🚀 go-pugleaf

Go Niners!

tim(natch?)r

--
From hobbes!timr Sat Jan 29 13:49:36 PST 1994
Article: 517 of scruz.test
Xref: hobbes sco.politics:1403 sco.forum:11738 sco.health:254 scruz.politics:680 sco.test:4552 scruz.test:517
Newsgroups: sco.politics,sco.forum,sco.health,scruz.politics,sco.test,scruz.test
Path: hobbes!timr
From: timr@sco.COM (Tim Ruckle)
Subject: Re: Violence is Back !  Yea !
Organization: Feminist Pornographers & Disciplined Wacko Football Experts
Date: Sat, 29 Jan 1994 21:20:02 GMT
Message-ID: <1994Jan29.212002.11952@sco.com>
Followup-To: rec.sport.football.prose,sco.feminism,scruz.politics
Summary: Back to Back to Back?
Keywords: Yea O Nea?
References: <1994Jan28.234534.7331@sco.com>
Sender: news@sco.com (News admin)


Va negvpyr <1994Jan28.234534.7331@sco.com>
hiramc@sco.com (SCO Corporate Production Unit #4403) jevgrf:
} 
} First of all, I would like to congratulate Tim on the excellent
} piece of rhetoric in his recent discussion of domestic violence.

thanx Hiram.  y'know, "rhetoric" was once considered the honored Art
of Discourse.  but in the parlance of today's vernacular it has become
a dirty word--sorta like what happened to "liberal" and "feminist".

} I like the points he made about implicit assumptions and gender
} stereotypes and gender politics.  Certainly points for everyone
} to be concerned about when expressing a point of view in an argument.

well, i would qualify this by saying that these stereotypes are
particularly important when one frames ones entire argument around
the issue of gender politics and a particular gender's culpability
for most of the sorrows of the world.

the specific point of view is pretty important: if you were trying
to indict the Elders of Zion or the Papistry then i would have taken
a much different tack.

} Now it is time for Tim to examine who benefits from the type of
} argument he put forth.

been there.  done that.  do you think my own arguments go unexamined?

why, this is one of my very favorite pastimes (outside of Football and
Maleist Poetry ;^).  dropping pedantic Care Packages onto the balkanized
Warzone of The Sexes appeals directly to the liberal feelgood gunboat
diplomacy that i learned at my mamma's knee...

} I'm surprised at Tim's use of sociological data to support
} his argument.

but Hiram, my lovable (albeit gullible) friend, i never did use any
sociological data to support my argument--i used them to poke holes
in *yours*.

there's a non-trivial difference there y'know.  and in any case, i
understand how you live and breathe for this kind of junk, and have
a very special place in your heart for large and engorged appendices.

i'm genuinely glad you had a good time in the library doing research.
i find this kind of thing fascinating too, and wish more folks would
invest a little more mental elbow grease rather than simply exhibit a
penchant for an involuntarily jointed jerk in these kinds of debates.

if for no other reason than to become a more interesting dinner-party
conversationalist.  this is, after all, the primary goal of all higher
education in this country.

} As Tim is well aware, it is possible to support just about any argument
} with the proper selection of sociological journal articles and statistics.

yup.

is it not ironic, then, that even given the pliable nature of such stats
you were still unable to find even one which would support the assertion
that you trotted out in the very first sentence of your original article?

} Studying human behavior is a tricky process.  The behavior changes
} depending upon how it is measured.  There are problems with every
} type of sociological study and measurement.

yup yup yup.

} The qualifications of the numbers Tim quoted are what is missing from
} his rhetoric.

and your point is what, exactly?

that it was incumbent on me to hunt down contrariwise qualifications
to support *your* rhetoric?  or that since it's possible to support
just about any argument with the selective use of stats that this
entire exercise is pretty much a wash?

do tell.  please.

} [...] 
} The influence of feminist thought in the study of sociology is an
} important factor in this debate.

exactly.

please re-read my conclusion in the previous article.  the influence of
the feminist orthodoxy on your article is wholly manifest.  and IMNSHO,
is its fatal flaw.

} I found a very nice description of this paradigm in Lenore Walker's
} speech/article in American Psychologist, April 1989, page 695:
}  
}  Although this analysis acknowledges that women sometimes abuse other
}  women, children, and men, the underbelly of interpersonal violence is
}  seen as the socialized androcentric need for power.  Feminists believe
}  that violence against women is at the core of all violence in the world...
}  Thus, the male pronoun will be used in this article to denote either men
}  or women who practice what is called "male-identified violence".

this is exactly the kind of misandrist crap that rubs me the wrong way.

this probably also helps explain why most modern women choose not to call
themselves "feminists" anymore.

} [...]
} I read this as saying, as women are allowed into the male power
} structure, they can then behave just like the men do.  I don't doubt
} that at all.  However, this assumes a male power structure to begin
} with.

i have no doubt that a male power structure exists.  but it is just
as easy--and more plausible methinks--to read the data as saying that
as women are allowed into the societal power structure they are free
to behave just like other empowered humans are.

did Meir and Thatcher have no free will?  did not all those violent
women who are now flooding our prison system?

or are all the poor dears merely victims of being finally allowed into
the male power structure?  we can't really blame them for acting just
like us violent bastards, can we?  perish the thought.  Diana is the
goddess of female self-actualization, and the protectoress of women who
shoot their sleeping men in the back of the head with a handgun.  if
only that rat bastard of a governor would accept the righteous truth
that women who practice what is called "male-identified violence" are
palpably innocent of any crime, then we might see some advance towards
a more peaceful and equal society.

if only we could turn back the clock "five thousand" years; when the
matriarchy ruled and everything was peachy keen.  before the violence
against women (by men) became the core of all violence in the world.

before some asshole inflated a goat bladder and invented the first
football.  before some dangler mad scientist developed the wheel (and
later the muscle car).  back when the coed hunting parties brought back
big slabs of tofu, and everybody ate together in egalitarian bliss...

just like our animal companions might do now in their wild state, eh?

} [...] 
} Note, I never said football causes violence, as the first knee jerk
} defenders of football so reacted.

no Hiram, what you said was that Super Bowl Sunday was the one day when
Domestic Violence peaks in Amerika.  and you were wrong.  perhaps it is
your socialized androcentric need for power which keeps you from admitting
your blatant error, Eh?

perhaps it's also true that American "Football helps anchor a system of
interlocking oppressions that sustain the world's exploitative structure."
but no more or less than a b'zillion other factors that inform our lives.

at least, that's what i think.

so why do you find it necessary to diss this sport instead of, say, some
western women's magazines, eastern political systems, or any of a number
of religious organizations?  why not expose the clearly phallic obsession
with fat buds, slim pipes, and long bongs of the contemporary crypto-retro
potheads?

hmmmm?

-timmer

ps. did you perchance cross-reference reports of these increases in
domestic violence against statistics from some of our other national
drinking holidays?  perhaps this phenomena has more to do with domestic
booze consumption than it does with male bonding, competitive aggression,
or blitzing behemoths and televised QB concussions?

just a thought mind you...

party on dude.

--
I wish the women would hurry up and take over.  It's going to happen, so
let's get it over with.  Then we can finally recognize that women really
are the minds, and the force that holds everything together, and men really
are the gossips and artists.  Then we could get about our childish work and
they could keep the world going.  I really am for the matriarchy.

                                                            --Leonard Cohen