RIP Critical Thought
By all that's good in the world, is ANYONE thinking critically any more?
Or have we collectively just decided to surrender our critical thinking skills in favor of pundits and sound bites and emotions?
People who just weeks ago were war weary now rarin' to go back into the Middle East, guns a blazing, forgetting how little that has EVER accomplished in that region and how much of a quagmire it's going to be. Great! Let's condemn another tens of thousands of our young adults to PTSD and all sorts of mental and physical disfigurements, because ISIS.
And sure, that whole global climate change thing sounds scary, but if it's going to impact me in the slightest to fight it, well, it's just easier to believe the deniers.
And sure, sure, Emma Watson, so nice to have you remind us that feminism isn't anti-men, as you exhort men to heed the call to fight for exactly HALF of gender equality. Sure, we've all been so indoctrinated that female infant genital mutilation is a crime against humanity. The fact that we do it to the majority of our boys? Oh, that's just because it looks prettier that way. I will believe that feminism isn't anti-male when it starts pushing for ALL of gender equality, not just half of it.
And increasing numbers of people are calling for greater involvement by religion (by which they mean "Christian religion") in politics, because of course the wisdom of our forefathers in building a country this strong for this long is only worth anything so long as it doesn't offend our delicate sensibilities. The GOP currently has the lowest approval ratings of any political group, and yet they're seen as "religion friendly" and so people vote for them, because who cares how badly we fuck things up, so long as the people in charge stroke our egos and tell us how attacked we poor majority members are.
Hell, latest polls even show a back slip in support for same sex marriage, and thank goodness, we were running the very real risk of seeming to be gaining tolerance.
Is there any hope for this country?
posted by Liam at 9/25/2014 09:08:00 PM
2 Comments:
Regarding your comment about Emma Watson's speech.
"for the record, feminism, by definition, is the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities. It is the theory of the political, economic and social equality of the sexes."
(quoted from http://www.eonline.com/news/581276/emma-watson-gives-emotional-powerful-speech-at-u-n-about-gender-inequality-check-out-a-transcript-and-a-video)
Equality. Not for half, but for all.
Also, not once during her speech does she address any kind of circumcision. And the two procedures are rarely equal in terms of the removal, the recovery, or the impact.
I find this anti-equality paragraph in your rant really out of place compared to the rest; you appear to be painting a strawman here.
Friday, September 26, 2014 7:40:00 PM
It's just one example of the many ways in which feminism ignores or completely belittles men's issues while trying to claim that feminism is trying to address all gender issues.
I could have pointed out that domestic violence is almost always painted as violence against women even though about half of it is perpetrated against men.
Her quotes fairly drip with condescension that any guy could ever possibly think feminism was anti-male and yet her entire article is all about the ways this thing is going to deal with domestic violence as a violence against women issue.
You will convince me that you really care about domestic violence and not about scoring points for feminism when you start talking about domestic violence not as a violence against women this issue but as intimate partner violence regardless of the genders involved.
And by the way why is it that people are all up in arms against one video shot in an elevator recently when it was the guy punching his wife and yet the reaction to the other video shot in an elevator of a woman wailing on a guy resulted in the common question was "what did he do to make her do that?"
And tell me why in a society that is supposed to care about gender violence Lorena Bobbitt was acquitted. It wasn't self defense, he was unconscious. It was a premeditated assault. And no one seems to care, but if HE had cut something off of HER, he'd STILL be in prison, on a sex offender registry for life, or possibly have been assassinated.
I'm not saying there are no gender issues against women I'm saying I'm sick and tired of society claiming there are none against men.
Friday, September 26, 2014 8:47:00 PM
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