Dear Houlle,

Lol! Sorry but I'm getting a vision of you arse up in a state run old folks home having your backside wiped by some poor nursing student as you scream f^ck off at the top of your lungs. My sister-in-law works in the dementia ward of a geriatric institution and that phrase has become the most overworked two words in the place, though you seemed to do your best. For the sake of the poor young, seriously underpaid future aged care workers you probably need to tone it down a touch.

The real csteele is still here, I was just in an altruistic mood and thus wanting to put Anti on the right path to make his case. He is more than welcome to tell me to f^ck off. 

I in turn might attempt to show how private and selective education has real community and societal costs thus we all lose. Ultimately you probably see the role and legitimacy of community as serving the individual's needs, I on the other hand see the value in both and see an obligation on all of us to support and nurture our communities, even those hell bent on telling the rest of us to f^ck off. Thus I will not be begrudging you a spot in the system when and if you need it.

So I can still put you down as a believer in the trickle down affect csteele?

When it suits of course. A selective believer perhaps. It works for sufferers of 'unpopular' cancers but not for the general community or in broad economic terms it seems.

No old home for me, I have other plans when the time comes. That's a prime example of what I am on about though. See I would be sympathetic to the carers in old homes, but my empathy has been eroded by the feminists using their plight to further their dishonest gender wage gap propaganda.

I seek out charities that don't employ cheap degrading stunts or abuse statistics to 'raise awareness' thanks.

It is unethical anyway to spend my charity dollars on red noses and other such inanity. I cant believe they have the hide to openly waste donator's dollars in such a way.

I used to donate to such people and make a point out of rejecting their ridiculous paraphenalia, but I one day decided I would donate to causes that didn't spit in the face of people who donate by so openly wasting their donations on such frivolity.

Houellebecq, I'm not convinced that it's Charles posting as ChazP (an idea that Antiseptic is championing) but the post was at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12255#212833

It was in part a follow on from one of your own posts http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12255#212507 and my making an issue of the deception involved in the earlier posts by ChazP.

R0bert

Thanks for the responses folks, some interesting ideas.

Csteele:"Are you not as guilty as those you accuse when you draw from your statistics the conclusion that family violence is only an issue in only a few cases of 5% of 20% of a further 20% of the whole?"

No. I'm quoting a very simple stat relating to the Law that is easily checkable and is not based on any kind of value judgement. I haven't chosen a "villain" or a "hero" or a "victim", but you do in your very next sentence: "potentially serious violence" makes no sense as a determinant of anything. The tendency to generalise from the particular is pathological in that it takes no account of the facts, just the "potential". Do you have trouble getting up in the morning? the day has the "potential" to work out badly; every bus that goes past has the "potential" to suddenly swerve and run you down. What a pathology!

Don't worry, this sort of pathology fills the Family Courts day after day, fostered by distinctly UNpathological lawyers and carried by the army of advocates who infest the supporting services and inform the politics.

You mention the Freeman case, but you don't mention the literally thousands and thosands of cases in which no genuine violence occurs. That's pathological for decision-making.

McGrath has been wildly successful, beyond his dreams perhaps and certainly beyond the needs of the particular cancer he is seeking to promote. Because his charity is linked exclusively to one group of victims, he is taking away money from other victims. I'm not suggesting McGrath is in any way other than a paragon of virtue, but his altruistic drive is producing outcomes that could be better if better-directed. A sure sign of the pathology is the way the Foundation has gone to great lengths to justify their focus in the face of highly-credentialed, independent experts saying we could do with a bit less focus on boobs and a bit more on lungs and prostates and bowels and skin.

[cont]

McGrath may change the focus of hs group, which would be a highly altruistic thing to do, given the reason for setting it up was as a memorial to his wife's death from breast cancer. If he continues in the same way as he is going, he will hurt as many people as he is helping with funds, by bleeding money that could be better used.

The reason boys choose trades is simple: they've been competing with the girls at paperwork for years and are well aware that they're not up to it. Teachers have been telling them so since they started school: putting them in the back of the class, sending them to detention for being rowdy, dosing them up with ritalin to make them less so, pasting stickers everywhere saying "girls can do anything", while the boys get handouts saying "have you considered a trade?". The only male spaces in the schools are sport and manual arts. Even when the facts are pointed out, the pathological try to deny it: "a furphy". Nope, pathological altruism, leading to a social upheaval that has really only just started to be felt. Your niece and her boyfriend will experience very different earnings trajectories. She will continue to grow her income with seniority and his will languish, unless he manages to either start his own business or chooses to go and work somewhere not very nice for very long hours. I work in the construction industry and I know a large number of tradsmen who haven't had any income at all for several weeks now. Two of them have gone to work on Ausaid projects in the Solomon Islands, which is dangerous and isolated, because they can't get work here.

It's not just in Australia. GHere's a piece about Malaysia

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/malaysia-to-encourage-boys-to-go-to-university/story-e6frgcjx-1226134541117

sounds great, but the second line in tells a different story:Deputy education minister Wee Ka Siong said Malaysia was planning to introduce vocational training at schools from 2013 so that pupils can hone practical skills, such as repairing cars, to prevent males from dropping out."

It's pathological.

[cont]

Anti

Do you think it was 'pathological' when back in the early C20, men believed that females were less evolved than males, that their brains were made of softer tissue, etc.

Unless you are using the term 'pathological' in a medical sense, it is a 'value judgement' and of course we do need to make value judgements to get through the day but if we want to make a rational society, rather than sucumb to the tribal mentality, we need to examine these judgements and ensure that they are based on rationality, fairness and reciprocity.

For sure, if one has been a victim of 'feminist violence', as many fellas here seem to have been, this is difficult because of the primary role of the emotions in our judgements and the way evolution has equipped our brains to solve social problems.

Speaking as a victim of male violence, I found the way to move on and not be driven to anger and a need to 'blame', which only brings more unhappiness, was to deliberately put myself in my ex's shoes and try to understand why someone I loved could behave so badly and be so cruel.

Understanding human behaviour in non-judgemental terms, is the key to being able to change things