Devil’s Advocate

I feel like people approach the term “open minded” nowadays in much the same way they as they publicly identify with quotes of grand selflessness. More specifically, they take the idea as willing to hear, instead of willing to listen, to interact with the idea, to form logical counter-arguments or most importantly, have the heart to accept that your mind can be changed.

Here’s some quick background: I’m what many people would consider “left wing”. I’m a pacifist. I believe that David Cameron is ruling with ignorance; I believe that certain papers are selling by capitalising on prejudices and megalomania. I believe that we should be accepting refugees and putting more money into things that will make life better for the majority (NHS) than safeguarding with paranoia (Trident). And I believe, in my heart, that I am right, and that this is the recipe to being a decent human being.

But of course, I could be so grossly wrong. I’ve never been in a position of wealth and power; I’ve never been a leader, and I’m not the one who has to make difficult decisions and hide the uncertainty to assure my image remains strong willed, whatever the outcome.

Every time I discuss political and humanitarian matters with my friends and we get annoyed at the opposing views, there’s always a tiny part of my mind that says, “What if?” 99% of me is as vehemently against the latest controversial policy as my friends, but 1% of me says, “What if?” And I think it’s important that we take that 1% (for I’m sure that plenty of other people who have it too), and we extrapolate it, using it to view every possible angle and bias.

Sometimes it’s a matter of understanding why the opposing “wing” believes what they do. Are they ignorant and prejudiced, or are we stubborn and self-righteous? I certainly don’t think we are, but it surely can’t be unhealthy to consider this. Today, I saw an article on a group of students who stood up and walked out of the lecture when a controversial figure who hungers for attention (and shall therefore not be named) finished talking. And I was right there with these students, until I saw the comment, “Should have debated with her, typical students, think only their opinion maters…” And of course whilst my initial reaction was that she could not be reasoned with, I then had to stop and realise that the very core of my beliefs is that more people need to put their pride aside and talk. Walking out was a brilliant display of protest, but ultimately you’ve not taught that person anything new. In fact, you’ve probably incited them, more than anything. Closed minds twist events into something they can digest and turn against others instead of themselves.

I feel very strongly about allowing refugees into the country. They’re fleeing warzones, and it is our duty as fellow humans – of no nation but one world – to shelter those in need as best we can. I think that keeping them all out due to the potential danger of terrorists hiding among them would be to fall prey to the very nature of terrorism: spreading fear, disrupting all that is good in the world. But. BUT. The 1% remains.  At least some of those who want to close the borders do so not out of irrational prejudice, but legitimate caution. I’m sure that if I were put in direct danger due to the refugee situation, I’d regret my stance. It’s not something to be taken lightly.

It is something to be discussed like civilised people.

Democracy does not work when people are not heard. And it’s not just the common person who isn’t heard, it’s the government. We’re not listening to them. I abhor saying that, but look at any comments section in social media when official news sources post parliamentary matters. We behave like beasts, and whilst it’s only representative of a vocal minority in the direct sense, it’s not all that less extreme with the majority. Whilst I disagree heavily with most of what the government says and does nowadays, it’s no surprise they’re not listening when our best retorts are to call them names and form arguments on false facts and hearsay. If we truly oppose the very nature of what they are doing, we must listen closely to their side of the argument, understand why they believe how they do, and use facts and measured, in-depth discussion of universal topics such as the nature of being human to debate against them, and implore them to view events from perspectives outside their own pockets and legacies.

 

 

Let’s Talk About Feminism

The most important thing I must stress before I begin this blog post is that I am for the equality of men and women, and believe that the current state of the world weighs too heavily in the favour of man to be labelled as equal for both genders.

The one debate I always attempt to stay away from is feminism, because there it seems there is so much venomous hatred being flung at everyone involved in the discussion that I decided it simply wasn’t worth it. So bearing that in mind, the obvious first course of action to take would be to write a blog post about feminism!

As far as I’m aware, unless I’m horribly mistaken, the main cause of feminism is exactly what I put in the header of this post: the movement for equality between woman and man. And, as I’m sure anyone who has read anything within this mess of a debate is fully aware, this movement has been echoed in the worst possible way by those who think that being a feminist means to turn the prejudice towards men and hate them. For the purposes of making things easy to understand, I will be calling this group of people “feminots” for the rest of the blog post. Because that’s exactly what they are. Whilst I can’t entirely blame women for wanting to turn the tables and let men be the unfairly-treated ones for as long as we’ve been shitty ourselves, this is not equality and goes against everything the true feminist movement stands for.

The above paragraph is my personal understanding of the current state of affairs. Feel free to let me know if I’ve gotten anything wrong; as someone who tries to be as fair and level-headed as possible, you’d honestly be doing me a favour. And yes, I am tiptoeing around this subject, as it’s laced with all too many hatred-mines. (What a god-awful metaphor.) Before moving on, I’d quickly like to add that calling the feminots “feminots” is actually a terrible idea, as labelling always leads to stereotypes which leads to ignorance of individuality. It is purely for making things easier in this post.

So, what’s bothered me enough to speak out? Well, as of late I’ve heard of a video going around in which a woman walks around New York City for ten hours – check it, ten hours – and edits two minutes worth of people being sexist towards her into a video. And immediately I must state that yes, these people were ignorant and rude. (More on the sleaze-aspect of it later, it’s awful). But ten hours for two minutes seems a little excessive. If anything, walking around my home city, I’d expect to get five minutes out of two hours; far more if I was picking up on stuff not directly aimed at me. Speaking in general, there are so many different people in one city that your chances of coming across an ignorant, self-obsessed person is highly likely. This doesn’t make it right for people to be this way, but it’s the current state of society that is, if I’m not mistaken, known by most people already. To put it in simpler terms, there are always scumbags.

There are two things that anger me about the feminist debate, and yes, I’ll step on that landmine. (How could he be angry about feminism, ignorant non-progressive asshole!) The first one is that most of it, at least from what I’ve seen, is centred more around feminots (the minority) than feminists (the majority). The cloud of hatred and negativity blinds even well-doers. The swing of hatred from the feminots brings with it a backlash just as unjust from people like “Men’s Rights” (excuse me if I just insulted a domestic abuse support group, I can’t remember the actual name – I mean those who are basically for the downfall of women). True feminists then see the uprising of these men and become angry with them (rightfully so, in my opinion). And the triangle of confusion, anger and hatred continues. Mostly on Tumblr.

I won’t get started on Tumblr.

The second is how it spreads. This video, for example, about the woman in New York. I don’t know if this was filmed with honest, good-hearted intention, or whether it was feminot propaganda. What matters is the negativity in which it portrayed men via cherry picking. (Side-note: A friend rightfully pointed out I might be cherry-picking myself by bringing up this video instead of the incredibly positive Emma Watson speech.) What bothers me is this:

One time when I was fourteen or fifteen, our teacher showed us a video. It was CCTV footage of a street-corner in New York City. In this video, there was a mugging at knifepoint. A passerby decided to help and stepped in front of the knife, and was stabbed fatally; the mugger and potential victim both fled. The man then bled to death on a busy street corner, passed by too many people who just ignored the bleeding man. The amount of time it took for someone to eventually phone for an ambulance was astounding, and by the time it arrived he had died. I believe this is the news story.

While I’m sure this got some coverage at the time, it didn’t exactly go viral. This story, which raises such massive issues with the moral compass of the average human being, was rather quickly lost and humanity learned nothing from it. Yet meanwhile, this other video that has a negative message – most importantly, a skewed message, because positive intention or not this was purposefully edited out of ten hours – about men blows up. Having watched the video, I’ll admit, the harassments were sleazy and made me feel uneasy just watching. The video does raise serious issues that need to be addressed with how we treat women in this society, and that’s what the positive feminist movement is all about. The removal of ignorance; equality. But there are people – these “feminots” – who take that video and extrapolate it into fuel for their kill-all-men blog posts. And as a man who is on your side, I can’t help but feel affronted by this.

I guess my real problem isn’t about the issue itself but about the debate, and how people will go out of their way to misinterpret something to add to the steamroll of hatred that plows through the internet every single day. A movement built upon the foundations of hatred is no better than the original point in which it set out to change.

That’s just how I view things, anyway.