Looking Out for the Stupid Folks

The other night, O’Reilly had a segment about Bill Mahr’s recent comment that America is a stupid country.  One of his guests was Mark Lamont Hill.  I don’t know why; Professor Hill’s raison d’etre seems to be race hustling, and there was no illusion of racial injustice here for him to exploit.  O’Reilly’s other guest, however – Naomi Wolf – made a relevant and insightful argument (a difficult thing to do with O’Reilly breathing down your neck).

She disagreed with Mahr that this is s stupid country, but made the point that Americans are being woefully misinformed (by public education).  She spoke of the well-documented studies about how a majority of young adults don’t know the first thing about how our government works, so this makes them vulnerable to demagogues.

Absolutely.  Further evidence of this comes from the flip side.  The demagogues wouldn’t have a foothold if Americans weren’t so interested in hearing their nonsense.  Take a listen to the way our politicians speak.  Try to find any actual substance in the presidential debates last year.  In fact, try to find anything other than pandering, sophistry, fact mining, and glaring logical fallacies.  The tragedy of America is our political system.

It starts with our so-called leaders.  Remember when President Bush mocked a reporter for asking a question in French?  This is the general atmosphere I see everyday, particularly on cable news.  Since when did it become risible to speak a second language?  Only in the realm of willful ignorance and the “home-grown wisdom” of the “good old folks.”

About half of all Americans don’t “believe” in evolution or think that it’s “just a theory.” (Disagreeing with the theory of evolution in either of those two ways shows a stunning lack of education in itself.)  Worse, most of them don’t even know what they’re denying.  They claim that creationism is a valid science, and in the same breath say that creationism is the “truth” taught by the Bible.

Then we have O’Reilly, who in this segment stated that since Sarah Palin had  a fifty-five percent approval rating in Alaska, his guests have no right to say she did a bad job.  Really?  Is O’Reilly honestly saying that since a majority of people like Sarah Palin, that is evidence that she did a good job as governor?  Obama’s approval rating is around fifty-five percent – is that indicative of how much good he’s doing this country?  Should we gauge the condition of California by Schwartznegger’s approval rating?

What a grand idea for America: Let’s surrender to the opinion of a majority.  Let’s stop looking at evidence, let’s stop using reason to figure out our problems, and simply side with whatever horde happens to scream the loudest or wield the most power.  Let’s use feelings and emotions to run our economic system, let’s allow a Christian parent’s belief to determine what should be taught in science classes.  Even better, let’s allow others to vote our individual freedoms away.

The only guage is evidence, O’Reilly.  Whether Ms. Palin left the state in a better condition or not.  That’s it.  She either did or did not, but an approval rating will not discern this.  People’s opinions and feelins are utterly irrelevant when it comes to evidence.  People’s opinions and feelings do not change reality.

What a beautiful example of the ignorant and dangerous demagoguery that Ms. Wolf pointed out to O’Reilly.  Too bad he didn’t listen to her.

Sluts Ruining the Culture

Conservatives and feminists alike have both spoken out against various elements of sex in society.  In her book The Beauty Myth, one of the main arguments feminist Naomi Wolf presented is that pornography distorts and devalues women by creating an unrealistic fantasy world for its male viewers, who then can’t function in relationships with real women.  Conservatives claim that pornography contributes to a licentious, permissive culture that harms families.  Right-wing author Ann Coulter has decried movies like Pretty Woman and Casino, both of which rewarded women (Julia Robers and Sharon Stone) with Academy Awards or nominations for playing (and glamorizing, in Ms. Coulter’s opinion) prostitutes.

I think both of those positions are weak, but in any case, how about everyone focus on something more harmful than porn or prostitutes: adultery.  Isn’t it immoral to glamorize that?  doesn’t it severely harm families and relationships?  Cheating pollutes not only sexual morality, but morality in general.  Even worse, people use it to duck responsibility.  Me personally, I don’t call a prostitute or a porn star a slut (as some conservatives do) or a bad influence (as some feminists do), though I might use those terms for a person – male or female – who cheats on someone they claim to care about.

Paris Hilton has endorsed cheating, saying that it’s okay if you don’t get caught.  I remember Eva Longoria once saying that she doesn’t cheat on her boyfriends, she just “overlaps” them (her character on Desperate Housewives also glamorized cheating – along with child rape).  How about that woman who utilized the Fox show Moment of Truth to reveal to her husband (and America) that she’d been unfaithful?  These ladies sound just as brazen as all the men out there who are cavalier about banging every chick they can.

Check out Diane Lane in the movie Unfaithful.  The ultimate result of her character’s sluttiness was tragedy, but the gimmick was there in full force.  Her husband was boring and didn’t pay attention to her, so she fled to a stranger and had amazing sex.  The “lesson” was clear: It’s your fault if your wife cheats on you.

That’s the insidious danger of cheating: It contributes to the increasingly common notion of unaccountability, or even victimhood.  The cliche of an inattentive husband “driving” the wife to cheat is extremely common.  It’s as ridiculous as the equally dumb cliche of blaming the wife for not “keeping herself up.”

No one “drives” anyone to cheat.  That’s a fiction cheaters tell themselves to soothe their cognitive dissonance.  Unless you’re being held at gunpoint, you either choose to cheat or not.  I remember in the movie The Last Boy Scout, when Bruce Willis’s character confronted his wife for cheating.  She justified it with, “You’re never here – I was lonely!”  His indifferent response: “Buy a dog.”

I’m sure both Ms. Wolf and Ms. Coulter can agree that infidelity is bad.  But too many feminists seem to always take the side of hte woman and blame the husband for forcing her into it, as if women are too witless to be responsible for their own decisions.  And too many conservatives blame to stimulus for infidelity on pornography and prostitution, as if the person would never have gotten the idea or had the opportunity to cheat if those things weren’t present.

Both of them can’t see the forest for the trees.  It’s as pointless and irrational as the common tactic of blaming the third party.  Don’t blame your partner’s slut – blame your partner for being a slut.

Dumbbells vs. Liposuction

I’ve heard people say that the flood of women getting cosmetic surgery is not a big deal, that cosmetic surgery is just another way of caring for one’s physical appearance.  It’s no different from going to the gym to tone up, they say.  So what if the women take a few shortcuts using modern technology?  After all, gym rats spend huge amounts of time, effort, money and even pain on their goals.  What’s the difference?

The way I see it, the difference is int he road traveled to get there.  People building their physiques in the gym often work as hard as athletes.  They have to work past the torture of lactic acid, muscle soreness, and forced reps and supersets; they have to deal with the dieting, the repeated sessions, the bad days where one has to drag oneself to the gym, the hours of cardio.

Physical training builds much more than just your physique.  Adherence to that lifestyle requires dedication, discipline, and ambition.  You can’t get anything out of bodybuilding that you don’t put into it.  The harder you work, the more goals you achieve.  This builds self confidence in one’s abilities.  You can’t cheat or take shortcuts – no matter which pills you take, you won’t defeat the laws of physics (calories expended vs. calories consumed).  Genetically gifted people may have a leg up on you, but it doesn’t matter because you’re only in competition with yourself.  You learn to not only value yourself, but to value the effort you’re capable of exerting to get something you want.  You become healthier; you decrease your risk of illness; you’re more competent at defending yourself; you have more energy, less stress, and more confidence.  The benefits of dedication to fitness touch every aspect of your life; your physical appearance is just the tip of the metaphorical iceberg.

There’s the difference between a physique built by the gym and a physique built by saline and vacuum tubes.  The former requires a solid backbone in discipline; the latter requires a checkbook.  The former demands a path that leads to personal responsibility in all aspects of one’s life; the latter has no path.  The former requires clean living, good diet, and a sterling work ethic; the latter ignores health altogether.  The former allows the creation of one’s personal beauty; the latter presents beauty chosen by someone else.

Sexism and Bias in Politics, Part II

It was ironic that I was just finishing a post about how the media is treating Sarah Palin unfairly, and how she’s getting blasted by supposed liberal commentators and not defended by fair-weather feminists – and at the same time I started reading the book Fire With Fire by feminist author Naomi Wolf.

The book is fifteen years old, but in one passage Ms. Wolf was criticizing feminist activists for shutting down antiabortion speakers.  Rather than acting like adults and debating the issue, they’d rather scream and throw tantrums so the other side can’t be heard.  Ms. Wolf, in contrast, said that it should be an “opportunity to try to persuade an entire audience of the need for abortion rights, if that is our view.”

Why is it that such rationalism is so rare, particularly in the hyper-partisan politics of today?  Feminists, like everyone else, shoudl be decrying the ad hominem attacks agains Sarah Palin and especially the questions about her mothering skills.  What governor in this country has not had a family?  What vice president nominee has not had kids?

But this is more than sexism; it’s liberal-Democrat sexism.  You’d never see a mainstream reporter on the national news questioning whether a Democratic female candidate should be staying at home with her kids.  You’d also never hear an issue being made of her husband’s drunk-driving conviction twenty-two years ago, or such a sanctimonious, repulsive inquisition about whether she’s worthy because her seventeen-year-old daughter is pregnant.

It is possible to be proud of Sarah Palin’s achievements and treat her with the same respect that any candidate (regardless of gender) deserves, and still disagree with her vehemently about her position on abortion.  I heard a young woman on TV mocking those who called Governor Palin a feminist because “You can’t be a feminist if you’re pro-choice.”  It would be interesting to hear this woman define the word “feminism.”

Perhaps she should read Fire With Fire, in which Ms. Wolf said, “Feminism should not be the property of the left or Democrats.”

No one can accuse Naomi Wolf of being the least bit right-wing, though some might think otherwise from quotes like that.  Partisans see only the dichotomy of whether you toe the party line, whereas rational people tend to recognize rationality when they see it.  Your argument determines the veracity of your position, not your ability to accuse the other side of fascism.

This liberal sexism is another way of shouting someone down.  If you don’t like Sarah Palin’s positions on abortion, then vote for another candidate!  You can certainly stand up and tell everyone why she’s dead wrong.  But don’t tell her she should be staying at home raising her kids.

How Women are Violating Themselves

Women getting cosmetic surgery is so ubiquitous today that it seems to have become a competition.  It’s like the answer to the question of why every single pro bodybuilder uses steroids.  Because they have to.  Because as soon as one bodybuilder does it, he or she is going to look better (in the eyes of the judges, at least) than everyone else, so if they want to stay competitive, they have to follow suit.  It doesn’t matter if the thought of steroids disgusts them, it doesn’t matter if they swore they’d never use them – since their physique is being rated by others, they have little choice.

We live in a free society, so women can shove bags of saline into their bodies to make their breasts look bigger if that’s their wish.  They can carve up their faces, stuff adipose tissue in their lips, an inject poison to erase wrinkles.  They can even burn their labia with a laser to make their vagina look “pretty.”  And of course there are perfectly legitimate reasons for getting cosmetic surgery that don’t include turning what is already beautiful into an artificial caricature of beauty.

But why does the focus have to be on physical appearance?  Why must people incest so much time, effort, money, and pain into fitting a social stereotype?  They’re not in pursuit of beauty; they’re in pursuit of people to look at them and think they’re beautiful.  There’s a distinction.  It’s like the difference between feeling good about yourself because you’ve studied hard, or feeling good about yourself because someone tells you that you’re smart.  The former is indicative of self-value; the latter is indicative of nothing.

But I think this is about more than the pathetic (and doomed) tactic of trying to find self-worth solely in one’s sexuality.  It’s the fact that beauty has become sexuality.  “Sexy” has come to mean promiscuous.  A young woman is defined as “hot” only if she’s willing to lift her shirt for a camera and make out with another young woman.  Modern culture has become the two teenage boys in the movie Weird Science, creating the “perfect” woman by totaling up the components they like.  We’ve turned female beauty into a rating scale: the number of drunken frat boys who get an erection from looking at the woman.  And how does she score high on this scale?  By investing thousands of dollars into her body.

To continue the bodybuilder analogy, suppose every bodybuilder made a pact that none of them would use steroids.  Suppose it was collaborative effort with the judges, photographers, and fans.  Suppose all the muscle magazines would only print photos of natural bodybuilders.  Suppose a natural physique was celebrated and admired rather than being relegated to a second-tier “also-ran” with potential.  Suppose a steroid-built physique was viewed as too extreme and thus consigned to the fringe.  Suppose it was even viewed as grotesque, a distorted parody of what is aesthetic about a figure.

I’m not saying that all cosmetic surgery is bad, or that every woman who gets it is misguided or harming herself.  It just sickens me that we should emphasize such a need for it.  It sickens me that mothers are taking their daughters in for breast augmentation as a high school graduation present (what a welcome into the adult world!).  It sickens me that so many women seem to think that they need inflated breasts to be attractive.  Honestly, would they even want a partner whose deal-breaker for a girlfriend is cup size?  That’s what it comes down to, the tragedy behind it, at least in my opinion: Cosmetic surgery demotes a woman to the mere concept of a woman, a collection of extraneous components, rather than a person in their entirety.

Why Tyra Banks is a Misogynist

I think an argument could be made that Tyra Banks at least enjoys insulting women.  Recently I happened to see an episode where her guest was Kim Kardashian’s ex-boyfriend (I can’t remember his name and don’t care, but he’s the younger brother of Brandy).  Ms. Banks asked how he felt about his ex-girlfriend Kim being in a relationship with someone else now, and his response was a “sloppy seconds” comment.  Ms. Banks didn’t chastise him, and her audience oohed and smiled and chuckled.

How about the “Fake or Real” episodes, in which her audience plays a game of determining whether makeup, diamonds, breasts, and so forth, are fake or real?  Another episode featured a relationship “expert” whose advice to women was to lie, hide their real selves at the beginning of relationships, lest they reveal something the man may not like.

The topic of one episode was pornography made for women.  Interviewing her adult film actress guest, Ms. Banks was anxious to know how one could discern whether the actresses were faking orgasms or not, so that she and her audience could learn how to do it and thus be proficient at faking it with men.

The garbage speaks for itself, but I can’t resist:  Tyra is like a female version of Jerry Springer, only without the honesty.  Where does Ms. Banks go from here?  What’s the next step, after interviewing a guy who makes a comment like that about his ex-girlfriend, who’s a public figure?  I have a suggestion, Ms. Banks:  How about you have him apologize to Ms. Kardashian on camera, then apologize yourself for catering to this type of discourse?

Some time ago I posted a blog about how feminist Naomi Wolf had lauded Tyra Banks for being a positive role model for young women, and how I think that the three confident stars of the Fuse show Rad Girls would be much better in this regard.  I’d like to hear what Ms. Wolf thinks about the Tyra episodes such as this, if these are the things that should be viewed as positive.  Should the young women of this country also look for role models among the insipid hoodlums of the Oxygen show The Bad Girls Club?

Again I will suggest an alternative.  Natalie Portman is one of the best-known actresses of her generation, a very public figure whom most young girls in this country could name.  Despite her success, she finished school at Harvard, by all accounts is responsible, and does charity work with organizations like FINCA that helps women in third-world countries get educated and have careers.  We never see pictures of Ms. Portman partying, drugging, or crashing her car, which is more than can be said for many of her peers.  We also never see her on TV telling young women that the way to succeed in life is to get a may by playing puerile relationship games and being a pro at faking orgasms.

I would suggest that Natalie Portman appear as a guest on Tyra to give it some class and provide an actual positive female presence, but considering the usual content of the show, Ms. Banks would probably rather hav eon an ex-boyfriend of Ms. Portman to dish gossip.