Ever since the 1990s, we–especially women–have been hearing about the importance of self-esteem. It’s associated with better mental health, relationship outcomes, academic achievement, career success, you name it. It’s part of what it means to be a mature and emotionally developed person. Much time and resources have been expended on the development of children’s self-esteem–I …
Category Archive: sociology/culture
I realize that this category is entirely too broad, so if you're interested in this sort of stuff, you should probably use the tags at the right side of the screen to look for specific topics.
Jan 08 2013
The Role of Feminist Criticism
In one of my recent pieces, I criticized a particular aspect of the love stories often found in popular books and movies. Whenever someone critiques pop culture–especially from a feminist perspective–it raises a lot of questions for many people. Questions such as: Does it really matter that this work is “problematic”? Can you even have …
Dec 25 2012
Christmas From The Outside
Just some personal reflections on Christmas from an outsider. It is impossible to be a person living in the United States, of any ethnicity, religious affiliation, or national origin, and not understand the meaning and significance of Christmas. It’s a religious observance. It’s a sparkling monument to consumerism. It’s a celebration of family, of charity, …
Dec 16 2012
Stop Comparing the United States to Israel
Among the many insensitive, uninformed, or simply ridiculous responses to Friday’s tragedy that I’ve heard, one that continues to befuddle me is the suggestion, made mostly by Libertarians, that everything would’ve been okay if only the teachers had had guns too–if, in fact, carrying concealed weapons were a standard practice among American citizenry. Leaving aside …
Dec 13 2012
How You Know They’ve Run Out Of Arguments
Steven over at WWJTD informed me of this nonsense: The newest argument against homosexuality has arrived. It turns out it prevents straight dudes from being friends. Trevin Wax at The Gospel Coalition explains: “But there is no such thing as absolute freedom when it comes to sexuality. The moment we celebrate or endorse certain behaviors, we curtail freedom …
Dec 12 2012
Who Is To Blame For A Suicide?
Yesterday I was driving around in my hometown and listening to the radio. The DJs did a segment on the suicide of Jacintha Saldanha, a nurse in a hospital where Kate Middleton was being treated, who was pranked by some radio DJs and tricked into giving out Middleton’s medical information. The DJs on my hometown …
Nov 05 2012
Argumentum Ad Third World: Or, “Think of the Starving Children in Africa” Redux
One way you know you’ve won an argument about social justice is when your opponent says something like, “YEAH WELL you don’t see people in the Third World whining about their preferred pronouns/racist Halloween costumes/the use of the word ‘retard’!”
There is a pervasive idea out there that people in the Third World only have Big Terrible Problems like poverty and genocide, and people in industrialized countries only have Stupid Silly Problems like getting toilet paper stuck on the bottom of their shoe or having to wait in traffic or whatever. There are, apparently, no problems between those two extremes in severity, and no problems are worth talking about besides the Big Terrible Problems.
Nov 02 2012
Save the People, Not the Boobies: The Ethics of Breast Cancer Awareness
Few ad campaigns make me as misanthropic as the breast cancer awareness ones I’ve been seeing at an especially high volume for the past month: There’s also this video (NSFW). I hate these campaigns for many reasons. First of all, they make breast cancer all about boobs. Yes, it has “breast” in the name, but reducing …
Oct 31 2012
The Real Problem With “Slutty” Halloween Costumes
If you shame or ridicule women who wear “slutty” Halloween costumes, you’re missing the point. Here’s why.
Oct 19 2012
Affirmative Action Rant
A few days ago, the Daily Northwestern published a column called “Affirmative Action Dangerously Shortsighted.” It was predictably awful and spawned 269 (mostly dissenting) comments as of now. Some excerpts: I oppose the use of affirmative action in college admissions, the workplace and essentially any other setting. I am pleased that Fisher had the courage to revive …
About the Author
Brute Reason Tumblr
- "I have a family. I have friends. I have neighbors. I have loved ones. But that’s not why I deserve..."“I have a family. I have friends. I have neighbors. I have loved ones. But that’s not why I deserve to be treated as a human being. That’s not why you should reduce the stigma around mental illnesses, or increase mental health access, or change societal attitudes. That’s not why people with mental illnesses deserve help. Not to mention the fact that some peo […]
- Tell Kickstarter Not To Fund This Gross Book About How To Get Laid By Assaulting WomenTell Kickstarter Not To Fund This Gross Book About How To Get Laid By Assaulting Women: [Content note: sexual assault] There’s a project that’s just gotten funded through Kickstarter. It’s a book called Above the Game: A Guide to Getting Awesome With Women and it’s being written by a Redditor and pickup artist named Ken Hoinsky. Predictably, the book promise […]
- "There are some pretty grim consequences to the trope of highlighting ”friends and family” of the..."“There are some pretty grim consequences to the trope of highlighting ”friends and family” of the mentally ill at the expense of actual people with mental illness. I mean, aside from otherization and erasure (HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, like those aren’t grim consequences in and of themselves, oh, I do make myself laugh). Ahem. First, it adds to an already-potent […]
- "I don’t think that friends and family members of people with mental illnesses don’t struggle, or..."“I don’t think that friends and family members of people with mental illnesses don’t struggle, or that their struggle isn’t important. I don’t think that friends and family members of people with mental illnesses don’t do great things to help, or that those things aren’t important to talk about. What I object to is centering their experience and their work a […]
- "Note the construction of the sentence: “We all know somebody – a family member, a friend, a neighbor..."“Note the construction of the sentence: “We all know somebody – a family member, a friend, a neighbor – who has struggled with mental illness.” The person with mental illness here is always someone else. They are always removed from ourselves. They are the people we help, the people we are sad for, the people we want to save. The people who are sick, the peo […]
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Two things to keep in mind:
1. I am bad at answering lengthy emails. Sorry!
2. I may ask you for permission to blog about our correspondence. However, if you are harassing/abusive/trollish, then I no longer have to ask you for permission. Proceed with caution!
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