From Prarie Home Companion 1/28/12
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Response to Sexist Jokes
After reading Griffith's blog on sexist jokes I decided that I agree with him. My reasons for this agreement stem from the fact, it seems to me, that in this "Age of Reason" we tend to go out of our way to find reasons for everything. I am not saying there is anything wrong with that, but my reasons for what I think are not the same as your reasons and it is only through dialog that we can even hope to understand each others reasons. But when we use our reasoning to find fault with the way things are, and refuse to understand or tolerate the reasoning of others we began to have some serious problems. These problems become manifest when we use reason to assign blame to men for the subjugation of women, to masters for the mistreatment of servants, to pit one group against another, to make one group feel inferior to another, and to put oneself above another.
For me, this is the program that has been installed in each and every one of us, by our family, the schools we've attended, and the social groups that we associate ourselves with. It is also my contention that, for each of us, it is possible for us to change that programming and that any change can only after a thorough self-examination. We must begin to analyze our "reasons" for why we believe the things we believe, why we associate with the people and groups we do, but most of all we must analyze our relationship with the world in which we live, and ask hard questions, like:
- Why do men oppress women, or why are some men oppressed by women?
- Why do we tolerate oppression in any of it's forms?
- What makes it so hard to look into our own hearts and see that we, each and everyone of us, by our thoughts and actions, contribute to the creation of the world in which we live, and that within each of us we have the capacity to change those thoughts and actions, thus to change the world.
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