Feminism

The March of Science

Jeff/neighsayerLeave a comment

Sarcasm, don’t worry!

First the proposition, on the proposition that if it’s straightforward enough, I’ll be done early – competition in science theory brings us the best and brightest just like competition between political candidates does, and for the same reasons, they both tell people what they want to hear, ask for money, and happen to believe whatever pays. Don’t make me list idiot politicians, you know.

My field of interest is human origins, human morality, philosophy, some sort of evolutionary psychology. Not the all male competition one. So I took a course on YouTube from one such luminary – yes, that was my credentials right there, show some reverence. I’ve read a popular science book or two as well, a real renaissance man, I am – Dr. Robert Sapolsky, and while following him down the YouTube plumbing for a bit I saw him, on Alan Alda’s show, maybe. He –an excellent fellow, other luminaries say so, and it seems true – he was saying his gig is not without stress that the profs and authors are all alpha dogs and the competition is fierce, and I’ve been thinking about other things, that was nearly three years for me now, but it’s starting to sink in.

Trump basically proved guns and not brains wins democracy, and I’ve satisfied myself that comedy is nothing but a fight – if it were an IQ test, it would be at least half women – that’s what “competition” is.

We, as a species are multi-talented renaissance men like I am, meaning, dropout thinks he’s clever, pleased to meet you. We do not have a thousand separate functional meritocracies for every individual skill. Competition is nothing but a fight, for all intents and purposes, and I am not seeing a reason, as fascism turns the lights out on everything, to imagine that it’s any different in the realm of knowledge either. Comedy is constantly purged of hilarious men and women who “just couldn’t cut it,” so we all get to love the ones that do. Not that they’re funnier – but they can hang in there. Who needs a comic that’s afraid of a few beer mugs?

So that’s the comedy we get – and for sure, that’s the sort of science theory we get too. Ask any lady scientist, or most any. Certainly there is a feminist science movement, never mind just better science from any gender that fail to find explanatory power for everything in competitive violence.

Being male, I too wish to break it down a little further, separate my male self from the automatic assumption of violence, and find myself in that last category. I don’t accept as a premise for feminism the offering of a noun for an answer to the question of “why?” – men, I mean, of course. Simple nouns – like men, ha! – not complex process nouns, are not explanations; it’s a sign that science and rationality have left off when it’s not a thing happening that explains a thing happening but simply a thing existing that’s supposed to do it. It’s not an error always, just the end of that idea’s reach, just not explanatory.

What is happening, what are these men doing, or what does their presence indicate? Fighting, is the answer, isn’t it? Pushing people around, getting physical, or threatening to? Isn’t that the point?

But what, they’re allowed, so all we can say is they’re here or not?

It’s a little harder to picture in science than comedy, surprise a newbie a little more, I would think, but not by much, profs and students, the struggles of lady profs . . . and of course these swine are selecting themselves by their violent means. It’s not their best scientists voting for it to be another alpha tournament like a crime family – that would be the hammerhead scientist alpha and he’s going to run the department according to whatever “science” brings the money and he’s department head and you’re not, Einstein, now all things being relative how about you sit down and shut up?

So now that this is what I think, all this science/atheist/Democrat stuff on Twitter and at school (both more social than rational) about the scientific method and science self-correcting and getting closer everyday sounds like a lot of puffed up blustering bullshit.

Trump will prove it tomorrow by declaring himself King of Science and putting his name on all the textbooks and the IDW will line up behind him, all social science will end . . . the inevitable march of science and progress, the invisible hand of the market of truth, don’t ya know.

I can’t get an audience, with anybody, did I mention?

I can’t set up a situation where anyone is willing to hear my questions, I’ve tried my life story, I’ve tried provocative challenges to their egos, I’ve begged, I’ve offered to pay, I mean, I know, you’re busy. The closest I ever got was Trivers, he addressed it, brief as Hell, but he’s the only one who did, maybe the only one who could, I don’t know. But if it’s a competition, there’s no sense getting into it with some guy on the street like me, with no status to win or lose, huh?

You’re right to evade me for you – just so wrong for science, and for humankind. But I am dangerous, I’m unaffiliated. I can say anything.

 

 

Jeff

Sept. 20th.,

Psychology as Abuse

Jeff/neighsayer38 Comments

Feminism, in its present, barely conscious state, isn’t going to work out, and further to that, psychology, in the same state, is fuckin’ bullshit.

I’ll break a case down, someone I know – well, half the people I know, as you’ll perhaps agree: a woman, neglected, with or without corporal punishment to boot, by her father, father is detached, unavailable, woman discovers a pattern, later in life of blindness to this sort of treatment, choosing the same sorts of men, always suffering the neglect, with or without ‘corporal punishment’ until, with psychology she sees the early unmet need, becomes more conscious of the issue and is safer from making the same choice next time. A classic psychology success story, I think, not to mention a near ubiquitous one. To be clear, none of that was the ‘bullshit’ part, I’m with all of that, within that conversation. I think many women and many feminists are familiar with this meme, and it’s an example that defines the popular idea of psychology quite well.

I’m sorry! This ‘meme’ idea, it seems to me to be a definition of consciousness, isn’t it, to recognize, name, and classify thoughts, and then further to address their viability, and guess their functions in the world, as an exercise in a sort of biology? Psychology, in this sort of equation, is the dominant meme in my western world about how to solve many of our personal problems.

Of course, if the conversation is a feminist one, or just an old-fashioned man-hating session, then we might see it a little more simply: a woman, neglected and/or beaten by her cold and/or violent father (and/or surrogates) finds every man she ever gets to know intimately to be the same sort of dickhead, until with the help of someone who will talk to her, she realizes that the first one was lying, she never deserved any of it and she starts to make a serious, more informed try at escaping from this sort of abuse.

Now, despite that the Venn diagram of fucked-over women and ‘women’ are the same circle and that even feminism and psychology have massive overlaps in their demographics, I’m sorry, I see a conflict, and I’m going with the second story, because I hear a simple victim’s truth in the second one. What I hear in the psychology story is a lecture from a parent, a teacher, a priest. In the second story, again, a simple, painful truth, and in the first, the finger of blame: it’s not a series of awful men, it’s the woman’s choices – you know “psychology” like this was concocted by men, don’t you? Worse, it’s an evil, misogynist bait and switch, because if one man in a thousand won’t beat you, then we’re talking about you, about your bad choices. This should make you sick to your stomach if you’re a man who can hear it, it does me. Of course, for the ladies, this is what do you call it, Friday.

I know, ‘Tuesday’ is the joke – but it’s Friday. I know the positive story too.

In the first story, it’s her life, and this puts the power to change it in her hands, it’s not her fault, but her opportunity, it’s not of her creation, but it is her problem and no-one would benefit so much from its solution more than her, and no single person has as much power or chance to solve it, I know, and I have an answer prepared for that.

If it were any sort of level playing field, if the woman or the woman child in question had a chance, if all those other associations of mine were not already in place, the parent, the priest, if pretty much everything else in the woman’s life didn’t also tell her everything is her fault and her responsibility to fix, then maybe the “positive” side of that story wouldn’t be a lot of evil, misogynist bullshit, just like the “psychology” it supports.

As it is, it’s one more bait and switch from the warrior society.

So, again, I’m with the second story. We can try to apply psychology to explain all those dickhead men, that sounds a little more useful and a lot more moral. There’s a point to be remembered about psychology: as things stand today, it’s only practiced on victims. This is a massive weakness of psychology as well: there is no test for truth, so psychological “health” is whatever seems to be average; it’s an automatic status quo conformity machine. Again, when all men beat their wives, psychology will treat the victims. I think it’s a matter of piling on; one suffers trauma, and then one must repair the damage oneself, someone else’s way, and almost on someone else’s schedule too. It’s our “opportunity” and “we have the power” and we had bloody well better show we’re “trying,” or else.

Women and feminism figure huge for me, but psychology pulls that shit on all of us. I’m a man, but it’s all my “opportunity” too. If I didn’t before, there’s nothing like a man finding himself in the subordinate position to help him understand something about feminism, and the sympathy I maybe once had for writers and practitioners of psychology I have now shifted to their subjects – or objects, as the case may be – people, victims. Like me, sigh. Again, if you hear a hundred words, it’s the inclined playing field I would ask that keep your attention on. Psychology has great insights, lots of good stuff, and I know it’s trying, it’s one of the ideas that would benefit all of humanity for all of humanity to absorb it.

It may do more harm than good when it puts its thumb on that balance, when it takes the higher end of that sloping moral pitch of responsibility and blame, is all I’m saying, and it’s a tendency to do just that, that’s sort of the human game. I think if we can use some of those great insights looking upstream, towards the abusers and the abuse, we’ll see a lot less collateral damage, and maybe change the world for the victims instead of trying to change the victims’ minds to match the world created by the un-diagnosed abusers.

Just sayin’, as the kids say.

 

Jeff

Feb. 23rd., 2018