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> Even if Connery did publicly retract or apologise, for example, how many people would try to seek that out if all they saw was the original video in isolation
by fao_ 6y ago
> Even if Connery did publicly retract or apologise, for example, how many people would try to seek that out if all they saw was the original video in isolation? Once a criminal, always a criminal?
See: Dan Harmon's apology which so easily disproves this :) In the case of Connery, it would have been easy for him to push his PR people to publicly denounce the video, do a few interviews, and donate some token sum of a couple of thousand to the relevant charities. I remember (But unfortunately can't cite) some other people who have then gone on to be advocates for these causes as a form of penance. As a celebrity, pretty much anything like this is newsworthy, if not, he doesn't have good PR people and should fire them and hire new ones, because they aren't effective enough for his purposes :P
> Or can we imagine that people may change even without making a public song and dance about it?
I mean, he stated it publicly in the first place, so obviously he thought at the time that that public statement on that was worth his salt. Assuming he had reformed and then gone on to improve his perspectives, it seems unlikely that from then on he would be unaware of the harm that that video, still in perpetuity, could cause and want to undo that to some extent.
Reforming isn't possible on a personal level, because we (and I'm sorry for this so heavily memed statement) live in a community. On a fundamental level our public statements take on a life of their own, and because we made them, we should have responsibility for them. From then on, that statement can do untold harm or benefit. Such is the way of living in a community, where your actions will affect other people. Part of reforming yourself is attempting to undo the damage that you have caused in the past. And so part of that reformation would inherently have to be, retracting or attempting to undo the damage caused by those public statements.
A different way to put this would be: Is it possible to reform yourself and not try to undo the damage of your past actions in some way? Are you truly reformed if you wave your hand and do not take responsibility for them?
- ljm 6y agoI'm not sure I agree with you on the thing about reform and community. I don't want to sound unfair but 'community' this way reminds me of how 'family' is often used as a blunt instrument too. You're powerless against the larger group (or the mob) and their expectations, which are ever changing. Reform is quite a strong word (with strong authoritarian connotations) and I do wonder what the reaction would be if the proponents of this found themselves on the receiving end of it.
- fao_ 6y agoAgain, I find it amusing that you went straight to an authoritarian, and particularly uncharitable answer, when it is clear what my comment means in context of my previous comment. You know, the one that you read and responded to. It's interesting that you went to that place when the TL;DR of my post is: Can you really become a better person if you haven't attempted to undo harm you caused? If you have changed, part of that change is acknowledging that you harmed people, and how those actions were harmful. You can't acknowledge that you have harmed people, and then handwave that harm by ignoring it, and still say you are a changed person. It's inherent to self-improvement that you would want to undo the harm that you have caused, if you understand it. And if you don't, then can you be said to have improved?
- ljm 6y agoI'm sorry, but your response is far more uncharitable as you're making the case that I didn't read it and need a summary that isn't really that close to what you actually said. I thought we were having a conversation. I don't know who you're arguing with, but it's not with me or what I wrote. But let's address it: let's say that someone raped another person. The rapist serves a prison sentence for his crime and he comes out of prison as a rehabilitated man. Are you saying he has to go to his victim to specifically make amends to them? And if he doesn't, he's still a rapist? That, in my opinion, is one of the most toxic parts of the 12 step process in the US, where you make your victims responsible for your penance by requiring them to accept your apology, which by its very nature involves bringing up that trauma _again_. And what even does it mean to 'undo harm'? What's done is done, for better or worse.
- mlthoughts2018 6y agoYour response here is very poor. In the present discussion the correct analogy with Connery’s behavior would not be that the rapist served the sentence, but that they served the sentence and after they got released, went on a nationally televised news program and stated unequivocally that they did not regret what they did and in fact believed that their victim “wouldn’t shut up” which in some sense meant the victim brought it on themselves. If someone did that, they deserve to have those words brought up and used to identify their poor character, regardless of whether they “served their time.” Just as in Connery’s behavior - he doubled down on saying (extremely publicly) that he was ok with women being slapped and gave some extremely contrived misogynistic reasoning about what they could do to deserve it. Connery didn’t just say that and then later apologize or clear the record. He said it once, then years later said it again in response to a direct interview question about that exact topic, and doubled down on not changing his mind, and then never in the rest of his life did he explicitly apologize or retract it. That is such a forceful application of misogyny that it goes beyond an unfortunate character flaw we should overlook and instead is borderline a defining characteristic of his legacy.