"Control Your Thoughts."

Apropos of a story about a Christian blogress who decided to quit wearing Yoga pants in public so as to avoid tempting other men into violating the commandment against coveting another man's wife, some advice:
Meanwhile, others criticised the entry for feeding into the idea that what a women chooses to wear dictates how men behave. “How about you learn to control your thoughts?” said one commenter.
That's great advice! Let's try it. Don't think of a pink elephant.

15 comments:

Texan99 said...

Burqas are the answer! We can't take any chances.

Grim said...

That's what my USAF buddy said. :)

I don't know. I admire her for wanting to show her husband that she wants her sexuality to be a special thing for him. That's a gift, and a highly honorable one. I trust he merits, and repays, that gift as much as she says he does.

Russ said...

I have to go with Grim on this. That is a highly honorable gift.

Texan99, why the snark? She made a personal decision that is very consistent with the Christian faith. She is not trying to mandate it for everyone.

Cass said...

Meanwhile, others criticised the entry for feeding into the idea that what a women chooses to wear dictates how men behave. “How about you learn to control your thoughts?” said one commenter

Sheesh. Why do so many people have trouble understanding their native language? Thinking isn't behavior. Behavior is observable activity. Thoughts (unless they are acted upon) are private.

She didn't say her clothing choices dictate how other men will *behave* at all. She said they might make it more difficult for men not to look at her and think certain thoughts.

Duh :p She's gorgeous, in addition to being smart.

Even women are more likely to look at an attractive, scantily clad woman than one who is modestly dressed. That's just reality. Beautiful women in tight or revealing clothes make pretty much everyone think about sex. As do handsome men in tight or revealing clothes. If you're good looking, you probably have to work harder not to attract that kind of attention.

You have to wonder why these folks are so thin-skinned that they feel judged and threatened by someone else having the temerity to point out the obvious without asking them to change their behavior in any way :p

Good on her.

Cass said...

FWIW, I don't think there's really anything wrong with saying that people ought to at least try to control their thoughts.

Even though it's difficult to do, that's how we stay out of trouble.

One of the habits of people with good self control is precisely that: they consciously refuse to dwell on thoughts that will cause them to give in to temptation. If you're attracted to that hot guy at work, you can obsess over him and think about him all the time, or you can stop and say, "OK, he's hot but I'm married and no good is going to come from going down that road."

If you're on a diet, you don't surround yourself with high calorie foods, if you are trying to stop drinking you'll generally have better success if you don't keep alcohol in the house and if you want to stop smoking, you don't carry cigarettes with you 24/7.

There's no judgment there - just common sense.

MikeD said...

Frankly, it seems to me that it's completely up to her what she wears, and as long as she's saying "this is what I am doing and why I am doing it" then I think it's fine. I think she only crosses a line when she says "and that's why YOU must do as I do." Wrong answer, X gets the square.

If someone wishes to be an example for others, I think that's laudable. It's when they attempt to dictate to others that I get my back up.

Grim said...

FWIW, I don't think there's really anything wrong with saying that people ought to at least try to control their thoughts.

There are two points about the pink elephant example. The first is the one you've already touched on, which is that many thoughts come unbidden with the appropriate stimulus. Just by understanding what I mean when I say "Don't think of a pink elephant," you've already thought of one.

The point about the pink elephant example is that it's only possible to control undesired thoughts after you've had the thoughts. In order to form an intention to push thoughts of pink elephants out of my mind, I first have to have the thought of a pink elephant in my mind. It's having the thought that allows me to form the resolution to fight having that thought.

Thus, if you really don't want me to have the thought at all, the only way to achieve that is to avoid providing the stimulus for the thought. The best I can do afterwards is to think about it in a certain way, i.e., as something resolutely not to dwell upon.

Cass said...

Grim:

I understand the pink elephant thing (and bonus points for working an elephant into the discussion :p). I was taking issue with the folks who were suggesting that it's somehow unreasonable to expect people to try to control the direction of their thoughts (as opposed to preventing thoughts in the first place, which is clearly impossible).

If someone wishes to be an example for others, I think that's laudable. It's when they attempt to dictate to others that I get my back up.

I think that's human. On the Internet, people tend to get kind of butt-hurt if anyone even raises the issue of how they think people ought to behave/think/speak. To me, that's really counterproductive: a society that can't even talk about right or wrong for fear of hurting someone's amour propre is dysfunctional.

I distinguish between:

1. Everyone should be forced to...

and

2. Everyone ought to...

The first gets my back up, the second not so much because it's just one person's opinion - they have no power to compel me (though they can certainly apply social pressure).

That said, getting people's backs up is no way to win hearts and minds :p On the other hand (and I"m not for one moment including you in this) a lot of people on the Internet want to use their feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelings as some sort of criterion for shutting down or harshly discouraging "unacceptable" speech.

That's why I think civility is so important - adults really ought to be able to discuss ideas without acting like that feminist you referred to earlier.

Texan99 said...

"Texan99, why the snark? She made a personal decision that is very consistent with the Christian faith. She is not trying to mandate it for everyone."

The snark wasn't directed against her. I'm afraid I was guilty of directing a joke our host, the point of it being that, if we decide we have to guard people against thinking of pink elephants, then I don't see an easy dividing line between "I'd better not wear yoga pants" and "I'd better cover up head to toe." Covering up head to toe was once, even in our non-Islamic culture, considered essential in order to prevent men from running wild in the streets with unfettered sexual desire; an ankle was risque.

Nothing can entirely prevent a man from thinking illicit sexual thoughts. I don't think it's nice to provoke him deliberately, but the fact remains that only he can control himself, and it's wrong to expect women to cover themselves so he won't suffer the intrusion of bad thoughts. That way lies purdah. A guy who's having that much trouble with his thoughts might want to think about putting himself in purdah rather than the objects of his dangerous desire. If that's too extreme, he can accept the fact that he'll have occasional uncomfortable thoughts, and his task will be to try not to dwell on them and at all costs not to let them drive his behavior into unacceptable directions.

Whenever we can solve a problem by controlling ourselves rather than other people, that's a better path. If I'm dieting, is it reasonable to expect other people to hide their food? If I'm an alcoholic, must everyone stop serving liquor at their parties? You might do that as a kindness in an extreme case--where the alternative is institutionalization--but are you doing a good thing or encouraging your weak neighbor to rely on external controls instead of cleaning up his own mental business?

However, having said that, I obviously have zero problem with any woman who decides to dress modestly for absolutely any reason that seems good to her, religious or otherwise. I don't even object to burqas as long as they are the free choice of the burqa-wearer, and not something she has to don in order not to be beaten in the streets by the Islamic version of Mrs. Grundy.

I'm sorry. I guess I heard too many times how women shouldn't work in this or that field, or study in the same school as men, because the men would no longer be able to concentrate. I consider that a problem between the guy's ears, not to be solved by excluding (or covering) the women.

Grim said...

I'm afraid I was guilty of directing a joke our host...

I've noticed that you often do this. I rarely respond to the humor directly, since normally it happens when you've missed my point sufficiently that you think I've said something worthy of mockery. It wouldn't be helpful to mock back, so I generally don't.

That probably makes it seem like I don't get the jokes, or don't notice them, but I'm aware of them. I just choose to punish you with painfully technical explanations of the point, rather than by returning fire. :)

Here the point was simply that the very process being advocated -- controlling the thoughts -- necessitated having the thoughts in the first place. If the objection is merely that a man shouldn't act on the thought, or shouldn't dwell on it, women can all go around in bikinis all the time. But if you want men not to think such things, which is what the Christian lady really wants -- not to be thought of in a sexualized way by anyone but her husband -- then you have to adopt her approach. Her critic was suggesting something foolish, given the lady's actual goal.

Texan99 said...

"I admire her for wanting to show her husband that she wants her sexuality to be a special thing for him. "

I do, too. That's a line of thinking that has little to do with feeling she has to protect her neighbor or coworker from his own thoughts. It's a matter of privacy between her and her husband, and a very good thing. I apply it to all kinds of things beyond the display of my body--not that the display of my body has been any issue of the kind for some years now!

Yes, I'm aware that your painfully technical explanations often are a dignified refusal to acknowledge the joke. If you start quoting Kant to me it's a dead giveaway. Did you know that you sometimes miss the point, too, and that your response demonstrates it equally? It's a problem in a great deal of human beings' attempts to communicate with each other, and it's especially prevalent in communications between you and me--not, I assume, because either of us is an idiot, but because we look at many things from such wildly different perspectives that our messages often seem like almost complete gibberish to each other.

Grim said...

If you start quoting Kant to me it's a dead giveaway.

Well, truthfully I often quote Kant (and other philosophers) because I hope they'll shed some light on the problem. Sometimes a good way to think outside your own system is to explore other systems people have proposed for the same problem, and see how you agree and disagree with them. Kant's is often very interesting for that purpose: he and I don't agree on very much, but the process of comparing and contrasting is fun.

Did you know that you sometimes miss the point, too, and that your response demonstrates it equally?

I'm sure. You're probably right about the cause, too: we are very different people, both biologically and in terms of life experience. Our unspoken assumptions can't be conveyed without being made carefully explicit. They also probably can't be made carefully explicit until we become aware that the other person doesn't share them!

Texan99 said...

Sometimes they simply cannot be heard.

Grim said...

And some things -- for example some aesthetic experiences, which are tremendously important in forming value systems -- cannot be said. I'm sure that you're often in the hopeless place of thinking, as I do, that if I could experience things the way you do, I'd understand why you thought X or reject Y. And that's true for me as well: your world, the world you experience aesthetically as well as otherwise, is totally different from mine. There are parts of it I can't know about, because I can never experience them and you can't convey them.

Texan99 said...

Very true.