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I was floored at the repeated circling back to suspect Heather as the suspect, and the lack of a "mea culpa" by the author for ever having seriously suspected h

by zellyn 10y ago

I was floored at the repeated circling back to suspect Heather as the suspect, and the lack of a "mea culpa" by the author for ever having seriously suspected her in the first place. We are so, so quick to blame the victim - it lets us believe that the one thing that is "out of alignment" with our belief in a good and just world is the only thing out of alignment, even if we have to blame someone who is clearly a victim, instead of having to search for even more evidence that dispels our too-perfect mirage of the world we live in.

wyager 10y ago
It's because the author was being honest about their thought process. Heather was the most likely suspect, a priori. There is nothing wrong with recognizing that, so the author has nothing to apologize for. If the author had punished Heather based on his suspicions, that would have been wrong.
- zellyn 10y ago
  I fail to understand why a person in a lab who approaches a superior to lodge a complaint that their work has been sabotaged is "a priori" the most likely suspect. Perhaps you have some kind of lab-sabotage data you're referring to? Do you have a link. I think if someone comes to you and tells you their work has been sabotaged, the most straightforward thing to do is to believe them.
  - eastWestMath 10y ago
    Someone with a failing business is going to be the prime suspect when it burns down, a researcher whose project appears to be going nowhere will be the prime suspect when their samples are sabotaged. It's fairly straight-forward reasoning.
emn13 10y ago
You seem to draw a parallel to other types of victim blaming. Normally, people mean by that blaming the victim not because they are the perpetrator, but because they should have protected themselves better (or have hidden their vulnerability better, etc). This incident has nothing to do with that kind of vicim blaming - so I'm not sure what you're trying to point out here. Furthermore, applying a label like "victim blaming" pejoratively is harmful to a rational discussion because you imply that it is intrinsically harmful, even though that's impossible to state categorically - the notion of blame and victim are so broad you can apply thing to all kinds of beneficial behavior. It's no better than the cliche "think of the kids".
- zellyn 10y ago
  The "victim" came to their superior to complain that their work had been sabotaged. After talking about it, her superior came to the conclusion that the most likely person to "blame" was the "victim". Hence, the straightforward use of the term "victim-blaming". Since my wife has done a lot of work with abused children, I was thinking most directly of that - when someone alleges abuse in a school or church community, it's quite common for people to bend over backwards to find ways to disbelieve or blame the victim. In the case of child abuse, almost nobody blames them "because they should have protected themselves better (or have hidden their vulnerability better, etc.)". They generally find ways to disbelieve them, or (quite commonly), say things like "you know how children lie about these things" (spoiler: they generally don't). The parallel I drew between two different (and vastly different in terms of personal damage done) types of blaming the victim was positing that it's the impulse to preserve the ideal, imagined just world that would drive people to go to such lengths to discount the straightforward path. Your last paragraph is a muddle. I think you're claiming that using the term "victim blaming" is an appeal to emotionally-loaded terms in a heretofore "rational" discussion, and claiming I'm jumping the discussion from the (presumably usually "rational" hackernews norm - hah!) to some kind of mindless emotional appeal. I think that's my cue to exit…
  - somestag 10y ago
    I think the issue here is that the term victim blaming is not a simple sum of the meanings of victim and blaming. It's become something of an idiom. As the parent said, when someone cites "victim blaming" they're nearly always talking about situations where there's a clear victim and clear perpetrator (even if the perpetrator hasn't been identified), yet people claim the victim is largely at fault because they should have better protected themselves. I don't often hear the term used in cases of child abuse; or, when I do, it's a response to people claiming that the child shouldn't have been so annoying or provocative. I think most people would agree that discrediting or ignoring child abuse complaints is a separate issue that's not what people mean when they say victim blaming. In the case of the cancer lab, I would say this is a third type of scenario where people suspect the victim. In fact no one actually blamed the victim--merely suspected them--and everyone went forward with the investigation and eventually arrived at the truth. (Saying it's blaming because they're thought to be to blame is a conflation of idioms, in my opinion.) Once again, this definitely isn't what most people mean when they say victim blaming, not just because the victim was never blamed but because of the specific meaning we already talked about. It's totally okay to use the words for their definitions instead of going with what most people think the terms mean--that's your right. Just know that if you use the term like that, you're probably going to confuse people. Because victim blaming is a hot-button issue right now, it might start some pointless arguments that could be avoided by using different semantics. For what it's worth, I think it's okay to doubt, so long as you still follow through with the investigation. I'd say even in the cases of child abuse the issue is that no one bothers to find out the truth--not that they initially doubt the children. Clearly the victim could be lying or they could be telling the truth, and your personal estimation of those probabilities are based on all kinds of things. What matters is that you come to the correct conclusion in the end. Unfortunately, people often don't bother to investigate at all because it's messy and inconvenient.

by zellyn 10y ago

wyager 10y ago

It's because the author was being honest about their thought process. Heather was the most likely suspect, a priori. There is nothing wrong with recognizing that, so the author has nothing to apologize for. If the author had punished Heather based on his suspicions, that would have been wrong.

zellyn 10y ago
I fail to understand why a person in a lab who approaches a superior to lodge a complaint that their work has been sabotaged is "a priori" the most likely suspect. Perhaps you have some kind of lab-sabotage data you're referring to? Do you have a link. I think if someone comes to you and tells you their work has been sabotaged, the most straightforward thing to do is to believe them.
- eastWestMath 10y ago
  Someone with a failing business is going to be the prime suspect when it burns down, a researcher whose project appears to be going nowhere will be the prime suspect when their samples are sabotaged. It's fairly straight-forward reasoning.

emn13 10y ago

You seem to draw a parallel to other types of victim blaming. Normally, people mean by that blaming the victim not because they are the perpetrator, but because they should have protected themselves better (or have hidden their vulnerability better, etc). This incident has nothing to do with that kind of vicim blaming - so I'm not sure what you're trying to point out here. Furthermore, applying a label like "victim blaming" pejoratively is harmful to a rational discussion because you imply that it is intrinsically harmful, even though that's impossible to state categorically - the notion of blame and victim are so broad you can apply thing to all kinds of beneficial behavior. It's no better than the cliche "think of the kids".

zellyn 10y ago
The "victim" came to their superior to complain that their work had been sabotaged. After talking about it, her superior came to the conclusion that the most likely person to "blame" was the "victim". Hence, the straightforward use of the term "victim-blaming". Since my wife has done a lot of work with abused children, I was thinking most directly of that - when someone alleges abuse in a school or church community, it's quite common for people to bend over backwards to find ways to disbelieve or blame the victim. In the case of child abuse, almost nobody blames them "because they should have protected themselves better (or have hidden their vulnerability better, etc.)". They generally find ways to disbelieve them, or (quite commonly), say things like "you know how children lie about these things" (spoiler: they generally don't). The parallel I drew between two different (and vastly different in terms of personal damage done) types of blaming the victim was positing that it's the impulse to preserve the ideal, imagined just world that would drive people to go to such lengths to discount the straightforward path. Your last paragraph is a muddle. I think you're claiming that using the term "victim blaming" is an appeal to emotionally-loaded terms in a heretofore "rational" discussion, and claiming I'm jumping the discussion from the (presumably usually "rational" hackernews norm - hah!) to some kind of mindless emotional appeal. I think that's my cue to exit…
- somestag 10y ago
  I think the issue here is that the term victim blaming is not a simple sum of the meanings of victim and blaming. It's become something of an idiom. As the parent said, when someone cites "victim blaming" they're nearly always talking about situations where there's a clear victim and clear perpetrator (even if the perpetrator hasn't been identified), yet people claim the victim is largely at fault because they should have better protected themselves. I don't often hear the term used in cases of child abuse; or, when I do, it's a response to people claiming that the child shouldn't have been so annoying or provocative. I think most people would agree that discrediting or ignoring child abuse complaints is a separate issue that's not what people mean when they say victim blaming. In the case of the cancer lab, I would say this is a third type of scenario where people suspect the victim. In fact no one actually blamed the victim--merely suspected them--and everyone went forward with the investigation and eventually arrived at the truth. (Saying it's blaming because they're thought to be to blame is a conflation of idioms, in my opinion.) Once again, this definitely isn't what most people mean when they say victim blaming, not just because the victim was never blamed but because of the specific meaning we already talked about. It's totally okay to use the words for their definitions instead of going with what most people think the terms mean--that's your right. Just know that if you use the term like that, you're probably going to confuse people. Because victim blaming is a hot-button issue right now, it might start some pointless arguments that could be avoided by using different semantics. For what it's worth, I think it's okay to doubt, so long as you still follow through with the investigation. I'd say even in the cases of child abuse the issue is that no one bothers to find out the truth--not that they initially doubt the children. Clearly the victim could be lying or they could be telling the truth, and your personal estimation of those probabilities are based on all kinds of things. What matters is that you come to the correct conclusion in the end. Unfortunately, people often don't bother to investigate at all because it's messy and inconvenient.