Watching Infamous Commonwealth's production of "The Homage that Follows" yesterday led to some thoughts on how art reveals truth. The drama recounts the story of an attractive Hollywood actress, Lucy, who visits her mother to rest and recooperate. A similarly aged man, Archie is installed as farmhand. Archie is a mathmatician, not actually a farm hand type who is immediately interested in Lucie, largely for her looks. Why is a brilliant young man interested in a woman largely based on her looks? Why immediately and why are we as audience certain it's innapropriate, lacking in limits? The ending of the drama would be predictable, Archie wants Lucie, she says no, he kills her. Only the structure of the play precludes that by starting with the ending, epic-style and is told from the viewpoint of the mother start to finish.
This play resonated with me because the topic of stalking is intriguing. Why do people do it, who does it and how, what does it do to them and to the person being stalked? Stalking is behavior that is elemental, it's not 'appropriate' because it is expression of emotion that is not reasonable or rational, it is escalated to extremes, it is outside normal boundaries. It is however, authentic, if not acceptable in practice. It actually happens and documentation is increasing that there's plenty of it. Has it always been around? Does it exist more often in urban environments or environments that involve crowding or high density?
Love v. hate is always of interest, what are these emotions, what differentiates them? Are they just versions of strong emotion, two sides of the same thing? Love and hate, again, universal. We feel it as early as memory reaches backward. Babies probably feel these things. Young children state early on, "I love you" and just as easily, "I hate you", sometimes in the same minute.
Archie takes his self-loathing and heaps it on Lucy, blames her. Is she to blame, of course not, she is a new feature in his landscape. Will she change her mind if she feels guilty, is this pure manipulation? If she's guilty, will that relieve Archie of his own personal responsibility? Stalkers tend to follow a familier path. They channel strong emotion, repackage it and call it rational approach. The ones who can't verbalize or act out how they will make the victim pay, may feel the same emotions, but with no impact on the victim, is there no stalking?
6 comments:
To what extent is stalking, that is, tracking stealthily as muich a character flaw as an emotional issue? How are these two things hooked together--if at all? Can one even use the word chracter in this context? The word itself has certainly fallen on hard times. So what might be a substitute word? Personality construct?
What makes "stealth" attractive, exciting and/or compelling? What are the different ways stealth operates at the cognitive levelin humans?
Does it happen more often in cities? My guess is, yes it does due to the ease of anonymity which many stalkers seem to need. Or perhaps they practice anonymity because they are without community--either by choice or circumstance. Loners of some sort.
Of course, this raises the question--to stalk someone do you have to know them? If one does know the person, the reasons for stalking get more specific, and almost infinite.
I think the question of isolation can help to define stalking. The stalker tends to be isolated, without access to a structure that leads to a lack of balance in managing emotions, actions, interactions with the intended victim.
I suspect there is an element of humiliation in stalking. Stalkings I have read about seem always to involve anger, acting out and role playing. The stalker is both victim and victimizer.
The person being stalked must be made to feel pressure, isolating a person will aid in applying pressure. The victim who allows that isolation also becomes unbalanced, changes emtionally, assumes a new role.
An interesting trend in dating has come out of the internet. Now all sorts of people tell small to big lies about themselves in order to appear more attractive. Because of the isolation of one-on-one on-line dating, there is more role playing taking place. More people have dating experiences that involve only themselves and the person they date, no community.
This says to me there must be something attractive about living in anonymity, but only the way that eating junk food and lying about can be attractive pursuit for a little while.
You are running way ahead of me. My feet have blisters, and the Model-T is out of gas.
Still the connection between structure and stalking is most interesting. Taking your stuff and filtering it through the lens of structure could be quite revelatory--that is, how one's stalking activity is impacted by structures of various kinds [personal, psychological, sociological/familial, geographical/physical]. That sounds a bit academic for me at the moment!
There is also the interesting business about emotions, bringing to mind a couple of questions: What emotions does the victim who is stalked bring to the experience? What is the nature of the emotional change that takes place over time? What kind of role adaptation happens as a result of what has taken place? By the way, do not feel you have to answer these questions. I will just let them perk.
The trend in dating you mentioned I find frightening and sad. Do such daters have outside dates as well? Or is it exclusive dating by computer, be it one or more than one partner? No matter in a sense, for the need for anonymity in this context and in whatever form it takes suggests some sort of personal psychological isolation. It is my view that we exist [are created] to be in relationship. Granted that is not always easy to pull of in an imperfect world, but need for connection seems part of the human structure [there's that word again]. Even the ducks on the pond have it. So to prefer anonymity is not only a mistake, a bad choice, a deficiency of some sort, it is already dead-ended at its infancy. Perhaps this is another take on stalking. No, not really. It's already there in your entry.
I need to apologize with regard to my earlier posts. I clearly made some "classic" errors: I did not burr into the subject, I did not pay attention as I should have to your working definition, I overlaid some assumptions about the subject on what you wrote--mostly notions coming from the social sciences. In essence I did not read the entry well and that was disrespectful. I am really sorry about this, and will try to do better next time.
So let's start over beginning with your working definition. As you see it, stalking for starters involves the following: First, it's elemental. That probably ties it into something deep in human nature (or whatever one wants to call that sort of thing). That in turn puts the pehenomenon/behavior fairly deep inside a human being. I think stalking is clearly more than cultural/sociological conditioning, although that probably has some involvement. Second, it's an expression of emotion that is not reasonable or rational. The connection between emotion and cognition is a tough one for me--slippery and hard to locate/connect. Still that relationship is an important piece. Emotions have not only gone amiss here, a mind has also gotten fouled up as well. Third, it's escalated to extremes. I am assuming the reference here is to behavior which then brings one back to the emotion/reason connection. Fourth, it's escalated to extremes. I think this is where things get very dicey. When/at what point does an interest move to stalking? What's on the "continuation line," that is, what are the behavioral ranges/degrees along the way? Who is to decide what is extreme? One probably needs just a common sense approach/definition here. Fifth, It's outside normal boundaries. What are these boundaries? Who sets them? On what grounds? With what evidence? Sixth, it's authentic. In a way that takes one back to the first characteristic, that is, its authentic because it is fundamental. What is so interesting to me is that each of the six characteristics is an agenda in/of itself. That said, your defnitional stuff offers a very fruitful way of encircling the subject of stalking.
As to the question has it always been around, the answer is probably yes if one assumes that what lies inherent in the behavior is something elemental and authentic.
Let me circle back to your opening observations on the play--where you are wondering, if I remember sort of right, about art and art's way of dealing with human issues like stalking. My thought here is--plays deal with issue like stalking through plot/narrative, i.e., through aesthetic means and'or a specific kind of method. I, however, used a different means, that is, I have just "attacked!" the stalking subject via analytical analysis [rather poorly I might add]. I see these two ways of doing things as epistemological twins, that is, modes that offer two different ways of knowing. When they get messed up, the inner critic can have a heyday, especially if the goal is to make a piece of art. I personally think a lot of the so-called political theatre does not see the difference in epistemologies, and this gets some theatre work in trouble. Here it's more in the camp of doing criticsm than in the realm of making art. In other words, it's not effective because it does not know what it is doing epistemologically. So it all ends up as mush. It's just mushing around.
Now to some corollary/related stuff. Which of the following would you be interested in pursuing further? They are all interesting to me. First, the love hate relationship. It seems to me that one is a positive dynamic and the other a negative dynamic--each of which have whole sets of properties--all of which exist inside a single human personhood. From a philosophical standpoint, this quickly gets related to the subject of the nature of being [oh, dear, there goes existentialism showing off again]. Still, the whole subject of love and hate may be worth a set of postings. Second, the issue of boundaries and stalking: their nature, how they come about, who sets them, their value as well as dangers....Third, stalking as a circular phenomenon. By that I mean what stalkers want they can't have, and becuase they can't have what they want, they keep after it. What then can break the loop? Fourth, stalking and co-dependence. Both stalker and victim may be needing something [two needy people], so they stay in the relationship be it at a distance. In the relationship, the sides of dependence are no doubt weighted differently. Is this phenomenon somehow related to the dating via computer theme you threw out? If there is co-dependency somewhere, then one is really into a circular loop. Fifth, the whole issue of guilt that can operate inside the victim. Sixth, The whole area of openness as invitation to the stalker. How does that get set in motion? And how does one keep openness and at the same time deal with the problem?
These are just a few of the spin-offs. There are many more. Guess I am asking, where do we go next on the stalking issue? As you probably detect, I have gotten hooked on the subject. But I am obviously a "Johnny-come-lately."
Looking for a posting.
Finally, do any of my observatios/questions make sense? If not, at least I have made a start "burring in!"
It seems like there is a continuum running from mild interest, through casual attraction, admiration and fascination, all the way to adoration, obsession (and maybe even some kind of tortured obsession beyond the normal sense of the word). Depending on circumstances, and the famous "conjugations" we might consider any of those feelings reasonable/legitimate or not: (I am interested, you have a crush, he/she is obsessing?)
What fascinates me is the difference between this story's arc: "Archie wants Lucie, she says no, he kills her" as opposed to what one might hope for, something like "Archie wants Lucie, she says no, he experiences rejection and loss, buries himself in his work, and wins the Fields Medal."
Must all openness result in vulnerability? (I think it always leads some observers to induce vulnerability...) Vulnerability being sometimes unavoidable, how do we cope with it? Here's where I think the isolation matters most. As a member in good standing of a functioning community, I have a basic sense that its watchful eyes can help prevent violations of my vulnerability. Internet ways of interacting have some features of real-world communities, but lack many others.
I think the phrase "in good standing" is key -- anonymity means never having to forfeit one's "good standing" permanently, even if caught behaving in ways that a "real life" community would see as reason to exclude or sanction someone. Anonymity is useful where a higher purpose makes it OK to allow someone to be freed from the consequences of their actions (say, in a recovery meeting where old guilt is paralyzing current progress, or in a reporter's notebook where attributing the source would interfere with important information being made public).
But choosing anonymity as a lifestyle? I can see how anonymity could help people whose self-image was very negative to meet their needs for connection. For example, someone whose conscience were crushing them, or someone who perceived themselves as inherently undesirable or incapable of making connections in "normal" society for whatever reason.
I don't think it's only internet dating that qualifies for this categorization of "anonymous lifestyle", either...that's just an extreme case. Lots of our activities in the big city are (socially) anonymous...
I'll have to work backward here because there is so MUCH wonderful content. In response to J's comment, "someone whose conscience were crushing them, or someone who perceived themselves as inherently undesirable or incapable of making connections in "normal" society for whatever reason." I felt resonance.
In literature stalker types often speak of themselves as inherently undesirable just before 'going after' a subject (I'm not worthy, but you're dreadful and guilty as well). I wonder in this instance whether transferance in the Freudian sense is in play. I'm not worthy, therefore you are not either and it does not matter how I behave toward you in the brief period in which I allow my actions full play.
I think there is so much rich information in Donnaspa's long post that I have thoughts on some new threads. I do agree that for whatever reason, the topic is beguiling.
D caught my attention with the material on changes that take place in the person stalked. Also, it is worth examining extremism as a concept. This of course is played out every day in our media in reaction to activities reported worldwide, but especially where cultures clash.
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