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Subject: 
Re: I think I'm going to puke....
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.off-topic.debate
Date: 
Thu, 9 Jun 2005 17:45:03 GMT
Viewed: 
2008 times
  
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:
   In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal wrote:
   In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Larry Pieniazek wrote:
   In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal wrote:
   This is why I fear the Left. This is cultural war.

There’s a lot of babble, gafla, marketspeak, posery etc, in there but is this the part you want to go to war with??

  
   “There is an increasing desire for people to be in charge of their own lives, and an intolerance for any lack of autonomy,” he told the debate.


“We are watching the birth of a hybrid man. ... Why not put on a pink-flowered shirt and try out a partner-swapping club?” asked Le Louet, stressing that the study had focused on men aged between 20 and 35.

It is a complete and utter load of horsecrap. But these twits are the ones who set fashion trends which can dictate directions culture can take. It is the tail wagging the dog; it isn’t that Western Culture is yearning for this archetype, it’s that these “hybrid men” are yearning for this archetype.

I guess what I don’t understand is why this is suddenly apparent--or why it’s a problem--now, of all times? I don’t comprehend the term “hybrid men,” so I won’t use it here.

FOUL!!! This has everything to do with this nonsensical, idiotic term! That is what I’m talking about!

   However, I will point out that the foiling of gender-related stereotypes has been going on for at least several millennia in many cultures around the globe.

Perhaps we could discuss a specific example of an industrialized culture?

   Sure, some cultures have been more “successful” at suppressing the displays of non-stereotypical gender displays, but the underlying phenomenon has always been in place.

It seems to me that the only people who have trouble with evolving gender-signals are those who cling to regressive, binary concepts of gender.

I would take issue with your pejorative “regressive”, but other than that, so what?

   Allister made the excellent and correct suggestion that one teach one’s children well so that they make reasonable choices. You have objected that you want your kids to eschew what you decry as the “silly ideas that men should look and act more like women and women should look and act more like men.“ Well, what if your kids choose not to reject these ideas? Will you respect their decision, or will you condemn them for it?

Ideas such as these are counterintuitive and would never be embraced by children-- only by indoctrination by someone or some culture that adhered to them.

   In that same post you ask “What if men looked and acted like men, and women looked and acted like women? Well, you have to provide a detailed list of how a man acts and how a woman acts, because without that detailed list we can have no idea of what you’re proposing.

Is that really so mysterious? Men and women act differently. Men think like other men more than like women, and vice versa. Defferences between the sexes goes beyond the plumbing. If this isn’t obvious, then perhaps the discussion ends here.

   Is this list timeless and immutable? Does it apply to the United States in 1787 as well as 2005? On what is it based? Must all people adhere to it? What of those who opt out?

I am talking about biological differences. Any individual is free to deny it, but that doesn’t change the reality of it.

   It is, of course, the prerogative of each generation to judge its successor to be in decline, but that’s a matter of provincial wisdom and stodgy traditionalism. There is no objective standard against which to judge this “decline;” at best, one can observe that one generation does things differently from another, and that a member of one generation may find this difference distasteful. That’s all.

   Until you articulate the objective standard by which you measure this so-called decline, your arguments are nothing more than a rant based on your aesthetic model of society. As always, our society has decreed that that’s your right, but it doesn’t make for a convincing argument.

I think that one could make the argument that we are more uncivil and immoral than we were 40 years ago. Certainly many books have addressed this topic. Technology, it seems to me, is accelerating that process.

The difference between a lunatic screaming admonitions of decline and a prophet who correctly predicts it is simply at which point you receive the message. You never know for sure until it’s too late.

JOHN



Message has 2 Replies:
  Re: I think I'm going to puke....
 
(...) Well, if you don't like the term, that's fine with me. I object to it because it's not usefully descriptive. However, I have the sense that your beef is with the underlying idea represented by this so-called "hybrid man," rather than with the (...) (19 years ago, 9-Jun-05, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
  Re: I think I'm going to puke....
 
(...) 40 years ago would be 1965. Are you saying the decade of free love, rock 'n' roll, and rampant drug use is more moral than today. In the 1940's, America had invented a weapon that could kill 100,000 people in one blast, while perfecting (...) (19 years ago, 9-Jun-05, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: I think I'm going to puke....
 
(...) I guess what I don't understand is why this is suddenly apparent--or why it's a problem--now, of all times? I don't comprehend the term "hybrid men," so I won't use it here. However, I will point out that the foiling of gender-related (...) (19 years ago, 9-Jun-05, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)

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