Common Misconceptions Among Anti-Feminist MRA's

Mens' rights advocates often have a general idea of the problems associated with gender roles, but as TJ (aka The Amazing Atheist) points out... the overall concept flies over their heads.

The specific issues that are brought up by MRA's that supposedly disempower males are usually actually further evidence that patriarchy is still alive and well within our country.

To put gender issues into context, you must first realize what patriarchy is. It's instilled attitudes towards both genders which ultimately favor male domination. With the set notion that females are weaker, it's actually no surprise that when domestic abuse is caused by the woman, it's not taken as seriously. The main role of the woman in society is to be the damsel in distress and when the helpless damsel ends up being the abuser then the male victim is more likely to be seen as weak and/ or the issue isn't taken with proper consideration. This idea of the dominating/ strong male is also another reason why patriarchy plays as a disadvantage to homosexuals. Sexism = Homophobia.

So yes... when a man takes on the role of being submissive, weak, indecisive (all traits to which a patriarchal society lends to the female gender) then he is indeed disadvantaged because patriarchy seeks to keep male domination intact. When the courts side more often with women in child custody battles it's because the general attitude is that women belong more so at home raising the child (while the male should be out making the money to support his family).

As for the issue which TJ brings up with circumcision, I would argue that that's more of a childs' rights issue. Societies have plenty of overlapping domination structures and one of them is the nonconsensual violence used against children (corporal punishment, circumcisions... etc).

While it is a nice thought that MRA's do recognize gender inequality and specific roles, the main basis for all these roles (patriarchy) is overlooked and therefor misunderstood.

Abuse of Authority? I Am Not Amused

There are so many stories in the news, all day and every day, about people in power abusing their authority in some way. And every time it's, "Oh my God! How could this incident have happened!?" as if this is just some isolated occurence.

No, this is not an isolated incident. These are merely reccuring episodes of corruption generated from a system that was started, maintained and continuously produces violence in one of its various forms. And no, I'm not going to be surprised if the Occupy movement ends up having their own Kent State Massacre. It's actually rather vain of any country to raise hell over the loss of unarmed citizens while their armies commit Kent State Massacres all over the globe in other countries.

The Line Between Discipline and Child Abuse

There's been many times where I've been in one of these conversations:

"If I ever dared to talk back to my daddy, he would whoop my ass with a belt!"

There just must be something reviving in telling a story about childhood beatings that really sends a glistening glimmer in someone's eyes. It's almost as if to imply that "Those were the good ole days!" and parents today are just "too soft" or "afraid of their own children."

Around 1870 in the USA, beating your wife was officially made illegal. But what if instead... wife beating was legal, but you just couldn't leave a mark? What if we used child disciplinary laws as every day rules for daily interactions? And what exactly does it mean to draw the line between discipline and child abuse at leaving a mark? Why is leaving that mark so much worse than not leaving it? Is it because other people who see your child shouldn't be aware of the violence?

Hitting your child, in my opinion, doesn't look like a behavior problem for the child, it looks like a behavior problem of the parent. It looks to me as if the parent has lost control of their situation and decided to resort to violence. And this goes for spanking too. Which is another thing to wonder. Why is the butt the least tabboo place to hit a child? Seems to me that this is just a cultural norm that we use to feel better about hitting our children and to justify these actions.

Besides for the physical suffering of children who receive corporal punishment, studies also indicate that spanking lowers a child's IQ (http://psychcentral.com/news/2009/09/27/spanked-children-have-lower-iq/8620.html). Knowing this, I can't imagine why parents would want to risk their child's mental development all because they feel the need to project their aggression onto their kids through violence.

The fact of the matter is, children are people too. They're growing, naive, short little people with (hopefully) a long life ahead of them. In our society, witnessing violence first-hand is inevitable but there really is no need to introduce your kid to it right off the bat and pass on traditions of abuse. There should however be drawn a line. That line should separate a non-violent parent-to-child relationship to a violent one. No more "let's hide the abuse by not leaving a mark" or "just hit your child on the butt" or any other poor excuse to rid yourself of any guilt you may find yourself with after hurting your kid.

Is this taking a "too soft" approach to parenting? Is this just "telling you how to raise your kids"? Well, what some would consider "too soft," I would consider "social evolution" in progress. And I couldn't stop you from hitting your child just like I couldn't stop you from beating your spouse, but if advocating a violent-free relationship with your loved ones seems overly intrusive... then I can only apologize for suggesting a more loving relationship.

Lastly, there are alternatives to violence! For instance, using humor is a great way to discipline your child without expressing pain, revenge and agony. This is a great article that gives more detail: http://children.webmd.com/features/child-discipline

Urban Farming As A Means To A Better Society

(I've written about this before, but I thought I'd throw the concept onto this blog as well.)

If you look at a map with all of the various political beliefs in specific regions, usually what you'll find is that the big cities are more progressive while rural places tend to stay more conservative. Long story short... individual isolation stunts human progress. This is why, to me, it doesn't seem like a far stretch to suggest that the bulk of society should work towards condensing itself into certain areas.

Now let's say one were to buy into this pretense but then asks, "How do we cram society together to promote social progress?" That is precisely where urban farming comes into play. Furthermore, it's also a call to eliminate rural farming all together.

Reasons to eliminate rural farming:

1) Inefficient.
2) Weather dependent.
3) Stunts social progress.
4) Waste of land space.

Urban farming would serve as a better alternative because instead of depending on the weather to dictate the seasons in which we expect our foods, we could focus on building artificial climates to provide the ability to grow any food, any where and at any time of the year. Also, if we instead crammed these "urban farms" into buildings, we wouldn't rely on vast lands to produce our food.

If we could control the environment we would eliminate the need for pesticides. Healthier fruits, healthier people! And on that note with the environment, if society was condensed into smaller regions because of urban farming, that would be a great incentive for alternative energies to keep these small places nice and clean. Think also about all of the extra land this would free up. This could potentially be used as a way to also promote nature conservancy in certain places.

Suddenly, everyone lives in closer quarters with each other, society becomes more aware of itself and others, progress thrives, unity and community are strengthened and everyone has easier access to locally grown veggies.

How do we get this started? With today's economic powers waving over the heads of all the citizens, I really am not sure how to implement this strategy. I personally tend to live in a dream world where I can fathom communities self-organizing to better themselves and their own standards. It's hard to really say where capitalism will take us from our current point in time. Even to those who would argue that the state also plays too big of a role in our market... either way, the status-quo (however one would interpret it to be) doesn't really seem to be open to this idea at the moment. But maybe one day...

Hyper-Capitalists Monopolize In the Bullshit Market

There's many ironic things about hyper-capitalists. I use the term "hyper-capitalist" as an umbrella term in reference to right-wing "libertarians," economic conservatives and anarcho-capitalists. Besides for their unwavering support of unchecked bureaucratic power to go along with their "Don't Tread On Me" slogans, their laissez-fairy tales don't stop short of conspiracy theories and a complete disregard for class inequalities and privileges.

Recently, I was checking out the whole "53%" hubbub on Tumblr and how people were saying that the images on there were fake. First off, we have to look past the absurdity that lies within some of those posts to begin with.

People have supposedly been posting up these horribly depressing stories about working "like a dog" to earn what little money they do have just to survive. This is all meant to say, "America... fuck yeah!" but it looks more to me like a somber celebration from a bunch of wage-slaves. This all makes me wonder too if during the days of African slavery in America, if they could've polled the slaves... I wonder how many of them would've agreed that slavery is good because at least they get their food after a hard day's work.

Any ways, the point of this all is that if these are actually made up (to at least a certain degree).. that's completely pathetic and antithetical to their "movement." It's stupid in the same way that Alex Jones (right-wing nut extraordinaire) lies to all his listeners on his radio show blatantly every episode. It's stupid in the same way that all of Ron Paul's followers ignore his stances on race and abortion.

I've come to the conclusion lately, that hyper-capitalists love to make up bullshit. They passed a law in 2006 that would try to destroy the public-sector US Post Office by making them pay "annual $5.5 billion payments to fund 75 years of future retirement packages" (http://www.pittsfield.com/story/39520/Postal-Services-Rally-For-New-Pension-Bill.html). If the public-sector works, purposely make it fail because umm... COMMUNISM SUCKS!!!

Oh yeah.. and anarcho-capitalists also love to make up stories in the form of science-fiction novels. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalist_literature#Fiction

The Occupy Movement Is A Perfect Example of a Stateless Society

The correlation between the Occupy movement and a stateless society based on collective relationships is almost piece by piece, a perfect match.

For starters, there's the spontaneous organization. Like many movements, Occupy Wall Street triggered cities all over the USA (and now beyond) to form organizations. The great part about this also, is that the internal structure lacks a hierarchy. Just like a worker's co-op, the Occupy movement consciously avoids top-down tyranny by advancing its purpose through democratic decisions.

In addition, the only true threat to the Occupy movement IS top-down hierarchy. Those threats would mostly be from police crack downs to partisan sabotage (for instance, letting a Democrat or right-wing Libertarian hijack its message).

Anyways, I was browsing Reddit (as usual) the other day and of course there was some post where some naive (most likely a liberal) Occupier was going off about anarchists sabotaging the movement or at least making too much of an embarrassing presence. I'm sorry, but there's just a laughable amount of irony in a tyranny-apologist's complaint about a democratic movement being hijacked by anarchists. If this movement is under threat by anything, it's the Don't Tread On Me and Obama crowd who would sell themselves short on the dime just to make a little reform in a broken system. A system which secures property rights for private tyrannies and maintains oppression through police force.

So please... dear liberals of America. For the love of all that's good in this world, stop comparing anarchism to chaos when the system that your party has favored has caused more chaos than any single person could ever hope or wish for.

Workplace Democracy As A Means To A Paradigm Shift Among Social Relationships

I've recently started designing a pamphlet. I've actually finished it but I just need to figure out how to more efficiently produce and distribute it. It's a pamphlet containing brief information on workplace exploitation and the worker-run solution.

Anyways, I was sort of proud from breaking out of my debilitating habit of being online all day and not being very productive at all with my free time.

The reason why I personally focus on worker liberation (as opposed to sexual, racial and other forms) is because workers are a very general portion of the population which unknowingly face oppression each day. I say "unknowingly" because the oppression is seen as more of an individualistic issue rather than a collective issue of all of today's wage slaves. Ignoring the systemic issue of corporate oppression helps maintain the exploitation by sending the message "If you're unhappy at your job, you just need to find a better job." rather than admitting that the entire capitalist economic system is comprised of jobs that offer no chance of worker-control and workplace democracy.

So I would argue that the main goal of educating people (who are usually workers themselves) about workplace democracy is to make the giant leap from a culture of exploitation and domination to a more egalitarian and democratic society. Once the playing field is some what leveled out, then people may be more willing to recognize each others' issues such as male dominance, racial domination and other forms of societal inequalities that coexist with workplace domination.

Currently it seems, the cultural climate mixed with capitalist domination only allows for so much breathing room. There's only so much time to self reflect and resist within the time frame of a worker who has a full-time job or is carrying multiple jobs to meet the needs of their own survival. And in between the moments of being dominated in the workplace, the average person is tempted with entertainment and various distractions to consume their free time. Even if the average worker didn't indulge his or her free time with fun, the general attitude of individual success would still make them feel obligated to continue the system as it currently stands rather than fight back.

That's why the only non-governmental, logical and non-coercive step towards liberation would be to educate. Get people fired up about the issue of workplace democracy. Raise awareness in peoples' minds as to their true potential in their company. If there is no culture of resistance then there will be no progress and the cycles of generations to come will continue to be plagued with an economy that never gave them a chance.

Survival and Anarchy

Life has a way of providing a balance, consequences and yet... no real justice. It provides struggles, solutions and no guarantees. For instance... sexually transmitted diseases lay hazard to the unfaithful, promiscuous and careless, yet MANY people who have STD's weren't necessarily living the life of a sexually active person. Over indulge in the pleasures of food? Life hands you high cholesterol, obesity and the increased risk of a heart attack. Yet there are many people who've died of heart attacks who may not have even been overweight. The risks are always prevalent.

So here we are, seeing ourselves constantly threatened with our own survival. People, for the sake of their own survival, will retaliate when their safety is threatened by another. For example, if I were to go around punching people... eventually someone would try to fight back and could even potentially kill me. In a way, life just sort of works out to keep things at a certain (yet unpredictable) balance.

What's really fascinating is the various ways different societies cope with this inevitable survival that we all struggle with. Human relations power is a part of this balance in life. You're as powerful as I am, so I empathize your struggle. We lay equal risk to each other and there for... we find ourselves at a mutual understanding.

Of course, with power, comes the obvious problem of hierarchy. If I'm a human and you're an ant... where's my incentive not to squash you? Will your ant friends get mad and try to bite me? I can just kill your entire family for fun and then enjoy the rest of my day. Matter of fact, it's interesting to note that humans are by far the smartest animal on the planet which places us at the top of the food chain (nature's hierarchy of survival) which gives us little, if any, incentive not to eat all the animals below us. Again... life provides no certainty and occasionally an animal may kill a person.

The reason for mentioning the person killing an ant scenario is to make an analogy of hierarchies with human interactions. Our natural incentive to empathize with people of equal ranking of ourselves is thrown off track when one person places themselves on top of another. This is why state leaders are often quick to go to war. There is no empathy for peasants in far away lands. There is little to no empathy for a state leader's own citizens (their only motivation to be nice is in a representative democracy where their own lust for power is threatened by majority rule).

Perhaps the only reason that the notion of anarchism isn't a highly celebrated world view today is because people feel threatened by hierarchy. That's right... people are afraid of anarchy (a lack of hierarchy) because they're afraid of hierarchy itself. "Who protects me from the bullies?" Here's the part that most people don't get though. There is something known as a collective power. Collective power as a whole is stronger than any individual... yet collective power wouldn't wield violence on itself because... well... that would defeat the purpose of the whole notion of survival.

A society based on collective power could regulate itself because it would create a communal sense of survival. If you don't believe this to be true... next time you have a family gathering... just start punching the shit out of one of your relatives and see if your family cheers you (the bully) on as your grandmother lays on the floor in a pool of blood.

Cooperation and collective power is the only way we can really survive in this world if we want to live in further safety.

"Top Down Prison Land"

Intro:

This thing we call "work" is such a large part of our existence, that I can't imagine people not wanting to be in control of it. I can't even fathom the idea of people accepting this as anything even close of being tolerable. We live in an age where the bad guys have won and they've raised generations of people to accept it. We live in a top down prison land!

Part 1: Education

Of course, the story all starts with our first day in school. You're nervous about making new friends, it's a whole new big world, new experiences and you get your first glimpse into society. You learn all the defaults of how your little school world works. You learn which kind of kids you get along with, you learn personal responsibility, social skills and last but not least... obedience.

Yes, obedience. Your number one key to success! Get to class on time, do all your work, stay quiet, raise your hand to ask a question. Sure, personal responsibility is a great key to life, but what's the point of all of this? To be apart of a functioning society? No. You're taught obedience to save yourself. You always have to answer to an authority figure or a number of authority figures.

Now, to be fair, it's not so much the structure in the class rooms which is the problem but the lesson that the students take with them home at the end of the day. After all, it'd be a wishful thought to assume kids weren't in need of guidance. But the lesson they take home with them is one they'll most likely run with for the rest of their lives which is to find personal success, ignore the success of your peers and focus on pleasing the master (or the "teacher").

Familiarizing children with hierarchical systems is an early default taught to them by the older generation. It's the same logic that's kept humanity enslaved to each other since the beginning of civilization.

Part 2: Domination Culture/ Techno-Bureaucracies

We are all living in a hegemonic culture in which we subscribe to normal domination structures. Unlike totalitarianism, where we all succumb to one dominant power, capitalism has loosened our chains a little and instead divided us into thousands and thousands of miniature forms of tyranny. These little top-down structures consist of politicians, police, financial institutions and most noticeably... private corporate tyrannies. This is also known as "managerialism." I think it's important to label it as an "ism" to decipher it from what most people would consider it to be... a natural human tendency.

Corporate hierarchies generally consist of the chairman, then the CEO, then the general manager and then the other little managers below that person. It's a general system where everyone basically has to answer to someone else. One of the problems with a top-down work environment is the relationships it creates between employees and managers. Many people get the feeling of incompetence from their managers because of the persistent feeling of being looked down upon and reviewed while they work. Generally speaking, most people don't prefer the feelings of mistrust and scrutiny, especially while working for eight hours.

Another issue with having various ranks of employment is the balance of responsibility. Managers have higher amounts of responsibility in regards to the welfare of their company which leaves workers below feeling less entitled and concerned about their jobs. Imagine having someone who was expected to drive your car around for you whenever you needed to go some place, all the while you had the competence in you to learn how to drive yourself. You would never feel entitled to learn to drive and therefore you'd be less skilled and more dependent. This would also lead to deficiency.

Part 3: Four Hour Work Day

Our free market, as you may or may not know, is anything but free. The various constraints it puts on workers is nothing short of a voluntary prison sentence. Of course... you don't have to be subjected to a corporate 9 to 5 job. There's always homelessness or... I guess throwing yourself in front of a bus could do the trick as well.

There is no democracy for workers in your typical corporate structure. The only real reason workers have any safety standards is because of governmental regulation and the only driving force outside of managerial decision making is the profit incentive. The amount of hours you receive at work all depends on the company's ability to schedule you from which is determined by the amount of profit it receives.

An important thing to distinguish is the amount of productivity that takes place versus the amount of time a worker spends at their job. For example, having an eight hour schedule doesn't guarantee eight hours of output. The amount of income a business takes in doesn't equate to the amount of hours a worker actually works. Therefore, a company may have excess product or excess time that amounts to absolutely nothing.

Now, while a worker may financially benefit from the extra hours they receive, it's also important to note that this is a waste of time as far as productivity goes. The point being, people waste lots and lots of time doing nothing. This is a part of the reason why efficiency suffers and also people waste away so much time that they could've been enjoying.

One step towards solving this issue would be to create workplace democracy on a large scale. Give people the power to control how much actual time is needed for a good day's worth of production. There would need to be an alternative to the current profit driven production.

Part 4: Alternative Proposal

It is a widely accepted idea today that competition is what drives productivity, but does the average worker really go in to work each day with the idea that their hard work is going to destroy their company's competitors? The true force behind productivity is more likely to be our collective struggle for survival. At the end of the day, people just want to eat, have a bed to sleep in, enjoy themselves with their hobbies and socialize with the people they love.

The idea that cooperation has failed because state communism has failed is just absurd. State communism failed because it was implemented through totalitarianism. State communism was based around serving the ruling party and a command economy. Neither of those two actually dealt with cooperation or democracy.

So while some may point to the pathetic examples of North Korea (or any modern day tyranny) as reasons to why "communism" has failed, there are numerous other examples of cooperation actually being very successful.

A lot of the examples of successful cooperation would take more time to expand upon than I'd be willing to explain (because they've already been elaborated on many times). Some examples worth looking into however would be the 1936 anarchist Catalonia, the worker-run Argentina factories, the various examples of worker-run cooperatives all over the world, the Mondragon Corporation, Dan Pink's TED talk on the science of motivation or any of the other mountains of evidence which show the success of worker-run, horizontal work structures.

Outro:

Looking at the real issues of managerialism, it ultimately comes down to power relations. When does a person possess too much power? How can power be justified? Although worker control has its roots deep in socialist theory, everyone across the spectrum can generally agree that their own personal oppression is worth fighting. But how can we ever solve the issue of oppression when we treat it with power struggles (tugging back and fourth to gain control) rather than dismantling the very hegemony that keeps it going?

The issues of power that we're presented with are always set up as false dichotomies. Democrat or Republican? Socialist or libertarian? More taxes or less taxes? Union or management? But at the end of the day, your own free will is what ultimately suffers and you're never satisfied, but there's always the next election... the next chance for hope and renewal.

Truth is... the only way out of this mess is to work together. As simple as it sounds. Cooperation is the key to finding liberty. It all starts with education. That was the very point of all of this. This is to present the evidence. The cases for cooperation can all be read online. It's not a dream world or a utopia... it's just a way of dealing with our human nature. A dream world is one where people can be trusted to rule over others, economic inequality and the crime it generates is a way of nature as well as the justification for the wars that were all fought in the name of some grand power struggle. In a dream world, it's ok to be poor and the economic deprivation that's forced among children growing up in low income housing is completely justifiable. In a dream world, we can look down upon the low productivity of welfare recipients while completely ignoring the excessive wealth granted to those at the top of this cannibalistic social food chain.

We need to deal with our own reality and confront the entire domination culture at large. Until we realize our true potential, we'll never stop making the same mistakes over and over.

Information Sources:

http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html
http://thinksimplenow.com/productivity/the-4-hour-workday/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist_Catalonia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation
http://vodpod.com/watch/3439516-the-take-naomi-klein-2004
http://www.syndicalist.org/archives/llr14-24/15f.shtml