From: Amara Graps (Amara.Graps@mpi-hd.mpg.de)
Date: Wed Nov 22 2000 - 07:15:36 MST
>From: Phil Osborn <philosborn@altavista.com>, 20 Nov 2000
>I.e., how to get around the fact that women almost universally treat
>any interaction with them as a special privilege which should be paid
>for? Sometimes I wish that I lived in one the more natural cultures,
>like I've occasionally run into in rural Mexico, where women didn't
>craftilly measure every gram of emotion they allowed a man to see .
Did you really mean to say this?
Amara
Why would I say it otherwise? Taken in context - or even by itself (note my cultural comparison), it is obvious that I am speaking about a particular culture - perhaps I should have been clearer that I am referring specifically to S. California. Discussion follows:
There are certain diseases of the facial area that effect only women, very rarely men. It has been medically ascertained that these are caused by the state of extreme tension women exert upon their facial muscles in order to directly control what expression they project.
I haven't investigated this further than the original report which I ran accross recently in connection with life extension research. I will tentatively predict, however, that there is major variance in the incidence of the problem among different cultures of similar genetic heritage. I would also expect to see that among the rare male incidence, it would be mostly concentrated with gays, and perhaps secondarily with asian men.
Why? Because, like women, gay men are notorious for adopting poses, or even wearing makeup, involving much studying of their faces, with the same goal of controlling effect. (Note that "butch" lesbians especially tend to be on the opposite end of the spectrum - wearing their hearts on their sleeves, and little or no makeuup. One would expect, therefore, a lower incidence with them.) Asian cultures also focus on the maintenance of "face," which means much more than the mere physical visage, but includes the concept of the perfect playing of a role or pose again, if only in maintaining a perfectly blank expression. Skill at treachery or deception is prized in many Asian cultures.
One of the hotbeds of this problem, however, has to be Orange County, California, where I live. Orange County is not basically different from Southern California, in general, just a more extreme, concentrated version of vapid yuppiedom. OC women are notorious even in Long Beach for being heartless, gold-digging vamps. There is a song, "Newport Beach Woman" by local objectivist Jazz musician Randell Young, which aptly portrays the well-deserved stereotype ("hide yer Porsches, boys!").
In the SouthEast, where I mostly grew up and lived for most of my life until age 28, when I moved to Long Beach (1976), it is considered normal, even in large cities, to start conversations on the sidewalk with members of the opposite sex who are total strangers. A smile and "good morning" are likely to be responded to in kind. Try that in S. CA and you're likely to get a look of "don't come any closer or I'll call the police."
This is a learned response. It doesn't take a very high percentage of sociopathic creeps to poison the market. In part, paradoxically, this is due, I think, to the cultural tolerance in S.CA, stemming from the historical justaposition of so many cultures. High trust cultures such as Japan or Germany typically have created universally understood standards and rules of behavior.
In Germany, if you dawdle on a crowded sidewalk, I've been told, people feel justified in kicking you in the shins for interfering with the general cultural well-being. I suspect that this reflects the Kantian influence - "behave as if your actions will be translated into universal law," or perhaps the more-general philosophical objectivity of the N. Europpean Protestant nations that universal principle is - or should be - at the heart of both law and custom
Here in S.CA, on the other hand, the Hispanic community maintains its sense of identity through practices such as "low-riding" or more-recently, cars "with a boom." I.e., the gang-bangers and assorted creeps deliberately attack the enemy (anglo) culture by driving extremely slowly on already crowded streets or by literally shaking people's houses to their foundations with 1000 Watt+ sub-woofers. The Hispanic community tolerates them because they are also Hispanic, and most Hispanics at least partially buy into the idea that California was stolen from them by the Anglos, but you can imagine the reaction of most anglos.
The Hispanic culture is fundamentaly authoritarian and rule-based. So long as you obey the rules, no one has the right to be offended at your behavior. On the opposite extreme from Germany, Hispanics are notorious for standing in the middle of walkways and blocking all traffic, without a trace of embarassment. In fact, they get extremely offended if anyone objects. After all there is no RULE against standing there.
These cultural divisions, played upon and enhanced by the scumbags, have resulted in a kind of Pax-California response socially, in which, on the opposite extreme from New York, arguments or serious discussions of any kind are seen as potentially dangerous confrontations. You shout at someone here the way that New Yorkers do every day, and you might get shot. Thus, the same philosophical or political argument which would be considered the high-point at a New York City party will be instantly shut down by the hostess in S. CA.
This unwillingness to entertain controversy of any kind - the "mellow" S. CA attitude - also leaves the door open for con-artistes of every shape and form, including the various varieties of sexual predators. The con-artist who is challenged is seen as the victim, and the challenger as the offender. Even worse, the con-artiste is often seen as a kind of anti-hero hero, particularly when he or she drapes themselves in the flag of some "cause" or other. Naturally, this has in turn poisoned the level of general trust.
The other side of this coin is that if fundamentals of character, intellect, etc., are to be left out of discussions - as they must be, or else the door is opened to challenge, critique and controversy - then superficiallities of appearance, status, fashion, etc., infuse the social arena. Loyalty to ideas, ideals, ideologies becomes reduced to loyalty to immediate family, gang, friends, culture or race.
This accords perfectly with the dominent philosophical theme of cultural relativism, and I have often heard the bloodier Aztec sacrificial practices defended by passionate young Hispanics in tones of moral superiority, using the culteral relativistic jargon.
The Hollywood influence probably does not help.
Bottom line is that a high percentage - certainly not all, but way too many - of women in this local geo-cultural milleau, treat all interactions with men as though they had had a cash register implant. Take away long-term virtues, character, intellect - what are you left to bargain with? Money, appearance - oh yes, and drugs, of course. Because so many women do act in ways that would cause any rational man to run the other way, the competition for the good women is rather high, and most of them are already long taken.
A lot of men have long realized this, and have taken themselves out of the competition, leaving a higher percentage of male sexual con-artistes holding the field. The same women who are instantly turned off by a man who attempts to talk to them as a human being instead of a sexual object seem to invariably fall under the spell of the sexually addicted Don Juan's, who will say whatever they think the woman wants to hear to get into her bed. I have discussed this issue with some of these Lotharios, and have been assured that this is their basic methodology, and, on occasion, I have even witnessed them in action.
A couple or so years ago, a planeload of OC women, allegedly DESPERATE! for MEN, flew up to Alaska to meet with a horde of eagerly-waiting men. As far as I could tell, the men seemed to be a decent enough bunch. As I recall, however, not a single relationship resulted.
As a side note, whereas the only times that I've ever been approached or gotten positive encouragement from single women in the past decade have been when it turned out that they were selling something - Christianity, legal-insurance, you-name-it - and were using the sexual come-on as a marketing tool, on several occasions I've been seriously hit-on by married women (always women who had been married for a decade or so), who were never interested in losing their marriage, but, since they already had the money/security/status thing locked up, were now out to have the fun and romance they could never afford while they were on the hunt.
I was referring specifically to the local culture in my posting. There are other problems of a more culturally universal nature which make the phenomynon to which I referred more ubiquitous than just S.CA. There is a whole women's WeltAnshauung that I believe many or most women in the U.S. accept without question, which, by justifying a inherently predatory position toward men, utterly undermines any possible honest relationships, but that's a much bigger topic.
There are some similar problems in many men's attitudes towards women, but having quite a lot of contact with men, I am convinced that most men want a real relationship and find themselves incredibly frustrated in trying to deal with women's demands that they give credibility to some pose. Note that the admission to a girls' or women's clique, or simply the formation of friendship between two women, typically involves telling some kind of embarrassing secret, a kind of psychological submission to the group. I haven't seen that in boys' or men's groups. I think that women expect a carry-over of this principle from men.
I think that many or most relationships today, especially in areas like OC, CA, including marriages, between men and women consist in large part of a mutually agreed upon set of roles and fantasies and a tacit agreement not to discuss unpleasant conflicts. I suspect that most of the pressure for this usually comes from the woman's side. This can work for a while, but when the relationship fails, as it often does, then all that stuff they wouldn't discuss really hits the fan.
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