Good Manners

[intothewoods]

I went somewhere on the list.

Do you think that a school being labeled "liberal" meant there were no right wing twatwaffles to graffiti "jesus saves" on school property every easter?

Do you think that it being labeled "liberal' didn't mean being treated to lectures by prominent conservative dildoes on a semiregular basis because they actually had a fan base?

Do you think it meant that I didn't get to find out how neat it is to be a whole bunch of people's "first real Jew?"

Seriously, and fuck that shit. It pisses me off how overplayed that shit is. If you were taking a class on a very current topic - say certain poli sci classes or maybe a class on the 60s or something where gender issues came up - you may find out the professor's politics. It's not like I have a clue how my fucking astronomy professor voted. Or even early 20th century American history profs. It didn't fucking come up. A lot of them are way more worked up over debates within their discipline.

This reminds me of the bit on the Daily Show this week on the War on Christmas. Fwiw, I think the use of "holiday" is silly for a variety of reasons, but anyway, everyone has to feel fucking persecuted about everything. What the fuckety fuck.

I know discourse which isn't completely a right wing echo chamber is liberal and leftist.

Oh, also Al Sharpton doesn't exactly represent the mainstream of the left. He's kind of like Christine O'Donnell at this point in the game. So you're going to have to get a little further off the fringe to find a serious threat to FOX being on air. Rockerfeller is taking a swipe at the right and left and saying it's time to have civil discourse with facts - a little late in the game to go back to acting like a civilization, I think.

So you don't think hate speech actually exists, or do you think "hate speech" means "things we don't agree with" versus "things which advocate violent treatment of (usually minority) populations?"

Which is OK for xeroxed leaflets or soap boxes and parades, but I don't think it needs a 2pm slot.

Seriously. Please.

 

[where]

Ummm, academia?

And macadamia.

that's how macadamia is spelled?

Don't mind her. She's British... They add the letter "u" to words extraneously.

Also...macadamia nuts are delicious.


ETA: some academic nuts are kinda delicious too, come to think of it.....

don't hate us for spelling properly!

I have never seen the word "academa" before this thread. I've always known it as "academia".

Never mind lol.

I'll just form a spelling splinter group with Lizzie.

heh, I didn't see the misspelling in your post. I saw it as correctly spelled. but then yanks have never learned to write english properly *ducks*

 

[teknight]

...write english properly *ducks*

...by which she means peppering the whole thing with a healthy dose of the letter "u". Or do you mean type with your pinkie fingers sticking out?

 

[where]

...by which she means peppering the whoule thing with a healthy douse ouf the letter "u". Our dou you mean type with your pinkie fingers sticking out?

fixed your post and yes.

 

[teknight]

fixed your post and yes.

British humour....does it exist?

 

[JMohegan]

Sure thing tough guy.

Why does this conversation irritate you so much? I asked you a simple question, and you were evasive for days and now huffy when finally addressing it. What's up?

Its not hard to admit. There are powerful conservative forces of influence too. I like em about as much as I do the powerful liberal influences....

There are powerful conservative forces of influence too, we agree.

I wasn't asking whether you like them or not. I was asking why you excluded them from your list of forces influencing public opinion in your assertion: "typically in media and academa which shapes public opinion, the traditional male role is usually cast as an oppressor and negatively almost all the time."

There are things I love about the conservatives in this country, but there is also a lot things I love about the liberals in this country. I think I can say also that I hate things on both sides as well.

When I see self procaimed conservatives picking a funneral of a family's gay son who died serving his country, I want to put them all down like the dogs they are. These are the type of people who create a hostile environment. They are hypocrites. Had Christ himself been there, would he have been holding a pickette sign, or would he have walked over and comforted the parents for the lost of their son? You know me well enough to know how I would answer that.

Yes, I do.

And for the record, RJ, I don't think of the WBC as a conservative voice in this country. I think they're just scum.

The question has been raised, what so good about traditional values anyway. And it seems to me that when I have these discussions with a group of conservative minds people, the conversation tends to be positive. When I have this discussion with more liberal minded individuals, there is a tendency for it to focus on the negative.

I don't know the reason behind this, but when I think about it, I tend to equate traditional values with my grandma and grandpa. Both hard working people, each lived within the definition of traditional roles in the family. When I hear people constantly talking about how oppressed women were back in the day by men, somehow that just doesn't jive with my knowledge of the kind of man my grandpa was, nor does it square with my grandma's character. She would laugh at the notion she was oppressed and then say let's make a list of all the things we can be thankful for while we ate the cookies she made at 5:00 am that morning before breakfast. My grandpa use to sing to my grandma everyday, up to the day she died and then he followed her because the love of his 80 year life was now gone.

Does the fond memory of my grandparents make all the bad stuff of the past go away? No. But it sure is a different picture than the picture of the past being only seen through the prism of oppression.

When I think of a traditional couple, I think of my parents.

My mother has never earned a single red cent, since the day she got married. She raised me and my sister, and has spent countless hours volunteering in her community over the course of her life. When I hear people talk about how a woman with such a bio must, *necessarily,* be neurotic, miserable, bitchy, and eternally unfulfilled a la Betty Draper, I get seriously pissed off.

My father is not, and never has been, an oppressor. By any definition I have ever read or heard, he is an honorable man. He's also liberal to the core.

So I hear what you're saying, RJ. The problem, pre-feminist movement, was not that the traditional roles were inherently oppressive. The problem was the absence of choice.

As to expression not being accepted or tolerated...I think it has to do more with the liberal verses conservative mind set than anything to do with women opressing men as some would purpose I believe.

I think that about covers it.

Oh....I am pretty sure if I ever walked into a room full of conservatives and start forcibly espousing liberal ideas and talking to them about how hypocritical they were in their view of liberals, I would create a hostile environment. I don't think why I would think I can do it the other way around and somehow not create a hostile environment. So to any I offended...I am sorry.

You're not offending me at all.

 

[JMohegan]

This reminds me of the bit on the Daily Show this week on the War on Christmas.

Fuckin' hilarious, as usual.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-december-6-2010/the-gretch-who-saved-the-war-on-christmas

 

[where]

British humour....does it exist?

I'd say two words....

Monty Python

but I happen to find them irritating and childish.

 

[intothewoods]

<snip The question has been raised, what so good about traditional values anyway. And it seems to me that when I have these discussions with a group of conservative minds people, the conversation tends to be positive. When I have this discussion with more liberal minded individuals, there is a tendency for it to focus on the negative.

I don't know the reason behind this, but when I think about it, I tend to equate traditional values with my grandma and grandpa. Both hard working people, each lived within the definition of traditional roles in the family. When I hear people constantly talking about how oppressed women were back in the day by men, somehow that just doesn't jive with my knowledge of the kind of man my grandpa was, nor does it square with my grandma's character. She would laugh at the notion she was oppressed and then say let's make a list of all the things we can be thankful for while we ate the cookies she made at 5:00 am that morning before breakfast. My grandpa use to sing to my grandma everyday, up to the day she died and then he followed her because the love of his 80 year life was now gone.

Does the fond memory of my grandparents make all the bad stuff of the past go away? No. But it sure is a different picture than the picture of the past being only seen through the prism of oppression.<snip>

I don't think all feminists see the past through the prism of oppression. There have been great efforts made to bring more attention to the contributions of women in history. How much time we want to spend studying that is another question, but I don't think it's accurate to characterize the feminist academic perspective (not that there is one perspective) as past = bad. It's also not a question of all men oppressed all women. I'm not really a fan of the heavy-handed use of the term oppression, but if we're looking for a source, it's bigger than your grandpa.

 

[intothewoods]

Fuckin' hilarious, as usual.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-december-6-2010/the-gretch-who-saved-the-war-on-christmas

My favorite was the claymation or whatever Jewish policeman on the bicycle because that would pretty much be me.

 

[midwestyankee]

I went somewhere on the list.

Do you think that a school being labeled "liberal" meant there were no right wing twatwaffles to graffiti "jesus saves" on school property every easter?

Do you think that it being labeled "liberal' didn't mean being treated to lectures by prominent conservative dildoes on a semiregular basis because they actually had a fan base?

Do you think it meant that I didn't get to find out how neat it is to be a whole bunch of people's "first real Jew?"

I know discourse which isn't completely a right wing echo chamber is liberal and leftist.

Oh, also Al Sharpton doesn't exactly represent the mainstream of the left. He's kind of like Christine O'Donnell at this point in the game. So you're going to have to get a little further off the fringe to find a serious threat to FOX being on air. Rockerfeller is taking a swipe at the right and left and saying it's time to have civil discourse with facts - a little late in the game to go back to acting like a civilization, I think.

So you don't think hate speech actually exists, or do you think "hate speech" means "things we don't agree with" versus "things which advocate violent treatment of (usually minority) populations?"

Which is OK for xeroxed leaflets or soap boxes and parades, but I don't think it needs a 2pm slot.

Me too, and obviously I agree with what you're saying, but there are liberal forces of influence out there. Right?

What I don't get is why it's so hard for somebody like RJ to admit that there are powerful conservative forces of influence too.

This and this (except for the "first real Jew" part).

I too went to one of the so-called liberal schools on the list--in the late '60s and early 70's, in fact--and I'll be damned if I knew the politics of any but a couple of my professors. And I was in the English department, which, after political science, seems to be one of the departments that draws a lot of ire from the right.

We had vigorous debate from both the left and the right within the student body throughout my four years there and neither really held preeminent power. No one ever told me what to think, only how.

I think, to JM's last point, that movement conservatives use the word "influence" to mean "ideas that I despise." And, as others have pointed out, the movement conservatives all seem to get hard-ons over playing the victim.

 

[JMohegan]

I don't think all feminists see the past through the prism of oppression. There have been great efforts made to bring more attention to the contributions of women in history. How much time we want to spend studying that is another question, but I don't think it's accurate to characterize the feminist academic perspective (not that there is one perspective) as past = bad. It's also not a question of all men oppressed all women. I'm not really a fan of the heavy-handed use of the term oppression, but if we're looking for a source, it's bigger than your grandpa.

I can still see the girl who raised her hand in my US History class, after extensive discussion of the usual cast of characters in Part 1: Revolution, and calmly asked what American women were doing at the time.

And I can still see the look on the professor's face, when he answered: "The revolution was crafted and fought by men. Don't try to apply your 1970's mentality to the world as it was two centuries prior."

There's obviously so much wrong with that answer that one scarcely knows where to begin. Ironically, though, it was the absurdity of the response that made me start thinking - much more so than the question itself.

 

[midwestyankee]

British humour....does it exist?

Surely you jest.

For anyone who likes to cook, check out the series Chef, starring Lenny Henry. He plays an astoundingly irrascible chef at England's finest French restaurant. For a taste, check out this bit of video. It really gets good around 4:55 if you're pressed for time.

 

[Keroin]

I don't think all feminists see the past through the prism of oppression. There have been great efforts made to bring more attention to the contributions of women in history. How much time we want to spend studying that is another question, but I don't think it's accurate to characterize the feminist academic perspective (not that there is one perspective) as past = bad. It's also not a question of all men oppressed all women. I'm not really a fan of the heavy-handed use of the term oppression, but if we're looking for a source, it's bigger than your grandpa.

Yes, this.

Plus what JM said about absence of choice. And it wasn't just males denying women choice - all part of that traditional values thing.

I grew up in a VERY liberal part of the world (welcome draft dodgers, enjoy our wilderness!) and I still had to deal with the "Man does A, Woman does B" attitudes. As a young girl, who was inclined to do A more than B most of the time, it was an exercise in frustration. But these were social norms at the time. Not "men oppressing women" per se, just what most everyone - men and women - thought was "normal". But I wanted a different normal, and so did a lot of other men and women.

Now that we can have it, I'm not inclined to give it up. And I'm not inclined to stay silent when others start likening the change to the downfall of our culture and society. My normal includes room for everyone - modern and traditional.

ETA: To suggest that everything in the past 50 years has been hunky dory and fair for women, because your grandparents got along swell, is to deny the reality I have lived. My dad is awesome and he was a terrific husband, doesn't change the big picture.

 

[KoPilot]

Yes, this.

Plus what JM said about absence of choice. And it wasn't just males denying women choice - all part of that traditional values thing.

I grew up in a VERY liberal part of the world (welcome draft dodgers, enjoy our wilderness!) and I still had to deal with the "Man does A, Woman does B" attitudes. As a young girl, who was inclined to do A more than B most of the time, it was an exercise in frustration. But these were social norms at the time. Not "men oppressing women" per se, just what most everyone - men and women - thought was "normal". But I wanted a different normal, and so did a lot of other men and women.

Now that we can have it, I'm not inclined to give it up. And I'm not inclined to stay silent when others start likening the change to the downfall of our culture and society. My normal includes room for everyone - modern and traditional.

QFT!

 

[JMohegan]

I too went to one of the so-called liberal schools on the list--in the late '60s and early 70's, in fact--and I'll be damned if I knew the politics of any but a couple of my professors. And I was in the English department, which, after political science, seems to be one of the departments that draws a lot of ire from the right.

We had vigorous debate from both the left and the right within the student body throughout my four years there and neither really held preeminent power. No one ever told me what to think, only how.

What a second, though. Late 60's and early 70's? Were any protests organized on your campus? How did your campus react to Kent State?

From the outside (meaning: I was still just a kid) there appeared to be a big difference between university attitudes and mainstream views. My family was enormously sympathetic to the anti-war, pro-civil-rights movements, but we were hardly representative of the majority opinion at the time. Nixon was elected twice during that period, for Christ's sake.

 

[teknight]

Yes, this.

Plus what JM said about absence of choice. And it wasn't just males denying women choice - all part of that traditional values thing.

Part of the problem is the wording- there didn't necessarily exist a conspiracy to keep women down (not that political forces weren't opposed to women voting, and getting more rights in general, mind you)...it's how things were done. But all this "tradition" was detrimental for all, regardless of how aware everyone was of it.

 

[midwestyankee]

What a second, though. Late 60's and early 70's? Were any protests organized on your campus? How did your campus react to Kent State?

From the outside (meaning: I was still just a kid) there appeared to be a big difference between university attitudes and mainstream views. My family was enormously sympathetic to the anti-war, pro-civil-rights movements, but we were hardly representative of the majority opinion at the time. Nixon was elected twice during that period, for Christ's sake.

As I said, my campus was fairly well balanced and we did not do the whole take over the admin building thing. In response to Kent State we organized a massive city-wide blood drive to benefit the VA and a local blood bank. We also provided volunteer labor so that the city could do its annual spring trash cleanup that it could otherwise not afford. In fact, the college preseident drove one of the dump trucks. We also had a letter-writing campaign to our various legislators calling for a comprehensive investigation into the Kent State tragedy and to ask for an end to the war.

 

[JMohegan]

British humour....does it exist?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPML-n1kRnY&feature=related

 

[teknight]

Dear fellow litsters, I was actually being sarcastic on the Brit Humour thing...but thanks for sharing. I'll definitely check all your links out. Uhh...want some Romanian humor in return? (it might not make a lot of sense.... )

 

[JMohegan]

Dear fellow litsters, I was actually being sarcastic on the Brit Humour thing...but thanks for sharing. I'll definitely check all your links out. Uhh...want some Romanian humor in return? (it might not make a lot of sense.... )

I knew you were being sarcastic; I just think any opportunity to link to Eddie Izzard is too good to miss.

 

[teknight]

I knew you were being sarcastic; I just think any opportunity to link to Eddie Izzard is too good to miss.

A(wo)men to that.

 

[Keroin]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPML-n1kRnY&feature=related

LOL.

And of course...http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/cb...s-hitler-interprets-nietzsche-from-standupfan

 

[midwestyankee]

Dear fellow litsters, I was actually being sarcastic on the Brit Humour thing...but thanks for sharing. I'll definitely check all your links out. Uhh...want some Romanian humor in return? (it might not make a lot of sense.... )

Of course. Any excuse to push people toward Chef is alright with me.

 

[where]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPML-n1kRnY&feature=related