A Tempting Invitation
What is masculinity? How can we challenge it?
So ask the great minds behind Earth First! UK, a “non-hierarchical organisation” that will soon be hosting a six-day series of eco-activist workshops at an undisclosed rural location in the North East of England and which employs unspecified “direct action” in order to “stop the destruction of the Earth.” It all sounds very Flash Gordon – except, I suppose, for the challenging masculinity thing. Curiously, a definition of masculinity seems to have proved elusive and no indication is given of exactly why masculinity should be challenged. It just should, apparently. They’re quite emphatic on this point. Which sounds a little like jumping the gun, but there we are.
As if to heighten the intrigue, the official tweet, linked above, links in turn to the official Earth First! UK website, which also has no information whatsoever about why challenging masculinity is a thing one ought to be doing, and doing urgently, or how one might go about this pressing task in a suitably planet-saving manner. In fact, the workshop in which these high-minded rumblings will apparently occur, thereby averting catastrophe, isn’t mentioned at all. Conceivably, the aforementioned “non-hierarchical organisation” may be a factor here.
Those untroubled by such mysteries and who wish to save the world from rampant masculinity, possibly by chaining themselves to something, are advised to bring “a tent, a sleeping bag and a torch.” Rest assured that meals will be “made vegan and collectively,” which sounds promising. And do bear in mind that “everyone is crew,” another gloriously collective sentiment, and consequently, “toilets and running water will be run by all of us.” The words foolproof and hygienic leap immediately to mind.
Via Julia, who is no doubt already airing her sleeping bag.
Judging by last year’s effort
LOL. Ten saddos in a field. It’s a social revolution!
Ten saddos in a field. It’s a social revolution!
I have to say, given the bluster about saving the planet and the claims of being the “frontlines of eco-defence,” I was hoping for something a little more… spectacular.
On the upside, I now have a tag for Collective Toilet Management. Which I didn’t see coming.
No prizes for guessing what educational results DO correlate with.
Parental investment in the child’s success. More powerful than socioeconomic status or IQ. It’s not like there’s a lack of research into what works to resolve any number of these kinds of issues. But, pace the kerfuffle about severe prison sentences not deterring crime, people don’t want to hear it. To the point that they’ll continue to waste billions of dollars rather than hear it.
Severe prison sentences only deter crime if the criminal expects to be caught (qv speed cameras). On the other hand, they certainly keep a reasonable number of scrotes off the streets for longer than mild prison sentences.
Daniel Ream: setting aside your sarcasm, I noticed that pattern long before the publication of the Venona intercepts.
As did I. But then, I got to peek behind the curtain at any early age. As a young, earnest (read: stupid) undergraduate, I was acquainted with Angela Davis. Once when she was ginning up outrage about some issue (free speech, IIRC), I asked her about some tactic she was urging that was the antithesis of free speech.
She looked at me with utter contempt for being so stupid.
“The Party doesn’t care about the issue. The issue is merely a vehicle for building a mass movement.”
I was stunned. But that cynical comment began my movement away from leftism and toward conservatism as the scales fell from my eyes.
“The Left has lost its shit.”
That’s an absolutely bizarre article. The Left obsesses over the evils of “othering” while fanatically trying to “other” the mainstream.
“The alternative hypothesis, that they merely use the issue for agitation in the West, allows one to predict more accurately how they will respond.”
A perennial favourite that bears re-reading occasionally, because its message is easy to forget: this stuff is deliberate. “[T]he Noam Chomskys and Michael Moores and Robert Fisks of the world (and their thousands of lesser imitators in faculty lounges everywhere) are not brave transgressive forward-thinkers but pathetic memebots running the program of a dead tyrant.”
I think the best comment (for me) was the guy who throws toothpicks into the forest and (I hope sardonically) calls out, “You’re home”!!!
I was hoping for something a little more… spectacular.
I wonder what the reaction of the collective would be, if someone took their call for radical direct action seriously and arrived tooled up, expecting to go the full Baader-Meinhof.
they certainly keep a reasonable number of scrotes off the streets for longer than mild prison sentences.
No, they don’t (and thank you for proving my point). The number of violent and property crimes that get successfully prosecuted and the offender incarcerated is a trivial fraction of the number of violent and property crimes committed. It doesn’t count. It’s a rounding error. Assuming you want to deter crime instead of just getting revenge, you have to focus on making people believe that they’re going to get caught.
Well, I have indeed read that most criminals commit many crimes before they are caught, but that does not prove that punishment cannot deter, merely that it may not deter if the chances of being caught are sufficiently low. And then there is the problem of reduced sentences thanks to lenient judges, overworked prosecutors, and overcrowded prisons. Also: I believe that retired prison doctor Theodore Dalrymple has written that some criminals are deterred by sufficient penalties while others seem to be too impulsive or crazy to care. Still, those who are imprisoned will not prey on the public as long as they remain there.
Meanwhile, in Canada, the nemesis of waxing salons has a
temptingquestionable invitation that should go over swimmingly, especially with parents.If he is allowed to go ahead with this, I bet he’ll have cameras hidden everywhere.
I think SJWs may be hitting their sell-by date.
http://ace.mu.nu/#382420
There’s an interesting point about these people who talk about “toxic masculinity.” When you ask them: What is left of “masculinity” when you remove the “toxic” parts? They can only list gender-neutral features, which are things which women also possess. So there is apparently nothing left of masculinity when you remove the toxic bits. The idea which they seem to believe but refuse to say aloud is that masculinity is all toxins and nothing else. They also can’t seem to think of any purpose for masculinity, apart from oppressing women.
If I am incorrect, I have yet to be given a better idea of what the operative principle is.
Meanwhile, in Canada
There’s some severe overlap in that trans woman / nonce Venn diagram.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OdeOyrLHdSg
Much better to sing to trees than to scream.
What is masculinity?
Masculinity is a combination of traits that results in behaviors such as resistance to domination, resistance to dependency, and resistance to foreign invasions. It is therefore veryplus ungood.
How can we challenge it?
For the brave, wrestling.
For weasels and chickenshits, organized ball-cutting.
But then, I got to peek behind the curtain at any early age. As a young, earnest (read: stupid) undergraduate, I was acquainted with Angela Davis….I was stunned.”
Yikes. I would be too. I never knew such a prominent communist, but the ones I did know unintentionally influenced me with their dishonesty (conclusion: these people lie therefore cannot be trusted) and their dishonesty regarding things of the greatest moral seriousness (conclusion: these people are fundamentally evil and every supposedly moral stand is a cloak for that evil.)