Still reading. But in terms of his lament about Hollywood masculine role models I just had to throw this in: The Fast & Furious series, 300, Spiderman (oh wait, scratch that last one ) Tony Stark and Vin Diesel give men everywhere a stiffy.
Not like "I am not a gold digger" Alisa Thiry? I have too much emotion to make serious discussion but I have come across an interesting mens' rights advocate on YouTube. All it takes is a few fair minded women to rebalance my views. Why do the radical feminists make it so tough for her to speak? https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcmnLu5cGUGeLy744WS-fsg
Is that a double entrende? My first interpretation of that might not have been the way you intended. I certainly don't agree with everything he is saying, it's just that there is so much there I think the general thesis is actually worth considering. What I've noticed, since starting to explore these ideas, is that you put yourself at risk instantly of being called a woman-hater or things like that... It's quite amazing. It's really a taboo subject and that alone makes me think the ideas are worth exploring. If there is something society doesn't want to talk about, it's probably quite important that we do talk about it.
I like Alison too https://www.youtube.com/user/Genderratic and of course there is this one https://www.youtube.com/user/TheHappyMisogynist The other thing about this is that I completely disregarded the whole thing until women started speaking out. When it was just men I disregarded them as whingers. It was just an automatic response like it had been programmed into me.
Quite timely, just the other day watched Stefan Molyneux with a (female) guest talking about a closely related factor of society: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lxoStFBrjo[/youtube]
^ Thanks for that. Everything they say just rings so true for me. From the fact that mothers can be as equally abusive as fathers (in my case my mother was the abusive one) to them talking about the potential of emptying the jails and mental institutions if we protect the children from violence. Being a determinist (that is, that humans are cause and effect machines), there fundamentally has to be something behind the violence. And again, my own personal experience is that my childhood turned me into an angry young man, but that I had seen just enough good in my life that I wanted to be good and learn how to be good and purge the toxic aspects of my personality that had built up. I think a lot of adults, maybe even a majority need therapeutic help but that the services offered are really quite poor and from what I understand a lot of that has to do with feminist ideology being so prevalent in the field. It's really annoying to me the way in society that women and particularly mothers are being presented like they are all perfect angels. Particularly mothers. "What would we do without them?" . Mother's Day in particular really irritates me. And that you have these domestic violence campaigns solely focussed on the evils of men without mentioning that statistically there are as many violent and abusive women as there are men. It's not that women are bad and men are good or vice versa, it's that we are all human and there are bad people amongst both sexes and it's pretty much an even distribution. Like they say in the video, it is about the family cycle of violence, not the violence of either particular gender. I think it all needs to be seriously discussed in our society.
Not to mention many (most??) therapists are screwed up themselves and is probably one of the reasons why they went into the profession. Based on my own experiences I'd say that most of us don't even realise we're screwed up in some way. It's like a total blind spot and you don't know what you don't think about and you don't think about it unless someone else close to you (eg your wife) constantly highlights that it's a real blindspot and not some imaginary one. Even then, you may realise that you're screwed up in some way but then shrug your shoulders and go back to falling in the same old habits.
I read a bit more while having lunch. I'm possibly misinterpreting or missing some of the subtleties as it is a pretty full on thesis but I couldn't help but think he was massively downplaying the fundamental burden that women have associated with being mothers and overplaying men's right to be equal. Yes, he has lots of valid points regarding the tipping of the scales ridiculously too far in many modern divorce situations but I think he goes too far in disregarding the underlying reasons why alimony and the like exist and aren't just about the children. Also I noticed no mention of sati when discussing the history of marriage etc. (But perhaps that doesn't matter very much in a Western context.)
I'm not sure whether you meant this or not, but thought I'd clarify anyway. I'm not talking about the normal failings that all humans have. We are all imperfect and have, and will continue to make tons of mistakes in our life. I am talking about mainly the things that arise from abuse. I think it is mainly to do with the fight-or-flight mechanism of our brains. When you are in an abusive situation, when you never know where the next attack is going to come from and there is no way for you to escape completely (ie, you are a dependent child) what seems to happen is that the ForF mechanism is turned on almost permanently. It goes into hyperactive mode. This has many effects. For one it is really draining. We are not meant to be on alert status all the time. It heightens anxiety, you're always feeling anxious. It heightens your feelings of insecurity. And a number of other effects. This then leads to flow on effects. You find it difficult to derive joy from anything. Your motivation levels sinks, etc. It's worse for different people of course but the general effect seems to be the same. You often care less and less about your own life and society in general. Anger builds up inside when you let abuse continue without venting it. It then can find release at any time, for any little infraction, if it has built up to a level where you just can't hold it in any more. This is what leads to a lot of blow-ups in society that superficially don't really seem like they should be a big deal. And at the extreme end of course the "Going Postal" phenomenon. It also leads, for many people, to making pre-emptive attacks. Basically instead of waiting for someone else to attack them, at the slightest hint of any provocation they will launch an abusive attack to make sure their target can't hurt them. And this, I think is the cycle of abuse. It took a long time for me to recognise this in myself and then trace the problems backwards. Hours and hours of research. Stefan Molyneux was a big help with his material. And I think he's basically right with his thesis. Figuring out determinism, that we didn't have free will, was the key factor which enabled me to understand this. How toxic environmental factors, like for example someone in your life who is prone to pre-emptive attacks, can set you off if you also have a hypo ForF, whether you like it or not, and the only choice you have is to drop those people from your life. It also of course leads you to looking for those kinds of people if you are not aware of all this, which is what I did in my 20's with women. The whole men look for women who are like their mother thing, lol. At some point you start to notice all these signs in other people. Not all people, but a lot. A lot of people of course medicate themselves with cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, sex or whatever. I think rampant consumerism is also a way for some to deal with it. At the higher levels of society it metastasises into things like the pre-emptive attack on Iraq. Because the hypo ForF mechanism is so prevalent in society at large it can be used by those at the top. All they do is generate fear and anxiety which activates the mechanism and people are willing to let the government commit all kinds of crimes. The whole Tampa incident is another classical example. These are all things that I couldn't understand for the longest time but think I've got a grip on them now. The ironic thing here is that those at the top also do much of what they do out of their own sense of insecurity and anxiety. People like Tony Abbott and pretty much all the other previous Prime Ministers display a lot of this in one way or another. And that's why I think a lot of people really need help understanding this. I'm not as pessimistic as Molyneux who thinks this all has to be solved before we can get true liberty. But I certainly don't think it will hurt to help as many as possible. I think the more people who don't succumb to this, the more clear thinkers we will have in society. The more people we will have with the energy to think about these things and without the insecurity and anxiety that closes their mind and makes them look for security first and foremost without thinking of the consequences.
Well, my thinking along these lines is that there are fundamental problems with the marriage contract as it currently exists. It just doesn't really have any clarity as to what the obligations of both people are. It isn't a true contract. And the way the state interprets is skewed towards women at the moment, although I take your point in that it can be over-emphasised somewhat. Someone I was listening to once said that marriage contracts should be structured in the same way that business partnership contracts are structured. With obligations, exit clauses and consequences laid out beforehand that both people can agree to. EDIT: I think there is no doubt that marriage as it currently exists is in decline, and I think a lot of that has to do with the uncertainty and the, at least to some degree, perceived unfairness of it. Also, alimony is force, of course, regardless of it's intentions. How do you feel about that? Also, what is sati?
How do you reckon this guy would have been treated by the law if he hadn't been adept enough to film this liar as he was being assaulted? At one point she's trying to claw her fingers into his eye socket. For her it'll just be 3rd degree assault and disturbing the peace - and likely only then because the police were presented with undeniable evidence. Crazed Woman Attacks Man for Flying Camera Drone over Public Beach in Connecticut
