Men? Women? Violence? What?

Vincent J. Curtis

1 Feb 2018

RE: Changing perceptions on gender violence

It is strange to read about a program targeting high school boys that tries to “reshape how men view violence against women and their role in stopping it.”  The same people who complain about male violence against women are the same people who advocate for transgender bathrooms because gender identity - male and female - are fluid concepts not grounded in reality.

We see the same kind of incoherent thinking in the administration of the program.  Violence “needs to be broadened to include sexist jokes and homophobic remarks.”  I submit that there is a substantial difference between a punch in the mouth and an off-colour joke, in that one is delivered in words and the other with a closed fist.  The pain inflicted by one is psychological; the other, physical.  These two things need to be kept separate if one is to proceed in a rational way to address the problem at issue, namely violence by men against women.

Only by getting rid of mutually incoherent progressivist fashion statements can one even talk about ‘violence’ by ‘men’ against ‘women.’  One must also shed politically correct fashion statements about sexual etiquette, and become realistic.

While we ought to stress among the physically strong the importance of the maintaining the veneer of civilization, the physically weak need to be taught not to presume too much upon the thickness of the veneer maintained by the strong.

In short, the real problem is one dealt with perennially by any Protestant minister or Catholic priest.  Except that modern progressive political correctness lacks the mental equipment necessary to address the problem in a rational and coherent way.  The problem is one as old as humanity itself, and is rooted in human nature.  Human beings combine animal appetites with a rational intellect, and addressing the problem of violence requires appeal to the rational aspect of human beings which are able to control through the will the animal appetites.  To do that one must have a rational basis for making one’s argument.  The progressive approach to the problem relies on chop-logic and assertions dogmatically made.  ("That's bad.  Don't do it! etc.)

Dogmatic assertions of chop-logic morality fail to appeal for long to rational intellects.

Progressivism, which holds that gender identity is fluid, that women should be sexually liberated, and that a punch is the same as a joke, is utterly unequipped to deal rationally with violence by men against women.  It relies for its effect upon emotion alone.

An ethic founded upon a rational basis, such as found in Aristotle's The Nichmachean Ethics or in scholasticism (which forms the "preambles" to Christian faith) or even Christianity itself provides a far more powerful argument for establishing the wrong of violence per se.  Combine a rational argument with emotional commitment, and there is a convincing combination.

Progressivism creates a chop-logic ethic.  "This is good, that is bad" statements are dogmatically asserted.  Programs intended to enforce such an ethic are bound to fail because they rely upon emotion alone and are essentially empty of coherent rational arguments that appeal to the rational intellect, and it is the rational intellect that sustains the judgment after the emotion passes.

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