Politely Defusing Rieko's Passion, (Part I)
Guess what anniversary it was last year!
No! Guess again!
Give up?
Well I'll tell you. For all you Japanese history fans out there, last year was the 400th anniversary of the Tokugawa period! That's right, 1603 was when the shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu officially completed the unification of Japan and created a centralized-feudal state which lasted until 1868. Yay!!
Isn't it so exciting!?
Yes, I know you were very excited about that anniversary. I'm sure you all had your calendars marked.
But, hard to believe, this gets even better...
In December, I had to politely refuse Rieko's interests. I had to say 'no'. I really felt bad about it though. I don't like rejecting people.
Yes, I know. I am just too alluring for my own good. It's a burden being as irresistible and sexy as me. You have no idea.
The Morning of That Day...
I was in the shower.
"Go on, sing something!" Haruna was lathering-up my chest with little handfuls of soap.
"No. I can't. I need to be drunk before I can sing."
"Pleeeeeease??" She begged.
"Okay okay. Ahem." I inhaled deeply. "Jeremiah was a bullfrog!" Then, I burst-out laughing. "Aheeheehee, no I can't. And that tickles!"
"Oh?" She giggled and lathered me-up some more. "Should I stop?"
"Nay! Never! The pox to you if you stop!" I reached around her back and nuzzled her against me as I began to soap-up her back. "It's too bad you have to work today." I looked down at her. She gazed-up at me, gently pressing her chin into my breastbone.
"Yes. I don't want to go. I hate working on Saturdays." She blinked as the water dribbled down her face.
I had been wanting Haruna to accompany me to the Michinoshi Historical Museum to see their Tokugawa exhibit. Unfortunately she had to work on this day and we had plans for me to have dinner with her family the next day. So I asked Rieko to go with me instead.
"How long have we been in the shower?" Haruna asked.
"Maybe long enough. I'm getting pruny. I just loooooooove being in the shower with you. Maybe we should get out?"
"No!" She playfully clung to me.
"Look at my fingers, they're wrinkled." I planted a kiss on her head. "We should dry-off."
"It's cold outside." She tightly wrapped her arms around my middle, squeezing me like a plastic bottle of mayonnaise. "It's warm in here. You go, I'll stay."
"I'm gonna slip and crack my skull-open if I have to carry you out."
"Go ahead and slip. You'll be my cushion."
"Cushion eh? Okay, missy... howabout this?" I twisted-off the hot water faucet. The water instantly turned ice-cold.
Haruna screamed.
I screamed too.
After Drying...
We got dressed.
"I was watching Doraemon on TV the other day." I mentioned to her as her hairdryer switched-off. "And I have a question."
"Oh?" she giggled. She turned-around and started to pull her sweater over her head. "That cartoon is for kids."
"Uh, yes. Yes it is." I paused. "So what? Ahem. So... Tsuneyo-kun is a little piss-ant bastard whom nobody can stand. Right?"
"Basically, yes." She looked in the mirror and started brushing her hair.
"Nobody likes Tsuneyo, and yet Nobita-kun and Shizuka-chan always go over to his house, even though they obviously have trouble tolerating him. Why do they keep doing that?" I sat-down on the bed and fumbled in my drawer for some socks. "If they don't like him, why do they keep going to his house?"
"Um... because his parents are rich."
"Moderately rich, yes. Maybe they're at the lower fringes of the upper class, but they're not fabulously so. That can't be the only reason."
"Well... Tsuneyo always has some new interesting toy to show-off. And if Nobita didn't go to his house, Tsuneyo wouldn't be a meaningful character and there would be less of a story." She continued with her hairbrush.
"I guess not." I paused as I pulled-on my socks. "Will I be seeing you tomorrow, by the way?"
"Oh, yes."
"Before noon, right?"
"Of course. How do I look?" She turned-around.
I pulled her close and kissed her forehead again. "Oh, you look sooo horrible." I winked.
I Meet Rieko Outside The History Museum Entrance
Rieko was waiting outside the entrance. She was wearing a pink fuzzy sweater, a beige coat and jeans. A dun-colored plaid Burberry scarf was tied around her neck. When I approached her, she flashed her intoxicating billion-dollar smile.
"Hi!" She stretched-out her hand and passed me the entrance ticket as she turned to walk inside.
"Glad you could make it today." I took it from her and followed her. "I'd hate to come to the museum alone." And I made a mental note to pay her back later.
It was an incredibly interesting collection of original artifacts on display. Armor, swords, clothing, personal items, calligraphy, serving dishes. The entire museum collection was on loan from a blood-descendant of the Tokugawa family.
"It looks really delicate." I smiled. We were standing in front of a case holding a 1.5 meter-wide folding fan, it was plated with gold so thin I thought it would tear if the fan were ever used. "This doesn't look practical, though. I doubt anyone could use this. The foil looks like it could rip at the slightest breeze."
"I think it's just for show." She replied. "The Shogun would hang this on the wall, probably."
"To inspire awe, maybe?" I shrugged.
"Yes. Have you been to Nijo castle in Kyoto?" She asked.
"Yes! It was fantastic!"
"Remember the chamber were the Shogun held his audiences? There was so much gold on the walls. It was obviously designed to impress people."
"So you think the fan might have gone in a room like that?"
"Maybe. The information here doesn't say." She squinted at the blurb written on the side of the case. We continued walking along the line of display cases.
We spent about 90 minutes or so in the museum, I don't really recall how long. It was a very enjoyable display, I love stuff like that.
The political power structure in much of feudal Japanese history was highly idiosyncratic. The Emperor was without any political power; his position was of mainly symbolic importance. He gave spiritual blessing to the military leaders and had little other function. The various feuding fiefdoms were loyal to the Emperor even as the local daimyo fought among themselves, much in the same way that medieval Portugal, Spain and France would war against each other while retaining certain loyalties to the Pope. The Shogun, who was ostensibly the protector of the Emperor, was the one who held much of the actual political power... but even then, only sometimes. The Shogun would occasionally retire and install his son in the office so that the retired Shogun could wield power behind the scenes. Why? It was to his advantage to have a position which enjoyed the benefits of the Shogun's office but without the responsibilities or trappings. And it was also a form of misdirection. If it is unclear from where power originates, it will also be unclear how to attack or undermine it.
Pretty crafty if you ask me.
But afterwards, Rieko and I went to a cafe next door.
We got some coffee and scones at the counter, then settled-back onto a rather comfortable sofa in the back. I pulled-out the folded, glossy museum pamphlet from my pocket and examined the Kanji on the front.
"Very interesting name for the family lineage, Tokugawa." I held it up and showed the calligraphy to her. Literally, Tokugawa meant 'virtue river'. "Very Neoconfucian of them. It's not normal for people to change their names in Japan, is it?"
"It's very rare, it almost never happens. Do you know what their family name was before they changed it?" She asked.
"Um... I read it somewhere... um... Matsu-something. I forgot." I began to fumble through the pamphlet. "Let's see... where is it?"
"Matsudaira." She said.
"Ah, that's the one! Mats- Matsusomethingorother." I couldn't find it in the pamphlet.
"Matsu-daira." She repeated.
"Right. I said that."
"I don't think so." She put her hands around her cup to warm them.
"Hold on-- I owe you some money. For the museum." I dug into my pocket.
"No, don't worry about it."
"Meh, I insist." I handed her some coins. "You and your confounded politeness!"
"No, it's okay."
"Please take it?" With my free hand, I grabbed a tiny spoon from her saucer and waggled it menacingly. "Don't make me bop you on the head. I have a spoon and I'm not afraid to use it."
"Yada! Don't hurt me!" She smiled and dropped the money into her purse. "Oh, did I tell you? I'm going visit my auntie next weekend."
"How far away is she?"
"She's about five hours away by bus."
"You're taking the bus?" I raised an eyebrow. "I hate going by bus. I can never fall asleep on buses and I always have weird experiences."
"Oh? Like what?"
"Er... well, I was on a Greyhound bus... let's see... maybe this was six years ago. You always run into really weird characters on the bus. Wierdos such as myself, for instance. So there I was in an aisle seat all alone. I'm reading a book and I'm in the middle of a four-hour trip. Suddenly a blonde preppy college girl, maybe about 20, comes-up from the back of the bus. She steps-over my knees and sits down in the window seat next to me. She's kind of flustered. She says to me: 'You don't know me... but... please pretend to be my boyfriend?'"
"Eiii?" Rieko makes a quizzical expression.
"By Odin's beard, I swear it's true!" I held up a hand, as if taking an oath.
"Strange. Pretend to be her boyfriend? She asked you to do that?"
"That's what she said all right. 'Please pretend to be my boyfriend?' And I'm like... 'Excuse me?'" I shrug. "How am I supposed to react to that? But she says insistently 'please pretend you're my boyfriend. There are these two guys in the back who are harassing me.' So she wants me to step-in and protect her from the little punks who got her panties all up in a bunch. As you know, I'm a very kind imbecile so I shrug and say 'OK'. I go back to reading because I don't feel like talking to this chick." I sighed, shook my head and rolled my eyes. "Anyway, the two seats across the aisle from me are empty. About ten minutes later, a pair of wiry young toughs come-up from the back of the bus all swaggery and punchy-like. And they sit-down in the empty seats. They have a couple of gold chains looped about their necks and are wearing some trousers with massive pant-legs. They have their hats on sideways and... um, one of them has this big crinkled plastic bag of WalMart popcorn with orange cheese dust on it. And they start talking through me, trying to address this preppy blonde chick." I shake my head and sigh. Yikes, do I hate WalMart.
"What did they say?"
"Stuff like: 'Why ya frontin' us? Why'd ya move up here?' And this chick starts tapping my arm, trying to get me to intervene. Finally, I look-over and say to them: 'There are other people on the bus, can ya pipe-down?' They reply 'Who're you?' I point to the preppy chick. 'I'm with her.'"
"Really?" Rieko looks at me, obviously amused.
I nodded and groaned. "Yeah. I shouldn't have done that. They immediately disbelieve that she and I are traveling together. They demand to know why she was sitting in the rear of the bus when I was up here. Et cetera. She suddenly grabs my arm and tells them pointedly that yes, she and I are indeed traveling together. So this shuts them up."
"Okashii!" Rieko's eyes smiled brightly.
"Yes. But it gets even more okashii. I decide to have a little bit of fun. We're sitting together, pretending to be boyfriend and girlfriend. So, I turn to her and quietly say: 'Hey baby-- how about a big, sloppy kiss?' and I waited for her reaction. She didn't think it was funny at all!" I laughed. "She forced a grimace and mumbled through grit teeth: 'Uh... we're in public, uh... honey.'"
"Hahaha!" Rieko laughed. Coffee almost blew-out her nose. I handed her a napkin.
"You okay?"
She nodded. I waited for her to blow her nose before continuing.
"So this charade on the bus goes for about an hour. Eventually the bus halts at one of the towns along the route and she stands-up. It's her destination and she didn't inform me." I gave a weak smile. "Obviously, it becomes apparent to the world that she and I are not traveling together."
"Eiii?"
"She got off and I looked quite surprised. After she left, the two rakes across the aisle started bitching me out. 'You weren't her boyfriend, you cocksucker.' You know, whatever. One of them starts flicking his WalMart popcorn at me. And I didn't want to put up with this irritation because I'm a big poltroon, so I move to an empty seat at the front of the bus and stay there for the rest of the trip." I sighed. "But do you see what happened? See what that chick did?"
Rieko nodded. "She made you lie to protect her."
"It's way more than that! She had a problem, and she sought-out the nearest sucker... me. And she played the poor widdle victim. 'Boo-hoo, I'm being hawassed! Pwotect poor widdle me! Wahh!' Then she loaded her problem on me and ran-off."
"So strange to ask you to pretend to be her boyfriend!" Rieko laughed. "That's crazy, I would never say that to anybody!"
"A lot of them are crazy and sexist as hell. You simply can not believe..."
"Who? Crazy, who?"
"Hoo boy, here we go." I mumbled to myself. I bitterly looked down at my feet. "I'm talking about American females, Rieko. I think most of them are crazy and outrageously sexist."
"Why do you say that? Crazy? How?"
"Well for one thing they... ugh. A lot of them think that the position of the toilet seat is worth arguing over."
"What do you mean? I don't understand."
"What I mean is... how can I say this? Um... most of them will spaz-out if the toilet seat is left in an upright position. It's surreal." I groaned and mumbled.
"Eiii?" She laughed incredulously. "I don't believe that! The toilet seat?"
"I know. It's so hard for rational people to imagine." I covered my left eye with my palm and continued looking-down at the floor. "But I shit you not. It's stranger than fiction but I am not making this up. They go spastic-- spastic! They will have little apoplectic fits over such a completely inconsequential matter. I... I simply can't make-up something as crazy as that."
"I don't believe it." She replied.
"I have trouble believing it myself!" I exclaimed. "But I've seen it many a time. It doesn't make any sense at all, but it keeps happening." I shrugged. "You know, I've been to little villages in rural China with 15th-century infrastructure. When you go to rural Guizhou the women would totally love to have a flush-toilet and I think they wouldn't ever habitually complain about the seat being up. About a third of the world's urban population lives in a slum. Would they complain about the toilet seat? Probably not. The position of the damned toilet seat is pretty much outside the spectrum of normal human concerns, right? There are more far compelling things that ought to consume your attention, right? And yet American chicks flip-out about the potty seat all the time. Flip-out! Can you imagine someone wasting their breath on something so trivial? It's not worth arguing about, but they do all the time." I shook my head in total befuddlement. "That's how unhinged they are."
"How do men react?"
"We try to assure them that it's not worth busting a gasket over. But it never does any good. They just flip-out again the next time it happens. They're just so used to getting their way. Every little bit of the house must be exactly the way they like it or else they flip-out. That requires an extremely authoritarian mentality doesn't it?" I rolled my eyes and weakly laughed. "They're crazy, Rieko. Insane people might argue over the potty seat but normal people usually don't do that."
"Eiiiii? Very strange." She scratched her temple. "Why do they do that?"
"Assuming they're not wholly insane, they probably flip-out over the toilet for two reasons: shame and control. Toilet seat conniptions are one of the thousand or so ways in which North American women subtly psychologically abuse and torment the men in their lives. Mothers do it to their sons, wives do it to their husbands, sisters do it to their brothers. It makes no difference. Intimidate. Shame. Mock. Control. It's relentless. It never stops. Do you want to know one of my theories about gender-relations?"
"Sure, what?"
"If you look at authoritarian political systems, speech always has to be tightly controlled. In the Soviet Union you couldn't criticize the Communist Party, but you could damn the capitalist west all you like. In South Korea under Pak Chung-Hee it was forbidden to criticize the president, but you were free to damn North Korea all you like. In most religious sects, you can't bad-mouth the priests but you can damn the nonbelievers. There are so many examples of this it's pretty much a universal truism. In a system where there's a maldistribution of power, it is forbidden to criticize the power-centers but you can hate whatever they select for you to hate. You can not criticize the masters, but you can damn the official enemies. You can bet that this sort of imperative would probably replicate itself in any system where some kind of domination is going on. Is that a reasonable assumption to make?"
"Yes, that sounds reasonable." She agreed.
"Good. Now in the English-speaking countries, there are a number of topics that we men can't discuss very openly. It's what an anthropologist might refer to as 'ritual avoidance'. We can discuss them, but they're highly discouraged. Basically, it is usually a bad idea to critically discuss or denounce female sexism in the presence of other females. Female sexism, negative female traits, forms of badness that come from a female. These things can not often be condemned openly, honestly and critically when other women are around. And if those things are ever discussed around women, the badness will get rationalized or portrayed in a positive way. Female violence and rudeness get transmogrified into 'Girl Power' or 'self-defense' or as something otherwise excusable." I smiled at her. "If you try to criticize females around a group of American women, their reactions will be very interesting. They'll usually become ill-tempered and defensive. They might tell you to shut-up. They might call you names. They'll throw-up barricades as if they're under siege. They'll say they do bad things to defend themselves against evil men, and they will always always always change the topic to how men are a thousand times worse." I paused for effect. "That's an intriguing response. Where does it come from? Why do they react so defensively like that? And what about the topic of male bad behavior? Well, that is fine to condemn in the presence of women. Hell, they encourage it. You can all march in a parade, denouncing men until the cows come home. They love it. Do you see what I'm getting at?" I smiled. "See the connection?"
"Eiii?" She giggled and put her hand over her mouth to stifle her laugh. "No..."
"Why can't you criticize female sexism? Why is that taboo? Why does the topic always immediately change to focus on men? Because it's forbidden to criticize the masters." I waved hands in front of me excitedly. "This indicates an authoritarian mentality. It suggests the existence of some type of domination and control. I think it raises many ugly questions about how North American chicks see themselves and how they see men. You can't criticize the masters but you can damn the official enemies." I folded my arms, smirking lightly. "One important and overriding thing about American chicks-- they always claim that men have 'all the power' and that society is so incredibly heavily biased in favor of men. This belief is their bread and butter. But if that's true, why isn't it taboo to criticize men? Think about it. If society is so heavily biased in favor of men, then society wouldn't logically allow criticism of men would it? It simply wouldn't be acceptable. If men truly had 'all the power' then you could practically guarantee that criticizing men would be forbidden. That's a wholly logical assumption, right?"
"Yes, I think so... and I really can't imagine saying what that girl said to you on the bus. That's crazy." Rieko looked stunned.
"Oh, that chick on the bus? She was an innocent little angel in need of protection. Those bad bad men were being bad bad bad to her. But maybe they were only bugging her because they wanted to deflate a stuck-up little blond bitchette? North American women lie so much, who knows what started it?"
"But sitting down next to a stranger and asking them to pretend to be my boyfriend? Strange!"
"Whenever it's convenient, they pretend to be victims and feel entitled to having someone defend them. They are addicted to a cult of victimhood and entitlement. So that's what this chick on the bus was doing: playing-out the role of an entitled victim."
"But she didn't mean to do anything bad to you."
"Of course she didn't mean anything bad to happen. Why would she think about someone other than herself?" I put-on a baby-voice. "Oooh, somebody pwotect me! I'm just soooo victimized! Oooh!" I groan incredulously. "Seriously. It doesn't matter how bad your situation is, American chicks always have it worse. So what if you're a jobless man living in a packing crate with no food in your stomach? American women have it a thousand times worse because there's never been a female president and Barbie's tits are too big." I scowled and waggled my finger. "Seriously, that's their mentality. I'm supposed to believe that American chicks are victimized with their multiple forms of birth control and college degrees and bare-midriff outfits and unparalleled levels of personal, social and reproductive freedoms? Yeah! Riiight! Suuuure!" I probably started to sound really obnoxious by now. "Here, honey- have some subsidies and legal overprotection! What's that? You still claim victimization? Okay, have some more!" I groaned, obviously growing disgusted. "You simply wouldn't believe the resulting combination of greed, whining, hypocrisy, irresponsibility, lack of independence of mind, self-centered disregard for..."
"Are you okay?" She asked, noticing my mood was turning foul.
"No I'm not, Rieko!" I scowled. "I'm so sick to death of their victimhood-entitlement cult, you have no idea. You've never been surrounded by those assholes, you have no idea what it's like at all!" I sighed and looked at her ruefully. "Do you know who Jenna and Barbara Bush are?"
"Who?" She shook her head.
"They're the twin daughters of our president. They have money, crack bodyguards and zero interests beyond their own self-indulgence. And on top of this, they see themselves as victims. They believe they're oppressed because daddy's got an important job." I snorted. "The Bush twins are a metaphor for American chicks: they are to America what American chicks are to the rest of the planet. A lifetime of free lunches and overprotection has made them into colossal bratlings. They're rich, privileged, overprotected. And yet they're oppressed victims and upright toilet seats make them angry. That's how insane North American chicks are!"
"Why do you think they're like that?" She asked.
"The twins or North American chicks?"
"Not the twins."
"Well, I guess one could propose different theories." I shrugged and sighed. "But I tend to think that it has a lot to do with the two main idea-systems regarding intergender behavior in the English-speaking world: chivalry and feminism..."
Help, Help, I'm Being Repressed!
"The first is chivalry."
"What is that?"
I punched the word into her dictionary and showed it to her. She nodded.
"Chivalry is a system of ethics which idealizes gallantry towards and protection of women, it encapsulates the behavior of a knight on horseback. It's very, very deeply-embedded in our culture." I remarked matter-of-factly. "Chivalry has it that women are innocent and deserve privileges and special protections. It also tends to assume that women are innocent and never lie."
"I see?" Her big, glossy eyes blinked sweetly at me.
"The modern American female reaction to quasi-traditionalist chivalry is kind of divided. A lot of them like chivalry because it holds women as morally-superior and it requires men to do all the heavy lifting and paying. Of course chivalry is impossible to reconcile with the modern ideal of gender equality but most North American chicks don't really care. In varying degrees, at least. A lot of them will whine and complain whenever modern men are not sufficiently chivalrous. They adore sexism like that." I snorted. "If you don't discriminate in favor of a woman, then freeloading quasi-traditionalist chicks will act all huffed-up and snitty because 'chivalry is dead'. The unspoken expectation is: 'I have a vagina, so buy me shit.' That's pretty much it. 'I have a vagina, buy me a house and a big diamond.' That's their Holy Grail." I snorted. "But on top of this, there's a newer system of thought. It sits like a superstructure over the massive foundation of chivalry. It often exploits the deep chivalrous biases and it has been adopted by a large bunch of American women-- usually the most obnoxious ones. This idea-system considers chivalry to be condescending and insulting and a form of oppression..."
"Why? What is it?" She asked.
"It's called 'feminism'. Feminist ideology pretends to promote equality, but it uses female oppression as a rationale for giving women extra privileges and protections on top of the chivalrous ones. But they do reject certain bits of chivalry here and there, to varying degrees. The level of chivalry-rejection differs from feminist to feminist depending on their personality. But anyway, feminism says that both sexes are equal but some sexes are more equal than others." I chuckled. "Feminists are so concerned about getting fairness and respect that they don't want men to have any of either. The school of thought views the world in terms of how everything affects women and it always tries to confirm that women are innocent whenever anything bad happens. And since female oppression is their big marketing angle, feminists have an incentive to exaggerate or manufacture forms of oppression. To a feminist, everything under the sun needs to be turned into oppression. Even going so far as to make the crazy claim that white suburban women are a despised class of slaves." I rolled my eyes and shook my head. "The psychologist Abe Maslow once said 'when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.' Well, when you have feminist ideology, everything looks like oppression. Seriously, some of them think they're practically living in a Bosnian rape-camp or something. So the feminist interpretation of chivalry is that it keeps women oppressed: that being placed on a pillar is as confining and horrible as a dungeon. Or some crap like that. It's strikes me as a heavily disingenuous argument. The Bush twins use the exact same argument to claim oppression, incidentally. Imagine a first-class airplane passenger claiming oppression because they're not being offered a seat back in economy section?" I gave a shrug. "It's total crap, but that's what they believe. So a lot of feminists find chivalry insulting. I don't think chivalry is oppressive of women, actually. There is an alternate interpretation which is almost never voiced, and yet is extremely interesting..."
"What is it?"
"If one can force oneself to stop interpreting human society strictly in terms of universal female oppression, then chivalry looks like men are women's servants and not vice-versa. Who works harder in chivalry? The servant holds the door open for his master. If the car breaks-down, the servant pushes while the master rides in the car. The servant does the master's heavy lifting. The servant bows before the master. The servant carries the master over a mud puddle. The slave may not strike the master but the reverse is okay. The master is just 'naturally' more intelligent, important and civilized than the slave is. You get the picture? The parallels go on and on, and yet women never see it this way. Their victimhood-entitlement mentality prevents them from thinking critically about such things." I sipped some coffee and continued. "If chivalry is a form of men oppressing women, then it's a really weird kind of oppression. Do oppressors help their slaves put-on their coats? Do oppressors give diamond rings to their slaves?" I harrumphed incredulously. "It makes no damn sense whatsoever, but those things are what feminists believe."
"But if men have to work harder in this system of chivalry, why isn't it considered like being a servant?"
"Remember? You can't criticize the masters! It's taboo." I smirked. "But both the quasi-traditionalist and feminist mentalities have their own different rationalizations for the existence of chivalry, though. The quasi-traditionalist says that women are entitled to special treatment simply because of their gender. They have a vagina and are more delicate and more moral or whatever, so you have to buy them shit. And feminists simply use their ideological imperative to twist every facet of human existence into oppression." I ran my fingers through my hair. "But my point is this: too many North American women, due to both feminist and quasi-traditionalist points of view, are too wrapped-up in their distorted victimhood-entitlement mentalities to think in a coherent fashion. They've internalized this victimhood-entitlement cult to such an extreme degree that they often end-up making conclusions about the world that are nonsensical and contradictory."
"Like how?"
"Like when North American females complain that women always do the worst types of work while ignoring that 95% of workplace deaths are suffered by men. Isn't dying worse than cooking a meal? Cooking just isn't as fun as working in a mine I guess."
"I like cooking!" Rieko replied smartly.
"Me too. But feminists say it's degrading. Go figure." I shrugged. "And on top of that belief, there's the totally incoherent idea that women are equally tough in the workplace but are so delicate that they have to be protected from saucy jokes and racy comments. That one has always baffled me. And when a female serial-killer goes-out and slays a bunch of people, feminists will forever insist that her killing spree resulted from her victimhood and her excessive innocence. The ideology changes depending on your situational needs: women are the same as men, yet they're better. Women are strong and capable, yet they're weak and in peril. They're rebellious, yet they're in thrall. It's whatever you want it to be, darling! You can see there's a great amount of intellectual rigor there: a philosophy which changes depending on your immediate wants." I snorted. "It's kind of a surprise to see so many supposedly intelligent women totally swallowing this quackery. And besides that, there is an insane number of double-standards involved, too. Like if a man thinks about another woman during sex, he's a hopeless jerk but when a woman thinks about another man during sex, she's only spicing-up her love-life. Seriously. The warped mentality of American women causes them to make totally nonsensical and contradictory conclusions such as those. I find all this bitterly comical nowadays. A lot of North American chicks are incapable of challenging self-evident nonsense."
"I see... I think." She nodded, obviously with some confusion.
"Let me give you an illustration. You've seen a lot of American movies and tv shows, right?" I asked. "The women tend to slap men a lot, don't they? They also kick men in the groin a lot, too."
"Yes." Rieko nodded. "I've seen that."
"When a North American chick does it, it's not rude or violent or hateful at all. It's a cute crowd-pleaser. But in the same movies, a man hitting a woman is forbidden. No touchie. The villains are the ones who hit women. And not even hit them: the villain only needs to displease a woman and the audience will hate him. Why do you think that is?"
"Why?"
"Because the servant may not hurt the master. Remember?"
"Well, hold on-- men are usually bigger and stronger, so they can make more injury on women. Women are smaller and..."
"Hitting people ought to be wrong, period. It's irrelevant who is stronger. You might as well claim that Denmark has a right to bomb London at will because England is bigger and stronger." I warmed my hands around my mug. "If a woman is wearing a diamond ring or has long nails, she could draw blood if she slaps you. She could split your lip or scrape your eye. The idea that she can't cause any damage is rubbish. And even so: let's say that I'm a short skinny guy. And let's say I go-up to a huge boxer and start insulting him. He restrains himself, but I just keep-on insulting him. After 15 minutes of my insults, he throws a punch and I start spitting-out teeth like candy-corn. What will witnesses say? They'll say I stupidly provoked him. They might even congratulate the big guy on keeping his cool for so long. And what if I were a woman in the same situation? The big guy would become a monster if he hit me. He'd go to jail. There'd be no excuse. So this system has utterly no relevance to who is bigger or stronger. It has everything to do with who is female. You can not strike the masters, they are made of glass. No touchie!"
"Soo ka. I see."
"I hope so. But now you know why even the Bush twins seem themselves as victims. As pathetic as that is." I shrugged, exasperated. "But there is at least one point where both chivalry and feminism overlap: they both agree that women need extra protection or subsidies because they are more valuable and more vulnerable. Neither chivalry nor feminism says that men deserve an equal level of protection." I cleared my throat and held my palms apart by about an inch. "When the two major schools of intergender ethics mesh-up at the same point..." I meshed my fingers together. "...the result is a cultural bias which generally overprotects women at the expense of society. Fuck men, they can die. They don't matter. They're cogs. If you break one, they can be cheaply replaced."
Women and Women First
"What!?" Rieko asked.
"This is how American chicks reflexively think, Rieko. I'm not kidding you. And this is so deeply ingrained in their heads, they think that hitting or hurting men is perfectly fine. They do not give men's lives or emotions the same level of value that they would impute to their own. And they even consider women's wages and career opportunities to be more important than men's lives. In fact, a woman's hurt feelings are considered more important than whether a man lives or dies! That's how sexist they are. They don't give a shit about anyone but themselves. You've seen the movie Titanic, do you remember the principle of 'women and children first'?"
"Yes." Rieko nodded.
"Why not 'children and women first', eh?" I shrugged quizzically. "Why not? Well, that gives you a clue as to how western women see themselves in the pecking-order. They simply come first. Even before kids."
"Soo..." She frowned.
"If the Titanic were to sink today, do you think that any women would volunteer to go-down with the ship?" I snorted. "Hell no. They'd all pretend to be pregnant, or start crying 'poor me! I'm a poor widdle woman!' And after they got back to land, they'd immediately restart demanding equal treatment at work. And this reversal in behavior would occur without any pause or reflection whatsoever. That's how they act!"
"What would you do if you were on the Titanic?" She asked.
"Today? And if I heard the crew calling 'women and children first'? If that happened, I'd grab the nearest 25 year old woman and toss her into the icy drink. Then I'd sing and laugh as I watched her drown. If I'm gonna die, I'll take at least one of them with me. Tee-hee-hee." I smiled evilly. "No fucking way should anyone be chivalrous whenever North American chicks are involved. But for you, Rieko-- I'd certainly give you my seat on the lifeboat." I smiled sweetly. "In an instant."
"Oh, thank you!" Rieko put her hands on her cheeks and pretended to blush.
"But in my native society, you can see this 'women first, screw everyone else' attitude very clearly. It's never hidden, in fact. It's like the air that we breathe. It's never noticed or commented-upon because it's so ordinary and regular. It is perfectly legitimate if men die early, it's taken for granted. But sexism or violence against women is bad. It's heinous and wicked because it upsets the masters. Everybody will condemn that, the masters need protection at all costs. You heard the word 'sexism' before, right?"
"Yes, I know that word." She nodded.
"Do you know the meaning?"
"It means to treat people badly based on their sex."
"Wrong!" I gently kicked the table.
"But-"
"Wrooong!!! You are so so wrong!" I laughed and kicked the table again.
"But-"
"Wrong! That's only what the dictionary says about 'sexism'. The dictionary definition is very appropriate, but it should not be used. It would inconvenience the masters if they were bound by the same rules as the servants, you see. So if we're going to talk about real life, we should understand some accompanying terms. If something hurts a woman or helps a man, it's called 'Sexism' and it's bad bad bad. If something discriminates in favor of a woman, it's called 'Ekwalitee' and it's good. 'Ekwalitee' is also used to describe discrimination against a man, too. But discrimination against a man is usually called 'Tough Noogies'. And Tough Noogies is really, really good. In fact, Tough Noogies is hilarious! It's endless fun-fun-fun for the masters. Tough Noogies is hilarious because it's payback-- payback for all the irritations which displease the masters. Furthermore, Tough Noogies is actually good for men because it builds character. It forces men to think about every bad thing they've ever done to displease the masters. Do you see how these ideas really work, Rieko?"
"I think so..."
"And if a man ever complains about Tough Noogies, he's a 'wimp'. Wimps make poor servants, so they are subhuman insects." I smiled broadly. "Wimps commit the crime of making the masters feel bad about their excesses and we can't have that, can we? Wimps are spineless and have no balls and deserve to be slapped back into keeping their mouths shut. The masters must ridicule them: you got what you deserve and deserve what you got. So shut up, get back in line and don't bother us by pointing-out our sadism and our flaws. Spineless whiny wimps relinquish any and all claim to personhood so they no longer deserve the level of respect that would be given to a normal human. Their whiny wimpy protests can be safely dismissed and sneered-at." I stirred some more cream into my coffee. "Wimps are worthless bugs, so what's the difference?"
"That's mean."
"Right, it's Tough Noogies. Therefore, it's amusing for the woman and builds character for the man." I clapped my hands. "Now you understand how American chicks act!"
"No, I mean it's not fair. Really, I mean it."
"Oh, I know that. And you know that, Rieko. Because you haven't lost control of your fucking mind the way North American chicks have. So that's how American chicks mock and abuse the men in their lives. They say: 'play by our rules, or we'll shame and humiliate you into compliance.' If you don't stick to their rules, they'll shun you and mock you and blame you for their authoritarian and sexist habits. Sure it's not the same sort of treatment that the masters want to receive themselves, but the slaves ought not to get a single crumb more than the masters wish them to have. It's the natural order of things..."
"So some of these women are bad like that." She shrugged.
"I used to think that it was just some of them who were like that. But no longer. Now I tend to believe that there are destructive tendencies which dwell within human beings generally, but the culture within English-speaking societies enables these tendencies to manifest themselves within younger women to an incredibly concentrated and unprecedented degree. They're global aberrations from normal and happy women, I think. It's a very peculiar type of culture where women are taught to arm themselves with victimhood so they can lash-out with the impunity of an underdog."
"Why can they do that?"
"Because in the English-speaking countries, women have far fewer restraints than women elsewhere in the world. Or fewer than the women who lived before them. Not to mention they have more wealth, more institutional enablers, more education and more leisure time with which to run wild and unchecked. Plus they have a lot more anger and paranoia because they're taught from infancy that they're oppressed victims. They act openly horrible and selfish ostensibly in reaction to barbaric men, so they think they own no burden of responsibility for anything they do. And society stands on the sidelines, yelling: 'you GO, girl!'" I shrug. "And you want to know what I think is the worst bit?"
"What?"
"The chivalrist-feminist dichotomy which I described are two opposite poles in a spectrum. Rarely does an American female consistently stick to one position. Most of them slip back and forth between the two ends of the spectrum whenever it's convenient. One day they say: 'I'm oppressed'. The next day they say: 'I have a vagina, buy me shit'. Back and forth, over and over. Practically every goddamned American chick I've ever met in my life has done this again and again, with total enthusiastic support from the society around her. Whatever you want, you GO girl! Wanna be a traditionalist freeloader this minute? Sure! Wanna be a ball-breaking feminist the next? Go ahead! The flipping and flopping never stops. This is Ekwalitee, you know. And while this is going on, everyone should smile excitedly and praise the master for how much empowerment she has gained in the process." I sipped my coffee. "Also very significant is the range of mainstream thought on gender issues. It's totally rooted in the chivalrist-feminist dichotomy as well. In any debate on gender issues, the issue will be something like: 'women have nearly attained equality' versus 'women are still oppressed and have a long way to go'. That's the whole range of debate. The question which never ever leaks through is: 'do women have too much power in some areas?' That's never asked. Never. It's taboo. The question is totally off the radar screen. You can't ask such a thing, it's crazy. It makes women burst-out in ridicule." I paused and ran my fingers through my hair. "That in itself is very significant, I think. I guess it's like being back in the Tokugawa era and asking: 'is the retired Shogun too powerful?' Of course not, that's crazy! He's retired. It's off the map." I shrugged, then laughed bitterly. "OOH! By the way-- do you wanna know what pisses-off a hard-core feminist more than anything? This is a really good secret..." I chuckled.
"What?" She laughed excitedly. "Let me guess... mmm... sexism?"
"Actually, no! There's something which ticks them off even more than sexism. They really hate it when you dare to say that women are actually doing very well in society, and men are allowing it to happen." I paused. "That pisses-off a hard-core feminist like you wouldn't believe! Women are doing okay, and men allow it. They'll blast into orbit every time you say this. It's soooo predictable." I grin. "But saying that is a positive message. It portrays women as being strong and independent creatures. Why would a positive message about women possibly drive a hard-core feminist nuts? Does that make logical sense?"
"I don't know. Why?"
"A lot of religions claim that if you support the faith, it will protect you from evil. Evil is everywhere, lurking in the shadows, out to get you. Follow our rules, join the Holy War and evil won't get you. Well feminism is a sort of secular religion. Only it substitutes 'evil' with 'men'. Men are destructive, Neanderthal rape-machines who get-off on dominating and oppressing women so you need to huddle under a protective umbrella. But if you ever suggest that women aren't oppressed, it's blasphemy. It contradicts scripture. It cuts too close to the heart of the masters' religion. Like any loyal mujahedeen, the acolytes bust a neck-vein in order to defend the faith. They defend it furiously, no matter how incoherent their arguments get. The resulting display would impress a Viking berzerker, it's absolutely breathtaking to watch." I chuckled.
"I see. That makes a lot of sense."
"You bet it does. And the best thing about feminists is that they always know who to blame. They actually give men a lot of credit, you know. Men are totally competent as oppressors. When men are being oppressors, they're always on top of things and they're totally in charge of the show. We run the business of oppression from end to end like a well-oiled machine. Men are ultra-competent when it comes to oppressing. We always know exactly what to do and we're always one step ahead! But men suddenly become incompetent and flawed and stupid when it comes to doing anything that isn't oppression. You know, our limited brains don't know how to multitask and yet we supposedly managed to seamlessly keep women down from pole to pole for millennia. Men are so mentally under-developed, and yet we're such clever slave-masters. We wake-up in the morning and say: 'I want to oppress wimmin! What evil can I do today?' and we make ingenious plans within plans within plans just to keep women in their proper places. And yet, d'oh! We can't change the diapers or express ourselves! D'oh-ho, we be tho dum! D'oh-ho!" I rolled my eyes irritatedly. "And you know, the idea of white middle-class females being oppressed ticks me off like few other things can."
"Why?"
"Because I've actually seen oppressed women. I often prefer to take a globalist perspective when looking at human affairs. Compared to women in rural Guizhou province, western society treats its women a hell of a lot better. And besides that, the doctrine of female oppression suggests that women must be pretty stupid and useless if they let themselves be oppressed for so long. And in terms of personal growth, the victimhood mentality is a cul-de-sac." I smiled snarkily and poked her in the arm. "Hey Rieko, are you oppressed? Are you? Because an American feminist would swear that you are. Oh yes."
"Me? No, I don't think so."
"Have you been raped lately?"
"What? No!" She shook her head, slightly surprised. "No, never."
"Are you sure you're not oppressed?" I gently poked her again. "I mean, feminists would tell you that you're horribly oppressed! You live in Japan. This ultra-chauvinist and stifling society. You're surrounded by awful horrible sexist pig-men who have all the power and you're just a poor helpless pushed-around waif who has been brainwashed into supporting the patriarchy."
"No, I'm not oppressed. I wouldn't let anyone oppress me." She said, sounding reasonably confident.
"But aren't you constantly being groped and sexually-humiliated and denied basic human rights and treated like an object?" Poke. "And see?? I'm assaulting you right now!" Poke. "Raping you with my phallic finger!" Poke. "See? Oppression everywhere!"
"No, I'm not oppressed." She giggled and poked me back.
"Oh you poor thing!" I slapped a hand to my cheek. "It's worse than I thought. You actually think you're not oppressed!"
"There is a lot of sexism around, but I don't think I'm oppressed. I think I'm ok." She laughed. "I wouldn't let that happen to me."
"You poor, poor victim! You don't even realize how bad you have it." I looked at her, chuckled and shrugged. "So that's a big reason why I find the idea of eternal female oppression to be offensive. It suggests that bright and independent women like yourself are incredibly stupid and easily pushed-around. Isn't that a bit condescending and patronizing?"
"What's your other reason?" She giggled and poked me in the arm several times.
"Well, typically an oppressed class does not live longer than the oppressor class. There's a vast body of academic literature out there on the topic of social stratification and it shows quite well that oppressed groups are usually worse-off when it comes to measurements like longevity, health and self-destructive behavior. Yet women outlive men by about six or seven years and score far better in categories like that. The obvious answers to this paradox do not jibe with feminist scripture at all, so feminists use creative and frankly weird explanations to rationalize this. They seek doctrinally acceptable scapegoats instead of answers." I cracked my knuckles and cleared my throat. "Do you know the word 'rationalization'?"
She shook her head. I punched it into her dictionary.
"To 'rationalize' is to accept a belief not because of rational considerations, but because you badly want to believe it. Perhaps it serves the purpose of making your bad actions seem more reasonable or perhaps it is painful for you to realize that some of your behavior is bad. Remember when you told me a minute ago that men are stronger, so me hitting you is wrong but not vice-versa? That leaves you free to brutalize me. Doesn't that reflect badly on you? No, not if you convince yourself that it's okay for you to hit me and it's my fault if I can't 'take it like a man'. You don't have to feel bad if you give me a black eye. It's a form of self-delusion. I mean, a skinhead won't look in the mirror and say: 'I'm a total prickmonkey bastard'. He'll rationalize everything to make himself correct."
"Oh, I see." She exhaled deeply. "Hmm. So what rationalizations do feminists use for why women live longer?"
"There seem to be four excuses that feminists like to use. The first is that women have better genes: that women are the Master Race. But maybe you've heard a few other Master Race theories in the past too? Can you name any off the top of your head?" I chuckled. "But that kind of hard-nosed Social Darwinist explanation doesn't address why Bangladeshi men tend to slightly outlive Bangladeshi women. So lay that DNA argument aside, it doesn't work very well. The second feminist excuse is that this life-span disparity is another example of how women are oppressed. Everything else is proof of female oppression, so why not that as well?" I snorted sarcastically. "But they have to get really creative in order to make this point: women are prisoners in their little gilded cages, just like the Bush twins are victimized and kept in their gilded cages. Women live longer-- but I suppose that's bad because they suffer longer, too. You almost feel sorry for the little angels." I shrugged and laughed dryly. "You really have to bend-over backwards to make that kind of tortured conclusion. And the third feminist rationale is actually the inverse component of the second rationale: the relentless male habit of oppressing women is to blame. Men oppress women, so men die. The Secret Service agents die early because they're exerting so much energy victimizing the innocent and helpless Bush twins." I rolled my eyes and made a 'what the fuck?' facial expression. "So men die early, and it's their fault. They have to stop oppressing women, and they will live longer. Feminists actually prefer to believe this shit, Rieko. I'm not making this up."
Rieko laughed.
"It is laughable, I know! But these rationales get taken very, very seriously by Anglo-American academics. And the fourth feminist rationale for the life-span disparity has become the most popular: it's that men are simply too stupid and reckless and lunk-headed, so they die. Men don't cry enough and they don't play with dolls enough and they don't see the doctor enough, so they act bestially violent and have heart attacks and kill themselves. Men have to change themselves to become more like women and women are just too gosh-darned powerless and innocent to do anything anyway." I groaned for what felt like the thousandth time. "If you think about it, this argument is actually the inverse component to the Master Race theory we covered a second ago. Men are inferior mutants, so they sort of deserve to die if they don't change themselves to be like the Master Race. There's nothing women can do, because it men's fault and women are totally innocent and helpless anyway. No big loss. Who'll miss a man?" I scratched my ear. "But if the genders were reversed, this kind of blasé apathy would be considered a form of extreme misogynistic hatred. It's akin to willfully ignoring the AIDS crisis in Africa because they're only Africans. No big loss, they're just Negroes who are too backwards and stupid to understand how viruses are spread. They need to abstain from sex and the problem will resolve itself, so there's no need for non-Africans to do anything. The burden is on them." I snorted derisively. "It's really interesting-- when its time to speculate on the genetic superiority of women, American females immediately become hard-core Social Darwinists to praise their own special feminine features. But when it comes to the possibility of there being advantageous male traits, those are considered unfair advantages. Women require special help to overcome those in order to fulfill the noble idea of Ekwalitee. It's a really intriguing flip-flop that they do. They become gleefully excited Galtonians whenever its time to comment on some genetic flaw that men have or some superiority that women have. Those have to be the only two occasions when it's acceptable to be a Social Darwinist in academic circles nowadays." I shrug. "Most loathsome of all, a lot of rank-and-file American chicks seem to find humor in the fact that men die early. And humor in injuring and castrating men, too. The moral level revealed by that attitude is so incredibly low and shameful, you'd have to read the newsletters of the KKK to find something comparable. It's simply staggering."
"Eiii?" Rieko asked in semi-disbelief.
"No, really! I challenge you to look through history and try to find other cases of that! What leaps-out? Racist hate-groups, that's what. The attitude of legitimizing violence on males looks a lot like racist fanaticism, except it's done as humor! On any scale of moral development, that attitude ranks so low it's... it's..." I shook my head in disbelief. "You don't even want to think about how low it is."
Rieko shrugged too. "It's depressing."
"Indeed! It really reveals how morally bankrupt they are. Now are you starting to understand why I don't like American chicks? Sure American feminists might say that men and women are worthy of equal protection, but they refuse to even so much as acknowledge that men's problems exist. And then they'll immediately change the subject back to women's problems. That reflexive, knee-jerk changing of the subject is a permanent feature of feminists when it comes to these kinds of issues. Women's problems are the only ones which deserve any attention at all. Do you see what's going on in the larger picture?"
"Maybe I do. They're really stuck in their ways."
"Yes! Ideological rigidity always requires a certain amount of willfully blinding yourself to inconvenient truths. In order to maintain strict ideological purity, they must rationalize or ignore those facts which conflict with the victimhood-entitlement cult. So North American women will rationalize the life-span inequality, even resorting to crackpot Master Race theories, instead of seriously considering more obvious answers which disagree with the secular religion that they have. The explanations of the lifespan disparity that I mentioned are nothing more than the opinions of a privileged group of women talking amongst themselves, trying to rationalize the disastrous human consequences of society's indifference to male life. That's how beyond reason they are-- they will believe anything which does not suggest that women have imperfections."
"So what is a simpler explanation for the difference in life-span?"
"Well, I think one big reason is that American women live heavily privileged and subsidized lives. But that's a dangerous thought to the feminist, for that goes against the doctrine of female oppression. Women can not have a privileged existence because men are always oppressing them. 'Privileges? What privileges? We don't have any privileges!' Women can't give-up what they don't have, you see. Even though the existence of female privilege is obvious to any sane person who keeps their damned eyes open."
"Privileges like...?" Rieko continued.
"Isn't it pretty apparent?" I asked. "Wouldn't men live shorter lives if they are considered unworthy of the protections and subsidies that are reserved for women? And wouldn't men die earlier if society rewards them when they devalue their own health so they will take more risks and make more sacrifices so that women can be freed from the burden of doing so?" I raised my voice slightly. "Don't those thoughts seem to match your observations of life more closely than some ridiculously elaborate pontificating about genetic maladies or how the Bush-twins are being oppressed?"
"Yes, I guess they do." She nodded.
"Let's say that I marry some rich woman who goes-out and works at a stressful job 54 hours a week while I spend part of my day doing housework and maybe working a part-time job or some labors of love on the side. And let's say that society considers me more deserving of protection and safety than my wife. After twenty or thirty years of this, won't I probably have better health than my wife will? Won't I probably live longer than she will?" I snorted.
"That explains..."
"A hell of a lot? Of course it does!" I shot-back. "But no, women have got to obscure the truth. Men are evil and stupid and Neanderthal-like oppressors. They jealously keep all the goodies to themselves. It's all the fault of bad genes: there must be some mysterious genetic malady which affects only non-Bangladeshi men." I folded my arms and looked disgusted. "The protection of precious women ought to be the responsibility of everyone. Society ought to work together and pool its resources for women, but if men can't take care of themselves they deserve to die-off. Do men have unique hazards in their lives? Hah! The pain of that thought is too much for feminists to bear. Feminists can't stand it. They flip-out when that idea comes-up. That is how sexist and black-hearted the American feminists are. Hearts as black as the Ace of Spades."
"You really don't like their mentality!" She observed.
"No, I hate it. They constantly contradict their own principles, for God's sake. And it's impossible to debate with feminists too. They personalize everything, because 'the personal is political.' Every single response they have can be boiled-down to: 'Women are oppressed, so shut up.' Seriously, that's their argument. 'Women are so oppressed, nothing you experience compares to female pain. Your concerns are but a flea compared to Mount Everest. Your problems are without legitimacy or even minimal importance until women have lives which are free of irritation. Until then, shut up.' That's every argument strategy they have-- changing the subject back to female oppression and saying they have everything worse. 'I am more oppressed and you're afraid of Ekwalitee, so shut up and stop expressing your perspective, you whiner'. Well, that's not totally true-- they also like to charge that any opposition to them is rooted in mental illness or irrational hatred." I looked at her incredulously. "It's the definition of anti-intellectualism, but it's their entire debate strategy. It's a nearly transparent illiberal irrationality which parades-around, masquerading as liberal rationalism. And you know what? Even though they claim that their oppression makes their concerns paramount, ignoring men's problems is bad for society in general. Not just for men." I grumbled.
"How?" She asked.
"For example, there's a charity called the March of Dimes. On their web page, they say that about sixty or seventy percent of birth defects have unknown causes. Birth defects are poorly understood but can cause a lifetime of disability. So let us imagine that society doesn't care about diseases which affect the testes and prostate. And let us imagine that society doesn't care if men get channeled into dangerous professions. Say you don't care if men are inadequately protected from things like the dangerous chemicals, heavy metals and radiation they'd get in dangerous jobs. Might those things damage a man's sperm? Could damaged sperm contribute to birth defects or health problems in infants, many of whom will invariably be female infants?" I looked at Rieko very seriously. "But no, feminists never think that far ahead. That would require an ability to discard ideology and connect a few damned dots. And I can think of a few other examples of how discrimination in favor of women is bad for society too..."
"Like what?"
"In the North American education system, there's been an ongoing campaign over the past 25-odd years to indoctrinate school officials about the oppression of girls and the need to create Ekwalitee to compensate. And by a totally unrelated coincidence, boys are steadily doing worse and worse in school nowadays. Of course the logical connections between the two phenomena are rarely acknowledged. It's taboo to question the masters, after all. So boys are more likely to get low grades or get suspended or have behavioral difficulties. They're more likely to get punished, get put in special-Ed classes and are less likely to enter college. And it's fashionable to discipline boys in the old fashioned way-- by druggin' 'em!"
"Drugs?" She asked.
"Oh my, yes! It's a marvel of technology. In the old Soviet Union they used to send troublemakers into a tsikhbol'nitsa... a psychological hospital. But we're so much more civilized today in the U.S.: we medicate schoolchildren who have attention-span problems. It's all the rage. Of course the intellectual roots are disturbingly similar to using a tskihbol'nitsa. But most of these kids are boys, so they're obviously flawed from birth. They're cheap and expendable..." I rubbed my hands with sarcastic enthusiasm. "The most well-known drug for these kinds of kids is called Ritalin and U.S. children consume nearly 9 million prescriptions of the stuff each year. That's something like 80% of the global supply. Those numbers are large enough to suggest that not all the kids who are on this drug are necessarily suffering from a disorder, but fuff! Lay that aside! Boys need to get doped-up so they can sit still, be quiet and not bother the important female students. There are school districts where something like 10% or 15% of the K-12 boys are on this drug. That's Ekwalitee, you know. The schools are just so Ekwal that millions of boys need to be drugged-up in order to function." I paused and smiled. "Isn't that a great step forward? It's a totally level playing field, isn't it?"
"That's not good for little boys. Making them take medicine to change how they learn..."
"Who cares? There are far more important things to worry about. Like whether the girls have been sufficiently liberated. Now that their chains are off, they're shooting-ahead. Today, all the girls are natural geniuses thanks to Ekwalitee!"
"Ngnmph." Rieko scowled slightly.
"Now that girls have Ekwalitee, they're surging forward. They're leaping from peak to peak. But it's probably not enough Ekwalitee for them. They still have a long way to go. Maybe 80% of the boys need to be doped-up before the playing field is totally Ekwal? And the girls ought to get free lemonade with twisty-straws, too. That sounds Ekwal to me."
"But what about the boys?"
"Tough Noogies. If you have any concerns for them, you're simply afraid of educated and empowered women. Yeah, there might be a few irritating details around the margins, though. What happens if half the future workforce can't get the education they need to get jobs? Won't that impact future productivity? Won't that cause problems with poverty and crime? And could there be unknown, long-term health-effects if millions of boys are doped-up on mind-altering pharmaceuticals? Well feh! Let us not worry about such trivial nonsense. For as long as the girls have wonderful Ekwalitee, that's all that matters. Those are the important children. They're the young masters. And if the young masters are getting ahead-- WHEE! Isn't that great? It's fantabulous!" I groaned and looked at her sadly. "This is how North American feminist chicks think and act, Rieko. Seriously. If girls do poorly in school, American chicks'll say it's because the schools aren't Eeeeeekwal. But if boys do poorly in school, it's because boys are stoooopid and have to be drugged-up."
"Hmmph. I think I hate them too." She crossed her arms.
"It doesn't stop there. Whining, wimpy, stupid non-females have to be on the back-burner until all forms of female inconvenience are eradicated from the universe." I growled bitterly. "And if protecting a woman ever conflicts with a man's legal due process, guess which one ought to get thrown-out? American women would favor the most brutal, draconian and totalitarian measures to restrain men but they refuse to tolerate even the lightest restrictions on themselves. It's astonishing, Rieko. The double-standards of North American females go on and on and on endlessly like that. The sheer hypocrisy acknowledges no boundaries whatsoever. I could list a hundred double-standards off the top of my head but they're all perfectly acceptable. The intellectual and political cultures in the English-speaking nations have become so corrupted by Ekwalitee, that women are freely allowed to pile hypocrisy upon hypocrisy and double-standard upon double-standard, ascending to ever-more ridiculous heights of destructiveness in the process. And you'll commit the heinous crimes of 'sexism' or 'wimpiness' if you ever attempt to restrain them or appeal to any of the principles they profess to love."
She stared at me intensely. She laid her hand on the back of my hand. "You really hate that mentality."
"Yes I do. And you have to understand my own background... I've always thought that the mistreatment of women is a complete disgrace. I've always believed in fairness for both sexes. Based on what my personality is like, some people back home would probably even stereotype me as a supporter of feminists. But the modern-day mentality of American chicks has totally driven me to the edge of insanity. 'Respect me, no respect for you!' I'm sick of hearing every week for the past ten goddamn years about how victimized American chicks are. Glass ceilings! 72 cents for every dollar! Rap lyrics occasionally disrespect us! Barbie's tits are too big! Their ovaries hurt so fucking much all the time. They hector endlessly like that. It's gotten so old and tired. I can no longer tolerate it. There once was a time when I might've been a male supporter of the feminist cause, but they totally blew it with me. Totally blew it! Why on earth would I back a cause which tells me that my perspective is null and void before I even open my mouth? Why would I back a cause which insists over and over that there's nothing legitimate about my concerns if I don't have the right genitals? They really believe that if men's concerns are ever addressed in an equitable fashion then women's 'fragile gains' will be demolished and evil men will go on a rampage and force all women back into the 18th century. That's what they think. The sheer level of irrationality and paranoia is just..." I sigh, exasperated and disgusted. "Fuck..."
"Was that a swear?" She feigned shock. "Naughty!"
"Heh... sorry." I emitted a single, tired laugh and sighed. "It's just such a self-preoccupied and mindless perspective that they have. And the victimhood never goddamn ends, either. They're always oppressed no matter what. Just like how the chocolate rations keep going up in 1984."
Chocolate Rations Are Up!
"I read the book 1984 in college." Rieko said, nibbling on the corner of a maple scone. "It was in a twentieth century world literature class. I read the Japanese version."
I smiled. I love that book. "That's very good! I haven't met many people in Japan who've read Orwell. He's one of my favorites." I nodded. "In China, they unbanned Orwell very recently. They opened the play Animal Farm in Beijing last year, but I heard it was done in such a way that much of the audience missed the point." I shrugged. "Tell me, what was the agreed interpretation of 1984 in your class?"
"We agreed it was a satire of the Soviet Union."
"That's the most popular interpretation. It's the no-brainer interpretation of 1984. It doesn't make you think very hard, does it?"
"What's another interpretation?"
"The interpretation of literature or film or art often tells us more about who is doing the interpretation, I think. Obviously Orwell's book is kind of an anti-Stalinist manifesto, but I think the deeper meaning of 1984 is more slippery."
"What, then?" She rested her hand on my knee and squeezed it ever so gently.
"I think I recall reading somewhere that Orwell once publicly disavowed that 1984 is an anti-Soviet metaphor, but I could be wrong about that. Anyway, in the book we see something which certainly looks like the Soviet Union under Stalin. Goldstein seems to be a metaphor for Trotsky. And the attempts at thought control, the centralized state power, the torture chambers, the artificial conditions of scarcity, the hopelessness and cynicism so on. It looks very much like the Soviet Union." I reflexively clenched-up my fist and gestured with it absent-mindedly. "But at least one Soviet critic-- maybe it was in 'Literaturnaya Gazeta', I don't really recall where-- claimed that 1984 was actually a satire of the capitalist west. The all-consuming nature of a military-industrial complex gone mad, he claimed. He even said this despite the fact that the Soviets banned Orwell from their bookstores until 1988." I chuckled. "But anyway, both sides of the Cold War apparently tried to harness the book to make propaganda against the other. Something like: 'our enemy is Big Brother, so we must permanently be on high-alert.' Which is, of course, a Big Brotheresque message in itself." I smiled. "So I like to think that 1984 is actually a satire of any system that would try to turn 1984 into a propaganda weapon."
"Soo ka, soo ka!" She nodded and politely covered her mouth, munching her scone.
"I prefer that interpretation, at least." I shrugged. "But one of my all-time favorite themes in that tale is about powerful groups who present a description of reality that is designed to camouflage their dirty work. Perhaps even by portraying their actions as the opposite of what they are doing. War is peace, freedom is slavery, chocolate rations have gone-up. Oceana was a kind of opposite-land where the official description of reality was always different from what was actually happening. And if you look closely, you might spot indications of this happening around you..."
"For instance?" Rieko brushed a crumb from her mouth with a napkin.
"Well, for instance... um... lemme think." I looked at the ceiling and thought. "Um... the 1994 Rwandan genocide was not just a spontaneous outbreak of violence. For many years it was preceded by a long propaganda campaign and smaller outbreaks of violence driven by Hutu supremacists. But in early April of 1994 the Rwandan president's plane got shot-down, Hutu extremists took-over part of the government and they began to organize the murder of large numbers of Tutsi and moderate Hutu. The extremists handed-down orders to local prefects which were to be read to the Hutu public in order to recruit participants. They used public radio broadcasts and print media, too. These broadcasts and instructions were quite Orwellian. They referred to the mass-slaughter of Tutsi as a "pacification" campaign. Hacking people to death was referred to as "work" or "labor for the common good" or "self-defense" and machetes were "tools". The killing gangs were called "civilian self-defense forces" who were to rid the countryside of "cockroaches". There was a big attempt to put a veneer of normalcy and moral authority on a bloodbath. And it was so effective that even some of the clergy joined these killing gangs."
"I don't really know much about Rwanda." She wrinkled her nose. "Do you have any other examples?"
"Um... something better? Okayyyy...." I looked-up to the ceiling and thought again. "Okay, back in the year 1984..." I put-down my cup and thumbed my chin stubble. "...in 1984 there were some very interesting advertisements which referenced the book 1984. It was a major theme in some of the adverts. Apple Computer had a very famous SuperBowl commercial to usher-in the Macintosh. And big companies like IBM, Exxon, AT&T and Citibank had full-page ads in the major magazines. Many of these commercials had very similar messages that year about technology: 'Big Brother is smashed! The Macintosh computer has liberated us! Huzzah!' or 'Orwell was wrong! Mobil uses technology for good purposes! Yippie for Mobil!'" I cracked my knuckles. "The recurring theme that year was: 1984 is dead, technology has made us free, so hoorah."
"So...?" She looked at me, a little puzzled.
"1984 illustrates groups who describe the world in a way which is the opposite of reality, right?"
"Right." She nodded.
"And the theme in those commercials was that Orwell's world has not become reality because technology has set us free. But!! If Orwell's world had indeed become reality, then these kinds of commercials are exactly what you'd expect to find!" I gave her hand a squeeze excitedly. "So if 'freedom is slavery' and 'technology has set us free', then it means that technology has made us into slaves!"
"Ahh soo?!" She opened her mouth in a half-smile. Her eyebrow shot-up, she laughed nervously and sighed in disbelief. "Eiiii!"
"Why did they need to reassure us that we're free, eh? It really makes you wonder, doesn't it!" I patted her hand, smiling.
Brave New 1984
"That's very funny, actually." She picked a stray hair off her jeans and laughed nervously again. "Eiii..."
"If we think about this some more, we can reach some other disturbing conclusions." I continued. "If Satan wanted you to hand-over your soul voluntarily, then Satan would convincingly pretend to be God. And a tyrannical slave society would falsely claim to be a free society: the 'People's Democratic Republic' of North Korea for instance. And you're not hacking a Tutsi to death, you're only working in a pacification campaign of self-defense. Nothing peculiar about that, so go ahead."
She nodded. "And the Ministry of Love tortures people."
"Exactamundo." I agreed. "The important point in that book is that you need to learn to fiercely think for yourself and never let yourself get isolated. As long as you can put 2 and 2 together and get 4, then they haven't taken everything away from you. But Winston Smith finally cracks at the end. They break him. He finally learns to love the system which is booting him in the face and accepts that 2 plus 2 is 5."
"Yes, it was a very challenging book to read."
"Oceana is a crude dictatorship, though. There are less blatant ways of controlling people. If you rely mainly on violence to restrict people, they'll start to resist. Instead of torturing people who make the 'wrong' choices, it might be a wise idea to offer people a set of prescreened 'correct' choices with some rewards attached to them. This offers an illusion of choice. Like a doctor who offers a sick patient 5 different placebos while not acknowledging a cabinet full of medicine."
"I heard about a book similar to 1984 by someone... I think... Arudesu Hakusuri?"
"Arudesu... Hakusuri?" I asked back. I blinked.
"It's an English author."
"Hakusuri... Haku... Huk... OH! Huxley!" I closed my eyes and laughed hard. "Oh, yes! You mean Huxley! Aldous Huxley."
"That's right."
"Heehee. 'Arusdesu Hakusuri'. You had me stumped for a sec there." I laughed again. "But yes, you're right. He had a slightly different take on the proper way to build a dictatorship. Brave New World is the book you were talking about?"
"I think so."
"Yes that book was interesting. But it really made a lot of sense when it came to designing a good dictatorship..."
"I never read that book."
"Maybe I'll try to order you a copy from online? It's a hard book for you to read in English, though. Brave New World is an unsettling satire about a false utopia where happiness is mandatory but genuine human feelings don't exist any more. There's stability, but no progress or pain or unpredictability or much spontaneity. No reasonable human would ever want to live in such a place, I think. But this book was written in the early 30s, long before 1984. By the 1940s Orwell could use a number of dictatorships as models, but Huxley was more science-fictiony. He wanted to imagine the perfectly clever, scientific dictatorship which could last forever."
"How would his perfect dictatorship be different?"
"The dictatorship in 1984 has some big flaws: it is very inefficient and doesn't create much prosperity. It might last for a while but it relies on force and terror so you need an army of goons with whips and guns. A slave becomes aware when force is being used against him, so he might start to resist. Even if its only passive-aggressive resistance. But Huxley felt that an efficient, scientific dictatorship wouldn't rely on terror and goon squads at all. It would use softer, kinder, gentler means."
"What would it use?"
"Firstly, he thought you should hard-wire the features of slavery into human biology as much as possible. Empires may rise and fall, but human biology doesn't change very fast. This was before the discovery of DNA, so Huxley's knowledge is dated. Brave New World describes an assembly-line cloning system to create custom humans. 'Bokanovsky's process'. Fetuses were conditioned depending on what their predestined jobs were going to be. In this system, babies were bred into a hierarchy. At the top were a small number of Alphas who quietly kept everything going. The Alphas were the ones who optimized the reproduction output-mix, designed the education curricula and managed the culture-trends and stuff like that. At the bottom there were a bunch of Epsilons. The Epsilons did all the menial shit-work like garbage-collecting, street-sweeping and so on. There were intermediate levels in the pyramid like Betas and Gammas, but the differentiating features of the master and slave were made biological as much as possible. Furthermore, social mobility was constricted by keeping people in their proper castes throughout their lives. Biology transcends every aspect of human existence, so this factor would narrow or expand options most of all. So that was his first technique: differentiate the masters and slaves biologically, starting from birth."
"I see. That makes sense." She agreed.
"Second of all, it's hard to attain stability in an unequal situation without a certain amount of consent to it. Gross inequality does not give positive emotions to those who are not favored, so a clever dictator will design a way to make the slaves enthusiastic and happy about their servitude. It's important to control how people feel, so the slaves must be made to love being in their caste. Make it so they don't want to live otherwise. You'd make the Alpha-caste seem unappealing, too. You'd do this by giving the various castes different forms of indoctrination and conditioning. 'Don't you love being an Epsilon? The Alphas have icky work. Epsilons are so important. Yessiree we're so lucky to be Epsilons, we have everything so great. Don't you feel sorry for the poor Alphas?' That sort of thing. Over and over."
"That's very smart."
"Yes, so that's his second technique of social control. The lower castes are conditioned to love slavery and not want to have any roles in the higher castes. They couldn't be happier working as slaves, so they work hard and create prosperity for all. Last, Huxley thought it would be a good idea to use various mood-altering pharmacological methods as incentives to help create the types of conformity that are useful for the exercise of power. Like putting psychedelic-orgasm drugs in the water and aphrodisiacs in the chewing-gum and so on. So the better you match your role, the more psychotropic or erotic diversions you will receive. Your pleasure will increase if you become a good slave. Huxley thought this was a nice approach to control because pharmacological, psychological and emotional methods are a rather non-coercive way of affecting people's behavioral range. Sex, especially. It's among the most basic of human desires and pleasures, so he thought it was a great motivation and pacifier."
"I see."
"So let us gather these lessons: how can you envision the most efficient and stable form of slavery imaginable?" I tented my fingers like Dr. No sitting in his command-chair. "First, hardwire the master and slave by making their differentiating traits biological. Second, indoctrinate the slaves to love being in their glamorous slave-caste. Third, give them some sex-gum and emotional highs as a reward for good performance and conformity." I paused and raised an eyebrow. "Oh my, that would be a very good slave-system indeed. But to go one step further, let us add-in an element of 1984 to make things less humane and more interesting. What do you think the result might look like?" I asked.
"What?"
"Oceana is opposite-land, remember? The propaganda would obscure what's going on. In a hypothetical 'Brave New 1984', the Alphas would forever claim that the big, strong Epsilons have all the power." I smiled and touched a pinky to my lower lip. "The Alphas would demand ever-more 'fairness' from a system which subsidizes and overprotects them. This would be a paradoxical and baffling kind of tyranny where the 'oppressed' would exploit the 'oppressor'. That's so wickedly crazy, it's diabolical! You'd go mad trying to figure it out!"
"Eiii?" She asked. "Do you really believe that could ever work?"
"No, I don't." I replied quickly. "But I'm just a dumb sex-crazed male who has all the power, so why should I care?"
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"I found out that when you get married, the man becomes the head of the house. And the woman becomes the neck... she turns the head any way she wants to." -- Yakov Smirnoff.
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