Theos-Talk Archives (August 1997 Message tl00065)

A. Safron wrote:

>> From: Tom Robertson <mdmgyn@worldnet.att.net>
>> Subject: Re: Doggie Diarreha
>> Date: Friday, August 01, 1997 11:32 PM
>> 
>> A. Safron wrote:

>> >One wonders why you are still subscribed to this list, since it's
>> >overabundance of freedom offends you.  

>> I subscribe because I want to discuss Theosophy, one aspect of which
>> is how cynicism causes that in which it believes.

>cyn·i·cism (sîn¹î-sîz´em) noun
>1.	A scornful, bitterly mocking attitude or quality: the public cynicism >aroused by governmental scandals.
>2.	A scornful, bitterly mocking comment or act.

I was using it as "closed-mindedly assuming the worst about others,"
which might be similar to defining sexism as "closed-mindedly assuming
that one member of a gender has certain qualities just because that
gender tends to have that quality more than the other gender."  Just
as the difference between cynicism and skepticism is spiritual, so is
the difference between sexism and an accurate perception of the
general differences between the genders.  To say that men are more
logical than women is not sexist, even if it's wrong, which is
unlikely.  To closed-mindedly assume that any given woman is less
logical than the average man is just because women in general are less
logical than men are is sexist.  I find the correlation between those
who accuse others of sexism and those who are cynical, having, in a
different form, a similar degree of prejudice as what they believe
those whom they consider to be sexist have, to be quite high.