Skip wrote: ↑Mon Aug 06, 2018 3:11 amHow does that work? When a group is disenfranchised, the authorities do not protect them; going against them is safe from legal repercussions. Thus lynching, gay-bashing, harassing Jews, knocking up the maid, appropriating the the property of Japanese internees, beating children in school or sending them to work in factories, killing Indians.... it only depends on the times.
The powerless are always fair game.
What, are we talking about the most extreme examples? No one alive today would have existed at a time where it was 'legal' to kill gay and jewish people. In todays context, it's weird to think that someone can't go of jail for going against a 'disenfranchised' minority, in the sense that you mean.
Anyway, like you said, I shouldn't keep harping on this. I just think it's weird to associate jail-time with activism, when the case could be made that it's antithetical could have as much association with it. Sort of sounds to me like sniffing your own farts to make this sound more noble and 'brave' than it actually is.
Skip wrote:Sir-Sister-of-Suck wrote: You say you don't separate politics from your friends or family, but what I have been getting at is it's often done unintentionally.
Maybe it it often is. But where did you get that notion from my post about men and women cohabiting?
That seems to be what you
indiciated back when we started this conversation. In fact, I thought that was the primary reason why this discussion has continued. There was an impression that I
called you a loser by implication that those who don't separate their activism from their friends and family are losers. So right now I'm just a bit confused. Do you or do you not claim to have a separation between your activism and your friends? You go on to indicate that you do, so maybe there's just a communication barrier here about what I mean by 'separating politics from your family'.
Not if I had a choice. Come to think of it, no - there was always a choice.
You mean, there is not a single situation where someone needed to be saved at the expense of someone else?
If one has convictions and principles, it's difficult to leave them at the door; they do tend to inform one's daily life and relationships. Sometimes it even seems important to teach those principles to one's young.
...So, that is
the main thing that I'm actually concerned about. Allowing the peers who teach you to re-define what you know about your friends and family. Or taking broad information about phychology, social structure, and cultural theories, and applying that on a very personal, individual basis that gives way to little exception. It overwrites your natural understanding and intuitions, about these people who you've known for a long time. These people that you know a lot better, than any study trying to find 'general' patterns. It's not just about being wrong - it's about what it can drive a person to do.
Just look at where it's gotten duncan; He seems to be a man who has pretty clearly let his obsession around the idea of 'male oppression' affect the way he sees the women in his own life. His current understanding of gender dynamics has caused a significant, perceptual extrapolation of the experiences he has had, from, 'someone doing something because they are an individual who is inclined to do that', to 'that individual
is part of a group that is inclined to do that.' This is bad in principle, because even if you were correct in that initial assessment, you will eventually be driven to do things that certainly aren't; There are better ways to understand someone without resorting to all this data, in fact using your own experience is the only way of getting a great understanding of someone. Your own phycho-analyzations of people also shouldn't be used to make massive statements about cultural differences, as was part of my point when I was arguing with him. Ironically, that will start to contradict itself.
I don't see how anyone can. All persons can be classified according to some groupings, and you would know some of those classifications ( eg: male, old, white, overweight, English-speaking, sartorially challenged) as soon as you meet them for the first time. Once they're friends or family, you must also be aware of how they feel about the various categories to which they belong.
Well yes, but it's about what your intentions are; A few years ago, my asian brother in law got into some car trouble with the cops, and I came out to try and help him clear things up because he generally isn't comfortable around police officers. What I did in this scenario, was not done with the intent of helping the 'Vietnamese community'. Maybe you could say that was a result, but it's not why I did it; I helped him out because he's my friend.
Skip wrote: ↑Mon Aug 06, 2018 3:11 amSir-Sister-of-Suck wrote: ↑Sun Aug 05, 2018 11:19 pm(But you don't disregard that either; I guess I misspoke, because it is possible that you don't just see a friend as a member of a category - you may well both see them as their own individual, and as an individual in a group) that you have an ideology about. (The problem to that is that when both of those things are accepted, you really only act on the latter, because the benefit I'm talking about is suppose to be about having a disregard for your politics.)
(But this) is problematic. What does it mean to have an ideology
about a particular group? Everyone has an ideology. Whether they reflect on it or not, everyone acts according to their ideology, and their every encounter with persons, groups, events and concepts is influenced by that ideology. I don't see how you can include some groups and exclude others from your system of thought. You can be oblivious or indifferent to some groups, I suppose, but that ignorance or indifference is then part of your ideology.
I decided to go back and add in some additional clarification to what I originally said. I'm not sure if you agree, but this whole conversation is getting pretty confusing.
I suppose that's true in a sense. What I'm asking to be done, is don't actively use the information from your gender studies class, or from the MRA forums to change the way you would judge your daughter, son, husband, wife or anyone close to you. You already know who those people are.
If we were to take the most literal application of what your (written out, established) ideologies are technically suppose to stand for - like the beliefs you may have formed from your gender studies, than they would probably tell you to also
not discriminate against anyone over your friends - to view your friends exactly as you would a total stranger. Rational ways of thinking like that doesn't typically consider personal attachment.
I'm not seeing either the politics or the benefit to which you refer.
So, a friend could never benefit from the outlook of being
'this individual who I see as...', vs 'just another black/white guy'?
