Friday, April 15, 2011

Newage

Amy Alkon (along with others) has mocked this video that puts forth the "Manifesto For Conscious Men." She calls the guys involved man-pussies.



Even if it is a heartfelt plea, this is the sort of new-age nonsense that's too generic to be of any use in solving actual problems.  And the reasoning in general is very questionable.  To pick a random example:

I honor your deep connection to the earth. As men, our relationship to our planet and its resources has often been motivated by competition, acquisition and domination. We mistakenly believed that expansion would protect us from encroachment, and in the process we violated the sanctity of the Earth and disturbed its natural rhythms. I commit to listening to the intuitive sense you have of how to heal our planet...

First, do women have a closer connection to earth?  Maybe there is a separate "feminine" and "masculine" energy, as they claim, but this also sounds like a sexist stereotype--certainly one that can be used to limit women (and men).

Second, it was men, not women, who were motivated to acquire and dominate our resources?  So it's men, not women, whom we have to thank for the superior food, clothing, shelter and almost everything else that makes up the modern world?  Don't women get some credit?

Third, our belief in expansion was bad?  This isn't even a masculine/feminine thing.  Expansion isn't offensive to nature (as if anything could be), but a natural process itself. That humans (pardon me, men) were able to figure out how to do it better than most other plants and animals is a sign of our success, not failure.

Fourth, women's intuition is going to help us heal the planet?  I'm willing to listen to anyone, but if we've got serious problems, I'd rather use the "masculine" approach and do some actual research.

But really, the most offensive part of the whole thing isn't that it's new age mush.  It's that this is put out as an apology but it's actually moral grandstanding.  It's one thing to apologize for your own actions, mistakenly or not, but quite another to attack men, past and present, for not being as awesome as you, apparently, are.

8 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is more of the Alan Alda/Phil Donahue hidden patriarchal style perfected in the 70s.

i.e. I will act like a pussy so I can get more pussy.

5:24 AM, April 15, 2011  
Anonymous Lawrence King said...

Perhaps the key to understanding this video is the font used for their Manifesto, which appears frequently in the background.

It's a quasi-cursive font, which is supposed to look gentle and feminine. Yet when you look more closely, it's obviously a computer font, and every one of their beautiful scripted s's is identical to all the others.

9:25 AM, April 15, 2011  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

In the classical world, men sometimes exaggerated their strengths, talents, and conquests to increase their social standing. Today, in many subcultures of the West, people are more prone to exaggerate their victim status (e.g., some Asian-Americans and Hispanic Americans call themselves "people of color" to claim that their ethnic history is similar to that of African-Americans, even though in reality it's closer to that of whites). Alternatively, those who feel guilt for their "privileges" can publicly denounce their whiteness, maleness, Christianity, Jewishness, or upper-class status, hoping that the Others (the historically oppressed, and therefore morally superior) groups will accept them as exceptional.

"I normally hate affluent white males, but you're not like the others." What a great feeling to hear those words!

9:25 AM, April 15, 2011  
Anonymous Lawrence King said...

From the manifesto: "By contrast, it is rare to find an invasion or war instigated by a woman."

Umm, didn't you guys just finish explaining that evil men have been controlling the world and excluding women from leadership positions? If that's true, then it can't be statistically meaningful that wars have been instigated by men.

9:29 AM, April 15, 2011  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's impossible to criticize them. They'll just take it as a sign of your arrogant, male anger.

9:56 AM, April 15, 2011  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You don't understand. Men use reason, women use feelings, therefore, to communicate successfully with them, men have to say they're sorry, not make logical arguments about what to do.

10:47 AM, April 15, 2011  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Anon #1, AA and PD were such pussies that even if they got pussy, I don't think it counted.

5:12 AM, April 16, 2011  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Anon 7 Thats what they wanted you to think. As a result they got to "spill their seed" without much competition. Clever patriarchs they were- beat the high testosterone models at their own game

8:17 AM, April 16, 2011  

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