On the mental torsion of the subject of abortion

Ahh, abortion.

There are a few popular questions and observations that often crop up when discussing this issue. For instance, while most rational people will agree with the idea that it shouldn’t generally just be up to the woman, a common obstacle to productive discourse is the often (apparently) inarguable notion that "it’s their body." Furthermore, what’s the end all be all if there’s a stalemate in the parental decision-making process? Does anyone have the right to "force" a woman to carry a life inside of her for 10 months and give birth to it? Just as strange as a woman being able to wake up one day and decide—on a whim—to have an abortion, wouldn’t it also be strange that a man could just wake up one day and decide she's keeping the baby and carrying it to term? As always, these questions are overly-simplified to the point of irrelevance—by idiots—and must be re-evaluated and refined.

To begin with, those questions aren't even the right questions. There's a tremendous amount of emotional pressure pushing a lot of rhetoric, powered by a lot of tangible agenda, all driving nearly all of the discussion about this issue. For instance, the basic premise of the whole shapiel was predicated on the condition of a mutual decision before it even became a conversation: people (plural) decided (emphatically) to have sex. (Unless they didn't, but that endlessly-slippery slope requires delving even deeper into the behavioral chain of custody and determining what, exactly, constitutes "decision," what defines—and what mutators can affect—bonafide agency, etc., but not even those basic attributes of human existence are generally agreed upon - by those few with the capacity to comprehend them!) But, hell, even that seemingly-initial decision itself could be reasonably considered a heavily-derivative mid-chain event, just flowing on downstream from the social contracts and other, varying, tiers of  conscious and subconscious—hopefully not unconscious— transactions from which it sprouted.

Referring to the notion of it being a woman's body... well, sure, after the fact, it technically "is" - but that's after the fact, so at that point, discourse has already devolved to rhetorical semantics. It wasn't just a woman's body that led to that scenario, or even to the prior scenarios which in turn led to that scenario; someone else's body was more than just involved. Someone else's body was, in fact, required. (Barring the obviously vastly more complicated issue of artificial insemination, which I'm not touching), a pregnant woman's body being pregnant is the direct result of hers AND someone else's body having a mutually-significant interaction. Arguing about the extent of that significance is, again, just superficial semantics at this point. Perhaps more importantly even than the physical transaction, though, there would have also been an investment of intent—and by extension, agency... and by extension, self, identity, and purpose, and so on—both required, and in turn provided, and in turn accepted and acknowledged, in two directions. To change the woman's body at that point isn't just changing "her body" - it's altering the course of multiple complex processes, all but one of which still involve another person at that point. There's a LOT more going on there. All of it is relevant.

To reasonably ask the question, "What gives a man the right to aspire to affect what a woman should do with her body," you'd also have to ask, "What gives a woman—or anyone—the right to aspire to control the value or meaning of a choice that a man—or anyone else—already made WITH his body?" I suppose they're either equally ridiculous, or equally worthy of consideration. These questions have actually already been converted into relevant scientific notation, so to speak, in the form of, "What objective fact should be interpreted as proof that a woman's pregnancy—a natural, normal physiological state—is, or should be, more objectively significant than the significantly-offset physiological state of an expectant—or simply hopeful—father?" To date, there is no such fact, nor evidence of one, nor even reasonable suspicion of the existence of one. Human physiology being what it is, even as primitive as we are now, we know better than to even suggest that state of mind is anything less than a critical component of net state of being - or of a person's overall health. Perhaps a man's investment in a pregnancy is, in a strictly mechanical sense, "less" - but if mechanics were the deciding factor in, or even particularly important or reasonably relevant to, matters of such fundamental—and fundamentally subjective—scope as this, then human rights in general make for pretty ridiculous concepts. In any case, by the time this particular conversation is born, it always seems that nearly everything on the table is just latent consequence of no immediate (or clear) relevance or provenance, all of which mostly just obfuscates the root and prevents a productive discourse on the topic at a low enough level. The real seed (pun intended) of the algorithm is barely even a comprehensible concept to most people, much less the opaque and high-resolution image that it would need to be in order to hope to grow a productive—or accurate—discourse about itself. That could change, someday... but I think the median IQ of the world has to change first. ;)

So I suppose, ultimately, it's kind of a losing argument no matter who makes it or which direction anyone takes it, at least at this point in time - because it eventually boils down to some more fundamental decisions about the "meaning" of various aspects of human existence (or lack thereof, or ignorance of such options entirely, etc). Do men have reproductive rights? Should they? Should women? Should anyone? Should babies? What IS a baby? What are and/or what should be the rational boundaries of subjective interpretation of the differences between a single cell, a zygote, a fetus, a baby, a human...? What is a human, anyway? What's the difference between a cell and a machine? What rational reason is there to make arbitrary philosophical distinctions between humans made entirely of machine-like cells, and similarly-complex objects that humans arbitrarily think of as "just" machines? What ARE rights? How should we choose them? Are human rights even a reasonable concept given the pragmatic compromises necessary for and inherent in social structures? If so, should there be a distinction between biological imperatives and human rights - and if so, where, and why? Are large scale social structures even sustainable when human psychology is factored into the equation? What is that equation? I really don't think enough humans are ready to ask the questions necessary to even begin to participate in those kinds of conversations.

I have reasonably well-formed opinions on all of those matters, because I've spent an enormous amount of time and energy trying to distill and cultivate and reduce them - but even after all of that, there's just not enough opportunity for productive iteration in so many of those interesting directions given the current, uhh, human climate. And, naturally, all of these issues far precede any potentially-useful discussions about such comparatively high-level concepts as abortion. (That's also the same reason I don't generally discuss politics).

I pretty much just accept that there are undoubtedly a countless number of better solutions—and among those, at least one that is both knowable and as close to "correct" as can be—to the problems that exist now, including this one... but also, I accept that better solutions to much of the stuff that I find most interesting will probably remain irrelevant for at least as long as I'm alive. I mostly just like to periodically kick around a reminder that these problems still exist, juuust in case somebody who hasn't thought about it before, and might never, could end up doing just that. The pot needs stirring, right?

I think the strongest (clear) opinion I can genuinely offer on abortion is that it's clearly a supernova-powerful concept that, in practice, affects one of, (if not the most), fundamental of human existential directives in both women AND men, with the potential to affect not just the lives but the outright present and future—and permanent!—identities of both parents—completely irrespective of their personal relationships with each other—in such a tremendous manner that it can shape the direction of the rest of their lives, potentially in diametrically-opposite ways... and, that it wouldn't even be a topic of interest if not for the explicit involvement and overwhelmingly-substantial investment of BOTH parties. Men and women alike are being diagnosed with crippling PTSD following abortions in ever-increasing numbers. Regardless of anyone's stance on anything involving women's bodies, abortions can and DO affect men just as fundamentally as women, and do so with enough permanent consequence that they rationally must be considered effectively-equal participants. Following that, I definitely think that anything so influential, and particularly anything so potentially cataclysmic, is so far beyond even the theoretical best-case scope of any modern human society's capacity to responsibly manage... that to do so may be—and perhaps always should be—entirely beyond its permissible purview.

At the very least, attempting to simplify a multi-variable system by expressing it as a function of only one of its variables is rarely even useful - and in any case, is never a valid solution.

Oops, I Did It Again

I accidentally made eye contact and smiled at a stranger walking by me today. FUCK ME AND MY STUPID ASS! I forgot that only women or brainless ultra-vain gym rats have that right. 

Pardon me, miss - for reals. I forgot not to be human for a sec. It was a fucking accident, okay? 

Fucking feminism...

Puke, Trust Your Instinct

Sincere affection is substantial and unmistakable.

Be wary of ambiguous gestures, smiles absent touch, and spoken cliches.

Femenifascism

I have to do a public shout-out to all of the feminists among you; I had an inspiring random encounter today, and I felt the impact of those feminist ideas you're all projecting out into the world. I thought I should tell people, in the hopes of educating well-meaning people who really don't comprehend the effect their behaviors have on other members of their society. Here's what happened:

I was driving home from work on the freeway at 11 PM when I saw a car pulled off to the shoulder ahead of me. Being that there was no traffic to speak of behind me, I slowed down to see what was going on. Once the other vehicle was in range of my headlights I was able to make out a pair of women looking totally confused—and clearly freezing—as they stood behind a car with a very flat tire on the rear driver's side. I looked for signs of a jack, a spare, or a lug wrench, and saw nothing; unless they were either missing one or more of those things or there was something else wrong with the car in addition to the flat tire, there was no good reason they should be just standing around doing nothing but freezing. So, as any sensible person who gave a (small) shit would do, I partially pulled over, rolled down my window, and asked if they needed any tools or help with a spare, or if they needed to use a cell phone to call anyone.

Then, as any 30-something woman—who's learned that women of any age can get away with *absolutely any* behavior toward men, short of killing them before first coming up with at least a poor excuse—would do, one of them shouted, "Fuck off, you fucking perv." Ahh, feminism at its finest. The sight and sound of a woman fully empowered to do absolutely anything the fuck she wants—because she lives in a society where a woman's individual level of sexual and individual power over men FAR exceeds any potential social power imbalance in men's favor—with absolutely not a care in the world about her objective value or qualities as either a human being OR as a member of society, or about her obligations to the standards of behavior agreed upon by her membership in said society, or about her responsibility for the consequences of any of her own utterly whimsical actions...
... that is INSPIRING!

I'm so glad, and so privileged, to get to observe yet another in an endless series of real-life examples of the reverberations of the female-entitlement-activism running rampant through our society. Please, feminists - by all means... continue your noble quest for *overt* total social dominance, even though you've already had covert total social dominance for as long as there have been men and women.

I still don't know why they were standing outside the car when there have been constant 80-90mph gusts of wind as cold as -2 F since... yesterday... but I can only guess that it must be another symptom of their obvious stupidity. Being the models of feminism that they were, it's clearly a deeply-ingrained personality trait which they celebrate at every opportunity.

In short, all of you self-mistitled feminist "activists" hawking compulsory "equality" on your pseudo-philosophical blogging communities and internet social networks, ejaculating fallacious rhetorical bullshit while egomaniacally masturbating your daddy issues and profound lack of both useful historical education and intellectual competence... are actually just *singularly oblivious fucks.* I'm calling you out.

Feminism = willful adversely socio-repercussive egotism.

A friend of mine brought up an important fact that I may take for granted: almost everyone who uses the word "feminism" has NO CLUE what they are actually saying - so I should probably do my due diligence and explain it to them and/or you.

You have to first understand that I'm referring to *actual* feminism when I write about "feminism." I'm aware that it is popularly misused in the form of a misnomer for a significantly-lopsided and naive—but probably originally well meaning—version of "egalitarianism," but that's not the (mis-)definition I'm referring to when I invoke the word... and, honestly, that popular misuse is one of the reasons I feel it's so important to bring it up. I have no argument against egalitarianism or social *equality,* (at least in theory, though that's another matter entirely), and I have no problem with the generally constructive ideas referred to by otherwise well-meaning people when they incorrectly use the word "feminism," as I think many so-called "feminists" probably do. However, the example I described in my original post illustrates one of many inevitable behavioral consequences that follow the inappropriate misappropriation of one word—with its own very specific and strong connotations—for use as a container for quite different ideas - in this case with contradictory connotations. Language does change people's behavior, both as they use it themselves and as they are exposed to it in their environments; I think it's important to scrutinize the net results of language in general, and even more vital to do so when those results are... for lack of a better term, horrific.

Notwithstanding the vernacular misconception of its meaning, actual feminism is something else entirely different from "egalitarianism" and, in fact, exerts a force in society that is literally opposite to the notions of equality or socio-sexual balance. If the damaging and marginalizing ideas of feminism weren't so easily conveyed along with the affirmative ideas that most people *intend* when they misuse the word "feminism," I wouldn't consider it more worthy of mentioning than any other modern linguistic corruption - but sadly that's not the case. A hundred years from now, if kids started misusing the word "fascism" when they actually mean "patriotism"—an approximately equivalent analogy of "feminism" vs "egalitarianism," and, (to a well-meaning but inadequately-educated person, as are most members of modern society), a likely mistake if some faceless marketing executive decided to re-brand an old idea for a new generation after "fascism" had faded from the social vernacular—the resulting inference of anyone adjacent to such misuse will inevitably contain fundamental aspects of both - and the contradictory nuances of meaning will still be both significant and tangible... despite their invisibility to some or even most of the population.

More than anything else, the point I'm making is that misusing language—even by accident as the result of ignorance—can actually be damaging, with the potential for damage having a positive correlation to the strength of the language misused - and that said damage finds its way into real life interactions between people. Sadly, good intentions are now one of the most dangerous aspirations a human being can possess - unless they are administrated and moderated by an uncommonly critical and altruistic intellect. How many human beings would you describe as being primarily "uncommonly critical and altruistic intellectuals" above anything else? – because those individuals are your only real coefficient of constructive potential by which any social activism can be multiplied to produce a net-positive social effect. The investments of anyone and everyone else will bring about a net deficit in short order. The actual net social effect of feminism is particularly damaging - despite the good intentions of many women (and men) who don't know better. While I recognize those good intentions, in this case I cannot in good conscience *enable* the inevitable damage perpetuated by the—admittedly sincere—ignorance from which such intentions are derived.

Feminism's story isn't especially different than other historical instances of linguistic usurpation, and it could easily be considered a cliche in our current era. Even if I try to ignore the powerful ramifications of the language itself, though, the pragmatic reality stands on its own: very few spiritually-benevolent social movements in the present day are actually moving in a constructive direction, due not only to the behavioral law of numbers but also to the utter dominance of marketing in the public sphere of thought. Generally speaking, any mobilization of individuals that originated beyond the individual level will inevitably result in the corruption of its significance and consequence to and for said individuals. For more on this and other tragic social advocacy fails, see Google.

A single word cannot convey any meaningful philosophy, either. Women who want to focus on the affirmative aspects that have been colloquially/recently injected into the otherwise-contrary ideas of "feminism" should do so - but the first step should be defining those ideas properly. Even if feminism didn't mean what it actually means, using it as it is currently used would still be a problem. Actual feminism is intrinsically insecure, maliciously rhetorical, fundamentally political, and reflects an utterly demeaning and marginalizing concept of men; it is egocentric rather than altruistic, proudly hypocritical rather than reservedly intelligent, and radically fundamentalist in ways that, truthfully, are rarely seen even in the worst extremes of *male* ideology more recently than the past few hundred years. Even being the cynic that I am, I'm reasonably confident none of that reflects what otherwise reasonable people—who erroneously refer to themselves as "feminists"—actually consciously believe in.

As for me, I'm a proud supporter of conscientious, altruistic egalitarians of no political affiliation - and of no particular demographic.

— and note how I'm not calling it "masculinism."