Subject:
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Re: I think I'm going to puke....
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Fri, 10 Jun 2005 22:39:36 GMT
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Viewed:
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2543 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal wrote:
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it isn’t that Western Culture is yearning for
this archetype, it’s that these “hybrid men” are yearning for this
archetype.
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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.
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FOUL!!! This has everything to do with this nonsensical, idiotic term!
That is what I’m talking about!
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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 term. If
they called it “Man 2.0,” I suspect that you’d still have a problem with it,
so it seems to me that the term itself is irrelevant. Am I incorrect?
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No, you are correct Sir! Yesss! (my best imitation of Phil Hartman doing Ed
McMahon:-)
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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.
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Perhaps we could discuss a specific example of an industrialized culture?
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Sure! It’s gone on in the United States since at least the signing of the US
Constitution. What do you think of those foppish wigs?
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Like the people who are wearing them are in a MP skit-- too silly for my taste.
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I don’t see the
point in isolating our search (which, like an idiot, I spelled “surch”) to
industrialized (by which I infer you to mean post-Industrial Revolution)
cultures, especially if those same cultures pre-dated the IR.
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I only wanted to see an example to which we could perhaps make some comparisons.
My theory is that, as such behavior goes, so goes cultural decline.
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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.
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I would take issue with your pejorative “regressive”, but other than that,
so what?
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Not meant as an insult, but I can see how it came across that way. I meant
it purely as a contrast to a “progressive” and nuanced (i.e., non-binary)
concept of gender.
Anyway, the “so what” aspect is that I don’t accept that binary notions of
masculine/feminine fit our modern awareness of the mutability and overlap of
the characteristics those terms are thought to describe.
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The fact is that our species was created (or evolved, if you prefer) into male
and female units. That is an immutable difference, and instead of trying to
conform each to each other, why not celebrate the differences? I would think
that for a group who supposedly celebrates diversity, this wouldn’t be a
problem.
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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.
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The same, honestly, must be said of language, religion, and the notion of
“rights.” Why is this particular arena of cultural indoctination singled out
for derision?
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Because it isn’t “real”; it is a canard. It is actually denying natural
differences between the sexes. Language is simply communication, no matter what
sounds are used. Religion is simply how a culture gives meaning to life, and
will vary among cultures. Rights are different; I believe that the concept of
rights goes beyond culture and is absolute. I cannot imagine a just and moral
society without it.
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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.
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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.
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I don’t dispute that differences between men and women exist; I simply
dispute that the differences in gender (as opposed to sex) are as inherent as
some seem to wish.
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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?
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I am talking about biological differences. Any individual is free to deny
it, but that doesn’t change the reality of it.
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By “biological differences,” I take it that you mean those in addition to the
plumbing, correct?
Do you suggest that an unchanging, unbreachable wall exists between masculine
and feminine? On what basis?
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Genetics. We are different at the blueprint level. I believe that carrying and
bearing children since the beginning has affected the female psyche in such a
way that no male may ever perceive. We are both human, but we have fundamental
differences based on this reality.
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I don’t accept that any line exists such that one may assert “masculine-only
on this side and feminine-only on that, and never the twain shall meet.” The
boundary is vague and inferential, with considerable blurring and overlap.
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There is blurring, but those cases are the exception, not the rule. Women have
always borne the children; men have always not.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Uncivil and immoral by what objective standard? None, as far as I’m aware.
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Violent crime? Or crime in general? Sexual promiscuity? I don’t know if crime
is proportionally more rampant than 40 years ago, but it sure seems that way.
And I realize that progressives think that “free love” is a good thing, but I
think that it is a symptom of a breakdown in morality.
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The only standard that one can apply is that of a particular generation,
which may also coincide with that of another generation, but that’s a far cry
from an objective test.
I accept that you judge current society to have degraded from that of 40 or
50 years ago. Without trying to be funny, I note that many Conservatives
make that same judgment, but it’s founded in nostalgia, gerrymandering,
wishful thinking, and selective sampling, rather than in reality.
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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.
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I’m confident that the prophet will remain indistinguishable from the lunatic
until the veracity of his predictions is borne out.
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But then won’t it be too late?
JOHN
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: I think I'm going to puke....
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| (...) There you go, making bad impressions again. (...) Mine, too, to be honest. But my point was that notions of fashion-based gender differences have been mutable for at least centuries, and I intended the fops of old as examples of this. (...) (...) (19 years ago, 13-Jun-05, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: I think I'm going to puke....
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| (...) 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)
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