My friends constantly make fun of me because I often forget how short I am. I swear I'm not that short and you can be damn sure I'll reach that top cabinet... one way or the other. My height doesn't always match my personality and what I think I can do doesn't always fit with my physical abilities. In my mind I'm 6'2" and unstoppable.
Stephen Asma's article made me realize a lot about myself and that I'm not the only shortie who thinks she can dunk a basketball. He mentions that humans have this funny way of imagining how they will react in life-threatening moments. His example of a the knife attack in the 90's is a great explanation. We can all easily sit here and say "why didn't anyone stop him?" but really, when was the last time you were attacked with a hunting knife? We sit in class and criticize literary characters for their actions and decision but what would we have done? If I created a monster like Frankenstein, I'm pretty sure my reaction wouldn't be all that different. I probably would've run away faster honestly.
So while I mentioned that I often feel larger than life-sized, its not a constant thing. Story time: My parents house is in the middle of nowhere. I was home alone one dark winter evening when my cat freaked out and scared the shit out of me by running through the house slamming into cabinets. So naturally "burglar" comes to mind and what do I do? I grab a pair of scissors and the biggest knife we had and I scoped out the house. Turns out there was the biggest black bear in Western PA on our front deck. So now I'm standing in a dark room, suddenly feeling very small, holding a kitchen knife against the biggest animal I've ever seen. Let's just say, its a really good thing I wasn't born in a time where killing large animals was required to survive.
How does my little anecdote correlate to Asma's monster theories? If someone would have given my that situation as a hypothetical, I would have given a reasonable and logical response to handling the situation. But when theres a giant freaking bear outside your house and all you've got is a knife, you suddenly really start to question your flight or fight skills. And what if there was a burglar? I'm 5'2" and not Jason Bourne (surprising right?). My planning basically stopped at "knife" but it sure seemed like a good idea at the time.
Monsters (and big ass bears) exist to remind us that we aren't invincible. They force us to think about how we would react in a certain hypothetical situation so that when a situation does arise with real life monsters, we can at least hope we react in the best way possible. "No one likes to imagine oneself a victim." Monsters are around so that we never forget that anyone, anyone, can become a victim and no one really knows how they'll react.
Molly, your last line stood out to me the most: "Monsters are around so that we never forget that anyone, anyone, can become a victim and no one really knows how they'll react." It's sadly accurate, both within fictional worlds and reality. Plenty of horror movies have the highly-prepared survivalist character get cut down in spite of their efforts to stay alive. In the same way, tragedies like Hurricane Katrina show that, even with millions of dollars poured into protecting cities like New Orleans, we are all still at the mercy of weather cycles. No one wants to be the victim, even though it's not an easy phenomenon to avoid.
ReplyDeleteMolly, it's interesting that you bring up the line about how anyone can be a victim and in times of crisis onlookers ask why victims didn't do more. There's a theory in psychology called the Just World Hypothesis and in essence it's the tendency for humans to believe in a just world, i.e. bad things happen to bad people and you get what you deserve so if I'm a good person then nothing bad will happen to me because I don't deserve it. So often people want to put blame on the victims because they think that if it was the victim's fault (or the victim deserved it) then it was a one-off situation and therefore it can't happen to them because they haven't done anything to deserve such a horrific experience and since the world is just they won't have to experience anything of that nature. It's an interesting concept and if you think about it it really explains a lot of people's reactions. The question is how can we get people from victim blaming to perpetrator or monster blaming?
ReplyDeleteLots of good points here! I'm sure everyone has had the thought of how heroic they'd be if someone broke into their house - how they'd protect their family using only their fists and send the burglar running away crying. Yet, as Asma showed, in moments where one's life is truly threatened, self-preservation takes hold and sometimes that means running away - contrary to the daydream someone may have had of defending themselves. This is one reason why I have never understood people who victim blame, or say something like "Well, if *I* was there, something different would have happened..." When in reality we are all just as easily capable of being a victim in a situation we cannot control.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree that no one really knows how they would react in any situation scary or not. I really really dislike when people talk about what they would do in a certain situation and how they would have "handled it better." There's honestly just no way of knowing. Like you said we could hope to react in the best way but that can't be guaranteed. This reminds to of the men's soccer team play off game last Tuesday. After they had lost I heard a lot of people talk about how one of the players missed "an easy shot" sounding really annoyed. Granted these people have never been in that kind of situation with so much pressure on their shoulders to win such an important game. No one can win every time and things happen. I just had wished more people at Hood would congratulate them for making it this far rather than being negative and pointing out all their mistakes.
ReplyDeleteGood points. I agree that we can never predict 100% the outcome of a situation. Like you said, "Monsters exists to remind us we aren't invincible", and I think that prepares us for real issues even though we might not always react correctly in such situation. Knowing we are not perfect, we become conscious to out flaws and have a chance to address them. Even though you are " 5'2" and not Jason Bourne", you acknowledge that which gives you a chance to hit the gym, get ripped and learn kickboxing. Maybe then you'll have a fighting chance against the bear, Leonardo DiCaprio style.
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