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PeonForHer -> RE: I Love My White Male Privilege! (3/19/2016 4:51:40 AM)
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ORIGINAL: PeonForHer
'Pandering to Islamic fundamentalism' is rubbish. Of course it is, but the regressive left is focused on the promotion of all other groups and cultures as victims of white men. This is why, for example, feminists are astonishingly silent about the Cologne sexual assault cases. Which is weird, because feminists are constantly denouncing white men for being an horrific group of rapists but seem strangely reluctant to condemn Islamic refugees for the same crime.
I mean, it's really weird - it's almost like feminists are like... intellectually dishonest or something.
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Too weak a charge to be worth my arguing with. Nonsense. Feminists are guilty of pandering, you know you're guilty and you have no defense against your own prejudice.
Eh? Women were and are outraged, everywhere, about that. Are you saying that none of those outraged women aren't feminists? What is the matter with you, Awareness? What *is* a feminist, to you? Hey well, I've given up asking you, and Nick, that question.
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The phrase 'Islam is a violent, imperialist culture' is nonsense because of course, it isn't a culture, it's a religion. Education time! Of course, you're incorrect and your comment reflects your monumental ignorance. Islamic culture is rooted in the Islamic religion, however the culture itself is the essential set of underlying assumptions, beliefs and memes which have formed AROUND THE PRACTICE OF THAT RELIGION.
Islam is a culture which is distinct from the notion of the Islamic religion. This dichotomy is necessary - in fact it's impossible to discuss Islam without it - because the Islamic religion itself is perpetually engaged in civil war. The Sunnis and the Shiites have been killing each other for hundreds of years over their argument about which dead ancient was the true inheritor of Mohammed's legacy.
This becomes worse when you talk to Muslims who comment on the effect of Islamic resettlement in other countries. Comments such as "without grandmothers to tell children which parts of the Koran to ignore, the resulting fundamentalist interpretation of the book results in a more virulent strain of Jihadic Islam."
Consequently, Islamic culture extends beyond Islamic religion itself. It includes the idea of who has the authority to interpret the Koran and consequently elevates the clerics which preach a message of theocratic domination. It is those clerics who take pains to inoculate the people against the lure of the Western lifestyle - by feeding their minds with anti-western poison - that are the true influencers of Islamic culture.
As I said: nonsense. Islam is a religion, not a culture, as I said. Perhaps you're some way to understanding that when you say 'Islam is a culture which is distinct from the notion of the Islamic religion'. What all that pretentious spew does *not* do is explain why the majority of Muslims, most of the time, are *not* violent. In particular it doesn't explain why my local shopkeeper, who is a Muslim, has made *no* attempt to kill me. In fact, he's never even been impolite to me.
There are many, many cultures that involve the Islamic religion as part their them. But the Islamic religion doesn't determine the nature of those cultures. There are a zillion things that determine the nature of every culture. You must know this, Awareness. Language, economy, local customs and habits, political arrangements of all the various kinds ... all these things play a huge part in making up a culture.
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This is why the average ISIS member is nothing like, say, the bloke at my local shop who sells me daily newspaper. That comment also gives away the fact that you've failed to grasp what's meant by the 'ecological fallacy'. The only difference between the average ISIS member and the bloke at your shop is their degree of commitment. The bloke in the shop doesn't really care if Britain falls under an Islamic theocracy and he certainly wouldn't fight to defend Britain from it.
Incorrect. The bloke at my corner shop sometimes won't let me *get out* of his shop till he's finished his tirade against 'those rabble'. You may want to argue that 'underneath all that' lies a jihadist zeal that neither I nor he can see. Really, Awareness, this is just frothing lunacy. The 'degree of commitment' (to overthrow of the West by Islam?) that you talk about is as *nothing* compared to people's commitment to live without violence, earn some money, live comfortably .... Honestly, I don't know what's the matter with you, Awareness. At one point you're banging on about how academic types don't 'see what's real' because they bullshit themselves so much. At the next point, though, you reach for some of the silliest quasi-academic bullshit (which is leagues more complex than your 'Sunni v Shia' depiction, I might add) there is out there in support of your case.
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Surveys of 'moderate' Muslims have shown time and time again, that they won't participate in the violent overthrow of existing governments, but they don't think a theocratic Islamic caliphate is a bad thing either and they certainly wouldn't stand against it.
Oh come on. The various surveys that you talk about have been kicked all over the floor repeatedly. You're not a dimwit. You could read this stuff if you wanted to.
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The terms 'right wing' and 'left wing' don't go much deeper than I think you imagine they do. They go right down to one's world view - not just to how you think society should be, but how you think it works right now.
Here's an example of your own thinking, and how it slots into the cluster of right wing views:
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ORIGINAL: Awareness
Feminism aims to elevate women at the expense of men and the only way a man supports something which harms him is because he's either self-loathing or hoping to score pussy.
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That view depends upon a standardly right wing, individualistic view of society. Society, in this, is a 'zero sum game': It's a competition between X and Y and what is gained by X is lost by Y. A lefty - as indeed I am, no prizes for guessing - will tend to see society as in terms of cooperation rather than competition. So, I'd tend to see groups of people as teams. That is some of the most ironic drivel I've ever seen in my life. I don't think you have any fucking notion of what the fuck you're talking about and once again you reveal your own ignorance about feminism itself. Christ, this is incredible.
Sorry, but it's true. So fuck off and fucking educate your fucking self, Awareness. You fucker. [:)] Look up the key terms. Google is your friend, as would be any beginner's book on political thought.
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The Declaration of Sentiments at Seneca Falls (please tell me you know what this is) implicitly placed men and women in opposition to each other. Let's examine some of the language:
"The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpation on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her."
My view of feminism's approach is based on what feminists are actually doing.
[My bolds]
Just breathtaking. The earliest feminists were 'lefty' - OK, we'll let that pass, though you're as slack and lazy there as you are with every other term you use. Then you imply that it must, somehow be crucial to what feminism is about, today. Right. So if I were to cite, say, what the average right wing Aussie politician was saying about Aborigines back in 1848, or the equivalent American on black people in the USA, that would still be crucial to their view today?
But - and I'm sorry, but I just have to ram this home. To the line that I've bolded above: Time and time again you and Nick have run away from this question. You say that feminism is about 'what feminists do'. Fair enough. There's a big debate to be had on thoughts v action, words versus deeds ... but, I'll go with that. However, which people are you looking at when you look at 'what feminists do'? How do recognise them? *How the hell do you define them*, in other words?
Answering that would help you to move beyond the sort of blithering horsehit such as:
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The problem, dear boy, is that all of the legislative, social and political change for which feminists advocate is fundamentally targeted at men. Men as an amorphous group of rapists. Men as an amorphous group who earn higher wages for the same work (utter drivel of course, no economist takes this claim seriously). Men as an amorphous group who dare to comment on a woman's body. (Yet women not only comment on men's bodies but regard mutilating men's bodies as fodder for humour). Men as an amorphous group of oppressors who engage in daily micro-aggressions because they hate women.
The list goes on and on. The crap which comes out of the feminist camp is some of the craziest bigotry I've ever seen in my life.
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Your model of the possible range of political views is an inaccurate crutch. You lean on it for support when what you really need to do is cast it from you, that you might walk.
You've no idea what my model is. You couldn't begin to understand it, either. My main point has been that your views aren't outside or above the left/right axis as, in your ignorance, you claim.
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Let me make it clear. If you've ever used the phrase "liberals are" or "conservatives are" then you're a fucking moron. The artificial division of human beings into two tribes is a chimera designed to focus the attention of the masses on each other instead of their leaders who are defrauding them.
Er, no. See below. But, whatever: it's fine to do that with 'feminists are', eh?
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Of course they are both seeking power. That's what, in most people's view, is what politics is *there* for. As for one side being more righteous than the other: I think that, at some point, in the great search for the fundamental truths in politics, you come to a dead end. This 'dead end' often involves morality and , ultimately I know my own morality can't rationally be demonstrated to be better than anyone else's. So, at the point of this dead end, you just nail your colours to the wall. That's what I've done; that's what any political scientist I've ever known has done.
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No you dolt, it's not mere morality - that's a tidy little piece of misdirection designed to imbue your views with a patina of worth. It's about your underlying philosophy, your understanding of the psychology of the species, the psychology of individuals and how this effects choices.
Yes, it's about all those things too (plus many more), which is why I said *often involves* morality'. 'Essentially contested concepts', is how one thinker put it. Concepts about which there's no way of deciding between 'correct' and 'incorrect'.
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Definitions as per political science have little value.
Cheers - so I don't need to take any notice of your own implied definitions (and your - and everybody else's - definitions are *always* implied, even if you don't want explicitly to say them). As a corollary, I don't have to take any notice of what you say beyond them, since everything derives from those definitions.
Awareness: I have to say, while you've often made some decent points and good observations in other areas - on all this, it's just seemed to me like you've let your furious-ranty-arrogant side take over. I don't know ... maybe partly because you're trying to run before you can walk. We can't have a discussion unless we share some basic, common understanding of what a given word means. You *adamantly refuse*, just like respectmen, to accept the widely-recognised meaning of the most crucial term here, 'feminism'. And that wasn't the only example. This enables you to continue to spout any frenzied propaganda you want - and all of that is just too much unnecessary noise for me to want to bother with. The last word on this conversation between us - if I can call it that - can be yours should you want to take it.
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