Marie PhD
  • Home
  • Politics
  • #OccupyCongress
  • Overview
  • Domestic Violence
  • Food

Human Beings

2/2/2023

0 Comments

 
It's easy to decide we are a horrible species if you listen to our complaints about ourselves. Most of us dismiss the rest of the population as being a bunch of idiots or nasty, and while this is possibly true, it is also a matter of perspective.

So I asked google, the font of all wisdom, what men are. It suggested search terms of (among other silly things)  waffles and lonely. When I asked it what women are, it suggested, more curiously, are talking, werewolves, blind to male advances, from Venus, hypergamous (I'd not heard the word before) and finally I found this, women are wonderful effect. I've not heard of this effect before, but compared to men... yeh. Women don't start wars, women don't do most of the violence. I am not saying there aren't women out there who aren't awful people but I don't know how many centuries ago a woman started a war, as opposed to defending her country in a war. And yes some women might be violent in that she slaps a kid or a man but is he genuinely afraid for his life when she slaps him? How many women go on these shooting sprees without a man? Yes I know a very few have but men do most of the killing sprees.

I found the google suggestions curious. Women as seen from a male perspective and men as individuals. It became even more so when I searched on 'older women'.

Anyway I digress.

I guess our introspection is proof we are trying to be better, trying to understand ourselves. And we have improved. It wasn't many centuries ago the government would hold public executions (the last public execution in the US was 1936! not even a century ago) are the people brought picnics to watch people die, although this was the 1600s. Also there were 'witch' killings. Pinker's book 'the better angels of our nature' puts forth this idea, but in my opinion society has gotten better because women have gotten more power. Even children have gotten more power. And society will be at it's best when everyone and their time is treated as equally important.

Men have a habit of basically saying, men aren't bad but humans are not good, which is away of putting the blame on everyone in our society rather than taking any blame for their own behavior. And men like to narrow themselves down to a uniform block. Uniform blocks exclude so much of who we are. But humanity is anything but a uniform block. We are extremely diverse. We are not all bad and we are not all good either, and no one is exclusively either. There are probably many more good men than there are bad, and similarly we shouldn't Disney-fy all children as being pure innocents. There is no doubt there are probably many very awful women too. But I think we need to see the spectrum of who we are rather than seeing a pigeon hole, or a generalization, because that is a lazy thinkers primary method of dismissing the differences - and to some extent I think we need to call ourselves humans rather than 'men' because we are a multitude (not just humans but our environment) and we have a multitude of responses.

At the same time some people like to magnify differences so we can dismiss whole portions of society as not being worthwhile. This is also lazy thinking.

We have distanced ourselves from our violent past, but we should never forget it. We need to marvel at how far we've come as a species. We do amazing things to help each other and other species all the time.
0 Comments

    Author

    I am interested in progressive politics, women's rights, science & art. I believe the only way we'll survive is if we help each other.

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012

    Categories

    All
    Abortion
    Anarchy
    Animals
    Atheism
    Austerity
    Banks
    Bodies
    Caitlyn Jenner
    Charity
    Children
    Communication
    Community
    Conservative Christianity
    Conservatives
    Conspiracy
    Constitution
    Corporation
    Corporations
    Deficit
    Deregulation
    Despotism
    Disenfranchised
    Duggars
    Dylann Roof
    Environment
    Equality
    Facebook
    Feminism
    Food
    Foreclosure
    Gender
    God
    Gop
    Gop Primaries
    Government
    Guns
    Hastert
    Healthcare
    Hierarchy
    History
    Humans
    Independence
    Kindness
    Knowledge
    Law
    Libertarian
    Libertarianism
    Limited Liability
    Loneliness
    Love
    Mating
    Medicare
    Men
    Military Industrial Complex
    Motherhood
    Nature
    Obama
    Obesity
    Occupy
    Orwellian
    Pedophilia
    Politics
    Power
    Powerlessness
    Premium Children
    Prostition
    Punishment
    Rape
    Revolution
    Richard Dawkins
    Sanity
    Sex
    Slut-shaming
    Status Quo
    Stock-market
    Suicide
    Teachers
    Transgender
    TV
    Us Corporations
    Violence
    Vulnerability
    Welfare Queens
    Women
    Women's Work
    World Domination

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.