[Lenneth]

Cant find words to describe how accurately this describes how backward our "Modern Civilized Society" is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6r8HzhaAaM

[AnnieBL]

Lenneth, usually I appreciate your posts, but somehow this time I found myself less impressed by Mr Molineux. I always thought that I was long winded, but this guy really goes on! I should feel that I have some kind of fellow feeling, being a product of English boy's boarding schools, of apparently some what similar Anglo-Irish background, and also an immigrant to Canada who has failed entirely to lose his English boarding school accent. However although I had some bad experiences and problems at school, and there were certainly a proportion of boys like the picture he draws of himself as a damaged boy, the picture is false as a generalisation. Some people at least did care about my inner feelings. Things may have got worse in Britain after my day, as boarding schools increasingly became dumping grounds for sons of absentee parents, broken marriages or problem kids. North American schools and colleges can also be savage places, and there are always casualties. We are all very imperfect people and we have to survive in a very imperfect world. We have all necessarily experienced less than perfect parenting and education, and those of us who have brought up children have been less than perfect parents (my tag line applies!). Mr Molineux, despite apparently having gone through a conversion like that of St Paul on the road to Damascus seems mainly driven by a burning resentment against his education and his parents. Has he ever considered that people like him that go around with a massive chip on their shoulder are very hard to love, and that he may to some extent be to blame for his own misfortunes?

I also find his far-out masculinist attitudes as hard to stomach as some feminist attitudes. I personally deplore all forms of gender warfare, possibly partly because of my own ambivalence. I find one of the best features of this board the fact that people mainly come here as people, regardless of their gender and in anonymity can meet on level terms largely without sexual or cultural tensions. For this reason I have reservations about ideas for live meetings.

Mr Molineux is tireless in promoting his own personal philosophy, and clearly bitterly resents that the world at large is not as receptive as he feels it should be. Most of us have some form of personal philosophy, although in the extreme we should remember that Hitler also had a personal philosophy. I do not believe that our human propensity for war, persecution and authoritarianism is gender based, but rather results from unduly polarised views on politics, religion, race, gender, etc. And the rest of us get dragged along by the cultures in which we have been brought up because humans are the only animal whose sense of embarrassment (need to avoid departure from cultural norms by failing to 'rally to the flag') is greater than its sense of self-preservation. I like to believe that most people here take a spectrum view of things (such as gender) which enables greater tolerance.

[Lenneth]

sorry, was mostly focusing on some specific points he made, i'll have to go back and re-listen to it and post the specifics like I should have done in the first place.

[flamesabers]

Has he ever considered that people like him that go around with a massive chip on their shoulder are very hard to love, and that he may to some extent be to blame for his own misfortunes?

I very much agree. I tend to be wary of individuals who are either unwilling or incapable of acknowledging some accountability for themselves. Also, I'm not fond of the idea we're simply products of our parents' upbringing, or that we should exclusively lay blame on our parents and teachers when we have problems in our adult lives. I don't, nor do I see any reason to blame my parents or anyone else for my shortcomings as an adult.

Mr Molineux is tireless in promoting his own personal philosophy, and clearly bitterly resents that the world at large is not as receptive as he feels it should be.

I definitely got the same vibe from him.