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Bigotry and reality

  
  

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Supersister
19:11 / 05.04.08
And I resent being called hard right. If anything the most common accusation I field is that I am loony left, but in actual fact I am not party political at all. I think it's ludicrous that we have to pick a side and all part of the same silly problem. I can be somewhat of a devils advocate, though. I like to examine things from a different perspective instead of the same old tired versions, which are clearly serving us none too well as it stands. I know most people find these alternative theories difficult to hear, but that only serves the more to convince me that they need to be voiced. Only one dogma, especially one which emanates from only one section of society, cannot be healthy.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
19:21 / 05.04.08
And to suggest possible alternative theories to problems, such as that AIDS may be a figment of the white male mind, is not permitted. One would be laughed out of the lab.

Well, helpless noises and shrugging and so on and so forth. Yes, if you put forward an alternative theory which has absolutely no substantiation, no evidence, no alternative mechanism by which eg. million upon million AIDS sufferers met their deaths, and no basis in reality--if, in short, your theory happens to be a load of cobblers--then yes, you'll be laughed out of the lab. Where I'm getting lost is how this is in any sense a bad thing.

I can only conclude you must yourself be a scientist.

Gosh, that's the nicest thing anyone's said to me in ages.
 
 
Alex's Grandma
19:27 / 05.04.08
And to suggest possible alternative theories to problems, such as that AIDS may be a figment of the white male mind, is not permitted.

Would you care to unpack this a little more?

Alone, perhaps on the board, I'm interested in your ideas

So far they seem a bit 'I've shat in my trousers', but presumably that wasn't the concept that you were originally actioning?
 
 
Supersister
20:13 / 05.04.08
As I said, many eminent African scientists and politicians have put forward this view, I'm not the only one. For example, nobel prize winner Waangari Maathai and the entire former South African government spring to mind. But ironically, if my theory is correct, these people are bound to be immediately discredited by scientists by virtue of the very bias I am trying to highlight. Some suggest the theory of AIDS is a convenient mask for deaths from poverty, some that it is an auto immune condition but not a virus, some that it is pure voodoo, some that the AIDS drugs themselves cause the deaths. This is the point at which I see europeans balk and decry conspiracy, but they seem to ignore the fact that conspiracy need not be conscious or pre-meditated. White male scientists may simply be seeing what deep down it suits them to see.

I have only my common sense and what I read to go on, but the fact is scientists cannot agree on a model for this supposed virus and I find it very difficult to believe that there exists a natural disease which only seems to kill predominantly africans and homosexuals. This may be my own bias. At the very least, it suited the white male agenda to leave the thing largely untreated for so long. The theories that AIDS is a man made virus and that it is non only sexually transmitted are also interesting to me, for the same reason that they provoke such outrage.

I'm starting to waiver on the AIDS argument, I have to admit. But I'm adamant about the science discriminates inherently against women and black people bit.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
20:39 / 05.04.08
I am familiar with Wangari Maathai's comments on the matter of AIDS. She never advanced an alternative theory of transmission nor, to the best of my knowledge, implied that the disease was not caused by a virus. One would hardly expect her to, since she's not an epidemologist or virologist (the work which earned her the Nobel prize being in the field of sustainable development). She made certain comments which could be taken as implying that HIV is a man-made virus, but later issued this statement:

"I have warned people against false beliefs and misinformation such as attributing this disease to a curse from God or believing that sleeping with a virgin cures the infection. These prevalent beliefs in my region have led to an upsurge in rape and violence against children. It is within this context, also complicated by the cultural and religious perspective, that I often speak. I have therefore been shocked by the ongoing debate generated by what I am purported to have said. It is therefore critical for me to state that I neither say nor believe that the virus was developed by white people or white powers in order to destroy the African people. Such views are wicked and destructive."

Gosh, it almost looks as if she's trying to steer people away from irrational theories about AIDS, on the grounds that they're dangerous and harmful. Who'd have thought it, eh?

As for the South African government: they are politicians, not virologists or health care workers. Politicians come out with all kinds of stupid shit. Several entire governments decided it would be a good idea to invade Iraq, I don't agree with them either.


I'm starting to waiver on the AIDS argument, I have to admit.

So you're not as keen on perpetuating a dangerous fallacy which supports attitudes that facilitiate the spread of a deadly disease as you once were. Good to know.

But I'm adamant about the science discriminates inherently against women and black people bit.

Would you care to unpack that a little? My opinion is that the reason white males are over-represented in the sciences is down to opportunity, not ability--cultural, social and economic advantage. Are you arguing that women inherently less able to think rationally and less capable of applying the scientific method than men? Are you arguing that people with dark skin are less able to think rationally and less capable of applying the scientific method than people with light skin? Because such views might be regarded as racist and sexist.
 
 
Supersister
20:51 / 05.04.08
I am saying not that they are less able to do so, but that they are less likely to do so and precisely by virtue of their social, economic and cultural disadvantage, which reliance on the scientific method in turn only operates to perpetuate.


I don't think anyone here is going to rush out and have anal sex with a stranger from a high risk category because of my comments, but just in case, can I make it clear that this is very much a personal choice and I cannot be held responsible.

Still, I think that if you read them carefully Maathai's words above are pure sophistry designed to give the impression that she is backtracking, in order no doubt to secure her position as a voice given publicity and credence by world powers, whilst carefully leaving open the possibility of an interpretation that not only does she believe AIDS to be a man made disease, but that it is a cruel and wicked one. We disempowered types do this, you know, we exploit ambiguities.

I think the word fallacy is an interesting choice.
 
 
Supersister
20:53 / 05.04.08
And I'd also say it appears above all that she is trying to steer people away from raping children, which I think we can all applaud.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
21:28 / 05.04.08
All this notwithstanding, though - the dinosaurs. What's the issue with dinosaurs?
 
 
This Sunday
21:32 / 05.04.08
I was obsessed with dinosaurs a bit when I was a child, and look now: my childhood it is extinct. Or endangered. (Except it thrives as a nostalgia market and there's a new Indiana Jones movie and all.)

Alright, I don't get the dino-hate either.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
21:38 / 05.04.08
I am saying not that they are less able to do so, but that they are less likely to do so and precisely by virtue of their social, economic and cultural disadvantage, which reliance on the scientific method in turn only operates to perpetuate.

How, pray? The mechanisms by which oppression is perpetuated have little or nothing to do with science, or with reason. It is not reasonable to deny a person the fullest expression of hir abilities purely because of hir gender or the colour of hir skin. It is not science that refuses a woman an engineering job, or fails to educate a black man. It is not science that grinds down the poor, that misuses technology, that prioritises monetary gain over human rights. It is greed, and bigotry, and ignorance that do these things. They are born of unreason, not of reason. Science tells me that women are the intellectual equals of men and worthy of equal treatment. It tells me that black people are the intellectual equals of white people, and worthy of equal treatment. When I have to go up against people who belive the contrary, it is science and reason that arm me, that provide me with the tools I need to make my case and the conviction I need to pursue it. Science and reason are my allies against the fundamental irrationality of oppression.

So I ask you again: Do please elucidate for us the precise mechanism by which "science," as you understand it, creates and perpetuates oppression. Because all I'm seeing here is a constant restating of an ignorant position, based not on facts but on appeals to that nebulous beast known as "common sense."
 
 
Supersister
21:43 / 05.04.08
I think it's possible that the white male, irrationally fearing his own extinction as he does, overidentifies with dinosaurs and obsesses about the cause of their demise.
At the same time, the vegetarian in me wonders whether in fact it is humanity's guilt about murdering and eating our furry friends that leads us to obsess about the demise of the dragon. Still, this ties in with my original proposition in that, if we amplified the voices of irrational women, we might believe fairy stories and realise that people and dinosaurs did in fact co-exist and that people ate all the dinosaurs, that is how they died out. I base this on the fact that I hang out with a lot of female separatists and have noticed that a high proportion of them are vegetarian.

Either way, scientists would confiscate my pipette and tell me to back away from the exhibit. Collective unconscious, sentience of animal kingdom, where's me tin foil hat?
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
21:49 / 05.04.08
if we amplified the voices of irrational women, we might believe fairy stories and realise that people and dinosaurs did in fact co-exist and that people ate all the dinosaurs, that is how they died out.

I don't know any women who believe that. I think I read a Chick tract like that once though; are you sure you don't want the fundie Xtian board next door?

I take issue with the idea that women are fundamentally irrational and more prone to believing in "fairy tales." This is a dangerous myth and one which oppresses women rather than empowering them.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
22:01 / 05.04.08
Also--although this pales into insignificance besides the profoundly damaging "women are irrational" lie, let alone the appalling "AIDS is a myth" stuff:

I think it's possible that the white male, irrationally fearing his own extinction as he does, overidentifies with dinosaurs and obsesses about the cause of their demise.

Ah. It's now clear to me where you're getting your understanding of science: from those newspapers with the little pages, the big words and lots of pictures. Were you to read something a little more challenging, you might learn that the scientific community isn't "obsessed" with finding out what killed the dinosaurs. It's just that What Killed The Dinosaurs stories are popular with the punters, so they're what goes on the front page of Yahoo! news. Junk science, written by hacks with liberal arts degrees but not enough scientific literacy to light a Bunsen burner.

It's not entirely your fault; you are, after all, the product of a culture meticulously rendered scientifially illiterate by generations of anti-science governments and media (since science tends to reveal knowledge that the ruling classes find inconvenient). Your culpability rests on your deliberate adoption of contentious positions merely for the sake of contention, for the sake of saying "oh, look at me, I'm so edgy and naughty and devil's-advocaty" rather than out of any true commitment to the ideas you're espousing. One day you may emerge from behind your self-constructed blinkers of smug contrarianism and begin to think for yourself. I certainly hope so if only becuase the ideas you are choosing to spread around are so very toxic, doing real damage to real people's lives.
 
 
Supersister
22:03 / 05.04.08
To be clear, I don't hate dinosaurs. I have never met one so this would be unreasonable.

Mordant, I think perhaps you have armed yourself with a very personal science and I don't want to insult your dear beliefs. I can see perhaps a distinction between pure science and practical science as it impacts on society?

The way I see it, science underpins most of current thinking, it has replaced religion in many ways and it often has the final say in saying what is what. Current science is written by white males, we agree, so it inherently excludes the undoubtedly different perspective of females and black males, its voice does not resonate with them, they are not included in it. This is how I say it perpetuates the oppression.

So science does deny a woman an engineering job in a way, because it says you must have this and this qualification and certificate to operate as an engineer, and the manner of obtaining that certificate is only realistically available to mostly white males at this time. In order to really change, we would have to admit large numbers females and black males to the ranks of scientists, and engineers and politicians and economists and doctors and lawyers IMMEDIATELY. This would require a leap of faith away from reliance on things which are only presently of value mostly to white males, such as formal education and certificates. Perhaps even opening the mind to the possibility of the validity and even value of that nebulous beast by which so many of your equals formulate their thinking?

Because if one was indeed a 'pure' scientist, perhaps it would trouble one in any case that there was a strong possibility that current conclusions were perverse on account of the lack of diversity amongst members?
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
22:13 / 05.04.08
The way I see it, science underpins most of current thinking, it has replaced religion in many ways

No it bloody well does not. How the Hel can you say that "science has replaced religion" when the most powerful nation on Earth is becoming a theocracy?

and it often has the final say in saying what is what.

Then why are we, for example, facing a man-made global catastrophe in the form of global climate change, when the vast--vast--majority of scientists have been warning that excessive consumption was fucking up the planet for years? Science doesn't get to say what's what, rich powerful men with rich powerful daddies get to say what's what. Well done for absorbing their message so uncritically. People like you are a tremendous asset to the Powers that Be, you believe everything they want you to believe.
 
 
This Sunday
22:21 / 05.04.08
I don't want to insult your dear beliefs.

Then why phrase it that way?
 
 
Supersister
22:24 / 05.04.08
OK Mordant you are ironically enough proving yourself to be a bigot. You have made so many assumptions about me, it is unreal, and some of what you say is frankly just rude, not to mention condescending and patronising. To suggest I am illiterate merely because we disagree just proves my point about scientists, really. And what is most evident is that you have not really read what I have written at all. In fact I'd go so far as to say you appear determined deliberately to misunderstand me.

I wouldn't do this normally but here we go: I have science A levels, hang out regularly with scientists and have in the past been known religiously to read the science press, including the little print. I am a feminist barrister working in the field of anti discrimination and human rights. I am fairly confident of my ability to understand what it is that does or doesn't empower me and my kind. And I pride myself on my lack of conventional rationality. Congratulations, you now know a woman who believes in fairy tales, because I take them very seriously and in a deeply intellectual way and know many feminists who do precisely the same. It is a common belief amongst feminists in fact that fairy tales are some of the only written herstory, since women have for centuries been predominantly working in the field of childcare.

Now I suggest you go back and read what I have written more closely and without anger, because, for example, you have suggested that I argue AIDS is not a virus, do I really say that?

And would it be outlandish to suggest that it is not the done thing to label someone a fundamentalist Christian, contrarian or anything else? Rather to take people at face value and let them profess membership of a particular group or movement should they wish? Let alone call them smug and suggest they are somehow 'not to blame' for something, with the inherent implication of wrongdoing? Surely that's just rude?
 
 
Supersister
22:26 / 05.04.08
And powerful rich men and their Daddies pay scientists wages.

And we are facing a global catastrophe because they like it that way.
 
 
Spatula Clarke
22:44 / 05.04.08
Man, I was all set to fuck off from here, then this happens. Really, all Barbelith needed was the appearance of a good, old-fashioned fruitcake. It's been too long.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
22:45 / 05.04.08
So, hang on... dinosaurs and homo sapiens lived side by side, and dinosaurs were hunted to extinction by humans?
 
 
Supersister
22:46 / 05.04.08
Yes there were enormous barbecues. Hence dragons.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
23:00 / 05.04.08
So, whenabouts was this? Saint George lived at the end of the third century AD, and apparently killed a dragon. Was that a dinosaur?
 
 
Supersister
23:05 / 05.04.08
It's possible. Or maybe a giant lizard. I'm guessing we ate the biggest things first. Of course it could have been a eufemism for an educated woman.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
23:12 / 05.04.08
So, you think that there were giant lizards, or fire-breathing dinosaurs, wandering around Anatolia in the third century AD?
 
 
Phex: Dorset Doom
23:12 / 05.04.08
Supersister, something I'd like clarifying: Are Jewish men being lumped in with Anglo-Saxon men under the 'white men' heading here, since many prominent scientists (Einsten, Freud, Heisenberg etc.) are Jewish? Is their sense of their own imminent extinction any different from an Anglo-Saxon scientists?

Also, to answer one of your own questions, upthread you say refer to AIDs as a 'supposed virus', so yes, you have voiced doubt that AIDs is a virus. What do you believe it actually is?
 
 
Phex: Dorset Doom
23:13 / 05.04.08
Dang, why does the best stuff always happen while I'm writing a post?
 
 
Supersister
23:23 / 05.04.08
Voicing doubt is rather different than advancing a positive argument. It is the absence of doubt and inability to model AIDS successfully that concerns me, together with the type of person it purportedly infects. If it is a single virus, I think it's entirely possible it is man made.

I don't know whether there were giant lizards or fire breathing dragons, just that it's possible.

I'm not sure whether Jewish men count as white males, they may well be special. They certainly have good reason to fear their own extincion, however, and this may well colour their world view. Before anyone jumps on me for being an anti-Semite, I'd better point out that I am not. I don't advocate genocide of any kind.
 
 
This Sunday
23:30 / 05.04.08
I don't advocate genocide of any kind.

Just fear of it, right?
 
 
Supersister
23:43 / 05.04.08
Not at all. Why the urge to second guess me? Isn't there enough to ridicule and rubbish within that which I've already written?
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
23:44 / 05.04.08
OK, so it's possible that giant lizards were wandering around Anatolia in the third century AD - or fire-breathing dinosaurs. And that the absence of report of these giant lizards is the result of a concerted effort by scientists to discredit certain facts, which only now exist in fairy tales?

I think we're getting somewhere.

(Incidentally, it's possible to be an anti-Semite without advocating genocide, just FYI.)
 
 
Phex: Dorset Doom
23:51 / 05.04.08
Fire breathing dragons are categorically not possible. There is no way that any being, lizard or otherwise, could breathe fire. For confirmation without getting all sciency, take a look at a cigarette lighter and ask yourself how the same thing could be done with meat and bone, both of which burn. You could also ask yourself, if fire-breathing dragons were possible, why dinosaur-obsessed scientists haven't made official the existence of the most awesome dinosaur of all? And who benefits from getting the scientifically-literate world believe that dinosaurs died sixty-five million years ago when (most likely) an asteroid struck the Earth rather than that they lived on to kidnap maidens? What's up with this whole 'carbon dating' business that has pretty spectacularly failed to find any seven-hundred year old tyrannosaurus skeletons in Anatolia?

Another thing I need to know, what is it that Jewish males have good reason to fear extinction from? Why do they have good reason to be afraid when white males' fear is irrational? Is it just Jewish men that have to be worried or should Natalie Portman and Sarah Silverman buy bomb shelters? Will the dragons have something to do with it like in the documentary Reign of Fire?
 
 
This Sunday
23:53 / 05.04.08
Why the urge to second guess me?

Extrapolation, rather than second guessing, because you just posted this: They certainly have good reason to fear their own extincion, which has echoes in earlier posts in regards to the (fear of or actual) extinction of white men and dinosaurs.
 
 
Tsuga
23:54 / 05.04.08
Seriously, where's Peter right now? This could really get unsavory quickly. Kind of like matter and antimatter with the same style. This could turn into the thread version of CERN.

...Some suggest the theory of AIDS is a convenient mask for deaths from poverty, some that it is an auto immune condition but not a virus, some that it is pure voodoo, some that the AIDS drugs themselves cause the deaths. This is the point at which I see europeans balk and decry conspiracy, but they seem to ignore the fact that conspiracy need not be conscious or pre-meditated. White male scientists may simply be seeing what deep down it suits them to see.

I have only my common sense and what I read to go on

You sound like you're not using the first and making poor choices with the second. As far as AIDS goes, I worked in a hospital in the southern US in the eighties, when people first started coming in with AIDS, mostly homosexual men and some drug users (or both). There certainly weren't any medications then to be poisoning them, many of them weren't poor. Well, the CDC is in Atlanta, and maybe the Reagan administration decided to start experimenting on any queers on hand... oh, no, I've said too much! I think a preponderance of scientific evidence... hang on, sorry, can't use that either... ummm, yeah. You do seem to be mistaking "science" with "white men". They may overlap often, but they are not mutually inclusive. If you believe that it's "man"-made, do you think that everyone who gets it is somehow being infected by white men or scientists? Oh, wait, they're the same. But are they somehow sneaking up and jabbing people or getting it into the water supply exclusive to queers and people of color?
I think it would suck to actually believe the things that you say you do, and I think I have to agree with the fruitcake assessment.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
00:06 / 06.04.08
I omitted to mention psychiatry as the ultimate manifestation of paranoid white male oppression, acting as it does to ensure the quick, clean and effective silencing of any dissenting voice.

You're not a Scientologist, are you?
 
 
Supersister
00:24 / 06.04.08
Ha! I think they tried to recruit me recently but again, which is also rather ironic given my views. Unfortunately I think, Scientology seems rather fatally dependent on reasoning of the very ideology it claims to oppose, although I could be wrong, I know rather little about it.

I didn't say white male fear is irrational, just that it exists and may explain their hold on power, and if I troubled you with my own family history you would all probably shut up about the Jewish thing as well. It is ridiculous, but there it is, life is much easier if one cites one's credentials; yet more evidence that there is no true equality and it really does matter which groups you belong to. I do find the naming of famous Jews rather distasteful myself, but that is perhaps irrelevant.

Is there anyone here prepared to make the intellectual leap of actually trying to understand where I am coming from in an open minded way without accusing me of intolerance or insanity? Both of which accusations I resent, although I can't help but see the funny side, since it just keeps on proving my point.

Do I really have to make a list of what I am NOT saying in order to make clear what I actually am? Cos strangely enough, this is what it can be like to be not a white male in a white male world, constantly translating into acceptable terms and fighting for respect for your voice in the face of accusations of ignorance and bigotry; it is tiring.


If it helps, I agree about the fire breathing. This is why I mentioned barbecues.

And I don't think it's without the realms of possibility that someone went around intentionally infecting gay men with a deadly virus, not at all. I don't like the idea, but knowing what I know about the extent of hatred towards homosexuals, I'd say it is very very possible. Knowing that the same group also have a tendency to hate afro-americans and then discovering shortly afterwards an entire continent imploding from the same sickness, which appears to have originated in the very last apartheid regime, well it does make you wonder.
 
  

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