May 27, 2004

Balance, Everett, Balance
Ashleigh

First, of all, I am wondering how you get so much time to write so much! Kudos, to you. However, I noticed that you speak about balance, both in feminism and in religious issues. First of all, I think we all know that balance can never exist indefinitely. Humankind repeatedly strives for balance, the best balance, but the fact is that balance will never really be. Every empire falls. You can never really reach that equilibrium you can with inanimate objects because humankind and human perception of the world is always changes. Possibly the only way to cure this change is to lock every single country inside their borders, never to be let out. However, due to human nature, that wouldn't stand either. Sooner or later, people would be fed up with not being able to reach others and revolt. That's going back to the empires falling bit.
Now, about anti-feminism. I see your point in each gender contributing what their biological structure allows, however, I also must disagree with you. If one never strived above the limit, much of what we have today would have never been. You cannot simply expect to be a drone, completing the tasks set in front of you. There is more to a person than their physical surface. Unfortunately, the world is locked into a belief that there are women's jobs and men's jobs, a belief that has lessened its grip in some areas, but the fact is that the belief is still out there and will not dissapear until the majority is unhappy. And when that one way is thrown over, a new sort of system will take place. Unfortunately discrimination will always have a grip on the world. All the bad things are probably all the things that will never change, alas! Even in Huxley's BRAVE NEW WORLD, where a sort of "happy dictatorship" is in charge, the free-thinking people are still ostracized and discriminated towards. The point is, if the limit is always kept, we will advance, but never really change. Isn't that confusing?
As to religion....that too has imposed certain restrictions on us that discrimination and hate has ( I hope that's not taken wrong by anybody...). It has set us in a mode of thinking that has been set fo thousands of years. We become servants to the continuing will of an ever-growing religious institution, and become almost like slaves. Consider the Church's power from after the fall of the Roman Empire to the Protestant Reformation. People were paying money to the monstrously bloated Church! It had overstepped its boundary as religious institution and into affairs of the state in many other cases. If we cannot think enough for ourselves, we are nothing but mindless drones! Religion should be like a light blanket, not twelve sheets of heavy wool. We become restricted and stangled untill we beleive that any outside the blanket are "lowly."
I think I have thoroughly derived from what you said Everett, but alas, I am sorry. I found your article extremely interesting. However, I think you should take on a name of one of the Enlightenment philosophes. Your argument reminded me of history all over again.
Ashleigh