tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-77437150974255387562024-03-05T11:15:19.416-08:00Living beyond my memesMugginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13080751523012610208noreply@blogger.comBlogger106125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7743715097425538756.post-63579356560190659492022-12-27T11:51:00.009-08:002022-12-27T11:57:21.587-08:00Love thyself?<p>We've all heard this late 20th century cliche - you have to love yourself, possibly before you love anybody else, in order to be happy.</p><p>Now how do you do that exactly? I don't want to start on one of my lectures on the meaning of words like "love" and "hate" (TL;DR: they don't have a single coherent meaning). Basically, with many words, you look at the various way the words are being <b><i>used</i></b> and figure out what they're referring to in each case. If we look at a few uses of "love":</p><p>- "I love my wife" means I have a unique bond that comes from having been in love, years of shared experience & goals, knowing each other better than anyone else does, and lots of sex...and a few other things...this is a different bond from:</p><p> - "I love my friend". Meaning that I enjoy their company, have fun with them, may have known them for years etc, but the feelings involved are significantly different from those for the person I've shared a bed with for 20 years</p><p>- "I love Salt and Pepper fish from my favourite Chinese restaurant" - I get intense pleasure from putting that food in my mouth, I get an explosion of endorphins from so doing that.. almost.. rivals the pleasure the person in the first example has given me in many of our nights together. Obviously the dead fish doesn't give me support in the other ways she does. I hope that's obvious</p><p>So which of these ways can one be said to "love oneself"? Well you can't give yourself the support, fun & affection that wife and friends do, or you wouldn't need them. And one can't enjoy oneself in the way one enjoys a curry/pasta dish etc - not really. Or at least I don't think that's what the pretty young things on Instagram mean when they repeat this hashtag...</p><p>In actual fact I don't think I love myself at all, especially when I'm happy. In those times - fortunately they are frequent - I would rather say that I love my <i>life</i>. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@MattWalsh">Matt Walsh</a> jokingly says* on his show that he hates himself, but he seems happy enough, after a fashion.</p><p>So what do people mean by the phrase? I'd hazard a guess that they really mean "look after yourself", maybe? Or "stop internalising other people's criticisms of you, real and imagined". Instead one should internalise the uniformly positive things some people might say about you. Does that sound right? It is at least a little bit more specific & therefore meaningful.</p><p>I'd further assert that this is something only women would say - it means very little, emotionally, for a very masculine person (am I allowed to say this any more?). So I can only guess at what they're going on about. It's another indicator of the emotional & intellectual differences between men and women</p><p>Though I wonder if actually loving others & loving one's life <b><i>would </i></b>indeed be more satisfying to these folks than thinking about themselves at all. Letting go of one's ego & cravings being a good rule of thumb...which I've nicked from the Buddhists. But what do I know?</p><p><br /></p><p>* if you can find it, among the 2000+ videos he's made</p>Mugginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13080751523012610208noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7743715097425538756.post-10559551268325741882022-04-10T05:28:00.001-07:002022-04-10T05:28:43.435-07:00That old "posh" British accent - why did we laugh at it?<p>When I was at university, I used to laugh with my friends at the Monty Python sketches ridiculing posh English accents and the army officers that used them. This was in the very early 90s. The Monty Python sketches were getting really old themselves, and the accents we were laughing at were fast dying out. </p><p>One of my reasons for joining in this humour was less honourable. Being young I hankered after friendship. When I got to university I found a lot of my fellow students going in a political direction I knew I couldn't follow. Today we'd call it the "progressive" Left. But I found that when I played Graham Chapman's sergeant major character, some of those friends laughed very loud*. I didn't share the political bent that made them laugh at some things rather than others - but social pressure encouraged me to laugh at that parody</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2QMchW9gLy2WlWk69NgWbKf8vvfHhpfpy9edBnejN3Yk_nZTFiUch8sCQn-NdMpKPMwg7ioLtZmgDS9uibwlVaem-9uRZrR1NesIzHmoh2_YVHp4DKuezBb2tR2-t1ty9MBL449RCjAB0E2_eBjF6qkVd3tSmM7lBpcqf8ADlLt18vu-4OLS4C0Y7LA/s1536/major.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2QMchW9gLy2WlWk69NgWbKf8vvfHhpfpy9edBnejN3Yk_nZTFiUch8sCQn-NdMpKPMwg7ioLtZmgDS9uibwlVaem-9uRZrR1NesIzHmoh2_YVHp4DKuezBb2tR2-t1ty9MBL449RCjAB0E2_eBjF6qkVd3tSmM7lBpcqf8ADlLt18vu-4OLS4C0Y7LA/s320/major.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p>How we laughed at the posh-speaking army officers. Except that those officers were the ones that were actually in charge of one of the best militaries in the world, widely respected.</p><p>I've been thinking about this again when I watched a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shJLud0yz2k" target="_blank">documentary </a>about Britain's campaign in the Falklands. It is their sort who ran half the world. They were not much like today's breed of Englishmen: who all seem to hate each other, who are negative about themselves, everyone around them, the future, our past...negative about everything, really, which they seem to think is a badge of honour</p><p><br />* my student friends even seemed political at what they'd laugh at. Maybe that's true of some of the things those of us on the centre-right laugh at. But I do think that "progressives" took the phrase "the personal is the political" excessively seriously. A huge number of them were obsessive about their politics. It was hard to talk to them about any subject without them relating it to the struggle against the Tories. This cultist frame of mind is incredibly inimical to the imaginative life</p>Mugginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13080751523012610208noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7743715097425538756.post-75658450383878791892022-02-06T00:15:00.000-08:002022-02-06T00:26:48.208-08:00Why the Left argues that black is white<div>I expect my progressive opponents (what a dishonourable lot they are) will think that title means I'm talking about race, but that's not what this is about. I'm concerned with the way so many modern Leftist ideas seem designed to disorient everyone by attacking everything we believe. Progressives and postmodernists seem to have always hated science and logic, so they created this trend of undermining every certainty. </div><div><br></div><div>This dovetails nicely with the attempts of Cultural Marxists to overturn everything that holds Western societies together and keeps them strong: liberties, democracy, capitalism, patriotism, Christianity. It is uncanny how academics have taught people to be tired of every one of those things. But pomo people hate logic and science themselves: things often created by white men and that frequently provide inconvenient obstacles for Leftwing claims. I'm also forced to observe that a big part of this trend is just to confuse everyone, to the point where minds are more malleable. </div><div><br></div><div><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;">T</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;">he big example (for me) is the danger of saying "men and women are different" or "men can't be women". If you do so (I'm afraid of even saying it in print here, such are the speech fascists and their hold on social media platforms) the army of angry people accusing you of "hatred" - for expressing and opinion - beggars belief. </span><br></div><div><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><br></span></div><div><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;">Some idiot will accuse you of hate speech, there'll be a mob on twitter, none of whom will check what you say - crowds never think for themselves and, unfortunately, this happens online as well. </span></div><div><br></div><div>It was too much already when these lunatics were trying to get people cancelled and socially ostracised for having the wrong opinion. Now they want us thrown in jail for it.</div><div><br></div><div>And there's a sort of inevitability about how governments just roll over every time and introduce bills for yet more censorship of speech that almost nobody asked for (except for a small bunch of psychopaths).</div><div><br></div><div>I confess to being puzzled and demoralised by how governments so quickly give in to this insanity, but I expect it's because of the "intersectional" nature of this kind of politics. The feminists and anti-racists are pushing these measures, so the trans lobby are included, even though feminists actually hate them, and soon it will be illegal hate-speech to say "men can't be women".</div><div><br></div><div>And all our principles of free speech are going, just like that, because a bunch of kids who understand nothing (they're not exactly philosophers, are they?) repeat brainless slogans like "free speech doesn't mean the freedom to utter hate-speech"</div><div><br></div><div>The argument is that if you disagree with someone on these matters, it's inevitably because of "hatred" - they're pulling the same trick the Left use on immigration every single time - and no one anywhere questions the logic of it even once, all the way up to the House of Commons.</div><div><br></div><div>Of course logic is a white man's creation to oppress everyone else, I forgot.. Well here we are, we'll past the stage where the quotes from Orwell's <i>1984</i> are getting old: Freedom is Slavery, War is Peace etc.. But young, ignorant people haven't read or understood Orwell - our teachers saw to that</div>Mugginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13080751523012610208noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7743715097425538756.post-658907133338471672021-11-06T11:16:00.005-07:002021-11-06T11:19:21.177-07:00Progressives, feminists, books and culture<p><span face="Roboto, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">It amused me to find a <a href="https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/childrens_books/1960189-How-sexist-are-the-Beast-Quest-books" target="_blank">thread on mumsnet</a> agonising about how someone's DS (dear son) was reading the BeastQuest books by the tonne </span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">(or having them read to him)</span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">. She was upset that the main character was male & that the main female character didn't do as much. It was therefore, of course, "sexist"!</span></p><span face="Roboto, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is the feminist/progressive mindset: having got him reading at all, she then wanted to control what he read. It's not that there aren't books (Nancy Drew, but really thousands of them) with female lead characters, but that either a) he wasn't reading them, or b) they aren't always as popular; people's choices of reading are what are upsetting her.
It must be upsetting for her that the Harry Potter is the main character in the bestsellers. It's the same mindset that had Dr Who disastrously turned into a woman, and will soon do the same for James Bond (which has already contained a rant or 2 against sexism from the new "M" who was at this stage, inevitably, a women).
Firstly, they can't produce a franchise with a popular lead character themselves (Lara Croft, Mrs Marple etc are either not successful enough or "problematic in their representation of women")
Secondly, they want to control all that we see, hear, say or think. They are, quite simply, mad...and they control the publishers & bookshops, schools, universities and the broadcast media. That's why you should be worried - your liberties are under attack</span>Mugginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13080751523012610208noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7743715097425538756.post-45933958737004488522021-09-07T09:43:00.005-07:002021-09-07T09:49:58.030-07:00The idea that dishonest arguments weaken your position<p>So I don't consider myself rightwing - but I certainly read & watch a lot of content by those who oppose the extremes of modern progressive politics. There is a argument with which we console ourselves, and I'm not sure it holds water. </p><p>The argument takes this form: feminists complaining about <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9pESjtw6GA" target="_blank">mansplaining</a> weaken feminism because they imply that women are so weak that they need to be protected from male arguments. A similar assertion is that positive discrimination and "offence politics" are themselves racist because they imply that ethnic minorities are too stupid to get jobs for themselves and, again, need protection from offence (by authoritarian, anti-free-speech laws)</p><p>The appalling logic of progressives might weaken the logical framework they are putting forward - but political power, as we know, is not won by presenting the most logical argument, but by either persuading people with arguments (however specious) and traducing or threatening anyone who disagrees. In this, feminists and the "everything is racist" mob are preeminent: their approach to politics is entirely based on accusations of hatred and arguments that are just plausible enough that the more articulate people* in their camp can persuade themselves that they are right.</p><p>In my first example above, the more bonkers feminists may continue to argue that women need to be protected from interruptions, that men aren't allowed to express a view on the abortion issue, and that womens' prisons should be closed, and at the same time they will claim that they "only want equality". Some of us will laugh at what nonsense this is, and then we will watch and wonder why those who rule us do exactly what the activists want </p><p>So the progressive cult may still be successful politically as what they say gets less and less internally consistent. It may take a long time - and a lot of work for the rest of us - for their intellectual dishonesty to be widely recognised. As much as anything else, it's a matter of removing a self-selecting group from power, and seeing as they are very rich, this could be difficult</p><p> * note that I did <b><i>not </i></b>say "the more intelligent people in their camp"</p>Mugginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13080751523012610208noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7743715097425538756.post-54591998111831170722019-10-06T21:24:00.001-07:002021-11-06T11:23:06.882-07:00Everything wrong with the science of IQ tests<p dir="ltr">As succinct as I can make it</p>
<p dir="ltr">1) <b>"Intelligence"</b> is a word that has been used in all sorts of ways, but never defined or restricted to one of them. In other words, <b>it has no agreed definition</b><br />
2) it therefore <b>cannot be measured</b>.<br />
3) so what <i>is</i> being measured with IQ tests? Performance on one short test of a set of tasks. Interesting, but not that interesting<br />
4) neither do the tests address innate ability vs practice or preparation at those tasks - surely precisely what they are trying to measure? <br />
5) the predictive power of IQ tests wrt later life success is their main selling point. But predictive power is just a kind of correlation (school success also correlates to later success, but we wouldn't say it measures intellectual talent well) It does not mean that IQ tests measure intelligence, whatever that may be. <br />
6) tests only measure limited problem-solving abilities. Several other abilities based on memory, directionless creativity or emotional thinking are profoundly important.</p>
<p dir="ltr">On this last point I'd say that there are many different styles of thinking with different strengths and a better study of "intelligence" would evaluate these. </p>
Mugginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13080751523012610208noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7743715097425538756.post-10115048817805465122018-12-26T01:28:00.001-08:002018-12-26T02:50:01.952-08:00Happy belated Christmas and Samuel JohnsonI see that I put up a post complaining about self-righteous progressives <b style="font-style: italic;">on Christmas day</b>, so I had better try and add some seasonal light-heartedness to my blog.<br />
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In fact I've spent much of the last month focusing on the more spiritual and nurturing side of things (though for all the bloody good it's done my temper, I wonder if I ought to have bothered..). But I wanted to share some wonderful, if slightly acerbic, <a href="https://www.drjohnsonshouse.org/johnson.html">Samuel Johnson</a>-related quotes.<br />
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Firstly, a segment of Horace Walpole's systematic character assassination of Johnson. Wikipedia tells us that<br />
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<b style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">"Horatio Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> (</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">24 September 1717 – 2 March 1797), also known as </span><b style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Horace Walpole</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">, was an English </span>art historian<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">, </span>man of letters<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">, </span>antiquarian<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> and </span>Whig<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> politician"</span><br />
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He was also the son of the first Prime Minister of Britain - it's always difficult to be the son of a famous & respected father - and a writer. His fiction seems to have been of limited interest, but his letters are fascinating for anyone interested in those times. Here he is on the celebrated Dr Johnson and the 'zanies' who admire him:<br />
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<span style="color: #990000;">"The Signora talks of her Doctor's <i>expanded</i> mind, and has contributed her mite to show that never mind was narrower. In fact the poor man is to be pitied: he was mad, and his disciples did not find it out, but have unveiled all his defects: nay, have exhibited all his brutalities as wit, and his lowest conundrums as humour"</span><br />
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and this is my favourite bit (I am going to use this one myself):<br />
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<span style="color: #990000;">"What will posterity think of us when it reads what an idol we adored"</span><br />
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Perhaps a Whig politician of those times would find many things about a Tory disagreeable (I'm astonished by people whose judgements of others depend entirely on their politics, rather than objective examination of their qualities). Johnson was indeed something of a Tory who embellished his reports of Parliamentary debates so that "the Whig dogs should not have the best of it"<br />
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I should say that I actually rather like Samuel Johnson, but when I read that last quote, I'm uncomfortably reminded of how I feel when I find there is enough public demand for Russel Brand to appear on TV again, and for him to have a "Booky wook" published. I'd anyway like to let Dr Johnson have the last word(s) here with a couple of his remarks:<br />
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<span style="color: blue;">"I have found you an argument, sir. I am not obliged to find you an understanding"</span><br />
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(I'm definitely using that one, as well... I get the same feeling very often on Twitter). A bit of wisdom:<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><span style="color: blue;">"Sir, I look upon every day to be lost, in which I do not make a new acquaintance"</span></span><br />
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and finally, for Christmas, a note of mystery<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><span style="color: blue;">"This world, where much is to be done and little to be known"</span></span><br />
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<br />Mugginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13080751523012610208noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7743715097425538756.post-58907032214066316202018-12-25T15:38:00.000-08:002018-12-25T19:41:57.192-08:00The childish tricks of the progressive left<div>
<b>Everything is racism</b></div>
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It seems to me that British (nay <i>Western</i>) life has become dominated by accusations of racism - often on the smallest pretext - to the point where discussion of politics becomes all but impossible, and therefore doesn't happen properly. Rulers in Europe are committed to mass immigration, and reportedly are considering whether to classify and dissent on the subject as "hate-speech". (this development is, in itself, a serious infringement of freedom of speech)<br />
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But whatever the ruling classes think they are doing we can't pretend that the obsession with racism is confined to them - it is rampant among well-off liberals living in London, Oxford and other university cities in Britain. I myself know well (and have written about) some of the types who keep the perpetual racism narrative alive. You'll be at a kids' party talking to other parents, or sipping cocktails in someone's spacious garden - often living in the whitest districts in Britain - and the conversation will veer towards "racism" as if attracted by a sort of black hole, from which nothing can ever escape.</div>
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There's a <a href="https://youtu.be/3xzo12TIdGw?t=54">video on Youtube</a> where a reformed SJW explains how she used to be actively <b>looking</b> for racism, almost hoping to see some so she could step in and be the hero. This is very common and illustrates the skewed perspective of such people. <i>It's hard enough to understand life as it is, but you simply cannot see things clearly if you start out looking for a particular phenomenon, and ignoring everything else..</i></div>
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<b>The trap being used to silence conservatives</b></div>
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We're bombarded with anti-white-male political correctness. I travel on my bus to work and I see posters advertising a 6th form college, that show several girls and a coloured boy. An advert for a martial arts class that has the same ratio - no white boys. I try to ignore this and open the newspaper that's free on the bus and by God it's <i>Metro</i> - the . At the weekend, I go to a nativity and open the carol booklet, and I see pictures of girls singing, with a boy in blurry focus very much in the background. And yesterday I watched Carols for Kings, once the glory of the BBC and one of the most powerful expressions of British spirituality you'll see still alive and well. But the powers tht be have screwed with this tradition, too. Most of the readers of lessons were women - the ratio was so blatant that they can only have been trying to make a pointl most readers had a north American accent, weirdly; there was one Muslim (naturally, at a Christian service...) and eventually I think one white male got to read a lesson.</div>
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The denizens of Twitter, as usual, paid scant attention to the beautiful music being played and got down to the serious business of pushing progressive politics. A user claimed to be disgusted with the whole thing - he didn't explain why - and people lined up to ask "Why?", "Please tell us why?". They'd made up their mind already.</div>
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That's the trap - we're having a particular agenda shovelled over us every day, and if you complain there are enough fanatics out there waiting to a) say how much they approve of it and b) are looking out for anyone who doesn't approve of it, so they can closely question that person and imply or just say outright that they are racist.</div>
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<b>"Let's do something to wind up the Gammon brigade"</b><br />
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Sometimes the whole trap is quite deliberate. The Labour government who started mass immigration into the UK were open about their wish to rub conservatives' noses in it. They knew full well that they could not only secure votes, but accuse anyone who opposed the policy of racism. It was win-win for them. I'm certain the BBC do the same thing. When the new Dr Who was announced as a woman (what a joke that is, by the way, done purely for political reasons when there were already excellent Time Lady characters in the Rani and Romana) the usual Twitter crowd - aching to display some virtue, were circling like a pack of vultures waiting for someone to complain - simply so they could call that person a "misogynist". They gleefully announced how the best thing about this was that it "upset the Gammon brigade".<br />
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There is something wrong with us if our priority is to wind up someone from a group we want to accuse of hatred</div>
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They can keep this game up forever, and it is openly anti white-male - I don't think there is any controversial in my saying that. The discrimination against white, straight men, flagrantly illegal though it is - is openly on view) The only antidote to it is for us all to call it out for what it is, unafraid of being accused of "hate-speech".</div>
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That and the fact that the opportunistic accusations of hatred are so reflexive, and often on such spurious grounds, that terms like "racism" will lose their power. This would weaken the grievance industry, but would hardly be a good thing in itself.</div>
Mugginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13080751523012610208noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7743715097425538756.post-86854046140443274172018-01-09T20:26:00.001-08:002018-01-10T14:35:41.141-08:00Why Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is slightly unpopular<div dir="ltr">
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown has recently been described as "the most annoying woman in Britain", and normally I'd think this is hyperbole, or at least a difficult title to win so easily.<br />
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That is, till I spent 20 or 30 minutes watching some of her interviews and reading a few of her somewhat tendentious writings. I thought a brief summary would be helpful, <a href="http://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top-stories/britain-never-small-dull-grey-island-1-5343050">as</a><a href="http://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top-stories/britain-never-small-dull-grey-island-1-5343050"> </a><a href="http://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top-stories/britain-never-small-dull-grey-island-1-5343050">she's</a><a href="http://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top-stories/britain-never-small-dull-grey-island-1-5343050"> </a><a href="http://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top-stories/britain-never-small-dull-grey-island-1-5343050">been</a><a href="http://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top-stories/britain-never-small-dull-grey-island-1-5343050"> </a><a href="http://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top-stories/britain-never-small-dull-grey-island-1-5343050">at</a><a href="http://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top-stories/britain-never-small-dull-grey-island-1-5343050"> </a><a href="http://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top-stories/britain-never-small-dull-grey-island-1-5343050">it</a><a href="http://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top-stories/britain-never-small-dull-grey-island-1-5343050"> </a><a href="http://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top-stories/britain-never-small-dull-grey-island-1-5343050">again</a> in that charming newspaper <i>The</i><i> </i><i>European</i>. This is what I learnt about Yasmin</div>
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1) she appears to be a committed enemy of Britain's culture and wellbeing, posing as a sort of concerned critic of our country, who wants to make it a better place.</div>
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2) her shrill, unremitting complaints about our island make one wonder - how much about it does she actually like? Indeed, it's infuriating to those of us that love this country and it's history. She usually drops into the conversation that she chose to make a home here, then proceeds to relentlessly rubbish Britain.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
3) exasperated folk will hence often fall into her trap and (quite reasonably) say either "well why did you choose to live here" or "if you hate Britain so much, why not leave". It's a perfectly fair reply, but it's also exactly what she wants you to say, so that she can go onto her other favourite subject: calling us all racists.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br />
This seems to be her game. It's perfectly fair to want to change things, but it's worth remembering that ISIS and the Nazis also wanted to - as they saw it - "change Britain for the better". We are, I think, entitled to ask for a certain loyalty to our culture from those who want to, um, <i>tweak</i> it. All the more so if they want to overhaul it completely.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br />
Yasmin and her friends would no doubt shout racist if they read this. But in truth they'll call anyone and everyone "racist" (you don't actually have to say anything to qualify, just being white and male will suffice). My previous paragraph is perfectly relevant for white revolutionaries and extreme "progressives" who want to overturn everything about Britain.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br />
Some of this crew claim to love Britain, which takes an effort to believe - what exactly <i>is</i><i> it </i>about Britain that Corbyn or Diane Abbott love? Never trust revolutionaries.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br />
Finally <a href="https://twitter.com/DanielJHannan/status/951039955157078016">Daniel </a><a href="https://twitter.com/DanielJHannan/status/951039955157078016">Hannan</a> rightly takes Ms Alibhai-Brown to task on her attitudes towards the poor people of Britain. What a charmer she is. Whatever happens in Britain, one of the things we need to fix is this new snobbery.</div>
Mugginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13080751523012610208noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7743715097425538756.post-31930019788460965032017-06-21T02:28:00.002-07:002017-06-21T02:31:54.905-07:00Another attack on free speech. A victory for terrorists?There's a danger that the British government's main response to the recent wave of terrorist attacks in London & Manchester will be to clamp down on "Islamophobia"<br />
<br />
I put this term in quotes because it's impossible to define. Does it mean criticism of the faith, or of any single adherent, or all adherents? Or is it implied criticism of any of the latter? Because the term is so hard to define, it will be judged arbitrarily to scare people - and probably subjectively too. Will there be a report of islamophobia - fair or not - every day, tying the police up?<br />
<br />
Quite simply, is there <i>anything </i>we can safely say about Islam, apart from the most servile praise, that won't attract the interest of the Thought Police?<br />
<br />
<b>Freedom of speech RIP</b><br />
<br />
The result of this crackdown will be that Islamist extremists will have succeeded in damaging one of our key liberties - freedom of speech. No faith or group should be exempt from criticism. This would be a victory for the enemies of our way of life.<br />
<br />
<b>Wrong approach</b><br />
<br />
If the rationale for all this is that government is afraid that the wider Muslim community are in danger of being "offended" or alienated then this approach is feeble. Some Muslims are shocked by the atrocities committed in the name of their religion. They feel responsible.<br />
<br />
But too often the first response from many Muslims to terrorist attacks seems to be "oh great, we're going to be blamed for this. We're the victims". This attitude is extremely disturbing, and needs to be challenged. Unfortunately the British Left often encourage it, and I think this is criminal stupidity on their part. We should be tougher on this, treading on eggshells makes us look weak.<br />
<br />
<b>Special status</b><br />
<br />
A further problem is with making Islamophobia a crime when one can say anything one likes about Christianity, or any other religion. I know people who are exceptionally rude about Christianity, but worry that they'll be seen as racist if they say the same about Islam. There is no reason why Muslims should expect or receive special status<br />
<br />
About 40 years ago the film <i>The Life of Brian</i> was released, one of the funniest films I've seen. Proponents of free speech asserted - sometimes vehemently - that we should be able to say whatever we liked, even about things society holds dear. Where is that belief now?<br />
<br />
People don't criticise Islam so much (although some point to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmWJMuC_Jx8">disturbing passages</a> from its holy book), because of two fears: the fear of being called "racist" (or "xenophobe" or "Islamophobe"), and the fear of being killed by a fanatical believer for making the criticism.<br />
<br />
<b>Context and censorship</b><br />
<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>We have had 3 major Islamist attacks in as many months. </li>
<li>Apparently there have been 5 foiled plots. </li>
<li>A nursery nurse has been attacked in London recently by women making reference to Allah (although some broadcasters seem to have <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4584886/Why-did-BBC-cut-Allah-references-interview.html">forgotten to report</a> that last detail). </li>
<li>A video has gone viral of a London youth being arrested in possession of 3 machetes. </li>
<li>We read that there are 23,000 potential jihadis on our Security services' watchlist. </li>
<li>There has been another attack in Paris in the last few days, </li>
<li>..and another in Brussels yesterday.</li>
</ul>
<br />
<br />
Some anger is therefore entirely rational from non-Muslim communities in the UK. To make expression of that anger illegal is unjust, and will lead to voter apathy and resentment. It seems that <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/darren-osborne-everything-know-finsbury-park-mosque-suspect/">Darren Osborne</a> has targeted Muslims in a serious crime, and will rightly be punished. But the attack on freedom of speech is a dangerous mistake, that will exacerbate tensions rather than ameliorate them.Mugginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13080751523012610208noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7743715097425538756.post-81634070568381028842017-02-16T01:53:00.003-08:002019-02-28T14:57:18.602-08:00The biggest threat to free-speech. Governments or ordinary folk?Recently, reading this page on the openDemocracy site, I wrote a <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/gerry-hassan/war-on-free-speech-and-free-thinking-in-scotland-and-uk#comment-3157765227">comment</a> - where I was basically thinking aloud - mentioning how some of the forces that curtail our freedom of speech are simply other ordinary people, playing power games with one another.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><u>Government censorship & free speech</u></b></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
This needs further explanation, because our first, intuitive idea of "censorship" is of government control of expression. Modern day hate-speech laws are a perfect example of this. To bullet point my problems with the idea:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>"Hate-speech" is impossible to define (partly because the word "hate" is, too)</li>
<li>what constitutes "Hate-speech" therefore becomes a matter of interpretation</li>
<li>that interpretation is in danger of </li>
<ul>
<li>being applied unequally to different groups</li>
<li>being applied in too many scenarios</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<div>
The last point is key. Officials will eagerly look for new ways of applying this new law, forgetting the essential maxim that one should leave our liberties well alone (especially free speech) unless there is an excellent reason for restricting them. Roughly, being free to kill someone has such a deleterious effect on others' freedom & lives, that it's reasonable to restrict that freedom. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Casually making it illegal to say something because someone might be offended or angered is a most dangerous path - which we've seen the consequences of. We ought to know better..</div>
</div>
<div>
<b><br /></b></div>
<div>
<b><u>People power</u></b></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
What of the other sort of thought control? I think it's worth examining the way ordinary people influence each other's language and expression. It's surely a phenomenon we'll never be rid of, but being fully aware of such forces can only strengthen us against the appeal of GroupThink. </div>
<div>
<b><br /></b></div>
<div>
<b>Over and over again on Twitter and Facebook you can see people saying X because they think the larger peer group (their friends and acquaintances) will approve of X, not because they truly believe X</b>.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
My belief is that organised religions used to retain power by this sort of social pressure. As well as the threat of eternal damnation, religion was one vehicle for people to play games of social approval with one another. In the West, we have a new faith that tries to exercise the same sort of moral power - and it is the new Left, with their relentless accusations of racism and misogyny.<br />
<br />
I've said <a href="https://theotherofallthings.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/feminism">often enough</a> that I think feminism is about control rather than the stated aim of equality. Because of the nature of the movement, their means of influencing what you do think or say are numerous: social disapproval, righteous anger, group politics, etc. A respected scientist who <a href="https://louisemensch.wordpress.com/2015/07/07/the-tim-hunt-reporting-was-false-royal-society-please-give-him-due-process/">says the wrong thing</a> or even wears <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2014/11/13/7213819/your-bowling-shirt-is-holding-back-progress">the wrong shirt</a> is hounded online by an unpleasant army.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The tactic I find scariest, and most akin to something from Orwell's 1984, is the rather successful attempt to influence literature, screen drama, and all levels of education.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Sure a lot of ludicrous feminist dogma has already infiltrated government - and it's a major headache. But nothing says more about how feminism operates than that they quietly lobbied for 'guidelines' for <a href="http://www.aft.org/periodical/american-educator/summer-2003/thin-gruel">textbooks</a> and <a href="https://theotherofallthings.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/avoiding-negative-stereotyping-is.html">writers of drama</a>. (I see the same influences at play with children's literature)</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Trying to control the stories and ideas people come into contact with is reminiscent of the worst excesses of the nastier 20th century governments. This effort started with ordinary people telling each other what they should think or say, and has turned into a major movement for doing same. It seems that as long as there is a loosely-defined feminist movement, there will be attempts not to persuade, but to <i>indoctrinate.</i></div>
Mugginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13080751523012610208noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7743715097425538756.post-89744693100950613712017-02-16T01:00:00.001-08:002017-02-16T01:16:28.297-08:00Feminism is about control, not equality<i>EDIT: A piece from early 2016 that I didn't publish originally. Still worth a look I think, as I'm revisiting the same theme</i><br />
<br />
Occasionally, when they think they are getting a bad press (or when soul-searching over the fact that very few people believe their bizarre opinions) feminists say things like "feminism is about equality". This is suitably vague, enabling them to "clarify" later on, I want to suggest that the only thing that makes sense of numerous strands of feminist behaviour is the unusually strong desire to exercise control others - very often men - by any means possible.<br />
<br />
<b>Control of language</b><br />
<br />
Feminists in the 80s seemed to get quite excited about the word "chairman", which they wanted changed because, to quote one of them "it reflects a male-dominated society". That was the language they used in those days, I'm not sure "patriarchy" had caught on back then.<br />
<br />
A couple of years ago, feminists en masse decided to use the #banBossy tag on twitter - they wanted the word "bossy" <i>made illegal or unacceptable </i> in some way because they thought (mysteriously) that it was used mainly about women.<br />
<br />
One celebrity suggested that the word "fat" be banned too, apparently she believed this would be accepted by many people. It's probable that she will have thought this because of many conversations with friends where they all got rather overconfident about what things should be banned because they didn't like them, so this is more than just one person's eccentric idea<br />
<br />
Finally there was a proposal to the EU in 2013 that anti-feminism be criminalised under "hate-speech" laws.<br />
<br />
Feminists want to control what you say. George Carlin <a href="http://www.lyricsbox.com/george-carlin-feminist-blowjob-lyrics-rnh9pn8.html">spotted this fact</a>, though he was considerably more sympathetic to feminism than I am. They also hope, by doing so, to control what you <i>think </i>as well<br />
<br />
<b>Control of male sexuality</b><br />
<br />
Feminist groups regularly complain about pornography, and the supposed attitudes it causes in adolescent boys. They've no evidence for this. Similarly to how computer games actually calm kids down, there is no evidence to suggest that the availability of porn increases the amount of sexual assault (even though the definition of such assault has been extended massively in recent years)<br />
<br />
But feminists want to control it. Feminist groups also put pressure on governments to ban prostitution, on dubious grounds - and if they can make the legislation demonise the male clients rather than the sex workers themselves then all the better, In some cases this pressure pays off for them.<br />
<br />
And finally we come to sex robots. Is there anyone who doesn't realise that the inventor of a perfectly realistic sex-robot is going to be an overnight billionaire? Yet feminists recoil from the idea. I think the laughably obvious reason for this is that - when such robots become available - women will lose their main method of influence over men.<br />
<br />
One could be concerned about the effect the robots would have on relationships (hard to say), but I don't think that's what bothers feminists, exactly - though they may claim it is so. The motives for their behaviour become clear when you look at everything else they do. Their reaction to something unknown or frightening is to try and control it, and that goes 100% for the men around them,Mugginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13080751523012610208noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7743715097425538756.post-17920814339437237352016-12-27T15:22:00.003-08:002016-12-27T15:35:04.396-08:00Goodbye beautiful..I suppose I was just the right age when the film <i>The Empire Strikes Back</i> came out. I was a boy who was still childishly dismissing girls as people I'd never play with, whilst becoming uncomfortably aware that I had these confusing feelings for the opposite sex.<br />
<br />
I've almost never had any romantic or sexual interest in celebrities, couldn't understand people who do. But sitting in that London cinema, and seeing the emotions playing across Princess Leia's face, I suddenly realised that everything had changed for me. Life was going to get a good deal more <i>complex </i>from now on - especially if I ever met anyone who had that effect on me (only one or two women I've known ever have)<br />
<br />
The way Carrie Fisher's face broke into a smile was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. Her voice was almost as lovely. I now look back and realise that (till today) I lived on the same earth as this absolutely radiant human being, and - had I been in the right place at the right time - might have met her.<br />
<br />
Now I never can.Mugginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13080751523012610208noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7743715097425538756.post-90499773531813280242016-11-06T13:23:00.000-08:002016-11-06T13:30:54.651-08:00Look at this photographHere is a photograph of some men in London recently. Now look carefully at these men, as though you'd never seen a picture just like this ever before. It's really good to look at things with a child's eyes, and a child's emotional intuition. A child hasn't been told what to think yet, and instinctively knows whom to trust, and whom to be scared of. So cast your eye over these chaps<br />
<span id="goog_277562283"></span><span id="goog_277562284"></span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsYAp7Q85AF_yIYSJCeY_HdP3jJpLRyCeTusb9K9qGRp3WY3ANxcp5Uw6x0atUXctZFoMCFAmtzT2VUIV0ElvSe4oPtOiE2xZOfngpZRBoIdVEOOlL6mrLD3V7m_FR3lbrVVhUXFsjGyUO/s1600/Cwm2sLHWIAAM4v1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsYAp7Q85AF_yIYSJCeY_HdP3jJpLRyCeTusb9K9qGRp3WY3ANxcp5Uw6x0atUXctZFoMCFAmtzT2VUIV0ElvSe4oPtOiE2xZOfngpZRBoIdVEOOlL6mrLD3V7m_FR3lbrVVhUXFsjGyUO/s320/Cwm2sLHWIAAM4v1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
How do they strike you? Do they look pleased? Relaxed? Do they look as though they want to leave you alone, to let you live your life as you decide?<br />
<br />
Now in fact you've probably seen photos like this a thousand times. You probably well know that for me to criticize certain groups of people is virtually a thought-crime in this day and age. I can say whatever nasty rubbish I like about white straight men (see the first section <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seSILgMPZ0s">here</a>) but I might even go to jail if I were to opine that the men in the above photo look like murderous psychopaths on a mission.<br />
<br />
So I won't do that, I will simply observe that they look very... <i>motivated</i>. And I can't help but recall some of <a href="https://youtu.be/KTETZy18pwk?t=1m37s">George Carlin</a>'s words on motivation, with which I will leave you today, and do please forgive the coarseness:<br />
<br />
<i>"Motivation is bullshit, if you ask me this country could use a little less motivation. The people who are motivated are the ones who are causing all the trouble! Stock swindlers, serial killers, child molesters, Christian conservatives? These people are highly motivated, highly motivated. I think motivation is overrated, you show me some lazy prick whose lying around all day watching game shows and stroking his penis and I'll show you someone who's not causing any fucking trouble ok?"</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
Mugginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13080751523012610208noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7743715097425538756.post-49074009124888630122016-08-26T14:58:00.001-07:002016-08-26T15:48:04.822-07:00Why progressives are extremists<p dir="ltr">Something I think is becoming rather clearer to many of us is that so-called "progressives" have moved to an immoderate, intolerant extreme in politics.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Here's where it gets interesting... They also appear to believe they occupy the centre ground, that those (many) who disagree are all "far-right" racist loons</p>
<p dir="ltr">It must alter your view of the world somewhat to imagine that half the UK population is seething with resentment and hostility. Yet readers of the Guardian regularly expressed this view in the comments section before and especially after the EU referendum.</p>
<p dir="ltr">I've written rather repetitively on the meaninglessness of the word "hatred". One wonders what our moral saviours believe we're all thinking - and on what evidence they're basing this. Often the argument runs as follows: 52% voted leave, therefore many want to limit immigration. It therefore follows that these folk <i>must</i> harbour unpleasant, bottled-up hostility towards foreigners.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><b>Really</b><b> </b><b>haters</b>?</p>
<p dir="ltr">And there are, of course, numerous alternative scenarios. Irrational fear of "the other" could actually be quite reasonable fear of too-rapid change, of the loss of the culture we grew up with..</p>
<p dir="ltr">There's another feature of the 52%, and it's a situation being played out rather differently in the US. It is this: many of us are sick to death of being lectured by smug fanatics, certain of their cause, who - rather than argue their case - unfailingly accuse their opponents of character flaws, to silence dissent.</p>
<p dir="ltr">It could be that some of us quite like our way of life, and don't want it trashed for ever by zealots who can't and don't want to understand or care.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><b>The</b><b> </b><b>new</b><b> </b><b>intolerance</b></p>
<p dir="ltr">For zealots they are. Progressives have forgotten about actual crime, about murder, burglary etc and think the only sin is a ThoughtCrime, the crime of racism.. or xenophobia.. or generalized "hatred". It's increasingly clear that they are simply another religious cult, who want to think themselves the chosen ones.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Progressives have, to their own satisfaction at least, extended the definition of "racism" to include nearly everything under the sun; by sophistry they pretend that white English-speakers can somehow never be victims of racism (they long ago decided we are all guilty of it)...</p>
<p dir="ltr">...and the rest of us have worked out it's a big con, by the sort of folk who kept the Stasi, or the Witchfinder General informed in the past. Because the witch-hunts have already begun again.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Always remember your George Carlin:</p>
<p dir="ltr">"<i>Political correctness is America's newest form of intolerance, and it is especially pernicious because it comes disguised as tolerance. It presents itself as fairness, yet attempts to restrict and control people's language with strict codes and rigid </i><i>rules</i><i>"</i></p>
Mugginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13080751523012610208noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7743715097425538756.post-21264765114582639332016-07-10T16:00:00.001-07:002017-02-08T22:59:24.465-08:00Why the British poor are worried about immigration<div dir="ltr">
I sense a serious divide between the so-called progressive so-called liberal left and the poor working class or unemployed in Britain - which helps explain the recent referendum result here.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
It's well-nigh impossible to explain this to the former group, because I think they are, at bottom, fanatics. They are so sure that they're the tolerant, rational people. The only problem arises when there's a small error in their logic, and they've got the whole damn thing wrong.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
Anyone with half an education is getting a message about what to think (which they often dutifully follow) from <u>the</u> internet and from mainstream news sources. The message seems to be boiling down to an obsession with racism (not an easy concept to define). That and xenophobia. These are the 2 main evils in the world, not greed or envy, not pride, not casual violence. </div>
<div dir="ltr">
And the only virtue is a negative one, <i>not being racist</i>. Forget kindness, hard work, keeping a family together, <u>stoicism</u>.. Comfortable middle class folk in Oxfordshire have nice parties together and indicate to each other that they're not racist, not like those other people. </div>
<div dir="ltr">
And who are "those other people"? Well our "liberal" friends need someone to despise, and in this case it's anyone who expresses any concern about immigration. To even suggest (quite rightly) that we might control immigration is to be accused of xenophobia or the r word, and to <u>stand</u> accused of wanting to stop immigration altogether, and to send anyone home.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
Poor British people want there to be jobs available, and they don't want to compete with a million new people every 3 years for those jobs. This isn't racism, but I've watched privileged Oxford students sneer at the plebs who they think need educating. These are students with the best possible start in life brainlessly patronising poor folk with no A-levels, it's quite sickening to watch.</div>
Mugginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13080751523012610208noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7743715097425538756.post-14326200928852537062016-07-04T22:58:00.001-07:002016-07-04T23:00:30.275-07:00The dishonesty surrounding the immigration debate in the UK<p dir="ltr"><u>The</u> EU referendum in the UK has once again focused out minds in the issue of immigration.</p>
<p dir="ltr">In a nutshell, you have on the one hand working class British people, <i><b>worried</b></i><i><b> </b></i><i><b>about</b></i><i><b> </b></i><i><b>uncontrolled</b></i><i><b> </b></i><i><b>immigration</b></i>, worried about jobs, about services, and - yes - worried about their whole culture being changed as they get older.</p>
<p dir="ltr">On the other you have relatively comfortable middle class folk <i><b>accusing</b></i><i><b> </b></i><i><b>the</b></i><i><b> </b></i><i><b>first</b></i><i><b> </b></i><i><b>group</b></i><i><b> </b></i><i><b>of</b></i><i><b> </b></i><i><b>wanting</b></i><i><b> </b></i><i><b>no</b></i><i><b> </b></i><i><b>immigration</b></i><i><b> </b></i><i><b>at</b></i><i><b> </b></i><i><b>all</b></i><b> </b>- and damning them all as racists and <u>xenophobes</u>.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Do I need to make that simpler?</p>
<p dir="ltr">As a nation, we seem obsessed with denouncing each other as racist, to the point of extending the definition of the word, so they can use it to label more and more people.</p>
<p dir="ltr">However, it is not racist or xenophobe or even isolationist to want to at least have our own controls over immigration, or wanting to limit it. We have every right to ask for this, it seems like common sense.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Those voting Remain never addressed this issue, preferring to misrepresent (and show contempt for) those who disagreed with them. Which is part of the reason they lost themselves a referendum...</p>
Mugginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13080751523012610208noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7743715097425538756.post-57846751351261104012016-04-24T15:50:00.001-07:002017-02-16T01:19:49.494-08:00"Avoiding negative stereotyping" is usually a liePlenty have noticed the very politically correct casting choices of <i>The Force Awakens</i>. There is a long very dishonourable history of this sort of thing, carried out very prominently by the BBC.<br />
<br />
The thought police who influence such things always make very sure that there are a preponderance of female characters in "action" roles. Women and ethnic minority characters tend to be honourable, decent people. White make characters, on the other hand are free to be as nasty as possible, and are frequently pathetic, lacking in confidence.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/10692423/Why-are-men-on-TV-always-such-fools.html">This piece</a> documents just a few examples of the depiction of white men. Here's <a href="http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/stereotypes-and-cliches-push-real-men-from-television/story-e6frfmq9-1226185623377">another</a>.<br />
<br />
Diane Ravitch <a href="https://www.amacad.org/content/publications/pubContent.aspx?d=922">tells this story</a> from her days working on the National Assessment Governing Board<br />
<br />
<i>"I reviewed one- and two-page passages that had been prepared by the testing consortium ... Most of these passages had been previously published in children's magazines or in recent anthologies. After I had read about a dozen such passages ... I realized that the readings themselves had a cumulative subtext: the hero was never a white boy. Instead, the leading character -- the one who was most competent, successful, and sympathetic -- was invariably either a girl (of any race) or a nonwhite boy. Almost without exception, white boys were portrayed as weak and dependent. In one story, a white boy in a difficult situation weeps and says plaintively, 'If only my big sister were here, I would know what to do.'"</i><br />
<br />
<b>The obvious hypocrisy</b><br />
<br />
Now never mind what it does to creative effort, to have these political rules shackling the outcome. There's a very obvious, very logical corollary here. If the content of drama and literature is policed so much that there are no "negative" stereotypes of women or non-whites, then you have 2 choices left:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>either your story has no characters with negative traits at all, or</li>
<li>surprise! <b><i>White men have to fill all the negative roles</i></b></li>
</ul>
<div>
Now anyone worried about how stereotyping affects people ought to be worried about the effect these anti-role-models will have on young white boys (who incidentally seem to be slipping down the rankings in academic achievements). But of course our betters see nothing wrong with negative stereotyping of white men. They don't care. You'll be insulted for suggesting there is a problem.</div>
<br />
If people were serious about avoiding negative stereotyping of groups, television drama would be impossible. There would be no characters, no interest. If you choose to protect all groups <i>except one</i> from negative roles, then you are ensuring that this one group will get all the negative roles. You can't escape logic.<br />
<br />
Thus the whole exercise of fighting stereotypes is worse than flawed, it does exactly what it claims to be fighting againstMugginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13080751523012610208noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7743715097425538756.post-84496228872336814852016-03-26T02:28:00.000-07:002016-03-26T02:28:03.839-07:00What we call creativity<div class="post_title small" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #343434; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 7px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px 20px; text-indent: -7px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="quote" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; vertical-align: baseline; word-break: break-word;">"A creator fools around. He does not know what is the right way to do a thing so he goes on seeking and searching again and again in different directions. Many times he moves in a wrong direction - but wherever he moves, he learns; he becomes more and more rich. He does something that nobody has ever done before. If he had followed the right way to do things he would not have been able to do it."</span></div>
<div class="post_body" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; overflow: visible; padding: 0px 20px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; width: 540px;">
<table class="quote_source_table" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; table-layout: fixed; vertical-align: baseline; width: 500px;"><tbody style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<tr style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><td class="quote_source_mdash" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: text-top; width: 20px;">— </td><td class="quote_source" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: text-top; width: 480px; word-break: break-word; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 700; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">OSHO</span>, <i style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Creativity: Unleashing the Forces Within</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
We’ve overused the word “creativity” - so it’s worth asking what do we mean by the word. I think it means fashioning something out of things old and new. </div>
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The thing might not in the end be something that no one has done before. But it’s new to the person making it - it’s like a discovery to him or her. Thus the magic of creating something is like the magic of discovery.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 20px; margin-top: 15px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Trying to put different ideas together to see what happens is a form of play, a kind of fun. Sometimes it’s pure fun, sometimes it’s hard work, searching and hoping that there is a good thing to be discovered at the end of the journey.</div>
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The process of finding the new thing is therefore not logical, but striking out in the dark.</div>
Mugginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13080751523012610208noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7743715097425538756.post-599877340383776472016-02-14T13:50:00.002-08:002016-02-14T13:50:36.304-08:00The madness of the WomenInSTEM brigadeIn UK universities, there are more women studying overall. That is what is known as an <b>inequality</b>.<b> </b>Specifically, more women study languages, biological sciences, subjects relating to medicine, history, and social sciences (psychology, sociology etc). The imbalance is striking*<br />
<br />
Feminists - our scrupulously honest defenders of equality, remember - always stay strangely silent about these facts. But, it's ok, they magically regain their voice again when you mention that more men study STEM sciences than women: engineering, maths (only just), physics & computer sciences have more men sudying.<br />
<br />
Then our feminist betters are suddenly saying something cogent like "Inequality! Sexism! Discrimination! Patriarchy!"<br />
<br />
OK, that's irritating, it's stupid & it's intellectually dishonest. But they're not done yet. NO way. Because if you put this fact to them, that inequalities run both ways, and they only care about those affecting women, then they often DON'T UNDERSTAND THAT THIS IS A PROBLEM. I've said this and had someone say "well yes, feminism is about equality <i>for women</i>"<br />
<br />
At which point you realise they're just trying to annoy you. Right?<br />
<br />
Here's some basic logic: equality doesn't work just one way, or it ain't equality any more, it's then greater than or equal to. This is denoted by >= in maths notation and is different from =. You can't have equality for women and not for men. That's <i>silly</i>. So stop talking about equality, <i>s'il vous plait.</i><br />
<br />
And if some lunatic wants to reply "feminism isn't maths", then I would even more say "stop talking about equality" because maths is where equality lives, outside of maths, the word is meaningless.<br />
<br />
Here endeth the maths lesson.<br />
<br />
<br />
* the hard data for this is readily available. If you don't believe me, go down the long and boring road of checking it - even the Guardian reports the facts straight on this one.Mugginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13080751523012610208noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7743715097425538756.post-5551554939286576782016-02-01T15:51:00.000-08:002016-02-01T15:54:50.347-08:00Many cyclists are aggressive nutcasesOff the top of my head, I've seen:<br />
<br />
- a female cyclist going down a hill with her hands in her pockets,<br />
- male teenage cyclists boasting about cycling all the way home from school hands-in-pockets<br />
- cyclists screaming incoherently at pedestrians trying to cross the road.<br />
- cyclists going blind round corners at 20mph where pedestrians are trying to cross<br />
- a male cyclist (with daughter) setting a great example by telling a ped to F... off when remonstrated with over dangerous cycling<br />
- countless examples of cyclists nearly colliding with people who were getting off a bus<br />
- several seriously injured cyclists, one died in front of me, I think<br />
- cyclists going through red lights on ped crossings, over and over and over again<br />
- cyclists wandering off cycle paths onto ped section, nearly hitting pushchairs (several times), on one occasion, the cyclist made a sarcastic remark to the parent who mildly objected to his baby's safety being compromised just so a cyclist could get home quicker<br />
- cyclists trying to collide with pedestrians who they feel shouldn't be on the road<br />
- a lycra-clad cyclist kicking an old man for some reason in London<br />
- a cyclist not stopping at the end of a cycle-path, and nearly hitting my pregnant partner who was getting off a bus<br />
- cyclist after cyclist after cyclist disobeying the law in the city centre forbidding cycling in day-time. Every day I see multiple examples.<br />
- cyclists riding on pavement (including downhill) when they had no right to do so.<br />
<br />
Yet how they indignantly moan if you point any of this out!<br />
<br />
Cyclists in the UK think they are above the law, they are often aggressive if told how badly they are cycling. They are completely unreasonable. I'm amazed at how readily they blame motorists for accidents, when cyclists so casually take risks with their own lives (and those of anyone around them). They disregard the law, and blame everyone else.<br />
<br />
Just as motorbikes (and to some extent cars) do, cycles seem to bring out the low-IQ caveman warrior in people.Mugginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13080751523012610208noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7743715097425538756.post-59190440104644268502015-12-31T10:33:00.000-08:002015-12-31T10:36:45.776-08:0012 Varieties of modern British Bullshit - #4 - "Raising awareness"I thought this series would be an easy way to open fire again. Turns out the origins of this one aren't British and are, in fact, yet another example of crap feminism - a subject I was very eager to avoid for now. Ho hum, we shall plough on..<br />
<br />
"Raising awareness" .. how does that sound to you? How do you imagine the person saying it? To me this evokes Shirley Williams in her prime, leaning forward earnestly in your direction.<br />
<br />
The subtext of the phrase "raising awareness" is of course, that the person speaking thinks they know what's what...<br />
<br />
..AND THAT YOU DON'T. You need to be told, by someone who knows better than you, you ignorant barbarian.<br />
<br />
Remember these are invariably the people who railed against the class system, showing, as ever, that they think they are intellectually and morally more sophisticated than the bewilderingly huge mass of probably-Daily-Mail-readers they are patiently talking down to.<br />
<br />
It's bullshit, and we employ it with style. Well done usMugginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13080751523012610208noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7743715097425538756.post-39433433354462289642015-10-17T01:21:00.000-07:002015-10-17T01:27:22.643-07:00Guardian readers' comments on UK divorce settlementsAfter a recent <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/law/2015/oct/14/women-right-reopen-divorce-settlements-supreme-court">story on the Guardian website</a> involving divorce settlements where wives were granted tens of millions of pounds, I thought it might be time to talk about CiF again.<br />
<br />
In the story, 2 wives gained the right to re-open already HUGE divorce agreements (£10 and 30 million, If my memory serves) because husbands were ruled to have misled the court about how much they were worth.<br />
<br />
The details are interesting, in one case the husband had stated that he was "considering floating his company". In fact he had more concrete plans than the word considering might imply. Even so, it seems remarkable that lawyers said they would have waited until they had a "clearer view" of his worth.<br />
<br />
It almost sounds - perish the thought - that the wives & lawyers saw in retrospect that the flotation made millions, and then pounced. But to the CiF comments..<br />
<br />
Aside from the many comments removed by moderators as usual (and some disappearing altogether), a few (men mostly) <b>expressed angry disgust at the size of the settlement</b> (some using terms like gold-diggers).<br />
<br />
Interestingly, several of those responding to them basically <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/law/2015/oct/14/women-right-reopen-divorce-settlements-supreme-court#comment-61404374">changed the subject</a>, saying "the issue is that these men lied in court".<br />
<br />
It is important to note that <b>this is a logical sleight of-hand</b>. One issue is that the men lied, which, true or not, <i>nobody is disputing..or even interested in</i>. Another unrelated - but very important - issue is the rule which sees ex-wives able to divorce rich husbands for a fortune - none of which they have earned.<br />
<br />
To say that "the issue is the lie" is simply to display temporary blindness to any other issue. All of a sudden the only thing these self-righteous CiF-readers care about is lying in court. One wonders why.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><u>What else?</u></b><br />
<br />
One exchange of note was apparently between an ex-husband who had been through divorce proceedings, and a character called <a href="https://profile.theguardian.com/user/id/2475817">jakboot</a> who unfailingly took the women's side on every issue. I must say, jakboot's <a href="http://discussion.theguardian.com/comment-permalink/61409574">compassion was evident</a> in the exchange:<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnlcgIJk_jvW2ao3IhOhvmhxLqLw-1o5-xMRwC1YTel8zpi_Ux3RmwgSWD6BDhP1Rfkg3i9ZHvHn5b2BRVrcthfSVBTAPKs-ZGJFqBs-WTsWEpScfGLotlbWWlD7W0SIDsu85kYcNDtQpx/s1600/jakboot.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="344" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnlcgIJk_jvW2ao3IhOhvmhxLqLw-1o5-xMRwC1YTel8zpi_Ux3RmwgSWD6BDhP1Rfkg3i9ZHvHn5b2BRVrcthfSVBTAPKs-ZGJFqBs-WTsWEpScfGLotlbWWlD7W0SIDsu85kYcNDtQpx/s640/jakboot.PNG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<br />
I don't know about you, but there seems to be an element of glee in that question.<br />
<br />
This being the Guardian, there was also the inevitable whiff of "it's happening to rich males, so who cares". If women in large numbers were being fleeced by similar settlements, you might reasonably expect journalists and readers who fret about women serving food at the table to be concerned about it. They might even wax lyrical about women who by their wit and hard work had deservedly made money, being "robbed".<br />
<br />
But it's rich men, so no one on CiF really minds what happens to them.... Instead we saw a lot of huffing and puffing about how the men supposedly lied in court, some interesting discussion of the legal technicalities, and a baffling disinclination to discuss the amounts of money in question.<br />
<br />
A family lawyer was most helpful in the comments, <a href="http://discussion.theguardian.com/comment-permalink/61406565">explaining many points</a>. At one point (s)he was <a href="http://discussion.theguardian.com/comment-permalink/61429742">forced to admit</a>, as an aside, that:<br />
<br />
<i>In terms of whether the wives "need" more, no, not by any stretch (perhaps in Gosil, not Sharland), and it's an issue that with the types of cases that get to this level, the sums in question are so high that it's difficult to care on an individual level whether they get more money. Or, on the flipside, whether the husbands pay more money.</i><br />
<br />
<br />
<b><u>To conclude...</u></b><br />
<br />
It's understandable that the ex-husbands commenting on CiF are angry, but I also see that their anger is going to be represented as "hate" somewhere down the line, especially if their language is intemperate.<br />
<br />
But a subtle point is how willing many posters were to avoid the issue of the colossal sums which ex-wives were paid - and they still wanted more.Mugginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13080751523012610208noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7743715097425538756.post-35007892111165460932014-12-29T15:57:00.003-08:002014-12-29T16:13:28.931-08:00Is Free speech really in danger?So it became half an issue when some students conspired to close down a debate on abortion in an Oxford college. All sorts of excruciatingly dishonest reasons were given as to why the debate should not happen - but one occasionally stated reason was that 2 men were debating the issue. Some feminists do not want men even expressing a view about abortion.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Anyways, one of the 2 men who were going to speak was Brendan O'Neill, and you can read his thoughts <a href="http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9376232/free-speech-is-so-last-century-todays-students-want-the-right-to-be-comfortable">here</a> - and also hear his discussion (I use the word loosely) with <strike> the nightmare feminist from hell</strike> Harriet Brown, an Oxford post-grad who doesn't quite seem to have the knack of letting people talk uninterrupted for more than 5 seconds.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Ironically, one of the criticisms from student commenters was that free speech is actually no more than the freedom from government censorship or arrest for your views. So the shutting down of a debate wasn't a free-speech issue. This seemed worthy of some discussion, as it might sound at least plausible. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b>So were a bunch of <i>Spectator</i>-reading, frothing-at-the-mouth right wingers getting upset over nothing?</b></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
No.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Oh, the long answer...OK</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div>
I think it's important to think of “free speech” more broadly than as just about government censorship. Schools etc could exercise censorship, so it doesn't seem a great step to think of student bodies doing so.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
More complex is the social pressure we exert on each other: queues, good manners, etc. These are restrictions on freedoms - no freedom is absolute, after all - and are necessary to society. But they needn’t affect calm debate on ANY issue, even if a student announces the issue closed or "passe".</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I think free speech is under attack, from those who want to ban words like "fat" & "bossy", from those who dreamt up "hate speech" laws … and from the feminists who try to stop men talking about abortion, by shouting them down (podcast above), by closing down debate, or by claiming:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<i>"I'm not sure that men should be allowed to be part of the debate about anything that happens before a child could be potentially viable. While it remains as much a part of the woman as her liver or her hair"</i></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
or </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<i>“The Pope’s beliefs about abortion will become relevant the day the Pope gets pregnant.”</i></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
or </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<i>“The idea that in a free society absolutely everything should be open to debate has a detrimental effect on marginalised groups”</i></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I pulled those quotes at random. The censoring attitude is common enough - I've seen it many times myself.<br />
<br />
<b>Free speech means..</b><br />
<br />
...well many things, for example letting idiots say whatever they lie, no matter how stupid you or I find it. As said, total freedom is hard to come by in everyday life (on the internet you can come close) or we'd go quite mad. What I want is for anyone who wants to stifle debate to have to give a bloody good reason why it shouldn't happen, and not the cringingly mendacious pretexts given by those who have disgraced Oxford University's good name<br />
<br />
Here's the reason: if we didn't take free speech seriously, there is a plentiful supply of young people in every generation who think they know better than us what we should be doing, saying, and thinking. They tend to get so impatient that the idea of shutting up dissenters occurs to them as a really good idea. <b>Any restriction on free speech will be manipulated by such people for their political purposes.</b><br />
<br />
We have to go through this every generation or 2 because we're too stupid to learn from our mistakes. I'd love if we could wise up and not repeat the process.<br />
<br />
Yrs,<br />
Angry from Middlewhere</div>
</div>
Mugginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13080751523012610208noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7743715097425538756.post-2790520855078846712014-11-24T13:59:00.000-08:002014-11-24T13:59:45.537-08:00Feminism's dishonesty - pt 2: the pay-gap, and jobs in science and politics<h3>
The pay gap debate - lies, or just sins of ommission?</h3>
<br />
My previous post concerned #shirtstorm, which touched on the fact that there are fewer women working in science. Now I think the argument about women being or feeling excluded in scientific disciplines resembles that of the gender pay-gap. Men measured by a certain average, earn more money than women - just as there are currently more men in senior positions in science departments and, for that matter, political parties all over the world.<br />
<br />
I think it's fair to say that feminists hate these facts, but they can't seem to argue a case consistently or at all honestly. With the pay gap, they will repeat the basic statistic, but not the more detailed work showing WHY the gap is there. There is a wealth of research showing that women work fewer hours than men, they choose different types of jobs, and make career choices for different reasons. They choose safer work, nearer to where they live, that doesn't interfere with their social lives, and they take a great deal of time off to have and raise children.<br />
<br />
Thus there is no reason to suppose that discrimination lies behind the pay-gap. We have an <i>excellent idea</i> what lies behind it. So feminists can't <i>say</i> it's discrimination so easily. <b>The problem is that they love to <i>imply</i> as much, or to carefully phrase things so that you might mistakenly conclude that discrimination was at work. </b><br />
<br />
The fact that anyone paying men and women different rates for the same work risks being prosecuted under the law is also swept under the carpet.<br />
<br />
So many a time I've read or heard feminists mentioning that there is a pay-gap, and that this is a blatant injustice. But as said, <b>the reasons for the pay-gap don't seem to be discrimination, but the results of women's own choices, so where is the injustice?</b><br />
<br />
Feminists don't answer this, of course, but, like any politician, quickly move on to state that getting the numbers equal would be a desirable outcome. But it's pretty clear that if men are working more hours, doing more dangerous jobs, and taking less time off for children, then you've basically have to pay women more, or enforce quotas, or some such measure that <b>would entail discrimination against men</b>.<br />
<br />
Not that feminists mind this part all that much<br />
<br />
<h3>
Jobs in science - same old same old...</h3>
<br />
Very similar considerations apply with the argument about fewer women working in scientific posts. There is less data, but there could be a number of reasons for this disparity. It may simply be that fewer women may be interested in these jobs in the first place - a heretical suggestion, but quite possible in reality. Then there is the small matter of the chunk taken out of one's life by having children.<br />
<br />
...and there may be an issue with the atmosphere in the workplace. It's hard to say, and even if there were such an issue, why should we blame men? Science departments are very competitive places, socially and professionally - making a stressful work environment. It's quite likely that a female scientist might negotiate in a different way from a male, and be more likely to complain about an atmosphere.<br />
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And there will be considerable pressures to join a feminist organisation working for women in this field - after all they are a ready-made social network (or guild perhaps?), and you wouldn't want to make enemies of these people.<br />
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<h3>
Lies, damned lies, statistics, and political debate</h3>
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But my point is about dishonest political debate. Despite the difficulty in finding evidence for discrimination or a sexist atmosphere driving women away, Feminists<br />
<br />
a) repeat the numerical discrepancy in scientists by gender - as though it were an obvious evil.<br />
b) they forget to mention that fewer women apply for such posts<br />
c) if this fact is mentioned, they imply dark forces of discrimination against schoolchildren, with no solid foundation in evidence,<br />
d) they then claim - again with little evidence - that the reason for any women not succeeding brilliantly in science is not that there are fewer in the first place (again they often forget to mention this), but because of malign forces of sexism in the office.<br />
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So that's one set of evasions and baseless claims. But as with the pay-gap, feminists then seem to want to influence what is done about the gap. They claim that nothing short of 50/50 parity between the sexes is acceptable. But how on earth are we to achieve this if women make different choices? Well, feminists say either<br />
<br />
a) that women should be encouraged to make different choices (possibly by incentives for women only to do science) or<br />
b) that there <i>must</i> exist subtle underlying discrimination, and that the only way to battle this is by positive discrimination in recruitment.<br />
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So, based on no evidence, and starting from the premise that gender discrimination is evil, they end up lobbying for discrimination in favour of women - which of course means AGAINST MEN. It's political genius, but also disgustingly dishonest and runs against any sort of fairness. It's one of the main reasons why I strongly oppose modern feminism.<br />
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Mugginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13080751523012610208noreply@blogger.com0