It appalls me that what I’m about to spell out here is even necessary, but after the positively cartoonish stupidity demonstrated by self-professed feminists in Toronto, what appears obvious to me must not only be stated clearly, but explained as to a mentally defective toddler.
Intention and action are not separate. This assertion is the opposite of the expression “the ends justify the means”. Do noble goals justify the pursuit of such goals by ignoble, or unethical methods? Is it justifiable to use a violent, or immoral strategy in the achievement of a noble, or socially positive goal?
For a great many, the answer appears to be a resounding yes, which is very sad indeed. Sad, not because a “better” way exists, but because the question itself is incoherent. Is it justifiable to pursue a noble goal through ignoble methods? This question falsely presumes that methods and goals are separable.
For example, the claim of those engaging in violence, censorship and harassment is that they do so in pursuit of universal human rights. This is utterly incoherent. Their efforts to protect those rights using methods of censorship, vandalism, assault and other criminal behavior are a complete contradiction of their stated values.
Methods are not separable from goals. Methods indeed ARE the goals they pursue. This is a simple, self-evident concept and yet, here I am, spelling it out. Is this exposition really necessary? Really?
What about an example from recent history? Why did the Klu Klux Klan cover their faces behind masks and hoods?
This is a question of motivation, and thus, speculation. But here’s at least a few reasons. Intimidation is almost certainly near the top of the list. If you were black, living in a community in which the Klan was active, being harassed by people you know are your neighbors, but who are semi anonymous behind hoods, almost certainly increased the intimidation.
But the masks of Klansmen also indicate self-awareness. In the legal lexicon, this is called consciousness of guilt. The reason to hide their faces was principally that they knew they were engaged in wrongdoing.
http://www.judcom.nsw.gov.au/publications/benchbks/criminal/consciousness_of_guilt.html
http://www.omsj.org/blogs/understanding-consciousness-of-guilt
Women and men, gays, lesbians, transsexuals, this ethnicity, that ethnicity – should work together. I’m paraphrasing from memory something the “protesters” at Thursday’s CAFE presentation by Drs Nathanson and Young chanted through megaphones in the hallway directly outside the lecture theater where they were speaking.
Due to the crystal clear intention to disallow the presentation, the hallway was as far as the attending police would allow the demonstrators. Their overt intention, as publicized, was to engage in direct personal violence against anyone identified as a Men’s Human Rights Activist. Feminists showed up to shout down and silence any opinion but their own. Feminists showed up with masked enforcers, carrying clubs and a public declaration of intended violence. This was the presence on the ground in Toronto of feminism’s modern face; to silence Nathanson and Young, chanting “we should work together”.
“We should work together!” they screamed, drowning out all voices but their own.
They screamed this into my face, over and over. I replied I agree with what you are saying now, but you are demonstrating the opposite intention by screaming over anything I might say, any question I might ask, and preventing, by force, anyone else from having a voice or listening to anyone but you.
“We should work together” was screamed into my face repeatedly by the members of an angry, masked mob. They chanted it to the rhythm of wooden clubs beaten on the floor in a scene lifted directly from Lord of the Flies.
Proponents argue that feminism is a synonymous with equality. They claim they advocate for the human rights of all, including men and boys; that it is they who fight for an end to unequal sentencing in courts, work to reduce the 60% to 90% male weighted issue of homelessness, and work to resolve the issue of 80% male suicide. This claimed to me at an event addressing male marginalization, institutional anti male sexism – which they attended in force wearing masks, carrying bullhorns and insulting signage to silence,to shut down and to disrupt the event – the very same event which they published a prior statement promising to assault Men’s Human Rights Activists.
The same individual who made this claim, directly to my face, is the same individual who, at Janice Fiamengo’s previously protested lecture, wore a mask and carried a sign reading “I’m sorry I hurt your manfeelz”. As I attempted to reply to her claims about the goals of our cause, she shouted me down. “MANSPLAINING! MAINSPLAINING! MANSPLAINING! MANSPLAINING MAINSPLAINING”.
It is a word meaning whatever I might say as a man is invalid, void and to be ignored because of my sex. You are male and therefore wrong: mansplaining. She then screamed, from less than two feet away “Misandry isn’t real! Misandry isn’t real! Misandry isn’t real! Misandry isn’t real!” persisting in this abuse until the person I was trying to converse with walked away out of the “I’m being deafened” range of her voice.
Gender ideology, she further assured me, is my friend. I should abandon my activism and embrace her ideology. You know, the one claiming that “women being people” is a radical notion.
I related some of this to Harry Crouch in a Skype conversation from my hotel room after having joined a few other activists for dinner. His observation?
“We won’t be rid of this violent hateful insanity until we locate their space ship”. His joking speculation being that they are aliens. I simply think they are minds broken and deranged by an ideology similar in almost every respect to a fundamentalist religious cult.
A peaceful goal cannot be attained through violence. The human rights of any group cannot be achieved or protected by the suppression of the rights of another group. Working together cannot be achieved by silencing, intimidating, assaulting and censoring. Why does this need to be spelled out?
These people are all sane enough to get their pants on the right way each day. They’re functional enough to pay their bills, to vote, to drive cars, and use a knife and fork at the dinner table without serious self-injury. Do they really not grasp the very basic concept that violence and censorship used as tools for social change lead nowhere except toward further violence and censorship?
Do these questions really need to be asked? Can otherwise functional humans actually lack comprehension of what is so screamingly obvious?
I can think of four possible hypotheses as alternative explanations. One is that a major subset of humans are not intelligent. They are not sentient, thinking, self-aware beings. They are not fully realized people. Rather, they are upright apes; creatures whose appearance, clothing and superficial manner resembles sentience, but only superficially; people who are actually sub-sentient, instinct driven beasts.
I’m not a fan of this explanation, at all.
Another possibility is that all the overt, obvious contradiction between claims like “feminism is about equality” and the relentless efforts to silence, censor, intimidate and threaten violence are purposeful. They understand completely what they are doing. They are evil.
I don’t care much for this as an explanation either.
What about mental illness? Can it be that so large a subset of male and female humanity – particularly those we find engaging in efforts to silence all opinion differing from their own- feel compelled to force the silence and obedience of people they freely admit face serious human rights issues (homelessness, suicide, exclusion in education and so on) are the victims of mental illnesses; Cluster B brain chemistry malfunction manifested as gender ideology with mob singing back-up?
I know some of my colleagues put their money on this explanation, or on a variation of it. I think it has some merit but I don’t think its a complete answer.
Here’s my best guess. Reason, unfortunately for some, is ideology soluble. By ideology, I mean any system of thought which begins with the answer; any point of view that starts with its axioms being the same as it’s conclusions. My Holy Book is the explanation of life, the universe and everything because my Holy Book says it is the explanation of life the universe and everything. This is my definition of ideology, in contrast to a reality I will call philosophical, rather than ideological. What distinguishes these terms? A philosophical view begins with a question or an observation followed by a question. Answers such as may be found are not fixed points in the cosmos. Rather than being axiomatic, answers depend on observation, reason, rationality, and evidence – and are subject to change, depending on changes in observed evidence and so on. It is not a view with a fixed, immutable “truth”, except which can be derived from observation and evidence. Truth (capital T) distinguishes ideology.
Ideology is the antithesis of reason. In fact it may be so dangerous to a human mind it can permanently cripple those infected by it, rendering them incapable of reason, thought and sentience.
This is my best guess and most likely hypothesis, provided as an explanation of what I have seen repeatedly and have just seen on the campus of the University of Toronto in Ontario.
And feminism is an ideology.
