On Google Groups, there is a poster who keeps claiming that women brought death and suffering into the world. I ask, Which woman: Hillary Clinton or Brittney Spears? Even if there was a person such as Eve, she no more speaks for contemporary women than does Jeffrey Dahmer speak for me as another man. I refuse to be held accountable for actions of other people; and I refuse to stand by while all sorts of innocent people are being treated horribly because of something that they had nothing to do with. The core error here is that of seeing all women as being the same, or as a part of the same force. But women are half of humanity, and there are vast differences among them. There is not much in common between Anne Coulter and Marie Curie; or between Sarah Palin and Oprah Winfrey; or between Phyllis Schafly and Madonna. To see all women as part of the same force is ridiculous; and treating the next woman based on something that she had nothing to do with is preposterous. We see the same thing with people agitating against the Jews. The Jews are not a uniform entity; there are vast differences among them, and Jews disagree with one another all the time on all sorts of subjects. If there had been a Jewish conspiracy, I would have been invited to be a part of it a long time ago. I haven't been; so there is no Jewish conspiracy. If Jews were as these people claim evil, and if Jews were as these people claim in control, then they would be facing a firing squad. That they are instead free to spread their propaganda shows either that Jews are not in control, or that the Jews are so good that they would even let live the people who wish them dead. There is an unfortunate tendency in humanity to blame people by association. Many people still see Germans with aversion because of the Second World War; but the vast bulk of contemporary Germans were born after the Second World War and had nothing to do with it. Similarly, many Christians today are regarded negatively by non-Christians because of the Inquisition and the Colonialism. These people had nothing to do with these crimes, but because they are Christians they get the flack. We also see this problem with those in the African American community who see the whole system as racist and exploitative and claim that white people are bad because they benefit from it. Which white people? When I was in my early 20s and making good money in the computer industry, I started reading Ward Churchill. I developed hatred for the Western civilization and for my role in it, motivating me to drop out, which was a bad experience for my family. Some of these people would see me as evil just because I am white, regardless of how I myself treat the black people in my life; and that is no better than Nazism. At no point in this do I come from the position of political correctness. I detest political correctness and have fought it ever since I knew what it was. I believe that wrong ideas should be met, not with censorship, but with better ideas; as I am seeking to do here. There is absolutely nothing evil, or immoral, about my Jewish family. They are all hard-working, honest, ethical people. They have major political differences with one another, and they remain loyal to one another even in spite of these differences. And believe me that takes a lot. So whenever we see someone agitating against women, or against the Jews, or anything of the sort, what we are seeing is either an idiot or a conman. There is no Jewish conspiracy, and there is no woman conspiracy. Jews differ from one another, and women differ from one another. And until one acknowledges this basic reality he has no business commenting negatively about either.
During my studies of history, it was sometimes hard to fathom how it is possible that things in history actually happened the way they did. While the knowledge and evidence is there, somehow you have doubt in your mind and really don't fully believe it because it just sounds too crazy. I was kinda confused where these ideas can come from, to be disrespectful towards other people in the manner you mentioned here. One experience I had myself made me understand though. I was about 20 years old and went out with my sister who loves to eat falafel. So we're in this small restaurant/fast food place and for some reason (which I don't recall exactly) we came to talk about Jews in general. What happened next I remember like it was yesterday. She said: "Be careful what you say now, because the people in this store are Jewish." And for some reason I had a subconscious reflex and said to myself "wow". The "wow" being in my head negative and defensive for some reason. The fact that this happened shocked me beyond something I could explain here, because I never met a Jew in my life. I never spoke to one either, so why would I possibly have a negative defensive reflex at that moment? It took me months to realize that the old Nazi rhetorics unfortunately still stuck in part over 2 generations. My parents being born in the mid 40s still must have heard enough of the propaganda from their parents and passed some of it on to me. I don't believe either of my grandparents (both mother's and father's side) actually had any contact with Jews either, because the roots of my family was very provincial and known Jewish communities tended to live in cities. This realization literally frightened me. I never considered myself to being someone who'd prejudge people, but I actually saw how these idiotic things can stick for generations, even without you knowing it. I think a few months after that conclusion I forced myself to reanalyze every conversation or belief I'd have for any anti-Semite BS (which I assumed was most imprinted) and continued looking for anything else which could possibly be interpreted as "prejudgment". A few years after that I was so confident that I respect everybody absolutely equally until I meet them, that I since don't feel I'm being racist, nationalist, sexist or something like that, because I have legit reasons for attacking someone, and I do it to their face too. Given my own experience I must say that most Europeans in my opinion have some anti-Jewish tendencies, which are super turned down in Austria/Germany because of WW2, and I feel that Americans might have a similar issue with racism. Although it should be passé, unfortunately these ridiculous beliefs might sit as deeply as mine did, and people don't even realize that it's still there. Germans, even more so than Austrians, were forced after WW2 to be overly politically correct out of the fear of being called Nazis, which is to this day the worst you can call a German/Austrian. The political correctness was maintained and I think it may be possible that percentage wise the large majority of people actually grew up politically correct and never even heard the prejudgmental rhetorics of yesteryear. They seem to be stunned that there was a time that women were not allowed to go to college, that people would prejudge Jews and other things you mentioned. I think therefore we might really need the political correctness for one or two generations to really get rid of all the BS out there...
