The bridge analogy is spot on! And you put your finger directly on the problem with the notions of heuristics and abstractions. All wonderfully stated.
Gates' way of looking at the world could have developed from her experiences or witnessing of bullying, arrogance and violence by men. Also, the increasing influence of and control of systems by technology is quite likely to affect relations between all humans. Technology is very useful but also has the potential to aggravate and cause feelings of alienation and disempowerment. Actually, when you do a data-driven analysis of power, land and wealth as held by men and women, you will find a vast historical and contemporary difference.
The older I get the more I think that relatively small but important differences between the have a very disproportionate impact. A lot of what men think of as exercises in friendly team-building and bonding are interpreted very differently by women. Because technology mediates our interactions more and more, these differences are getting exacerbated because people are forgotting how to rub along together. The result is men forgetting that women interpret their behaviour differently to other men, and women forgetting that men actually are quite different in the way in which they interact.
A young woman I know who earns 5 times what I was earning in my pomp insists that she's disadvantaged by her sex. Another insists that every one of her friendship circle has been raped.
I feel sad that, regardless of material reality, the ideology of grievance feminism creates such unhappiness, resentment, anxiety and fear.
'We mistake the territory for the map' just has a better ring to it to my ear. But it also makes the point better: we think of the territory *as* the map, not the other way around. Happy to concede I am wrong, though!
I think, though only the author can say, that this is a conscious inversion of the conventional phrase. It pulled me up at first but then, thinking about it , it appears a subtle rhetorical device.
"The past is not a thing in its own right. The past is just a pile of fragmented stuff that we can sift through and pick over to find what is useful as a guide for what to do in the present and future. To repeat: we mistake the territory for the map, "
The past is a territory —'fragmented stuff', not an ordered map.
Here in the UK, men and boys live shorter lives, receive a lower share of funding for gender-specific illness, achieve poorer outcomes in school, go to universities in fewer numbers, commit suicide more often, receive longer prison sentences, and are the majority victims of serious violence and homicide than women. These differences are ligitimate candidates for political intervention to address. Yet to mention these easily verifiable statistics in support of the observation that, if men organise society to their benefit, then they spectacularly crap at doing so, is to be reflexively branded a "mens' rights activist". Being compelled unneccessarily in your essay to note that you are not one merely for examining some of the many absurdities inherent in feminism - thereby validating feminism's gynocentric claim that men's rights are inferior to women's - is itself an example of the harm their ideology does in our society.
I can only say that this way of thinking - as though an individual is harmed because in some metric the group to which he or she (to some extent arbitrarily) belongs has different outcomes on average - is a big part of our problem.
Agree. But an argument could be made that if society is going to obsess over parts then it must acknowledge the existence of ALL parts, not a select few. Maybe only by having ALL the parts pointed out do we have any chance of seeing the whole.
I'm presuming people like Melinda are saying stuff like this quite deliberately to further that abandonment of the terrain for the map David describes, and not because she's stupid. We're being heavily nudged into a digital existence where reality (whatever that is - maybe we left the truly real reality behind long ago?) will be forgotten.
I don't doubt about the nudging in general but I think, having listened to the interview, Melinda herself is just not a very thoughtful or 'deep' person.
Yes, I haven't listened so am only going by what I'd expect. I guess she could be a stooge repeating what she's been told to say, or she could be pretending to be not very clever and saying it with more insidious intent. Either way, it's frustrating...
Absolutely excellent article. This is basically what I've been trying to articulate for the last 10-15 years, but don't possess the linguistic skills to do so.
Although I could see what was happening as clearly as I can see this article, I couldn't explain the 'why'. Why had society shifted so aggressively to one of female victimhood, where men were simply oppressors of women? No more, no less. A society that seemed incapable of even considering, let alone understanding, that the whole was far more than the sum of its parts. I had my theories, but they mainly revolved around female logic being emotive, and men being too eager to please. Then I read a book that changed everything.
'The Matter With Things' (Iain McGilchrist) posits a theory, supported by a wealth of scientific evidence, that the two hemispheres of the brain operate very differently. The left only sees parts as abstract, the right understands the parts are part of something, and something more than just the sum of its parts. Women are, generally speaking, far more left hemisphere orientated than men. The puzzle is solved.
Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, we're in a death spiral. The more women occupy positions of power and influence, the more left hemisphere thinking will shape the world around us and the more the world will be broken into parts - parts that can only be understood in isolation - and the more the need to understand the parts of the parts with more left hemisphere thinking. All of this happening without ever understanding what it is that's actually being disassembled. Try to explain a picture to someone who only sees a brush, some paint pots, and a canvas. That, I'm afraid, is the society we'll inhabit until the complete collapse and rebirth. Basically, we're f*cked.
It's really the other way around. If anything, women are more right-brain oriented than men, and are also more balanced between the two hemispheres than men. This has been known for decades now. The real problem is that people of both genders have, for a while now, been becoming more and more left-brain dominant due today's culture and education that overwhelmingly favors the left hemisphere over the right.
And yet the evidence in front of our eyes points to the contrary. I highly recommend you read the two volumes of The Matter With Things', which is packed full of decades of scientific research in support of the two hemisphere theory. The conclusions drawn are very compelling to me and, in no small way, would explain, perfectly, the timeline of our societal decline.
"The real problem is that people of both genders have, for a while now, been becoming more and more left-brain dominant due today's culture and education that overwhelmingly favors the left hemisphere over the right.". I think you need to consider the 'why' this has happened, not just the observation that it has. Women school teachers - influencing children's minds when they are most pliable - dominate education at all levels now and it's an indisputable fact that women have ever-expanding roles of influence in all aspects of our life. It is of little use to simply acknowledge that something has happened, it's the understanding of why something has happened that is key.
In any case though, such trends have occurred not because of women, but rather in spite of them. and the trends began well before women had anywhere near the level of influence they have now. And the left-brain favoring education system is still *designed* by men. Also, as the pace of life in general has accelerated, that trend also favors the left hemisphere, which notably has a faster processing speed than the right hemisphere.
Leonard Shlain wrote a book called "Alphabet vs the Goddess" that may be informative here.
Well, when a male child feels ashamed to be male, but a female child is emboldened to believe they are entitled to whatever their heart desires, and at the root of this sits feminism, it's not rational to say that is "in spite" of women, not because of them. I could refer to a thousand other ills that have infected society that have the same root cause. Unless you believe feminism itself is the product of an evil, conniving, patriarchy, then you're on incredibly shaky ground. And, yes, of course the education system is "still designed by men" - that's the premise of this entire article - but it has been deliberately bent towards favouring females. The problem with feminism, and most females in general as far as I can tell, is it's built on a swivel-eyed ideology that refuses to look anywhere other than the narrow path that leads to its desired destination. That's left brain thinking.
Anyway, no more from me on this, it'll go nowhere.
Like the commenter below, I'm convinced the problem is more general than that and is in the culture, education system, and the way we interact with technology, but I am worried your final sentence is on the money.
Great comment Accipiter. "I firmly believe that men and women are equal, complimentary and different". There are a few dissident feminists now belatedly coming round to this timeless truth. As I wrote about in this essay: "....recently, in a certain kind of feminist journalism, I keep coming across warm-hearted acknowledgements that Masculinity and Femininity are complementary polarities in any sane conception of The Good Life....." https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/shall-we-dance
The bridge analogy is spot on! And you put your finger directly on the problem with the notions of heuristics and abstractions. All wonderfully stated.
Gates' way of looking at the world could have developed from her experiences or witnessing of bullying, arrogance and violence by men. Also, the increasing influence of and control of systems by technology is quite likely to affect relations between all humans. Technology is very useful but also has the potential to aggravate and cause feelings of alienation and disempowerment. Actually, when you do a data-driven analysis of power, land and wealth as held by men and women, you will find a vast historical and contemporary difference.
The older I get the more I think that relatively small but important differences between the have a very disproportionate impact. A lot of what men think of as exercises in friendly team-building and bonding are interpreted very differently by women. Because technology mediates our interactions more and more, these differences are getting exacerbated because people are forgotting how to rub along together. The result is men forgetting that women interpret their behaviour differently to other men, and women forgetting that men actually are quite different in the way in which they interact.
I had to look her up - so this is 'Mrs Bill' Gates, I see.....
A young woman I know who earns 5 times what I was earning in my pomp insists that she's disadvantaged by her sex. Another insists that every one of her friendship circle has been raped.
I feel sad that, regardless of material reality, the ideology of grievance feminism creates such unhappiness, resentment, anxiety and fear.
As a father of daughters it is one of the things I worry about the most. This road we're on doesn't lead to a positive place.
No, you are not wrong, just a good writer! Clear, learnéd without pretension, thought-provoking, a rare pleasure to read.
Possibly better? — we mistake the territory for a map.
Another brilliant article, but a minor semantic quibble.
You state "we mistake the territory for the map". Surely the terms should be the other way around?
For example "I mistook him for my brother", 'him' is the not-brother, and treating 'him' as if he really was your brother is where the error lies.
Compare:
To repeat: we mistake the territory for the map, and think that our task is indeed to inhabit the map itself...
with
To repeat: we mistake the map for the territory, and think that our task is indeed to inhabit the map itself...
Given that our task is to inhabit the real world (territory) surely the latter would be appropriate?
I'm not often baffled by your writing, it has a clarity and concise quality I admire, but that one stopped me.
'We mistake the territory for the map' just has a better ring to it to my ear. But it also makes the point better: we think of the territory *as* the map, not the other way around. Happy to concede I am wrong, though!
I think, though only the author can say, that this is a conscious inversion of the conventional phrase. It pulled me up at first but then, thinking about it , it appears a subtle rhetorical device.
"The past is not a thing in its own right. The past is just a pile of fragmented stuff that we can sift through and pick over to find what is useful as a guide for what to do in the present and future. To repeat: we mistake the territory for the map, "
The past is a territory —'fragmented stuff', not an ordered map.
Here in the UK, men and boys live shorter lives, receive a lower share of funding for gender-specific illness, achieve poorer outcomes in school, go to universities in fewer numbers, commit suicide more often, receive longer prison sentences, and are the majority victims of serious violence and homicide than women. These differences are ligitimate candidates for political intervention to address. Yet to mention these easily verifiable statistics in support of the observation that, if men organise society to their benefit, then they spectacularly crap at doing so, is to be reflexively branded a "mens' rights activist". Being compelled unneccessarily in your essay to note that you are not one merely for examining some of the many absurdities inherent in feminism - thereby validating feminism's gynocentric claim that men's rights are inferior to women's - is itself an example of the harm their ideology does in our society.
I can only say that this way of thinking - as though an individual is harmed because in some metric the group to which he or she (to some extent arbitrarily) belongs has different outcomes on average - is a big part of our problem.
Agree. But an argument could be made that if society is going to obsess over parts then it must acknowledge the existence of ALL parts, not a select few. Maybe only by having ALL the parts pointed out do we have any chance of seeing the whole.
I'm presuming people like Melinda are saying stuff like this quite deliberately to further that abandonment of the terrain for the map David describes, and not because she's stupid. We're being heavily nudged into a digital existence where reality (whatever that is - maybe we left the truly real reality behind long ago?) will be forgotten.
I don't doubt about the nudging in general but I think, having listened to the interview, Melinda herself is just not a very thoughtful or 'deep' person.
Yes, I haven't listened so am only going by what I'd expect. I guess she could be a stooge repeating what she's been told to say, or she could be pretending to be not very clever and saying it with more insidious intent. Either way, it's frustrating...
Absolutely excellent article. This is basically what I've been trying to articulate for the last 10-15 years, but don't possess the linguistic skills to do so.
Although I could see what was happening as clearly as I can see this article, I couldn't explain the 'why'. Why had society shifted so aggressively to one of female victimhood, where men were simply oppressors of women? No more, no less. A society that seemed incapable of even considering, let alone understanding, that the whole was far more than the sum of its parts. I had my theories, but they mainly revolved around female logic being emotive, and men being too eager to please. Then I read a book that changed everything.
'The Matter With Things' (Iain McGilchrist) posits a theory, supported by a wealth of scientific evidence, that the two hemispheres of the brain operate very differently. The left only sees parts as abstract, the right understands the parts are part of something, and something more than just the sum of its parts. Women are, generally speaking, far more left hemisphere orientated than men. The puzzle is solved.
Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, we're in a death spiral. The more women occupy positions of power and influence, the more left hemisphere thinking will shape the world around us and the more the world will be broken into parts - parts that can only be understood in isolation - and the more the need to understand the parts of the parts with more left hemisphere thinking. All of this happening without ever understanding what it is that's actually being disassembled. Try to explain a picture to someone who only sees a brush, some paint pots, and a canvas. That, I'm afraid, is the society we'll inhabit until the complete collapse and rebirth. Basically, we're f*cked.
It's really the other way around. If anything, women are more right-brain oriented than men, and are also more balanced between the two hemispheres than men. This has been known for decades now. The real problem is that people of both genders have, for a while now, been becoming more and more left-brain dominant due today's culture and education that overwhelmingly favors the left hemisphere over the right.
Iain McGilchrist's book should really have been, The Master and HER Emissary".
https://thechaliceandtheflame.blogspot.com/2024/02/the-master-and-her-emissary.html
And yet the evidence in front of our eyes points to the contrary. I highly recommend you read the two volumes of The Matter With Things', which is packed full of decades of scientific research in support of the two hemisphere theory. The conclusions drawn are very compelling to me and, in no small way, would explain, perfectly, the timeline of our societal decline.
"The real problem is that people of both genders have, for a while now, been becoming more and more left-brain dominant due today's culture and education that overwhelmingly favors the left hemisphere over the right.". I think you need to consider the 'why' this has happened, not just the observation that it has. Women school teachers - influencing children's minds when they are most pliable - dominate education at all levels now and it's an indisputable fact that women have ever-expanding roles of influence in all aspects of our life. It is of little use to simply acknowledge that something has happened, it's the understanding of why something has happened that is key.
In any case though, such trends have occurred not because of women, but rather in spite of them. and the trends began well before women had anywhere near the level of influence they have now. And the left-brain favoring education system is still *designed* by men. Also, as the pace of life in general has accelerated, that trend also favors the left hemisphere, which notably has a faster processing speed than the right hemisphere.
Leonard Shlain wrote a book called "Alphabet vs the Goddess" that may be informative here.
Well, when a male child feels ashamed to be male, but a female child is emboldened to believe they are entitled to whatever their heart desires, and at the root of this sits feminism, it's not rational to say that is "in spite" of women, not because of them. I could refer to a thousand other ills that have infected society that have the same root cause. Unless you believe feminism itself is the product of an evil, conniving, patriarchy, then you're on incredibly shaky ground. And, yes, of course the education system is "still designed by men" - that's the premise of this entire article - but it has been deliberately bent towards favouring females. The problem with feminism, and most females in general as far as I can tell, is it's built on a swivel-eyed ideology that refuses to look anywhere other than the narrow path that leads to its desired destination. That's left brain thinking.
Anyway, no more from me on this, it'll go nowhere.
Fair enough, let's respectfully agree to disagree.
Like the commenter below, I'm convinced the problem is more general than that and is in the culture, education system, and the way we interact with technology, but I am worried your final sentence is on the money.
Great comment Accipiter. "I firmly believe that men and women are equal, complimentary and different". There are a few dissident feminists now belatedly coming round to this timeless truth. As I wrote about in this essay: "....recently, in a certain kind of feminist journalism, I keep coming across warm-hearted acknowledgements that Masculinity and Femininity are complementary polarities in any sane conception of The Good Life....." https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/shall-we-dance