News Woody Allen Is Not A Monster. He Is A Person. Like My Father.

[Valentino]

I think that the prevalent "Just World" theory is huge contributor. Talking about this openly can be dangerous, as some people can actually just get triggered and outright attack just hearing about it.

excerpts from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis

The just-world hypothesis or just-world fallacy is the cognitive bias (or assumption) that a person's actions always bring morally fair and fitting consequences to that person, so that all noble actions are eventually rewarded and all evil actions are eventually punished. In other words, the just-world hypothesis is the tendency to attribute consequences to—or expect consequences as the result of—a universal force that restores moral balance. The fallacy is that this implies (often unintentionally) the existence of cosmic justice, desert, stability, or order, and may also serve to rationalize people's misfortune on the grounds that they deserve it.
...
A just world is one in which actions and conditions have predictable, appropriate consequences. These actions and conditions are typically individuals' behaviors or attributes. The specific conditions that correspond to certain consequences are socially determined by a society's norms and ideologies. Lerner presents the belief in a just world as functional: it maintains the idea that one can influence the world in a predictable way. Belief in a just world functions as a sort of "contract" with the world regarding the consequences of behavior. This allows people to plan for the future and engage in effective, goal-driven behavior. Lerner summarized his findings and his theoretical work in his 1980 monograph The Belief in a Just World: A Fundamental Delusion.

Lerner hypothesized that the belief in a just world is crucially important for people to maintain for their own well-being. But people are confronted daily with evidence that the world is not just: people suffer without apparent cause. Lerner explained that people use strategies to eliminate threats to their belief in a just world. These strategies can be rational or irrational. Rational strategies include accepting the reality of injustice, trying to prevent injustice or provide restitution, and accepting one's own limitations. Non-rational strategies include denial, withdrawal, and reinterpretation of the event.
...
Many researchers have interpreted just-world beliefs as an example of causal attribution. In victim blaming, the causes of victimization are attributed to an individual rather than to a situation. Thus, the consequences of belief in a just world may be related to or explained in terms of particular patterns of causal attribution.

And there have been additional studies confirming how Just World effects the perception of abuse survivors:

Researchers have looked at how observers react to victims of rape and other violence. In a formative experiment on rape and belief in a just world by Linda Carli and colleagues, researchers gave two groups of subjects a narrative about interactions between a man and a woman. The description of the interaction was the same until the end; one group received a narrative that had a neutral ending and the other group received a narrative that ended with the man raping the woman. Subjects judged the rape ending as inevitable and blamed the woman in the narrative for the rape on the basis of her behavior, but not her characteristics. These findings have been replicated repeatedly, including using a rape ending and a 'happy ending' (a marriage proposal).

Other researchers have found a similar phenomenon for judgments of battered partners. One study found that observers' labels of blame of female victims of relationship violence increase with the intimacy of the relationship. Observers blamed the perpetrator only in the most significant case of violence, in which a male struck an acquaintance.

Researchers have employed the just-world hypothesis to understand bullying. Given other research on beliefs in a just world, it would be expected that observers would derogate and blame bullying victims, but the opposite has been found: individuals high in just-world belief have stronger anti-bullying attitudes. Other researchers have found that strong belief in a just world is associated with lower levels of bullying behavior. This finding is in keeping with Lerner's understanding of belief in a just world as functioning as a "contract" that governs behavior. There is additional evidence that belief in a just world is protective of the well-being of children and adolescents in the school environment, as has been shown for the general population.

Wow, I'm thinking that from Lerner's research, it seems that 'Just World' theory is a way to protect the psychological well being for the masses, at the very expensive cost of the intentionally excluded few. That's pretty ironic, because that's not very fair and just, that's a very unjust world if you happen to be unfortunate to be part of the few.

Maybe that's why there often is an automatic 'kick a person when they're down' reaction in society. ugh..

 

[Pencil]

Just World

@Valentino - thanks for a very interesting post.

 

[Abstract]

I agree a lot with what has been said.

yet the responses here are representative.

Pencil, are you saying that responses on this thread represent responses to disclosures of abuse in the outside world?

I hope not but if that is the case I totally disagree and am a little shocked by the idea. The common problem in the outside world is a certain amount of people not believing disclosures and not being able to accept that abuse happens and from people they would not expect.

I agree that it was unfortunate about the language criticism. I don't think it was productive and I personally don't agree. What I will say though is that we should look behind all the views expressed in this thread and not loose sight of what they are really about. I can't say for sure but from what I understand those who criticised the language felt it diluted the rawness of the subject. It isn't the same as a dispassionate literary criticism and rather comes from people having strong personal emotions because they themselves have experienced abuse.

The same goes for whether the article was saying we should be compassionate to Woody Allen and saying he is just like any one else or not. I don't at all think that is what the article meant and I think @Echo interpreted it well. I think the emotional importance of the topic to those on this forum and the slight openings for ambiguity in some of the writing is what set off the response. It took a moment for me to try to figure out what was happening but that is my guess. All on here have personal wounds and emotions as a result of personal experiences of sexual violence. There is always going to be differences in how those who have experienced these things see certain aspects of it. I think that is entirely normal.

When someone discloses their personal story it is just that. When someone writes an article with wider view points and from the perspective of a survivor then they are in some senses speaking for other survivor's and that can bring some differences of opinion to the fore.

It is also all a billion miles away from what those who disclose outside experience from some.

I take my hat off to anyone who puts their personal experiences out there. They are way more brave than I. I have to say I was very surprised there was so little nastiness and invalidation in response to the article (I mean there not here). I just hope people are properly prepared and realistic about what they are getting into when they do something like that and that they are able to cope with the inevitable repercussions.

Who is still foremost in my mind and who I feel truly heart-sore about is Dylan. The world makes me despair sometimes. I cannot even start to understand anyone not believing her. I am a logical person and even going on pure logic I just don't get it.

 

[Queen Boudica]

I really like the Just World explanation. I also think this is why victims of abuse find it so hard to feel safe anymore because we have had the "Just World" belief smashed to pieces and we have the opposite beliefs, the World is totally unfair and unjust, it is never safe. Especially those who have suffered from family abuse. There is no safe home and the people who were supposed to love us were not safe, so there is just no such thing as a safe place.

This is what makes family sexual abuse so abhorrent. Woody Allen was Dylan's father to all extent and purposes. The author's father also did this to him. Not some stranger or outside person. That makes them even more heroic in my opinion for speaking out. The complexities of it being a family member, makes it even more unbelievable to those who want to maintain the Just World Theory.

And the fact that Woody Allen has made such compassionate films about human vulnerability also confuses others. How can someone who makes such a film have done that to his daughter? Dylan Farrow is taking on both the safety of the family and the safety of the Hollywood idol who everyone thought had some kind of special empathy and understanding of humanity. But he doesn't how could he when he leaves his daughter to suffer like this?

 

[Queen Boudica]

And @Ms Spock, you are one of those heroes. I know you think of it as you lost your family but, in reality, they lost you. Which is a huge loss because you were the most brave and moral and courageous of all of them.

 

[Queen Boudica]

And the sad thing is, because Mia Farrow believed her daughter and did the right thing and spoke out, Dylan Farrow has been negated by the public who also vilify the mother for going public and accuse her of feeding false memories to her daughter. Both mother and daughter have been vilified.

Finding out that her daughter was abused by the man she took into her home and adopted further children with, for him to abuse both the adopted child and her biological child - I have no words for what that must be for a mother. That she tried to fight this powerful man and stood by her children and did not hush it up was heroic. But by believing her daughter and outing Woody Allen for who he is, this adds to some sick people's notion that she fed her daughter false memories of abuse as some kind of revenge. And then they use that as an excuse to not believe Dylan's story. What mother would do that to her child? The evidence was there already. he went and married his own adopted daughter. He was the father. Yet still people disbelieve Dylan.

Society's reaction to claims of abuse also vilifies the mother who believes her child was abused by the father, so making it more likely that the child suffers further trauma when mother's deny the abuse could have happened or hush it up or "keep it in the family" so the abuser never gets punished for fear of what will happen if the family actually supports the abused family member.

It is just so sick. This is a bit more than the Just World thing going on in this case I think.

 

[Lost Pup]

When someone writes an article with wider view points and from the perspective of a survivor then they are in some senses speaking for other survivor's and that can bring some differences of opinion to the fore.

Not sure about this. So much of healing is about moving outwards from our individual experience to come back into genuine contact with the world and come to understand the larger world in relationship to what happened to us. I bristle a bit at the suggestion that, by turning one's own experience into some reflection on the world and or the collectivity or survivors, someone is speaking for others. Given that the collective voice of survivors has no authoritative leaders, and is available to all of us, it is difficult for me to see it as the sort of power play with which I usually associate someone asserting their voice as representative of others.

Finding out that her daughter was abused by the man she took into her home and adopted further children with, for him to abuse both the adopted child and her biological child - I have no words for what that must be for a mother. That she tried to fight this powerful man and stood by her children and did not hush it up was heroic. But by believing her daughter and outing Woody Allen for who he is, this adds to some sick people's notion that she fed her daughter false memories of abuse as some kind of revenge. And then they use that as an excuse to not believe Dylan's story. What mother would do that to her child?

.....

Society's reaction to claims of abuse also vilifies the mother who believes her child was abused by the father, so making it more likely that the child suffers further trauma when mother's deny the abuse could have happened or hush it up or "keep it in the family" so the abuser never gets punished for fear of what will happen if the family actually supports the abused family member.

Literally every single aspect you have described here happened to me too (and so to my own mother.) That this set of events is universal enough to repeat in totally disparate times and places is terrifying. I'm afraid I cannot find much to chalk it up to other than the most base sexism.

 

[Abstract]

That is certainly not what I meant and in my mind it has nothing to do with power play. I merely meant that people are likely to have personal strong feelings about certain takes on the situation because of their own experiences and personalities. I wasn't suggesting that anyone putting forth their view was doing anything more than that - the article was expressing a view point. I personally appreciate anyone who is willing to do that.

I could be wrong of course but I suspect I am being quite misunderstood and that nothing I say is going to change that so it's probably better for me to step out. It makes me a little sad to think there may be an expectation that we all have to agree on everything. I am sure I am not the only one that needed a whole lot of therapy to feel OK having an opinion or a voice.

 

[Lost Pup]

Oh, sorry @Abstract, I think everything you've said here is as well-stated and helpful as you always are. I was just thinking through, out loud, the problem of speaking for others and I, for one, definitely find it more useful to be challenged by difference of opinion than try to just create blind unity.

 

[Pencil]

Wow, I'm thinking that from Lerner's research, it seems that 'Just World' theory is a way to protect the psychological well being for the masses, at the very expensive cost of the intentionally excluded few. That's pretty ironic, because that's not very fair and just, that's a very unjust world if you happen to be unfortunate to be part of the few.

It reminds me of a movie I saw decades ago, which was totally forgetable except for one line: A boy bitches about something being unfair, to which the father figure responds: 'Life is not fair, unless you're man enough to make it so.' Whenever I think about how unfair my life is, I tell myself to be 'man' enough to change what I object to. Some people are man enough to stand up and tell their stories, in the hope of proving that the world is not a fair or just place, and in an attempt to make it so. Each voice makes a valuable contribution.

 

[Pencil]

I could be wrong of course but I suspect I am being quite misunderstood and that nothing I say is going to change that so it's probably better for me to step out.

No, I don't think it is better.

@Abstract: I'm not sure where we lost one another, but I'll come back later and explain in what way I see the thread as representative, as that seems to be the offending bit. For now let me just say it doesn't have to do with not believing the author, but in the shift of focus from the actual experience of the author to extraneous issues. And this is specific to sexual abuse disclosures. Perhaps it really has to do with the author standing there naked, and we don't really know where to look or how to react. I was responding to a specific statement Lost Pup made - which I will track down. But first I need to get some work done. I'll come back later and explain fully.

 

[ms spock]

And @Ms Spock, you are one of those heroes. I know you think of it as you lost your family but, in reality, they lost you. Which is a huge loss because you were the most brave and moral and courageous of all of them.

That is a very, very kind thing to say.