A culture, ethnic group, or nation invaded, pillaged, victimized, traumatized... is a nation later capable of invading, pillaging, vitimizing, traumatizing... Call this a 'cultural, ethnic, and/or national identification with the aggressor'. To label the second culture, ethnic group, and/or nation as lying on, or belonging to, an 'axis of evil' -- even if there is 'evilness' involved in the second group's or nation's destruction and/or threatened destruction of other people -- is to take this attitude and action out of context and to hide the attitude and/or action of the first group and/or nation -- along with its element of responsibility and accountability in the evolution of the axis of evil of the second group or nation unless it too is included as part of the entire axis of evil.
This is what I call 'dialectical accountability' as opposed to 'unilateral accountability'. It occurs both between individual people and between groups, cultures, religions, and nations...
-- dgb, June 30th, 2008.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Sunday, June 29, 2008
If You Are a Business Owner or Manager and You Want to Run a Successful Company -- Then Be Where The Action Is; Not Miles Away From It
Beware of centralized decisions that come from centralized owners or centralized managers or centralized politicians -- who are miles and miles away from where the source of the action is relative to the decisions they are making. Decisions that take place far away from the source of the action are generally unhealthy, pathological decisions that have no bearing, or little bearing, with what is actually happening and what decisions actually need to be made to 'properly adjust to' what is happening, or what isn't happening, at the source of the action.
The two 'dialectical parts' -- the action and the decisions -- need to coincide with each other, make sense relative to each other, blend into each other; and decisions made far away from the scene of the action, without any proper contact and/or context to guide the decision-making process -- are likely to leave employees at the scene of the action shaking their heads in shocked disbelief. The source of the action -- 'A' -- demands decision 'D' -- and down through the chain of command, from owner, to manager, to supervisor, to employee -- comes decision 'X' -- 'X' as in wrong; please try again before we are out of business and all of us are out on the street without jobs.
-- dgb, June 29th, 2008.
The two 'dialectical parts' -- the action and the decisions -- need to coincide with each other, make sense relative to each other, blend into each other; and decisions made far away from the scene of the action, without any proper contact and/or context to guide the decision-making process -- are likely to leave employees at the scene of the action shaking their heads in shocked disbelief. The source of the action -- 'A' -- demands decision 'D' -- and down through the chain of command, from owner, to manager, to supervisor, to employee -- comes decision 'X' -- 'X' as in wrong; please try again before we are out of business and all of us are out on the street without jobs.
-- dgb, June 29th, 2008.
Be Like The Birds -- Discard Quickly, Old, Out-dated, Dysfunctional Generalizations
Even birds -- indeed, probably all animals with any kind of a brain -- make generalizations. And sometimes these generalizations take them away from 'reality' and away from 'functionality'. But they recover quickly. People too often make generalizations that take them away from reality and away from functionality. However, people don't always recover as quickly as birds do from their 'dysfunctional generalizations'. Birds are very 'reality-bound'. People can lose reality -- and not come back.
I moved my bird-feeder today from outside my upstairs living room window and sliding door with a black metal fence on it -- to the downstairs and outside backyard, a distance of about 20 feet outwards towards the swamp at the end of my backyard as well as down to the ground below.
Having re-constructed by bird-feeder -- fresh with new bird feed -- down below and out in the backyard, I sat upstairs and watched as first a morning dove and then a blackbird flew over to my upstairs ledge where the bird-feeder used to be and parked themselves, looking around for the food that wasn't there any more except perhaps a few tidbit leftovers still on my ledge... I don't know whether they figured out that the bird feeder had been moved at this exact moment or not, but having looked around for about 5 minutes, each, respectively, they both up and flew away, not to the new birdfeeder site -- but just away to a tree that they came from or something...
A half an hour of this, and the rest of the birds seemed to have figured things out properly -- the bird feeder had been moved to probably a better place for their reasoned safety -- and no more birds came back to my ledge. Now all the bird action was in my back yard -- at the site of the new feeder.
The birds had 'adjusted to reality' -- and left their 'dysfunctional generalizations' that led them away from the reality of where their food now was located -- behind. It only took half an hour with only two birds falling temporary victims to their 'outdated generalizations'.
That man should discard so quickly his (or her) outdated, dysfunctional generalizations.
People often take a lot longer to 'adjust to new circumstances'. Reality changes -- and they/we keep persisting with the same old, outdated, dysfunctional generalizations. Reality evolves -- and we stay the same. Our 'food' moves and we keep looking for our 'food' in 'the old place' where it no longer is.
Be like the birds. Learn fast, evolve -- and move on with new, fresh, up-to-date, functional generalizations. Go to where the food is; not to where the food was.
dgb, June 29th, 2008.
I moved my bird-feeder today from outside my upstairs living room window and sliding door with a black metal fence on it -- to the downstairs and outside backyard, a distance of about 20 feet outwards towards the swamp at the end of my backyard as well as down to the ground below.
Having re-constructed by bird-feeder -- fresh with new bird feed -- down below and out in the backyard, I sat upstairs and watched as first a morning dove and then a blackbird flew over to my upstairs ledge where the bird-feeder used to be and parked themselves, looking around for the food that wasn't there any more except perhaps a few tidbit leftovers still on my ledge... I don't know whether they figured out that the bird feeder had been moved at this exact moment or not, but having looked around for about 5 minutes, each, respectively, they both up and flew away, not to the new birdfeeder site -- but just away to a tree that they came from or something...
A half an hour of this, and the rest of the birds seemed to have figured things out properly -- the bird feeder had been moved to probably a better place for their reasoned safety -- and no more birds came back to my ledge. Now all the bird action was in my back yard -- at the site of the new feeder.
The birds had 'adjusted to reality' -- and left their 'dysfunctional generalizations' that led them away from the reality of where their food now was located -- behind. It only took half an hour with only two birds falling temporary victims to their 'outdated generalizations'.
That man should discard so quickly his (or her) outdated, dysfunctional generalizations.
People often take a lot longer to 'adjust to new circumstances'. Reality changes -- and they/we keep persisting with the same old, outdated, dysfunctional generalizations. Reality evolves -- and we stay the same. Our 'food' moves and we keep looking for our 'food' in 'the old place' where it no longer is.
Be like the birds. Learn fast, evolve -- and move on with new, fresh, up-to-date, functional generalizations. Go to where the food is; not to where the food was.
dgb, June 29th, 2008.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Hegel's Hotel as 'Hotel California'
Once you get into 'heavy' areas of philosophical, ethical, political, and religious controversy and differences of opinion, Hegel's Hotel becomes like 'Hotel California' -- you can get in but you may never get out...
-- dgb, June 21st, 2008.
-- dgb, June 21st, 2008.
Words, Personal Invasions of Space and Privacy, Rejections, Betrayals, and Other Contextual Issues Are Important Factors In Cases of Domestic Violence
For the most part -- if not the entire part -- the issue of 'words' has been marginalized and pushed aside in the information-gathering process and evolution of 'domestic violence' cases.
This is a big mistake -- as is the issue of 'personal invasions of space and privacy', which I will talk about a little more in the next 'mini-essay' in this section.
Words make up an important part of the 'context' of a domestic violence case. What words were said? Who issued them? Why were they issued? Were there threats of intimidation or coercion involved? What were the nature of the provocations that led up to the alleged domestic assault? What was the contextual background of what was going on here? Was one person being rejected? Betrayed? Cheated on? Leaving? Was there jealousy involved? Possessiveness? Money? What triggered the escalation of the domestic scene to one of violence? What was the extent of the violence? Does one person have a history -- a track record -- of violence? Or a completely clean record? What is the mental stability or instability of each of the participants in the situation? Is there a track record of one of the persons along this line? The main question here is 'What were the triggers -- verbal and/or preceding behavioral -- that escalated the scene to one of violence -- or alleged violence -- and one person calling the police?
Let me give you an example from outside the realm of domestic violence. There was an infamous baseball scene here in Toronto back in the 1990s where one of Toronto star baseball players -- Roberto Alomar -- apat on an umpire's face. Alomar's reputation in Toronto -- and else where -- his character and integrity, took a huge negative hit. I'm sure he was suspended by the baseball commissioner at the time although I don't know for how many games.
Now here is the point. Alomar committed the act that he committed and it was in essence and 'assault' although I don't think he was charged for assault. Likewise, perhaps worse, if he'd wound up, taken a swing at the umpire, and broken his jaw or given him a black eye, a bruise or something. I am certainly not advocatinng or supporting any type of violence here -- even in a sports event between two grown men who may or may not both be willing participants.
However, not too long ago, earlier this year sometime, and over ten years after the fact of this negative incident (I can't remember what year it was when this incident happened but I am sure I can probably find it on the internet and get back to you) -- it came out in some news forum or some interview that what the umpire said to Alomar was truly 'nasty' and 'under the belt'.
Why are we only hearing about this -- allegedly true infomration -- about 15 years after the fact? It is important contextual information relative to what happened? What did the umpire say? How bad was it? Even though Alomar still needs to be held acountable and responsible for what he did, he also deserves a fair 'trial' -- if only in this case in the court of public opinion. If the umpire involved in the incident, said something to Alomar that was truly 'despicable' and a 'low blow' -- then he should be held accountable and responsible for his proportion of guilt in what happened.
And so it is in scenes of 'real or alleged domestic violence'. If one person says something to the other that is truly 'nasty' and 'despicable' or 'totally disrespectful' or a 'threat of intimidation' ...or anything along this line, then this information needs to be collected by the examining police officers -- and not 'marginalized', or 'neglected', and/or 'conveniently swept aside' in order to 'narcissistically and discriminatively' move the investigation along in a biased and prejudicial fashion that they were 'taught to move the investigation along in' before they even arrived at the scene.
If one police officer says to one of the participants in the scene of alleged domestic violence, 'It doesn't matter what words she said to you, or how 'postal' she went on you, or what 'threats' she made to you, or how much she 'invaded your personal space' (how many different rooms of the house she chased you into to give you a piece of her mind...) -- the only thing that is important here is 'who struck who -- or who pushed who -- first? And if that was you, my man, then I have explicit instructions to handcuff you, charge you, and take you to straight to jail.
That kind of a message from a police officer to a participant (it was said to me by a male police officer) corrupts, biase, prejudices, and toxifies a 'domestic violence' case -- and its rightful collection of 'potentially relevant and important contextual data' -- right at the beginning of the case. And everything that happens afterwards in the case is both tainted by, and indeed, adds to the corruption, pollution, discrimination, bias and prejudice, as it continues to develop and move along. In by far the majority of alleged domestic assualt cases, the man doesn't have a 'snowball's chance in Hell' of getting a fair hearing and a fair trial. Everything is corrupted, politically and legally systemic and discriminatory before the process even starts...
The irony and hypocrisy of the situation is that the same 'contextual background factors' that narcissistic feminists want overtly or covertly eliminated from the investigation scene when it is the man being charged with the assault -- they will be the first ones to 'cry foul' if it is a woman being charged with the assualt and it the 'background contextual factors' that are being ignored or marginalized in her case. The hardest line groups of 'narcissistic feminists' do not want equal rights; they want to 'have their cake and eat it too'. And more than this, being outspoken and politically powerful in all of their individual and collective voices, philosophies, rhetorical arguments, intimidations, manipulations, and 'backroom negotiations -- dare I say collusion or will I get sued? -- with politicians, the most shocking part of all of this is that so many of their 'hardline-one-sided-agendas -- have become domestic law. In essence, a male-dominated domestic legal system has now been turned upside down and become a female dominated domestic legal system.
And that, my friends, is no closer to 'equal rights' than we were fifty years ago -- it is just turning the legalized discrimination of a patriarchal society against women into the legalized discrimination of a matriarchal society against men.
Neither are equal rights. Both involve preferential bias and discriminatory bias.
Both are equally corrupt, toxic, and poisonous to a democratic -- indeed, any -- society.
-- dgb, June 21st, 2008.
This is a big mistake -- as is the issue of 'personal invasions of space and privacy', which I will talk about a little more in the next 'mini-essay' in this section.
Words make up an important part of the 'context' of a domestic violence case. What words were said? Who issued them? Why were they issued? Were there threats of intimidation or coercion involved? What were the nature of the provocations that led up to the alleged domestic assault? What was the contextual background of what was going on here? Was one person being rejected? Betrayed? Cheated on? Leaving? Was there jealousy involved? Possessiveness? Money? What triggered the escalation of the domestic scene to one of violence? What was the extent of the violence? Does one person have a history -- a track record -- of violence? Or a completely clean record? What is the mental stability or instability of each of the participants in the situation? Is there a track record of one of the persons along this line? The main question here is 'What were the triggers -- verbal and/or preceding behavioral -- that escalated the scene to one of violence -- or alleged violence -- and one person calling the police?
Let me give you an example from outside the realm of domestic violence. There was an infamous baseball scene here in Toronto back in the 1990s where one of Toronto star baseball players -- Roberto Alomar -- apat on an umpire's face. Alomar's reputation in Toronto -- and else where -- his character and integrity, took a huge negative hit. I'm sure he was suspended by the baseball commissioner at the time although I don't know for how many games.
Now here is the point. Alomar committed the act that he committed and it was in essence and 'assault' although I don't think he was charged for assault. Likewise, perhaps worse, if he'd wound up, taken a swing at the umpire, and broken his jaw or given him a black eye, a bruise or something. I am certainly not advocatinng or supporting any type of violence here -- even in a sports event between two grown men who may or may not both be willing participants.
However, not too long ago, earlier this year sometime, and over ten years after the fact of this negative incident (I can't remember what year it was when this incident happened but I am sure I can probably find it on the internet and get back to you) -- it came out in some news forum or some interview that what the umpire said to Alomar was truly 'nasty' and 'under the belt'.
Why are we only hearing about this -- allegedly true infomration -- about 15 years after the fact? It is important contextual information relative to what happened? What did the umpire say? How bad was it? Even though Alomar still needs to be held acountable and responsible for what he did, he also deserves a fair 'trial' -- if only in this case in the court of public opinion. If the umpire involved in the incident, said something to Alomar that was truly 'despicable' and a 'low blow' -- then he should be held accountable and responsible for his proportion of guilt in what happened.
And so it is in scenes of 'real or alleged domestic violence'. If one person says something to the other that is truly 'nasty' and 'despicable' or 'totally disrespectful' or a 'threat of intimidation' ...or anything along this line, then this information needs to be collected by the examining police officers -- and not 'marginalized', or 'neglected', and/or 'conveniently swept aside' in order to 'narcissistically and discriminatively' move the investigation along in a biased and prejudicial fashion that they were 'taught to move the investigation along in' before they even arrived at the scene.
If one police officer says to one of the participants in the scene of alleged domestic violence, 'It doesn't matter what words she said to you, or how 'postal' she went on you, or what 'threats' she made to you, or how much she 'invaded your personal space' (how many different rooms of the house she chased you into to give you a piece of her mind...) -- the only thing that is important here is 'who struck who -- or who pushed who -- first? And if that was you, my man, then I have explicit instructions to handcuff you, charge you, and take you to straight to jail.
That kind of a message from a police officer to a participant (it was said to me by a male police officer) corrupts, biase, prejudices, and toxifies a 'domestic violence' case -- and its rightful collection of 'potentially relevant and important contextual data' -- right at the beginning of the case. And everything that happens afterwards in the case is both tainted by, and indeed, adds to the corruption, pollution, discrimination, bias and prejudice, as it continues to develop and move along. In by far the majority of alleged domestic assualt cases, the man doesn't have a 'snowball's chance in Hell' of getting a fair hearing and a fair trial. Everything is corrupted, politically and legally systemic and discriminatory before the process even starts...
The irony and hypocrisy of the situation is that the same 'contextual background factors' that narcissistic feminists want overtly or covertly eliminated from the investigation scene when it is the man being charged with the assault -- they will be the first ones to 'cry foul' if it is a woman being charged with the assualt and it the 'background contextual factors' that are being ignored or marginalized in her case. The hardest line groups of 'narcissistic feminists' do not want equal rights; they want to 'have their cake and eat it too'. And more than this, being outspoken and politically powerful in all of their individual and collective voices, philosophies, rhetorical arguments, intimidations, manipulations, and 'backroom negotiations -- dare I say collusion or will I get sued? -- with politicians, the most shocking part of all of this is that so many of their 'hardline-one-sided-agendas -- have become domestic law. In essence, a male-dominated domestic legal system has now been turned upside down and become a female dominated domestic legal system.
And that, my friends, is no closer to 'equal rights' than we were fifty years ago -- it is just turning the legalized discrimination of a patriarchal society against women into the legalized discrimination of a matriarchal society against men.
Neither are equal rights. Both involve preferential bias and discriminatory bias.
Both are equally corrupt, toxic, and poisonous to a democratic -- indeed, any -- society.
-- dgb, June 21st, 2008.
On The Toxic and Manipulative Use of Plea-Bargains
Beyond the issue of political, legal, and taxpayer expedience, plea-bargains are good for the guilty and bad for the innocent. For the guilty, allows the guilty person who committed a crime to get off with a lesser charge that often does not do justice to the actual severity of the crime; and for the innocent, the plea-bargain often intimidates an innocent person to plead guilty to a 'lesser charge' that he or she rightfully should or would not be found guilty on -- however, the potential prospect of losing the case and facing a much 'stiffer penalty' -- eg., either jail time or significantly more jail time than would be connected to the 'lesser charge and conviction' -- threatens, intimidates, and coerces the person on trial into pleading guilty to a charge -- even if it is the lesser one -- that he or she should not rightfully be convicted of. The case of the man in Toronto that is just receiving media attention here now who pleaded guilty to an assault that carried a two year sentence when it now looks like it may have been a 'Bernardo assault' is a perfect example of the type of 'wrongful conviction' I am talking about.
This is probably the case also in hundreds of 'domestic violence charges' (my pure speculation without the facts to back me because there aren't any facts to write about, just conjecture and a 'warped sense of domestic justice' -- again, my editorial and obviously male-biased opinion). Men plead guilty to a 'lesser sentence' that may or may not carry a 'criminal record' but still carries a 'black stain on the man's integrity and character' complete with recorded police fingerprints and a file on the man's conviction in order to avoid the threat, intimidation, and coercion of jail time -- even though, in actuality, for the one man who does one day have the courage to push the ple-bargain aside, the right man in the right case should be challenging the 'abuse of the man's Charter of Rights in the home, by police, by the bail judge, by the prosecution, and by the Government of Canada. Equal rights means equally fair treatment -- and equal punishment -- for both sexes; it doesn't mean that one sex gets 'profiled and scapegoated' for the problem of 'domestic violence' when the issue is by far and large -- a 'two-sex problem' with generally 'two victims and two victimizers of similar or different proportions'.
-- dgb, June 21st, 2008.
This is probably the case also in hundreds of 'domestic violence charges' (my pure speculation without the facts to back me because there aren't any facts to write about, just conjecture and a 'warped sense of domestic justice' -- again, my editorial and obviously male-biased opinion). Men plead guilty to a 'lesser sentence' that may or may not carry a 'criminal record' but still carries a 'black stain on the man's integrity and character' complete with recorded police fingerprints and a file on the man's conviction in order to avoid the threat, intimidation, and coercion of jail time -- even though, in actuality, for the one man who does one day have the courage to push the ple-bargain aside, the right man in the right case should be challenging the 'abuse of the man's Charter of Rights in the home, by police, by the bail judge, by the prosecution, and by the Government of Canada. Equal rights means equally fair treatment -- and equal punishment -- for both sexes; it doesn't mean that one sex gets 'profiled and scapegoated' for the problem of 'domestic violence' when the issue is by far and large -- a 'two-sex problem' with generally 'two victims and two victimizers of similar or different proportions'.
-- dgb, June 21st, 2008.
On The Imperative Neccessity of Background Contextual Information Relative to the Investigation of Any Alleged Criminal Case, Domestic or Otherwise
It is imperative that all of the background, contextual information that is necessary to get the 'legal judgment in a court decision right' -- and this starts from the police officers investigating a potential crime scene, alleged domestic violence or otherwise -- be not overlooked or neglected or marginalized because of either of three factors or the combination of any two or all three: 1. the desire to 'close a case' in speedy fashion in order to get public pressure -- and in cases of 'alleged domestic violence', this includes 'feminist political pressure' -- off of 'the police force's and prosecution's back'; 2. 'special interests political and legal forces' that demand from the government a legal campaign, mission, and directive of 'zero tolerance' for a certain type of 'sub-culture crime' (this leads to 'racial, ethnic, and/or sexual profiling' which biases and prejudices any particular investigation towards a certain conclusion and outcome before the investigation even starts); and 3. any other form of police and/or prosection and/or political 'narcissistic benefit' that is derived from 'profiling' a particular individual and/or group of people and creating 'narcissistic bias and prejudice' before the facts of the case have been fully and objectively arrived at with all different 'possible relevant contexts' of the case being fully detailed and made legally and publicly transparent from the beginning of the arrival of police at the doorstep of the alleged crime to the bail judge -- who is in no position whatsoever to make any legal judgments before receiving 'the fully police investigated, non-biased, and contextually rich, relevant facts of a case', even if these are thrown together very quickly and are subject to change if the case moves forward beyond the bail hearing -- to the prosecution itself in collusion with the police or not, which have already started to develop a 'mindset of guilty' the minute the police throw handcuffs on a person, lay charges, and start the 'bias and prejudice of the collection of relevant information in such a way as to maximize the probability of a conviction'...This makes 'special interest political and legal groups' (read 'overzealous, hardline feminist groups') very happy but it does nothing to advance the cause of 'equal rights' and 'justice' in this country. Indeed, it takes it a gigantic step backward towards 'reverse discrimination' and 'preferential justice' in the name of protecting 'all women from the possibility of all men becoming that one 'very bad egg of a man' -- or heading in that direction -- who actually is or becomes a very violent and nasty man towards his wife or girlfriend...
But the laws didn't change and radically overcompensate when Lorena Bobbitt cut off her husband's penis with a kitchen knife in 1993. The potential for the abuse of physical power, manipulation, intimidation, provocation, real, fake, and/or imagined threats, and the use of the police in a 'manipulative manner' and for 'manipulative reasons' -- is a 'two-sex problem'; not a 'one-sex problem' -- male or female.
-- dgb, June 21st, 2008.
But the laws didn't change and radically overcompensate when Lorena Bobbitt cut off her husband's penis with a kitchen knife in 1993. The potential for the abuse of physical power, manipulation, intimidation, provocation, real, fake, and/or imagined threats, and the use of the police in a 'manipulative manner' and for 'manipulative reasons' -- is a 'two-sex problem'; not a 'one-sex problem' -- male or female.
-- dgb, June 21st, 2008.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
On Equal Rights, Family Court Issues, Righteous Dialectic-Democratic Rage -- and The Law
As a philosopher -- and particularly as a 'post-Hegelian, dialectic' philosopher -- I can put any of three philosophical hats on: 1. my white hat (DGB Creationism or Constructionism); 2. my black hat (DGB Deconstructionism); and 3. my 'gray hat' (DGB Integrationism or Compromisism).
I don't know how I got here (Equal Rights, Domesitic Violence, Support Payments, Property Divisions, etc...) -- that's a lie, I do know how I got here -- call it 'unfinished philosophical business'.
We have entered three realms of philosophy where I simply cannot play the role of 'Constructionist' or the role of 'Integrationist' until I have completely exhausted my role as a 'Raging, Dialectic-Democratic-Deconstructionist' (RDDD).
These three realms are: 1. 'equal rights'; 2. 'domestic violence' and 3. 'support payments and money and property division upon separation and/or divorce'.
Now people, in general are afraid of rage because they automatically connect it with 'the potential for violence'. But there are a few things that people don't often understand about rage. One, it is often needed by politicians, philosophers, and civilians alike to help clear away social, civil, cultural, political, philosophical, econmic, and legal toxins, pathologies -- and corruption. This is what I call 'civil rage' or 'democratic-dialectical rage'. This is where you take your rage and turn it towards the betterment of yourself and/or society...
Secondly, 'rage' itself is part of a 'dialectical-homeostatic process' -- with 'passivenss and submissiveness' on one side of the 'dialectic-democratic ledger' and 'aggressive-assertion-anger-rage' on the other side of the 'homeostatic-dialectic ledger'. Rage does not mean you have to 'wind up and hit somebody'. (In psychotherapy, they generally use 'pillows'.)
Excuse what some people might call my growing 'rigtheous extremism' -- and some might even say paranoia -- here but I look at the new age of 'liberal Anger Management Classes and Programs' and I see the 'newest instrument of social, political, legal, and emotional coercion' -- perpretated through and by the Domestic Court System, and one step further back, through/by the Political System...but behind it all is a hugely influential network of organizations -- some better, some worse than others -- but right here I will paint them all with the same brush (with room for qualifications, compromises, and integrations only much later) because I am angry at them -- very angry at them -- and thus, I will call them 'The League Of Nations For Narcissistic Women' who want much more than 'egalistarianism'; rather, they want 'all they can get from a 'Politically Correct Goverment of Canada' full of men who have completely lost their testosterone when facing off against these women, and who quiver on their knees before their power...
And I am just warming up...
This exercise is called 'How to Write Like Nietzsche In Half an Hour'...
Just put on your 'black hat'....feel your dialectic-democratic rage...get into a 'feeling and writing zone'...and 'don't look back...just go for it...and let them howl...
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'Never retract, never explain, never apologize -- just get the job done and let them howl.'
-- personal motto of activist Nellie McClung (Will Ferguson, Canadian History for Dummies, 2000, pg. 300.)
I do not want to be the angel of any home. I want for myself and I want for other women -- absolute equality. After that is secured then men and women can take turns at being angels.
-- Agnes Macphail, a champion of equal rights feminism (Will Ferguson, Canadian History for Dummies, 2000, pg. 303.)
These are my two favorite feminists in the history of Canada -- and my two favorite 'female deconstructionists'....
Let me define 'deconstructionism' again...
Philosophical, political, and legal deconstructionism is the art of detoxifying and uncorrupting government structures, processes, laws, and 'hidden directives' by defeating these structures, processes, laws, and hidden directives (as well as the men and women who are behind the forces of the government statu-quo, or behind pathological reform, with the power of superior reason, logic, satire, and/or rhetoric. -- dgb
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I was trying to run away from this issue -- a quick 'hit and run' essay ond 'Equal Rights' and 'Two Different Types of Feminism' -- and then on to 'personality theory' I was planning to go. But I can see this is not going to happen...once I get in i wont get out...not until the subject is totally exhausted and i have re-lived a lot of pain, grief, anger -- and yes, even rage...against the Canadian government for turning a blind eye to the pain and anguish of single fathers in this country, rage against the women who sre at least equally at fault -- if not more -- for 'setting the stage for domestic violence' and then who go running to the police, running to the women and organizations who/that defend these type of women like they are total 'victims' and 'angel's (see Agnus McPhail's quote) and who cannot see that some women have lived their whole lives learning how to 'manipulate men' and turn their 'seemingly superior physical, social, corporate, political, and legal power' into a relic of the past...Too many women today are seeing all too clearly -- and manipulatively -- that they no longer live in a man's world -- they live in a feminist's world that now has significant power over the police, power over the politicians, and power over the domestic and sexual legal system.
The myth of a 'patriarchal society' today is exactly that -- a myth perpetrated by narcissistic feminists who want to retain the political and legal perception of the 'underdog' in society because this gives them 'underdog power in the Domestic Court Room' to mobilize judges into making decisions to their legal and economic advantage.
Of coursse, there are still many cases where women still are getting the 'short end of the stick' in divorces but these women have their own feminist organizations to turn to trumpet these individual injustices.
At this point in time, I speak for the huge number of largely 'Silent Men' out there who may speak amongst themselves but who are not civilly and political loud. In fact, they are mainly mute. I speak -- or at least I would like to think I speak -- for the large number of divorced or separated men, fathers or not, who now have inferior rights to women inside what was once their 'shared home', inferior rights in front of the police who will jail a man much, much faster than he will jail a woman, inferior rights in the Domestic Courts of Canada where everyday men are being abused and vicitimed by 'preferred female rights', and inferior rights in the Supreme Court of Canada, in the parliament of Canada where male politicians have lost their testosterone when it comes to dealing with 'equal rights' issues and 'Feminist Organizations', and in the Constitution of Canada -- where once again powerful women's organizations have established, and are establishing, greater and greater 'preferred rights' on the backs of what Trudeau started, 'Affirmative Action Programs' made way worse, and Liberal Governments kept 'riding the same horse' with 'Conservative Governments' not very far behind with no oranized, powerful, 'Men's Civil Rights' groups to challenge the narcissistic feminist rhetoric face to face, and head on.
I love women -- which is why I hate to be here. All I want is fair, equal rights for both side where a man does not have to feel like a stranger in his own home because of the laws of Canada, and because it has been deemed 'his responsibility' to run out of his house the minute his spouse starts to 'go Postal' on him.
If there is going to be 'zero tolerance' for domestic violence in the home, then the man needs to be just as well proteceted by the laws of Canada as the woman is. Or women need to more fully experience what 'zero tolerance' actually means. The woman's role in the escalation, initiation, provocation, intimidation, and perpetuation of domestic violence needs to be just as much clearly understood and appreciated by the laws of Canada as the man's role. Any thing else is 'Social Stereotyping' (of the 'reverse' type), 'Sexual Profiling' (of the 'reverse' type) 'Sexual Reductionism and Scapegoating' -- as opposed to looking at the whole issue 'wholistically'.
Have I forgotten anything?
Oh yes. And 'Feminist Hypocrisy'. Let us finish this essay with a brief masculine perspective on narcissistic feminist hypocrisy.
Ladies, for those of you who have never 'pushed a man in anger', or 'thrown furnature at him', or whatever, I give you all the respect in the world as well. But if you have ever lifted your arm and struck a man, or pushed him, or thrown something at him, or used a weapon against him, then you have no right to parade around as a 'victim of domestic violence'. And you have no right to 'preach zero tolerance laws against men' if you are not willing to fully abide by them yourself. If you strike or push your man first, then -- by the laws of today -- there should be no ifs, ands, or buts about it. It should be the man staying in the home and you being paraded away in handcuffs to experience exactly what it feels like to spend a cold, bright, night on a cold steel bed with cold steel bars and concrete floors. Under today's supposed 'equal rigthts and protections' laws, this would be the full extent of equal rights, not you being allowed to take the children and go off to a woman's shelter.
Anything else -- at least until we loosen up these discriminative laws against men -- is sheer, unbridled, feminist hypocrisy -- or the practical extension of it. Freminist groups can couch their words in the rhetoric of their choice -- and they can make it all sound so 'nice and fair', but until men actually start blowing the whistle on women practising violence in the home -- that means phoning the police the same way women are now, and the police respect these calls just like they would respect it from a woman, and the woman if she initiated the first physical blow to the man is marched away in handcuffs to jail -- until all this happens, ladies your 'equal rights rhetoric' is about as empty as the jail cell I spent Father's Day in ten years ago. I learned my lesson -- and I learned my lesson the hard way. But don't tell me that women are getting the same type of 'rough ride' that men are.
Because that is unmitigated hogwash.
I am not a politician and never will be. My power runs between my mind, my fingers, and my keyboard, no more, no less.
Either my words will hit home -- hit their desired target -- or they won't.
I will let each of you at least partly be the judge of that?
You can listen to all the 'politically correct rhetoric'. Or you can listen to your heart and to your own sense of reason, fairness, equality, and justice.
Given these parameters, I think you will know what I am writing about here. I am not writing in a social vaccuum although oftentimes, with the overall silence of men, it sure feels like it.
It is after midnight and I am burnt out for tonight.
Goodnight.
dgb, June. 18th, 2008.
I don't know how I got here (Equal Rights, Domesitic Violence, Support Payments, Property Divisions, etc...) -- that's a lie, I do know how I got here -- call it 'unfinished philosophical business'.
We have entered three realms of philosophy where I simply cannot play the role of 'Constructionist' or the role of 'Integrationist' until I have completely exhausted my role as a 'Raging, Dialectic-Democratic-Deconstructionist' (RDDD).
These three realms are: 1. 'equal rights'; 2. 'domestic violence' and 3. 'support payments and money and property division upon separation and/or divorce'.
Now people, in general are afraid of rage because they automatically connect it with 'the potential for violence'. But there are a few things that people don't often understand about rage. One, it is often needed by politicians, philosophers, and civilians alike to help clear away social, civil, cultural, political, philosophical, econmic, and legal toxins, pathologies -- and corruption. This is what I call 'civil rage' or 'democratic-dialectical rage'. This is where you take your rage and turn it towards the betterment of yourself and/or society...
Secondly, 'rage' itself is part of a 'dialectical-homeostatic process' -- with 'passivenss and submissiveness' on one side of the 'dialectic-democratic ledger' and 'aggressive-assertion-anger-rage' on the other side of the 'homeostatic-dialectic ledger'. Rage does not mean you have to 'wind up and hit somebody'. (In psychotherapy, they generally use 'pillows'.)
Excuse what some people might call my growing 'rigtheous extremism' -- and some might even say paranoia -- here but I look at the new age of 'liberal Anger Management Classes and Programs' and I see the 'newest instrument of social, political, legal, and emotional coercion' -- perpretated through and by the Domestic Court System, and one step further back, through/by the Political System...but behind it all is a hugely influential network of organizations -- some better, some worse than others -- but right here I will paint them all with the same brush (with room for qualifications, compromises, and integrations only much later) because I am angry at them -- very angry at them -- and thus, I will call them 'The League Of Nations For Narcissistic Women' who want much more than 'egalistarianism'; rather, they want 'all they can get from a 'Politically Correct Goverment of Canada' full of men who have completely lost their testosterone when facing off against these women, and who quiver on their knees before their power...
And I am just warming up...
This exercise is called 'How to Write Like Nietzsche In Half an Hour'...
Just put on your 'black hat'....feel your dialectic-democratic rage...get into a 'feeling and writing zone'...and 'don't look back...just go for it...and let them howl...
............................................................................
'Never retract, never explain, never apologize -- just get the job done and let them howl.'
-- personal motto of activist Nellie McClung (Will Ferguson, Canadian History for Dummies, 2000, pg. 300.)
I do not want to be the angel of any home. I want for myself and I want for other women -- absolute equality. After that is secured then men and women can take turns at being angels.
-- Agnes Macphail, a champion of equal rights feminism (Will Ferguson, Canadian History for Dummies, 2000, pg. 303.)
These are my two favorite feminists in the history of Canada -- and my two favorite 'female deconstructionists'....
Let me define 'deconstructionism' again...
Philosophical, political, and legal deconstructionism is the art of detoxifying and uncorrupting government structures, processes, laws, and 'hidden directives' by defeating these structures, processes, laws, and hidden directives (as well as the men and women who are behind the forces of the government statu-quo, or behind pathological reform, with the power of superior reason, logic, satire, and/or rhetoric. -- dgb
..................................................................................
I was trying to run away from this issue -- a quick 'hit and run' essay ond 'Equal Rights' and 'Two Different Types of Feminism' -- and then on to 'personality theory' I was planning to go. But I can see this is not going to happen...once I get in i wont get out...not until the subject is totally exhausted and i have re-lived a lot of pain, grief, anger -- and yes, even rage...against the Canadian government for turning a blind eye to the pain and anguish of single fathers in this country, rage against the women who sre at least equally at fault -- if not more -- for 'setting the stage for domestic violence' and then who go running to the police, running to the women and organizations who/that defend these type of women like they are total 'victims' and 'angel's (see Agnus McPhail's quote) and who cannot see that some women have lived their whole lives learning how to 'manipulate men' and turn their 'seemingly superior physical, social, corporate, political, and legal power' into a relic of the past...Too many women today are seeing all too clearly -- and manipulatively -- that they no longer live in a man's world -- they live in a feminist's world that now has significant power over the police, power over the politicians, and power over the domestic and sexual legal system.
The myth of a 'patriarchal society' today is exactly that -- a myth perpetrated by narcissistic feminists who want to retain the political and legal perception of the 'underdog' in society because this gives them 'underdog power in the Domestic Court Room' to mobilize judges into making decisions to their legal and economic advantage.
Of coursse, there are still many cases where women still are getting the 'short end of the stick' in divorces but these women have their own feminist organizations to turn to trumpet these individual injustices.
At this point in time, I speak for the huge number of largely 'Silent Men' out there who may speak amongst themselves but who are not civilly and political loud. In fact, they are mainly mute. I speak -- or at least I would like to think I speak -- for the large number of divorced or separated men, fathers or not, who now have inferior rights to women inside what was once their 'shared home', inferior rights in front of the police who will jail a man much, much faster than he will jail a woman, inferior rights in the Domestic Courts of Canada where everyday men are being abused and vicitimed by 'preferred female rights', and inferior rights in the Supreme Court of Canada, in the parliament of Canada where male politicians have lost their testosterone when it comes to dealing with 'equal rights' issues and 'Feminist Organizations', and in the Constitution of Canada -- where once again powerful women's organizations have established, and are establishing, greater and greater 'preferred rights' on the backs of what Trudeau started, 'Affirmative Action Programs' made way worse, and Liberal Governments kept 'riding the same horse' with 'Conservative Governments' not very far behind with no oranized, powerful, 'Men's Civil Rights' groups to challenge the narcissistic feminist rhetoric face to face, and head on.
I love women -- which is why I hate to be here. All I want is fair, equal rights for both side where a man does not have to feel like a stranger in his own home because of the laws of Canada, and because it has been deemed 'his responsibility' to run out of his house the minute his spouse starts to 'go Postal' on him.
If there is going to be 'zero tolerance' for domestic violence in the home, then the man needs to be just as well proteceted by the laws of Canada as the woman is. Or women need to more fully experience what 'zero tolerance' actually means. The woman's role in the escalation, initiation, provocation, intimidation, and perpetuation of domestic violence needs to be just as much clearly understood and appreciated by the laws of Canada as the man's role. Any thing else is 'Social Stereotyping' (of the 'reverse' type), 'Sexual Profiling' (of the 'reverse' type) 'Sexual Reductionism and Scapegoating' -- as opposed to looking at the whole issue 'wholistically'.
Have I forgotten anything?
Oh yes. And 'Feminist Hypocrisy'. Let us finish this essay with a brief masculine perspective on narcissistic feminist hypocrisy.
Ladies, for those of you who have never 'pushed a man in anger', or 'thrown furnature at him', or whatever, I give you all the respect in the world as well. But if you have ever lifted your arm and struck a man, or pushed him, or thrown something at him, or used a weapon against him, then you have no right to parade around as a 'victim of domestic violence'. And you have no right to 'preach zero tolerance laws against men' if you are not willing to fully abide by them yourself. If you strike or push your man first, then -- by the laws of today -- there should be no ifs, ands, or buts about it. It should be the man staying in the home and you being paraded away in handcuffs to experience exactly what it feels like to spend a cold, bright, night on a cold steel bed with cold steel bars and concrete floors. Under today's supposed 'equal rigthts and protections' laws, this would be the full extent of equal rights, not you being allowed to take the children and go off to a woman's shelter.
Anything else -- at least until we loosen up these discriminative laws against men -- is sheer, unbridled, feminist hypocrisy -- or the practical extension of it. Freminist groups can couch their words in the rhetoric of their choice -- and they can make it all sound so 'nice and fair', but until men actually start blowing the whistle on women practising violence in the home -- that means phoning the police the same way women are now, and the police respect these calls just like they would respect it from a woman, and the woman if she initiated the first physical blow to the man is marched away in handcuffs to jail -- until all this happens, ladies your 'equal rights rhetoric' is about as empty as the jail cell I spent Father's Day in ten years ago. I learned my lesson -- and I learned my lesson the hard way. But don't tell me that women are getting the same type of 'rough ride' that men are.
Because that is unmitigated hogwash.
I am not a politician and never will be. My power runs between my mind, my fingers, and my keyboard, no more, no less.
Either my words will hit home -- hit their desired target -- or they won't.
I will let each of you at least partly be the judge of that?
You can listen to all the 'politically correct rhetoric'. Or you can listen to your heart and to your own sense of reason, fairness, equality, and justice.
Given these parameters, I think you will know what I am writing about here. I am not writing in a social vaccuum although oftentimes, with the overall silence of men, it sure feels like it.
It is after midnight and I am burnt out for tonight.
Goodnight.
dgb, June. 18th, 2008.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
On Context, Encounters, and Relationships
You cannot take one person's single action out of the context of the encounter it came from without easily -- or purposely -- misunderstanding it. Likewise, in an ongoing relationship, you cannot take one encounter out of the context of the whole relationship without again easily -- or purposely -- misunderstanding it.
Context is crucial and ignoring context -- especially for someone like an arresting police officer, a journalist, a politician, or a judge -- is a grossly negligent act of duty and responsibility -- an act of 'reductionism' where a journalist is just looking for a provocative, controversial story, a campaigning politician is just looking to 'trash' his or her political opponent, or a policeman or judge is just looking for an easy legal scapegoat.
Call it 'narcissistic, Western justice'...or the misrepresentation of it...
dgb, June 15th, 2008.
Context is crucial and ignoring context -- especially for someone like an arresting police officer, a journalist, a politician, or a judge -- is a grossly negligent act of duty and responsibility -- an act of 'reductionism' where a journalist is just looking for a provocative, controversial story, a campaigning politician is just looking to 'trash' his or her political opponent, or a policeman or judge is just looking for an easy legal scapegoat.
Call it 'narcissistic, Western justice'...or the misrepresentation of it...
dgb, June 15th, 2008.
On The Difference Between 'Egalitarian Feminism' and 'Narcissistic Feminism'
(This is a little longer than my usual aphorism -- or even 'mini-essay' but the dialectic process that I will write about here has been building here...so this is where I will let it 'rip'...)
There is a radical difference between 'egalitarian feminism' and 'narcissistic feminism' even though the lines can get blurred in around the 'dividing point'.
The distinction is not too much different than the one between an 'egalitarian masculinist' if you will and a 'male chauvanist' (a male chauvanist being basically the equivalent of a 'male or masculine narcissist' or a 'narcissistic male' or a 'narcissistic masculinist'.
For those ladies who have absolutely no difficulty recognizing and pointing out the distinction between a narcissistic male and an egalitarian male, it is obviously totally 'egalitarian' that this type of logic and 'distinction-ability' should be totally reversable and applied to women as well. How much more egalitarian can this be?
Now I don't want to make a stereotypical, over-generalization here, in terms of painting all women with the same brush, any more than any man likes it when a woman paints all men with the same brush -- especially when it is a 'negative and/or toxic paint brush'. So I will put it this way: for most people -- men and women included -- it is much easier to recognize the narcissistic (selfish, egotistical, self-absorbed...) behavior of others than it is to recognize and label this type of behavior in ourselves. As a general rule of thumb, we see selfishness much easier in others than we do in ourselves. Most narcissistic people are blind to the extent of their own narcissism. They talk and see with 'blinders' on -- but they can't see their own blinders. They see the blinders very easily in others while not seeing the blinders at all -- or very little -- on themselves. They don't see their own prejudices, biases, and stereotypical distinctions in pre-judging others while 'crying foul' when anyone else puts such a stereotypical distinction on themselves. This is very much a big part of the nature and 'symptom-formation' of human narcissism.
And so it is with women as it is with men. The 'evolution of equal rights' -- whether coming from a man or a woman, a white, black, or brown person, has always been a mission mixed with personal, sexual, ethnic, and cultural narcissism. An 'equal rights' crusade on one level of human existence has generally been at least partly supported by 'hypocritical narcissism' on an other level of human existence. I don't have the time or energy now to do a thorough analysis throughout Western history but Thomas Jefferson, to my knowledge, had slaves. (Someone correct me if I am wrong.)
'Although politically radical, the women's suffragist movement was socially very conservative. Suffragists wanted to uphold Christian and British values, and often the same reformers who wanted the vote for women wanted it denied to Asian men. For many women, winning the vote was seen as simply the first stepping stone toward reforming society as a whole, and that including dealing with the corrupting influence of foreigners. Many of these early feminist crusaders stood for women's rights and -- in their own words -- a 'White Canada'. In this, they managed to be both progressive and reactionary at the same time.' (Will Ferguson, Canadian History for Dummies, 2000.)' (In my words, I would say 'egalitarian' and 'narcissistically righteous' or 'righteously narcissistic' at the same time.)
Now obviously the 'equal rights movement' on all levels -- sexual, racial, cultural...-- has made some giant strides from the 1910s, 20s, 30s, and 40s (indeed, in every new decade) -- but one thing hasn't changed: specifically, equal rights crusading and reforming still tends to come in a 'mixed bag of tricks' -- a combination of 'healthy, real equal rights issues' and a set of 'toxic, special interest, preferential rights issues' all nicely packaged together in the same 'reformation crusade' with a nice bow on top of it and a card that proclaims that 'These are all 'healthy, equal rights issues that need to be addressed and passsed as law in the name of a more democratic and "just" society.' And yes -- our famous and infamous Prime Minister Trudeau was one of the main initial perpetrators of 'toxic, unjust, special interest, preferential rights, reverse-discrimination' reforms beginning with his 'modification' of The Canadian Constitution.
The 'Affirmative Action' Program of the 1990s was probably the worst example of this type of 'preferential treatment' and 'reverse-discrimination' -- masked as 'equal rights'.
I remember reading job postings on TTC bulletin boards back in the middle 1990s that basically said at the top of each job posting that 'women and/or ethnic minorities were encouraged to apply'. Most 'white men' knew what that meant. Don't bother applying. In a contorted way, maybe the Affirmative Action Program was good in this sense and this sense only: it allowed white men to feel the very real negative experience of both sexual and racial discrimination at the same time. The Pendulum of Politics and Discrimination had swung 180 degrees the other way. White men got to experience in a very real and dramatic way for a few years what it was like to be 'discriminated against in the workplace'.
Egalitarian men and egalitarian women need to get their collective acts together. I know that you are out there but you are not operating cohesively on the same wavelength. Far too often, it is the 'rhetorically radical -- and the righteously narcissistic' that have the loudest voices, become the leaders of reformist movements, may generate some good, egalitarian changes but also some toxic, narcissistically preferential ones as well.
It is no different than the Liberals, the Conservatives, the NDPs, and the Bloc Party squaring off against each other in parliament -- each with their own respective 'idealistic ideologies', left, right, centre -- and separate rights and laws for Quebec.
In this same manner, if we are going to have 'closer to real equal rights' in Canada (and I imagine the same to be true in the U.S.), then we are going to have to start all over and 'go back to the bargaining table again -- egalitarian feminist and masculine negotiators in the same room'. This is the only way that we are going to set about fixing the collosal mess of reverse-discrimination that is our Domestic and Sexual Court situation right now.
I have no figures to support me here -- and I am sure the government isn't keeping these figures, or if they are I am sure that they are not making them public. How many men in Lindsay Jail are there on domestic violence charges? What is the percentage of male inmates that are there on domestic violence charges? 50%? 60%? 70%? 80%? 90%? I don't know but somehow I would hazard a guess that it is somewhere around 90% The Canadian public needs to know what the exact number of inmates -- and the percentage of inmates -- that are locked up in Lindsay jail -- or any other jail for that matter -- and they need to know now.
Similarily, pick any female jail in the GTA area -- I think there is one around the airport. How many women in this jail are locked up on domestic violence charges? What percentage of the women locked up in this jail -- and any other -- are locked up on domestic violence charges? Again, we need to know this now.
How many men in the GTA area are being locked up at this time on domestic violence charges? How many women? What is the percentage of men being locked up on domestic charges in the GTA vs. women? In Ontario? In each province? In Canada?
If we are to find that there is a hugely radical difference in the number of men being locked up on domestic violence charges compared to the number of women in the GTA, in Ontario, in Canada...what are we to make of this hugely significant statistic? That domestic violence is by and large totally a masculine crime; not a feminine one? Or that domestic violence is generally a two-sex problem where both the man and the woman are usually at least partly guilty in escalating the crisis -- until one sex finally takes a 'swing at the other' or 'pushes him or her away' -- and yet, it is largely only one sex that is taking 'the fall' -- i.e. being scapegoated -- for a 'two-sex problem'.
The same is largely true in divorce cases relative to property and money divisions -- and support payments.
Indeed, there are so many different but related issues here that I barely know where to start.
I will make two final points here before I stop.
One, we have to do something about the problem of 'political lobbying' just like Obama is campaigning to do something about it in the U.S.
In the area of domestic problems and sexual crimes, it is grossly politically unfair -- and again I don't know the numbers here because the numbers are covert --that there are let us say 1000 feminist groups crusading in Ottawa for constant reforms and changes in Canadian law to both 'promote equally' and to 'promote narcissistically' the rights of women -- without probably more than a handful of 'masculine rights' groups operating in Ottawa, all of which are largely 'politically impotent' with all due respect to the courage of the men who are trying...and cannot make a 'dent' on the power of the women's groups who oppose them and hugely outnumber them while the vast majority of 'silent men' in Canada, who may otherwise be extremely intelligent and rhetorically gifted, lay at home on their particular couches watching the hockey game or the football game -- and continue to allow the feminist groups in Canada to politically and legally have their way with them. I've heard of being a 'gentleman' but this has gone extremely too far...
My second and final point. I would say that it is an act of 'brutal violence' on a part of a woman that she should go to court and 'trump up a case of domestic violence against the man she is facing' -- meaning distort, falsify, and/or embellish her evidence in order to 'make a good case against the man'. This -- without a doubt -- should be a criminal offense punishable by a significant jail term. (Indeed, it is essentially no different than the president of the United States or Prime Minister of Canada -- or any member of government for that matter -- standing up in front of the American or Canadian people and 'trumping up a case for war' by distorting, falsify, embellishing, or leaving out any detail that might be critically important in getting -- or not getting -- the support of the American/Canadian/British... people to go to war.
Lives are at stake. The life and death of people are at stake. Jail terms are at stake. Reputations are at stake. Character and integrity are at stake. Careers are at stake. The welfare -- or demolition -- of a family is at stake.
In short, we need to completely relook at, and re-negotiate, the whole 'equal rights' phenomenon -- and its narcissistic -- 'special rights' -- distortion.
There are thousands of lives that are grossly at stake. Men, women, children -- and families. The whole process cannot start too soon.
-- dgb, June 15th, 2008.
.............................................................................
A Post-Script:
I was wondering why on this particular day -- Father's Day, June 15th, 2008, I chose to write probably my most provocative essay to date in Hegel's Hotel -- on 'equal rights'. I wrote a short 'warm-up' mini-essay on the subject yesterday, but before that, I had been heading into the subject of 'personality theory' and 'transference'. And then this essay on equal rights and feminism seemed to just 'creatively appear out of nowhere'...The subject matter was central to my writing about 8 or 9 years ago -- but not lately.
And then I went upstairs to go to bed, I lay down -- and then it hit me. This is about the 10th anniversary of the one and only night in my life that I spent in jail -- and it was on a charge of 'domestic violence'. As I lay in my bed upstairs, I suddenly had what I guess you might call a 'flashback' to the night I spent in the Richmond Hill jail. I remember the single cell, the steel bed, the concrete below it, and the bright light above me...I remember disappearing under the steel bed to the concrete floor beneath it to try to escape the bright light above me shining in my face and to try to find a darker, more comfortable place to sleep. The concrete was more comfortable than the steel. And I remember the paddywagon with the steel interior taking me to Newmarket court the next morning...Father's Day about 10 years ago -- steel and concrete -- that was the historical context out of which the essay above suddenly seemingly appeared out of nowhere in my consciousness. Freud would probably have a field day with that...His paper on this 'phenomenon' might be called 'Creativity, The Unconscious, The Instincts -- and Their Vicissitudes...
I had 'pushed' my girlfriend -- or ex-girlfriend -- at the time out of my bedroom because I had a 'brutal cold' that day, and had left work early because of it. Big mistake. She had just gotten a 'hang up' which she interpreted to be from my 'new girlfriend'. So she came into my bedroom in a storm and proceeded to 'go postal' on me. I had neither the energy nor the tolerance to deal with her that day -- especially after she said that she was afraid that I would pull a 'midnight move' on her and 'steal her stuff' (I ended up giving her a good, wood dining room table that was mine). Anyway, I (admittedly wrongfully) pushed her out of my bedroom to try to lock the door on her so she couldn't get back in. But she did get back in. I pushed her out again -- this time further into the hall, she fell onto a wooden chair and injured her shoulder -- and I was off for a night in jail, moved to Newmarket the next day, and was then tied up with lawyers and courts for a year. We finally settled out of court, I apologized, was able to avoid having to take an 'anger management program' (it was her with the much more volatile temper)...and I started dating my present girlfriend who I have now been with for 10 years without the repetition of any similar type of incident...She was there the day after that fateful Father's Day to help bail my 'sorry ass' out of jail...And now it's ten years later give or take a year...prompting an essay...and a flashback...
................................................................................
'Never retract, never explain, never apologize -- just get the job done and let them howl.'
-- personal motto of activist Nellie McClung (Will Ferguson, Canadian History for Dummies, 2000, pg. 300.)
I do not want to be the angel of any home. I want for myself and I want for other women -- absolute equality. After that is secured then men and women can take turns at being angels.
-- Agnes Macphail, a champion of equal rights feminism (Will Ferguson, Canadian History for Dummies, 2000, pg. 303.)
There is a radical difference between 'egalitarian feminism' and 'narcissistic feminism' even though the lines can get blurred in around the 'dividing point'.
The distinction is not too much different than the one between an 'egalitarian masculinist' if you will and a 'male chauvanist' (a male chauvanist being basically the equivalent of a 'male or masculine narcissist' or a 'narcissistic male' or a 'narcissistic masculinist'.
For those ladies who have absolutely no difficulty recognizing and pointing out the distinction between a narcissistic male and an egalitarian male, it is obviously totally 'egalitarian' that this type of logic and 'distinction-ability' should be totally reversable and applied to women as well. How much more egalitarian can this be?
Now I don't want to make a stereotypical, over-generalization here, in terms of painting all women with the same brush, any more than any man likes it when a woman paints all men with the same brush -- especially when it is a 'negative and/or toxic paint brush'. So I will put it this way: for most people -- men and women included -- it is much easier to recognize the narcissistic (selfish, egotistical, self-absorbed...) behavior of others than it is to recognize and label this type of behavior in ourselves. As a general rule of thumb, we see selfishness much easier in others than we do in ourselves. Most narcissistic people are blind to the extent of their own narcissism. They talk and see with 'blinders' on -- but they can't see their own blinders. They see the blinders very easily in others while not seeing the blinders at all -- or very little -- on themselves. They don't see their own prejudices, biases, and stereotypical distinctions in pre-judging others while 'crying foul' when anyone else puts such a stereotypical distinction on themselves. This is very much a big part of the nature and 'symptom-formation' of human narcissism.
And so it is with women as it is with men. The 'evolution of equal rights' -- whether coming from a man or a woman, a white, black, or brown person, has always been a mission mixed with personal, sexual, ethnic, and cultural narcissism. An 'equal rights' crusade on one level of human existence has generally been at least partly supported by 'hypocritical narcissism' on an other level of human existence. I don't have the time or energy now to do a thorough analysis throughout Western history but Thomas Jefferson, to my knowledge, had slaves. (Someone correct me if I am wrong.)
'Although politically radical, the women's suffragist movement was socially very conservative. Suffragists wanted to uphold Christian and British values, and often the same reformers who wanted the vote for women wanted it denied to Asian men. For many women, winning the vote was seen as simply the first stepping stone toward reforming society as a whole, and that including dealing with the corrupting influence of foreigners. Many of these early feminist crusaders stood for women's rights and -- in their own words -- a 'White Canada'. In this, they managed to be both progressive and reactionary at the same time.' (Will Ferguson, Canadian History for Dummies, 2000.)' (In my words, I would say 'egalitarian' and 'narcissistically righteous' or 'righteously narcissistic' at the same time.)
Now obviously the 'equal rights movement' on all levels -- sexual, racial, cultural...-- has made some giant strides from the 1910s, 20s, 30s, and 40s (indeed, in every new decade) -- but one thing hasn't changed: specifically, equal rights crusading and reforming still tends to come in a 'mixed bag of tricks' -- a combination of 'healthy, real equal rights issues' and a set of 'toxic, special interest, preferential rights issues' all nicely packaged together in the same 'reformation crusade' with a nice bow on top of it and a card that proclaims that 'These are all 'healthy, equal rights issues that need to be addressed and passsed as law in the name of a more democratic and "just" society.' And yes -- our famous and infamous Prime Minister Trudeau was one of the main initial perpetrators of 'toxic, unjust, special interest, preferential rights, reverse-discrimination' reforms beginning with his 'modification' of The Canadian Constitution.
The 'Affirmative Action' Program of the 1990s was probably the worst example of this type of 'preferential treatment' and 'reverse-discrimination' -- masked as 'equal rights'.
I remember reading job postings on TTC bulletin boards back in the middle 1990s that basically said at the top of each job posting that 'women and/or ethnic minorities were encouraged to apply'. Most 'white men' knew what that meant. Don't bother applying. In a contorted way, maybe the Affirmative Action Program was good in this sense and this sense only: it allowed white men to feel the very real negative experience of both sexual and racial discrimination at the same time. The Pendulum of Politics and Discrimination had swung 180 degrees the other way. White men got to experience in a very real and dramatic way for a few years what it was like to be 'discriminated against in the workplace'.
Egalitarian men and egalitarian women need to get their collective acts together. I know that you are out there but you are not operating cohesively on the same wavelength. Far too often, it is the 'rhetorically radical -- and the righteously narcissistic' that have the loudest voices, become the leaders of reformist movements, may generate some good, egalitarian changes but also some toxic, narcissistically preferential ones as well.
It is no different than the Liberals, the Conservatives, the NDPs, and the Bloc Party squaring off against each other in parliament -- each with their own respective 'idealistic ideologies', left, right, centre -- and separate rights and laws for Quebec.
In this same manner, if we are going to have 'closer to real equal rights' in Canada (and I imagine the same to be true in the U.S.), then we are going to have to start all over and 'go back to the bargaining table again -- egalitarian feminist and masculine negotiators in the same room'. This is the only way that we are going to set about fixing the collosal mess of reverse-discrimination that is our Domestic and Sexual Court situation right now.
I have no figures to support me here -- and I am sure the government isn't keeping these figures, or if they are I am sure that they are not making them public. How many men in Lindsay Jail are there on domestic violence charges? What is the percentage of male inmates that are there on domestic violence charges? 50%? 60%? 70%? 80%? 90%? I don't know but somehow I would hazard a guess that it is somewhere around 90% The Canadian public needs to know what the exact number of inmates -- and the percentage of inmates -- that are locked up in Lindsay jail -- or any other jail for that matter -- and they need to know now.
Similarily, pick any female jail in the GTA area -- I think there is one around the airport. How many women in this jail are locked up on domestic violence charges? What percentage of the women locked up in this jail -- and any other -- are locked up on domestic violence charges? Again, we need to know this now.
How many men in the GTA area are being locked up at this time on domestic violence charges? How many women? What is the percentage of men being locked up on domestic charges in the GTA vs. women? In Ontario? In each province? In Canada?
If we are to find that there is a hugely radical difference in the number of men being locked up on domestic violence charges compared to the number of women in the GTA, in Ontario, in Canada...what are we to make of this hugely significant statistic? That domestic violence is by and large totally a masculine crime; not a feminine one? Or that domestic violence is generally a two-sex problem where both the man and the woman are usually at least partly guilty in escalating the crisis -- until one sex finally takes a 'swing at the other' or 'pushes him or her away' -- and yet, it is largely only one sex that is taking 'the fall' -- i.e. being scapegoated -- for a 'two-sex problem'.
The same is largely true in divorce cases relative to property and money divisions -- and support payments.
Indeed, there are so many different but related issues here that I barely know where to start.
I will make two final points here before I stop.
One, we have to do something about the problem of 'political lobbying' just like Obama is campaigning to do something about it in the U.S.
In the area of domestic problems and sexual crimes, it is grossly politically unfair -- and again I don't know the numbers here because the numbers are covert --that there are let us say 1000 feminist groups crusading in Ottawa for constant reforms and changes in Canadian law to both 'promote equally' and to 'promote narcissistically' the rights of women -- without probably more than a handful of 'masculine rights' groups operating in Ottawa, all of which are largely 'politically impotent' with all due respect to the courage of the men who are trying...and cannot make a 'dent' on the power of the women's groups who oppose them and hugely outnumber them while the vast majority of 'silent men' in Canada, who may otherwise be extremely intelligent and rhetorically gifted, lay at home on their particular couches watching the hockey game or the football game -- and continue to allow the feminist groups in Canada to politically and legally have their way with them. I've heard of being a 'gentleman' but this has gone extremely too far...
My second and final point. I would say that it is an act of 'brutal violence' on a part of a woman that she should go to court and 'trump up a case of domestic violence against the man she is facing' -- meaning distort, falsify, and/or embellish her evidence in order to 'make a good case against the man'. This -- without a doubt -- should be a criminal offense punishable by a significant jail term. (Indeed, it is essentially no different than the president of the United States or Prime Minister of Canada -- or any member of government for that matter -- standing up in front of the American or Canadian people and 'trumping up a case for war' by distorting, falsify, embellishing, or leaving out any detail that might be critically important in getting -- or not getting -- the support of the American/Canadian/British... people to go to war.
Lives are at stake. The life and death of people are at stake. Jail terms are at stake. Reputations are at stake. Character and integrity are at stake. Careers are at stake. The welfare -- or demolition -- of a family is at stake.
In short, we need to completely relook at, and re-negotiate, the whole 'equal rights' phenomenon -- and its narcissistic -- 'special rights' -- distortion.
There are thousands of lives that are grossly at stake. Men, women, children -- and families. The whole process cannot start too soon.
-- dgb, June 15th, 2008.
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A Post-Script:
I was wondering why on this particular day -- Father's Day, June 15th, 2008, I chose to write probably my most provocative essay to date in Hegel's Hotel -- on 'equal rights'. I wrote a short 'warm-up' mini-essay on the subject yesterday, but before that, I had been heading into the subject of 'personality theory' and 'transference'. And then this essay on equal rights and feminism seemed to just 'creatively appear out of nowhere'...The subject matter was central to my writing about 8 or 9 years ago -- but not lately.
And then I went upstairs to go to bed, I lay down -- and then it hit me. This is about the 10th anniversary of the one and only night in my life that I spent in jail -- and it was on a charge of 'domestic violence'. As I lay in my bed upstairs, I suddenly had what I guess you might call a 'flashback' to the night I spent in the Richmond Hill jail. I remember the single cell, the steel bed, the concrete below it, and the bright light above me...I remember disappearing under the steel bed to the concrete floor beneath it to try to escape the bright light above me shining in my face and to try to find a darker, more comfortable place to sleep. The concrete was more comfortable than the steel. And I remember the paddywagon with the steel interior taking me to Newmarket court the next morning...Father's Day about 10 years ago -- steel and concrete -- that was the historical context out of which the essay above suddenly seemingly appeared out of nowhere in my consciousness. Freud would probably have a field day with that...His paper on this 'phenomenon' might be called 'Creativity, The Unconscious, The Instincts -- and Their Vicissitudes...
I had 'pushed' my girlfriend -- or ex-girlfriend -- at the time out of my bedroom because I had a 'brutal cold' that day, and had left work early because of it. Big mistake. She had just gotten a 'hang up' which she interpreted to be from my 'new girlfriend'. So she came into my bedroom in a storm and proceeded to 'go postal' on me. I had neither the energy nor the tolerance to deal with her that day -- especially after she said that she was afraid that I would pull a 'midnight move' on her and 'steal her stuff' (I ended up giving her a good, wood dining room table that was mine). Anyway, I (admittedly wrongfully) pushed her out of my bedroom to try to lock the door on her so she couldn't get back in. But she did get back in. I pushed her out again -- this time further into the hall, she fell onto a wooden chair and injured her shoulder -- and I was off for a night in jail, moved to Newmarket the next day, and was then tied up with lawyers and courts for a year. We finally settled out of court, I apologized, was able to avoid having to take an 'anger management program' (it was her with the much more volatile temper)...and I started dating my present girlfriend who I have now been with for 10 years without the repetition of any similar type of incident...She was there the day after that fateful Father's Day to help bail my 'sorry ass' out of jail...And now it's ten years later give or take a year...prompting an essay...and a flashback...
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'Never retract, never explain, never apologize -- just get the job done and let them howl.'
-- personal motto of activist Nellie McClung (Will Ferguson, Canadian History for Dummies, 2000, pg. 300.)
I do not want to be the angel of any home. I want for myself and I want for other women -- absolute equality. After that is secured then men and women can take turns at being angels.
-- Agnes Macphail, a champion of equal rights feminism (Will Ferguson, Canadian History for Dummies, 2000, pg. 303.)
On The Dialectic Tension Between Liberalism and Conservatism, Men's and Women's Equal Rights -- and The Good and The Bad of Patriotism
There is a place for both Liberalism and Conservatism in the philosophy, the psycholgy, the economics, the law, and the politics of man. Indeed, in DGB Philosophy, I try to shoot for the best of both worlds and avoid the worst of both worlds -- in other words, to 'split the difference' and look for that 'ideal homesotatic, dialectic-democratic balnce'.
On the Conservative side, I say that 'excuses are for losers -- or at least for people who want to continue to play a losing game'. I've been there, done that. When I am late for work, I will fish for a 'reason' -- or rather, for an excuse as to why I am late. But the reality is, that once it becomes established as a 'negative habit' and/or a 'serial behavior pattern', then there is no more room for 'reasons' because the bottom line is that they are all excuses. The reality of the situation is that 'I want to be late because if I wanted to be on time badly enough -- more than I wanted to be late -- then I would change my behavior (get up earlier and/or move faster) -- and I would be on time. Case closed. End of conversation. Anything else said is 'verbal garbage'.
Now on the Liberal side, I look at the plight of many single mothers and fathers in this country -- particulary the ones who don't make excuses, and don't cry 'foul' or don't cry 'victim', the ones that are working their butts off every day trying to do the job of two parents -- as one. They may be working one job, two, or even three. They've made their daycare arrangmements, take the child or children to daycare or school, pick them up at the end of the day, come home, make dinner for the children, clean the house, prepare the child or children for daycare or school the next day -- and they barely get a moment to breathe, let alone to find any free time for themselves.
On the other side of the ledger, I've seen and experienced single fathers without their child or children get economically crucified in our so-called 'Domestic Equal Rights' Co;urts. A single father often walks into a Domestic Court today that is quite likely to be dominated by female lawyers and female judges -- and I say to myself, 'Gee, this must have been what it was like for a single woman of yesteryear to walk into a Domestic Court dominated by men... We haven't established 'equal rights' here because no body -- in this New Domestic Court System of 'Enlightened Female Rights' dominated in my opinion by 'Narcissistic Feminists' is giving any effort to protect the 'Equal Rights -- the Humanistic Rights -- of The Single Father'. Indeed, we've come 180 degrees from a male dominated Domestic Court System to a female dominated Domestic Court System.
We still haven't arrived at 'equal rights' yet -- we have arrived at a set of partly humanistic values and court directives aimed at protecting the economic welfare of the children and mother, but mainly economically crucifying the single father in the process. Many single fathers (not all) -- with good work incomes -- are left trying to cope with a loss of half their net income or more. The courts make sure that the mother and children get enough money from the father to 'maintain the lifestyle that they have been accustomed to'. But there is no provision in the court system for 'the man to maintain a lifestyle anywhere close to what he has been accustomed to'. He can crash and burn -- economically, psychologically, socially, spiritually -- just as long as he keeps those usually 'lavish' for the mother, 'brutal' for the father, monthly support payments' rolling to the ex-wife and kids. I am speaking in generalizations here, which obviously is not going to apply to each and every case -- just many, many of them. My point here is that -- domestically and legally speaking here -- what happened to the rights of the single father, with or without the kids? And if he has the kids, what are the chance of him getting support payments anywhere close to those of what he would be having to pay if it was the mother that had the kids and not him. In short, in the Domestic and Sexual Courts of Canada, we are now living in a country of 'reverse-discrimination' -- something that was written about briefly in the media in the late 1990s when NDP 'Affirmative Action' programs were dominating -- and being masked as 'equal rights'. But since then, the media have largely shut up, men continue to clam up, and at the same time, more and more of men's domestic and sexual rights contineu to be eaten away at by a storm of a 1000 largely narcissistic feminist lobbyist groups -- with virtually no 'men's domestic and sexual rights groups on the other side of the fence, on the other side of Ottawa to rhetorically confront this continually onslaught of Women's Special Interests Groups on Ottawa...
As a man -- and I believe an 'egalitarian or equal rights man' -- I say I am all for women's equal rights but in 'homeostatic balance' with men's equal rights and don't try to masquarade 'women's special legal treatment' -- or for that matter, any special treatment for any 'special interest group' and/or 'perceived minority group' -- as 'equal rights'. In two words -- 'It's not.'
The term 'humanistic-existential' is a 'dialectic word and idea'. There is a dialectic tension between the 'humanistic compassion of Liberalism' and the 'existential responsibility and accountability of Conservatism'. In America, you can substitute the dialectic tension between the 'Humanistic Compassion of the Democrats' and the 'Conservative Existential and Social Responsibility and Accountability of The Republicans'. Now, you can argue til the cows come home how well each of these Political Parties have lived up to their political idealism -- and will so in the near future -- but the reality of the situation is that the American people are caught between wanting the best of both political worlds while eliminating the worst. There is room for a third integrative political party -- 'The Democratic Republicans' or 'The Republican Democrats'...The wonder of a democracy is that generally speaking -- if you give people accurate information and a free right to vote, they will generally gravitate as a whole towrds a 'homeostatic-dialectic balance' somewhere in the middle. And one can expect that if the American people have been largely dis-satisfied with the performance of the Republicans in government, or visa versa, that they will gravitate towards the 'opposite political party' in the next election. That is, unless the party in power does a wonderful job of 're-inventing itself' in a way that the American people believe will be better than what they previously delivered, and/or what the American people can expect from the opposite party, particularly in a time of war and horrible econmics.
I have more trust in the American people than I do in American politics. If I was American, would that make me 'un-patriotic'. Is it 'un-patriotic' to disdain political corruption and narcissism -- regardless of what country it stems from/ Is it 'un-patriotic' to be trumpeting what you or I perceive as a 'better' form of poltical idealism and realism than what we have? Especially when what we have is steeped in much of the worst of human nature. We have to be very careful with the words 'patriotic' and 'unpatriotic' because these are very dangerous words. The key question should be this: Patriotic to what? Corruption? Narcissism? Tyranny? Power gone bad? When talking about patriotism we need to qualify what we mean by patriostism? Do we mean: Am I patriotic to America/Canada the good? Or am I patriotic to America/Canada bad? If you are patriotic to 'America/Canada the bad' -- then you are a part of the problem, not the solution.
-- dgb, June 15th, 2008.
On the Conservative side, I say that 'excuses are for losers -- or at least for people who want to continue to play a losing game'. I've been there, done that. When I am late for work, I will fish for a 'reason' -- or rather, for an excuse as to why I am late. But the reality is, that once it becomes established as a 'negative habit' and/or a 'serial behavior pattern', then there is no more room for 'reasons' because the bottom line is that they are all excuses. The reality of the situation is that 'I want to be late because if I wanted to be on time badly enough -- more than I wanted to be late -- then I would change my behavior (get up earlier and/or move faster) -- and I would be on time. Case closed. End of conversation. Anything else said is 'verbal garbage'.
Now on the Liberal side, I look at the plight of many single mothers and fathers in this country -- particulary the ones who don't make excuses, and don't cry 'foul' or don't cry 'victim', the ones that are working their butts off every day trying to do the job of two parents -- as one. They may be working one job, two, or even three. They've made their daycare arrangmements, take the child or children to daycare or school, pick them up at the end of the day, come home, make dinner for the children, clean the house, prepare the child or children for daycare or school the next day -- and they barely get a moment to breathe, let alone to find any free time for themselves.
On the other side of the ledger, I've seen and experienced single fathers without their child or children get economically crucified in our so-called 'Domestic Equal Rights' Co;urts. A single father often walks into a Domestic Court today that is quite likely to be dominated by female lawyers and female judges -- and I say to myself, 'Gee, this must have been what it was like for a single woman of yesteryear to walk into a Domestic Court dominated by men... We haven't established 'equal rights' here because no body -- in this New Domestic Court System of 'Enlightened Female Rights' dominated in my opinion by 'Narcissistic Feminists' is giving any effort to protect the 'Equal Rights -- the Humanistic Rights -- of The Single Father'. Indeed, we've come 180 degrees from a male dominated Domestic Court System to a female dominated Domestic Court System.
We still haven't arrived at 'equal rights' yet -- we have arrived at a set of partly humanistic values and court directives aimed at protecting the economic welfare of the children and mother, but mainly economically crucifying the single father in the process. Many single fathers (not all) -- with good work incomes -- are left trying to cope with a loss of half their net income or more. The courts make sure that the mother and children get enough money from the father to 'maintain the lifestyle that they have been accustomed to'. But there is no provision in the court system for 'the man to maintain a lifestyle anywhere close to what he has been accustomed to'. He can crash and burn -- economically, psychologically, socially, spiritually -- just as long as he keeps those usually 'lavish' for the mother, 'brutal' for the father, monthly support payments' rolling to the ex-wife and kids. I am speaking in generalizations here, which obviously is not going to apply to each and every case -- just many, many of them. My point here is that -- domestically and legally speaking here -- what happened to the rights of the single father, with or without the kids? And if he has the kids, what are the chance of him getting support payments anywhere close to those of what he would be having to pay if it was the mother that had the kids and not him. In short, in the Domestic and Sexual Courts of Canada, we are now living in a country of 'reverse-discrimination' -- something that was written about briefly in the media in the late 1990s when NDP 'Affirmative Action' programs were dominating -- and being masked as 'equal rights'. But since then, the media have largely shut up, men continue to clam up, and at the same time, more and more of men's domestic and sexual rights contineu to be eaten away at by a storm of a 1000 largely narcissistic feminist lobbyist groups -- with virtually no 'men's domestic and sexual rights groups on the other side of the fence, on the other side of Ottawa to rhetorically confront this continually onslaught of Women's Special Interests Groups on Ottawa...
As a man -- and I believe an 'egalitarian or equal rights man' -- I say I am all for women's equal rights but in 'homeostatic balance' with men's equal rights and don't try to masquarade 'women's special legal treatment' -- or for that matter, any special treatment for any 'special interest group' and/or 'perceived minority group' -- as 'equal rights'. In two words -- 'It's not.'
The term 'humanistic-existential' is a 'dialectic word and idea'. There is a dialectic tension between the 'humanistic compassion of Liberalism' and the 'existential responsibility and accountability of Conservatism'. In America, you can substitute the dialectic tension between the 'Humanistic Compassion of the Democrats' and the 'Conservative Existential and Social Responsibility and Accountability of The Republicans'. Now, you can argue til the cows come home how well each of these Political Parties have lived up to their political idealism -- and will so in the near future -- but the reality of the situation is that the American people are caught between wanting the best of both political worlds while eliminating the worst. There is room for a third integrative political party -- 'The Democratic Republicans' or 'The Republican Democrats'...The wonder of a democracy is that generally speaking -- if you give people accurate information and a free right to vote, they will generally gravitate as a whole towrds a 'homeostatic-dialectic balance' somewhere in the middle. And one can expect that if the American people have been largely dis-satisfied with the performance of the Republicans in government, or visa versa, that they will gravitate towards the 'opposite political party' in the next election. That is, unless the party in power does a wonderful job of 're-inventing itself' in a way that the American people believe will be better than what they previously delivered, and/or what the American people can expect from the opposite party, particularly in a time of war and horrible econmics.
I have more trust in the American people than I do in American politics. If I was American, would that make me 'un-patriotic'. Is it 'un-patriotic' to disdain political corruption and narcissism -- regardless of what country it stems from/ Is it 'un-patriotic' to be trumpeting what you or I perceive as a 'better' form of poltical idealism and realism than what we have? Especially when what we have is steeped in much of the worst of human nature. We have to be very careful with the words 'patriotic' and 'unpatriotic' because these are very dangerous words. The key question should be this: Patriotic to what? Corruption? Narcissism? Tyranny? Power gone bad? When talking about patriotism we need to qualify what we mean by patriostism? Do we mean: Am I patriotic to America/Canada the good? Or am I patriotic to America/Canada bad? If you are patriotic to 'America/Canada the bad' -- then you are a part of the problem, not the solution.
-- dgb, June 15th, 2008.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
On 'Views of God' -- and Religion
Judge not a person's view of God by your perception of its 'epistemological correctness'. Rather, judge it by the degree of 'humanistic-existentialism' in its ethical system -- in other words, its self and social value. .
Example: My mom has a view of God that is a very 'orthodox, Protestant view' -- she believes essentially what she was taught in Sunday School and Church.
My 'unorthodox, multi-dialectic, humanistic-existential view of God' is quite radically different than anything you would learn in Sunday School or Church -- particularly in its epistemological, metaphysical, and mythological manifestations.
However, my mom is a very kind, generous, giving woman who continues to do more good community and family deeds in a week than I will generally do in a month or even year. So who am I -- or anyone else -- to argue with the 'epistemological correctness' of her view of God and religion. Her view of God and religion certainly generates more community and family good will, harmony, and integration, than anything I will probably write in Hegel's Hotel in the duration of my lifetime.
However, I can only be me -- and by extension -- project my beliefs and values through Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy. To be sure, I would like to think that my more unorthodox 'multik-dialectic, humanistic-existential' view of God has similar self and social value -- probably stronger on the self-assertion, and weaker on the social altruism -- than my mother's view. And she's living her view while I write mine.
The point here then, is that epistemologically, metaphysically, and mythologically' these views may be quite different but as long as each view is supported by a 'strong system of humanistic-existential values' -- meaning a spiritual and/or religious philosophy and lifestyle showing a working balance of self-assertion and social compassion -- then what else can and do we want?
Is it worth our while to drag each other into the mud claiming that 'my view of God is right and your view of God is wrong'? Too much religious righteousness, narcissism -- and especially militancy -- will take us all right to 'Hell on earth' -- if not to that mythological and metaphysical place we call 'Hell' in the bowels of the earth.
Put another way, the more pre-occupied we become with drawing our epistemological and moral-ethical values so tight and conservative, so righteous and anal-retentive, so focused on the 'Either/Or', 'Heaven and Hell', divisive, intolerant, angry, hateful, and militant syndrome -- to the point where ourselves and others can barely breath and function without doing something 'religously wrong' (and/or hypocritically hiding our own 'sins' from others), the more self and socially dysfunctional this type of religion is going to become.
This type of vision does not promote 'the oil of human kindness, unity, integration, and harmony'. Rather, it promotes wars between individuals, between cultures and sub-cultures, between religions and sub-religions, between nations and parts of nations...
Conclusion: Judge not a person's view of God by your perception of its 'epistemological correctness'. Rather, judge it by its system of a balanced network of self-assertive and socially compassionate values -- projected metaphysicallly and mythologically into an 'all-encompasing idealistic view and vision of 'God' -- and then 're-owned' or 'assimilated' back into our personality in a way that suits us, fits for us, and makes us better people to live with, both within ourselves and outside of ourselves towrds all the people we need to share the Earth with cohesively; not fight and kill each other over it like Hobbes and Schopenhauer knew what they were writing about (which unfortunately, they at least partly did), or like we are all participants in William Golding's 'Lord of The Flies', 1954 (which it seems like we at least partly are).
-- dgb, June 10th, 2008, modified June 15th, 2008.
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From Wikipedia...
Lord of the Flies is an allegorical novel by Nobel Prize-winning author William Golding. It discusses how culture created by man fails, using as an example a group of British school-boys stuck on a deserted island who try to govern themselves with disastrous results. Its stances on the already controversial subjects of human nature and individual welfare versus the common good earned it position 70 on the American Library Association's list of the 100 most frequently challenged Books of 1990–2000.[1] The novel was chosen by TIME magazine as one of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present.[2]
Published in 1954, Lord of the Flies was Golding's first novel, and although it was not a great success at the time — selling fewer than three thousand copies in the United States during 1955 before going out of print — it soon went on to become a bestseller, and by the early 1960s was required reading in many schools and colleges. It was adapted to film in 1963 by Peter Brook, and again in 1990 by Harry Hook (see "Film adaptations").
The title is said to be a reference to the Hebrew name Beelzebub (בעל זבוב, Ba'al-zvuv, "god of the fly", "host of the fly" or literally "Lord of Flies"), a name sometimes used as a synonym for Satan.[3]
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Example: My mom has a view of God that is a very 'orthodox, Protestant view' -- she believes essentially what she was taught in Sunday School and Church.
My 'unorthodox, multi-dialectic, humanistic-existential view of God' is quite radically different than anything you would learn in Sunday School or Church -- particularly in its epistemological, metaphysical, and mythological manifestations.
However, my mom is a very kind, generous, giving woman who continues to do more good community and family deeds in a week than I will generally do in a month or even year. So who am I -- or anyone else -- to argue with the 'epistemological correctness' of her view of God and religion. Her view of God and religion certainly generates more community and family good will, harmony, and integration, than anything I will probably write in Hegel's Hotel in the duration of my lifetime.
However, I can only be me -- and by extension -- project my beliefs and values through Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy. To be sure, I would like to think that my more unorthodox 'multik-dialectic, humanistic-existential' view of God has similar self and social value -- probably stronger on the self-assertion, and weaker on the social altruism -- than my mother's view. And she's living her view while I write mine.
The point here then, is that epistemologically, metaphysically, and mythologically' these views may be quite different but as long as each view is supported by a 'strong system of humanistic-existential values' -- meaning a spiritual and/or religious philosophy and lifestyle showing a working balance of self-assertion and social compassion -- then what else can and do we want?
Is it worth our while to drag each other into the mud claiming that 'my view of God is right and your view of God is wrong'? Too much religious righteousness, narcissism -- and especially militancy -- will take us all right to 'Hell on earth' -- if not to that mythological and metaphysical place we call 'Hell' in the bowels of the earth.
Put another way, the more pre-occupied we become with drawing our epistemological and moral-ethical values so tight and conservative, so righteous and anal-retentive, so focused on the 'Either/Or', 'Heaven and Hell', divisive, intolerant, angry, hateful, and militant syndrome -- to the point where ourselves and others can barely breath and function without doing something 'religously wrong' (and/or hypocritically hiding our own 'sins' from others), the more self and socially dysfunctional this type of religion is going to become.
This type of vision does not promote 'the oil of human kindness, unity, integration, and harmony'. Rather, it promotes wars between individuals, between cultures and sub-cultures, between religions and sub-religions, between nations and parts of nations...
Conclusion: Judge not a person's view of God by your perception of its 'epistemological correctness'. Rather, judge it by its system of a balanced network of self-assertive and socially compassionate values -- projected metaphysicallly and mythologically into an 'all-encompasing idealistic view and vision of 'God' -- and then 're-owned' or 'assimilated' back into our personality in a way that suits us, fits for us, and makes us better people to live with, both within ourselves and outside of ourselves towrds all the people we need to share the Earth with cohesively; not fight and kill each other over it like Hobbes and Schopenhauer knew what they were writing about (which unfortunately, they at least partly did), or like we are all participants in William Golding's 'Lord of The Flies', 1954 (which it seems like we at least partly are).
-- dgb, June 10th, 2008, modified June 15th, 2008.
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From Wikipedia...
Lord of the Flies is an allegorical novel by Nobel Prize-winning author William Golding. It discusses how culture created by man fails, using as an example a group of British school-boys stuck on a deserted island who try to govern themselves with disastrous results. Its stances on the already controversial subjects of human nature and individual welfare versus the common good earned it position 70 on the American Library Association's list of the 100 most frequently challenged Books of 1990–2000.[1] The novel was chosen by TIME magazine as one of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present.[2]
Published in 1954, Lord of the Flies was Golding's first novel, and although it was not a great success at the time — selling fewer than three thousand copies in the United States during 1955 before going out of print — it soon went on to become a bestseller, and by the early 1960s was required reading in many schools and colleges. It was adapted to film in 1963 by Peter Brook, and again in 1990 by Harry Hook (see "Film adaptations").
The title is said to be a reference to the Hebrew name Beelzebub (בעל זבוב, Ba'al-zvuv, "god of the fly", "host of the fly" or literally "Lord of Flies"), a name sometimes used as a synonym for Satan.[3]
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Tuesday, June 3, 2008
On 'PCS' Disease...
When you find yourself sinking into 'PCS Disease' (Pessimism-Cynicism-Sarcasm) -- (the main symptom being a 'hanging on pitbull bite' caused by not being more contactful and immediate with your assertive-I-you-aggression) -- give your head a shake and either come out directly, concretely, and honestly with your aggression so you can ideally negotiate and move on in a more positive direction with the person who is disturbing you, while at the same time getting some important 'closure' on the issue so that you don't 'transfer' it 'associatively' to the whole world, and/or close the issue yourself -- with yourself -- show some leadership, and don't poison the whole world with your poisonous, negative attitude... -- dgb, June 3rd, 2008
Sunday, June 1, 2008
On Intelligent Design Theory...and Dandelions....
Part of me would like to investigate further the the evolution and the reproduction of the dandelion. How does the evolution of the dandelion compare and contrast with the evolution of man? I read below that dandelions reproduce -- 'asexually' -- with loads and loads of seeds that do not need to be pollinated. That would maybe explain the nightmare in my backyard. The little terrors are amazing -- and actually not at all 'little' in my backyard, even worse in my neigbors.
They're huge. I uprooted what seemed like about a thousand of them in my backyeard a week or two ago and there were what seemed like a hundred more there today. Fresh ones! Maybe I missed a few from my last dual with them. I don't like the weedkiller my girlfriend got. Chemicals that may not be too friendly to the surrounding wildlife on my hill bordering the ravine/swamp of one portion of the Oakrides Morraine.
It's been probably over 40 years since the last time I seriously tried to dig up dandelions when i was about 10 and living on Greengrove, Toronto. Nothing seems to me to have changed much. There seem to be a few technological advances -- one that you press down with your foot and the weed comes up. Want to get the roots but I am tearing up the lawn in the process. Today I was using a little hand hoe -- dont' know what it's called but it kills the back after a while... Millions of dandelions with seeds on my neighbors back yard -- laughing at me -- just waiting to blow over onto my yard as soon as i go inside. I got the go-ahead to take charge of cutting my neighbor's grass as well. A formidable job indeed -- with I think I said millions of dandelions over there fresh with new seeds...laughing at me...
Who has the nerve to say that there wasn't/isn't an 'intelligent designer' behind this lawn nightmare we call a 'dandelion'...The same one I am using as a supplement to help improve bile production and the functioning of my liver...
-- dgb, June 1st, 2008.
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From the internet, Wikipedia...
The common name Dandelion is given to members of the genus Taraxacum, a large genus of flowering plants in the family Asteraceae. In the Asteraceae (formerly Compositae) the "flowers" are morphologically a composite flower head consisting of many tiny flowers called florets. Dandelions are native to Europe and Asia and have been widely introduced elsewhere. Many Taraxacum species produce seeds asexually by apomixis, where the seeds are produced without pollination, resulting in offspring that are genetically identical to the parent plant.[1]
They're huge. I uprooted what seemed like about a thousand of them in my backyeard a week or two ago and there were what seemed like a hundred more there today. Fresh ones! Maybe I missed a few from my last dual with them. I don't like the weedkiller my girlfriend got. Chemicals that may not be too friendly to the surrounding wildlife on my hill bordering the ravine/swamp of one portion of the Oakrides Morraine.
It's been probably over 40 years since the last time I seriously tried to dig up dandelions when i was about 10 and living on Greengrove, Toronto. Nothing seems to me to have changed much. There seem to be a few technological advances -- one that you press down with your foot and the weed comes up. Want to get the roots but I am tearing up the lawn in the process. Today I was using a little hand hoe -- dont' know what it's called but it kills the back after a while... Millions of dandelions with seeds on my neighbors back yard -- laughing at me -- just waiting to blow over onto my yard as soon as i go inside. I got the go-ahead to take charge of cutting my neighbor's grass as well. A formidable job indeed -- with I think I said millions of dandelions over there fresh with new seeds...laughing at me...
Who has the nerve to say that there wasn't/isn't an 'intelligent designer' behind this lawn nightmare we call a 'dandelion'...The same one I am using as a supplement to help improve bile production and the functioning of my liver...
-- dgb, June 1st, 2008.
..............................................................................
From the internet, Wikipedia...
The common name Dandelion is given to members of the genus Taraxacum, a large genus of flowering plants in the family Asteraceae. In the Asteraceae (formerly Compositae) the "flowers" are morphologically a composite flower head consisting of many tiny flowers called florets. Dandelions are native to Europe and Asia and have been widely introduced elsewhere. Many Taraxacum species produce seeds asexually by apomixis, where the seeds are produced without pollination, resulting in offspring that are genetically identical to the parent plant.[1]
More On Fool's Gold -- And 'Promisary Notes'...
Promise less -- and deliver more. The world is full of promises not kept -- fool's gold. People catch on to empty promises -- and your integrity and/or the integrity of your business sinks. As they are saying on school billboards these days -- 'Charmacter matters' -- and 'integrity' is an important component of character. I work in the taxi business dispatching taxis and from experience I can say: You can have all the computers in the world, you can spend millions of dollars on 'taxi software', but if you can't deliver a taxi to a person's dooer in 10-12 minutes, then your business nothing. Faster taxi cab services will take your business away and you are left sitting with a million dollar tab -- and less and less taxi drivers to go hand in hand with less and less business. Again, it's not rocket science -- simply a matter of whether you can deliver the goods and/or services to a customer in a good, timely fashion. If you can't, you're out of business.
-- dgb, June 1st, 2008.
-- dgb, June 1st, 2008.
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