Abuse in Cyberspace: Rape or Not?

Rape is a serious issue. It is rightfully defined by law as a crime in our society. It is a cause of fear and shame for its victims. I personally am against rape and have sympathy for anyone, male or female, who has been forced to experience such an awful act. However, I find it hard to believe that someone can be raped in cyberspace, at least not in the same sense as one can in the real world.

When dealing with virtual reality and cyberspace it is hard to define things as strictly as we do in real life. I think that in general cyberspace mimics society in that when people interact they usually try to carry themselves in a civilized and acceptable way and expect others to do the same, much as they would in a real life meeting. Yet people in the real world do not always follow this behavior and similarly there will always be someone who acts inappropriately online. These “bad guys” can appear in chat rooms and public virtual realms and cause problems within each program. However, in cyberspace one is merely a fabricated entity, a character in a virtual world whose only power or ability is language. There are no physical possibilities for those online to affect or harm others they may encounter.

I get skeptical because of this lack of physicality in the virtual world. I am a very scientific person in the sense that I like sound reasoning and solid evidence to prove things and I link harm to physical actions. But in cyberspace there are no actions, only words or commands that can then be simulated virtually. Therefore I think the only offense that can possibly occur online is verbal. If someone attacks you while you are in a chat room we immediately think of it as a verbal attack rather than a physical one.

Although such unwarranted verbal attacks are annoying and even painful to an extent, I do not believe that you can call them rape. To me these verbal attacks do not carry with them the physical and emotional harm that is associated with and defines rape. Someone who is raped in the real world is left physically violated, his or her body changed forever and potentially scarred by the experience in one way or another. Rape can also cause psychological pain and fear, leaving the victim haunted by the image of their attacker or memories of the event. Such effects of rape I simply cannot find in cyberspace. Verbal attacks definitely do not leave physical harm and although they can cause emotional suffering it is not usually to the degree that physical rape does.

Rape and other violent crimes also affect one’s image. Rape is something that stays with a person forever and affects the way they might act or behave. Someone who was once outgoing and a flirt may act more conservatively after being raped. One’s image can be affected not only by the person’s choice, as in the previous example, but also by the people around him or her. Other people’s image of you may change if they know that you have been raped in the past. However, no one really sees you differently if you have been offended online. It seems almost as if it never happened at all because it was not a real-life event. Thus, if you are verbally abused online one night I do not think that the whole neighborhood will be talking about it as they would if you were physically raped.

Overall I think that you can be subjected to violence online, both verbally and visually but never physically. The imaginary realm that is cyberspace has no room for physical actions. Without this actual “laying of hands” I do not think that someone can be raped online. I realize that people can be hurt by others online, I just don’t think that rape is the right word for it.

Differences on the Spectrum of Speech

I believe that many of us have a similar habit when it comes to our conversations. Depending on whom we are talking to our speech varies, including our diction, pronunciation, tone, and subjects. All of us tend to change our speech when we are around different types of people, but does this change who we are? Are we always still ourselves in every scenario or does our identities change when our speech does?

One way to look at they way we communicate differently is to look at it as a matter of formality. First in the order from less to more formal is talking to friends. When I am with a group of my friends I am most relaxed, most comfortable because they are my direct peers and also my contemporaries. I talk to them everyday about everything, many times about common experiences to which they can relate. Therefore, when I am with them I do not have to preoccupy myself with very formal language and so I use slang or profanity more commonly because I know they understand and do not really care. My words may be less pronounced or more hurried and my tone almost always reflects my current mood or attitude. Lastly, the subject matter of our conversations is not limited whatsoever. As I said we talk about everything, from schoolwork and classes to last night’s parties to that girl who sits two rows up and three seats to the left of you in Astronomy class on Tuesdays. Overall, when I am with my friends I say what is on my mind in the manner I choose to at the time.

When the conversation becomes one between me and my parents I become a different person. Whether that is a metaphor or whether converting your speech really does change your identity I do not know. What I do know is that when I speak with my parents I am still comfortable and do not worry too much about how formal my language is, but I do put some restrictions on my speech. One immediate change can be seen in my choice of words. Gone are the slang terms that would leave my parents clueless as to what I was telling them. Gone also are the profanities or bold words that I was so comfortable saying to my friends yet I would never utter them in my parents’ presence. These are replaced with more common, kind words, spoken slowly and understandably and often in a more pacific and pleasant tone. I should not say that the subject matter is restricted when I talk to my parents, but rather it is different. Subject possibilities are not reduced, I just do not have long conversations with my mother about the huge Halloween party I attended two nights ago and my behavior there. We still talk about a wide range of things they are simply different from those I might engage in with my friends at lunch. My conversations with my parents, though still comfortable in nature, are more toned back and controlled than with my friends.

The final category of speech, that which is the most formal, is used when speaking in proper situations. Talking to a teacher or peers in a class setting, going for a job interview, or talking to anyone of higher authority than myself requires my most formal and scholarly way of speaking. Rather than simply not use slang or profanity I use more grammatically correct sentence structures and proper language than I normally would. Also, my tone and pronunciation become flawless, as I want to appear as polished as possible to impress whomever I am speaking with. This time subject matter is severely limited and very specific bounds of right and wrong are drawn which are not to be crossed. This is by far my most formal manner of speech and is rarely used in comparison to the first two.

Upon reviewing the above about myself I find that my most true sense of self can be seen in the middle of the spectrum. Sometimes when I am talking with my friends I use certain words just to be cool, tell embellished stories that will get a laugh or act in ways that I just normally would not. The other end of the spectrum is definitely not me either. Although I am civilized human being who can speak well when need be, that does not mean that that is my normal manner. We all have a desire to impress our future employer or our teachers and one way to do so is with our speech. I would say the closest model to my true self is right in the middle, or speaking with my parents. On one hand I do not have to talk in slang or tell the right stories to impress anyone. On the other I do not have to speak very eloquently to impress anyone. With my parents there is enough comfort to talk leisurely and in common terms yet also enough room to still speak correctly and well. Overall, I believe that my true identity lies within this way of speaking. This is not to say that the other times are not truly me, just variations of myself that move toward certain ends of this formality spectrum.

My Not So Dreadful Discourse...Hopefully

It is safe to say that Margaret Cooper was suffering, but from what exactly it is hard to determine. She seemed to have fallen ill during which she was delirious, speaking absurdly to friends and family, having visions of a headless bear, and exhibiting other symptoms such as shaking and the inability to sleep very well. When further perturbed and held down she began foaming at the mouth and spoke of the bear and the devil. All of these signs demonstrate that Margaret Cooper is neither mentally nor physically healthy and that she needs help from more than just her friends and family but from a doctor.

In my description of the account I leaned towards the strange actions=illness metaphor. Although the story is recounting a tale of possession and supernatural occurrences, the way in which I describe Margaret Cooper makes her sound as if she is ill or diseased, as if she merely has a curable sickness. This idea is made evident not only by the fact that she is suffering, but more specifically by saying she has “fallen ill” and is not healthy. Also, the discussion of her “symptoms” and the fact that she needs the help of a doctor (or several) implies that she has a common sickness that is curable or healable with the help of professionals in the field of modern medicine. I think that due to scientific advancements over the centuries it is more common to pass over the spiritual aspects of such cases and look at crazy behavior in relation to mental problems or disease.

The words and phrases I used to describe the situation do not appear in the text. Instead, they are replaced with terms like “possessed” and “bewitched”, prayers for a “more quiet spirit” and “deliverance”, and frequent talk of the devil, God and evil spirits. Such descriptions and terminology lead the reader to discover the strange actions=possessed metaphor. This relation shows Margaret to be suffering not from physical or mental symptoms as I described above but rather from being physically taken over by an evil spirit who is causing her much pain and anguish from within due to her failure to repent to God for all of her sins.

Depending on which metaphor one chooses to use the situation could vary greatly. With the illness metaphor Margaret is a patient who is sick and thus experiencing common, diagnosable symptoms that are associated with her infirmity. However, using the second metaphor puts more emphasis on the supernatural dealings of the devil and evil spirits that can take over one’s body and soul.

The actions one takes to remedy the situation depend upon how you are looking at the occurrence. According to the sickness metaphor, Margaret should see a doctor, who with modern medicine or psychology could study her case and then “cure” her of her malady and send her on her way. This is how I interpreted the passage upon rewriting it in my own words. However, if one thinks of this in the sense of possession by evil spirits then the remedies change. Rather than medicine, Cooper needs to pray to God that he combat the demon inside her and release her trapped soul. This solution, involving prayer and repentance to God, relies on the same supernatural aspect that its matching metaphor does.

Thus, this story provides another example of the fact that, as we have mentioned countless times before, the metaphors with which we choose to describe certain situations have a great affect on how we go about solving our problems.

The Metaphorical Mind

In class we have discussed how metaphors can affect the way that we think. Describing something in terms of something else can determine our perception of an abstract concept, what actions we take to solve a problem, or even what aspects of the thing we wish to highlight or hide. Therefore, I think that Bush’s explanation of the mind as a web or trail of ideas could definitely stimulate new technologies. Who knows whether or not Doug Engelbart would have thought of creating a prototype computer if Bush had never presented his idea for the “Memex”. However, reading about Bush’s ideas in “As We May Think” allowed Engelbart for the first time to visualize the mind as an open space where links or paths could lead someone from one idea to another. Thus, he modeled his first computer program to mimic the Memex, with files and lists being the info and the mouse being the pathway to each of them.

The model of the mind as a web of trails is differs greatly from thinking of it as a printing press. The web approach implies that the mind has a starting point from which it investigates some information and builds on it to find out something else, then from there discovers something new and so on. Thus, as the mind learns things it processes them in long strings or paths of deductive reasoning that can later be followed again to find the outcome or new information. In the “printed paper” model the mind perceive things as impressions and “prints” them on paper that is then placed in the great “storehouse” that is the brain. Later, retention comes from accessing these impressions that are stored in the brain and recalling what was originally written.

Each of these metaphors highlights and hides certain aspects of the mind. The web of trails model highlights the deductive reasoning side of learning, showing that conclusions are made by finding some information that leads to something else and so on until the conclusion is made. Hidden by this metaphor, however, is the fact that we can produce a piece of information instantly if it has been previously found. In other words we do not have to retrace our steps along path to get to the conclusion every time we want to access it. This fact is what the “printed paper” model highlights. It says that once information is processed or “printed” it is stored forever in a storage room. Thus, when necessary, we are able to go to the right shelf and simply “pull out” the information we need, which is readily accessible. However, this metaphor does not mention the fact that if information goes unused for a long period of time it disappears and is no longer accessible to the mind. What the metaphor should say is that information is stored but occasionally old and unused facts are thrown away or disposed of in order to make room for new “papers”.

Drug War or Drug Outreach?

In Metaphors We Live By, Lakoff and Johnson make a very good point. They argue that by describing the energy crisis as a war, President Jimmy Carter affected how to go about solving the problem and what actions to take. This metaphor, according to the authors, implied that there was an “enemy” that needed to be “defeated” by setting targets” and “reorganizing priorities” in order to maintain “national security.” All of these metaphorical phrases convert the need to find new resources into a need for a victory in the energy war.

The problem with thinking in such metaphors is that it changes the actions we take to solve the problems we face. One situation in which this plays a pivotal part appears in Nell Bernstein’s articles. When talking about the problems of drugs in our society, using the “war” metaphor completely changes the perspective of the situation. Using this metaphor means that there are enemies that we must hunt down, capture and incarcerate in order to win the metaphorical battle against drugs and their users. This metaphor is what leads to the imprisonment of drug users as criminals and what labels them as breakers of the law as opposed to the sick people that they really are.

What I gathered from Bernstein’s message was that referring to drug problems as a war leads people to accept the wrong solutions. By following the metaphor we have merely imprisoned drug users, a solution that proved both expensive, about $25,000 a year per bed in California, and ineffective. Many people that have cleaned up say they probably never would have if they were merely put or kept in jail. Instead, a new and much more efficient solution has been developed known as Prop. 36. Under this new plan, drug users are not seen as the enemies of a war, but rather as patients with a disease who need help. Therefore, rather than simply throwing them in jail and not solve anything, they are redirected to a treatment facility where they enjoy a much better method of dealing with their problem. Therefore, we can merely change the metaphor we use to describe something in order to completely change the perspective and, in this case, find a much more effectual solution.

Falling in Love, Metaphorically Speaking

As I read the first few pages of the assignment I have to say that I was a little shaken and confused. For four years in high school I was told that a metaphor was simply a literary device by which one could describe one thing by comparing it to another, yet here I was being told that we use metaphors every day without even realizing it. On page five Lakoff and Johnson explain, “the essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another.” It was not until I read this definition, particularly the authors’ use of the word experiencing, that I was able to understand metaphors in an everyday sense.

Reading on I came across the thought that we as humans try to apply boundaries to ideas and abstract concepts in order to be able to describe them. We metaphorically move out of and into places or things that we physically could not otherwise. One such example is the metaphor of “falling in love.” No one can actually fall in love, yet by quantifying love as a container according to Lakoff and Johnson, we can metaphorically be submerged in such abstract ideas and concepts. Thus, to fall into love is to be enclosed in the bounded container that represents the concept of love.

This metaphor for love highlights multiple aspects of love. The first is the spontaneous quality of love. Usually, when someone is falling they have lost control of themselves and their destination. A lack of control is one way to describe falling in love, since one can uncontrollably be struck by love and immediately be attracted to someone. Another aspect of love that this metaphor focuses on is the fact that it is a continuous action. After that first spontaneous spark brings two people together, they then continuously fall deeper and deeper in love as their relationship develops. Falling is also a continuous, sweeping motion rather than an instant outcome. One does not begin to fall and then appear on the floor, they must traverse the distance to get there. Similarly, when two people are struck by love they are not immediately in love but rather they follow the process of “falling in love.”
This metaphor also hides some aspects of love. Falling in love generally refers to the beginning of a relationship but this metaphor says nothing about retaining love once two people have fallen for each other. Also, the phrase says nothing about the difficulties of love, and instead makes it seem as easy as letting yourself fall right in.

I believe that seeing love as something we are able to just fall right into gives people the notion that it could happen anywhere, anytime. To me it says that one does not always have to be looking for love, he or she may simply stumble upon it randomly. I think that this phrase emphasizes the spontaneity of love and makes people believe that love can be obtained simply by falling into its borders.

Introduction: Metaphors for Technology - Assignment 2

1. According to Socrates, how does writing hurt human beings? That is, for him, what good are we deprived of if we become a writing culture? Would Goody agree with Socrates? Why or why not?

In his dialogue with Phaedrus, Socrates explains his belief that writing simply does not compare as a means of communication to that of speaking or dialogue. He argues that the listener remembers the message better if they hear it, because reading what someone has written allows them to see the words but still not absorb what is being said. Through the story about Theuth and Thamus, Socrates explains that the new technology of letters will not help people remember but in fact do just the opposite. He claims that instead, the letters will be exercising their memory and the people will merely refer to them. However, Socrates criticizes this act because if we were to fall into the habit of merely reading and never interacting we would be deprived of learning and communicating new ideas. The comparison of “the living word of knowledge which has a soul” to the written word which “is properly no more than an image” best sums up Socrates’ view on the matter of writing. Jack Goody would not agree with Socrates’ ideas about writing. Rather, in his short excerpt from The Power of Written Tradition he expresses his belief that writing and speaking are both important and necessary for cultural development. Also, the title of his book The Interface between the Written and Oral implies that the two are not separate entities but that they are two modes of the same goal and that they must build on each other. Furthermore, in Technologies of the Intellect Goody goes on to declare writing a technology, a tool developed like any other in order to simplify certain tasks. He declares that not only are the pen and the alphabetic symbols technologies themselves but also the ability to manipulate and explain the world around you. Also, whereas Socrates sees writing as an image of speech, Goody believes that writing is a material expression of thought and that the distinction between the two is not one of living and nonliving but of visual and nonvisual. Thus, to Goody both are important, they are simply expressed in different ways. Later, he explains that writing is more powerful than oral tradition because oral information is limited to human memory. Writing information down preserves and makes available an infinite amount to future generations. Overall, while Socrates would argue that writing one’s thought rather than speaking them is an ineffective way to relay a strong message, Goody believes that writing has so many more uses and skills than speech that it is a technology in and of itself.


2. How must you redefine the word "technology" if, like Goody, you see writing as a technology? (You'll need to expand the dictionary definition!) Do you agree that the definition of "technology" should be expanded to include writing and/or other means for thinking, or do you see new technologies as new gadgets only? Can you imagine a circumstance, perhaps when you are thinking through a problem or trying to decide what road to take in your life, that might make you want to rely upon this expanded definition?

The dictionary defines technology as “the branch of knowledge that deals with the creation and use of technical means and their interrelation with life, society, and the environment, drawing upon such subjects as industrial arts, engineering, applied science, and pure science”, which we normally interpret as the electronics, computers and gadgets that we use to simplify tasks. However, in Technologies of the Intellect Jack Goody explains that writing can also be referred to as a technology. Like many others, I used to think of technology only as electronic devices, but upon reading Goody’s argument I now agree that technology includes much more. I would redefine the word to include anything that is created to accomplish a goal in an efficient way or to manipulate things in ways that we could not before. Thus, writing, along with other forms of communication and thought processes, can be considered technology on the basis that they allow us to perform actions and solve problems that were previously insoluble. For instance, writing has allowed us over the centuries to interpret other languages relative to our own by drawing characters or symbols and making the necessary connections. Whenever I face a problem that needs to be solved or a decision that must be made, in the present or in my future business career, I can use technologies to find a solution. I can write down possible actions and their consequences, speak with my peers to gain their input, and then make the best choice. Thus technology need not be limited to mere gadgets and gizmos, but rather it pertains to any means, mechanical or mental, by which we accomplish our goals.