News from the Outside

While reading the newspaper a month ago, I came across an op-ed piece that would have been just another LA Times column were it not for the very last paragraph of the article. The author, who interestingly enough is a man, offers a thought that I didn't expect to see coming from this paper.

"Women civilize men. As a general rule, men will only be as civilized as female expectations and demands will allow. "Liberate" men from those expectations, and "Lord of the Flies" logic kicks in."

There's even a nod to the fact that not all "liberated women" (his words) proudly embrace the label "feminist" without reserve.

Full article here.

(Once I finally got around to posting this, the author, Jonah Goldberg, had another interesting column on the differences between "monsters" and "victims". As he puts it, "monster stories once told us that evil exists and that we shouldn't assume all motives are good and kind. [...] Meanness is no longer innate, it's the unfortunate side effect of being misunderstood, the forgivable self-defense mechanism of victims." Even Cookie Monster has suffered. Plus, he works in the Greek word telos, or final purpose of a thing. Major kudos for him.)