equality – My Mental Model

A Belated International Men’s Rights Day

This entry was originally inspired by me being banned from Reddit’s r/feminism community. It made me sad. It’s a community I had followed for some time and while I didn’t agree with some of what was being said, I was there to learn. When I completed the entry, I left it in the draft pile instead of posting it. I didn’t like the tone. I don’t mind discussing things that I think are negative, but I prefer to connect them to something brighter. There’s nothing wrong with a little darkness when you can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Without the light, I’m much less interested in painting the darkness.

Yesterday was international men’s day and besides it not being a statutory holiday, I suspect that this is one of the more controversial holidays of our time. I saw it show up in two places in my news feed: on The_Donald and I think on Jordan Peterson’s sub-reddit. The_Donald, a sub -Reddit for Trump fans and Russian bots, seem to be trolls first and foremost. Their celebration of men’s rights likely have as much to do with antagonizing feminists as supporting men who are struggling. They’re not the most compassionate crowd. But the feminists aren’t shy to give them ammunition either so perhaps there’s a natural dynamic of ‘accountability’ here. The Jordan Peterson community is certainly more supportive and compassionate in their stance, looking to actually recognize the challenges that men are up against. I found some of the stats rather surprising. This is from a graphic which was shared:

76% of suicides are men

85% of homeless are men

70% of homicide victims are men

40% of domestic abuse victims are men

Men are the majority of victims of violent crimes

Men on average serve more than 64% longer in prison

Men are 340% more likely than a women to be imprisoned for the same crime

Just like with any set of stats, they need to be understood within context. But even with context, it’s hard to deny that men have their own challenges. But is there room in today’s world to support both men’s rights and women’s rights? The logic in me says yes. In fact, this is the premise for real equality and from my perspective, the only real way forward. My personal experiences seem to suggest otherwise though.

Over the last few years, I’ve noticed a rise in feminist rhetoric. It didn’t concern me much as I had established myself as a feminist back in university. I was teasing a friend for taking a women’s studies class after being egged on by his girlfriend. He teased me right back and said, “you know you’re a feminist right?”. I scoffed at him and said, that’s highly unlikely. He asked if I thought that men and women were equal. I said sure. He pointed out that made me a feminist. Really? What’s all this I hear about burning bras and a general hate towards men? He told me that was just a misconception. Perhaps those individuals thought of themselves as feminists, but that wasn’t feminism. Hmm… well alright then, I can definitely get on board with equality.

Fast forward to the present day, and perhaps we’ve lost sight of what feminism was supposed to be. In it’s evolution, I think we’ve uncovered a rather destructive dynamic. Classic feminists saw that there was a need for equality when it came to voting rights. And equal opportunities for education. And equal opportunities for employment. And etc. And etc. They fought hard for their seat at the table and they’ve made tremendous contributions to our society as a result. Modern feminists seem to have taken a different approach.

The current conversation seems to be one of power and oppression. The argument has been made that all of society is dominated by a patriarchy which systematically oppresses women. As a result of that power imbalance, women are at a disadvantage and the only way to remedy the situation is for women to become more powerful. Generally speaking, we refer to the empowerment of women to be a positive thing. But here’s the trick, power seems to be a zero-sum game. Assuming that men are more powerful than women, in the interest of equality, it would seem sensible that we should make men less powerful and make women more powerful. Yet throughout history, we’ve seen this dynamic play over and over again. Power corrupts. Power becomes a means to an end. At that point, it’s no longer about equality.

I don’t deny that there are powerful men. But I also am quick to suggest that women are powerful too. I think history would suggest that they have always been powerful in their own way. If nothing else, the entire evolutionary course of humanity has been determined by their power to choose a mate. In most cases, it’s rather easy to trace the actions of men back to the pursuit of approval from women. But what if men no longer held on to the power than they leverage in their domains? What if women did the same? I think that’s the world we’re looking for.. but it’s not the world we’re pursuing today.

Earlier this year I was criticized for using Tinder by a woman in her 50s. She told me that technology was destroying our ability to connect and that I should look to meet women in the real world. I told her that in the age of #metoo, it’s hard to know when women in public want to be approached. She suggested things like being in line at a coffee shop, or at a book store, etc. Then one of her younger employees (20s) piped up and said something to the effect of “I don’t want men to approach me when I’m at <insert location> because when I’m there, I’m not looking to get hit on, I’m just looking to do <insert activity>. It seemed like men were being criticized for not approaching women in a more traditional manner, while also being criticized for approaching women in a traditional manner. As is often the case, there was this expectation that the man would just ‘know’, and if he didn’t, he was to blame.

The same woman who thought I should be approaching women in public also reprimanded me for calling a few young women girls. It was something to the effect of I’ll see you girls at the conference tomorrow. I was told that using this language was belittling, demeaning, oppressive, and etc. Something about making them seem younger than they were. On one side, I understood what she was saying but on the other, I was so confused. I told her that I thought I was using it as a term of endearment, in the same manner a woman would refer to a group of men as boys. And wasn’t girl-power a hall-mark of feminism? There didn’t seem to be any logical basis for why she was upset with me, but I was made to feel like I had done something wrong regardless.

I was hanging out with my sisters earlier this year and talking about dating in the #metoo era and how I was generally trying to steer clear of it all. At one point, we discussed how many decent men were being painted with the same brush as those who genuinely needed to adjust how they were treating women. They both gave me the same analogy: If you have a bowl of skittles, and you know that just a few of them are poison, you don’t eat the skittles. I didn’t say anything at the time because I was listening and trying to understand their perspectives, but it registered as a ‘does not compute’. I thought about it more later and realized it was sexism 101. Judging all men based on the actions of a few didn’t seem fair at all. The first parallel that came to mind was demonizing all Muslims because a few are terrorists. If we can recognize the flaw in that, why not here?

As I understood it, the bigger problem wasn’t going to be empowered women. It was going to be what comes next. I was talking to an older feminist and told her that as much as I appreciate equality and that side of feminism, I’m less appreciative of neo-feminism or radical-feminism. She didn’t understand and took the stance that all feminism was good. I asked her if there were any examples of feminism which she didn’t agree with, or at least thought was counter-productive. She flatly said no. I can’t help but think that if you’ve lost the ability to hold your tribe accountable for anything, you’ve lost site of virtues like equality and have been consumed by the pursuit of power. I told her that I was concerned. Not so much by the prospect of powerful women, but by what comes next.

There’s a pendulum dynamic that has operated throughout history. We mobilize ourselves in one direction and once we’ve realized the extent of that direction, we tend to try the opposite. This can be seen in things like fashion, politics, the stock market, and of course, major social movements. So in the age of empowering women, where does the pendulum swing next?

I maintain that if this movement was about understanding and promoting equality between the sexes, the pendulum effect wouldn’t exist in the same way. Instead, it seems to be about making women more powerful. All that momentum and all that power that women are enjoying now, will swing back to men. Not because they deserve it, but because that’s how the pendulum works. The harder you swing it to one side, the more potential energy you’ve stored for it to swing in the opposite direction.

It seems as though things have begun to swing the other way. It’s not pretty either. Feminism grew in part because of how many women felt hurt and angry at the world for a raw deal. Well it seems as though men are starting to arrive there as well. It’s showing up in the communities of incels and men’s rights activists… and because it’s mostly people who are hurt and lashing out, they’re being dismissed by feminists. Or worse, they’re being demonized for providing resistance to the feminist movement. And this is where we have to take a hard look at ourselves and ask, if equality is really the mission here. Does it matter that 76% of suicides are men? Because if so, we could use some of that support we hear so much about.

And this seems to be where we stand now. With feminism approaching terminal velocity, it’s time to prepare for what’s next. Is masculism next? Must we send the pendulum back out in that direction to find what we should both recognize is in the middle? I’m happy to say that I’m not the only one who thinks that the path forward isn’t about feminism or masculism, but rather about humanism.

The video that got me banned from r/feminism was a TED Talk from a female, award-winning, documentary film maker. She had been a staunch feminist who was filming a documentary looking to expose men’s rights activists and their wicked ways. After listening to these men and studying their answers, she started to realize just how much prejudice she was carrying against them. Rather than listening to what the men were actually saying, she would look for reasons to be offended and use that emotional state to dismiss any valid point the man was making. When she fact checked some of their concerns, like higher rates of suicide, or higher rates of death on the job, or higher rates of incarceration, she realized that civil rights and equality wasn’t just a woman’s issue. She went on to say that she no longer identifies as a feminist, but with a clear conditions.: She is compassionate towards the struggles of both men and women, and supports the civil rights of each.

She was met with a standing ovation and had I been there, I would’ve been one of them. Thank you for helping to lead the way Cassie Jaye.

It’s Not a Disability, It’s a Genetic Variance

Over the last few years, I started realizing how much trouble we were having communicating with one another. Less so for close friends and family. Much more so when it comes to discussing ideologies with strangers. Having failed at so many of these conversations, I may have learned something. If we want to have more meaningful conversations, we need to do a better job of being honest with one another. And that includes using the most accurate language available to us.

I hear the word disability tossed around a fair bit. There now seems to be a disability for everything. It’s like if you’re anything other than the ‘perfect’ human blueprint, you are somehow lesser. And this is your disability.

Fuck that.

I read something interesting a few months ago about the victim mentality. Someone was asked why it had gained in popularity and what made it attractive. The answer was rather simple: it was an easy way to be powerful. The traditional route to power was through hard work and success, and it usually took years. In a society that celebrates and protects victims, why invest the time and effort into building yourself up through accountability and responsibility when you could get the same result through claiming your victimhood? Why put in the long hours and make the hard decisions when you could look for ways in which you’ve been marginalized and call foul?

Disabled? Why even try? Why would you want to overcome your challenges? Why would you want to try and find your gift? Why not tell the world that you got a raw deal and that it’s their responsibility to make it up to you?

Because of Stephen Hawking and everyone like him.

Put him in a pro football game and I’ll show you someone who is appears severely disabled. Place him within an academic environment where he can research, study, and share his knowledge… I’ll show you one of the most gifted individuals of the last century. It’s only a disability when you apply yourself to the wrong task. That means it’s not a disability, it’s a misalignment. Your genetic variance needs to be aligned with the right task for you to do what you do best. I would imagine Gronk would be about as successful at teaching theoretical physics to a group of PhDs as Hawking would be at catching an end-zone pass.

I think it’s about time we start making an effort to understand the situation for what it is. There are plenty of illnesses which are real. There are all kinds of foreign substances which can be introduced to your body which will mess your shit up. That’s where it’s important to understand how to heal the body and bring it back to a sustainable equilibrium. But I can’t help but think that this is very different from most if not all physical or cognitive ‘disabilities’. Those aren’t disabilities, those are genetic variances.

When I try to think about myself from the perspective of disability, I can see plenty that’s wrong with me. I get pretty bad pollen allergies every year. My vision isn’t perfect. I qualify as dyslexic. I have a series of lingering sports injuries including chronic lower back pain and metal in my arm. I have a heavily deviated septum. My sense of smell sucks. I binge eat. And etc. And etc. And etc. And it’s not like I’m unaware of them. I’m working on improving the ones I can, and not stressed about the rest.

It’s funny, I’m thinking back to when I grew up and it the was kind of neighborhood where nobody was short on disadvantages. Everyone was aware of what was making their lives hard. We didn’t complain or expect someone else to change it though, we just assumed the deck was stacked against us. What we would do was use that a measure of whose success was worth celebrating. It wasn’t about who had the greatest accomplishment, it was about who did the most with the least. I can’t help but be grateful that I was raised with that perspective.

When I think about who I am and what I’ve been given, with the perspective I have today… I see something pretty cool. All things considered, I think I got a pretty good roll of the genetic dice. But like anyone else, it’s a mixed bag. The way my brain is wired allows me to do certain thing exceptionally well while it struggles with others. Dyslexic? Why? Because my brain is wired to do things differently than someone else’s? And what if I can do these things better than the average person? Is it a disability? Who’s to say that my unique genetic variance doesn’t simultaneously display symptoms of dyslexia while allowing my mind to do all kinds of other cool things that others struggle with

We are all our own deviation from the human blueprint. Each variation of that blueprint comes with its own advantages and disadvantages. And those advantages and disadvantages wills shift depending on circumstance. The best thing we can do for ourselves is understand where we have the potential to be exceptional at and apply ourselves to the best of our abilities. The best thing we can do as a society is to support the discovery of what makes us different, and then to support the pursuit of being our absolute best at it. Through this, I can see a happier, more productive world.

Whatever it is that you are, there is something you do better than anyone else. If you spend your time doing that, you are not disabled, you are gifted.

Why Suicide is More Appealing Today than Yesterday

Before anyone worries too much, I’m not considering suicide. Not today anyways.

This morning was Anthony Bourdain. Not long before that was Kate Spade. And between the two, how many others? I can’t help but think that this is getting worse and not better. There’s a negative energy that’s growing in our world and it’s impacting us in some profound ways. I think these are conversations we need to have.

I can’t remember the first time I thought about suicide. I was probably quite young. It wasn’t a function of depression as much as it was an exercise in exploring the extremes. It was probably a fight with my parents, or getting picked on at school. A moment of woe is me, I bet I would matter more if they thought I had committed suicide. In grade 12, I fell for a girl and was infatuated to the nth degree. When she left me, I was convinced that I would never be happy again. There was probably some consideration of suicide, but where I landed was that I wanted to be a fire fighter or something to that effect. I figured that if I wasn’t capable of being happy, I could at least dedicate my life towards helping others. It blew over and I moved on, but the conversation of suicide remained.

In my third year of university, I dated a girl who opened up to me about having tried to commit suicide. According to her, she wasn’t dealing with a breakup very well and ended up going into the shed at the back of the house and slitting her wrists. As she tells the story, her brother stumbled in on her and took her to the hospital, saving her life. I asked to see her wrists, and saw no scars. I was asked to keep this to myself as nobody else knew besides her brother. I did my best to be supportive. When we broke up, she told me that she didn’t think she could handle another breakup like this. That she might go and do something extreme. I reached out to her brother and asked him to keep an eye on her. From what I can tell, she’s doing just fine these days.

It wasn’t something I could relate to. Even in my darker, more melodramatic moments, I wasn’t interested in taking my own life. It seemed like giving up. For better or worse, this mindset of never giving up is hardwired into me. I’d much rather go out on my shield. Maybe that’s why I’ve often thought of ways in which I would be willing to sacrifice myself.. the hero’s death. The idea was that if I was going to die, I wanted there to be as much value in my death as possible. I either wanted to die of old age among a lifetime of accomplishments, or to die in a proper blaze of glory. There was almost a mathematical element to it, if my life was worth ‘x’ and an honorable death would yield ‘x’ + 1, I’d take it.

When I started getting in over my head at the banks, I started looking for outs. I wasn’t willing to throw any more money at the problem. I wasn’t willing to quit or give up. I wasn’t willing to compromise my integrity. And I was running out of time. Part of my role at the bank included being licensed for life insurance. I remember reading that a life insurance policy would still pay out if you committed suicide, as long as more than 2 years had passed since you took out the policy and when you took your life. Hmm…

Last year, I was in a relationship with a girl who had been through a fair bit. In grade 11, she was in a head on collision with a motorcyclist and the motorcyclist didn’t make it. She went through some rough patches around that. Her family was not as supportive as they could’ve been. I knew this, but I also knew that she had been keeping something from me. I knew it was something dark, so I told her that I would be ready if she got to a point where she wanted to share. One night, we were hanging out in my car and the conversation went in that direction. Feeling like I had an opening, I asked if she spent much time thinking about death.

I told her that I think about it often. In the last 7 years, I’ve lost parents, friends, and family members… how could I not? I told her that every once in a while, when life gets to be a bit much, I think about suicide. What would it be like? How would I do it? Would I have the courage or the conviction? Would I regret it? She was surprised that I was talking about these things so calmly and openly. She opened up to me about her experiences and we had a remarkable conversation.

At first, I think she almost expected me to freak out or want to report her to a hotline. I didn’t, I just listened. And when she talked about life getting to be too much, I told her I could relate. I told her that’s when I think about it too. I told her about the conversations that take place in my head when I reach those dark corners, and then I told her about all the things that bring me back to the light. I could tell that she had never connected with someone else on this. It’s easier when you don’t have to face things alone.

After that conversation, I can’t help but think that the contemplation of suicide is a sign of a healthy, curious mind that’s going through some things. I spent most of my life thinking that people who are ‘suicidal’ are mentally weak, or damaged, or so distraught with life that I could never relate. I suspect that most people have had a similar perspective. Perhaps this is why we feel alone rather than connected when we have these kinds of thoughts. If thoughts of suicide only happened in extreme and rare cases, then perhaps it would be indicative of faulty hardware and perhaps those people should feel scared and alone. But if thoughts of suicide were had by most individuals in times of extreme duress, isn’t that something we should be aware of? Something that we should collectively acknowledge?

I’ve seen different ways of communicating what it’s like to have suicidal thoughts, none better than this by the late David Wallace,

“The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.”

And yet the final thoughts of almost every person who has survived a jump off the Golden Gate bridge, are thoughts of regret..

‘What have I just done? I don’t want to die. God please save me. Boom.’

There’s something happening here. We need to talk about this. Posting the suicide prevention hotline to your social media account isn’t enough. Thoughts and prayers are not enough. We need to have real conversations. We need to acknowledge that suicidal thoughts have a place within a modern society like ours, and we need to do a better job of understanding why.

Unemployment rates are at all-time lows while income inequality is at an all-time high. There’s no lack of work, just a lack of income for it. With a lack of income comes a lack of opportunity.. The lack of opportunity to own your own home, or to further your education, or even to start your own family. How many of us were raised with the idea that the only thing between us and a good life was hard work? How many of us are at a point now where no matter how hard we work, we can’t seem to make any progress? And how many of us are getting a sense that these factors are largely out of our control?

That’s hopelessness.

I can’t help but think that this structural shift in equality of wealth is the underlying reason for all this pain and suffering.. it’s the root of what we’re ultimately desperate to escape. Like J. Cole said, ‘you can’t take it when you die but you can’t live without it.’ When wealth has been shifted from the many to the few, this is how it plays out. When there isn’t enough to go around, people fall back into their tribes, looking to protect their own. Rather than looking for a solution to the problem, we’re looking for someone to blame. People become quick to draw lines in the sand between us and them. Social discourse becomes hostile. Where we were connected, we are now divided. And it all starts to break down.

If we’re looking for an analogy for how this plays out, we don’t have to look far. It sounds remarkably like climate change to me. The planet is a large and complex ecosystem which tends to exist within an equilibrium. Adjusting the average temperature of the planet by a few degrees over a long period of time isn’t something that most people would notice, but that’s not all that’s changing. With a shift in temperature comes a shift in equilibrium and the path from here to there is filled with chaos. Heat waves are now keeping planes from taking off. Blizzards are lasting well into the spring. Every hurricane that comes along seems to be worse than the one before.

By shifting the distribution of wealth by a few degrees over a long period of time, a lot of people didn’t notice. But they see the mass shootings. They see the school shootings. They see the police brutality. They see the Charlottesville protests. They see the government corruption. They see how little they’re making. They see how much they owe. They see what level of health care is available to them. They see the opiates in the community. And they see that we’ve lost the ability to talk these things through. Things are heating up.

When I think about the world we live in right now, it’s not easy. Then I remind myself that for some, this path is harder than others. Then I remind myself that not everyone is equipped with the tools to deal with these things. And that’s when I think no-shit people are struggling, these are hard times. These are the times where those with nothing to lose and those with everything to lose are choosing to escape rather than endure. And I can’t help but think that this is a function of hope.

Equal Opportunity vs Equal Outcome in Nature

Love me some shower time… something very meditative about it. I always seem to come up with interesting thoughts. Just got out of the shower, and I was thinking about how equal opportunity and equal outcome present themselves in nature. Consider this:

In a forest of trees, some trees are taller than others. The tallest of the trees tend to absorb the most sun, allowing them to grow taller still. The shadows which these trees cast on those around them often prevent others from becoming as tall. Some trees won’t survive their first few years. Others are planted and never grow at all.

Should we be upset at the tallest of trees for absorbing all that sunlight while casting shadows over others? Should we be upset with nature for creating an environment where such inequality exists? Is the forest that we really want, one in which all trees grow to the same size?

When I look at a forest, I don’t look at what should be, I see a remarkably complex and eloquent example of what is. When you find that tallest tree and ask why that tree is so tall, you’ll see what I mean. Maybe that tree had good genetics. Maybe it was planted in just the right spot. Maybe it was planted in a terrible spot, but a neighboring tree fell down and a terrible spot became a great spot. Maybe someone saw it slouching over when it was younger and helped it out. Maybe the logging company decided they’d go elsewhere. Either way, it did the only thing that trees know how to do. It planted roots, stretched towards the sunlight, and grew.

This is how nature operates. It does so without any sense of right and wrong or fair and unfair. Nature is uninterested in a forest of trees which all grow the same for the sake of equality. Why is that? Perhaps nature has an appreciation for the shade which we have yet to grasp. Perhaps it’s the shade that forces us to evolve. A tree with good tree genetics, which is given all the sunlight it needs, will only ever be a tree. It’s the tree which grows in the shade which is forced to find new ways of being a tree.