Archive for the ‘Predatory Explanation’ Category

Privilege And The Veil Of Ignorance

There is an argument going around that, because white people, males and heterosexuals have long enjoyed something called “privilege”, then they are no longer allowed to criticise anyone who belongs to a different category. This may not be what the “privilege theory” was originally intended to do, but it is most certainly the use to […]

We Are All Victims Now

No one now announces, with a Dr. Evil cackle, that he intends to persecute and oppress somebody for the pure fun of the thing. On the contrary, many persecutors have learned to pretend that they are really the persecuted, and that their oppression of others is their own liberation. There are three elements to this […]

Collective Self-Esteem

If you believe that you are at fault, the world is only too likely to agree with you. Ergo, if you are to convince the world that you are entitled to something, or are not responsible for something, you should act as if you have never once doubted it. The corollary of this principle is […]

Typical Rutabagan!

If you are the only Rhubarbian in the land of the Rutabagans, then every time a Rutabagan does something regrettable, you may safely imagine that this is because he is a Rutabagan – and not because he is a human being like you. Every possible bad quality thus becomes “Typical Rutabagan!” If there is a […]

The Tools Of Narcissism

Although there is demonstrably a certain degree of hardwiring of the brain to be suspicious of the Other, rational or even irrational xenophobia is not the whole story. Economic competition, frustration and demagoguery no doubt play a role in national, religious and other chauvinisms, but let us not forget the simple joys of narcissism. Hating […]

The Heroic, Beleaguered Minority

“No man is a villain to himself.” To take the most extreme example possible of a universal truth of politics and social life, namely that both sides to a dispute feel themselves a beleaguered minority, almost everyone nowadays thinks it obvious that the Jews were the underdog and the Nazis were the overdog. Yet that […]

They Are Failing Because They Are Inferior

In the days when the early feminists were striving to get women into education and the professions, any female scholastic failure was explained in terms of discrimination, the game being rigged by and for the males. This was all the more credible because of the then common belief in the innate intellectual superiority and powers […]

The Rudy Guiliani Syndrome

Someone once said that Rudy Guiliani was by no means a racist; witness, he was nasty to everybody. This denial only works, however, if our definition of racism involves motive. If Mr Guiliani is nasty to a black man, we can then say that he is not being nasty to him because he is a […]

Everybody Hates Women

The first volume of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy is in English entitled, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. This is not, however, its Swedish title, which is Men Who Hate Women. Which hatred is the leitmotif of the whole series, originally projected at ten books. Now, some of the people identified in the books as […]

The Happy Muslim Woman?

A Gallup poll recently found the highest correlation between being female and being happy in Muslim countries. It has been suggested that this is due to three things: first, being female is the only escape from the mental burden of being a Muslim man, in whom is vested legal responsibility for absolutely everything; second, single […]