I do my thing and you do your thing. I am not in this world to live up to your expectations, And you are not in this world to live up to mine. You are you, and I am I, and if by chance we find each other, it's beautiful. If not, it can't be helped. (Fritz Perls, 1969)
Love is a matter of feeling, not of will or volition, and I cannot love because I will to do so, still less because I ought (I cannot be necessitated to love); hence there is no such thing as a duty to love. Benevolence, however (amor benevolentiae), as a mode of action, may be subject to a law of duty. Disinterested benevolence is often called (though very improperly) love; even where the happiness of the other is not concerned, but the complete and free surrender of all one’s own ends to the ends of another (even a superhuman) being, love is spoken of as being also our duty. But all duty is necessitation or constraint, although it may be self-constraint according to a law. But what is done from constraint is not done from love. It is a duty to do good to other men according to our power, whether we love them or not, and this duty loses nothing of its weight, although we must make the sad remark that our species, alas! is not such as to be found particularly worthy of love when we know it more closely. Hatred of men, however, is always hateful: even though without any active hostility it consists only in complete aversion from mankind (the solitary misanthropy). For benevolence still remains a duty even towards the man-hater, whom one cannot love, but to whom we can show kindness. To hate vice in men is neither duty nor against duty, but a mere feeling of horror of vice, the will having no influence on the feeling nor the feeling on the will. Beneficence is a duty. He who often practises this, and sees his beneficent purpose succeed, comes at last really to love him whom he has benefited. When, therefore, it is said: “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ” this does not mean, “Thou shalt first of all love, and by means of this love (in the next place) do him good”; but: “Do good to thy neighbour, and this beneficence will produce in thee the love of men (as a settled habit of inclination to eficence).” The love of complacency (amor complacentiae, ) would therefore alone be direct. This is a pleasure immediately connected with the idea of the existence of an object, and to have a duty to this, that is, to be necessitated to find pleasure in a thing, is a contradiction.'
Immanuel Kant (1780) The Metaphysical Elements of Ethics
************To be socially necessitated to find pleasure in a thing is a contradiction. Innately we are necessitated to find pleasure and avoid pain. ************
I seriously enjoyed Taechons input on the subject. For better enlightenment, his reply is herein ATTATCHED below. anyone else care to add input, please feel free to do so.:
Taechons Exceptional Input:
Kant is wrong in this regard and I too think he is a great philosopher.
The simple fact of the matter is that entire cultures have been based on the idea that individuals have the ability to change their own minds. Make no mistake about it, the largest love organ in the body is the mind and not the heart. (Brain if you like.) One can choose to love. One can choose to remain committed. People,regardless of how romantic Kant's notion of free floating feelings of love are, he is in fact wrong. His division between "love" the emotion and "duty" is not distinct, though he would like it to be. There is not only one way to love as he supposes, but many, and each way with it's own level of duty, commitment, intensity, benevolance and the rest. The feeling of "love" can not be disected from the context in which it occurs. Without the context, love, all love, also vanishes.
Here is a thought on "Love thy Neighbor as thy self." This is not a command. It is not a suggestion. It is not a guideline for moral development and it has nothing at all to do with how one goes about treating neighbors or themselves. It is not something one does, but rather, something we are. This is in fact a bit of esoteric knowledge. One can only love a neighbor as they love them self. There is, in fact, no other way to do it. Trust yourself and you will learn to trust others. Trust yourself to be who you really are. No denial. Tell yourself that you are a good person, and recognize the lie. You are in fact both good and bad. Live in delusion and your love of others will also live in delusion. Trust others to be who they are. Love yourself as you are, blinders off, and you will be able to find a way to love others the same. Love yourself with blinders on, you will only see those parts of others that are within your own vision.
Knowledge does not rely on "faith." That which is "real" is there for all to see. All one needs is the willingness to open his or her eyes. Love thyself as thy neighbor. You have no choice. This is all any one of us is ever capable of doing. Those who seem to put the lives of others first are in fact the very same people who when in danger themselves somehow find the strength and will to love themselves enough to survive. The strength to love begins inside and is projected outside. We must have the strength before we can use it.
When entertaining issues are not resolved, life itself could be filled with pathological strife. Thus, before proceeding, it best behoves you to take an honest inventory of your interpersonal relationship habits. Then go on to review the list below. Do any of the 'CRAPPY HO' styles sound vaguely familiar in your modus operani while at get togethers? If so, then with a little bad behavior therapy and personal insight towards change, you will become a 'HAPPY HO' in no time, hmm?
(and believe me, there be MANY Ho's here on the KFF... which one are you? *smf) *****************
Blotto Ho': can't throw a party unless she's totally hammered.
Pimpin' Ho': can't stop herself from setting up every single guest.
Neuro-Perfecto Ho': Absolutely cannot throw a party unless everything is PERFECT!
Stop-and-Go Ho': Can't even finish a sentence before running off to start another conversation with the guy the OTHER GIRL is conversing with. (Synonymous to Attention Ho')
Psycho Ho': Loves her guests madly but can't stop stabbing them in the back.
Nympho Ho': Not satisfied until she has hot and cold running guests in her bedroom.
Time-to-go Ho': Just when her party starts rockin', she flashes the lights and tells everyone to start walkin'.(Tease)
Boreaux Ho': No one really enjoys her until she breathes for a while and opens up.
Barbie Do' Ho': so plastic and fake everyone secretely wants to rip off her perfect outfit, draw all over her with felt pens, and burn off her hair.
Do you ever recognize your intuition as a valuable asset? Some people do and some don't - which group do you fit into? IMHO, it can be easy to trust more in the concrete, factual reality than in such things we can't point a finger at - yet intuition can serve us more than we sometimes realize. That 'gut feeling' we all experience at times can guide us towards caution and alert us to danger. Give it more trust? i think so...
If you grow up beautiful then you dont need to develop a personality or be a nice person as you will always have followers who adore you, if you grow up ugly then you develop personality but dont always become a nice person either, if you grow up ugly but become a beatiful adult you can learn to think that you dont need the personality you cultivated due to the followers you aquire. Beauty is only skin deep, most truly beautiful people are the plain ones who help you, they nurse you better and they help you through hard times. I grew up ugly and now Im a model but I think nice and nasty are inbuilt, no matter what you look like, as long as friends and family keep you grounded then I dont see why you cant be beautiful outside and in.
I don't think beautiful women are mean. But, they are a wanted "commodity," and must control the demand. Like roses, they have to have thorns, or they would get picked to death. If we could just admire from afar, appreciate, smell the rose, but not cut it and put it in a vase to die an early death, I think our attitudes about beautiful women might change.
Same reason some men are jerks.....people put up with it.
Think about it if men didn't bow each time a cute girl walks in the door....or put up with her being mean...she would stop. I'm not sure if looks have anything to do with it. I guess if someone is more attractive they can get away with being a moron most of the time, but that's only if you let them get away with it. If someone is "mean", it best to just keep your distance regardless of how they look.
"Feminist critiques of the sexism and misogyny in gangsta rap, and in all aspects of popular culture, must continue to be bold and fierce. Black females must not be duped into supporting shit that hurts us under the guise of standing beside our men. If black men are betraying us through acts of male violence, we save ourselves and the race by resisting. Yet, our feminist critiques of black male sexism fail as meaningful political intervention if they seek to demonize black males, and do not recognize that our revolutionary work is to transform white supremacist capitalist patriarchy in the multiple areas of our lives where it is made manifest, whether in gangsta rap, the black church, or the Clinton Administration."
--Bell Hooks on Black male sexism.
Yet something is missing here though....mainly this:
"We focus on the black artists, not the rockers and not even the white executives who are making the big money from this kind of music."
"The public seems far more disturbed by misogynistic lyrics in the music of rap and hip hop artists who are largely Black than similar lyrics in rock music, perceived by most as a White genre."
"The flamboyance of rock is understood as performance, rather than from the perspective of personal feelings," "These guys are seen as innocuous. They appear to be players in the fence of accumulating women in skimpy costumes, but they aren't necessarily seen as violent. The mainstream takes it (hip hop and rap) to represent real-life, so it's seen as more threatening than some of the angry, whiney white boy rock, ~even though the same messages and images are portrayed~."
Moreover, in a piece titled C*ck Rock from the October 21-November 3, 2003 edition of the online music magazine, Perfect Pitch, it was revealed that when the Hustler founder and entrepreneur Larry Flynt wanted to combine the worlds of porn (the ultimate god of misogyny) and music he did not turn to rap, but rather to rock.
It was stated that since porn has been mainstreamed, they wanted a more "contemporary" look - and when they looked for a contemporary look, did they seek out the likes of Nelly, Chingy, 50 Cent or Ludacris? No. Rock legend Nikki Sixx was chosen to "grace" the cover of Hustler's new venture along with his adult-entertainment and former Baywatch star girlfriend Donna D'Errico wearing nothing but a thong and Sixx's arms.
It is my belief that this paradigm; this unjust paradox exists because of the media stereotypes of black men as more violence-prone, and media's disproportionate focus on black crime (which is confused with the personas that rappers adopt), contribute to the biased treatment of rap. The double standard applied to rap music makes it easier to sell the idea that "gangsta rap" is "more" misogynist, racist, violent and dangerous than any other genre of music.
However, I believe that bell hooks conceptualized it best in her essay Sexism and Misogyny: Who Takes the Rap?: "To the white dominated mass media, the controversy over gangsta rap makes great spectacle. Besides the exploitation of these issues to attract audiences, a central motivation for highlighting gangsta rap continues to be the sensationalist drama of demonizing black youth culture in general and the contributions of young black men in particular. It is a contemporary remake of ‘Birth of a Nation' only this time we are encouraged to believe it is not just vulnerable white womanhood that risks destruction by black hands but everyone."
"A central motivation for highlighting gangsta rap continues to be the sensationalist drama of demonizing black youth culture."
Part of the allure of gangsta or hardcore rap to the young person is its (however deplorable) explicitness. The gangsta rapper says "bitches" and "hos," defiantly and frankly (once again... deplorable) and that frankness strikes a chord. However, it is not the first time that a young man or woman has seen society "treat" women like "bitches" and "hos." Like mother's milk, the American male in this country has been"nourished" on a constant diet of subtle messages and notions regarding female submission and inferiority and when he is weaned, he begins to feed on the meat of more exploitative mantras and images of American misogyny long before he ever pops in his first rap album into his CD player.
Young people, for better or worse, are looking for and craving authenticity. Now, because this quality is in such rare-supply in today's society, they gravitate towards those who appear to be "real" and "true to the game." Tragically, they appreciate the explicitness without detesting or critically deconstructing what the person is being explicit about.
There have been many who have said that even with the Don Imus insidence, the American public in general and the Black community in particular will still be inundated by the countless rap lyrics using derogatory and sexist language, as well as the endless videos displaying women in various stages of undress - and this is true.
However, by that same logic, if we were to rid the record stores, the clubs and the iPods of all misogynistic hip-hop, we would STILL have amongst us the corporately-controlled and predominantly white-owned entities of Playboy, Penthouse, Hustler and Hooters. We would still have the reality TV shows, whose casts are overwhelmingly white, reveling in excessive intoxication and suspect sexual mores.
If misogynistic hip-hop was erased from American life and memory today, tomorrow my e-mail box and the e-mail boxes of millions of others would still be barraged with links to tens of thousands of adult entertainment web sites. We would still have at our fingertips, courtesy of cable and satellite television, porn-on-demand. We would still be awash in a society and culture that rewards promiscuity and sexual explicitness with fame, fortune and celebrity (reference Anna Nicole, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears...*sigh*).
And most hypocritically, if we were to purge the sexist and lewd lyrics from hip-hop, there would STILL be a multitude of primarily White bands and principally-White musical genres generating song after song glorifying sexism, misogyny, violence and lionizing male sexuality and sexual conquest.
Anywhoot, ...
The only thing that I can see in the way women are portrayed in rap videos in terms of perspective is the FACT that Mainstream media pundits should look at the violence perpetuated by their own racism and sexism and, thus, blow-up the myths, expose the lies and cast a powerful and discerning light on the ‘real' double-standards and duplicity of male misogyny in American culture. Much Love and Respect,
