Theos-Talk Archives (December 1996 Message tl00133)

Tom wrote:

>Besides this being at least as sexist as anything I have said, does this
>mean that you would advocate pacifism, which only encourages aggression?  It
>is strength that prevents and/or wins war, not weakness.

Pacifism "only" encourages aggression?  I disagree, I have seen both
personal and public examples of how pacifism saved one from bodily harm and
death, lessening the aggressive emotion felt by the would-be perpetrator.
Having said that, I think there are many cases of "war" being necessary
(certainly Hitler, among others, needed to be stopped).

The point of my statement was that too many wars have been started by men
for emotional reasons cloaked under the guise of logic.  We have seen how
men do as leaders (some good, some bad), it is time to give the ladies a
chance - since history has proven that men and women are capable of both
types of thinking. Bottom line: the rationale for denying women leadership
roles (public and private) has been proven invalid.


>How has not regarding men and women as identical caused more "untold
>suffering, pain, and division" than falsely accusing others of prejudice,
>obliterating into meaningless such words as sexism, anti-Semitism, racism,
>and homophobia, has?

It hasn't if one is being falsely accused.

What is meaningless to you is not meaningless to others.  What would you
call someone who thinks women are inferior as a species?  What would you
call someone who thinks Jews should be carted off to concentration camps?
What would you call someone who thinks AIDS is God's punishment to the gay
community?  Ignorant?  Misguided?  Yes, but then is everyone who is ignorant
a racist? or homophobe? or sexist?

These "meaningless" words are packed with meaning, and they are merciful in
the way they "condemn" someone for a specific action, rather than attacking
the whole of the person.

>You demonstrate that you do not believe that the goal of Theosophy is truth,
>since to characterize me as believing that compassion is emotional, sappy,
>and illogical is patently dishonest, and demonstrates the very antithesis of
>the Theosophical ideals of objectivity and open-mindedness.  Your whole
>article, in refusing to consider the possibility that apparent philosophical
>differences are actually semantic differences before jumping to conclusions,
>reeks of the very emotionalism that I have said is a typically feminine
>weakness.

Yes, I do believe, from what you have written - my only source in which to
characterize - that you would find compassion illogical, since compassion is
an emotion.

Regarding your statement about philosophical vs. sematic differences, I can
only say this:  the philosophical thought which claims there is a god by the
use of reason and evidence alone (design argument) is called deism; the
philosophical thought that everything is unified and that this unity is
divine is called pantheism; the philosophical thought that women are
inferior to men is called sexism; and on we can go.


What disturbs me the most, especially since I've been on this discussion
list, is that those who declare they are (and indeed seem to be)
intelligent, and aware that we all come from the same source, and know that
things are rarely as they seem, still hold on to these harmful prejudices.
And they have the sagacity to mask these thoughts in honeyed, complex
language, sometimes even calling forth the 'divine wisdom' as ally, and in
doing so, can also skillfully evade direct accusations.  I see it in your
posts and I've seen it in others.

The question is not "Is it ignorance?" but "Is it willful ignorance?"


Kym