Should the West repeal womens' suffrage ?

[Maxcady10001]

I can provide a quotation on what Nietzche's thoughts were on the procreation between who he deemed mediocre.

"The Biblical prohibition "thou shalt not kill!" Is a piece of naivete compared with the seriousness of of the prohibition of life to decadents: "thou shalt not procreate!" Life itself recognizes no solidarity, no "equal rights," between the healthy and the degenerate parts of an organism: one must excise the latter---or the whole will perish.----Sympathy for decadents, equal rights for the ill-constituted----that would be the profoundest immorality, that would be antinatire itself as morality!"
(The Will to Power, pg. 389)

This quote makes Nietzche a proponent of abortion. He speaks a lot more in disdain of people who cannot resist the slightest sexual stimuli, considering it to be a sign of decadence or a mediocre nature.

It is true Nietzche had a low opinion of women.

As to Socrates, he was on his deathbed, of course his view of anyone pestering him is going to be harsh. And he still did not go back on his previous statements on what he proposed as the ideal state in the Republic, a state which included women that had rights. For you to say since a woman bothered him on his deathbed, he had contempt for all women is disengenous. And she was his wife, what spouse would not be upset at the death of the other? You cannot make a logical argument that no man would behave the same way.

[Maxcady10001]

Instead of antinatire, it should read antinature

[Maxcady10001]

I also spelled disingenuous the wrong way.

[Dachshund]

Dachshund, I think that's the full checklist of hates delivered by you so far:

- blecks
- Arabs
- women
- gays
- abortionists.

Have I missed any? Transsexuals surely - almost everyone hates them anyway. Asians? How are you with them? Aboriginals? I can't imagine you'd approve.

Why do you embrace this standard grab bag of hatreds? My father also had that same suite of hatreds, although his main hatred was for unionists. I never understood why he was like that; he was more keen on doing than communicating so he couldn't explain it. To some extent he seemed to follow the hatred tribally - if his right wing Liberal Party tribe targeted a group via the right wing media he consumed (Murdoch press, Channel 9), then he'd follow.

I suspect the deeper answer was him being forced from Vienna in 1939 by the Nazis as a teen with the family having to start again out here. So there was a chronic sense of insecurity and fear resulting in hypervigilance, ultimately leading to these fearful hatreds. This kind of thinking is emotion-based, irrational and harmful and should always be challenged in the small hope that the "haters" will eventually appreciate that life is too short and tenuous for such divisive nonsense.

First of all , I don't hate trans-sexuals , rather I find them extremely amusing, in the sense that millions of people find Barry Humphries famous alter ego "Dame Edna Everidge" a side-splitting laugh riot.Dick Emery also comes to mind ( now I'm showing my age) in the comic persona of the frustrated spinster he created who traipsed about the byways of middle England asking any handsome young man she encountered ( in an earnest, desperate tone) : "Are you married?"

If you want to understand why your father despised Unionism , and he was right to do so, I suggest you read the thoughts of yet another loathsome dead, white male, namely, those of Adam Smith in his masterpiece "The Wealth of Nations" (1776). Reading Smith's "Wealth of Nations" will also enlighten you as to the reason why the civilized world and every decent human being celebrated with such wild enthusiasm on that magnificent night in 1989 when the wicked Berlin wall fell and the immoral ideology of Marxist-Leninist socialism and its toxic culture of death were consigned foreverto the garbage bin of history's bad ( VERY bad) ideas.

Finally, feminism will inevitably suffer the same fate as the "Iron Curtain, its just that I would like to see it liquidated sooner rather than later, because for literally every minute that there are still such public figures as Hillary Clinton,Gloria Steinem, Naomi Wolf ("in sheep's clothing") and such arch rat-bags as that bitter and twisted, frothing- at -the- mouth, geriatric, Australian Anglobitch Germain Greer ( YUK !!!) at large and spewing their absurd, destructive propaganda to the public in the West, ever more real damage is done to the natural and human environments on this planet; - more and more lives are decimated by misery and suffering; and the most frustrating thing about it all for me is that we DO have the means to put an end to this madness very swiftly if only we (men) now endeavour to find the moral courage and political confidence to stand up and act in defense of our magnificent Western culture and civilization. ACT by prosecuting and winning the (eminently winnable) case for repealing women's suffrage. Trump, of course, would do it tomorrow if he could, it's just while he certainly does not lack the will to- as they would say in Australia -"Av a go !!", unfortunately, at this present point in time he is still not strong enough ( and he knows it) politically in America to pull the stunt off in the near future.

Regards

Dachshund

[Littlemoon]

What is feminism to you?

[Maxcady10001]

You have not addressed Nietzsche's point of view or what I said regarding Socrates.

[Sy Borg]

Dachs, I see that you are completely immovable in your determination that you are worthy of voting while I am not by virtue of what is between our respective legs.

In what ways do you believe you are superior to me? You are deeming me and other women to be sub-human, unworthy of human rights.

Maybe people whose views are extreme and unbalanced should be refused the vote instead?

[Sy Borg]

I knew the alt-right was a problem but I never imagined that they would go as far as to wind the clock back over a century and effectively deny women personhood. It's all rather nauseating. Do you really believe that Australia was in better shape in 1900 than it has been since suffrage? How can you believe such obvious falsehoods?

Dachs, everything you have said is so utterly wrong and unbalanced that it's hard to know where to start. Your spite, hatreds and insults against ideological enemies are also pretty extraordinary. I suspect that this fanaticism - basically alt-right fundamentalism - is largely due to fear of change and resentment against regular female rejection.

I do not believe in evil but the alt-right appears to be as close as it gets in the west's mainstream.

[Sy Borg]

My father's prejudice were somewhat understandable, but I cannot see the logic in your ideology, DH. You are completely wrong as to why he despised unions.

He wasn't a warrior based on ideology like you; he was a practical grounded man. He simply hated unions because, when he first arrived in Australia as a refugee, he lost his first few jobs because racist union officials demanded that he be sacked, claiming that he was taking jobs from "Australians". He hated gays because Mum's gay friends were rude and racist to Dad.

As a conservative he was not at all happy with the Liberal Party's increasing largesse towards corporations and relative disregard of small business. He was more practical and less of an ideologue than today's conservatives, who appear to be increasingly irrational and crazy, epitomised by Trump and his "deplorables" (Clinton was completely right with that statement and she should not have backed down from it IMO).

[Steve3007]

To Dachshund:

What is feminism to you?

I suspect that, as before, the character of Dachshund would use some of these terms:

...ugly, 20-something, grossly over-weight, tattoo-festooned, multi-colour haired, loud-mouthed "radical feminist" bitch...

i.e. "Feminism" is used as a collective term for an imagined group of people who are primarily characterized by various visible physical characteristics that make them easy to identify in the mind's eye, so they can be held up as objects of derision or hatred. As we know, this concentration on physical caricatures of the group we wish to collectively attack seems to be a pretty common human trait. I guess it's because we are such visual animals. The description I've quoted above could almost be directly translated into a cartoon caricature, similar to those that have been very effective for the purpose of group condemnation in the past.

Whether the views expressed by the character called Dachshund correspond to the actual views of a real person, or whether there's a person on the other end simply playing a part in order to illicit a response for his/her entertainment (normally referred to as a "troll") is impossible to tell. But if something consistently looks, walks and quacks like a duck then it's naturally going to be interesting to wildfowl enthusiasts. I think it's interesting to try to figure out where this extreme example of group-hate comes from; the past life experiences that led to it.

My view is that the abortion ( medical/chemical destruction) of a live fertilized ovum in a woman2s womb at any time after moment after conception should be banned because it effectively represents the cold-blooded, premeditated murder of a defenseless and utterly vulnerable (potential) human being.

Why did you add the word "potential" in parentheses here? At what point in the development of the embryo/foetus would you remove that word and simply refer to the unborn baby as a human being? 2 weeks? 12 weeks? 3 months? 9 months? Do you think it would help your position to drop the word "potential" altogether - to simply assert that at the moment when a sperm cell fertilizes an egg, a human being comes into existence?

Can you accept that some people would disagree with your position on this? Without simply directing a stream of invective against such people. i.e. do you find it possible to "agree to disagree" with other people on any moral issues? Or is always necessary to paint a caricature of your perceived enemies and attack it?

Dachshund, I think that's the full checklist of hates delivered by you so far:

- blecks
- Arabs
- women
- gays
- abortionists

The one that you have missed - the one that started us getting acquainted with the Dachshund character - is Muslims. You may recall that he/she proposed to abandon one of the core values of western justice systems by applying collective punishment to all citizens of our countries whom he/she decided were Muslims. The obvious irony is that he/she expresses views, particularly in this thread, that groups like the Taliban or the Wahhabists would be proud to call their own. Maybe that's a deliberate joke. Who knows.

Dachs, I see that you are completely immovable in your determination that you are worthy of voting while I am not by virtue of what is between our respective legs.

In what ways do you believe you are superior to me? You are deeming me and other women to be sub-human, unworthy of human rights.

I would suspect the answer (if the character remains consistent) is that you, like "Muslims", are not an individual person. You are a member of a homogeneous group called "women" who are defined by a caricature similar to the one I quoted above.

A similar process was applied to the character of Steve3007 when he decided to express disagreement with Dachshund's proposal to apply collective punishment to all members of a religious group (stripping all people labelled as Muslims of their citizenship). My caricature has been a slightly strange one, based on such diverse things as testosterone levels and the country and region in which I live. But if it has a name, I guess it would be "the emasculated and decadent western male" or some such thing.

[Sy Borg]

Yes, this whole alt-right movement is all very odd, Steve. I suppose I'd be deemed a "ball-breaking feminist" by Mr Hund, and the fact that I'm neither a ball-breaker nor a feminist wouldn't matter, just as your emasculation and decadence are non-existent - OMG it's all so silly :lol:. I would lock this thread for lacking any potential for rich philosophical discourse except that I'd then be accused of bias.

What we have ultimately is an example of the counter drive to progression, the drive to regress. This happens when those whose youthful expectations and dreams are dashed by societal change, and they long to return to the comfortable chaos of their youth to which they have been adapted. They fiercely resent the increased controls that are inevitable in ever more dense populations. Many do not appreciate that one cannot live in a crowded city as one does in rural areas; it would be chaos, probably civil war.

This is why the Japanese, Chinese and Indians have such strict norms regarding good manners. Westerners, accustomed to speaking their minds freely in safe environments without many others around, can feel constricted as it becomes ever more likely that a subject of their criticism will probably overhear and make them accountable. Then they complain about "political correctness" and haunt philosophy forums with social complaints carrying all the philosophical import of a puddle.

[Dachshund]

Dachshund

Have you read Plato's Republic?

"Then as far as the guardianship of a state is concerned, there is no difference between the natures of the man and of the woman, but only various degrees of weakness and strength.....Then we shall have to select duly qualified women also, to share in the Life and labours of the duly qualified men; since we find that they are competent to the work, and of kindred nature with the men." ( Plato's Republic, pg.162)

It seems you chose philosophers from a hat. How could you even put Nietzsche on that list. To only say he would be against women's right is disengenuos. He didn't believe any two men were equal. He wanted rights taken away from everyone he deemed mediocre. Besides Nietzsche, I don't take Schopenhauer or Kant seriously. Schopenhauer hated life and I don't see any validity to Kant's metaphysics. The other philosophers I have not yet read.

(1) What on Earth does Schopenhauer's pessimism, or your opinion that Kant's metaphysics is invalid, have to do with the famous observations that these two great Western thinkers set down regarding the nature of women ? Observations, BTW that the world of letters still regards as important and worthy of serious consideration today in 2018; observations that I and countless thousands of others readers would readily agree "hit the proverbial nail right on the head"(!)

(2) You misunderstand Plato.

Plato was not a feminist in the sense of what the term feminism connotes today, namely, in its modern definition as "a theory of the political, social and economic EQUALITY of the sexes." (OED)

Briefly, the women in Plato's republic could participate in the State, but this participation did not by itself guarantee their equality to men. Moreover, women being permitted to participate in the Platonic State had nothing to do with any genuine sense of equality; because what motivates the decision to allow female participation is not any consideration of women's rights or the notion of gender equality; rather it is a mere pragmatic consideration of the benefit to the State, which, to function optimally, requires the cooperation of all abilities available, the good ones as in the case of male abilities and the more mediocre ones in the case of women's abilities. In short, Plato allows women to participate in the republic like men, NOT because they are EQUALLY as good as men, or are deserving of EQUAL rights, but simply because they can be useful.

In sum, Plato's account of the typical /average woman in the "Republic" reflects his general view that (with the exception of some relatively rare extraordinary individual cases), women are NOT EQUAL to men. In fact, he repeatedly insists on the weakness and inequality of women to men, who, he tells us, can only be punished by being turned into women in their reincarnation cycle (!) ...



"According to the probable account, all those creatures generated as men who proved themselves cowardly and spent their lives in wrong - doing were transformed at their second incarnation, into women. And it was for this reason that the Gods at that time contrived the love of sexual intercourse by constructing an animate creature of one kind in us men, and of anoither kind in women; and they made these severally in the following fashion."



(Plato, Volume 9, "Timaeus" (90a); Heinemann Ltd, 1925.)


Regards


Dachshund

[Maxcady10001]

I never referred to Plato as a feminist. And mentioning Plato still hurts your case, because you would take away the rights and "usefulness" of women in your ideal state. In your opinion women have ruined the state and should not have rights in its governing, so it is still contradictory to mention Plato as a citation for your case.

[Steve3007]

Yes, this whole alt-right movement is all very odd, Steve. I suppose I'd be deemed a "ball-breaking feminist" by Mr Hund, and the fact that I'm neither a ball-breaker nor a feminist wouldn't matter, just as your emasculation and decadence are non-existent - OMG it's all so silly . I would lock this thread for lacking any potential for rich philosophical discourse except that I'd then be accused of bias.

Yes, being informed that you have various characteristics of an imagined group, based on no evidence, is an odd feeling isn't it? On an anonymous written forum like this, where we know nothing about each other except what we write here, I think it's always interesting when a poster who indulges in that kind of behaviour comes along, because of what it potentially tells us about them. Given that the only person each of us on here knows anything about with any degree of certainty is ourselves, when a poster comes along expressing lots of views about other posters that aren't based on those posters' words and which those posters know to be false, the most likly conclusion seems to be that they are talking more about themself than anyone else. In Dachshund's case, I guess it would be some kind of insecurity about his status as a male, or something. (Assuming he is male.) That seems the most likly explanation for apparently wanting to, almost literally, gag women.

So I think it would be a pity to lock this thread, because of the mildly interesting psychology that might come out of it, as explored a bit by you in the second paragraph.

Regarding the "alt-right" movement, I think it would be unfair to them if we were to assume that Dachshund's (claimed) views on this particular topic are representative of them. I don't really know much about them, but I don't think the removal of voting rights for women is normally something that is associated with the alt-right, is it?

[Dachshund]

What is feminism to you?

For the purposes of this discussion,I define feminism as a theory of the political, economic and social EQUALITY of the sexes; and a feminist as one who believes that this theory is veridicial and provides a valid/legitimate ideological foundation for the project of reforming of any existing patriarchal status quo, in particular, the kind of conservative status quo which is currently maintained in such contemporary Western, free-market capitalist republics as the United States of America .