The Men's Rights Movement

[aquablob]

Here are the sources I was looking at:

http://www.ucpress.edu/content/chapters/11633.ch01.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy#Life_expectancy_variation_over_time
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005140.html

On the other hand:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2625386/
http://www.ancient-origins.net/news-evolution-human-origins/life-expectancy-myth-and-why-many-ancient-humans-lived-long-077889


So I'm not so sure.

[Jo498]

The overall life expectancy is beside the point. Mozart died a few weeks before his 36th birthday. Only two of his six children survived through early childhood. But his wife lived to be 80. Neither of them lived their lives "on the edge of survival". That you can die quickly from a comparably trivial illness does not mean you are living in mortal danger all the time. (And although famines etc. occured most people 200 or 500 years ago didn't live most of their live in such life-threatening situations.)  With a similar argument one could claim that most of us are living in mortal danger because we drive several miles everyday on average and some of us may die in a fatal car accident.

And if you read about Mozart's life he was at least as busy as any professional today and while his might have been an extreme case, I do not think most people were bored most of the time.

[aquablob]

Although Mozart is hardly representative of your average 18th-century European (i.e., a peasant).

[Jo498]

Of course not. But I do not think the peasants or servants were constantly in fear of famines. As we are not constantly in fear of financial ruin due to economic depression or dying in a car accident. Certainly, live was much harder for many people, even the privileged ones had less advanced medicine etc. Many things were probably in many respects closer to 3rd world countries today. But it's certainly not the case that without Manga and Internet life would not be worth living

[ibanezmonster]

With a similar argument one could claim that most of us are living in mortal danger because we drive several miles everyday on average and some of us may die in a fatal car accident.

That's true.
What I mean to refer to is the many people that did nothing but work all the time. And if they did get free time, what in the world did they do that was actually fun?

[Ken B]

That's true.
What I mean to refer to is the many people that did nothing but work all the time.

This is actually not true. Medieval peasants had scads of church holidays for example.

[Jo498]

That's true.
What I mean to refer to is the many people that did nothing but work all the time. And if they did get free time, what in the world did they do that was actually fun?

music, for instance.
Singing, dancing, swapping stories, hunting, fishing, country walks, church (a big show with music and incense), parades, feasts (if you usually live on beans, bread and porridge (or the like) roast oxen and lots of beer or wine (although they usually had beer as a normal beverage every day) are a very special treat).

[Florestan]

This is actually not true. Medieval peasants had scads of church holidays for example.

music, for instance.
Singing, dancing, swapping stories, hunting, fishing, country walks, church (a big show with music and incense), parades, feasts (if you usually live on beans, bread and porridge (or the like) roast oxen and lots of beer or wine (although they usually had beer as a normal beverage every day) are a very special treat).

Gentlemen, you beat me to it.

It might even be argued that in terms of genuine merriment a medieval peasant would have had nothing to learn from a 21st century employee, on the contrary, he might have taught the latter a thing or two.

[Purusha]

That's true.
What I mean to refer to is the many people that did nothing but work all the time.

There's actually quite a great deal of evidence that they actually worked less:

http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_workweek.html

Peasants in particular were bound to the rhythms of nature, and the amount of work they did changed according to season, with working hours being reduced to almost nothing during the colder months, with animal husbandry and the occasional foraging taking over their duties in the field. I know this for a fact because by own grandparents were farmers and their way of life wasn't too dissimilar from that of a medieval peasant or serf, since technology was scarce and modern commodities were still relatively unknown at the time.

As for those so called third world countries, let's not forget those are usually at the receiving end of the worst facets of this so called "progress". You can't really compare the way they live with that of cultures before the age of technology.

I would also question the accuracy of some of the numbers used to draw those statistics. Its not like people in the ancient world kept perfect tabs about everything like we do today. Surely, those figures cannot be 100% accurate and surely they cannot apply to all cultures and all periods indiscriminately.

But to me, the most damning argument against the notion that human beings lived in constant and relentless misery up until the introduction of modern "progress" is that there is no evidence of this "absolute" and unending state of unhappiness. In fact, in a way, it is actually the other way around. Look at their cultural expression, particular their art and entertainment, and compare it to our own, with our obsession for ugliness, terror and violence. And there are many facets of ancient life that modern researchers seem to unaware of, such as for instance the true meaning of the traditional crafts. Unfortunately the link for this article is dead so i had to upload the pdf file:

http://www.filedropper.com/spcoomaraswamy-whyexhibitworksofart

And i think it is really telling in lieu of the argument presented in this article that whenever a person in modern times gains "free time", he or she does not always squander it in leisure, but actually engages in so called "hobbies", activities which strangely enough are often not too dissimilar to what was actually called "work" in former times.

[Purusha]

BTW, this documentary also sheds some light into the contrast between the ancient world and modernity, when looked through the lenses of those who have seen that transformation occur within less than a generation:

http://vimeo.com/63325892

Mind you that this appears to have been made by hippies. Traditional life (or human life in general, than or ever) was obviously not always this idyllic, plus the exaggerated emphasis on human relations and little mention of the thing that truly gave this culture meaning, I.E., Buddhism. Nevertheless, the point of the film stands. Life in the ancient world was not as brutal as progressivists would have us believe and modernity is not such a universal good.

[Purusha]

Link to the article i was talking about has been restored, for those who don't feel like downloading the pdf:

http://www.studiesincomparativereligion.com/public/articles/Why_Exhibit_Works_of_Art-by_Ananda_Coomaraswamy.aspx

[Ken B]

No comment. It is neither necessary nor possible.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQEeXmcWOxI&feature=youtu.be

[Purusha]

Just your typical religious fundamentalist running his mouth. The true traditional Islamic position regarding women is much more complex and manifold than what you may think:

http://www.studiesincomparativereligion.com/public/articles/The_Male_and_Female_in_the_Islamic_Perspective-by_Seyyed_Hossein_Nasr.aspx

Modern Islam is mostly a sham. The insurgence of heretical movements like wahhabism is a big give away the Islamic world is in the throws of a great spiritual and cultural crisis, which has been magnified considerably thanks to western influence, which has been mostly negative, from colonial times up until today. Militant and ultra-orthodox Islam is what happens when one brings "progress" at the end of a bayonet. And the subsequent establishment of repressive mock governments sympathetic to western interests didn't help either.

[Ken B]

Just your typical religious fundamentalist running his mouth. The true traditional Islamic position regarding women is much more complex and manifold than what you may think:

http://www.studiesincomparativereligion.com/public/articles/The_Male_and_Female_in_the_Islamic_Perspective-by_Seyyed_Hossein_Nasr.aspx

Modern Islam is mostly a sham. The insurgence of heretical movements like wahhabism is a big give away the Islamic world is in the throws of a great spiritual and cultural crisis, which has been magnified considerably thanks to western influence, which has been mostly negative, from colonial times up until today. Militant and ultra-orthodox Islam is what happens when one brings "progress" at the end of a bayonet. And the subsequent establishment of repressive mock governments sympathetic to western interests didn't help either.

Nonsense on stilts.

[Purusha]

My good friend, you don't even know how deep this issue runs:

http://www.mundusimaginalis.org/insights/perennial-philosophy-traditionalism/charles-upton-on-gog-and-magog/

More on the subject: 

http://www.sophiaperennis.com/discussion-forums/traditionalism-and-eschatology/perspectives-on-the-end-times/

I am a master of controversy, am i not?

[Florestan]

Modern Islam is mostly a sham. The insurgence of heretical movements like wahhabism is a big give away the Islamic world is in the throws of a great spiritual and cultural crisis, which has been magnified considerably thanks to western influence, which has been mostly negative, from colonial times up until today. Militant and ultra-orthodox Islam is what happens when one brings "progress" at the end of a bayonet. And the subsequent establishment of repressive mock governments sympathetic to western interests didn't help either.

Correct me if I´m wrong: wahabbism made its appearance and asserted itself in a place and at a time where there were no trace whatsoever of any bayonet-backed progress being forced down the throat of the Islamic world.

You seem well versed in traditional studies. What do you make of Genesis 16: 11-12?

[Ken B]

Correct me if I´m wrong: wahabbism made its appearance and asserted itself in a place and at a time where there were no trace whatsoever of any bayonet-backed progress being forced down the throat of the Islamic world.

As I noted, Purusha's ramblings in that comment are nonsense on stilts.

[Purusha]

Correct me if I´m wrong: wahabbism made its appearance and asserted itself in a place and at a time where there were no trace whatsoever of any bayonet-backed progress being forced down the throat of the Islamic world.

This is what i said:

the insurgence of heretical movements like wahhabism is a big give away the Islamic world is in the throws of a great spiritual and cultural crisis, which has been magnified considerably thanks to western influence

The spiritual crisis facing modern Islam was already there, but western interference is what pushed them over the edge. The problem here is that i'm dealing with issues of such complexity that to try to squeeze it all in a few paragraphs can be confusing at times, for me and for others as well.

The same thing happened in Europe too. The Renaissance (which was the beginning of the death of European civilization) would have never happened if the Catholic Church hadn't become so corrupted. The difference is that Europeans developed into modernity naturally. Modernism and progress wasn't imposed upon them forcefully, or at least not by a foreign entity.

You seem well versed in traditional studies. What do you make of Genesis 16: 11-12?

I didn't examine any specific commentary regarding this passage, but my guess is that it is dealing with the state of the Semites and their various idolatrous religions before the birth of Muhammad. Keep in mind that when it comes to God it is not the things of the world that are truly important. For instance, when Abraham is told that his children will be has numerous as the stars, God is not referring to the literal children of Abraham or even his direct descendants, but all those who were drawn into the spiritual tradition which started with Abraham, which includes the Jews, the Christians as well as the Muslims, and when transposed to eternity, all those who follow the path of God, who's number is infinite.

So with this in mind, we can say that Ishmael had to live as a "wild" man (I.E., without a proper religious tradition), "driven from his father's house only to return at the end of the prophetic cycle in the person of Muhammad, his distant descendant, in whom and in whose community the promises made by God to Abraham and Hagar were fulfilled":

http://www.studiesincomparativereligion.com/public/articles/Alternations_in_Semitic_Monontheism-by.aspx

This is a great article btw which explains the nature of the antagonism between the various religions. Indeed, it is my firm belief that the great religions of the world all come from God, so that they are all the same because they all derive from the same source, but each is different because in each God said "I". This is similar to the paradox of the existence of individuality as such. Only I am I (I.E., i am unique) but others are also I, which is a contradiction (for how can more than one thing be unique?) but which is true nonetheless. The same goes for the religions. A Christian will feel that only his religion is true, and that is because as far as he or she is concerned, it is actually true in a certain way, because they have been made part of the "I" of that religion so they cannot see that other religions are also "I" in their own way. But from a metaphysical point of view, all religions must be true, because there is only one God (that is, there is only one Absolute), and God would never leave his children alone (which is to say, nothing that is relative can exist apart from that which is Absolute). If you want to understand this idea of the unity of the religions more deeply, i'd recommend reading the following book, probably the greatest work of comparative religion ever penned in the 20th century: 

http://www.filedropper.com/spschuon-thetranscendentunityofreligions

[Florestan]

The spiritual crisis facing modern Islam was already there, but western interference is what pushed them over the edge.

Could you please elaborate a bit about that spiritual crisis? When did it begin and how (and where) did it manifest itself?

The same thing happened in Europe too. The Renaissance (which was the beginning of the death of European civilization) would have never happened if the Catholic Church hadn't become so corrupted.

This is much too narrow and reductionist an explanation for an extremely complex phenomenon.

I didn't examine any specific commentary regarding this passage, but my guess is that it is dealing with the state of the Semites and their various idolatrous religions before the birth of Muhammad. Keep in mind that when it comes to God it is not the things of the world that are truly important. For instance, when Abraham is told that his children will be has numerous as the stars, God is not referring to the literal children of Abraham or even his direct descendants, but all those who were drawn into the spiritual tradition which started with Abraham, which includes the Jews, the Christians as well as the Muslims, and when transposed to eternity, all those who follow the path of God, who's number is infinite.

So with this in mind, we can say that Ishmael had to live as a "wild" man (I.E., without a proper religious tradition), "driven from his father's house only to return at the end of the prophetic cycle in the person of Muhammad, his distant descendant, in whom and in whose community the promises made by God to Abraham and Hagar were fulfilled":

I´m afraid this interpretation is supported neither by the text nor by its context. The prophecy clearly applies not to all Abraham´s descendants, but specifically to Ishmael and his bloodline, ie to one particular component of the Semitic family, indeed both biological (Arab) and spiritual (Islam). Furthermore, it does not set any timeframe: nowhere does it specify that Ishmael´s condition will last  only until some prophet will change it. Finally, the promise is made only to Hagar concerning his son; it says nothing about Abraham.

With this in mind, the prophecy is remarkably accurate.

1. "he will be a wild man" (other versions translate it as "a wild donkey of a man") --- wild, as in untamed and untameable (is this a word?). Arabs have lived, both before and after Muhammad, in constant warfare, violence and turmoil*; it might even be argued that before Muhammad the violence had been limited to inter-tribal feuds and contained within the Arabian peninsula, while with him and after him it suddenly expanded to encompass an ever increasing number of nations and geographical areas. Moreover, if "wild" is taken as meaning "resistant to taming" or/and "dangerous even when apparently tamed", it is also very true: each and every attempt at introducing laws and institutions aimed at subduing the inherent violence of Islam was met with resistance and has been either a failure or needed constant despotism to maintain itself. Such has been the fate of the Ottoman Empire, the 20th century Iran of the Shahs or the modernizing, secularist regimes in Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia. Only Morocco and partially Lebanon are exceptions. As for Turkey, it took a military quasi-dictatorship and decades of programatic and brutal de-Islamization to turn it into a relatively stable and relatively liberal democracy, albeit under the constant vigilance of an army which did not hesitate to assume direct rule whenever it deemed fit to do so in order to save the regime; and the recent developments in that country testifies to the fact that not even there things are irreversibly settled.

(*this is their condition even today)

2. "his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him": ever since its establishment, Islam asserted itself as the sworn and bitterest enemy of each and every other religion; the Quran prescribes mandatory, relentless warfare until each and every nation under the Sun acknowledges Allah as the one true god, Muhammad as the one true prophet and Sharia as the one true law and path. Islam divides the world in two mutually exclusive regions: dar al Islam (literally, the house of submission), where Islam rules, and dar al Harb (literally, the house of war), which is the domain of the infidels and which must be fought against at least once a year. The notion of peaceful coexistence of religions is completely alien, nay, completely contrary to Islam: the infidels must either convert, or pay the jiziya and accept a second-rate status, or be put to death.

Conversely, each and every other religion that had the bad fortune of coming into contact with Islam perceived it as a major threat to its own existence and survival and had to fought Islam, with more or less success, in order to preserve itself.

Remarkably enough, it is precisely Islam (ie, Ishmael) which is completely and utterly incompatible with any other religion, nay, any other society. Political corectness and Western European cowardice notwithstanding, it is really a matter of either Islam, or the civilization as we know it (and although I agree with you that it is a corrupted, spiritually bankrupt civilization, it is still a thousand times better than the Islamic alternative).

3. "and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.": Muslim immigration in a nutshell. Ishmael´s brethren are the Christian, or better said, former Christian, nations of the West, who are, nilly-willy, the spiritual descendants of Abraham as well. Suffice it to say that in The Netherlands alone there are more than 450 mosques.

All in all, Genesis 16:11-12 and their context remains the best metaphysical explanation of Arabs / Islam and their relations with other nations and faiths.

For a more mundane analysis see the following articles:

http://www.mmisi.org/ir/21_01/molnar.pdf

http://www.mmisi.org/ir/38_01/scruton.pdf

http://www.mmisi.org/ma/44_04/dougherty.pdf

Indeed, it is my firm belief that the great religions of the world all come from God, so that they are all the same because they all derive from the same source [...] from a metaphysical point of view, all religions must be true, because there is only one God (that is, there is only one Absolute), and God would never leave his children alone [...]

The transcendental unity of religions is seductive enough at face value, yet it raises more problems than it solves, besides being flat out contradicted by facts.

It is not my intention to get into a detailed but ultimately sterile polemic, yet I submit for your considerations two facts.

1. If all religions were inspired by one and the same God then in what concerns essential topics they should be, if not in relative agreement, at least not in irreconcilable disagreement --- yet precisely the latter is the case with any two religions, except Judaism and Christianity (which should rather be regarded as a Judeo-Christian continuum). To say that such contradictory and mutually exclusive religions as Christianity and Islam, or Buddhism and Greek paganism, are inspired by the same God amounts to saying that God has enlightened some people while at the same time deceiving others, thus violating His own nature as the ultimate repository and source of Truth.

2. If all religions were inspired by one and the same God then in what concerns their relation to each other they should be, if not in fraternal unity, at least not in open conflict --- yet precisely the latter is the case with any two religion. History has witnessed (and still witness) countless religiously motivated conflicts, even all-out wars, not only inter-religious but also, and perhaps bitterest of all, intra-religious --- Islam being by far the worst offender: ever since its establishment it waged a relentless and brutal war against each and every other religion it came in contact with; today even, nay, right now as I am typing this post, Islam is engaged in a religious cleansing of epic proportions, involving Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Zoroastrians and Animists alike. To say that such morally contradictory and mutually exclusive religions as Christianity and Islam are inspired by the same God amounts to saying that God has urged some people to righteousness and goodness while urging others to iniquity and evil, thus violating His own nature as the ultimate repository and source of Justice and Goodness.

I repeat: I don´t want to, and will not, get involved in a polemic, but neither can I overlook these obvious historical facts. Amica metaphysica, sed magis amica veritas.

[Karl Henning]

The transcendental unity of religions is seductive enough at face value, yet it raises more problems than it solves, besides being flat out contradicted by facts.

It is not my intention to get into a detailed but ultimately sterile polemic, yet I submit for your considerations two facts.

1. If all religions were inspired by one and the same God then in what concerns essential topics they should be, if not in relative agreement, at least not in irreconcilable disagreement --- yet precisely the latter is the case with any two religions, except Judaism and Christianity (which should rather be regarded as a Judeo-Christian continuum). To say that such contradictory and mutually exclusive religions as Christianity and Islam, or Buddhism and Greek paganism, are inspired by the same God amounts to saying that God has enlightened some people while at the same time deceiving others, thus violating His own nature as the ultimate repository and source of Truth.

2. If all religions were inspired by one and the same God then in what concerns their relation to each other they should be, if not in fraternal unity, at least not in open conflict --- yet precisely the latter is the case with any two religion. History has witnessed (and still witness) countless religiously motivated conflicts, even all-out wars, not only inter-religious but also, and perhaps bitterest of all, intra-religious --- Islam being by far the worst offender: ever since its establishment it waged a relentless and brutal war against each and every other religion it came in contact with; today even, nay, right now as I am typing this post, Islam is engaged in a religious cleansing of epic proportions, involving Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Zoroastrians and Animists alike. To say that such morally contradictory and mutually exclusive religions as Christianity and Islam are inspired by the same God amounts to saying that God has urged some people to righteousness and goodness while urging others to iniquity and evil, thus violating His own nature as the ultimate repository and source of Justice and Goodness.

Excellent objections.  In the defense of the statement (not sure the stater will adopt this defense, though):  He does say, "it is my firm belief that the great religions of the world all come from God," itself a statement of belief rather than of reason.