The United States of America is not a Christian nation.
The above introductory sentence will undoubtedly leave most of the people who read it anxious to loose their outrage, either upon me or along with me. Some would read it and think thoughts of homosexuality and abortion. Others will turn their thoughts toward avarice, prejudice, or the government's tepid-at-best enthusiasm for welfare services. But to be honest, when I write and then re-read my declaration, none of those things really register. The United States of America is not a Christian nation because Christ would be embarrassed to have the behavior of its individual citizens associated with his name.
What behaviors am I talking about? For starters, I have no intention of detailing the ordinary daily sins that we all accumulate in our animal struggle to seek pleasure and avoid pain. While, individually, each is enough to keep any of us out of heaven, Jesus has freely associated with all of them plenty of times. The lion's share of Jesus's ministry was to Judea's most conspicuous daily sinners. Nor do I intend to write about the sins of idolatry and disobedience; the Gospel is quite clear that Christ reacts to these with rage, not embarrassment. America embarrasses Christianity with sins of philosophy.
America has a peculiar sense of justice. More specifically, America has adopted materialism as an ethical philosophy. To many, a bisexual adulterer is an unrepentant sinner, unless he's a sitting Senator. To most, running off with a fat wallet makes you a felon, but robbing millions of a retirement and hurling millions from their homes just makes you Too Big to Fail. Americans judge a man's behavior by his possessions, not his actions, which is twisted. Then we tend to assume that our own judgements are backed by divine authority, which is hubris.
Of course, divine authority would most likely tell Americans that we shouldn't be judging at all, but we're just so good at it. Or at least we convince ourselves that we are. In fact, where we truly excel is in singling out one or two sins and judging those to the exclusion of most others. The delusion of being on a holy crusade against the sin of abortion, or of bigotry, or of corporate greed (or, if you're the author of this particular personal essay, the sin of judgement) fills many of us with great pride. Really, though, we should be serving God humbly, not pridefully. The best Christian I know preaches virtues individually and sin as a singular, collective whole. This is his way of striking a balance between loving sinners and hating sin.
Overall, though, we Americans fail miserably at striking a good balance in this area. The majority of us tend to love the sinners within our circle and hate the sins of those outside of it. Others are so preoccupied with either loving sinners or hating sin that they neglect to do both. Almost invariably, we reserve the greatest hatred for a sin or sins of those we don't socialize with. We hide it beneath a veneer of warning these sinners that they need to repent of that one particular sin--and of course, they do need to repent. But they don't need to repent one sin as one group of specific sinners; they each need to repent all of their sins as one sinner among the entire human race.
The fact is that no one sin or sinner is especially worthy of hell; the warning that all sin and all sinners would be condemned without salvation is sufficient. However, most do not find this satisfying. So, instead of even-handedly warning of all sin, we pick and choose. Most frequently, the choices we make are motivated by emotion or politics. A few sins become a constant topic of public discussion. Others are ignored entirely--not once has a fellow Christian taken the time to warn me about my personal sins of sloth and gluttony, though there is ample physical evidence to prove both. Instead of trying to bring sinners together to resist all sins, we create conflict and division.
All of this I get, I really do. I, too, find that loving sinners is hard, not so much because of their sin as because of my own. I, too, find that some sins just bother me more than others. Though they may not be the same ones, I have my reasons, as does the rest of America. However, I am coming to realize that these reasons just aren't good enough. None of them excuse the fact that I have been loving sinners and hating sin in the wrong ways, in the ways I was taught and I learned by watching others. When it comes to love, we must stop reserving it for one person or any particular person at all. More genuine effort and more practice wouldn't do any harm, either. As for sin, I believe we consider it in the wrong order. We should hate the sin in ourselves, first and perhaps last, and certainly most of all. It's not easy, but it's the right thing to do.
Thursday, May 26, 2016
Wednesday, August 5, 2015
Uneducated, Unsolicited Legal Opinion (part 3)
There are many contentious political issues, and they are contentious for lots of reasons. The big one in the news right now is abortion. Personally, I find the debate surrounding the abortion issue to be far more interesting than the issue itself. The debate reveals why the issue is so contentious. It's not simply the nature of the issue itself that is responsible, but the fact that the opposing sides view abortion as a completely different type of issue.
For people who favor legal abortion, abortion is a medical issue. To them, a fetus is not an especially young baby human, but something that is in some way less than that. Viewed from that position, it only makes sense to protect the rights of women to seek whatever medical treatments they deem appropriate, including having non-babies removed from their bodies. I suppose, at the root of it, this makes a fetus a parasite.
People who are against abortion do view a fetus as being an especially young baby human. To them, then, killing it would be a violent crime, and this whole thing doesn't even seem like it should be an issue, because killing baby humans once they're born is definitely illegal, and nobody seems to think we should change that. I suppose at the root of it, these people must believe that genetic lineage is the only definition of humanity, as fetuses lack any of the qualities (self-awareness, opinions, artistic creativity, personality) that make humans people and other kinds of animals non-people. I suppose that for those of us who believe in them, souls are also a meaningful separation between humans and other animals, but I can't claim to know whether fetuses have souls.
I've always thought it would be interesting to argue abortion from a self-defense perspective. After all, it is not always illegal to violently kill humans, even the ones that everybody agrees are people. When a stranger trespasses on a person's private property, and the person reasonably believes that the stranger is a threat to his or her life, the person is justified in killing the stranger by violent means. Abortion can be argued to satisfy all of these conditions. Childbirth is can be dangerous or deadly, and it's hard to think of property any more private than one's own body. Yet, you never hear this argument. I wonder why.
For people who favor legal abortion, abortion is a medical issue. To them, a fetus is not an especially young baby human, but something that is in some way less than that. Viewed from that position, it only makes sense to protect the rights of women to seek whatever medical treatments they deem appropriate, including having non-babies removed from their bodies. I suppose, at the root of it, this makes a fetus a parasite.
People who are against abortion do view a fetus as being an especially young baby human. To them, then, killing it would be a violent crime, and this whole thing doesn't even seem like it should be an issue, because killing baby humans once they're born is definitely illegal, and nobody seems to think we should change that. I suppose at the root of it, these people must believe that genetic lineage is the only definition of humanity, as fetuses lack any of the qualities (self-awareness, opinions, artistic creativity, personality) that make humans people and other kinds of animals non-people. I suppose that for those of us who believe in them, souls are also a meaningful separation between humans and other animals, but I can't claim to know whether fetuses have souls.
I've always thought it would be interesting to argue abortion from a self-defense perspective. After all, it is not always illegal to violently kill humans, even the ones that everybody agrees are people. When a stranger trespasses on a person's private property, and the person reasonably believes that the stranger is a threat to his or her life, the person is justified in killing the stranger by violent means. Abortion can be argued to satisfy all of these conditions. Childbirth is can be dangerous or deadly, and it's hard to think of property any more private than one's own body. Yet, you never hear this argument. I wonder why.
Thursday, July 16, 2015
How Do You Train Seven Billion Monkeys?
We are an incredibly diverse species, representing millions of different cultures, beliefs, and ways of life. At least, we are on the outside.
We are, excepting the edges of the bell-curve, a species that exhibits the same pattern of a few learned behaviors based on the same few beliefs that we don't know we espouse. And, of course, you don't believe me. How could a person believe something that he or she doesn't know she believes?
How could she?
What kind of television programs did you watch the most of when you were very young? How long were they? Who was in them? What were they about? Was the plot different in each episode?
I am asking seriously. Please answer these questions. Write the answers down, if that helps. Put it in the comments, if you want.
So, what is your answer? Actually, it doesn't matter what your answer was. Unless your answer was "my parents didn't let me watch TV," your answer is almost certainly wrong. Among the people who did watch TV in their preschool years, the programs they think they watched the most will vary, but the programs they actually watched the most are the same. People remember watching a lot of fifteen-minute animated shows depicting various, whacky antics of oddly-shaped people or anthropomorphic animals. They remember watching half-hour shows featuring both puppets and live actors. They probably watched those as well.
In between those fifteen-minute animated TV shows and thirty-minute puppet shows, almost all television stations air a different kind of show, though, and these are incredibly formulaic. All of them are fifteen or thirty seconds long. All of them feature actors whose names and faces you would not recognize today. The vast majority of them have a simple, three-part plot featuring an emotional journey and a McGuffin. In the first part of the plot, our characters are downcast, somewhere between miserable and just unbearably bored. In the second part of the plot, our characters are introduced to the McGuffin, which they find fascinating. They are consumed with interest in it, with desire for it. This is the turning point. In the third part of the plot, our characters possess the McGuffin, and they have been cured of their misery or boredom. It has been replaced with liveliness, happiness, excitment.
In case you haven't figured it out, I'm describing television advertisements targeting young children. They are incredibly simple and formulaic. That is not an accident. Advertising aimed at children isn't really salesmanship. It's training. As a society, we train our children to solve their imperfect lives by engaging in consumerism. We indoctrinate them with a belief that if they are not presently happy, finding something they want to buy and buying it can make them happy.
And does it work? Oh boy, howdy! Have you been to a shopping mall?
Heck, even if you don't consciously believe that consumerism will make you happy, you very likely behave as though you do. Almost everyone identifies items that they want, becomes excited about buying them, buys them, and then lives out the remainder of life in the same emotional equilibrium as before the purchase. I do it, and I'm the guy telling you how ridiculous it is! But then I look around me, and I can remember a time before I owned each of the five objects closest to me. I was no unhappier in that time. Try it. Were you?
Occasionally, a purchase really does improve a person's life. Purchases related to a passionately-held hobby can certainly be money well spent. However, even some of these are irrelevant to our emotional well-being. Avid sports fans often get excited about buying better television to watch sports on. For a while, this television will be new and remarkable. Soon, sports fans return to normal, and they will be exactly as happy or as unhappy as they would have been watching a game with the same results on the old TV. If the new TV breaks, and the old one happens to have been sitting in the garage, complaints about the relative quality of the old TV will disappear within a couple of weeks. It is being able to watch the desired games that makes a difference, not the television.
Worthwhile purchases are the ones that allow us to pursue our passions more often or more thoroughly. These are surprisingly few and far between, to the degree that there are almost none that are universal. A bed that allows us to rest well might be the only one. Purchases that increase convenience would seem good candidates in theory, but in practice, they tend to save too little time to make a difference, or to open up time that we fill with more dissatisfying obligations rather than hobbies. If you feel desperate to buy something you can barely afford, or make a purchase that is otherwise inconvenient, carefully consider the things you already own. Are any one of them, or the set as a whole, preventing you from pursuing your passions as thoroughly as you like? Take a while to think about it thoroughly before you decide on a final answer. If the answer is still yes, a purchase may be the way to go. If not, try to circumvent your training by focusing more on what you do, not what you have.
You might be surprised by the results.
We are, excepting the edges of the bell-curve, a species that exhibits the same pattern of a few learned behaviors based on the same few beliefs that we don't know we espouse. And, of course, you don't believe me. How could a person believe something that he or she doesn't know she believes?
How could she?
What kind of television programs did you watch the most of when you were very young? How long were they? Who was in them? What were they about? Was the plot different in each episode?
I am asking seriously. Please answer these questions. Write the answers down, if that helps. Put it in the comments, if you want.
So, what is your answer? Actually, it doesn't matter what your answer was. Unless your answer was "my parents didn't let me watch TV," your answer is almost certainly wrong. Among the people who did watch TV in their preschool years, the programs they think they watched the most will vary, but the programs they actually watched the most are the same. People remember watching a lot of fifteen-minute animated shows depicting various, whacky antics of oddly-shaped people or anthropomorphic animals. They remember watching half-hour shows featuring both puppets and live actors. They probably watched those as well.
In between those fifteen-minute animated TV shows and thirty-minute puppet shows, almost all television stations air a different kind of show, though, and these are incredibly formulaic. All of them are fifteen or thirty seconds long. All of them feature actors whose names and faces you would not recognize today. The vast majority of them have a simple, three-part plot featuring an emotional journey and a McGuffin. In the first part of the plot, our characters are downcast, somewhere between miserable and just unbearably bored. In the second part of the plot, our characters are introduced to the McGuffin, which they find fascinating. They are consumed with interest in it, with desire for it. This is the turning point. In the third part of the plot, our characters possess the McGuffin, and they have been cured of their misery or boredom. It has been replaced with liveliness, happiness, excitment.
In case you haven't figured it out, I'm describing television advertisements targeting young children. They are incredibly simple and formulaic. That is not an accident. Advertising aimed at children isn't really salesmanship. It's training. As a society, we train our children to solve their imperfect lives by engaging in consumerism. We indoctrinate them with a belief that if they are not presently happy, finding something they want to buy and buying it can make them happy.
And does it work? Oh boy, howdy! Have you been to a shopping mall?
Heck, even if you don't consciously believe that consumerism will make you happy, you very likely behave as though you do. Almost everyone identifies items that they want, becomes excited about buying them, buys them, and then lives out the remainder of life in the same emotional equilibrium as before the purchase. I do it, and I'm the guy telling you how ridiculous it is! But then I look around me, and I can remember a time before I owned each of the five objects closest to me. I was no unhappier in that time. Try it. Were you?
Occasionally, a purchase really does improve a person's life. Purchases related to a passionately-held hobby can certainly be money well spent. However, even some of these are irrelevant to our emotional well-being. Avid sports fans often get excited about buying better television to watch sports on. For a while, this television will be new and remarkable. Soon, sports fans return to normal, and they will be exactly as happy or as unhappy as they would have been watching a game with the same results on the old TV. If the new TV breaks, and the old one happens to have been sitting in the garage, complaints about the relative quality of the old TV will disappear within a couple of weeks. It is being able to watch the desired games that makes a difference, not the television.
Worthwhile purchases are the ones that allow us to pursue our passions more often or more thoroughly. These are surprisingly few and far between, to the degree that there are almost none that are universal. A bed that allows us to rest well might be the only one. Purchases that increase convenience would seem good candidates in theory, but in practice, they tend to save too little time to make a difference, or to open up time that we fill with more dissatisfying obligations rather than hobbies. If you feel desperate to buy something you can barely afford, or make a purchase that is otherwise inconvenient, carefully consider the things you already own. Are any one of them, or the set as a whole, preventing you from pursuing your passions as thoroughly as you like? Take a while to think about it thoroughly before you decide on a final answer. If the answer is still yes, a purchase may be the way to go. If not, try to circumvent your training by focusing more on what you do, not what you have.
You might be surprised by the results.
Friday, June 26, 2015
Racism: Complex
The recent fervor over the shootings in South Carolina has crystallized a thought that I've been working on for some time. I think people are talking about the wrong thing. The biggest problem in this country isn't the Second Amendment, nor is it the Battle Flag of the Army of Tennessee. It isn't the Republican Party, although they may well be the worst of two great evils, and their compulsion to talk nonsense about the motives of Dylann Roof has made them look really, really bad. The biggest problem in this country isn't even racism, but rather the way racism is viewed.
Think about this: if you believe you are superior to me because your parents were Jesus Christ and Joan of Arc, that's a delusion. It's probably a symptom of mental illness. How come if I believe that I am superior to you because my parents were white people, that's an opinion? It's equally nonsensical, and its underpinnings are equally implausible, if not more so. Biologically, race does not exist--we can't say the same of Jesus and Joan with such scientific certainty. If one is the product of an unwell mind, mustn't the other be as well?
In addition to making little sense, treating racism as an opinion is also incredibly destructive. After all, an opinion is something that can be held without being favored by the preponderance of facts, because most of them can't be proven or disproven. I think grape jelly tastes wonderful, and my neighbor won't touch the stuff; my neighbor thinks red motorcycles look better than black ones and I paint all of mine black in defiance. In the end, we have to let it go because we can't prove our side. You may think that the government is capable of solving the biggest problems in our lives today, and I may think that's the biggest load of hogwash I've heard since Backstreet Boys music, but at the end, those are opinions, which means that we're left to respect them, or, at least, acknowledge that we're each entitled to them. Even if racism is viewed as outdated, so are 1960s Thunderbirds. For someone who believes that the past is superior to the present (a legitimately unprovable opinion), then outdatedness is a positive quality. At some level, we require ourselves to allow racism to persist because it falls into a category of ideas that can't be wrong all the way--even though one of its major logical underpinnings is categorically wrong, disproving the idea at its very foundation.
Not only that, but treating racism as an opinion may very well drive people with racism to want racism to persist. In today's world, it has become increasingly taboo to hate, but opinions are the one thing we are still allowed to hate people for. People can group others by beliefs and attack them without consequence. "Democrat," "liberal," and "progressive" are pejoritives in some places, "Red" and "Nazi" as intense as "racist" in most. That may sound like a good thing as applied to racism, and to read it written by someone like me, who has hated racism and racists most of his life, it definitely comes off as hypocritical to suggest otherwise, but in practical terms, there are few ideas worse than that of responding to racism with hate. You can't use hate to change people. Even if you do manage to change them, it won't be in the way you were hoping. I'm now into my fourth decade of being hated because I'm weird, and yet after absorbing so much of that hatred, and spilling the rest back out onto whoever was available, I am not at all less weird. I have more weird ideas than ever, but now with a side of misanthropy. If one anecdote does not suffice, consider this: despite some people using "Democrat" as an insult, they are more or less as popular as their rivals. Consider the centuries of hatred that have utterly failed to make black people look any different. Hate may feel pretty good, (okay, fine, you got me...it does feel effing awesome) but it just doesn't work.
What can work, if done intelligently, is to change people with compassion. The fields of religion and psychology have developed numerous experts in this pursuit. The way to end racism is to find the people who have racism and treat them. Do so with kindness, with respect, with professionalism, so they will keep coming back. They need the treatment. Nobody needs the hatred.
That's kind of awesome, if you think about it. How many illnesses can be cured entirely by education?
Think about this: if you believe you are superior to me because your parents were Jesus Christ and Joan of Arc, that's a delusion. It's probably a symptom of mental illness. How come if I believe that I am superior to you because my parents were white people, that's an opinion? It's equally nonsensical, and its underpinnings are equally implausible, if not more so. Biologically, race does not exist--we can't say the same of Jesus and Joan with such scientific certainty. If one is the product of an unwell mind, mustn't the other be as well?
In addition to making little sense, treating racism as an opinion is also incredibly destructive. After all, an opinion is something that can be held without being favored by the preponderance of facts, because most of them can't be proven or disproven. I think grape jelly tastes wonderful, and my neighbor won't touch the stuff; my neighbor thinks red motorcycles look better than black ones and I paint all of mine black in defiance. In the end, we have to let it go because we can't prove our side. You may think that the government is capable of solving the biggest problems in our lives today, and I may think that's the biggest load of hogwash I've heard since Backstreet Boys music, but at the end, those are opinions, which means that we're left to respect them, or, at least, acknowledge that we're each entitled to them. Even if racism is viewed as outdated, so are 1960s Thunderbirds. For someone who believes that the past is superior to the present (a legitimately unprovable opinion), then outdatedness is a positive quality. At some level, we require ourselves to allow racism to persist because it falls into a category of ideas that can't be wrong all the way--even though one of its major logical underpinnings is categorically wrong, disproving the idea at its very foundation.
Not only that, but treating racism as an opinion may very well drive people with racism to want racism to persist. In today's world, it has become increasingly taboo to hate, but opinions are the one thing we are still allowed to hate people for. People can group others by beliefs and attack them without consequence. "Democrat," "liberal," and "progressive" are pejoritives in some places, "Red" and "Nazi" as intense as "racist" in most. That may sound like a good thing as applied to racism, and to read it written by someone like me, who has hated racism and racists most of his life, it definitely comes off as hypocritical to suggest otherwise, but in practical terms, there are few ideas worse than that of responding to racism with hate. You can't use hate to change people. Even if you do manage to change them, it won't be in the way you were hoping. I'm now into my fourth decade of being hated because I'm weird, and yet after absorbing so much of that hatred, and spilling the rest back out onto whoever was available, I am not at all less weird. I have more weird ideas than ever, but now with a side of misanthropy. If one anecdote does not suffice, consider this: despite some people using "Democrat" as an insult, they are more or less as popular as their rivals. Consider the centuries of hatred that have utterly failed to make black people look any different. Hate may feel pretty good, (okay, fine, you got me...it does feel effing awesome) but it just doesn't work.
What can work, if done intelligently, is to change people with compassion. The fields of religion and psychology have developed numerous experts in this pursuit. The way to end racism is to find the people who have racism and treat them. Do so with kindness, with respect, with professionalism, so they will keep coming back. They need the treatment. Nobody needs the hatred.
That's kind of awesome, if you think about it. How many illnesses can be cured entirely by education?
Sunday, September 28, 2014
People, Humans, and Animals
What makes a person a person?
The only thing that separates people from other kinds of animals is their ability to ignore their emotions.
What separates humans from other kinds of animals?
1-40% of the genome.
Can someone be human without being a person?
Absolutely.
Can someone be a person without being a human?
Theoretically. Intelligent extraterrestrials would likely qualify.
Can someone be a person without being an animal?
Theoretically. Intelligent extraterrestrials might qualify.
Can someone be a human without being an animal?
Nope. I don't see how that would be possible.
The only thing that separates people from other kinds of animals is their ability to ignore their emotions.
What separates humans from other kinds of animals?
1-40% of the genome.
Can someone be human without being a person?
Absolutely.
Can someone be a person without being a human?
Theoretically. Intelligent extraterrestrials would likely qualify.
Can someone be a person without being an animal?
Theoretically. Intelligent extraterrestrials might qualify.
Can someone be a human without being an animal?
Nope. I don't see how that would be possible.
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
Uneducated, Unsolicited Legal Opinion (part 2)
Back on May 8th, I posted the following:
I stand by this assertion, but I would like to add to that. Blaming a victim for a rape because she was flirting is like blaming a guy for having his bike stolen because he rode it back and forth in front of a place that the thief frequented. I've also seen an account of a defense lawyer using a victim's sexual fantasies about men the same age as the alleged perpetrator in the defense. That would be equivalent to saying that a thief didn't steal a bike because the victim had been considering buying a bike for somebody the same age.
Using the victim's sexual history as evidence for the defense in a rape case is like using a victim's Christmas shopping list to defend a thief. "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the so-called 'victim' in this case has demonstrated a clear pattern of giving things to people. It is clear that this slightly-used iPhone was a gift to my defendant, which his accuser later regretted giving away."
That dog don't hunt.
I stand by this assertion, but I would like to add to that. Blaming a victim for a rape because she was flirting is like blaming a guy for having his bike stolen because he rode it back and forth in front of a place that the thief frequented. I've also seen an account of a defense lawyer using a victim's sexual fantasies about men the same age as the alleged perpetrator in the defense. That would be equivalent to saying that a thief didn't steal a bike because the victim had been considering buying a bike for somebody the same age.
Thursday, May 29, 2014
#notallmen
One Man's Response to the back-and-forth between #yesallwomen and #notallmen:
Aside from this short personal screed, you won't ever see me use the hashtag #notallmen (though you won't see me use the hashtag #yesallwomen either, for the obvious reason). But I get where it comes from. Really, I do. As a man who could quite reasonably use that hashtag if he pleased, I suspect that most men like me read #yesallwomen in two ways: as an attempt to chip away at their privilege, and as an accusation. The privilege may not be fair, but it's quite human to like having privileges. And even for a perfectly well-meaning man, the knee-jerk reaction to #yesallwomen can be defensive. The movement states that harassment and assault is a universal experience. If we're not on the receiving end, then we must, by implication, be perpetrators.
Now, obviously, that's not what #yesallwomen is actually about. Even if it were, though, #notallmen would miss the point, because #yesallwomen marks narratives of things that, in a just world, would never happen to any women at all. Ultimately, the issue here is a lot bigger than men's affront at a perceived accusation.
At the same time, big issues need wide support. It's an unfortunate fact that simply telling the truth isn't enough. To inspire change, it's necessary to tailor a truthful message in such a way that appeals to a wide audience. So, even though it seems a little silly to thank people for doing what everyone should do, I will do it anyway. On behalf of nobody but myself, thank you, #notallmen, for not being part of the problem. Thank you for not doing anything to women that merits accusation.
With that said, even if you are not deserving of accusations, you may be in need of a wakeup call. Instead of simply being among the many who are not part of the problem, why not join the much smaller number who are part of the solution? Instead of simply refraining from harassing or assaulting women, why not remind your family or friends not to do it? You could even show true courage by denouncing this behavior when you see it happen in public (and while #notallmen have done it, #yesallmen have seen it take place. Admit it).
My response, as a man, to #notallmen: yes, not all of them, but too many.
Aside from this short personal screed, you won't ever see me use the hashtag #notallmen (though you won't see me use the hashtag #yesallwomen either, for the obvious reason). But I get where it comes from. Really, I do. As a man who could quite reasonably use that hashtag if he pleased, I suspect that most men like me read #yesallwomen in two ways: as an attempt to chip away at their privilege, and as an accusation. The privilege may not be fair, but it's quite human to like having privileges. And even for a perfectly well-meaning man, the knee-jerk reaction to #yesallwomen can be defensive. The movement states that harassment and assault is a universal experience. If we're not on the receiving end, then we must, by implication, be perpetrators.
Now, obviously, that's not what #yesallwomen is actually about. Even if it were, though, #notallmen would miss the point, because #yesallwomen marks narratives of things that, in a just world, would never happen to any women at all. Ultimately, the issue here is a lot bigger than men's affront at a perceived accusation.
At the same time, big issues need wide support. It's an unfortunate fact that simply telling the truth isn't enough. To inspire change, it's necessary to tailor a truthful message in such a way that appeals to a wide audience. So, even though it seems a little silly to thank people for doing what everyone should do, I will do it anyway. On behalf of nobody but myself, thank you, #notallmen, for not being part of the problem. Thank you for not doing anything to women that merits accusation.
With that said, even if you are not deserving of accusations, you may be in need of a wakeup call. Instead of simply being among the many who are not part of the problem, why not join the much smaller number who are part of the solution? Instead of simply refraining from harassing or assaulting women, why not remind your family or friends not to do it? You could even show true courage by denouncing this behavior when you see it happen in public (and while #notallmen have done it, #yesallmen have seen it take place. Admit it).
My response, as a man, to #notallmen: yes, not all of them, but too many.
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