Bomb Throwing (of the Idea Sort)

I am a provocateur of arguments, a perceiver of personally held beliefs, the erosion of which can cause the most violent reaction, the raising of voices and blood pressure, the defense tensing of minds, the arrangement of apologetic excuses for why one side is wrong and the other right.  I think that people should not be too comfortable with themselves.  I target those most sure and certain of their own world view as it is those people whose idealism and moral high ground is despicable, a perception that there is a right way to view an issue and a wrong way to view an issue without consideration of the complexities of the general issue as well as how perspective shifts when wearing the shoes of someone else.

My wife and I recently watched the documentary called the Red Pill which explores the Men's Rights Movement on Hulu.  A local theatre has planned to screen the film in the next week, but curiosity got the best of me, and I decided to view it earlier.  I could explore in detail here the details of the film, however, I will reserve that for another day.  Rather, I wanted to point out how my recommendation of the film to a person to whom I suspected was a somewhat strong supporter of the feminist was received. 

I wouldn't call this person a friend, more of a colleague, and her viewpoints generally reflect my own viewpoints.  In most regards, I agree with her, and, even when I don't, I respect the perspective she brings because we both lean liberal.  However, while I tend to try to keep most of my liberal leanings somewhat person

l, she wears her political and social views on her shoulder, a crusader of the causes she espouses.  She is a Susan B. Anthony for the modern times, proselytizing for anyone who will listen the correctness of her viewpoints.  If only I could be as strong and certain in my convictions.

I suspect a lot of it is youth.  She is younger than me, noticeably so.  And although, I won't claim to know more than her, I can certainly claim more experience, having lived a longer life than her own.  The young always seem to have everything figured out only to discover that they very little, if nothing. 

Perhaps it is not my appointed calling to bring to bear on her the reality that one cannot understand life looking through one's own mind, analyzing life through one's own mind.  But I enjoy bringing to bear upon her that an opposing opinion to her own exists and people hold those opinions. 

I suggested that she see the Red Pill knowing that it would test her own ability to step out of her own shoes, to listen and consider a viewpoint antithetical to her own.  I anticipated that she would perhaps say that she would watch it with the hope that I would forget that I asked her.  However, she had her friend look up the movie and promptly told that she would not watch the movie because it was wrong, without even having seen a single frame of the same.  Ironically, she took on some of the characteristics of one of the feminists in the film who was so intent on pouring forth all the evils of mankind upon women that she failed to even hear what the Men's Rights Movement was about, what its platform was, and, ironically, the commonality between the movements.

I wonder how it is that as a culture that we have become so entrenched in our views that we are so scared of listening or watching material so antithetical to our viewpoints.  I also uncovered a very important principal, that nothing exists in isolation, but only has meaning in comparison or contrast in relation to other things.  This includes ideas and movements.  Feminism only means something in relation to men's rights; you can not talk about feminism without talking about the rights that men have held.  And, further, if one wants to speak to the manner in which women have unfairly been treated, one can not leave out those concerns of unfair treatment of men.

For my colleague and a lot of feminists, men and women rights require a balancing act, throwing upon the opposite sides of scale those advantages held by the sexes and discovering which side weighs heavier.  But like many other ethnic, gender, and cultural groups, a scale is an inappropriate measure for deciding the right or wrong for individual issues.  Gender issues do not become a tit for tat game because genders are not the same.  Certain male issues are not female issues.  Prostrate cancer is killer of men.  Funding for a cure for it should not impact funding for a cure breast cancer, a cancer mostly effecting women, and, indisputably more funded than the search for a cure to prostrate cancer. 

There are a number of statistics which show that men suffer in certain areas in greater amounts than women.  The general control of men, (and probable this should be limited to a certain type of kind of male), does not alter the effect that men suffer in these areas and whose voices should not be silenced simply for the fact that they are men.  I wondered whether my colleague's husband has ever suffered from the issues discussed in the Red Pill, and how might she address that issue with him when he comes to her about the issue.  Or would he be to scared or proud to even to approach her.

At the root of the problem is our inability as a society to engage in dialogue.  You can't hear the other side of the coin without stopping to open your ears. 

Just a thought.