Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!jarthur!ucivax!gateway From: cedman@lynx.ps.UCI.EDU (Carl Edman) Newsgroups: soc.feminism Subject: Re: Feminism's ill effects on men? Message-ID: <9010162133.aa22810@orion.oac.uci.edu> Date: 17 Oct 90 14:57:34 GMT References: <9009122207.AA10780@houston.cs.columbia.edu> <653402616@lear.cs.duke.edu> <7094@darkstar.ucsc.edu> <17595@oolong.la.locus.com> Organization: non serviam Lines: 45 Approved: tittle@ics.uci.edu Nntp-Posting-Host: alexandre-dumas.ics.uci.edu In article kaveh@ms.uky.edu (Kaveh Baharestan) writes: judy@altair.la.locus.com (Judy Leedom Tyrer) writes: >There is a strong tendency among some feminists to blame men for everything >that they don't like about our society while giving them no credit for >anything right. That's because so little is right. And what is is generally an accident. Yes, it is very chic to blame all terrible things which have happened on men. It is not without ground as most terrible and criminal acts throughout history were committed by men. So some people deduce from this that all men are basically barbaric , uncivilized, brutal, stupid and generally inferior. One thing these people fail to see is that most good things which have been done in history were done by DWM (dead white males). I could now write down a list of 200 DWMs who have created more beautiful things , had sharper minds, and greater energy than almost all people who ever lived, but as everybody could do that for himself , I restrain myself. But from this it can be concluded that white males are generally superior than everybody else and deserve to be treated as such and granted preference in all things. Both of these arguments are, of course, equal fallacies. And , ironically, the same fallacy that those who use them are most prone of accusing others of: Ignoring social circumstance. By mechanisms which I needn't go into here, and pure chance it happened that this group came into a situation were it's actions had far wider reaching consequences (and stronger consequences in this time and place) than any other group, so every act tends to be seen as larger. I have no doubt that any other group which you care to define sexually or ethnically would have (on average) done the same thing. So, yes, DWMs are largely responsible for the state of the world, but that is more by chance than by the fact that DWMs are so different (inferior or superior) than everybody else. Carl Edman Theorectial Physicist,N.:A physicist whose | Send mail existence is postulated, to make the numbers | to balance but who is never actually observed | cedman@golem.ps.uci.edu in the laboratory. | edmanc@uciph0.ps.uci.edu