Digital Cowboy

… and all I got was this stupid Phd.”

Robert Jensen, who describes himself as “A Christian atheist, perhaps. But, in a deep sense, I would argue, a real Christian,” has apparently spent a good deal of his life as a feminist crusader. He probably doesn’t even see how psychologically imbalanced he appears when he insists that radical feminists like Andrea “Queen of the Loons” Dworkin are not man-haters, thusly:

But listen to what she said to, and about, men when she addressed a men’s conference and asked them to work for 24 hours without rape. In her book LETTERS FROM A WAR ZONE, she writes:

“I don’t believe rape is inevitable or natural. If I did, I would have no reason to be here. If I did, my political practice would be different than it is. Have you ever wondered why we are not just in armed combat against you? It’s not because there’s a shortage of kitchen knives in this country. It is because we believe in your humanity, against all the evidence.”

Dworkin is called a man-hater not because she hates men but because such slurs are a way to marginalize her work. In that same speech, she went on to challenge men to take responsibility for themselves:

“[Women] do not want to do the work of helping you to believe in your humanity. We cannot do it anymore. We have always tried. We have been repaid with systematic exploitation and systematic abuse. You are going to have to do this yourselves from now on and you know it.”

We do know it, and it is time to act on that knowledge, not just for women but for ourselves.

I laughed out loud at the depth of this guy’s confused self-loathing. Ummm… No, Bob, she’s called a man-hater because she says preposterous things, like the ones you just quoted, that imply the only reason women haven’t exterminated all the men yet (presumably with kitchen knives) is because women have not yet reached the limits of their magnanimous hope that somewhere, somehow, someday they’re gonna find a man that deep down is … human. Or at least willing to acknowledge that he’s not and promise to work real, real hard towards it as a goal.

I don’t have to marginalize Mister Dworkin’s work. She does it all by herself in a myriad of ways, not the least of which is writing books about gender relations with titles like “LETTERS FROM A WAR ZONE” and “WOMAN HATERS.”

I’ll give Bob the correct answer to Queen Loony’s rhetorical question in a minute but I first have to point out, as an aside, that he and I apparently “hear different.” What he perceived as a “challenge [to] men to take responsibility for themselves,” read to me a lot like a veiled and empty threat, laid on a false premise, by a hostile and extraordinarily presumptuous woman. It’s probably my complete lack of humanity messing up my comprehension.

No, Fruity, I haven’t “ever wondered why [’you’] are not just in armed combat against [’us’].” But since ya made me consider the question, I’m quite certain the reason has nothing to with kitchen knives nor your capacity for blind faith in “our” humanity. I reckon the primary reason is because, like most men, the overwhelming majority of women (if that’s what you meant by “we”) not only disagree with you completely, they think your baler done ran outta twine. (As Jerry Clower once famously told the “She-coon of Women’s Lib,” Gloria Steinem, “Ms. Women’s Libber, Mama don’t want you messin’ with the deal she’s got!”)

If by “we” you meant “me and other crazy broads with bubbles in their think tank,” then the answer is because a) you’re cowards, b) your idea of “armed combat” is a kitchen knife so c) you know you’d get the smackdown you properly deserve for treading where you don’t belong. In short, you lack the capacity for war even if you personally are brimming over with the lust for it. Put yet a third way, despite the blinding rage that consumes your ability to think rationally, even you are smart enough to avoid a good old-fashioned whuppin’.

Let’s make a deal. If you cross your heart promise to keep your word and stop “helping me to believe in my humanity,” I’ll give you a solemn oath to stop systematically exploiting and systematically abusing you. I can’t keep up with all the Club meetings anyway. (Even though girls really are the bunk.)

Anyway, that’s all just background from this article of Bob’s titled “Resisting Masculinity.” It’s not even from the one I intended to comment on. (Shooting the fish in this barrel is so much fun I get carried away. Maybe I’ll create a new category for this stuff.)

Dr. Bob’s most recently posted intellectual morass is titled “Men being men is a bad deal: Guys should evolve beyond masculinity” and posits (among other things):

We need to get rid of the whole idea of masculinity. It’s time to abandon the claim that there are certain psychological or social traits that inherently come with being biologically male. If we can get past that, we have a chance to create a better world for men and women.

Uh-huh. If we can get past that, we really can make the world a better place for all the boys and girls by just wishing real, real hard during all the time we spend riding our pet unicorns and frolicking with the pixies. If that doesn’t work, we’ll ask the elves. They have all the answers.

He concludes with the statement. “For those of us who are biologically male, we have a simple choice: We men can settle for being men, or we can strive to be human beings.” In between he speaks of “the pernicious effects of [decades of feminism] and its relentless devaluing of things female” but misspelled “decades of feminism” in the middle of that sentence. He typed it “centuries of patriarchy” and then drew the wrong conclusion from his mistake:

Of course, if we are going to jettison masculinity, we have to scrap femininity along with it. We have to stop trying to define what men and women are going to be in the world based on extrapolations from physical sex differences. That doesn’t mean we ignore those differences when they matter, but we have to stop assuming they matter everywhere.

I don’t think the planet can long survive if the current conception of masculinity endures.

Notice in the first sentence of that quote he says we have to scrap femininity, not feminism. I doubt that was an accident.

Considering the effect these toxic ideas have on birth rates, I don’t think it much matters how long the planet can survive if we’re to accept the premise that his and Andy Dworkin’s ideas represent a higher level of evolution.

Y’all just go right ahead and evolve yourselves right out of existence, Knucklehead. I don’t see how the future of the planet is of any concern to you and we sub-humans ain’t skeered by Al Gore’s fairy tales.

“‘Cause ya can’t stomp us out and ya can’t make us run …” YEEEEE-HAW!