Mr. Knight,
So you see?
The stuff you're 'taking-your-stand-against' just isn't as you profess it to 'be'.
What's actually happening is that there are all these ancient 'rules' that derive in savage 'times' evolutionaryily-eons ago, when it was the case that brute-force largely determined survival.
It's the Same-Stuff across phylogeny. Where there is a species in which females are physically more-powerful than males, the females dominate the species' interactive dynamics.
Brute-force determining survival.
Cognition and Volition being relegated to the dumpster.
With respect to Homo Sapiens, what happened was that, as 'civilization' took form, because of the way nervous systems process-information [as I discussed in my prior post] in a way in which the 'blindly'-automated 'pain'-avoidance stuff permeates nervous system function even to it's 'highest-levels', the old, long-familiar stuff of the ancient 'rules' lingered-on even though the 'brute-force' stuff became progressively, and in our 'nuclear'-age , perilously, ever-less-functional.
Look around, and you'll see, clearly, that Humanity suffers, still, from this 'blindly'-automated intergenerational promulgation of ancient 'rules'. It was such stuff, for instance, that underpinned the attacks on America last September. It's the Same-Stuff that Ravages the Middle East as we exchange ideas, and which, in the recent past brought the world to the brink of 'nuclear' catastrophe in South Asia. It was the Same-Stuff that Ravaged "Yugoslavia" - both Bosnia and Kosovo - took folks who were living amongst one another, but adhering to relatively-unshared 'belief-systems', and exploded, like a hate-filled 'bomb', in their midst, destroying their economies, social and infra-structural wealth, family-structures, etc., leaving everyone Ravaged. It was the Same-Stuff that rent Northern Ireland for ~30 years. It was the Same-Stuff that precipitated the Death and Destruction of WWI and WWWII - all 'war'.
It was the Same-Stuff that underpinned the Slaughter of the Native Americans. It was the Same-Stuff that inflicted the Savagery of Salvery upon the African-Americans. It was the Same-Stuff that underpinned the Holocaust of the Jews. It was the Same-Stuff that underpinned Stallin's Slaughter of 20 million of his Countrymen. It was the Same-Stuff that induced Saddam Hussein to use poison gas on his Countrymen. It was the Same-Stuff that induced the Iranian 'students' to occupy the U. S. Embassy in Iran.
And most-importantly, with respect to our present discussion, is the fact that, even when this or that which spills folks' blood subsides, the 'hatred' and 'prejudice' which spawned the bloodshed lingers on - 'simmering, just beneath the surface of folks' beings. For example, in our 'time', African Americans are still commonly 'ostracized', here in America, in ways that 'blame' them for all of the Savagery that was inflicted upon them during the centuries during which their ancestors were Enslaved - held as property.
Think about it. Those Enslaved - held as 'property' - were forcibly separated from their Families. Think of what such means to a Child, in terms of the Child's ability to acquire and carry-forward intergenerational learning. And think of the larger incidence of such which derives in those Enslaved being ripped-apart from their Ancestoral Lands. "Slice." Instantaneously separated from Home and Family, and cut-off from the stuff of intergenerational-learning. Then, when Children are born into Enslaved Families, they, or their Parents are 'sold' as 'property. And, on top of all of this, all Education is 'banned' to those Enslaved - even learning to read is severely-punishable - even learning to read the Bible.
Think about what such means in terms of that which a Child, living within such, can learn, and carry-forward.
Compared to that which the Children of the Slave-holders can learn, and carry-forward, that which the Enslaved Children could learn, and carry-forward, is almost nothing.
And so, it's been this almost-nothing that's been carried forward.
And folks point at the ramifications of such imposed Ravaging and 'think' that it's, somehow, reflective of the innate capacities of African-Americans?
It's not.
It's 'just' Brutalization, perpetuated even to this 'day' - because Father and Mother - those who'd, otherwise, Educate their Offspring in the unbroken 'chain' of intergenerational Learning - are 'gone' - 'sold' as 'property'. How can the Children Learn? How can the Children, so Brutalized - stripped of Learning, and the opportunity to Learn - on coming to maturity, give Education to their own Children?
How can Parents, born into such Brutalization, absent reading, absent Mathematics, absent Art, absent all but the memory of the Brutalization of their Ancestors, which is the only stuff left to them to hand-down to their Children - how can such Parents imbue within their Children Love of Learning.
And folks point at the ramifications of such imposed Ravaging and 'think' that it's, somehow, reflective of the innate capacities of African-Americans?
All such constitutes is the old, long-familar brute-force stuff, handed-down, intergenerationally, since the 'days' of the cave-dwellers, still dictating 'what shall be', absent any Logic founded in Truth.
Or is it the case that 'brute force' is actually the stuff that has a 'right' to determine what shall be?
Such a case can be argued, but all one has to do to see that such 'argument' cannot be sistained is to consider, deeply, the stuff of the preceding paragraphs, and their massively-larger Same-Stuff throughout the course of History.
When one does so, one sees clearly the ramifications of the dictates of 'brute-force' within Humanity's existence.
Standing armies, and blood-spilling all over the place, never-endingly - 'animalistic' stuff where only Humanity has a Right to be.
The Savagery of the preceding paragraphs is all so exceedingly-sorrowful because all of it occured in a way that derived completely within nervous systems having given themselves over to 'blindly'-automated 'passion' that takes on a 'life' of its own, without having any correlation to any absolute experiential reality.
That is, it all occured as a function of 'blindly'-automated neural information-processing dynamics with respect to individually-unique experience - as I discussed in my previous post, pretty-much the Same-Stuff that happens when folks 'move away from' sources of 'pain' in their experiential environments.
What's so sorrowful is that the 'higher-level', 'cognitive' and 'volitional' implementations of the 'lower-level' 'pain'-avoidance stuff treat anything that's merely relatively-unfamiliar as if it constitutes an environmental source of 'pain'.
And that such is 'just' happenstance, writ-bold within behavior, is easily discerned by simply studying the dynamics of intercultural adoptions.
If you or I, Mr. Knight, had been adopted as infants by Palestinian parents, and raised in Palestine, at a time commensurately preceding the 'animosities' occuring in the Middle East, we'd probably have participated in 'throwing-rocks' at Israeli Soldiers.
Yet, if you or I, Mr. Knight, had been adopted as infants by Israeli parents, and raised in Israel, at a time commensurately preceding the 'animosities' occuring in the Middle East, we'd probably have participated in shooting-at at Palestinian Children.
And our Savage-'behavior' would derive solely as a function of the 'rule'-sets that we'd acquired as we were coming-to-maturity within our Palestinian or Israeli households.
See?
There's zero 'logic' in all the Savagery that Ravages Humanity.
It all derives, solely, in the way that nervous systems 'glom'-onto that which, through experience, comes to be what's relatively 'familiar', aligning 'emotion' commensurately.
It all derives in the 'blindly'-automated way in which our nervous systems process information.
What's really-Sorrowful is that these 'blindly'-automated nervous system dynamics induce folks to actively 'deny' the worth of folks who are merely-unfamiliar with each other's familiar stuff - "persons A" and "persons B", from my prior post - when everyone's nervous system is just doing exactly the same thing - registering experience, and transforming little-'mountains' of neural activation into little'valleys' of neural activation.
Truth is, it's been both men and women who've 'unwittingly'-participated in the perpetuation of the ancient 'rule'-sets that have been handed-down intergenerationally - 'cause the gist of what'll come to be all the 'rules' an adult will tend to adhere to is handed-down, intergenerationally, when Children are Young.
Within any culture, the main thing that happens is that Children are 'indoctrinated', in ways that, themselves, reflect the enforced-acquiescence to brute-force methods, to 'defer' to their 'elders', so, as they mature, the Children 'just' acquiesce to the 'rules' that their elders impose upon them.
As I wrote in my prior post, such even extends into 'academia', where students are forced, under the threat of 'failing'-grades, to 'conform' to the 'rules' which, through mere repetition, have been maintained, in an unbroken 'chain', from the 'days' of the cave-dwellers all the way to the present - a 'gloss' of 'political-correctness' is put on it, but it's all 'just' the old, intergenerationally-handed-down brute-force Same-Stuff deriving in the experience of the cave-dwellers. 'power', brute-force disguised as 'intelligence', 'cleverness', 'slickness', 'cool', etc., saying, "You will do this or that this or that way, or you'll be cast-out."
And so, the strong tendency is that nothing happens except that this or that old stuff gets handed-down - in other words, even the institutions through which we propose to 'go-forward', in the main, function as agents of the perpetuation of the old, long-familiar stuff.
When one looks, one sees, clearly, that the main thing that's doing the perpetuation of all this stuff that Ravages 'humanity' is that nervous systems tend, strongly, to process-information in a way that 'blindly' and automatically 'favors' that which is merely-familiar over that which is relatively-unfamiliar.
It's all still 'animalistic'.
Anyway, with specific respect to your position with respect to women, here's all the evidence anyone needs to see that it's not as you say:
http://query.nytimes.com/search/abstract?res=F50B12FD39580C748EDDA90994D0494D81
SCIENCE DESK | October 27, 1998, Tuesday
"Man vs. Woman: In History's Travel Olympics, There's No Contest", by NATALIE ANGIER.
"ABSTRACT - Scientists at Harvard School of Public Health find that, from a chromosomal standpoint, men are more sedentary, and women more restive and wandering; say that comparison of strictly male versus strictly female genetic lineages demonstrates that rate of intercontinental migrations of women has been about eight times that of men; for at least the past few thousand years, and possibly much longer, women, not men, have been the ones to leave their natal homes for foreign lands, and in so doing have kept human gene pool well blended."
The full text may be purchased at a cost of $2.95 US.
Although the Scientists did not make the point in what they conveyed to the Author, the studies to which the article refers vividly reflect the reality to which women have been subjected at the hands of behavioral dynamics that've been perpetuated since the days of the cave-dwellers.
The skewed spreading of genetic stuff results from men going off to war, 'capturing' women and bringing them 'home' as 'spoils-of-war'.
This's 'just' another example of brute-force creating conditions in which the intergenerational stuff of Families is 'cast-aside', leaving women without their cultural inheritance, leaving them stripped of their familiar surroundings, and, therefore, vulnerable and dependent upon their 'captors' - like so many Brutally-Kidnapped Children.
This sort of thing has been the lot of women throughout the course of History.
And you blame the ramifications of such upon those so-Victimized?
You 'crow' about such?
You say it's "the way things are supposed to be"?
And when a Woman like Marie Curie finds a man Like Pierre, and Love allows that which was right-there, within her, to blossom into scientific Greatness, you call it "phony"?
Your arguments don't 'hold-water'.
What you're actually espousing is sneaking-up on folks and clobbering them with any weapon that happens to be at-hand, because that's what women have endured, that's what African-Americans have endured, that's what Children all over the world have endured, that's what Students all over the world have endured, at the hands of resort to brute-force 'dictation' of "the way things are supposed to be".
Don't 'take-offense' at this, because I'm just adressing what, in the words you post, you are actually doing.
My 'heart' is with-you because 'passion' like that which you express derives in things undergoing change, and such 'hurts'. You're 'hurting' because Humanity is finding itself, at last, and Humanity, together, is far-stronger than the 'brute-force' stuff that's been perpetuated since the 'times' of the cave-dwellers.
But, look and see, Mr. Knight, Humanity will not do to you what you, and others who 'extol' the 'dominance' of brute-force, would do to Humanity.
Instead, Humanity will cast-out that which has Victimized everyone.
k. p. collins
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