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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 2023

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A 30-year-old pregnant nurse attempted to steal a GPS-tracked rental bike from a young black man right outside her workplace, and when a group of onlookers surrounded her and started filming she had the audacity to start acting strangely, call for help, and briefly cry. Don't worry, justice has been served: she has been identified and suspended, and she will never be okay again.

  • -29

I find it extremely grating because, especially if you're another women, you have to accept it as a timeout since continuing with a (fair) argument or complaint if the other woman is streaming crocodile tears is considered rude and unacceptable.

Why 'especially if you're another woman'? At least you can cry back as a woman. Women’s childish behaviour is socially sanctioned, they are empowered to switch at will between being considered a child or an adult. And if you point this out or talk like you did, as a man, then it’s sexism. For carrying the burden of being the only sane adult in the room, men are called 'emotional cripples' .

At least you can cry back as a woman

No more than you or I could, no. Crying on command isn't something healthy-minded people get to do very easily.

You have a more naive view of social relationships than I do (or rafa : see ‘crocodile tears’) . It’s all about incentives. Boys are not rewarded for crying, so they learn not to cry. We’d be bawling our eyes out right now if there was status in it. It’s funny, even on the internet, in communities unlike this one, people will signal that they are upset to "win an argument".

You are spilling a lot of words on what should be a particularly simple set of questions: can any given woman cry back sincerely? Should they? And if they choose not to, should we applaud or condemn them for it?

They can but shouldn’t. We need to stop rewarding (or punish) this behaviour in women, like it is punished in men.

Two parts. First, correct the inequity in allowing this behaviour in women versus men. Then determine which rules we want to universally apply. My rules applied fairly> your rules applied fairly > your rules applied unfairly. I am partial to the male way of doing things here : cry = you lose the argument.

They can

I disagree. There are some people, at the margins, here, there, who can lie, delude themselves, or go with the flow enough to cry in situations like these. Anyone else can't and won't. Talking shit about them because 'they won't even cry when they could, the idiots' is moral poison and no outlook anyone should have.

but shouldn't

On this, at least, we agree.

People can do any number of morally reprehensible things, like stealing, murdering, raping and pillaging. Being concerned that current incentives might push them in that direction is not 'moral poison'. Your willful blindness is not morally superior.

More comments

Has anyone done a blinded study of this? I can't help but think of that old steroid placebo study.

It's not 100% biological or environmental, and I'm not that conservative, more MRA than redpill.