Last edited Thu Mar 13, 2014, 05:55 AM - Edit history (1)
coincide with opposition to abortion expressed in moral terms. Economic self-interest and morality often coincide, though people are seldom aware of the connection. The same people invested in a traditional male-headed household are also likely to buy into the cultural right's notion of abortion as murder.
MRAs, I think, are another breed. Their fundamental characteristic is a pathological level of self-pity. They feel themselves complete losers in life and blame women for that. Then there is another group of men, so-called liberals who maintain a male-centered view of the body politic. I actually find them harder to tolerate than the conservatives because they exalt the absence of morality (which means the absence of social justice) as an end onto itself. Social justice is based on a sense of what is right and wrong ,and that is morality. Absent social justice, politics is a contest between elites, political parties, and interest groups, essentially a meaningless exercise.
While I am unyielding on a woman's right to make her own reproductive choices, I can at least understand a concern that abortion is taking a life. The misogyny of the libertine crowd who calls itself liberal is more troubling to me because of its fundamental dishonesty. The thing is, the two groups have virtually identical views when it comes to women's rights (except for abortion, but even then the latter doesn't care about women's choice as much as their own freedom from the responsibility of unwanted children). I can handle the conservatives better because they are honest about their opposition to feminism. The latter group has so little respect for women, that they believe themselves entitled to tell us that we aren't real feminists because we don't defer to what they want. I tend to think they don't really believe what they say because it's hard to imagine anyone so lacking in awareness that he thinks only he as a man can decide what feminism is. As I said, their positions on issues are identical to the conservatives who say they oppose feminism, only the so-called liberals seek an even greater level of control over women because they think they as men should determine which rights women can speak out for. That level of dishonesty and hypocrisy is why I cannot respect them. If they are going to advance the same views as right-wingers, they could at least be honest about it. Many of them are every bit as hostile to the voices and concerns of minority groups as well.
= new reply since forum marked as read