Santion of the Victim

Hi everyone. My husband and I have been talking about what the sanction of the victim is, and we have come to some conclusions. I thought I would post them here, and maybe anyone else who has some insight into this could add what they understand about it.

We were trying to tie it to the virtues to figure out just how to avoid it. We came up with the idea that sanction of the victim falls under justice. Anytime someone commits an injustice against us and we do not judge and act (even if that action is thoughtful inaction), we are sanctioning their victimization of us. I think Ayn Rand in her portrayal of Hank Rearden was talking about an even more specific case of this: when the victim not only sanctions the injustice, but blames himself unjustly. So it all comes down to the virtue of justice.

I have been trying to come up with examples of this from my real life (not just from business, which is easy to come up with). For example, as a child I was very good at academic things. My parents really pushed me to do an academic career since I was good at it. Not only did I allow them to push those careers on me, I also blamed myself and felt guilty because I was wasting my academic talents doing the things I really liked. This was sanction of the victim. They could not have pushed me and made me feel guilty if I hadn't bought into their idea that "to whom much is given, much is required." It took me years to realize that all I have to do is find a career that fulfills me. My inborn talents can help me, but they do not define my values.

If I could hear some more personal examples, I think it would help me to concretize and understand this issue more.

Kelly

Post 1

Wednesday, June 1, 2005 - 7:30pm

While you may have been pushed too hard to excel academically, it is not inappropriate for parents to encourage their children to learn either in school or on their own. When I was in the third grade, I could not read as a result of needing glasses, a poor education in the 1st and 2nd grades in south Texas, and a total lack of interest on my part. I thought reading was either about Dick and Jane or about fairly tales, neither of which interested me. I was an adventurer. I jumped on my bike, rode 8 miles, and explored abandoned aircraft hangars or looked for water mocassins. Mrs. Leeds, my 3rd grade teacher in NJ, told my mother that she was going to have to make me do the third grade again when I was two-thirds of the way through it. My Dad was away on a cruise and my Mom had to teach me to read. I was awful. Reading was awful. I hated it. But Mrs. Leeds and my Mom said I was intelligent and I had to learn to read. I learned enough to read Dick and Jane, though I thought it a complete bore.

Then, I picked up a book about John Paul Jones. Now I was having an adventure with a real hero and learning about the real world! Everything changed about reading. I read about Kit Carson, about Chief Black Hawk, about Daniel Boone, Lewis and Clark, and many more. This was the start of a great adventure in reading, which then allowed me to learn as much or more on my own as I ever learned in school. In the 5th grade, I decided to be a physicist. In the 6th grade, I was reading BusinessWeek, National Geographic Magazine, US News and World Report. In the 7th grade, I read lots of science fiction, which helped me to think more about how things could be, rather than just how they are. I took up reading the Naval Institute Proceedings because my Dad was at the Naval War College. One day when I was 17, now in OK, the book was The Fountainhead. I read John Kenneth Galbraith's book The Affluent Society and quashed it in a debate at school. Then I read Atlas Shrugged.

So what is the point? Parents do have good reasons to push their children to learn. If my Mom, with some help from Mrs. Leeds, had not dragged me kicking and screaming through Dick and Jane, I would have had a sub-critical amount of knowledge to have ever learned that the greatest adventure of all is learning. It is also very doubtful that I would already have had an appreciation for how precious and fragile our freedoms are, how much we should value the productive work and achievements of others, and how much our economy depends upon individuals and their freedom of action. I had read lots of history and current events and about many countries now and in the past. When I read Ayn Rand, I already knew most of what she knew. I was ready for what I did not know. I ate up her understanding of how much of what I knew was systematically interlinked and I learned more about its basis in philosophy. I knew how to validate what she was telliing me. If my Mom had not insisted that I learn to read when she did, I might never have become an Objectivist at all.

Kelly, your parents may have pushed you too hard, but parents do need to do some pushing. Learning is not always easy. Parental encouragement can help greatly. The learning we acquire opens new doors for us that we could not possibly have anticipated without it. I keep telling my girls that learning gives them many options. It gives you the freedom to make many choices. Generally, I would advise caution in wishing that one's parents had given one more easy outs. Of course, it can be overdone. That learning is best which we choose to do ourselves. It is best to teach children that learning is an adventure that they will want to be on for the rest of their lives.

Post 2

Thursday, June 2, 2005 - 6:38am

Charles,

I fear you've missed Kelly's point entirely. This is not about the parent suggesting a career. This is about the parent doing so with the implicit expectation that because Kelly was good at the humanities she must pursue that career. Kelly's sanction to it caused the guilt when she realized she just didn't want to pursue that sort of career.

Jason

PS - By the way, Kelly, I'm sorry I didn't see this thread when you originally posted it. My only excuse is that that was around the time I was gearing up for SOLOC4. I'll try to think about this with my own life and post. :-)

Post 3

Thursday, June 2, 2005 - 4:57pm

Jason,

I agree that parents can push too hard and Kelly's parents may well have pushed Kelly too hard. They may have pushed a particular career on her, though from reading her note, I could only tell that she thought they pushed too hard on academics generally. It is not uncommon for children to think they were pushed too hard. Often, however, they have not considered very well where they would be if their parents erred on the side of pushing them too little. How often is encouragement misinterpreted as a push?

My Katie thinks I have pushed her too hard, though I think she perceives more pressure than I ever actually put on her. Interestingly enough, she just got a 92.29% on a Rochester Institute of Technology pre-entrance math test for Calculus placement and she was beamingly proud. This Senior year she took AP Calculus and one-third of the way through the year she started telling me how much she hated it. At the beginning of the year she liked it, but she never likes a course once she decides she does not like the teacher. I kept encouraging her to do her best and telling her how calculus would help her to become a better problem-solver and to develop a more analytical mind. Sometimes this made her angry, as in "Dad, you just do not understand, this is not just a rational problem." Now, she is looking forward to taking Calculus with Projects, the hardest calculus class they offer for the science and engineering majors. She has a higher level of confidence that she can handle the Honors Program demands at RIT. She wants to major in biotechnology and that is her choice. If she changes her mind, that is fine.

One of the great burdens of being a parent is trying to encourage your children in such a way that they see it as encouragement and not pushing. The best intended parent will never get such a complicated effort just right all the time.

(Edited by Charles Anderson on 6/02, 5:00pm)

Post 4

Thursday, June 2, 2005 - 11:16pm

Kelly,

You started this thread a month and a half ago and just now the thing is starting to take off. Some seeds take longer to sprout I guess...

I would like to address an issue other than children we all have had to deal with at one time or the other in the "Sanction of the Victim" theme. It applies to a colossal misunderstanding of how to draw inspiration from a hero image like Howard Roark.

At the beginning of being introduced to Objectivism, when still under that amazing emotional impact of "yes, this is it!", mixed together with the inspiration an Objectivist hero figure (both fictional and otherwise) provides, there is a bit of fear of getting it all wrong.

A mental image of a hero serves as a model when facing a doubt in life. That is a very useful way to derive personal value from a hero image. But it can also be an intimidating voice of conscious like an omnipotent God if it is misused.

I have observed that some Objectivists never get over this initial fear. And they transfer their hero image to wholesale passages of the philosophy itself. Once their fear merges with more in-depth reading of Rand and other Objectivists, and all this is built on the foundation of legacy neuroses... pop! Voila! You have a Randroid!

What is at work is a very curious inversion of Sanction of the Victim. I have been guilty of it myself in the beginning and have seen it in many, many others, including some who post around here.

One of the richest parts of our existence is our emotional life. This is the zest - the sizzle - what gets us out of bed in the morning singing. How many times do we see a Randroid deny that he/she feels a particular emotion, especially if it is not one of the "accepted" ones according to Objectivism?

I believe I read you once talk about love of wild nature as opposed to love of skyscrapers ("in addition to" is probably better that "opposed to"). If a person loves wild nature and feels enjoyment or is at peace contemplating it, any sacrifice of such happiness has to have a reason, a trade if you will. Love of skyscrapers is simply not enough - mainly because it is not mutually exclusive.

But here our Randroid will sacrifice with his/her full personal sanction of doing it - in order to be a "proper" Objectivist. Such poor misguided soul will willingly sacrifice the very best within himself or herself in exchange for... for... for what? Group or peer approval? Inner approval? Well how about that fear?

This is merely one example. Now multiply this by all the positive and negative major emotions that are thus denied. And small but important pleasures, like laughing at a really funny dirty joke - or all kinds of things. I am not talking about hedonism. I am talking about willfully sacrificing a strongly desired pleasure or powerful emotion (that harms no one, of course) for nothing.

And this is the irony. Normally some parasite or other gains with sanction of the victim. With the Objectivist inversion, there is no payoff anywhere to anyone. Just pure loss - not even the fear goes away - and then there is the almost unbearable irritation of the civilized world later on having to put up with the Randroid.

I never thought about this until today. Randroids shoot themselves in the eye with sanction of the victim all the time. (Remember the cartoon character who tries to fire a rifle, it jams, so he looks down the barrel end to see what's wrong right before it goes off?...)

Michael

Post 5

Friday, June 3, 2005 - 9:11am

Since an emotion simply 'is', it being an automaticism of the being having it, a proper O'st would then ask why the emotion over such and such an object, rather than seeking to disown it..... that was one of the unsaid - and much needed said - of those early years, and had it been said, would have voided much of the pain felt by so many over this issue......

Post 6

Friday, June 3, 2005 - 1:48pm

I really enjoyed Michael's commentary above. He brought up a number of interesting points as well as bringing the tread back to Sanction of the Victim, with a very interesting twist, from my earlier comments down a side trail.

Very many of the failures that many Objectivists have in appreciating the many joys of life come from a failure to appreciate the individuality of us all and to keep things in context.

For instance, there are many reasons why a rational person may enjoy a wilderness environment, at least as a change of pace. While NYC may symbolize the cumulative achievement of man, that achievement is best appreciated by someone familiar with the state of nature as relatively unaltered by man. A wilderness is also a challenge to us to develop some skills and our confidence in them for being able on our own to provide for ourselves in nature, while also instructing us on how precarious aspects of our condition may be there. When you are 2 days hike from the nearest road, you become aware of the need to avoid serious accidents, for instance, in a way you are not aware of it when in suburbia. You learn to appreciate not only available medical aid and technology, but also easy travel and communications, plentiful hot and cold foods, homes rather than tents, and many other amenities and securities that modern life gives us. But you also gain skills, such as catching your own fish, finding edible berries, expertise in paddling a canoe, selecting a good campsite for your tent, cutting wood for your fire, sterilizing your water, and much more. When one understands the context, a love of wilderness can be a fine thing if it has a rational basis.

Post 7

Friday, June 3, 2005 - 2:01pm

Yes - is why loved those years playing Tarzan at summer camp in 60's... taught campcraft, survival, nature... all worth knowing for accepting one's self as a capable being, and appreciating civilization more as consequence....

Post 8

Friday, June 3, 2005 - 9:43pm

This thread is about "sanction of the victim."

Here are a four examples, Kelly (and anybody else still interested in the original purpose of the thread):

1) Professor gives good student lower grades because the student has a different philosophy from the professor. The student smiles at the professor in class to avoid confrontation. The student is sanctioning the professor and his actions by not judging and acting on that judgment by at least withdrawing good will. (If the student is in a class that is absolutely necessary for getting his degree, then it would not be sanction of the victim to remain in the class.)

2) Neighbor continually lets dog run out of yard to your house to be fed and remain for days. You don't really like the dog and it is an inconvenience, but you feed and take care of it and feel put upon. You are sanctioning the irresponsible behavior of the neighbor and making a martyr of yourself because you don't judge him for what he is: a wart-faced buffoon couch potato. (in any particular situation, he may or may not have warts)

3) Someone is condescending to you in conversation and makes jocular putdowns (implicit or explicit) about you because you are a woman "doing a man's job" or "acting like a man." You never call the chauvinist on the carpet, and you simply stay quiet as he continues his bad behavior. You are sanctioning his actions because you don't judge them for what they are and act on them by telling him he's a big fat ugly putrid lisping opossum. ;-)

4) Male spouse continually tells female spouse that she is not worthy of him because she is staying home with kids and is therefore dependent upon him. She stays in marriage and allows him to say such things. She is giving his statements (and him) sanction. She should leave and give him, as well as herself, justice.

Post 9

Friday, June 3, 2005 - 10:30pm

Dave,

I have another.

You set up a discussion forum to advance Objectivist ideas. You make it open to all, however you publicly mention that the purpose is to discuss Objectivism. A poster starts posting many, many articles, poems, posts, etc., vastly more than any ten posters combined, claiming to be an Objectivist - even quoting Ayn Rand, but holding that only sex in monogamous marriage is moral and homosexuality is immoral, defending government prohibition of euthanasia as moral, and various other positions contrary to Objectivism. You let him continue without saying anything. Your site dies a painful but boring death.

One more victim sanctioned out of its misery...

Michael

Post 10

Friday, June 3, 2005 - 11:23pm

Good question, Kelly. Sanction of the Victim is one of Rand's best ideas. It took me quite a long time to grasp it. The word "sanction" was out on the periphery of my vocab.

We sanction the bad behavior of others many times when they surprise us with their behavior. For example, imagine that you have dated someone for 2-3 months and you think you are getting to know them very well. And then they do something completely out of what you imagine their character to be. And so you believe them to be of one character when really they are of another. You get fooled. I expect those are the most common cases.

My mother told me today of a classmate of hers who was into "natural healing" and who was ignoring certain problems with her health. So her appendix burst and there was nothing they could do once they got her to a hospital. My mother's classmate died. She was a victim who sanctioned the behavior of those who convinced her that advanced medical technology was not a value.

If a woman gets smacked around by her husband and stays in the marriage then she is sanctioning his behavior.

If anybody stays in a relationship without love then they are sanctioning something they shouldn't be sanctioning.

If a general in Iraq lightens restrictions on travel in his command area and a suicide truck driver blows up 500 of his troops then he has sanctioned that behavior because he was aware that the threat existed.

Once we get our heads around this concept we can see that Rand was right when she said that evil cannot win without our sanction.

Post 11

Saturday, June 4, 2005 - 12:06am

Yes, Michael, I think Linz's sassy Vulcan Death Grip would be highly appropriate for such an abomination.

;-)

Post 12

Saturday, June 4, 2005 - 1:24am

Charles,

You touched on several reasons to love nature that are rational. I agree with every one of them. But how about one that is not so apparently rational? How about just marveling at the existence of nature in itself? Feeling yourself part of all that?

If you feel a strong emotion, if it brings you pleasure, if it does no one any harm, if you like feeling that way, is this not a value also? Is this not worth keeping?

I have such an emotion. It is extremely strong when it comes on and I value it highly. When I walk through an undeveloped part of the countryside, seeing the sky as an upside-down bowl with the clouds drifting way up there, contemplating the vastness of the universe and also how infinitely small it can be with all those sub-particles, watching life spring up in wonderfully varied forms all around me, seeing the fascinating rock formations and dirt I am walking on, realizing that I am stuck by gravity to a spinning ball hurdling through time and space and that I am a part of all this, not set off and alienated but a vital component with my own place in this scheme of things, a most pleasant feeling - something akin to a mixture of wonder and gratitude - saturates my entire consciousness and I even get the sensation that it spills over and permeates the rest of my body.

Religious people have told me that I am experiencing God this way. I can't rightly say what it is. I do know that this emotion exists and it is powerful. I love this feeling and I will not give it up. (I do a whole lot of soul-searching and thinking on it too, but more on that at another time. Leave it to say that I have not come up with all the answers yet, but I have arrived at some.)

So my contention is that what I called the Objectivist Inversion of Sanction of the Victim will get you to sacrifice such a pleasure for no other reason than it is not "rational." But I ask, why on earth should I sacrifice it? I love it. It even brings me extra benefits like a more positive attitude in general and serenity, but those are not the reason I value it. I simply like feeling that way.

If I swallowed the "party line" whole Randroid style, I would obviously accept the fact that I was being foolish and irrational - somehow even superficial. I would resist that emotion when it came on. I would do so willingly - with my full sanction in order to consider myself rational. And that way nobody would gain a damn thing and I would lose.

But wouldn't that be evil? Isn't that almost a flavor of Altruism?

Michael

Post 13

Saturday, June 4, 2005 - 5:58am

Michael, you're an inspiration, and I really needed to read your message.

Being relatively new to Objectivism and coming from a Xtian belief system, I've spent many times over the past couple of years really appreciating the mountains or ocean near my home and then quickly telling myself to get rational - they're just big hills and water. I think I equated an emotional appreciation for nature with my old belief of "communing with God", and feeling good about nature therefore made me feel as if I was breaking some objectivist code.

Having just read your post, I see I've got a long way to go, but I'm glad I chose to learn from Solo HQ rather than the Vulcans.

Cheers!

Ian

Post 14

Saturday, June 4, 2005 - 6:00pm

David, I will beg your pardon and respond to Michael's great comment on how he feels about his connection with nature. It is a side-trail, but a very interesting one.

I also experience nature much as you do Michael. I would not say it is not rational, however. It is true that I am not always working through the reasons for my loving my connection to nature, such as a wooded area or a beautiful lake. But I know that my emotional response is valid on a rational basis. Part of that basis is in knowing something about the nature of the many different grains of minerals in the soil and the complexity of the organic matter that makes the rich growth of life possible. Some of it is in marveling at the way plants manage to live and reorder resources for that purpose. Some of it is in an appreciation for what it takes for each bird, rabbit, fox, or deer to live. These living plants and creatures share a striving for life with me. I also know that somehow through an incredibly long journey of development, I evolved from these simpler life forms. I am fascinated by the power and physics of thunderstorms, hurricanes, the changes of humidity and breezes. I am in this world and it is fascinating. There is a well-ordered physics underlying it all, there are tremendous forces and threatening changes of conditions, and there is life that has adapted itself very well to deal with this reality. The fact that life, including mine, can do this is very worthy of our appreciation for it. The fact that while magnificent, the forces of reality make it possible is a strong statement that this world is essentially benevolent. I love it. Rationally, we should love it. If we do not, then we are missing a great opportunity to enjoy a source of happiness. On another track, it would make sense that an enjoyment of nature was supported to some extent by human evolution. When man went out to hunt, if he loved what he observed in nature around him and paid close attention to what he saw, he would be likely to become a more willing and better hunter. This would be another kind of rational basis for our feelings. Still another reason some of us love nature is because it is a great way to get away from the usual tasks of life, the interruptions, and the noise. It is a great way to acquire some quiet thinking time.

The best that religion offers is the possibility of loving that which is good because it is good. When we are rational we love good things. I think we get this religious, really worshipping and valuing, feeling whenever we really appreciate something as good. I get it with loving a good person, with loving the act of solving a complex problem of physics, with understanding something important about my nature, enjoying a rather raw nature, enjoying a beautiful work of art, having great sex, and seeing someone else's great achievements. It is all about feeling strongly about good things and acts. That is a very rational response, though we may not always be thinking about it as we respond that way. If we have a good sense of life, we do not always need to be thinking about why we enjoy some of our values.

Post 15

Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - 1:16am

Charles,

We basically agree and even have similar experiences. There are two minor points on the word "rational," but I think it is important to mention them.

1. Almost anything you can do that is good for you can be called rational. I think that is what you mean - and I agree to that extent. But going a bit further, I use a metaphor of taking my Objectivist glasses off and looking at something, seeing what is there no holds barred, then putting them back on. So in the case of this emotion I value so highly, I do not approach it from the standpoint that it is good because I can rationally justify it. I look at it and it just is. Almost like the way the nature around me simply is when I contemplate it. Is a rabbit rationally justified? Of course not. It merely exists, nothing more. This is same approach I take to that emotion. I also take the intense value I hold for it as a given. Now I put my Objectivist glasses back on. Only now do I use my reason to understand why I value that emotion so much, even understand the emotion itself, but not to justify whether or not I should feel it. There was something important that was done before I engaged my reason.

I can do the justify route for minor values, but not for ones as intense as my love of the feeling I described.

2. The root of much of our awareness is not merely rational thought. Nathaniel Branden mentioned that one of the differences between his concept of consciousness and Ayn Rand's is that he included daydreaming, introspection and a series of other mental activities, in addition to rational thought. as appropriate whereas Rand considered only rational thought as "the proper tool of cognition." Thus, this emotion is much more the result of introspection, daydreaming, free floating contemplation and those kinds of activities than a reasoned conclusion as a root cause.

As I said, I think we basically agree, given your description. But even if we do not end up agreeing about the reason for the emotion, we certainly know what it feels like. Ian does too.

btw - Ian, thank you for your comment. It warms my heart to know that I helped a little to prevent another victim from giving his sanction to the Randroids and impoverishing his experience of life. What you feel for nature is precious - at least I think so. And Objectivists have just as much right to it as Christians. Frankly, all people do, regardless of their philosophy or beliefs. (Not very Objectivist on my part, but there it is. That's the way I feel - glad to help.)

Michael

(Edited by Michael Stuart Kelly on 6/07, 1:21am)

Post 16

Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - 4:50pm

Michael, I would agree that one does not have to take a particularly Objectivist view to make a rational evaluation of whether nature is essentially good for man and able to give him pleasures. One can also take the Objectivist view and be really sure that such feelings are consistent with one's life, but with such a fundamental relationship as that of man with nature, it is to be expected that we as much evolved to enjoy it and to find ways to accommodate ourselves with it as that men should generally desire sex with women and be willing to provide for and protect women and children. Man evolved from a complex line of lower animals all of whom had to be comfortable in nature. For most of human evolution, we did also. Having an appreciation for nature is simply recognizing who we are by nature. Of course, just as any given individual may have varying degrees of sexual commitment to women, so may individuals have varying degrees of connection to nature.

As a kid I spent many hours riding a bike in south Texas looking for snakes, horned toads, tarantulas, and many other animals. When I lived in tidewater Virginia I loved exploring the swamps and the beaches. When I lived in Rhode Island I would often spend much of a summer day perched in the crook of a huge sycamore tree up a hill in the woods and read. Before we had children, Anna and I went on many hiking trips, cross country skied in the winter, and canoed for days in Canada. It is a wonderfully sensual experience to be in the wilderness or simply alone in the local woods. There is a fantastic beauty in nature and a lot of pleasure in taking in the experience of it.

So, I think that Objectivism in its recognition of reality has to be appreciative of the fact that man has long been a part of nature, though we seek to control it in many ways. We continue to be a part of nature. In that sense, Objectivism needs to be consistent with our nature, rather than justify our nature. So, I think we agree here.

I also agree that introspection plays an important role in our awareness. Each individual has a unique nature and we use introspection to understand our own nature. We use our rational faculty to know the reality around us through our perceptions of that reality. As best I can tell, we also use our rational faculty to identify the states of our own consciousness, including our own feelings. We may very well have feelings at such a low level of consciousness that we could experience them much as rabbit does, but that is pretty hard to do given our active minds. And I am not sure that we would find it useful to say that a rabbit identifies its feelings by introspection. To me, introspection is a high level thought process that very much is a rational process of the mind. The difference from much of our thought is just that we are contemplating ourselves. It is very wise to devote significant time and mental effort to this introspective operation.

Post 17

Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - 5:23pm

Charles,

We certainly are agreeing. I used to play in the swamps in tidewater Virginia also - and in the mountains of the coal-mining region in the south-western part of the state. In Brazil, I have seen natural sites that are so breathtaking they defy description. (As a result of my life there, I have been to many more places in Brazil than in the USA.)

One more minor point though. (And I really hesitate to say this, because you are just so darned nice and deserve much more than nitpicking.) You said:

To me, introspection is a high level thought process that very much is a rational process of the mind.

I guess it all depends on how you define "rational," but I don't see introspection involving concept formation, inductive or deductive reasoning, and those kinds of things while the process is going on - although they may happen - but they may not either. I feel introspection as sort of a floating or drifting of thoughts and images - almost by accident or at least by subconscious prompts. I use my rational capacity, as I understand the term, on the results of such introspection to make sense out of it and bring it under control, not during it.

I am not making an apology for the irrational here. I am just thinking that the reason/emotion dichotomy Objectivism constantly takes to task is a little bit more fuzzy around the edges than presented - and the spectrum of mental activity is a bit more varied. If true (and I think it is), there is nothing to be gained from ignoring such activities.

Also, this does not diminish Reason with a capital "R" to me at all. Of all the mental activities, reason and emotion are the strongest two. They even need each other to function properly.

I mentioned the following in another post, but I will do so again here. There have been scientific studies on people who have had lobotomies and their emotional capacities in their brains cut off. These individuals were then able to think rationally, but were completely unable to prioritize. One case that I remember in the study was that one of these lobotomized men could sit on a railroad track with a speeding train coming at him, be fully aware that the train would kill him, but not get off the track because he would start to think about something else at the time.

Michael

Post 18

Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - 6:32pm