Gavin de Becker: The Gift of Fear
Dec. 19th, 2012 12:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaberett[content notes: misogyny, abuse, violence]
Here is my one-sentence summary: Gavin de Becker makes a fundamentally reasonable point in the shittiest and most self-aggrandising way he can without having it be immediately obvious to everyone.
Also, he's a misogynist who doesn't understand geology.
Sadly, none of this was mentioned - that I recall - by any of the people I've seen recommending this book in activist and anti-abuse circles.
In slightly more detail, have a series of excerpts and my keysmashing about why HE IS WRONG ABOUT ALL THINGS.
To start with, let's have this charming tidbit from the introduction:
Taking what he says at face value, I'd be far more impressed by this paragraph if he didn't proceed to gender non-perpetrator executives, doctors, etc as consistently male - even where they're constructs for the sake of a thought experiment. Well done, Gavin, misogyny nicely lampshaded. Note that he never explicitly raises the issue of male-on-male violence as a prevalent issue; he glosses over the pattern when making reference to individual instances of male-on-male violence.
In the context of his utterly unsubtle use of the masculine as gender neutral, I'm much less willing to extend good faith to the rest of that paragraph - his patronising lecture on how women (& by extension, female readers) ought to feel, backed up by statistics (which women, as we know, don't understand...). And that is before we get onto the fact that I consider complaints about "political correctness" to be a dog whistle in their own right... more on this another 2am, perhaps.
Next up, it's the Gavin de Becker Doesn't Understand Seismology show:
Here is a definition copied from the Oxford Dictionary of Earth Sciences:
Or, to put it another way, he is wrong wrong wrongity-wrong wrong wrong. Sort of. Here is the quick summary: (some) earthquakes can be predicted - he's correct about that much - but what we mean by this is that we can look at how frequently a fault has moved in the past, and use that to say it's likely to go again at a similar interval. Those of you who've talked to me in any depth about rocks, though, will know that by "cold" I mean "less than 800degC" and by "recent" I mean "less than five million years ago": ditto "a similar interval" can quite happily mean "plus or minus thirty years" - or longer, depending on the repetition interval for the fault in question. This is useful on a geological timescale, and utterly useless in terms of getting people to evacuate a high-risk area.
(Here is the routine PSA: to-the-minute, or even to-the-day, earthquake prediction is just. not. relevant. in places where building codes are rigorous and upheld. Earthquakes that will kill hundreds of thousands of people in Iran or Indonesia can on the West coast of the US result in not a single bottle in an entire hospital being broken. And getting building codes right is much, much easier than predicting earthquakes on a human-relevant timescale.)
But there is no reasonable sense in which "the next earthquake in LA has already started" is a true statement "in geological terms". It's a ridiculous analogy and one he really, really shouldn't have made without better understanding what on Earth (intentional) he was talking about.
I've learned a lot about this from young people who killed others, some who killed themselves, and as you'll see in the next chapter, one who did a little of both. -- even in the context of the case study he cites, I think that final subclause is so jawdroppingly inane as to be worth noting.
And then! de Becker uses heteronormativity. IT'S SUPER EFFECTIVE.
I... pretty much just feel like leaving that one there, actually.
Six lines earlier, de Becker quotes himself as saying "That sounds like you think there is someone else like you." Sure, that phrase is maybe not a question in the sense that the transcript includes a question mark - or even in the sense that he gave it rising inflection when speaking it - but I don't think claiming it's not an implicit question is particularly impressive.
I'm pretty comfortable arguing, based on this, that de Becker has never lived with chronic pain; has never been close to someone living with chronic pain; is entirely unaware of pain clinics and pain specialists. And to him I say: piss. off. -- & maybe come back when you have any idea what you're talking about.
Of course, these excerpts are only a few paragraphs from a 353 page book - but they're typical of a common theme and a common attitude towards his reader. He blithely insists people have choices and should leave abusive relationships sooner rather than later; it is a long time after that that he first acknowledges that many people (sorry, Gavin: women) are killed because they leave. Even then, he does a pretty shoddy job of explaining how that plays into the bigger picture of abusive dynamics, and why people shouldn't (as he promotes) be afraid to leave.
In closing: dude's a pillock and rather less of a polymath than he likes to think; spend your time reading something less infuriating.
Here is my one-sentence summary: Gavin de Becker makes a fundamentally reasonable point in the shittiest and most self-aggrandising way he can without having it be immediately obvious to everyone.
Also, he's a misogynist who doesn't understand geology.
Sadly, none of this was mentioned - that I recall - by any of the people I've seen recommending this book in activist and anti-abuse circles.
In slightly more detail, have a series of excerpts and my keysmashing about why HE IS WRONG ABOUT ALL THINGS.
To start with, let's have this charming tidbit from the introduction:
Note: Men of all ages and in all parts of the world are more violent than women. For this reason, the language in this book is mostly gender-specific to men. When it comes to violence, women can proudly relinquish recognition in the language, because here at least, politically correct would be statistically incorrect.
Taking what he says at face value, I'd be far more impressed by this paragraph if he didn't proceed to gender non-perpetrator executives, doctors, etc as consistently male - even where they're constructs for the sake of a thought experiment. Well done, Gavin, misogyny nicely lampshaded. Note that he never explicitly raises the issue of male-on-male violence as a prevalent issue; he glosses over the pattern when making reference to individual instances of male-on-male violence.
In the context of his utterly unsubtle use of the masculine as gender neutral, I'm much less willing to extend good faith to the rest of that paragraph - his patronising lecture on how women (& by extension, female readers) ought to feel, backed up by statistics (which women, as we know, don't understand...). And that is before we get onto the fact that I consider complaints about "political correctness" to be a dog whistle in their own right... more on this another 2am, perhaps.
Next up, it's the Gavin de Becker Doesn't Understand Seismology show:
The prediction of earthquakes gives us an extreme example. There are, contrary to popular belief, reliable pre-incident indicators for earthquakes. The problem is that the PINs might be ten thousand years long, and for this reason earthquakes remain, in human terms, unpredictable. In geological terms, however, it is fair to say that the next earthquake in Los Angeles has already started.
Here is a definition copied from the Oxford Dictionary of Earth Sciences:
earthquake Motion of the Earth. Tectonic earthquakes result from the release of accumulated strain when brittle failure occurs. This failure coincides with the release of stress on the rocks that actually break. Earthquakes are usually classified in terms of their depth [...] Earthquakes may also be caused by volcanic activity or induced explosions (e.g. A-bombs) to which the elastic model of tectonic earthquakes does not apply. The energy released is not stored kinetic energy, but chemical/physical energy which imposes a sudden stress that locally exceeds the strength of the rocks and no significant accumulated strain is involved as the rocks yield to the imposed stresses.
Or, to put it another way, he is wrong wrong wrongity-wrong wrong wrong. Sort of. Here is the quick summary: (some) earthquakes can be predicted - he's correct about that much - but what we mean by this is that we can look at how frequently a fault has moved in the past, and use that to say it's likely to go again at a similar interval. Those of you who've talked to me in any depth about rocks, though, will know that by "cold" I mean "less than 800degC" and by "recent" I mean "less than five million years ago": ditto "a similar interval" can quite happily mean "plus or minus thirty years" - or longer, depending on the repetition interval for the fault in question. This is useful on a geological timescale, and utterly useless in terms of getting people to evacuate a high-risk area.
(Here is the routine PSA: to-the-minute, or even to-the-day, earthquake prediction is just. not. relevant. in places where building codes are rigorous and upheld. Earthquakes that will kill hundreds of thousands of people in Iran or Indonesia can on the West coast of the US result in not a single bottle in an entire hospital being broken. And getting building codes right is much, much easier than predicting earthquakes on a human-relevant timescale.)
But there is no reasonable sense in which "the next earthquake in LA has already started" is a true statement "in geological terms". It's a ridiculous analogy and one he really, really shouldn't have made without better understanding what on Earth (intentional) he was talking about.
I've learned a lot about this from young people who killed others, some who killed themselves, and as you'll see in the next chapter, one who did a little of both. -- even in the context of the case study he cites, I think that final subclause is so jawdroppingly inane as to be worth noting.
And then! de Becker uses heteronormativity. IT'S SUPER EFFECTIVE.
Some people seriously ponder the question of whether males are even necessary for raising children, and we do little to encourage the role of fathers.
I... pretty much just feel like leaving that one there, actually.
I looked at [prisoner GdeB is interviewing] and nodded. We'd been together for nearly a half hour, and I had not asked him a single question.
Six lines earlier, de Becker quotes himself as saying "That sounds like you think there is someone else like you." Sure, that phrase is maybe not a question in the sense that the transcript includes a question mark - or even in the sense that he gave it rising inflection when speaking it - but I don't think claiming it's not an implicit question is particularly impressive.
Pain and fear are necessary and valuable components of life. Suffering and worry are destructive and unnecessary components of life. (Great humanitarians, remember, have worked to end suffering, not pain.)
I'm pretty comfortable arguing, based on this, that de Becker has never lived with chronic pain; has never been close to someone living with chronic pain; is entirely unaware of pain clinics and pain specialists. And to him I say: piss. off. -- & maybe come back when you have any idea what you're talking about.
Of course, these excerpts are only a few paragraphs from a 353 page book - but they're typical of a common theme and a common attitude towards his reader. He blithely insists people have choices and should leave abusive relationships sooner rather than later; it is a long time after that that he first acknowledges that many people (sorry, Gavin: women) are killed because they leave. Even then, he does a pretty shoddy job of explaining how that plays into the bigger picture of abusive dynamics, and why people shouldn't (as he promotes) be afraid to leave.
In closing: dude's a pillock and rather less of a polymath than he likes to think; spend your time reading something less infuriating.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-12-19 02:07 am (UTC)"Pain and fear are necessary and valuable components of life. Suffering and worry are destructive and unnecessary components of life. (Great humanitarians, remember, have worked to end suffering, not pain.)"
I'm guessing you're objecting to the "Pain and fear are necessary and valuable components of life" part, but it seems reasonable to me; not that pain is valuable in the sense that you want to experience pain, but that pain (ideally, and often, though not always in actual fact) is a warning indicator that something's wrong with the body that should be resolved if possible. Experiencing pain isn't desirable in itself, but being capable of experiencing pain, and experiencing pain when the body is damaged, is desirable.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-12-19 02:11 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-12-19 03:06 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-12-19 02:09 am (UTC)How does that work, exactly? How do you learn from someone who already killed themself? Can this guy talk to the dead? If so, it seems like he's written a book about the wrong topic :P
(no subject)
Date: 2012-12-19 02:12 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-12-19 02:23 pm (UTC)I can totally see this isn't very helpful for non-binary people. Nowadays, with most of the stuff de Becker talks about having reasonable acceptance, we very much need activism to make sure that people who suffer intimate partner violence, abuse and sexual assault get support including in the minority of situations where there are other gender permutations than cis binary male abuser and cis binary female victim.
I think the thing about encouraging women to leave abusive relationships is similar: very very important to be aware of how difficult and dangerous that can be in reality. But that's coming from a context where people say "why didn't she just leave?" If the status quo is people saying that once you've made a commitment you should always "work on the relationship", or that it's your duty to stay with your husband no matter what "for the sake of the children", having someone saying "just leave" could be radical.
It sounds from your description like he's incredibly bad at using metaphors! Both the geology one and the pain one are wince-making in different ways. I always really hate it when people use concepts from my technical field as some kind of contorted metaphor for a totally unrelated point. (Eg: DNA is a really bad metaphor for "destiny" for any number of reasons...)
So yeah, useful point made in a shitty way. And honestly probably less useful in 2012 than in 1997, especially among people who generally accept a basic level of "women are people" already.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-12-20 07:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-08-23 02:42 pm (UTC)