Conquest

[noamnety]

Run time: 03:36 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVBdXCKRvJI   Posted on YouTube: September 26, 2007 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: September 27, 2007 By DU Member: noamnety Views on DU: 860

 

[mls]

1. conquest

Whoa! That's depressing.

[noamnety]

2. Effective, though?

We were trying to draw some connections where people don't always see them.

[Katherine Brengle]

4. Mission accomplished.

That was very moving, and I hope more DUers will really look at it.

[Tigermoose]

3. Yes, but... (open discussion)

I am a liberal U. S. American man. So I am very aware of the content and message that you are very effectively trying to get across with this video. I think you can go further though, in your thinking on this topic. I find that the majority of U. S. American women are attracted to men who display this mentality of conquest. I cannot determine how much of this desire (men and women's desire) of conquest is biological and how much is cultural. As a liberal American man, I find myself torn between two poles:

1. An almost innate (cultural or biological?) desire to take on the persona of American masculinity in order to gain respect of peers, admiration, and the desire of women
2. An spiritual, moral choice that focuses on loving, nurturing, and serving others

So, I guess my overall point here is that it is just not men causing this conquest. I think it is also an innate desire of many women in that they are attracted to men who conquer. It seems to be a very physical, animalistic thing for both sexes.

[Katherine Brengle]

5. I call bullshit on it being "innate" - you yourself said, "I don't know how much of it is biological

and how much is cultural," but then you make this blanket statement at the end.

Almost everything we do is a consequence of socialization. To try and break down human actions to biology at this evolutionary stage is just embarrassing - perhaps some people still function this way, but most of us are rational life forms capable of creating our own realities (or having them created for us by others, which is most often what happens imo).

Women are just as indoctrinated with patriarchal concepts as men.

[Tigermoose]

7. Are there societies predominately dominated by matriarchal concepts?

?

[noamnety]

9. "matriarchal concepts"

you'd have to define what those concepts are, for me to really understand your question.

But there are matriarchal societies, if that's what you are asking.

http://www.saunalahti.fi/penelope/Feminism/KhasiGaro.html

[noamnety]

6. Women and men both are raised in this culture

So I can't argue with the idea that women play into it as well. We are raised with fairy tales showing us that the ultimate romantic scenario is to be helpless and in need of being rescued by a male.

That's a storyline that's been written again and again, and reproduced in the media - in movies and in marketing.

There's of course a separate issue of who controls that media, and it's primarily been men throughout history, reproducing that storyline - and thus reproducing that system of power ... but yes, women are influenced by it as well, for sure.

I saw it in my classroom last year, when we were doing a PR piece for a dance about chain gangs. I brought in chains and offered it as a photo opportunity for the day to take photos using the chains as props. They were told they could model with the chains, take photos of the other students modeling, or just work on their regular projects. Only the women and the black students walked over and started wrapping themselves in the chains. I had 5 classes during the day - not one white male ever put himself in the position of wearing them. It just wasn't a situation that they imagined themselves in, I guess. But the women and black students obviously did see some sort of connection or mindset to being in the chains.

That wasn't a dynamic I was prepared for, as a teacher (or as a human).

I don't know that I'd call it innate - it's more that from a very young age we are introduced to images of people we identify with who are in certain positions and situations. That contributes to our vision of who we are, whether we are the people wearing chains or putting others in them.

[Tigermoose]

8. Good points. But I feel uneasy about conflating race with sex.

Two separate issues. Granted, traditionally both groups have been unfairly subjugated by white males in our society, but I think it is a rhetorical move to conflate the two.

Yes, social influence is very powerful. But I guess it is a chicken/egg issue. Did the society arise from the genetics and then reinforce itself on the subject through culture? Or is cultural influence purely an ideological construct that holds us mesmerized without any biological preference?

[noamnety]

10. I think they are remarkably similar

From presumptions about innate abilities and lack thereof, to assumptions that they exist to service the dominant class (whether that be male or white), to marginalization, to economic status, to dehumanization, and so on.

Bigotry/supremacy in all its forms is very similar.

[defendandprotect]

11. Once patriarch is established based on power over others, then naturally there . . ..

will be both males and females who will be drawn to the powerful in self-protection.

And, I think the idea that we have to "define" masculinity, in itself, suggests that males have to be united in some uniform display of behavior. Nature is diverse -- there are probably many ways to be masculine, but patriarchy has been defining it as aggressive, exploitive -- especially of females.

The idea that males are naturally violent I think is probably wrong because nature isn't suicidal and violence -- whether against nature, natural resources, animal-life -- will bring suicide to humanity as we can see right now from overpopulation, pollution and Global Warming.

Women are patriarchy's primary enemies --
exploitation, violence, intimidation, oppression the tools of control.
Patriarchal leaders feared nature, especially in the new world --
almost everything in nature has been attacked -- exploited, ripped down, destroyed.

What I mainly see behind patriarchy and conquest -- basically, the desire by the few to dominate others -- is fear.

I've always looked at violence as a problem with self-esteem . . . .



"The loveless crave power because they lack both love and self -- "

Betty Friedan