Philosophy Now Forum

Kayla --- I very much envy you living in a ‘large, multi-generational household’ -- I think that’s the way most of us should live. In the 70‘s in Malaysia we almost lived in my wife’s Chinese one -- we went round for supper most nights. I think there are sound evolutionary reasons why brothers and sisters and grandparents should help with the upbringing of the children.

I have to accept that I am, ‘one of them real sexists’, as your great-uncle says, but I don’t think it is quite the short-coming everyone judges it to be. Since it is basically the modern word for ‘misogynist’, I offer you the following analysis:

In the mid-1600s women invented the word ‘misogyny’ to be nasty to men in a sexist way.  It’s not a term that men have any use for. They could do this because they are more linguistically agile than men.  They have ensured that the word has flourished ever since.  The only other explanation, that men were more sexist than women in those days, so that women had to invent the term in self defence, does not hold water. Men’s desperate preoccupation with sex means that they find even average women attractive, whereas women find most men unattractive. The evidence for this has been provided by the dating website okcupid here:

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid= ... NWQyNDEzMw

Eventually, in retaliation 250 years later, men invented the word ‘misandry’.  It was a flop.  Even after 100 years its usage is still only a 50th of misogyny’s -- many men have not even heard of it, and many other men simply dare not use it.

The implication, that women are 250 years ahead of men in the sex war, and that their fire-power is 50 times greater, is sobering, to say the least. Do you find it at all convincing?


https://sites.google.com/site/suffrageurbutlin/

Kayla --- I’m sorry, I forgot to thank you for discussing me with your great-uncle. I know it was to criticise me, but nevertheless I am grateful for the attention. Thank you, and please give your great-uncle my best wishes -- if that won’t upset him too much!.

henry quirk --- Your insistence that men don’t need a philosophy, they just need to be brave, has got me thinking. If it’s true, it means I’ve been wasting a lot of my time. I agree that they need to become braver, so that’s the real question: how to persuade spineless, castrated men to regain their confidence? In hunter-gatherer days they did it with initiation rituals at puberty, which turned their boys into men. The main function of these rituals was to cut the boy off from his mother (and by default all women) -- sometimes he even had to trample ritualistically on her, covered in ashes, and she was forbidden from using her boyhood name for him, ever again. This training was often backed up by a mythology that taught that women were the source of all evil, to encourage the new initiate to join the band of all men in controlling the she-devils.

Such theology is too primitive for the modern world -- in fact most people would laugh at it -- but I suggest that without it men remain tied to women’s skirts. So, my philosophy for arguing with wives is intended as a substitute for stone-age theology -- a part of my philosophy for changing men into male champions. The first part of the old rituals was right: men need to learn to listen less to their mother (and all women), when they grow up. But the second part (demonising women) was unnecessary and offensive. I want men to rejoin the sex war without hating women. Hopefully this will persuade the feminists that they don’t need to hate men either.

So, I am going to continue working on my essay that describes a new way for men to act as adults in the world -- both in public and at home. It is going to enable them to stiffen their spines and take back their balls, all by themselves.

Dalek Prime --- It’s all very well for you to say your argument technique is to, ‘growl and stop talking until they go away’, but what if you need them to do something? In this circumstance, going silent is a bit like sulking -- something I did far too much of in my own marriage. I think your solution only works when they are bothering you. If you are trying to bother them, a more constructive strategy is required.

Sir-Sister-of-Suck --- I’m assuming that your link to the Stormy Daniels story was to point out that women can even sexually harass men out in public (she was arrested but then released two hours later). I guess it wasn’t quite out in the street yet, but ‘slut walking’ is heading that way. Sober, elderly gentlemen need to be in charge of the limits to women’s behaviour (fashion, public decency, etc.), otherwise they will be tying up our brains in public with their sexual displays -- just like they have already done with pornography in the privacy of our homes. To a small degree I am supporting the anti-porn efforts of a group of feminists here in London, but the vast majority of women are supporting pornography (via Women’s Studies), as Gail Dines reports (I spoke privately to her in London). Just like men’s sexual advances that women have to control, men need to control women’s sexual display.


https://sites.google.com/site/suffrageurbutlin/

What a pompous twit.

Vegetariantaxidermy --- Did you read any of my essay? Pompous I may be … but a twit? That really is a harsh judgement. I prefer to believe I am of average intelligence.

"they just need to be brave"

No, not brave but 'self-owned' or 'self-possessed'.

#

"how to persuade spineless, castrated men to regain their confidence?"

How do you break any *addiction?

#

"In hunter-gatherer days they did it with initiation rituals at puberty, which turned their boys into men."

In rural America (of which I am the happy product) rites of passage (the hunt, the trial, etc.) still happen, not consistently, not with the same depth, and not always intentionally, but those rites still apply and are a damned good place to start.

#

"most people would laugh at it"

3/4 of the world's population wouldn't laugh. In America, vast sections of the middle of the country wouldn't laugh. Of course folks on both coasts would, but no body really gives a flip what all those self-important fuckers think anyway.









*you see the addiction in all of this, yes?

Duncan Butlin wrote: ↑Wed Aug 15, 2018 1:46 am Sir-Sister-of-Suck --- I’m assuming that your link to the Stormy Daniels story was to point out that women can even sexually harass men out in public (she was arrested but then released two hours later).

No I was trying to show that they can't. I've personally heard stories of other strippers being arrested as well for something similar, so to what extent woman can actually do the things you say they can, I don't know.

I guess it wasn’t quite out in the street yet, but ‘slut walking’ is heading that way. Sober, elderly gentlemen need to be in charge of the limits to women’s behaviour (fashion, public decency, etc.), otherwise they will be tying up our brains in public with their sexual displays -- just like they have already done with pornography in the privacy of our homes -- just like they have already done with pornography in the privacy of our homes

...Isn't part of the reason why you're against porn is because you believe it desensitizes us? If so, you can't have it both ways. If the sort of stuff that happens at the slutwalk and woman's march is normalized, they won't be able to use those 'sexual displays' to 'tie up our brains.'

In fact, most people who take a stance against pornography try to make a point that it diminishes our respect for women. That seems to be the consensus if you look on the cringe-fest that is the 'NoFap' forum. It seems you think it almost does the opposite, which is interesting to say the least.

Duncan Butlin wrote: ↑Wed Aug 15, 2018 2:37 am Vegetariantaxidermy --- Did you read any of my essay? Pompous I may be … but a twit? That really is a harsh judgement. I prefer to believe I am of average intelligence.

I read all of it. I don't know which women you are referring to. Perhaps women want men to argue. Silence can come across as indifference, and indifference is unbearable to most people. Men could stop being such cowardly turds and at least show some reaction when their woman is upset about something. Empathy is the key. Who likes being ignored?

henry quirk --- By god you are a stubborn character -- perhaps I should just give in? But no, you are forcing me to think, so I guess I am actually very grateful. When in the US, I had a friend in rural Oklahoma, outside Tulsa, and he was also a huge help to me.

When I said men just need to be brave, you said:

No, not brave but 'self-owned' or 'self-possessed'.

I suppose I have been using ‘bravery’ as a catch-all for a virtuous man -- are you telling me that ‘self-owned’ and ‘self-possessed’ are more important virtues? I can see how your terms mean the man is more grounded … but surely without bravery he will not act? Don’t we need both?

It is heartening to be reminded about rural rites of passage -- the Norwegian men also put great emphasis on hunting. I agree they are, “a damned good place to start”. But the most important ingredient has been weakened, hasn’t it?: the explicit downgrading of the mother’s and female society’s influence? Maybe I’ve got it wrong.

Now for your concept that ‘addiction’ is the best word to describe how the new man has gone wrong. No, I had not seen it, but now you point it out it does seem very appropriate. Addiction to pornography, addiction to entertainment, addiction to food, addiction to women, addiction to kindness … is that what you meant?


Sir-Sister-of-Suck --- Sorry I interpreted your link the wrong way round. But I was talking about a woman’s freedom to strip and show off in private, not in public. I know it seems pedantic -- I treasure the memories of the few times I’ve been seriously ‘sexually harassed’ -- but in pornography it goes far too far. Thank you for noticing how revolutionary my approach to pornography is. Yes, I really am blaming it on women: most Women’s Studies departments around the world are backing it to the hilt (Gail Dines reports, personal communication).

I think a porn star who has a hundred million men masturbating to her image each night has been empowered, not disempowered. In fact I would say she is one of the most powerful people on earth. The masturbating man, on the other hand, weakens himself with every stroke of his fist. He betrays his wife and won’t be ready for real sex for a couple of days. On the street he will have difficulty meeting girl’s eyes, feeling guilty about his recent, shameful activity. This is partly because a masturbatory orgasm does not boost testosterone levels like an orgasm with a real girl. So, contrary to feminist claims, pornography is women exploiting men, big time. You just have to ask who’s paying, as with prostitution. And yet more and more countries are fining the john instead of the lady of the night. Can’t see that discouraging the activity much, if indeed we want to discourage it.

Isn't part of the reason why you're against porn is because you believe it desensitizes us? If so, you can't have it both ways. If the sort of stuff that happens at the slutwalk and woman's march is normalized, they won't be able to use those 'sexual displays' to 'tie up our brains.'

I’m not so worried about desensitisation -- my own experience with porn tells me you have only got to lay off for a few weeks and sensitivity returns to normal. My point about the slut walk stands, I think, because the ladies, if they get the licence to strut topless down main street, will always be changing the fashion of what clothes they are wearing, to keep attracting our attention anew. But on the other hand you are right: I stayed in an area of Indonesia where the women wore nothing on top, and was very disappointed how soon I got used to it. But the principle stands: it should be sober old men who decide the limits of what women wear -- with the market in charge, women change fashion far, far too often.


vegetariantaxidermy --- thanks very much for reading my essay -- you are perhaps the fifth person in the whole world who has read it (that I can be sure of).

You say you don’t know “which women I am referring to”. Difficult question. Obviously I am not talking about all women -- many will not exhibit many of the features I describe -- I am rather describing an average woman, who has certain average characteristics. Since I don’t think we have evolved much for thousands of years, neither has this average woman changed much. This is what allowed me to say:

Remember, this is the same woman who prevented all those male philosophers from doing anything useful, for two thousand five hundred years. It is the same woman who harasses a large percentage of men every night. It is the same woman who will not feel like sex tonight, if you make her feel the slightest bit uncomfortable.

How much of this behaviour manifests itself in any particular woman is up to her genes and her particular circumstances, but the behaviours exist in the world’s gene pool, and the major ones will probably be there to some degree in each individual, whether or not they are expressed.

You said: Perhaps women want men to argue.

I think a woman often want opposites: she thinks she wants a handsome man, but rarely does she find men attractive -- what she is really after is a powerful man to look after her and the children. She wants to have her way in arguments, as we all do, but occasionally she hopes the man will win, to show her he still has the balls. In fact occasionally she will misbehave on purpose, just to taunt him into action.

You said: Silence can come across as indifference, and indifference is unbearable to most people.

Silence is a tricky subject. If you’ve just spoken, sometimes her silence means she is still processing what you just said, and the worst thing in the world you can do is to interrupt her train of thought. In this case, by remaining silent you speak very loudly, because she is adding weight to your words inside her head. If, on the other hand, she has just spoken to you, then you are right: the longer the pause before you reply, the less sympathetic you are being. Of course, if you’ve been stunned into silence by the truth of what she said, that’s a different matter.

You said: Empathy is the key. Who likes being ignored?

Empathy in a man can be overdone. Women excel at empathy, so if you try to out-empathise a woman you will lose. Empathy in a man has to be tempered with a determination to find solutions. Yes, spend enough time to understand what she is complaining about, so she doesn’t feel ignored like you say, but then go on to try to fix the problem.

I do hope I have understood what you were saying?


my website: https://sites.google.com/site/suffrageurbutlin/

"I suppose I have been using ‘bravery’ as a catch-all for a virtuous man -- are you telling me that ‘self-owned’ and ‘self-possessed’ are more important virtues? I can see how your terms mean the man is more grounded … but surely without bravery he will not act? Don’t we need both?"

One (bravery) extends out from the other (self-possession/-owernship). How can a man (or woman) be brave (or stubborn or virtuous) if he doesn't first own himself, recognize himself as his first, best, property?

In the honest recognition of self comes the valuing of self. Only then is a man ready for and capable of relationships.

Simply: You can't partner with, negotiate with, argue with, or break with another till you master 'you'.

Asking the male in thrall to vagina to buck up is as useless as asking the one in thrall to heroin to rejigger his relationship to the poison.

#

"Addiction to pornography, addiction to entertainment, addiction to food, addiction to women, addiction to kindness … is that what you meant?"

Yeah, and more...

Addiction to comfort, to the womb and will of community, to a lack of consequence and self-responsibility, to 'experts' and authority, to the direction of others, to convention, to what is common and base, and on and on.

These things prevent the child, the boy, from becoming the adult, the man; these things can also bleed a man and make him into an empty shell.

The boy never allowed to recognize himself: the man drawn away from himself: this is your conundrum, Duncan.

Cracked relationships with women don't figure into it except as symptom, an after-event.

Here's a cockeyed comparison...

I own a coach gun. It's a versatile, robust weapon. It has limitations (mostly related to range) but these can be compensated for. I'm a good shot with my coach gun. I practice and I use it practically. In the use, I came to know the gun: its versatility, it limits. In regular and on-going use I learned, and learn, how best to use it and how to compensate for its lacks. If I am my first, best, property, then the coach gun is my second, best, property. But it became that only once I got to know it and claim it. And it remains that only in using it. Before I could I could the weapon effectively I had to learn the weapon. To be effective be effective with it I have to use it often.

You follow?

Another cockeyed idea: a man is a bear, not a a wolf.

Duncan Butlin wrote: ↑Wed Aug 15, 2018 9:03 pmI think a porn star who has a hundred million men masturbating to her image each night has been empowered, not disempowered. In fact I would say she is one of the most powerful people on earth.

I don't think that translates as you think it does. I would imagine a woman putting herself out there in a video like that would mean that you could find a release for your fantasies without having to actually convince a woman to do anything with you.

So if it allows a man to find release without any actual woman attached to it, isn't that a good thing? It would make men less beholden to women, by your book, even though it features a woman.

He betrays his wife and won’t be ready for real sex for a couple of days.

So it makes men want to have sex with their wives less; that seems like it would be a good thing to you.

On the street he will have difficulty meeting girl’s eyes, feeling guilty about his recent, shameful activity. This is partly because a masturbatory orgasm does not boost testosterone levels like an orgasm with a real girl.

I don't know if that second part is true, but I could see the first thing. Probably the part of my brain that thinks I still work at a sex-store, but nowadays I find that porn gives me an odd sense of humor about the world around me, whether I just watch/read it for fun, or to indulge my sick fantasies. After I see a granny fuck the daylights out of a young lesbian, I don't find it makes it any harder to deal the women in my life. If anything, I think that shit's just funny and points out humanities absurdity. To me, when I consider something like that exists to please a sizable portion of our population, it makes life a lot easier.

When I think about fact that we live on the only known life-carrying spec in the universe, what's funny to me is not that we have people who think this world is flat. It's not the people who think the planet is only 6000 years old, or even the people who think there are lizard people walking among us. But the fact that there are literally people out there who are turned on at the thought of eating shit. The same civilization that built rockets, planes, automobiles, and a telescope that can see 13 billion light years away, has members that are infatuated by the thought of eating shit. That's absolutely hilarious, and when you look at the world around you as one big joke, it becomes a lot less scary of a place; So I think some of these awkward teenagers who feel ashamed watching porn just need to change their perspectives a bit.

Where have all the ladies gone?

When I first started posting on this forum only women talked to me; but now, two weeks later, I am only talking to men. Don’t get me wrong: I was hoping that men would pay attention to me, but for all the women suddenly to go silent on me is a bit of a shock. Ladies, are you all dismissing me because you think me a hopeless case? Or perhaps you think I have become so wise that I no longer need your assistance? Yes, that must be it. Skip, Lacewing, Greta, Kayla … where have you gone to? I miss you -- I’d much rather discuss with a mixed audience.

Here’s my real analysis. I think all you ladies know that I am quite mad, but you have decided that I am not dangerous enough to need suppressing. You men, in turn, did not dare touch me with a barge pole at the start -- I was far too sexist -- but after the ladies had sort of given me their seal of approval (by not outright destroying me), you decided it might be safe to probe a little.

Which makes my point again: men can’t criticise women in public (if they do they get the sack), whereas women can criticise men all they want (blaming men for the patriarchy, for example, will get a woman promoted in Women’s Studies). The knot of female logic tightens its stranglehold evermore.

Does any one of you, lady or gentleman, see any truth in this?


my website: https://sites.google.com/site/suffrageurbutlin/

Skip and Greta are women ????

I don´t mind if it is so but what a surprise.

Women want to know themselves, they are interested in psychological issues, so they love substatiated criticism.

If you have something good to criticise please tell us.

To me a person is decent or not. Man or woman.

I don't really see any men criticizing you besides me, and I was doing it from the start, so I don't feel like that's a completely fair assessment. There are other people who like henry and echo in the other thread who seemed to be having a much friendlier conversation with you. Although I think at first I was criticizing you in a more general way because you only recently started talking to me directly, which makes someone more likely to study and respond to your individual points. I did find that your views got increasingly more radical, perhaps they were even (intentionally) concealed until you got more acquainted with us.

But I don't think it's too accurate to say I care so much about the opinions of the people I was arguing with, myself. I mean naturally I do want there to be a separation made between you and I because I think some of the stuff you're saying about women is genuinely gross, or flat-out strikes me as ineffective. And to be fair, I can see how you'd think everyone would as well. The bigger turning point for me was when you started to invoke state-involvement to curtail people's behavior; Obviously, as a guy who leans towards being a libertarian, I was never going to be a big fan of that idea. I never liked government sanctioned marriage because I see it as a form of social engineering, and you just seem to want to double down on that, shamelessly.