Has the #MeToo movement become a witch-hunt to a significant degree?

[Xantippe]

Wasn’t saying that. I was saying that if your being a man makes you sufficiently different that whether or not you’d be willing to live under the system designed for women has no bearing on whether it’s suitable for women, then you don’t know enough about women to be able to tell if a system is actually suitable for women.

Right.

It’s also a big problem that it’s a system that the designers would never agree to live under themselves.

Like a dinner that the cook won’t eat, this should be very suspicious.

It would be fairly obvious that women know what it’s like to be a woman much better than men know what it’s like to be a woman. If a large number of women are saying they’re unhappy under a specific system, that system doesn’t suddenly become good for women because men want it.

Exactly.

(Or because men exaggerate what women are actually saying and then complain that women don’t desire an over-the-top pastiche of what they said they want.)

Yes. I’m not very impressed with the manospherean style of argument that depends on finding the silliest and worst female writers possible and then assuming that they speak for all women, everywhere.

And if anybody wants to know what I personally want–I value fairness and respect and I get it. Fairness and respect are two things that the manosphere is never, ever willing to offer women.

 

[Rozellelily]

@harrystotle,

I sympathise with you that it can be hard to not follow the crowd when it comes to issues where it’s unpopular now to hold certain views due to the current social narrative-eg:voting against gay marriage.
It’s something I struggle with often as on one hand I want to agree with what God says,but then on the other hand I don’t want people to dislike me,or form negative impression of me,think I’m a hater or a bigot etc.
It’s probably something quite a few people here in Australia struggle with as here religion (all types) and religious views are quite unpopular and most people don’t like talking about religion and it isn’t talked about in everyday life unlike in America.

I’m not sure though what this has to do with the Metoo movement or cosmetics though?

 

[TheAmazingGrace]

Wasn’t saying that. I was saying that if your being a man makes you sufficiently different that whether or not you’d be willing to live under the system designed for women has no bearing on whether it’s suitable for women, then you don’t know enough about women to be able to tell if a system is actually suitable for women.

I’ve read quite a few posts from Return of Kings (one of the most well-known MRA garbage chutes), and empathy seems to be a foreign concept to most of the people on that site.

 

[DarkLight]

The problem is that certain people get the idea that men and women are fundamentally different creatures, such that what’s good for a man would be miserable for a woman, and vice versa. By itself that wouldn’t be so bad, but it’s often combined with the idea that women can’t be trusted to know what they actually want. So it’s up to men to tell women what’s good for women, but whether it would work for them if they were women isn’t a fair question and what women say isn’t relevant.

 

[Xantippe]

There are just as many pitfalls and opportunities for self-deception in “I’m just seeking your good!” as there are to empathy. I’d argue that “this is for your own good!” is liable to more extreme abuse. There have been parents who literally beat children to death while thinking they were being good parents. Meanwhile, a more empathetic parent would stop well before that point.

Again, I recommend a combination of empathy and good principles. Either one is not adequate.

A person merely needs a deep understanding of the truth of what it means to be, themselves, decently human in order to project that outwards onto others without malice. Absent that understanding, empathy becomes unmoored from reality.

Isn’t that more or less what I said? Good principles + empathy = decency. (You’re sneaking in empathy via “decently human.”)

People who are, themselves, so afraid of or averse to suffering will indulge in “mercy” killing and aborting their babies out of “empathy.”

And likewise people march in pro-life demonstrations and vote pro-life because of empathy.

Ditto charity–the amount of charitable giving motivated by right thinking has got to be dwarfed by giving motivated by right feeling.

You don’t need empathy to realize what the good is for a human being. Logic dictates treating like things alike. There is no need for empathic feelings, these can often cloud a clear sense of what is the definitive good.

Empathy is often the engine that enables us to do good and avoid evil.

Empathy is very important in the Bible, especially in the person of Jesus. Consider the death of Lazarus in John 11:

“When Jesus saw [Mary] weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled; 34 and he said, “Where have you laid him?””

That’s empathy.

I’d also point you to C.S. Lewis’s Abolition of Man, which is about the modern destruction of feeling in favor of “logic”. What you are recommending is a sort of Christian version of what the “scientific” midcentury educators C.S. Lewis disliked were doing.

"For every one pupil who needs to be guarded against a weak excess of sensibility there are three who need to be awakened from the slumber of cold vulgarity. The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts. The right defence against false sentiments is to inculcate just sentiments. By starving the sensibility of our pupils we only make them easier prey to the propagandist when he comes. For famished nature will be avenged and a hard heart is no infallible protection against a soft head.”

“No justification of virtue will enable a man to be virtuous. Without the aid of trained emotions the intellect is powerless against the animal organism.”

"It is not excess of thought but defect of fertile and generous emotion that marks them out. Their heads are no bigger than the ordinary: it is the atrophy of the chest beneath that makes them seem so.”

The Abolition of Man Quotes by C.S. Lewis

155 quotes from The Abolition of Man: ‘We make men without chests and expect from them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find t...

www.goodreads.com

 

[DarkLight]

While we’re on C.S. Lewis:

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”

 

[Xantippe]

The problem is that certain people get the idea that men and women are fundamentally different creatures, such that what’s good for a man would be miserable for a woman, and vice versa. By itself that wouldn’t be so bad, but it’s often combined with the idea that women can’t be trusted to know what they actually want. So it’s up to men to tell women what’s good for women, but whether it would work for them if they were women isn’t a fair question and what women say isn’t relevant.

Very good.

Yes, the manospherean vision is that men need to dominate and women need to be dominated, and that’s what makes each happiest (or at least women–I’m not sure if men are supposed to enjoy it). Meanwhile, in the real world, there are men who find (or would find) 24/7 domination a miserable chore, and women who want respect and fairness in everyday life.

Also, contra the manosphere, there’s not necessarily a strong correlation between daytime and nighttime dynamics between a couple. C.S. Lewis (I know! It’s C.S. Lewis night!) says in The Four Loves:

“We should be much mistaken if we supposed that those marriages where this mastery is most asserted and acknowledged in the act of Venus were those where the husband is most likely to be dominant in the married life as a whole; the reverse is perhaps more probable.”

It is a big problem that manosphereans refuse to accept any contradictory (name removed by moderator)ut as to what women actually like or want. If Red Pill guys are 100% right, I guess that’s OK, but if they’re wrong (or even a little wrong), there’s no safety valve, no mechanism for course correction, because they teach each other to ignore everything women say.

 

[Xantippe]

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

I was thinking of that quote!

Note that empathy is a safeguard against the do-gooding tyranny C.S. Lewis describes.

 

[HarryStotle]

DarkLight:

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

I was thinking of that quote!

Note that empathy is a safeguard against the do-gooding tyranny C.S. Lewis describes.

Empathy is often a proponent of the tyranny that Lewis is describing.

This is the difference between empathy and compassion. Compassion will lead someone to “suffer with” another because there is no defined aversion to suffering. With empathy there is no such proclivity nor any inherent depth to the moral sense – the “good” for the other is defined by an absence of suffering. That could be a good thing where suffering is unnecessary or gratuitous, but often suffering is an aspect of being. So empathy, lacking any foresight or intuition for the good will endeavor to stop suffering, any suffering, as part of its “morality.”

Abortion, for example, has gained the traction it has precisely because people have nothing but ‘empathy’ for women who bear the burden of caring for the child, so those who feel empathy and cannot bear to see others shouldered with burdens will move to remove those burdens by imposing an immoral option upon what is a determinably clear moral decision – you do not kill another innocent human being.

Today, some political parties – Liberals in Canada, Dems in the States – have moved to making pro-life verboten in their respective platforms. This is what Lewis was speaking of, because “our moral good” is reduced to an absence of suffering or being inconvenienced.

There is no adequate moral system to be imposed, because morality, with its obligations and rules is all seen as tyrannical. Feelings is everything and righting wrongs is reduced to removing all bad feelings. We are seeing the tyranny of moral relativity, with empathy as the rallying cry, in modern society and this was predicted by Lewis.

You cannot get more “empathic” than a feminist male who turns over all capacity for making sound judgements to “feeling for” the plights of others. Political correctness is founded upon empathy and you cannot get more tyrannical than the imposition of PC directives.

This is why you never hear the word compassion, in modern empathic parlance. Suffering with someone is too difficult. We have empathy for them but never enter into the depths of their situation, we just ‘feel for’ them and advocate that all sources of suffering are removed by hook or crook regardless of their cause. This is why victim status is at the top of the moral hierarchy. Those are the ones who have suffered and suffering is always intolerable, so we have to go after the perpetrators.

 

[Xantippe]

Empathy is often a proponent of the tyranny that Lewis is describing.

Yes, but if the perpetrator actually had empathy for the victim they were oppressing, they wouldn’t do it. They’d see the victim’s suffering and stop.

Interestingly, the treatment of children has improved significantly since 1990, at the same time that empathy has become increasingly valued.

https://www.childtrends.org/indicators/child-maltreatment

“The rate of substantiated child maltreatment, as of 2014, has shown little change over the past five years, though it is significantly lower than in 1990. The rates of physical, sexual, and psychological or emotional abuse have declined the most since 2000, while rates of neglect have declined the least.”

And it’s definitely not the case that the US public is less concerned about child welfare than 30 years ago–if anything standards of parenting for children are way up, so people may be reporting activities that would have been acceptable in the 1980s.

Compassion will lead someone to “suffer with” another because there is no defined aversion to suffering.

Are you sure you haven’t reversed empathy and compassion? I would normally say that empathy is more passive, while compassion is more interested in actively relieving suffering.

Compassion - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The first line of the wikipedia article highlights the active nature of compassion.

Abortion, for example, has gained the traction it has precisely because people have nothing but ‘empathy’ for women who bear the burden of caring for the child, so those who feel empathy and cannot bear to see others shouldered with burdens will move to remove those burdens by imposing an immoral option upon what is a determinably clear moral decision – you do not kill another innocent human being.

Meanwhile, the US abortion rate is at its lowest level since legalization in 1973, with half the rate seen in 1980.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/01/17/509734620/u-s-abortion-rate-falls-to-lowest-level-since-roe-v-wade

So, I would ask, is it clear that surging support for empathy is closely tied with a high abortion rate? Apparently not.

We are seeing the tyranny of moral relativity, with empathy as the rallying cry, in modern society and this was predicted by Lewis.

Which is why we need well-ordered emotions, rather than no emotions at all.

Political correctness is founded upon empathy and you cannot get more tyrannical than the imposition of PC directives.

Don’t people like that often show a lack of empathy?

Those are the ones who have suffered and suffering is always intolerable, so we have to go after the perpetrators.

There’s a lot to say for that approach (if it’s focused on actual perpetrators), rather than going after random scapegoats (see Parkland) or (some people’s favorite) punishing victims.

 

[Xantippe]

Also, come to think of it, the Golden Rule is pretty explicitly grounded in empathy: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. It’s about putting yourself in the other person’s shoes (or sandals!) and thinking–how would I feel if the other person did this thing to me?

And that’s one of my objections to the “Christian” Red Pill: it’s a huge ongoing violation of the Golden Rule to be treating women in a way that would be regarded as an outrage if it were imposed on oneself.

 

[TheAmazingGrace]

And that’s one of my objections to the “Christian” Red Pill: it’s a huge ongoing violation of the Golden Rule to be treating women in a way that would be regarded as an outrage if it were imposed on oneself.

Ah, but see, the Golden Rule only really applies with regard to how we treat other people, and I’m pretty sure most Red Pill types don’t think of women as people. The guys on RoK love to use animal terminology when talking about women: even “good” women (re: submissive sex kittens cum housekeepers) are coded as “unicorns.”

 

[HarryStotle]

Interestingly, the treatment of children has improved significantly since 1990, at the same time that empathy has become increasingly valued.
…
The rates of physical, sexual, and psychological or emotional abuse have declined the most since 2000, while rates of neglect have declined the least."

Yes, and we have raised several generations of entitled snowflakes who, because of their intolerance of “suffering” even a whiff of emotional distress are choosing to not have children because they cannot bear the thought that their children will face a world with suffering as an aspect inherent within it.

Perhaps a little exposure to real pain and natural painful consequences would have toughened these generations sufficiently that they could face and bear the burden of life in the face of moral challenges instead of working to build a sterile and safe utopia without any need for courage, steadfastness, virtue or any moral character, whatsoever.

And it’s definitely not the case that the US public is less concerned about child welfare than 30 years ago–if anything standards of parenting for children are way up, so people may be reporting activities that would have been acceptable in the 1980s.

Oh sure, the US public is more vocal about its concern for child welfare but that doesn’t translate into actually caring more about child welfare. There is a difference between reducing outright child abuse and actually doing the things that benefit children in the long term.

The current trajectory of “concern” for children actually means aborting them on demand, selling their body parts for research, euthanizing them when they show the first sign of distress, not having children to begin with because they are too much of an inconvenience to one’s lifestyle, promoting “marriage” and the benefits of it as a committed dyad relationship completely ignoring that children are integral to marriage because marriage is primarily about family and the continuity of humankind… uh, peoplekind…, neglecting their interests in divorce settlements, generally treating them as political pawns when agendas are at stake, etc., etc. Funny how these abuses – such as dismembering children In the womb or killing them by injection – are never part of the calculus when “concern” for the welfare of children is being assessed.

Merely reducing distress, via empathy, for the children that do survive one’s stated political objectives, isn’t the same thing as promoting the actual good for children (or humanity) on the whole over the long run. Merely relieving pain or suffering for everyone doesn’t mean promoting the actual well-being, especially when it removes virtues of courage, long suffering and consistency of character from the equation. We could just give everyone a lethal happy pill and be done with the whole endeavor – and thus relieve a whole lot of pain and suffering as a consequence, but that doesn’t entail anything about what is the actual good for those who have been dispatched to their eternal resting place, does it?

 

[Xantippe]

Perhaps a little exposure to real pain and natural painful consequences would have toughened these generations sufficiently that they could face and bear the burden of life in the face of moral challenges instead of working to build a sterile and safe utopia without any need for courage, steadfastness, virtue or any moral character, whatsoever.

Do you think StarshipTrooper is a snowflake?

Oh sure, the US public is more vocal about its concern for child welfare but that doesn’t translate into actually caring more about child welfare. There is a difference between reducing outright child abuse and actually doing the things that benefit children in the long term.

I’m pretty sure that reducing child abuse improves long-term well-being.

The current trajectory of “concern” for children actually means aborting them on demand,

We’ve already demonstrated that abortion is way, way down from 1980, and even slightly lower than in 1973.

Merely reducing distress, via empathy, for the children that do survive one’s stated political objectives, isn’t the same thing as promoting the actual good for children (or humanity) on the whole over the long run.

I don’t believe that people who want to cause pain to children ought to be trusted to have their long-term interests at heart.

 

[TheAmazingGrace]

Perhaps a little exposure to real pain and natural painful consequences would have toughened these generations sufficiently that they could face and bear the burden of life in the face of moral challenges instead of working to build a sterile and safe utopia without any need for courage, steadfastness, virtue or any moral character, whatsoever.

What generations?

 

[HarryStotle]

I don’t believe that people who want to cause pain to children ought to be trusted to have their long-term interests at heart.

And neither should those who want to shelter children from pain or suffering be trusted to “have their long-term interests at heart.” The development of moral character means the capacity to act in the face of pain and suffering. Sheltering human beings from reality does not magically bring about “long-term interests.”

 

[TheAmazingGrace]

And neither should those who want to shelter children from pain or suffering

Define “shelter.”

 

[Xantippe]

I have to say that my mom hit me a lot (breaking wooden spoons and spatulas on me and my sister when we were tweens and teens and occasionally whacking us with a horse whip), and it’s pretty clear in retrospect that those experiences made me a worse person and made it harder for me to be a good wife to my husband.

Part of the problem is that my mom had a black-and-white obedience-centered parenting approach, and she just couldn’t deal with any backtalk or resistance from us girls when we were tweens and teens (i.e. completely expected and developmentally appropriate behavior). She did not have the mental resources to deal with adolescents. As a result, I reached adulthood and marriage, having no idea of how one resolves differences peacefully and amicably or how one goes about getting people to do things that they don’t want to without being terrible. (There’s a book called The Explosive Child that has a lot of good ideas on how to do this stuff.) Although I came out of my family of origin as stoic as any Roman, it was poor preparation for either marriage or parenthood. (My mother was also, not coincidentally, from a very abusive home.)

I think you are underestimating how damaging abuse can be to the future adult or the multi-generational dimension of abuse.

 

[Xantippe]

And neither should those who want to shelter children from pain or suffering be trusted to “have their long-term interests at heart.”

Pain and suffering comes pretty naturally as part of the human condition.

It’s not necessary to generate it artificially.

 

[HarryStotle]

What generations?

The ones preoccupied with microagresssions, having safe spaces and not having children?

More Women Aren't Having Children, Survey Finds

Nearly half of women between 15 and 44 are childless

time.com