated; illegal immigration policy is complicated; euthanasia is complicated; the proper use of U.S. power in the world is complicated. Complexity doesn’t relieve us of the responsibility of seeking the right approach to these matters. “It’s complicated” is an ethics cop-out.
The irony is that the decision of Janay Palmer to let her abuser avoid appropriate legal consequences and trivialize his conduct toward her by endorsing a dangerous social pathology and marrying Ray Rice isn’t all that complicated.
It is just wrong.
Ethics Alarms 
Good call, and good explanation of yet another unethical rationalization.
“Love is one of the most powerful of the non-ethical consideration magnets that stop ethics alarm clappers from moving when they should,…”
I don’t know why, but that got me to giggling. Maybe it was your use of “clappers.”
“Love is not the most benign of impediments to sound ethical reasoning, but rather one of the most insidious.”
That had me nodding my head right away, being such a romantic. (HAH!)
I am still giggling every time, years after first reading it, after being reminded of the aptly named (in more than one context!) “Woody’s Excuse.” Not complicated at all!
I thought you and texagg04 had reached agreement that the Israel-Palestinian problem is NOT terribly complicated.
“Crimes of passion” are still complicated, though, at least in the legal if not also in the ethical sense – right?
“I thought you and texagg04 had reached agreement that the Israel-Palestinian problem is NOT terribly complicated.”
Huh?
Maybe it was only the Israel-Hamas conflict that is not complicated. Gad, it’s too complicated, trying to keep up with what is and isn’t complicated.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/09/whyistayed-twitter-domestic-violence_n_5790320.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000063
Just some notes: Rice has already been sentenced for his criminal assault. He was sent to a diversion program, with counseling, exactly in line with other first time offenders with good lawyers.
I know we crave simple answers to things, but sometimes that simple answer just isn’t there. Domestic violence, as implied by the name, isn’t just some stranger jumping out the bushes and attacking you. This person has deeply intertwined their life with yours. You share a home, bank accounts, children, etc. And the violence rarely happens at the outset of the relationship. An abuser targets “givers” in relationships, those who are used to giving more than they receive. An abused person often comes from a background of abuse, where such things are “normal” to them, and they have no first-hand experience with relationships being any other way. The abuser fills the abused person with shame, guilt, and implies that if they leave no one else will want them, that they brought the abuse on themselves.
An abuser will carefully isolate their victim from any family and friends that might question the relationship. They will withhold money, and make it very difficult for the abused person to hold a job, thus becoming increasingly dependent on the abuser, making it difficult to leave. An abuser will threaten pets and children if the abused person leaves them (and quite frequently follow through on those threats).
The most likely stage that an abused person will be murdered is when they actually follow through and leave their abuser. It *is* complicated, though as you have noted, that doesn’t excuse us from trying to tackle the problem.
I’ve handled these cases. If the abused individual presses charges, the usual result is jail time, first offense or not. And a restraining order is also a good idea.
From a Q and A by a firm handling these cases:
Q: What is the penalty for a domestic violence crime?
A: The penalty for a domestic violence crime depends on many factors, including the laws of the jurisdiction, the severity of the act, whether previous offenses have occurred and whether the victim was injured. First-time offenders are usually placed on probation, required to serve a few days in custody, perform community service or complete a counseling program. However, many jurisdictions have begun aggressively prosecuting domestic violence crimes and a prosecutor may seek jail time even for first offenses without serious injury.
Your life is entwined with an abuser, a child molester, a sadist, an addict, a terrorist, a rapist, a serial killer or a monster? Unentwine it. Yeah, it’s tough. It’s also obvious.
I’m not sure what the bolded quote is for. It even says that counseling is in the range of normal for first time offenses, though some jurisdictions are taking a harder tack. A first time offender, a good lawyer, and a woman who quite possibly doesn’t even remember what happened, and who has a child with, and now married the accused adds up to probation and a diversionary program. Unfortunately.
Your life is entwined with an abuser, a child molester, a sadist, an addict, a terrorist, a rapist, a serial killer or a monster? Unentwine it. Yeah, it’s tough. It’s also obvious.
Tough. Obvious. And complicated. It’s like escaping from a cult, it is easier said than done. And as indicated, it can have very deadly consequences. I like the idea of restraining orders, but for any abuser with real intent, it isn’t going to stop them, even a little bit, and in fact may incense them further.
Once an abuser has intertwined their life with the abused person’s, it is very difficult to “unentwine” it. As I’ve said, abusive relationships tend to follow the same template of isolation, financial dependence, threats, and blows to self-worth. Abusers think nothing of blackmailing a person to stay in the relationship, threatening to release damaging information and/or compromising pictures and/or confidences of the abused person.
The abused person is carefully picked and groomed by the abuser. The abused person’s resources are often limited to nonexistent. Their livelihood is threatened, their children’s well being is threatened if they stay or if they go (homeless shelters/foster care are often quite dangerous for kids as well), they don’t have anyone in their lives to turn to, and their every move is carefully monitored by their abuser. To leave is obvious, but there are complicated reasons why it does not happen. The abused person must carefully weigh a bunch of scenarios, apply a cost-benefit analysis to each, gather resources, and cover their tracks. All the while often not being in a psychological position to do so in a healthy way.
I’ve informally checked with two current prosecutors. Any man of that size who hits a woman so hard that she is knocked cold will be sentenced to some jail time, often even when the victim refuses to file a complaint, if there is evidence. It’s a serious crime of violence. I don’t know where you get the idea that most first offenders get off…not when they are this large, and the victim is unconscious. The key point of the bolded section is “severity of the act.”
I agree that Rice should have done some jail time, but considering that the prosecutor in this case did have the evidence, yet Rice still got off, I would say that your prosecutor buddies are in error.
I doubt it. They had the video, and if she had not said that she would not cooperate, there would be no justification for offering him a deal. They could get around the celebrity factor, but not both. Non celeb, video, non-victim cooperation: trial, no deal. Celeb, video, victim cooperation: trial, no deal. Celeb, video, no victim cooperation: deal.
And that’s what happened.
Any man of that size who hits a woman so hard that she is knocked cold will be sentenced to some jail time, often even when the victim refuses to file a complaint, if there is evidence.
Like I said. Obviously not. Factor in expensive lawyer who can work the system in there too. Affluenza.
Though given the outrage now, I’m sure the prosecutor would love to have a do-over like the NFL is attempting in this case.
The irony is that the decision of Janay Palmer to let her abuser avoid appropriate legal consequences and trivialize his conduct toward her by endorsing a dangerous social pathology and marrying Ray Rice isn’t all that complicated.
It is just wrong.
****************
I’m waiting for the comment you know is coming, “it’s a black thing and you don’t understand it”. @@
He’ll wind up killing her (or almost) and she’ll be held up as a martyr for the cause.
Nicole Brown Simpson died 20 years ago and women still haven’t smartened up.
This isn’t the 50s where cops figured if a wife was beaten she probably deserved it.
Today there is a variety of help available and all you need is the desire to get out of a violent situation.
Love, Schmove.
We all know the reasons why she married him and that isn’t one of them.
Nicole Simpson is actually a good example. She had left OJ. It didn’t save her.
Sometimes the solutions just aren’t that neat, and just aren’t that simple. I wish it were otherwise.
So what? Are you saying she shouldn’t have LEFT him because he gutted her? She might have been hit by a truck or gotten ebola, too. Leaving was still the right thing—you are verging on the consequentialism fallacy
Nope, just saying that leaving is not the cure-all that some are touting it as. The abuse doesn’t stop just because tries to leave, or actually succeeds in leaving. In many cases it increases. As I noted earlier, the most dangerous time for a woman is when she has left her abuser. She is far more likely to be murdered then than any other time in the relationship. I am trying to give a window into the mindset of an abused person, and to answer those who wave their hands airily and go, “why doesn’t she just leave?” There are a lot of different factors in why an abused person doesn’t just pull up and go, and a lot of different things that have to be taken into account. It isn’t simple, it is indeed the dreaded, “complicated.”
Click to access 50%20Reasons%20Why%20Victims%20Stay.pdf
Some reasons why abused people stay, 1-50.
Thank you for addressing this, another great post, Jack. I have really tired of the tendency of people to rationalize women’s behavior, including crimes, with this type of phrase-
“It’s complicated”
“Maybe we don’t have all the facts”
“You don’t know what was in her past to make her react that way”
“Maybe she was abused”
“We have no right to judge”
and on and on and on. When men make a mistake of commit a crime, peoples’ comments are often vicious, with guilt assumed from the outset, and cracks about ‘Bubba taking care of it’ in prison are par for the course; for women the pity party and excuse-making starts. It’s been a staple of many, many all-female conversations over the decades and I find it supremely aggravating.
deery, Ms. Palmer could have at least postponed the wedding, if not break off the engagement. A video of you being punched and dragged out of an elevator on the news is pretty public, unlike many womens’ abuse that goes on behind closed doors. She had millions of ‘witnesses’, it was all out in the open, to break up with him then would have been ideal, the break up would have been equally publicized and help easy to get.
I agree with everything Deery said here. Another note though — women who are in domestic abuse situations are mentally impaired (at least while with their abusers). They don’t act the way you and I would act because their minds have been damaged.
Beth
Would you say that men that abuse women should be given a pass as well because their minds have been warped as well? I won’t. Would you allow a woman to slap, kick or punch or throw things at a man because she wants her way? I won’t. Yes, most men are bigger and stronger than most women and more severe physical injuries are experienced by women; but not all. Men are no more inherently violent than women unless they have been conditioned to be so. Therefore, it is improper to grant one a pass and not the other for the mental state that results in a given behavior. One final point, if women are “mentally impaired while with their abuser” as you state then they had an opportunity at the first event to avoid becoming psychologically impaired – you cannot claim a pattern of abuse and fear from the one event. I can easily argue that failure to leave an abusive relationship reinforces in the mind of the abusers that he or she can get away with it and not have to change his or her own behavior.
Deery wants to give us a window into the mind of the abused with her rationalizations for why the abused stay in such relationships. If we are to look through this window we should look both ways to see why the abuser does what he or she behaves if we want to create policy that reduces the level of violence. Otherwise, we will not move any closer to a solution. I am not seeking to blame, I am seeking to understand first.
Elevating the abused as a symbol of absolute virtue, – without any examination of the abused’s behavior will reinforce the abused’s desire to stay in such toxic relationships.
Women are actually more likely to hit, more likely to hit first, and more likely to hit children, according to CDC surveys. Stephan Moleneux (Canadian Philosopher and host of Freedomain Radio) gave this awesome speech in Detroit about women abusing boys during their formative years. It’s funny you point out conditioning, because he made the point that the average number of times the average woman hits her child is something like 700 times annually, as young as 8 months, during the formative years, up to maturity, and then wonder why their children might have animosity towards them.
But not everything that comes out of Canada is good. I want to apologize for Jim Carrey, Celine Dion, and Elizabeth Sheehy. Sheehy, who you probably have not heard of, is making the legal argument that you alluded to. (That battered women should be allowed to kill their abusers) in her relatively new book “Defending Battered Women on Trial”, which if you can hold your bile down, is an interesting read, if you approach it from the perspective of an exercise in spin. I think my favorite was the chapter about the ‘serially battered woman’ who was with her new batterer for only 5 days, and stabbed him in the heart when she found out that he had put her belongings, which she hadn’t told him she’d be bringing over, on his front yard. This is an example of the BEST cases Elizabeth found to make her point.
Here’s why it’s complicated. My husband and I have been married for over a decade and we have two kids together. He has never hit me. If he hauled off and smacked me today, I don’t think I would call the police. I would assume that something obviously must be wrong with him. Does he need counseling? Has some sort of medical episode happened, etc? What if months went by with our lives back to normal and then it suddenly happened again? Should I try to fix this or do I simply leave? I imagine, for a lot of women, that this is how the dangerous cycle of abuse starts.
It’s easy for a woman to stop dating a guy on the first date (or the tenth for that matter) if the violent streak shows up earlier, but once lives are intertwined, it becomes much harder. And this begins to program women to think that they can fix it, he really loves her, he really loves the kids, it would be bad for the kids to leave him, etc. Their minds become rewired so they don’t think as clearly as the woman out on a first date with an obvious asshole who she never has to see again.
As for women hitting men, I think stats show that this happens all the time. Men often aren’t seen as victims though because they don’t end up in emergency rooms as much. For e.g., I could try and hurt my husband, but if I was only using my fists, I would do little damage. If he decided to hurt me only using his fists, I could end up dead. That’s just the result of muscle mass and overall size and height. (My brother illustrated this point to me recently by holding my hands and then beginning to hit me –lightly– using my own hands. He told me to resist and fight back but I couldn’t stop it from happening because of his strength.)
I never once suggested that abused women should be symbols of absolute virtue, but the argument always, ALWAYS, turns to what the women should do. Instead, the focus should remain on those doing the violence in the first place. Maybe domestic abusers (male and female) are mentally deranged. But then that leads one down the path of examining whether all crimes are caused by mental illness. I don’t think so — I think some people are just assholes. And it’s not for me to tell an abused woman X,Y, and Z to fix her life, because her brain is not going to process the information the same way a non-abused woman would. Just like I wouldn’t tell a child with a broken leg to go play soccer. He wouldn’t be able to do it.
You know…. It’s funny. The way I perceive a lot of feminist arguments about sexual dimorphism is that they either believe that gender is a social construct, or that the differences between men and women only exist between groin and neck. “Women can do everything men can do!” “Women can be anything!” “Women are just as good at everything as men:”
And then something this comes up, and women get rewired in ways that men can’t possibly understand. Because vagina. So. Beth… Do you believe that women are every bit as capable as men, or do you think they need special treatment? I think that they’re just as capable, for the record, and that’s why I just can’t give Janay a free pass here. She attacked him, first, which doesn’t mitigate what Ray did, but highlights behavioral patterns, and then she married him.
It’s interesting watching from the outside as to which situations it’s OK to blame the victim, and where it isn’t. And it seems to me, that the line is drawn according to the physical damage done. Things like physical abuse, rape or murder is treated differently than something mental or financial. And I disagree with that line. The damage done is irrelevant when assigning blame, what matters are the choices that led up to that damage, and in situations like this, there doesn’t need to be a single guilty party, in fact, I doubt that very often there is.
The average woman isn’t as strong as the average man. So if the average man and the average woman get into a fistfight, the woman is going to lose. And it has noting to do with “vagina” it has to do with muscle mass. When you change the scenario to male football player and a woman, or hell, a football player and any other man who is not a professional athlete, the result would be the same. Your argument is just … well … stupid.
“So if the average man and the average woman get into a fistfight, the woman is going to lose.”
Right. So it’s a cripplingly stupid thing to start, isn’t it? It absolutely boils down to vagina. “You’re stronger than me, so not only should you not hit me, when you hit me, it should be more serious than when I hit you, even if I hit you first.” somehow reminds me of when my generation was going through school, and we were told “boys can’t hit girls” (which thankfully has morphed into “don’t hit” like it should have always been). This rule, I think, contributed to a generation of women who feel entitled to safety, despite acting like trolls. Men know better than to mess with men (generally), because we’ll hit eachother back, and men know better than to mess with women (generally), because society will hit them back, But women don’t know not to hit. They hit first, more often, to more groups, and are held less accountable. It’s wrong.
I’m never going to say that Janay wasn’t a victim in this situation, or that Ray shouldn’t have faced jail time, but I’m not going to give Janay a pass. She hit, she hit first, she hit someone bigger than her, it was stupid, she should be charged with battery. Because she did.
Excessive force. If a child slapped you, would it be OK to kick his teeth out? Yes, initiating violence isn’t nothing. And a man, especially a celebrity, can’t report domestic abuse without being publicly humiliated.
Still, Rice, especially Rice, was at no risk. He has the strength to restrain her. Punching her is off the charts—no excuse. At all.
And I would never suggest otherwise, he committed an assault, and a more serious one than Janay did. But she still committed an assault. The video is out now, she spat on him, punched him, he pushed her away, and she came at him again.
So when I see Beth say something like: “I never once suggested that abused women should be symbols of absolute virtue, but the argument always, ALWAYS, turns to what the women should do.” I can’t help but say, well…. Yeah. She DID provoke him, it was stupid. He shouldn’t have hit her, he should be charged. But you’re giving a pass on her assault. She should not have spit on and then hit him. She’s only the victim in this situation because more harm was done to her. If Ray hadn’t swung back, we would label him the victim, although I doubt we’d be talking about it. So in this case, they were both actually victims, but because of the severity of the damage done, Rice is taking all the blame. I don’t think that’s right.
Huh? Rice is the pro football player and the celebrity, not his wife. He gets the blame because he’s the role model, and he’s also big enough to kill her with one punch, and he nearly did. Can’t justify that, no way, no how. We covered the issue of provocation with the Stephen Smith-ESPN flap. Sure—she’s at fault for staying with an abuser; she’s at fault for minimizing and excusing his conduct, she’s at fault for initiating violence, she’s made choices that led to her plight. Who is denying that? It doesn’t change the player’s obligations or accountability in any way, and the NFL has no jurisdiction over her.
I’m not justifying what he did. I’d love for you to quote me where I did, because I feel like you’re putting words in my mouth.
Provocation is not justification. Being the wife of a celebrity football player is not carte blanche to get away with violence. This is a situation in where both parties can be (and I think are) wrong. And so while I think it’s more than appropriate for Ray to be held accountable, I think this narrative where Janay is the only victim is toxic. It reinforces the idea that women can hit men with impunity.
And I just found out that the judiciary apparently agrees with me, because Janay is also up on assault charges.
I said his actions aren’t justifiable. Where did I say you used the word? I didn’t—but harping on the provocation is the same thing: you are either claiming self-defense, which is by definition a justification, or you aren’t. If you aren’t, then he’s no victim.
Women obviously can’t hit men with impunity, now, can they? 1) They might get hit back 2) Their meal ticket might end up losing his livelihood because he did. The “men can never hit a woman, ever” stuff is obviously where you have a hang-up. Yes, that’s crap, and anti-femninist crap. If this is the woman,
or this…
or THIS…
who is attacking you, whale away, and good luck. No jury will convict you, I promise.
“but harping on the provocation is the same thing: you are either claiming self-defense, which is by definition a justification, or you aren’t. If you aren’t, then he’s no victim.”
I reject that as a false dichotomy. Because if that’s the choice, women CAN hit met with impunity, because you are removing Ray’s ability to be a victim on the basis of relative size. Or perhaps you just made a logical argument that he was, in fact, acting in self defense, but the self defense used was excessive.
“Women obviously can’t hit men with impunity, now, can they?”
Absolutely. When called to reports of domestic disturbance, there are states that require the more intimidating (which has translated to male) person into custody. Women are less likely to be reported, less likely to be arrested, less likely to be convicted and if convicted serve less jail time than men do for the same charges. I wrote a paper on the phenomenon in college, and given a little time, could cite references.
I’ve already said that the force was excessive, and excessive force makes it a whole new ball game. When they indict Officer Wilson for killing Mike Brown, the fact that Brown may have resisted arrest will be irrelevant if deadly force wasn’t called for. A football player need not hit a normal woman at all to defend himself.
You aren’t listening.
1. She got cold cocked—that’s not impunity. Just because the law may punish a response to violence doesn’t mean the violence has no risks. You need to look up “impunity.”
2. “you are removing Ray’s ability to be a victim on the basis of relative size.” Damn right I am. He has the same options anyone else facing domestic abuse has, but better. She can’t hurt him unless he allows it, or uses a weapon. He is trained to BLOCK people, you know.
“I’ve already said that the force was excessive, and excessive force makes it a whole new ball game. When they indict Officer Wilson for killing Mike Brown, the fact that Brown may have resisted arrest will be irrelevant if deadly force wasn’t called for.”
No it doesn’t. And apples and oranges. If Brown resisted arrest, he resisted arrest, if he had been shot only in the arm, and had lived, he would (and should) be charged with resisting arrest. But he’s dead, and therefore cannot be charged. You know this. Criminal law is not a zero sum game.
“She got cold cocked—that’s not impunity.”
Relative impunity then. Maybe I’m using the wrong word. But we exist in a system where violence against women is seen as one of the worst crimes there is, and violence against men is relatively acceptable and generally swept under the rug. This case isn’t the best example, because the violence was so different in scale, but it is an example. If Ray had not cold cocked her back, would anything otherwise have happened? I don’t think so.
““you are removing Ray’s ability to be a victim on the basis of relative size.” Damn right I am. He has the same options anyone else facing domestic abuse has, but better. She can’t hurt him unless he allows it, or uses a weapon. He is trained to BLOCK people, you know.”
I just don’t get this mindset. It gives carte blanche for people to commit violence against other people, so long as they’re ineffective at it. That fails every ethical and legal test I can think of. Who cares if he can block? She shouldn’t be hitting him, she shouldn’t spit on him. I’ll repeat what I said earlier:
“the legality of what Janay did does not change based on his reaction. At the time she hit him, before he hit her, what she did was either legal or not. It wasn’t. And then when he hit her, despite her having hit him first, his hit was either legal or not, and it wasn’t.”
“I just don’t get this mindset. It gives carte blanche for people to commit violence against other people, so long as they’re ineffective at it.”
How?
It may give carte blanche for people to commit violence against other people, so long as they know the person they are targeting will respond with excessive force. But that is a wild exception to the scenario.
The people committing violence can still be dealt with in other ways if the target of their violence can return an OVERWHELMING violence to an unnecessary degree given the situation. If Janay had brought some sort of lethal force against Ray, then Ray cold-cocking her would have been completely, completely justified. But that isn’t what happened.
HT: “I just don’t get this mindset. It gives carte blanche for people to commit violence against other people, so long as they’re ineffective at it.”
Tex: “How?”
HT: ““you are removing Ray’s ability to be a victim on the basis of relative size.”
Jack: Damn right I am. He has the same options anyone else facing domestic abuse has, but better. She can’t hurt him unless he allows it, or uses a weapon. He is trained to BLOCK people, you know.”
What Jack is saying is that Janay couldn’t have assaulted Ray because Ray can’t be the victim of Janay’s assault, because he is bigger than her and trained to be physical. That gives Janay carte blanche to assault Ray.
The legal term isn’t actually assault, the test for assault is fear, and I don’t think Ray was in any state of fear, the legal term we should really be using is battery, because the test for battery is unwanted physical contact. Neither of those tests require damage, damage affects the severity of sentencing, not if a crime has been committed.
What Jack is saying does not seem to me to pass the reciprocity or universality tests for ethics, although I admit I’m not an expert, and does not pass legal muster.
Sorry for the double reply, but I thought I should answer your question:
“Sure—she’s at fault for staying with an abuser; she’s at fault for minimizing and excusing his conduct, she’s at fault for initiating violence, she’s made choices that led to her plight. Who is denying that?”
Everyone who is referring to Ray as the abuser, and nothing else, and Janay as the victim, and nothing else. They abused each other, and they were both victims, I’ll give you that Janay was more seriously abused, and Ray much less so, but painting Janay into the victim archetype removes her responsibility. She does bear an amount of fault in this situation, so she could have done things differently.
Beth said, “Instead, the focus should remain on those doing the violence in the first place.” She meant Ray, and I’m not sure whether she knew that Janay struck first, or whether she was ignoring it, but I can’t think of a better example of my point.
Ugh. He could have killed her, HT—he’s lucky he didn’t. Pure Moral Luck. That’s abuse.
But that doesn’t change the fact that she hit him and hit him first. We have to look at the two acts of violence separately, because the legality of what Janay did does not change based on his reaction. At the time she hit him, before he hit her, what she did was either legal or not. It wasn’t. And then when he hit her, despite her having hit him first, his hit was either legal or not, and it wasn’t.
You are deliberately being obtuse on this. If I hit my husband, he would have several options. One, call the police. Two, restrain me. Or three, leave me. One of the options I didn’t list was hit me back and here’s why. If I hit him, yes, I am committing a crime. What I wouldn’t be doing is hurting him unless I was extremely lucky — and wielding a frying pan. He could restrain me without doing any harm to himself or me. But, what he can’t do is hit me, because if he decided to do that, he could seriously injure me. If he were a pro football player, he could even kill me.
What you are attempting to talk about (I think) is self-defense even though you keep labeling as provocation. Self-defense always has to be proportional/justified or that person will/should go to prison.
Bingo three ways.
“What you are attempting to talk about (I think) is self-defense even though you keep labeling as provocation. Self-defense always has to be proportional/justified or that person will/should go to prison.”
No. A million times no. I have never said that Rice was anything less then entirely responsible for the assault he committed. Rice is irrelevant to what I’m saying. He’s a monster. Move past that. It wasn’t self defense. The provocation is irrelevant to whether or not Rice committed an assault.
But the provocation WAS an assault. Those things aren’t mutually exclusive. I’m saying that Janay isn’t an innocent victim. She’s a victim, and an abuser. They aren’t mutually exclusive. She committed an assault, and had she not committed an assault, the situation could have been different, and so she bears an amount of responsibility for her own fate. And so while Ray is 100% culpable for his actions, Janay is 100% culpable for hers.
I think that you hang-up is treating this series of crimes as a single crime, so I’m going to try to explain it differently. Think of it like each crime has 100 points of blame to allocate, I think the disconnect the idea is that giving any of those 100 blame points to Janay somehow reduces Ray’s culpability. It would, but that’s not what I’m doing. There were at least two separate crimes here, with their own individual blame point scores, and those crimes are of vastly different degrees, Ray owns all 100 Blame points for his assault, but Janay owns all 100 for hers.
Such an analysis only ever applies in civil law Humble, not criminal. She bears no responsibility for getting cold-cocked. She DOES bear responsibility for: 1) staying in an abusive situation; and 2) hitting her husband. The latter act probably wouldn’t be prosecuted unless she was able to hurt him. I doubt she did.
EXACTLY! HALLELUJA!
People shouldn’t hit people! I don’t care how big you are, what gender you are, the relative size of the people involved, whether lasting damage was done, what training they had, whether or not the force was deadly or not, the color of the people’s skin, who they call god or how their farts smell.
People should not hit people. And if someone hits someone else, they should be held accountable. Ray should be held accountable. Janay should be held accountable. It makes sense that Ray be held more accountable, because his attack was more serious, but that doesn’t mitigate in any way shape or form Janay’s distinct crime.
So why all your discussion of provocation?
I think the hang up was assuming that ‘he was provoked’ mitigated his guilt. I didn’t mean it that way, I said I didn’t mean it that way, but maybe I should have said it better. The provocation doesn’t excuse him, but it does implicate her, because the provocation was also an assault. No one should be able to walk up to anyone else, spit on them and punch them, period.
Then perhaps they should be forcibly removed and incarcerated at a mental health facility. I mean, if women don’t even have the agency to leave their abusive spouses, perhaps in their best interests we should help them. I mean, they’re mentally damaged, right?
No need for incarceration. Just get rid of the cancer — here it is the abuser. My analysis is the same regardless of which spouse is doing the abuse.
In this case, the answer is both. She hit first, he hit harder. Lock them both up? If she had hit him, and he hadn’t punched her back, you’d lock her up?
I’d file charges against her. She should have to undergo anger management and pay a fine. He used deadly force, she did not.
Exactly.
Crella: Well put. I might have added that the many rationalizations put forth by “experts” in the field of why people stay in abusive relationships simply reinforce an unwillingness to leave when the abused’s behavior is given a pass and the abused are not held accountable for taking steps to ensure their own safety.
I too, find this lazy answer disturbing and hear it all too often. Usually it is combined with other rationalizations such as
* He only does it sometimes (when drunk, angry, etc)
* He really does love me
My consistent rhetoric to those types of statements are :
No, it is not complicated. At all. No, he does not love you. No, it is not ok even if “sometimes”.
and finally ….
There is no excuse, unless you were chasing him with a knife or otherwise threatening his life in which case YOU would be the abuser, and he would be defending himself.
I have come to the conclusion on such matters that people are just dumb as dumb can be and that yes, if one CHOOSES to stay in such a “relationship” having been warned of the consequences, then whatever happens is their own fault. This would be the equivalent of being told NOT to touch that high voltage wire — and then doing so in spite of the warning signs, and other people telling you not to do that because it can kill you.
Even still, this does not give license for continued attacks, nor does it justify them — merely one who chooses to remain in such circumstances (yes… it is a choice), knows what to expect and I really do not feel pity for them. I feel sad for them not making the right choice. I feel disturbed their are people in the world like X abuser …. but definitely not pity for one choosing to remain in said circumstances.
Leaving should make it simpler and safer and decrease the risk, but it doesn’t sometimes. That is what we as a species need to improve. Staying doesn’t decrease the risk. Leaving gives a hope and staying doesn’t.
It’s important to believe that the ethical course will lead to the best result for the greatest number of people and not to excuse unethical choices because they sometimes have a bad result. Being consistently ethical or as ethical as possible would eventually result in the behavior we see here being reduced.
It’s not fair that so many people are harmed by domestic abuse, but not dealing with it because there is no perfect solution is madness.