Hey, everyone. So I sat down to write something about this horrific discussion of domestic violence on The Spearhead – which some of the Man Boobz commentariat have already started discussing here – and, well, I just couldn’t do it.
I need to step back a bit from this blog for a little while to clear my head and maintain my sanity. So I’m going to take a bit of a break – maybe just a few days, maybe a week – and post nothing but interesting videos and other things having nothing whatsoever to do with misogyny or the manosphere. You all, of course, can treat this any any other thread as a totally open thread to discuss whatever you want, including the regular Man Boobz topics of misogyny and general MRA shitlordery.
I’m going to start off with the dance number that first got me hooked on Bollywood music some years ago. This is from the 1998 film Dil Se, a drama about love and terrorism. But in Bollywood, even serious dramas have dance numbers, and Dil Se’s dance numbers are gorgeous and a little surreal.
The music from the film is by A.R. Rahman, a prolific and popular Bollywood music director best known in the US for doing the music for Slumdog Millionaire.
And yes, that is Bollywood megastar Shah Rukh Khan dancing on top of a moving train without any safety harness or stunt double or CGI trickery. (Well, there are a couple of brief bits where a double might have been used.) Enjoy!
@Freemage – excellent comments! I know squat about science but I’d sure never take any of the douche brigade as being scientists. If they weren’t being internet wankers over atheism/faith they’d find some other topic. Like you said, it’s the people, not the belief system. It’s just another example of People Being Wrong On The Internet, isn’t it?
I’ve seen so many squabbles about whether atheism means a positive statement of “I believe there is no god(s)” or “I don’t believe in god(s)” or whatever, mostly in comment threads in the local paper, which has an occasional column called Godless Gross (Gross being the name of the guy who writes it). He gets attacked by his own readers often enough for not being atheist enough, ie. not hating on every last thing about religion, or feeling a strong, if ambivalent, comfort in the rituals of his own background (he’s Jewish). Somehow I don’t imagine they go round carrying on like this in their daily lives, though; it’s a concentrated setting, like any internet forum, isn’t it? But oy, it’s off-putting. The rest of the time they argue endlessly about interpreting the Bible, not least with one bod who’s dead keen on that interpretation – can’t recall the name, starts with P? – where absolutely everything is some sort of complicated metaphor, or whether agnostics are Traitors to the Cause. ::rolls eyes::
Yeah, re copying, cloning, downloading, whatever – never taken any interest in much of it, but the idea of cloning squicks me out. People who get their pets cloned … I look and think, physically identical copy, but that kitty (for instance) would not be my Katie. If nothing else, she wouldn’t have the same life experiences that influenced Katie’s personality.
@Falconer – I can’t remember which thread it was, either! It was a few weeks back. Gosh, I might have to read some old threads, what a blow. Pecunium’s answer was, in essence, that either there’s no relationship, in which case Mr K’s consent isn’t an issue, or there is, in which case it can be safely assumed.
@thenat – oh gods, that’s horrible! Poor child, and your poor friend! Internet hugs if you want them. 🙁 And ditto especially to what Falconer said, vent as much as you like, it’s a totally shitty situation. Hugs again.
@ellex – nope, just the opposite! I totally do not believe in reincarnation and never have. In fact it’s among the list of beliefs that I really do dislike. No, for me life goes on after we’ve finished with this body; we don’t graduate from high school and go back to kinder. (Hmm, come to think of it, that might be the ideal process for some of our trolls … I’d like to see them shoved back into a literal sandpit right now.) The world of Spirit to me is every bit as corporeal in its way as ours is, hence all the stuff I talk about in the blog (merci beaucoup for taking a look, btw). Louis’s presence here is simply him in Spirit. He’s himself, nobody else. I like a quote I read once: when Creator Spirit gives us the gift of individuality, it always gets it right first time.
Anyway how could humans all manage to reincarnate as kitties eventually? It’s too high a bar.
“Person who does strange things to flowers” ROFL! And yeah, I’m pretty much with Pratchett, I think we make our own afterlife to some degree.
@BlackBloc – I tend to the “more things in heaven and earth” feeling regarding souls. I’m happy to go with my own interpretation of my own experiences, rather than what science may say about things that don’t really seem to be in its remit. Again, at worst it boils down to what adds value to my life, and the beliefs I have developed over the last few years win hands down over my former atheistishy ones. Of course there’s also the fact that scientists are not automatically atheist, which kinda rules out the false hard-and-fast distinction non-scientists of whatever stripe (atheist or Christian creationist, for example) like to create.
>>Of course there’s also the fact that scientists are not automatically atheist
The jump is from about 10% of the general population in the USA to about 80% for American scientists, according to most polls on the subject, and that’s not even considering that a larger than usual proportion of the rest tend towards religious philosophies like Taoism or Buddhism, or that their Christianity/Judaism/Islamism is usually more likely to be on the quasi-Deist end of the spectrum than on the Personal God end, unlike the general population. Considering the strong social pressures to adopt a form of theistic religion in contemporary society, I think that those numbers say a lot.
And I live in a province where the general population of atheists is estimated roughly around 30-40%, nevermind how much more likely it is for scientists to be… I’m not trying to be smug, I just genuinely cannot relate to people who don’t seem to see monism (and, from corollary, philosophical materialism) as an evidence. It’s completely outside of my realm of experience.
*high-fives Kitteh*
BlackBloc – just saying the US and Canada aren’t the world. 🙂
And my experience/beliefs have gone from essentially materialistic to not-so; deism is as close as anything to describing my feelings these days, I’ve never believed in an interventionist god*. Being unable to relate to someone’s experience is not, itself, an argument for anything. I can’t relate to someone acting on feelings of primary sexual attraction to lots of people. That doesn’t invalidate their experience. (Crummy analogy, no doubt, just the first one I could think of.)
Thing is, this isn’t about organised religion, with which I have LOTS of trouble because of social control issues, ingrained sexism, you name it. This is about a person’s inner life, and that’s not for anyone else to try to demolish (not meaning you or anyone else here is trying that). There’s simply no clash, for me, between what the sciences say about this world and believing in the next. For that matter … I don’t really care about the philosophy of it all. It’s just so not an area I’m interested in. I’m past needing a Theory To Explain Everything.
*that would mean expecting Ceiling Cat to wake up – blasphemy!
@The Kittehs’
You just reminded me of my favorite love song with that.
New Off-Topic Topic!
So, I work for a media organization that gets in a large number of books for review; these are then sorted to go to the public library, or to an in-house charity fundraiser. By me. This, of course, means I get a great many books passing through my fingers, and, when the work day is less than frantic, may even get the opportunity to lightly peruse them to see their contents.
Today’s lot included Can Onions Cure Earache? Medical advice from 1769. As I also do a fair bit of role-playing in quasi-historical settings, this sort of thing tends to catch my eye. The book is based on William Buchan’s Domestic Medicine, at the time so great and widely praised a resource that it actually is one of the things Fletcher Christian and the other HMS Bounty mutineers grabbed to take with them.
And so I naturally flipped through it. As expected, it contains some advice that is frighteningly dangerous, and other bits that are surprisingly solid (especially in terms of basic diet and health). And then I run across this passage:
Now, obviously, there’s a fair bit in there that’s pretty problematic (though the bit about women desiring to know more about stuff that men value them for knowing is actually a pretty solid description of a known effect of patriarchy, for that matter). But even WITH that, the author still understood the notion that men need to take an equal and active interest (at least) in child-rearing, and that failing to do so was falling down on the job.
Which means that every. Last. Damned. MRA. Fuckwit. Who insists that men shouldn’t be held responsible for their unwanted children is pretty much 240 years behind the times.
@CassandraSays
I wonder if maybe it depends what age range they’re aiming it toward? I’ve seen a few steamier k-pop videos:
Although admittedly that second one stops short of a kiss at the end.
Freemage – that’s a fascinating quotation. Not the first time I’ve seen things written by men centuries ago that have more progressive attitudes (not just within cultural contexts, but straight out) than those of the MRM.
Hey, when did those Like buttons appear? :O
Whoa. Like buttons. Groovy.
Wait, now they’re gone as suddenly as Kittehs’ develops ninja-tude.
Kittehs’ – Oh, I see! I had assumed reincarnation since you write in your blog about remembering things, and didn’t notice the astral travel tag. *facepalm* And those posts make much more sense now.
I did want to say that the sense of peacefulness and contentedness in those posts is simply extraordinary. I’ve bookmarked your blog for further reading.
I had someone tell me once, while discussing the possibility of reincarnation, that they thought that this was not only the first life in which I’d been human (assuming that being human is not necessarily the apex lifeform), but that this was the first life I’d lived on this planet.
I rather liked that idea.
But I’m open to lots of different ideas. No one belief system has ever struck me as the “right” one. The only thing I can point to that really puts me off is the omnipotent, omniscient God of the major Christian religions. I find it a truly frightening and disturbing concept, although the (sadly often lost) community support oriented purpose of organized religion is well worth supporting.
I admit to being a real life troll when it comes to people knocking on my door in order to proselytize. I like to grab the nearest cat and introduce him as my deity of choice.
FYI, tea is really gross when you snort it out through your nose.
One of the various things that bugs me about reincarnation is that (at least what I’ve seen of it) does posit humans as the highest earthly lifeform, and I’ve read claims of animals being unhappy at not being human! Which pisses me off hugely for all sorts of reasons, evolutionary and otherwise. On a gut level, when people would sometimes ask if they thought I was reincarnated (as in, had been with Louis in his earthly days) it felt like “Hello, thanks for saying I fucked up so massively, that’s really nice” with a side order of hating the idea that any deity could be so cruel as to make him go through another earthly life after what he endured.
One interesting idea I read in a book called The Risen is that you can choose to have a reincarnation experience – but it’s not literally being reborn in an earthly body, it’s all happening in Spirit. Not something I’d be trying, my need for novelty doesn’t stretch that far, lol.
Hope you enjoy the blog! I really have to pull my finger out and do some more posts. There’s a long weekend coming, maybe I’ll catch up then … ::sounds of oinking from overhead::
@AMorgan:
I found that some of the most horrible comments were not from the Spearhead at all, but from the site where the photoessay itself was published, with commentary from people, who, judging by their handles, were probably women themselves, engaged in the most vitriolic, victim-blaming rhetoric that could easily hold its own against the most seasoned of MRAs.
Keep in mind that just as there are men who are feminists, there are women who are MRAs and/or misogynistic–and women blaming women (for rape, for domestic violence, for just about everything) is common. Horrible, but completely common. I gather that some part of it is a variant of magical thinking: i.e. “if I can persuade myself that only bitches/sluts/tramps/evil women are treated horribly, then I can be sure I am never treated horribly by NOT being a b/s/t/ew” type of thinking.
I never read the comments on the sites David links to (in fact, I never read the sites David links to–that’s my own self-protection against burnout and rage that can too often turn inward into depression.)
@Argenti Aertheri: Who put gay white men in charge of the GLBT movement anyways? Gay cis white men as far as I recall…..*sigh* **offers internet hugs if they’re welcome**
@thenatfantastic: I’m so sorry to hear about your friend’s daughter. **offers internet hugs**
Oh, ellex – you could always tell doorknockers you believe in reintarnation.
Kittehs’ – ROFLpaws!
Fortunately, I had just swallowed a potato chip when I looked at that picture, because that would be kinda painful to snort out of my nose. Unfortunately, neither Tigwell nor Rory is the kind of cat that would be willing to play dress-up, and Toby, who was very patient about wearing dolls clothes, is long gone.
I’m not too pleased with the traditional forms of reincarnation, either. My mother and I often remark that a true reward would be coming back as someone’s beloved pet. But I’ve spoken to many people who view reincarnation as something less humanocentric (is that a word?) and less judgemental than the traditional forms. You come back if you want to come back. Maybe there’s a place to go in between lives, or maybe there isn’t. There’s nothing wrong with being a human, or a cat, or an ant. Maybe ants lead wonderful, fulfilling lives!
I don’t like people trying to pin these things down and make up rules for it, or telling other people “this is the way it is and anything else is wrong”. None of it provable or measurable. Why can’t I believe in reincarnation today and the afterlife tomorrow? Why can’t I believe in both at once?
I also strongly dislike this notion of some kind of judgement at the end of one’s life. Who is judging, and by what standards? So the idea of life just continuing on in one form or another, without judgement, without tiers of achievement (Life is not a board game…oh wait, yes it is), is very attractive to me. I like the idea that it’s about the vast wealth and opportunity of experience that multiple lives offer.
But tomorrow I may be pondering the best way to organize the nine circles of hell when I get there. Or imagining that I will arrive at the pearly gates and be told “We’ve been waiting for you – we need someone to get this place in order”.
@ellex24
When my sister became an atheist Mormon* in high school, the missionaries who came over asked me to join them and they promised that they would respect my non-beliefs. They finished the first session by telling me to pray to the God I didn’t believe in while believing and then I would know their religion is true. To this day, I am sorry I didn’t offer them the deal that I’d do that if they prayed to the turtle (tortoise?) from Stephen King’s It while believing and let me know what his answer was. I mean, if we are just going to start believing in things and then go looking for confirmation, why not start with that turtle? He was pretty smart.
I just held my tongue and never returned.
*She “converted” because her friends were Mormon and she wanted to do Mormon social things with them. She has been baptised for the dead, though, so that is neat. Her “conversion” was evidently real enough for the bishop who is supposed to be running these things by God.
ellex – I feel much the same way about many of those things! I don’t see reincarnation as a happenin’ thing, but the reincarnation experience across the veil would certainly work the same way. And yeah, coming back as a kitty, or at least, one of my own kitties, would be a reward, lol.
I also think of the life to come as a continuation, a chance to heal and learn and expand. I don’t think of a judgemental deity at all (well … Ceiling Cat, maybe) but I do think people are likely to do a lot of self-improvement once self-awareness kicks in, and from what I gather it takes a bit of an effort to keep your blinkers on once you’ve crossed.
On life as a board game … YES IT IS and cats still jump on the board and chuck the pieces everywhere.
How on earth can you just turn belief on, like a switch? Weird.
I cannot abide that baptism of the dead thing. The sheer presumption of it (and no, I don’t think it can affect those who’ve passed) infuriates me. It’s not that long ago Mormon men were pretending that baptising famous women – Cleopatra, for instance – would force those women to be their
slaveswives in the afterlife.I posted a warning on HP in an article about this: any Mormon who still hangs on to those beliefs after they’ve crossed had better not come near Mr K’s and my house, because if they do, they will get a bucket of cat piss to the face.
@The Kittehs’
I meant “neat” in the “so she has got some stories” sense not at all that I think the practice is at all okay. I find it appalling, but I find a lot about Mormonism appalling so I tried to leave that out if my missionary story because I think the “we’ll respect your beliefs, but you have to believe in ours” is appalling enough.
I can believe in five impossible and contradictory things before breakfast. But Belief, as in Faith, is different story. I don’t think faith can be turned on and off voluntarily. People who tell me to “just have faith” in whatever deity they’re selling me worry and irritate me.
How can you baptize someone who is already dead? Wouldn’t that violate their freedom to choose their religion? Isn’t it the height of arrogance to assume to know what someone long dead whom you’ve never even met would want, when the thing you think they would want didn’t even exist when they were alive?
Then again, I’m often saddened that the people I’ve met who claimed to be the most devout have also been some of the most arrogant, insensitive and un-self-aware people I’ve ever met. I’ve also met some truly wonderful people who had an amazing ability to have faith in their deity, but they actually understood the concept of humility.
@ellex24
The flippantish version is that they Baptiste a living person in the dead person’s name and then some functionary in Heaven heads out to the waiting room and asks the dead person if they want to accept it. They keep trying to do it to poor Anne Frank, which makes my blood boil. (And I don’t believe anything happens directly from it or that Anne Frank knows. I believe she is just gone, but people remember her and that is important as is how.)
FWIW, there are missionaries in Heaven so if the Mormons are right, we might never escape them. The Kittehs’ probably has the right idea there.
* baptize
Some Gal – What an extraordinary (and frankly, ridiculous and pointless and offensive) notion.
If there are missionaries in Heaven, it ain’t Heaven. Of course, if there are no kitties in Heaven, the same holds true.
Well, that clinches it, I suppose. I’m staying here. Someone else will have to organize Heaven.
Ironically enough, that’s a faith-based rather than science or logic-based belief, given that we don’t have any way to prove that such a transfer would be possible, and we can’t check in with people who’ve been transferred to see if they’re happy about it. The whole thing is quasi-religious, which is part of why I find transhumanists so incredibly silly (if you’re going to hold religious or spiritual beliefs I’m going to have a lot more respect for you if you’re honest about it, with yourself as well as with others).
The Mormon thing of baptizing dead people is so messed up. I mean, I’m an atheist, so I don’t think it makes any difference at all to the dead people in question, but the arrogance of it is just appalling.