It’s not as much accepting it to be normal than “It’s your life, and if this turns you on, good for you, but since you know it’s always gonna come back and bite you in the end, why the hell should we say anything?”
Of course. However it is also important to understand why people acts the way they do.
Sorc, you can’t possibly expect to define me merely by a few completely random observations. I do stand up for myself, and I’m not as naif as some people keep suggesting. What I’m saying is that I was not only disgusted by knowing that a human being had been treated in such a degrading manner, but also shocked because Zepp didn’t seem to regret his actions at all.
Secondly, just because I happen to have a few ideals, it doesn’t mean that I have a naif view of the world - it’s quite the opposite. I tend to see things worse than they actually are. And you have no right to say that I act high and mighty, or righteous. I merely have a set of principles, which include not intentionally harming or slandering people.
Sorc, you accuse me of having a high and mighty attitude, but you’re the one who presumes to know everything. You have no right to presume to know how I am or not, especially since all you do in regards to me is take a few shots when you get an excuse. You know nothing of who I am, and you don’t care, because you feel better off slandering me at every turn. Well, let me tell you something, if I was the pathetic weakling that you and a few others try to make me look, I wouldn’t be fighting right this instant, to complete my studies, handle my pending issues and build my own future. I’m sick of your reductionism. You say I never stand up for myself, well, here’s one way I’m doing it: I’m tired of holding back on my language in here just because someone might not like it!
And Lanyx, who the hell do YOU think you are?! I gave my honest opinion, and it’s none of your damn business! Who the hell are you to call anyone a prick? You’re no better than everyone else! Even though I have never been in that situation, I couldn’t stand the thought of treating someone in that particular way. I’m not going to apologize for having my ethics! So lay off, because you’re the only prick I’m seeing here!
Hmpf, better to avoid making certain choices for the time being than rushing and doing something I’ll end up regretting.
I think you’re missing Sorcerer’s point, which he made clear in the end of his post. What he said was, although he could try to extrapolate all these conclusions about you based on what you wrote online, he also knew that there were other sides to you, and supposed that there were still more that he didn’t know of. He suggested that you should give Zeppy the same consideration: because all you know about his actions comes from this one post, you shouldn’t just condemn him, or “reduce” him to those actions.
There is a certain threshold where if the immoral act is bad enough, we do reduce the person who committed it to their evil act without any regard for their motivations and personality. For most(but not all) humans, those evil acts would be premeditated murder, child molestation, and perhaps burglary(which a lot of people hate even more than murder). Some people’s threshold is lower; some people don’t even have one. I suspect Manus’ is lower than the average person’s.
If you consider what Zeppelin did to have passed that threshold, than you wouldn’t care what other factors there are in his personality - he had committed a heinous crime. Now, most of the people here don’t consider what he did to be a truly evil act, but if you do consider what he did to be a crime of high magnitude according to your own moral system, he’d be a bad person, period. For instance, if someone came here and said they had molested little children, we would not care about the many nuances of their personality. They had committed a crime of the highest magnitude, and we would label them an evil person.
Now, obviously, from what I’ve read Zeppelin hasn’t done anything near as bad as that. BUT, some people could see Zeppelin’s act as unadulterated evil(once again, judging the act by their own personal moral sense), and if someone did think that way they would think Zeppelin was a bad person, period.
So instead of accusing Manus of not understanding ‘the whole Zeppelin’, it would be better to attack his idea that what Zeppelin did automatically makes a person evil or ‘bad’. Because until you convince him that that idea is wrong, he’s probably not going to care what Zeppelin is like as a person.
I just scrolled through the last 2 pages, so if I repeat something or offend some one fuck off.
Zepp. That was just really rude. I’m not going to claim to hate you or anything, because I’m assuming your feeling pretty bad. But why do you take advantage of people? You said you take advantage of weaknesses and I just want to know why?
What you did was really cruel.
That was my entire point - despite all that information I’ve extrapolated from your posts, I know that as a person there is more to you. There has to be - because no individual is ever as one sided as that. Furthermore, I expected there to be more to you than I knew and listed - for example that you are pushing to build your future, complete your studies and give yourself a better life. I applaud that, I didn’t know that and I’m happy for you - but you have to understand that while you are doing all these things so is Zeppelin. We only know Zeppelin the online persona, and I only know you as Manus Dei the online persona, but you are not limited to being Manus Dei and he is not limited to being Zeppelin.
I cannot judge you fully because I don’t know you; and you cannot judge him because you don’t know him.
I feel bad because I went out of my way to ensure that you realized that I wasn’t trying to slight you or put you down and you obviously missed that. I in no way meant to reduce you to being Manus Dei, but you have - in this thread especially - reduced Zeppelin to being only that - Zeppelin.
I believe ramza put it in the best way. You really shouldn’t beat yourself up for this, things like this happen, wheather we like it or not. We just gotta get through it and move on, You’re a good person Zep, just Live and learn and have fun with life.
Oh and I fully agree with what sorc is saying about knowing a person online and judging them from that.
Alright, I’ve got a few quick questions for everyone posting on this thread: what is the intent of your post? And what emotion is driving you?
I don’t know about the rest of you, but last time I checked, being hostile/hateful is pretty fucking unkind. Now depending on intent and purpose, I am willing to wager that some people may be doing a greater “evil” in thier own hearts than Zepp did. I don’t know why Zepp did what he did, but from my point of view, intent in 9/10s of sin.
That 1/10 is undeniable though, so don’t think that someone can be forgiven for what they’ve done just because they didn’t do it with malice. Good way of making this clear, there is a huge difference bewteen accidentally discharging a shotgun while out hunting and killing a friend and “accidentally” discharging a shotgun while robbing a pawnshop and killing a clerk. In both cases someone is dead and there is blame to go around, but I doubt anyone would say that the hunter committed a greater or even equal evil.
Let me stop and point out that this is the most polarized case I can think of, and Zepp was certainly not just out hunting and accidentally treated a woman like shit. What I am saying is that from my perspective, it doesn’t look nearly as malicious of intent as some people wan’t to condemn him for.
What I am getting at is this. Regardless of the stain that is placed upon Zepp’s soul for what he has done, that doesn’t make it okay for any of us to stain our own hearts by spiteful and cruel response. If anyone truly is holier than Zepp, then they certainly have no need to blacken themselves by attacking an unarmed man offering no defense.
We should not accept it or glorify it (unless we see it as right, but thats a bus with nobody on it), but the response to one of our own admitting to a fault should never be that of sharks. Unlike sharks, we have no excuse for acting so brutally and savagely. In my original reply to this I mentioned that if Zepp and I were friends offline I’d offer him alcohol. That to me is a way of offering an anesthetic, something to help deaden the pain and discomfort, not a congratulatory act. That was my way of saying, “We’ll fuck, there is nothing I can do to help, so I might as well offer the option of drowning the pain.”
Zepp was not right in what he did, he was human. We had the option of being humane in reply, or being brutal and hateful. I chose to stand in solidarity with him, because to be honest, people get hurt, and since I have never met this girl who was on the other side of the story, I might as well be a friend to someone in the ordeal. Some of my best friends are evil bastards. I do not support their evil at all, but they are more than their evil, and I am friends with the rest of what they are.
Oh, man.
Christ, do we need to open a Personal Shrink Forum, or what? 
Who’d moderate?
insert standard inmates running asylum cliche here
He goes to Southern Illinois They solve all their problems, and even things that aren’t problems, with alcohol.
Not to say I wouldn’t gladly accept his drink.
God no! The concentration of Angst and Woe would open a tear in time and space and probably summon the Old Ones or some crazy shit like that.
remembers my “Counselor for the Wangsty” title and HIDES
Its been like this for years :P. And Kaiser brings a good point. Having to moderate over THAT MUCH whining would be worse than moderating the RP forum.
I DARE you to create a Personal Shrink Forum and let me mod it Oh man, that would rock so hard
But some of us have needs! Needs, dammit!
Hypothetically;
NO.
Wouldn’t make much of a change, seeing as we already do a strange deviant form of group therapy on the Main Forum. Still, I’d love to see the the “Private sessions”.
I vote Hades and Sorc for shrinks. Just try to picture it.