ZeaLitY has spoken with his usual clarity.
Daniel, you are absolutely a courteous man, at least here. And I have been uncharacteristically truculent. That was my choice. Rhetoric? No. It was strategy. I may have made myself look shrill, but because of my perseverance, no one can deny that your terrible lies are laid bare. You yourself have declined to muster a defense—and no surprise, for what you said is indefensible. I did what I needed to do. You denied the existence of the sun, and I pointed to the noon sky.
I will make no direct reply to what you said earlier, save one. I have dismissed that from my mind so as not to allow my emotions to foolishly overcome me.
That is, I suppose, the closest to a concession I could ever expect from you. In substance, then, our argument is finished.
But what remains is also of interest.
I say truly, certain of your beliefs - most especially self-determination and belief in the self - are just as ghastly to me as what you see as oppression, and are just as illogical to my mind.
Yes, this makes sense to me. It is only to be expected that you would find yourself at odds with some of my convictions. But I find it hard to believe that in our narrow conversation I nevertheless defied chance and managed to seize upon the topic that stirs your passions more than any other. I think I understand your type of personality at least in some regards. If we stood face to face, nothing I said to you as yet would have compelled you to strike me with your bare hand—and yet there are such things out there, which could be spoken, as would compel you to do that. I do not know what they are, but they are not what I have said thus far. However, in my case, you have said almost the worst possible thing to me that anyone ever could. And that would be:
No teaching in Christianity devalued women ever.
And all the trappings that went with it. Despicable. Absolutely grotesque. If you ever want to insult me beyond all other insults, you need only repeat yourself. Christianity has a great deal to atone for, but with champions such as yourself it would become irredeemable. At least, on this one point. I won’t presume that your entire ideology is so barbaric elsewhere as it is here, in this singular contempt you show for the female half of humankind, and for the human civilization.
By your beliefs, however, you cannot believe in absolute truths - or are you not a relativist, only a limited relativist? - Thus, appealing to your views, I would beg you not to presume that you are the only one that sees logic in their ideals, and lack of it in others, and that absolute truth lies only in your side. And that if there are flaws in the vies of others, yours of history may as well be skewed.
Now this is a very curious misperception on your part, Daniel. I have never said, anywhere on the Compendium or in the entire world, that I am a relativist. Do you know why I know this so surely? Because even though I hate assigning myself to such simple labels, the fact is that when it comes to be a matter of necessity, I have always considered myself an absolutist. I have even used that very word, “absolutist,” of myself on many occasions. No doubt you have mistaken me for a more common type of ideological foe.
So—and I take a certain satisfaction in saying this—the entirety of your complaints at me, inasmuch as they depend on my being a relativist, are null and void. You will have to devise new complaints, ones that may address what I am rather than what you mistakenly took me to be.
And, being an
absolutist, I have put a great deal of thought over the years into the nature of ideals, and the underlying good and evil they imply. I know that others see logic in their own convictions, but that does not make their convictions true. Aye, neither does it make my convictions true. That is a difference between you and me. Whereas you look at the world and try to understand it in accordance with your beliefs, I look at the world and try to diminish my ignorance of it. My beliefs, if you can even call them such, are never guaranteed by any authority. Over the years they have evolved as I have found new experiences, greater knowledge, and deeper understanding. Yea, my penultimate ambition is Illumination.
Your ambition is to seek the truth—and this is almost noble, but not quite. For the truth cannot be attained in the manner you prescribe, and what you believe is the truth, is none other than archenemy of truth, known as ignorance. You will find great mistruth there, and I can see it around you now like a coat of many colors. And I wish you could taste, just for a moment, the thought that your entire faith could be completely wrong. Is it within your imagination? I suppose I’ll never know.
But Daniel! If you can touch the truth, and hold it, and wrap yourself in it…friend, that is not the truth. Like a hole in the ground, defined only as the nonexistence of some dirt, the truth is known only as the absence of ignorance. It cannot be touched. It can only be perceived. The truth…the truth is the laws of physical reality, in their operative form. The truth is none other than the universe itself, and the great fundamental forces, and the stars above, and you and I.
Ignorance, is our failure to understand ourselves, and our world.
Christianity is very fancy, with baubles and followers and gaudy zeal, but it bottlenecks the human mind into an untenable jam. Christianity was flawed from the moment of its inception, and humanity has strained against that artificial pose for ever so long. It has become brittle, unable to admit its imperfection. Individual minds can be deceived by it. But the combined power of human civilization possesses within itself the mortal blow upon Christianity that time has conspired to deliver, in increments…so long as the society lives under the secular rule of law, rather than the holy word of God. And that is the choice given to all wise Christians: Save the religion from its unsustainable pose, or save themselves from its inevitable shatter. All else is doom. And your dogma, while caustic in this era, will only hasten the destruction of the Christian faith. And this is expedited further still when your contempt for women and for civilization draws the attacks of people like me, forcing your dogma to crystallize even further, becoming more brittle, more strained. I should do well to remember that in our future encounters.
Put simply, I do not think you are prepared to deal with the threat of an absolutist who is not encumbered by any religion. I do not think you are prepared to deal with the threat of an intelligent foe whose ideological structure is so stunningly similar to your own, yet lacks the faith that is your rock and strength. I wonder if you would know where to even begin criticizing such a character, who from your perspective should bear no philosophical weight at all, yet supports no less great a form than yours. Christianity is almost completely right, except that it is all exactly wrong.
But reading a single verse, and taking it as it stands, is not valid scientific analysis.
Correction! It is called a “literal interpretation of the Bible,” and there are those who would make it our law.
Notwithstanding that unsettling detail, the rest of your point is well-taken: Hygiene for an unhygienic age. But you know what? That age is long gone, and yet the spirit of it is with us still. In this century women are said by religious authority to be unclean, in Christianity too. Oh, but the uncleanness has transformed into the camouflage of our modern society. No longer is it the
blood of women that is unclean, but that their
minds are inept, and their
bodies are frail. And there are, of course, the those who would condemn the vaginal bleeding too! In every way that matters, women are
still unclean to dwell as men in the society of men, according to you. You are a sexist.
I am no revisionist, and hope to some day read the Bible in Greek, and so know the true meaning of the words, rather than what is given merely in translation. Until that time, the words of my father, who does know the Greek, will have to suffice. Moreover, I must trust to those wiser than I in the study of scripture, than what my own limited wisdom in studying it yields.
You say you are no revisionist. I say it does not matter if your revisionism is intentional or not; you are guilty of it, for all the reasons you put forth in your now defunct post which prompted my reprisal. Furthermore, know this: The identity of the Christian religion rests in the collective hearts of its living adherents. It has no glue, but in the deceivable of humankind. Reading the Bible in Greek will not enlighten you to the present nature of Christianity. You must read James Dobson for that. Do not think you can fool the likes of me by deliberately trying to mistake the historical study of Christianity with the contemporary observance of it.
In fact, I personally believe, and you will find this most strange, I am sure, that feminism is both selfish, and in fact is that which devalues women. But I am gauging my audience, here. On Chronicles, where there is a higher percentage of religious people, I am far swifter to speak against, say, evolution, than I would here, for I am respectful, even if not admissive, of their beliefs.
I find it not at all strange. I first encountered this tactic ages ago, in my high school psychology class. The instructor was my first exposure to an evangelical Christian practicing his art. Those who hold contempt for women always tack one of two courses against feminism. They either claim to be feminists themselves and dismiss the real feminists as “feminazis” or some other pejorative slur, or they say as you said that feminists work against women. Your claim is nothing new. And my reply, also, is nothing new:
The cause of feminism is to bring the genders into parity, which specifically means raising up women to the station of men. This is something Christians fear very much, because Christianity itself is a monument to misogyny. As far back as the story of Lilith, the thought of women standing beside men rather than lying beneath them has been horrifying to many Christians, on doctrinal grounds. Plus there is some genuine sexual fear! For Christianity as a whole is neurotic and repressed. And why is this? For nigh on two thousand years the Christian religion has commanded to its followers that carnal pleasure is a sin (along with most everything else). When you originally saw fit to interrupt my reply to teh Schala, you claimed that Christianity is responsible for all innovation. Not so. Christianity is the true source of only one great innovation: Guilt. Yes, Christianity brought
guilt to the peoples of the Earth. Christ died for our sins? No, we died for his, and his followers’, for almost two thousand years—and we die still. And women suffer, still, and
die, still. But let me dally no further, Daniel Krispin: The cause of feminism is to see gender roles
destroyed. This does not work against women. It works against your religion. You are a sexist.
There are certain things, however, that women by virtue of strength and temper cannot do, even as men are, or should be, forbidden from certain things. There is a distinction between the two, and I would be aghast if this hallowed difference were to fade. I would rather that women are held in equal regard not for performing the tasks of men, but for performing their tasks.
Aha! Your inner thoughts step out into the light. So there is no equality, after all, then. You say women are equal to men when women perform “their tasks.” I say, by that disgraceful logic,
fish are equal to men, when they perform “their tasks.” Separate But Equal never, ever works. You are a sexist.
You claim that women “by virtue of strength and temper” cannot do “certain things.” This too is a logical fallacy on your part, the fallacy of generalization. Gender is a poor predictor of behavior. You amuse me with your fantasy knowledge of history, but your lack of scientific and methodological comprehension is sorely evident and not amusing in the least. Daniel, I could find a woman able to excel most men in any feat of strength, or fortitude, or intellect. This single woman turns your spurious reasoning on its head. You seek mastery for able-bodied Christian males—do not deny it! And the women whom you cannot reproduce without stand as the greatest wound to your mortal pride. They above all others earn your deepest contempt, for unlike any other minority, they posses something that you absolutely must have. So for two thousand years Christianity has legislated the female anatomy into your greedy trousers. And when writing a fascist law against women would take too much ink, your Christian predecessors simply resorted to enslavement and rape. Yet you still defend them, and embrace them. You are a sexist. You are a
criminal sexist.
And let me speak the very nub of my gist: There are indeed many disparities between the sexes today. That these disparities exist does not mandate that they continue to exist forever. Indeed, in every generation we have the opportunity to address an injustice and say, “I shall work to destroy this, someday.” As the generations pass, we can harness all the powers of cultural evolution and artificial evolution to collapse the disparities of the genders into a unified humanity. I wish I could live to see the world where gender does not matter. But I content myself to toil in its furtherance, regardless if I myself get to reap that fruit.
And what of you, Daniel Krispin, you who would champion gender roles until the end of time, you who would devote his heart to the enslavement of women all to fit your evil vision of what their future ought to be, what of you? Your contempt for women is utterly astounding—even now, after I have withstood your bigotry for so long. You are a sexist. You are a
vile, criminal sexist.
In fact, I am among the most respectful of women kind, never decending to base speech regarding them.
Once again, the liar’s lies are laid bare in the light of the sun for all to see. Yes, I suppose you might be quite gracious and charitable to all your pets and slaves. I am sure you will indeed give them a nice pat on the head, so long as they do as you say.
I don’t know how you would pass your hours in Heaven, but you would make a fine prince in Hell. I hope you never marry. Barring that, I hope you never have children. Barring
that, I hope they are all boys. And barring even that, I hope your daughters grow up to rebel against you, and steal your car keys, and throw their Christian inhibitions out the window as they drive away from you and your terrible dreams forever, to choose their own destiny in the one and only life they shall ever have.
Christians often like to say that it isn’t their place to judge their fellows; let the Lord do that. But when it comes to abiding human beings who seek out their human right to explore their human nature…Christians stomp and snarl and pass punitive legislation and go on the radio and on television with the most bigoted invective ever conceived. I trust your much-vaunted Christian love about as far as I could throw a boulder. You are a sexist.
But if you seek to silence me, you are betraying your own freedom of speech, based on what is only your own view of righteousness.
This country is far too obsessed with the notion of freedom. Freedom counts for a lot, but it isn’t supposed to be a synonym for chaos and murder.
Ask not, “Free from what?” but “Free for what?” Those criminals who defy the law are rightly said to forfeit many of their rights and privileges they would otherwise enjoy as upstanding members of society. In a more just society, your sort of sexist discrimination would be illegal. At the very least, it would be a civil infraction punishable by a high fine. It is all to say that, no, I do not impute the sort of sanctity to the freedom of speech of which you accuse me. And though I do believe the freedom of speech is essential enough that anyone ought to be able to say anything, I nevertheless hold that those who have made the choice to speak, and who have spoken, shall be accountable for their words, as surely as we would condemn a prankster who shouts “Fire!” in a crowded hall. The disparagement of half the human species is a crime worth punishing. When I say I would silence you if I legally could—well, you can take that any number of ways. I wish I could simply reason with you, but the religious devout are consistently immune to the powers of reason. Failing that, I wish I could simply discredit you. But the mob is a mob of fools, it always has been, and they will follow whomever wears the shiniest hat. Your sexist views must be secretly appealing to many people on this forum, and I would not trust “a jury of peers” to ever grant vindication to your bigotry. I deny the mob its rule. That leaves only the possibility of throwing you into the cellars and dungeons you have reserved for your helpless, innocent victims throughout the ages. But in all honesty…I don’t believe in criminal incarceration. That leaves, as the good Chancellor Yakra once said, the guillotine! There comes a point in everyone’s life when they must choose between mercy and justice. Those who choose mercy say that it is not condonable to stoop to the agencies of society’s enemies. Those who choose justice say that it is no crime to commit punishment upon the unjust. I choose…I choose to wish you would have listened to reason way back in Step One. Failing that, the guillotine. You are a sexist.
Wishing is something I loved to do as a child. When I grew up, I realized that wishes are for the powerless, for those who have not the means to make their ambitions become real. And so I looked down upon wishing. I have long held that any dream worth dreaming is worth finding the power to make real. But in everyday life this is not always possible. I cannot reason with you, I do not have the power to break through your dogmatic shields. And so I could only wish for a lucky shot. Because imposing justice in its harshest form, Daniel, is an admission of failure. A prideful one, yes, but still the sorrowed wail of defeat. It is to say, “If only I had been better, stronger, smarter, I could have saved this one. And now his neck joins with the steel, simply because I could not reason with him long ago.” Every time justice is carried out upon a criminal, society is diminished for having failed that criminal. I wish I could help you…but you too are free to choose your own destiny. And again, I
wish, you would choose to forsake this sexism you adore so deeply.
Time will prove this true, however.
As I come to these, your final words, I find your myself perplexed. Truly, in this latest reply of yours, you wrote no central argument. It was a more a recollection of sentiments, without a central premise. It was at once more causal and yet more heartfelt a rendition than your earlier work—and I do mean “rendition” in that most obscure sense, for you have unambiguously ceded the battlefield, by pointedly declining to reply to my Post At Issue, focusing instead on the commentary that followed it, between not you and I, but I and others. So you have ceded the battlefield…and yet you have not ceded your dignity, and therefore you have not forsaken crown of false pride and bigotry. We are, as where we began. Nothing has changed excepting that my keyboard is now several thousand strokes closer to retirement. But why? Why your latest reply at all? Surely you knew that I would easily put down your assorted sexist comments. Why bother? This is what perplexes me.
Having thought this over, in that lapse of time that is not evident in the small space between two paragraphs, I would like to propose that it is wounded pride on your part, or perhaps lingering insecurity. You are one of those people who needs to have the last word. So I propose to you an courteous solution:
I will give you the last word, if you so desire it. But on one, nonnegotiable condition: You shall make no remarks, explicit or implicit, having anything to do whatsoever with women and sexism. You may disparage me, my character, my beliefs, and anything I have said…provided you honor that condition. I will grant you the last word, and I shall let stand absolutely any remark you wish to make…provided you honor that condition. I will even stand by as you care to recite the most blatant lies of your choice, or anything else you might wish to say, for any reason…provided you honor that condition. ZeaLitY has rebuked us for the children we are, and I have antagonized poor teh Schala even further, and I have no wish to surpass myself on that, and so this will be my final post in this thread…provided you honor that one, that only, condition. But if you so much as hint at your misogyny, I will rain reprisal upon you forever.
