On 8/6/2014 2:34 PM, Michael J. Lowrey wrote:
On Wed, Aug 6, 2014 at 1:21 PM, Carol Moore dc
<carolmooredc(a)verizon.net> wrote:
Reading through a 2011 post by a woman who quit
because she "didn't need the
grief" I was thinking about why guys keep editing despite it. And it
occurred to me men are taught to "take the pain", "pretend it doesn't
hurt",
"man up".
While I readily admit that that is the kind of bullshit
masculinity I
was raised in, as a Wikipedian I persevere more in the "nil
desperandum" sentiment that has sustained so many of my fellow Quakers
and Wobblies to persist in the face of persecution and even murder.
You do the right thing, and keep doing the right thing as long as the
breath is in your body, because it is the right thing to do.
Definitely a
"higher consciousness" response. As I just wrote on Jimbo
Wales page in reaction to another women editor who detailed the same
experiences I've had editing in controversial areas (and put in a box on
my Carolmooredc user page called Changing Wikipedia's "Mad Dog" Culture:
I totally agree with your experience, since I also edit controversial
topics. I was watching two male dogs on the each side of two neighbors'
fence the other day who spend at least an hour a day patrolling their
side and peeing on each others' pee. A visiting female dog came up to
the fence and started to pee and they both went nuts and scared her off.
Here some yell CUNT or other obscene words (in a perfectly innocent
fashion, of course) to scare off women. Luckily for them women choose
not to reply with words that would wither their kilts in a second.
(Tempting as it might be.) We seem to forget that humans have both an
upper brain (the cerebrum) which is relatively rational and a lower
brain (the brainstem and cerebellum) that deals with automatic and
unconscious functions. I like to think that humans can choose not to act
like dogs automatically peeing all over territory they think is theres
and driving out any females. Of course, that's more difficult in a
culture that is riddled with patriarchal and violent attitudes and
entertainment, teaching young males and some females to act like mad
dogs. It would be nice if Wikipedia was a place that totally transcends
- yes for weeks at a time - the lower brain "mad dog" modus operandi. (end)
==========
This really is the meaning of "consciousness raising". Us oldsters from
the sixties and seventies were very much into transcending the big bad
lower brain. (Tim Leary being an arch advocate of it.) Now science acts
as if it's all one big brain with little male and female sections. See
even wikipedia's human brain article.
The powers that be don't want us to know that we don't have to be
violent barely conscious autamotons willing to live, work, kill and die
for them, and other wise happy to get a meager paycheck, stuff our faces
with junk food and watch tv.
The word "self-actualization" which was our mantra is now a joke word.
It's like we're living in a "hip" version of the 1950s all over again,
but with lots of rules and regulations to enforce political correctness
and give all power to the politicians so they can keep most of us - and
especially the young males - living barely above a lower brain level.
Yes, we old hippies did know something :-)
CM