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SacrificialGlory
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Name: Sean
Gender: Male
Interests: Criminology, Stand-up Comedy, Books, Talk Radio, Remembering how to speak Spanish
Expertise: Being sarcastic, silly, and occasionally sexy.
Occupation: Student
Message: message me
Member Since:
11/25/2003
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| I felt compelled to post this excerpt from Larry Elder's book, The Ten Things You Can't Say in America. It is about the issue of abortion and the hypocrisy of both parties in regards to it. Enjoy.
"Neither party truly believes in maximum personal and financial freedom. Neither side comes to the argument with clean hands. How dare the government, say the Republicans, tell a businessman what to do. But it's perfectly O.K. for some pro-lifers to demand that government require a woman carry her unborn to term, no matter her financial situation, physical condition, ability and maturity, or, for some, whether the pregnancy resulted from incest or rape.
Democrats condemn the "Republican right wing" for holding that party hostage to its "pro-life zealots." But the same party ruthlessly condemns those who oppose affirmative action, campus speech codes, and hate crime legislation which requires delving into the private thoughts and opinions of the suspect.
My own view? Abortion remains the nation's most vexing issue since slavery. It is part religious, part spiritual, and part moral. I don't know the answer to the "question" of abortion. But neither does the government!
To those who dislike abortion, I say this: If you are opposed, don't have one.
And to the mostly pro-choice Democrats, I say this: Did you stand up when the government passed laws requiring motorcycle helmets, laws requiring seatbelt use, laws requiring smoke detectors, child safety locks on guns? Did you cheer when the government seized 50 percent of the country's health care business? Did you high-five as the government successfully weakened legal business like the gun industry and the tobacco industry? If you did nothing, or cheered as the government seized rights and property, then you invited, indeed encouraged, the government to injet itself in the issue of abortion. Next time you wish to complain, seek out the nearest mirror."
<3
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| "What's your addiction: is it money, is it girls, is it weed? /
I've been afflicted by not one, not two, but all three."
Kanye West - Addiction
Definitely an interesting song. In it, West asks the age-old question, "Why does everything that's supposed to be bad make [him] feel so good?" He talks about addiction and the ways in which it can cause one to spiral morally until a point where they're having an affair, drinking, smoking marijuana, doing cocaine, and pressuring their partner into having a three-some with that "one" friend. There is a hint of satire throughout the song, as if West knows that what he's saying doesn't happen often, but at the same time the listener hears reflection in his voice, hinting that West knows from experience that it can happen.
I'm here to reverse a part of his song, and ask the question, "Is everything that makes you feel good supposed to be bad?" I think most people can easily say no to that question. Winning a race can make you feel good, and it certainly isn't bad. But I think a lot of people construct categories in their mind of what is "good" and what is "bad". Most of this is done in the theoretical.
Becoming a lawyer is "good," whereas smoking marijuana is "bad." But are these categorizations fair? I would argue that they are not. A lawyer can become a work-a-holic that neglects his wife, his kids, and creates destructive distance between he and his family. It can create arrogance, materialism, lust, and so many other things, but nobody ever thinks of them. Being a lawyer is good. That's it. Period. However, there is a huge difference between our socially constructed ideals and reality. Reality shows us that people are individuals, that they react dynamically and uniquely. Society tells us that they are not and do not.
There's a funny joke about men sometimes told by women. "Men are like fine wine. They all start out like grapes, and it's our job to
stomp on them and keep them in the dark until they mature into something with which you'd like to have dinner with."
It tears me apart that the person I love the most would want to stomp me without explanation, without justification.
Be honest to everyone, but especially to yourself. Reality is good.
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| As men we were taught to hold it in /
That's why we don't know how 'til we older men /
If love is a place I'ma go again /
At least now, now I know to go within.
Common - Love Is
Men internalize most things. From a young age, we are told not to cry, not to show weakness; to do so is girly, feminine, and ultimately undesirable. This is the reality of every male's situation. Show emotions beyond anger, mild happiness, or neutrality, and you break some sort of masculine code. This code is hardly ever verbalized, but every male knows it is there, watching their moves with a careful eye.
Women, from what I can gather, do the opposite. They externalize most things. Problems are best faced with a group effort. Emotions are not looked down upon, but instead expected. And the emotions, of course, must be expressed to all of those interested, mainly other women. Goals must be shared and supported by others. External interest is focused on the internal. Put a dozen women in a room, and they will start talking about their lives, the situation of the family and their feelings on it, their hopes. Put a dozen guys in a room, they'll talk about the game.
These things have implications. Our nurturing shapes us. In this case, it molds us into different things. There are natural undertones through all of it, of course. Evolutionary psychologists would have a field day analyzing all the ways in which their theories can explain modern human behavior. But I find the nurturing particularly interesting, just because it is so explicit.
My goal is not to cast judgment on the ways in which we as a (more or less) global society shape our children to fit certain gender stereotypes. I am only here to say that it happens.
People react differently to different situations. Hence individuality. But what shapes that individuality? Obviously people have different personalities naturally. But is not a person's final personality defined by how their original personality reacts to their experiences and nurturing?
So am I completely to blame if I am "realistic," to the point where I
am excessively cynical? Am I to blame for resenting the fact that my
individual goals (which I am so desperate to achieve on my own) are
accidentally degraded by others? Probably. But not completely.
What I am trying to say is that men and women are different, and not just because of biological reasons. However, one is not necessarily better than the other. There are principles of both the masculine and feminine that have value while at the same time there are those that do not. The combination and hybridization of these principles is not easy. Like oil and vinegar, we are taught that such things don't mix. But sometimes oil and vinegar do mix, and sometimes that combination is beautiful. It is rewriting the laws of physics that is so difficult.
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| People have occasionally asked me why I don't update my xanga. There are many reasons, but I just want to touch on a few. Firstly, I don't really care enough to maintain a steady flow of journal entries. Secondly, I don't particularly enjoy openly sharing my feelings with others.
But probably one of the main reasons is that when I look back at these entries a lot of them just feel fake. I'm not really eager to put up a front and give people a false picture of who I am. I think that may be what I dislike about these xanga entries. In reality, they capture the emotions of a small period of time. In some of these entries I seem sad, hopeful, happy, but more often than not those emotions changed shortly after the entry. I don't really enjoy the thought of people making assumptions about my state of being based on an entry I made in a surge of emotion.
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| Tonight, I saw King Kong with my parents, my sister, her fiance, and Jen. It was good fun.
King Kong, one of my most anticipated films of recent years, was everything I hoped it would be: entertaining, intense, beautiful, smart, and epic. It obviously wasn't perfect, but it did what it set out to do extremely well. The action was superb, the acting was above average (although Jack Black's performance occasionally annoyed). Overall an incredibly fun and enjoyable movie.
In a lot of ways, it reminded me of Herzog's "Kaspar Hauser." Specifically, the way in which it explored how humans label and judge from a distance. The scribe labeled and summarized Kaspar in his reports, but never got down to the core of his essence. While the humans in King Kong were probably accurate in their labels of Kong (dangerous, wild), Peter Jackson effectively portrayed the "other" side of him (his innocence, concern, and compassion). Both movies show that it is a true tragedy when the "other" side of a person, creature, or event is discarded out of convenience.
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