A pile of linen, neatly ironed, lies in the closet. The roast is nicely browned all over. A curl falls in exactly the right place over the forehead. The pink of the nail varnish matches exactly the pink of the lipstick. The laundry, clean and fresh, is fluttering in the breeze. Ten pairs of shoes stand clean and shiny in a row, The windows are polished till they make the passers-by blink. The husband went off to work on time. The children are playing in the sun. Everything is perfect, and woman's world is one hundred percent in order. At such time their sense of pleasure and happiness reaches its zenith. And just to make sure this exhilaration lasts, a woman will quickly bake another cake, water the rubber plant near the living-room window, or get on with knitting a sweater for her youngest child.
Those who do not work have very different pleasures from those who do. A woman does not laze around on a Couch. surrounded by newspapers. Man's idea of idleness is quite different (and that is why she appears so industrious to him). A woman does not want to stay at home just to rest (what has she, after all, to rest from?) - but she is addicted to pleasure and she needs time for her pleasures. And what are they? Baking cakes, ironing the laundry, making clothes, cleaning windows, curling her hair, painting her toenails and sometimes even - and we will come to this later - doing a little shorthand and typing. And just to make sure that no one recognizes the fact that for her all this is pleasure, she calls these pleasures `housework.'
She is only indulging in orgies of `personal hygiene' to please her partner. And if one of her silly little pleasures is to sit at a desk in an outer office, translating ready-made thoughts (ready-made since they are provided by professional men) into a visual medium, well, let her call it `stimulating mental work.' In this way woman and her coterie indulge in a great, permanent party and live in a world of freedom and rationalized happiness, removed from any responsibility. They occupy a realm man would never dare to dream of, a world he believes to be the domain of hippies, a life to be found, perhaps, in the carefree South Sea Islands - but never so close to home.
Of course, there would be nothing to object to in these harmless orgies of pleasure if only men recognized them for what they really are. But it is a pity that they ruin their own lives believing that women's lot is worse. It is quite impossible for a man to imagine that this represents happiness to the opposite sex. They would have to realize that it is woman's nature to he able to enjoy amusements at the lowest and most monotonous level, and such boundless idiocy is beyond male comprehension.
Not even psychologists can grasp it, although they spend their lives studying the female mind. Being men, they must find it more interesting than their own. But it would never occur to them for a minute that woman's so-called psyche is unfathomable merely because of the absence of intelligence; that feminine work appears unattractive to the male only because he is incapable of imagining the required degree of stupidity necessary to be able to enjoy it. These experts have discovered that most schoolgirls do Well in subjects that do not require thought, that can be memorized, such as languages (to have a good memory can, as is well known, also be a sign of feeble-mindedness) or that, like mathematics, follow strict rules which again are learned by rote, while other subjects (physics, chemistry, biology) are beyond them.
From this it does not follow that these girls lack intelligence but that there is a `typical feminine' intelligence: that this kind of `intelligence' is a developed (not innate) kind of stupidity. The last original thought the average female child utters will be around age five. After that, her completely imbecile mother takes care to suppress any sign of budding intelligence.
Most men will never admit the depth of their wives' stupidity'. They agree that women are not terribly clever, but grant them `intuition' or instinct instead. And they like to call this a feminine instinct as opposed to that of an animal. Unfortunately, this famous feminine instinct is really nothing but a euphemism for statistical probability. Women interfere and give opinions about everything and, since they are so stupid, they don't realize that they are making fools of themselves. According to the law of averages, their forecasts will be correct now and again. In any case, most of their predictions are negative or vague. Banalities such as: `It can only end in disaster,' or `I´d steer clear of that, if I were you,' or `Your so-called friends will only let you down in the end' are meaningless. Anyone would be safe making such generalizations. And if, occasionally, women do see more clearly than men, it is only because their feelings, unlike those of men, are never involved.
Women's silliness is but the natural result of their attitude to life. By the age of five, any girl will have been persuaded that she wants to get married and have a home and children; and when girls are ten, fifteen, or twenty, they still want the same things. So if a woman decides, even as a child, to live at man's expense, what good will intelligence and reasoning be to her? She must keep her mind free for her future man, otherwise she could not respond to all his inclinations and interests and praise him for them. As a child, how can she determine what type of man she will marry? What use would it be if she opted to become a socialist - demonstrating female students are usually associated with demonstrating male students - when later on she might decide to marry a well-to-do manufacturer? Suppose she became a vegetarian (sensitive being that she is) - what happens if she later marries an Australian cattle farmer? What is the use of a woman becoming an atheist when she may spend her life within the rose-covered walls of a vicarage?
[...]Women's stupidity is so overwhelming that anyone who comes into contact with it will become, in a way, infected by it. That this is not obvious is solely because everybody has been exposed to it from birth and, as a result, has become inured to it. In previous years men either ignored it or believed it to be a typically feminine characteristic which harmed no one. But with the increase in leisure and money to spend, woman's need for entertainment has grown. Consequently, her imbecility is spreading into public life as well, reflected not just in vases, bedroom pictures, brocade curtains, cocktail parties, and Sunday sermons. The mass media have become more involved in it. Women's programs are gaining ground in radio and television. And even respectable newspapers print society gossip, crime features, and fashion news, horoscopes, and cooking recipes. And women's magazines become every day more numerous and sumptuous on the stands. Step by step, not only the private sphere of men but all of public life has become infected by this stupidity.
There are periodicals and books which deal with politics, philosophy, science, economics, and psychology. There are also those dealing with fashion, cosmetics, interior decoration, society gossip, cookery, crime, and love affairs. Men read almost exclusively the first kind, women exclusively the second. Both groups consider each other's reading matter so repulsive and dreary that they would rather be bored to death than indulge in it. The fact is, men are more interested in whether there is life on Mars or whose arguments are more valid in the Sino-Russian frontier dispute than women are. Women only want to know how to embroider little brown bunny-rabbits, how to crochet a dress, or whether a certain film star is getting a divorce. So the sexes continue along their separate paths, each with his or her own horizon, never establishing real contact with the other.
There is only one subject which will arouse the interest of both, and that is the subject of women. Naturally some men are not spared the task of reading special women's publications. Although fashion does not interest most men, it is designed chiefly by male slaves: and yet women have the nerve to say they bow to the dictates of the great couturiers. Men also think up other media for female pastimes. In order to be sure such efforts will be a success, they have to lower themselves to women's mental level to find out what they like. Since this is nearly impossible for men, they rely very often on a staff of female editors, who are quite happy to tell them what a woman likes - but from then on it is the man's responsibility- his tasks will be an attractive layout, better distribution, and sales promotion.
Magazines serve many purposes in the female world. Some are for entertainment, others satisfy the craving for gossip, still others give advice on which mask to choose (Vogue and Harper's Bazaar). There are even magazines which unite the various spheres of interest (such as Cosmopolitan, Mademoiselle, and Elle). All these magazines have one thing in common: they ignore men. The subject of men's magazines, on the other hand, is almost exclusively women. If man is mentioned at all in a woman's publication, it is only to enumerate his supposed preferences in women, home, and food: `Wear flesh-colored underwear this summer - men love it'; `Natural make-up is preferable for your first date'; `Use candlelight - it makes him feel romantic'; `Three recipes to make him love you'- and so on. And because such wholesale lists of male preferences can only serve to help women catch and hold any given man, they are really no more than recipes.
Readers of such advice are either still unmarried and therefore shopping for a good worker, or they are married and thus dependent on keeping what they have already conquered in the way of manpower. These are directives telling women how to get the best out of the most reliable robots in the world, for that is how they regard men. It is not uncommon to see an article entitled `How to Catch Mr. Right,' `Ten Hints on How to Keep Him in a Good Mood,' and `Advice for the First Three Years of Married Life.' There is nothing oblique about articles of this kind: they are as clear and lucid as if they were tips about buying a car, or washing and caring for a cashmere sweater.
Since the range of subjects likely to interest women is necessarily limited, editors are frequently at a loss for copy. As a result they have to fall back on the so-called male themes and, since men's interests are so wide, there are plenty of them. These go through a complete metamorphosis to suit female readers, the main rule of which is simple: each article must create the impression that it is basically a report about women. For example, an account of the life of a former heavyweight champion must read: Women ruined me.' If a composer is interviewed for an article, he must say at least once that women are his inspiration, that a melody is `like a pretty girl' - only not quite so beautiful. With skill, even the most unlikely subjects can he camouflaged to appeal to women. One can arouse their interest in the defence budget. providing one dresses up the report as an account of the family life of the Secretary of Defence. It goes without saying that sufficient space must be allowed for pictures of his wife and children.
[Source: Esther Vilar - The Manipulated Man]
Children
Children are endearing, which in itself is no reason for producing them. The creation of a child is in effect the creation of an adult - man or woman. Most adult men live in a state of permanent hell. And the happiness of most women is not only primitive but obtained mostly at other people's expense, so that there is no justification for reproducing them. It would be mistaken to maintain that only women are interested in having children. Men want them, too. Children are one of the two or three excuses by which they justify their subjection to women. Women, on the other hand, need children to justify their laziness, stupidity, and lack of responsibility. Both sexes exploit the child, therefore, for their own ends.
Although the whole world is full of half-starved orphans, every couple produces its own brood. Man must have a reason to be enslaved when, later on, his sexual powers have declined, and this reason must also explain his enslavement to a particular woman. This is simple. She is, after all, the mother of his children. Since woman is the excuse for his subjugation. he can have only one at a time (in every industrial society, man is monotheistic - i.e., monogamous); more than one god (woman) would make him insecure, lead him to question his own identity, and throw him back into the state of freedom he is constantly trying to escape.
Questions such as this do not interest woman. As she does not think abstractly, the problems of existential anxiety do not touch her. She has no need for a deity to give meaning to her life. All she needs is an excuse for making one particular man work for her long after he ceases to want to go to bed with her. This excuse is provided by bearing his children. If men outnumbered women three to one, a woman would not hesitate to have a child by each of three men and let each of them work for his own child, that is, for her, and play the three men off against each other. Their achievements - and her comfort - would thereby be enormously increased. It is a popular misconception that woman is less inclined to polygamy than man.
When a man engenders children. he gives a woman hostages in hopes that she will exploit him forever. It is the only thing that gives him some sort of stability, and the only way of justifying the senseless slavery to which he has been conditioned. When he works for his wife and child, it is less important that he is supporting two particular human beings who do not look after themselves (one will not because she is female, and the other cannot because he is too small): he is working for a system which embraces everything in this world that is poor, helpless, and in need of protection (poor, helpless, and in need of protection as such) and which, so he believes, really needs him.
Thanks to wife and child, man has acquired an excuse, an artificial justification for his wretched existence, for his subjection. He calls this arbitrarily created system, this holy unit, his 'family.' Woman accepts his services in the name of the `family,' accepts the hostages he entrusts to her, and proceeds to carry out his desires by binding him ever more tightly to her and blackmailing him until he dies. And whose gain is it? - hers.
Both man and woman only stand to gain by having children - otherwise they would not produce them. Man's advantage lies in the fact that he appears to lead a more meaningful life and that he is able to become a slave forever - and woman has all the other advantages. These must be considerable, for any female today has the choice between a professional life or having children, and nearly all of them choose children.
This may suggest that women decide in favor of a home and family simply because they love children. But women are not capable of the unconditional love a child should have. This can easily be proved. Women only care for their own children, never those of others. A woman will accept a child who is not her flesh and blood only when she is physically incapable of having her own (and this only after everything has been tried - including artificial insemination by an unknown donor).
Although orphanages throughout the world are full of appealing, needy children, and although the newspapers and TV report daily on the number of little Africans, Indians, or South Americans who are starving to death, a woman would rather give a stray dog or cat a home than a deserted child. And yet she pretends to love children.
It is difficult to prove that women do not really love children, that they use them only to their own advantage. After all, pregnancy, childbirth, and the care of an infant are not without some degree of unpleasantness and discomfort. Such factors are unimportant, however, when one considers what a woman is getting in exchange: lifelong security, comfort, and freedom from responsibility What would a man have to do to achieve a situation vaguely resembling a woman's state?
That pregnancy is not as unpleasant as it is made out to be, has by now reached even the ears of men. Many women feel healthier when expecting a child, and it is becoming fashionable to admit it openly. Why should they worry if they look ugly and unattractive, their figures lumpy, skin spotty, hair stringy, and legs swollen? They are not after a man now. They already have one. He, of course, has no choice but to watch his butterfly turn into a caterpillar. He did it, after all! It is his child she is expecting, his child who is deforming her. What right has he to find her clumsy and repulsive? And, after all, she is losing her youth because of him.
As far as giving birth itself is concerned, the fantasies still surrounding it are so hairraising that it would never occur to man that women bear children for their own sake and not for his. The phrase, 'she presented him with a child,' so popular in the novels of previous centuries, may well have gone out of use in contemporary literature. But it has been fixed in the consciousness of men, and when the offspring, arrives they are filled with feelings of guilt because of the sufferings of the woman (not those of the newborn infant, please note).
Yet a man only, has to imagine that, in return for spending six hours at the dentist, he will be offered a sinecure for life: he would certainly accept such an offer. Of course, difficult births do occur, but they are as a rule painless since the advent of anesthetics. In general, a woman suffers no more during childbirth than she would during a prolonged session at the dentist. What women tell men about giving birth is usually shamelessly exaggerated. The ear-splitting shrieks from the delivery rooms which penetrate their ears are no more than a sign of the same lack of self-control and pride that we have already dealt with at length elsewhere. Painless birth has existed for years. By doing exercises women can train themselves to have their children without anesthetics or discomfort. It would be to women's advantage to decide whether or not having a child is painful. As long as some say one thing and others something else, they lose credibility and thus damage their common interest.
Of course, an assumed air of helplessness and a subsequent excuse for spending their lives doing easy work without a boss ordering them around is not the only reason why women produce little human beings. One day, for example, a woman may discover that her body functions rather like a slot machine. You put in something insignificant and trifling, and something different and fabulous falls out. Of course she is tempted to try this wonderful game. And when she has played it once, she will repeat it over and over again. It nearly always works: exactly nine months later out comes a human being. She is astonished and delighted. The operation of this slot machine is fundamentally as legitimate as when a person hits another on the head (and the latter immediately collapses). simply because it is biologically possible. If each game with her body slot machine did not involve some future effort, she would soon become insatiable. So she draws the line: at the point where one more child would increase her work load and decrease her security and comfort.
As a rule this limit is easily determined - usually by the degree of automation in any one household. In highly industrialized countries, the average woman aims at having two or three children. In North America, where housework is almost wholly automated, the optimum is nearer three. In Western Europe (where certain appliances are not yet used) the ideal is nearer two. An only child is seldom desirable, and more than three are considered antisocial because of their noise and the smell of washing.
An only child affords no benefits, only disadvantages. The woman never seems as unprotected and tied to her home as she should he. Apart from that, something might happen to the child, possibly when the mother is past child-bearing age. Then she would have no excuse left for having things made comfortable for her, and her husband would have no reason to go on working for her alone. Also, an only child has no playmate, and the mother would have to play with him; if there is anything a woman loathes, it is having to play with children. Children are curious about absolutely everything, but a woman has no interests at all except the few idiotic forms of entertainment offered by her house and her own body With the best will in the world, it is difficult for a mother to enter into the adventurous world of a child. She may have a small repertoire of insipid stock phrases to amuse a toddler (`look who's coming now'), but by the age of two a child has started to think for himself and woman is left behind. The cliché about the common interests of father and son (father cannot stop playing with his son's model railway) cannot be applied to mother and son, or even to mother and daughter. If a woman makes an effort and spends half an hour playing with her child (more might stunt its mental development), she tells the whole world, as if it were a great achievement, which of course it is - in terms of self-denial.
To guarantee material security and allow a woman to seem helpless and incapable of earning a living, two to three children are necessary. This minimizes the risk of old age without children or grandchildren who prove their respect and love, their gratitude to her for being such a good mother and grandmother. Besides, the children keep each other amused, leaving mother free for `superior' occupations, sewing, for example, or baking. Her maternal care consists of locking the children in a room together and coming in only when one of them gets hurt and screams loud enough to summon her.
It follows that raising and training two or more children is much easier than bringing up one. To instill obedience into an only child, the mother has to evolve complex methods to outsmart and persuade it, and get it to see reason; or it has to be punished. Since this is a nuisance, a mother usually leaves it to the father. Several children, on the other hand, can be trained by emotional blackmail. As they are all dependent on their mother's approval, she has only to show a slight preference for one and the others will do anything she tells them to. Every child lives in constant fear that its mother will withdraw her 'love' and give it to someone else. And if this fear does not create affection between siblings (as if woman would care!), it at least increases their competitiveness and performance.
[Source: Esther Vilar - The Manipulated Man]
Although the whole world is full of half-starved orphans, every couple produces its own brood. Man must have a reason to be enslaved when, later on, his sexual powers have declined, and this reason must also explain his enslavement to a particular woman. This is simple. She is, after all, the mother of his children. Since woman is the excuse for his subjugation. he can have only one at a time (in every industrial society, man is monotheistic - i.e., monogamous); more than one god (woman) would make him insecure, lead him to question his own identity, and throw him back into the state of freedom he is constantly trying to escape.
Questions such as this do not interest woman. As she does not think abstractly, the problems of existential anxiety do not touch her. She has no need for a deity to give meaning to her life. All she needs is an excuse for making one particular man work for her long after he ceases to want to go to bed with her. This excuse is provided by bearing his children. If men outnumbered women three to one, a woman would not hesitate to have a child by each of three men and let each of them work for his own child, that is, for her, and play the three men off against each other. Their achievements - and her comfort - would thereby be enormously increased. It is a popular misconception that woman is less inclined to polygamy than man.
When a man engenders children. he gives a woman hostages in hopes that she will exploit him forever. It is the only thing that gives him some sort of stability, and the only way of justifying the senseless slavery to which he has been conditioned. When he works for his wife and child, it is less important that he is supporting two particular human beings who do not look after themselves (one will not because she is female, and the other cannot because he is too small): he is working for a system which embraces everything in this world that is poor, helpless, and in need of protection (poor, helpless, and in need of protection as such) and which, so he believes, really needs him.
Thanks to wife and child, man has acquired an excuse, an artificial justification for his wretched existence, for his subjection. He calls this arbitrarily created system, this holy unit, his 'family.' Woman accepts his services in the name of the `family,' accepts the hostages he entrusts to her, and proceeds to carry out his desires by binding him ever more tightly to her and blackmailing him until he dies. And whose gain is it? - hers.
Both man and woman only stand to gain by having children - otherwise they would not produce them. Man's advantage lies in the fact that he appears to lead a more meaningful life and that he is able to become a slave forever - and woman has all the other advantages. These must be considerable, for any female today has the choice between a professional life or having children, and nearly all of them choose children.
This may suggest that women decide in favor of a home and family simply because they love children. But women are not capable of the unconditional love a child should have. This can easily be proved. Women only care for their own children, never those of others. A woman will accept a child who is not her flesh and blood only when she is physically incapable of having her own (and this only after everything has been tried - including artificial insemination by an unknown donor).
Although orphanages throughout the world are full of appealing, needy children, and although the newspapers and TV report daily on the number of little Africans, Indians, or South Americans who are starving to death, a woman would rather give a stray dog or cat a home than a deserted child. And yet she pretends to love children.
It is difficult to prove that women do not really love children, that they use them only to their own advantage. After all, pregnancy, childbirth, and the care of an infant are not without some degree of unpleasantness and discomfort. Such factors are unimportant, however, when one considers what a woman is getting in exchange: lifelong security, comfort, and freedom from responsibility What would a man have to do to achieve a situation vaguely resembling a woman's state?
That pregnancy is not as unpleasant as it is made out to be, has by now reached even the ears of men. Many women feel healthier when expecting a child, and it is becoming fashionable to admit it openly. Why should they worry if they look ugly and unattractive, their figures lumpy, skin spotty, hair stringy, and legs swollen? They are not after a man now. They already have one. He, of course, has no choice but to watch his butterfly turn into a caterpillar. He did it, after all! It is his child she is expecting, his child who is deforming her. What right has he to find her clumsy and repulsive? And, after all, she is losing her youth because of him.
As far as giving birth itself is concerned, the fantasies still surrounding it are so hairraising that it would never occur to man that women bear children for their own sake and not for his. The phrase, 'she presented him with a child,' so popular in the novels of previous centuries, may well have gone out of use in contemporary literature. But it has been fixed in the consciousness of men, and when the offspring, arrives they are filled with feelings of guilt because of the sufferings of the woman (not those of the newborn infant, please note).
Yet a man only, has to imagine that, in return for spending six hours at the dentist, he will be offered a sinecure for life: he would certainly accept such an offer. Of course, difficult births do occur, but they are as a rule painless since the advent of anesthetics. In general, a woman suffers no more during childbirth than she would during a prolonged session at the dentist. What women tell men about giving birth is usually shamelessly exaggerated. The ear-splitting shrieks from the delivery rooms which penetrate their ears are no more than a sign of the same lack of self-control and pride that we have already dealt with at length elsewhere. Painless birth has existed for years. By doing exercises women can train themselves to have their children without anesthetics or discomfort. It would be to women's advantage to decide whether or not having a child is painful. As long as some say one thing and others something else, they lose credibility and thus damage their common interest.
Of course, an assumed air of helplessness and a subsequent excuse for spending their lives doing easy work without a boss ordering them around is not the only reason why women produce little human beings. One day, for example, a woman may discover that her body functions rather like a slot machine. You put in something insignificant and trifling, and something different and fabulous falls out. Of course she is tempted to try this wonderful game. And when she has played it once, she will repeat it over and over again. It nearly always works: exactly nine months later out comes a human being. She is astonished and delighted. The operation of this slot machine is fundamentally as legitimate as when a person hits another on the head (and the latter immediately collapses). simply because it is biologically possible. If each game with her body slot machine did not involve some future effort, she would soon become insatiable. So she draws the line: at the point where one more child would increase her work load and decrease her security and comfort.
As a rule this limit is easily determined - usually by the degree of automation in any one household. In highly industrialized countries, the average woman aims at having two or three children. In North America, where housework is almost wholly automated, the optimum is nearer three. In Western Europe (where certain appliances are not yet used) the ideal is nearer two. An only child is seldom desirable, and more than three are considered antisocial because of their noise and the smell of washing.
An only child affords no benefits, only disadvantages. The woman never seems as unprotected and tied to her home as she should he. Apart from that, something might happen to the child, possibly when the mother is past child-bearing age. Then she would have no excuse left for having things made comfortable for her, and her husband would have no reason to go on working for her alone. Also, an only child has no playmate, and the mother would have to play with him; if there is anything a woman loathes, it is having to play with children. Children are curious about absolutely everything, but a woman has no interests at all except the few idiotic forms of entertainment offered by her house and her own body With the best will in the world, it is difficult for a mother to enter into the adventurous world of a child. She may have a small repertoire of insipid stock phrases to amuse a toddler (`look who's coming now'), but by the age of two a child has started to think for himself and woman is left behind. The cliché about the common interests of father and son (father cannot stop playing with his son's model railway) cannot be applied to mother and son, or even to mother and daughter. If a woman makes an effort and spends half an hour playing with her child (more might stunt its mental development), she tells the whole world, as if it were a great achievement, which of course it is - in terms of self-denial.
To guarantee material security and allow a woman to seem helpless and incapable of earning a living, two to three children are necessary. This minimizes the risk of old age without children or grandchildren who prove their respect and love, their gratitude to her for being such a good mother and grandmother. Besides, the children keep each other amused, leaving mother free for `superior' occupations, sewing, for example, or baking. Her maternal care consists of locking the children in a room together and coming in only when one of them gets hurt and screams loud enough to summon her.
It follows that raising and training two or more children is much easier than bringing up one. To instill obedience into an only child, the mother has to evolve complex methods to outsmart and persuade it, and get it to see reason; or it has to be punished. Since this is a nuisance, a mother usually leaves it to the father. Several children, on the other hand, can be trained by emotional blackmail. As they are all dependent on their mother's approval, she has only to show a slight preference for one and the others will do anything she tells them to. Every child lives in constant fear that its mother will withdraw her 'love' and give it to someone else. And if this fear does not create affection between siblings (as if woman would care!), it at least increases their competitiveness and performance.
[Source: Esther Vilar - The Manipulated Man]
Consumerism
In advertising man does not idealize woman from any masochist tendency. It is purely a question of survival. Only his exploiters, women, have sufficient time and money to buy and consume all his products. To supply the woman inhabiting his ranch house with purchasing power, he has no choice but to cultivate legions of other women who have as much satisfaction as his own wife in spending. They will then buy his goods and keel) his wife in pocket money. This is the beginning of a vicious circle - a vicious circle which turns faster and faster until he cannot keep up with it anymore and someone else has to take over.
[...]It has always been one of man's greatest aims in life to fulfill woman's innermost desires, in fact to anticipate her every wish, as contemporary women's fiction still puts it. They have achieved their goal: there is practically no female desire left undiscovered and probably very few which could not, if necessary, be fulfilled.
The result is that women are getting increasingly more stupid, while men grow more and more intelligent. The gap between the sexes is widening constantly, making mutual understanding virtually impossible. But no one seems to notice.
One of the basic principles of biology is that intelligence develops only in the face of competitive stimulation. Women however, stand outside every competitive field. The glut of modern conveniences dulls their brains, reducing what little is left of their capacity for thought. Man, on the other hand, prodded by the need to create this comfort, to open up new sources of income, has to exert himself more and more. Surrounded by this ever-increasing comfort, the female sex is changing for the worse. The concept of femininity, used to be applied to a woman who had the ability to hear children. It was also applied to venality. The definition must be enlarged to include imbecility.
Advertising says that woman is witty, intelligent, creative, imaginative, warmhearted, practical, and capable. Smiling sweetly, with all the airs of a goddess, she dispenses the latest discovery in instant drinks to her grateful brood. Her husband's eyes follow her adoringly as she serves up a new precooked meal, which is so much more to his taste. Or maybe she hands him a Turkish towel which is even softer than usual - the result of a new rinse. This image of woman, created by man in order to sell his goods, is repeated incessantly with the help of mass media throughout the Western hemisphere; and each day it is being reinforced. How could anyone dare to admit, even to himself, that in reality women are unimaginative, stupid, and insensitive? It would obviously be too much to expect of women - and it is an admission men cannot afford.
Woman buys, man sells. But one does not convince a customer by saying, `It's good. You've got to buy it.' Instead we say, `You're marvellous! You deserve the best. Why should you make do with anything less? You've earned your comfort - you are entitled to it!' So, on top of everything else, man has to flatter woman because he needs her as a customer.
It is striking that the trick men are using here appears similar to the one used by women to train men. But, sadly, it is not, since man turns it against himself. She praises him to get him to work for her, but he praises her to make her spend his money. If a man flatters and talks his neighbor's wife into buying new wall-to-wall carpeting for her living room, he must realize that this same neighbor will sell his own wife a bathtub, the next day. How else could he pay for the carpeting?
[...]It is interesting that nearly the only products sold are those of benefit to women: sports cars (with which to entice her), luxury goods (for women), or household appliances (also for women, since the house actually belongs to her - man is, in fact, a homeless creature, moving constantly between office and house). Women would be delighted to buy things for their husbands for whatever occasion, using the latter's money of course (they give ties, sport shirts, ashtrays, wallets, as often as possible).
[...] Apart from eating, drinking, and smoking, sex is the only activity where man is an independent consumer: he must he able to satisfy his sexual urge. No wonder whole branches of industry are given over to this trade, taking advantage of this need to make him even more lustful and to persuade him to buy goods which merely serve to increase his desire. Satisfaction, of course, is another matter. That has to be had from a woman at the customary price.
[Source: Esther Vilar - The Manipulated Man]
[...]It has always been one of man's greatest aims in life to fulfill woman's innermost desires, in fact to anticipate her every wish, as contemporary women's fiction still puts it. They have achieved their goal: there is practically no female desire left undiscovered and probably very few which could not, if necessary, be fulfilled.
The result is that women are getting increasingly more stupid, while men grow more and more intelligent. The gap between the sexes is widening constantly, making mutual understanding virtually impossible. But no one seems to notice.
One of the basic principles of biology is that intelligence develops only in the face of competitive stimulation. Women however, stand outside every competitive field. The glut of modern conveniences dulls their brains, reducing what little is left of their capacity for thought. Man, on the other hand, prodded by the need to create this comfort, to open up new sources of income, has to exert himself more and more. Surrounded by this ever-increasing comfort, the female sex is changing for the worse. The concept of femininity, used to be applied to a woman who had the ability to hear children. It was also applied to venality. The definition must be enlarged to include imbecility.
Woman buys, man sells. But one does not convince a customer by saying, `It's good. You've got to buy it.' Instead we say, `You're marvellous! You deserve the best. Why should you make do with anything less? You've earned your comfort - you are entitled to it!' So, on top of everything else, man has to flatter woman because he needs her as a customer.
It is striking that the trick men are using here appears similar to the one used by women to train men. But, sadly, it is not, since man turns it against himself. She praises him to get him to work for her, but he praises her to make her spend his money. If a man flatters and talks his neighbor's wife into buying new wall-to-wall carpeting for her living room, he must realize that this same neighbor will sell his own wife a bathtub, the next day. How else could he pay for the carpeting?
[...]It is interesting that nearly the only products sold are those of benefit to women: sports cars (with which to entice her), luxury goods (for women), or household appliances (also for women, since the house actually belongs to her - man is, in fact, a homeless creature, moving constantly between office and house). Women would be delighted to buy things for their husbands for whatever occasion, using the latter's money of course (they give ties, sport shirts, ashtrays, wallets, as often as possible).
[...] Apart from eating, drinking, and smoking, sex is the only activity where man is an independent consumer: he must he able to satisfy his sexual urge. No wonder whole branches of industry are given over to this trade, taking advantage of this need to make him even more lustful and to persuade him to buy goods which merely serve to increase his desire. Satisfaction, of course, is another matter. That has to be had from a woman at the customary price.
[Source: Esther Vilar - The Manipulated Man]
Good Manners
Any man who wishes to be a success with women - and is there one who doesn't? must acquire a variety of qualifications. Apart from intelligence, ambition, industry, and pertinacity, he must know exactly how to behave in the presence of women. With this aim in view, women have established certain norms which are called good manners.
Basically the rule is that any man who has a sense of self-respect must, at all times, treat a woman like a queen. Similarly, a self-respecting woman must, at all times, give man every opportunity of treating her like a queen. A woman will marry a man simply because he is wealthy. But if she is given the choice between two wealthy men, one with and one without manners, she will choose the man who has them. For if a man has mastered the rules governing good manners, a woman can be sure that he will never, at any time, question her ideal value as a woman, which he has long since been conditioned to respect, not even after she has ceased to attract him.
Psychologists state that happiness comes with laughter. faith with prayer. This is true, but only for men. If he treats woman as a superior being, she will become a superior being for him. Women are more gifted to differentiate between fact and fiction. Unlike other methods of manipulation, good manners are not the result of conditioned forms of behavior based on profound psychological motivation. Children are taught `to behave' relatively late, and manners are particularly easy to recognize as a form of women's exploitation. It is a puzzle why even today such old tricks are still successful.
The advice a mother gives to her teenage son going out on his first date is a good example of woman's audacity: Pay the taxi; get out first; open the door on the girl's side and help her out. Offer her your arm going up the steps or, if they are crowded, walk behind her in case she stumbles so that you can catch her. Open the door into the foyer for her; help her out of her coat; take the coat to the cloakroom attendant; get her a program. Go in front of her when you are taking your seats and clear the way. Offer her refreshments during the intermissions - and so on.
And on top of that we should not forget that the average type of play is an outdated form of entertainment because most of them are aimed at the intellectual level of women (as, indeed, are many of those things which we like to label `cultured'). Pity the poor man who has to submit to all this. He probably has an inkling that not only he but the assembled company of directors, actors, and producers awaiting them are there only to form the background for woman and her clique. This background is simply a place where she can indulge in her inane orgies, where she and other women can take part in their grotesque masquerades, with the extras, the men, suitably costumed in black.
The most cynical aspect of the `good manners' etiquette is the role of protector which is forced on a man. This begins harmlessly enough, it is true. He follows her when going upstairs, or walks on the traffic side of a pavement. It is when we reach the level of military service and war that the significance of this becomes more serious. One of the most important rules is that a man must, under all circumstances. protect a woman from unpleasantness - even, if necessary, with his life. And as soon as he is old enough, he will do just that. This training is accomplished at such an early age that in any catastrophe a man will save women and children before he thinks of himself - at the cost of his own life.
[Source: Esther Vilar - The Manipulated Man]
Basically the rule is that any man who has a sense of self-respect must, at all times, treat a woman like a queen. Similarly, a self-respecting woman must, at all times, give man every opportunity of treating her like a queen. A woman will marry a man simply because he is wealthy. But if she is given the choice between two wealthy men, one with and one without manners, she will choose the man who has them. For if a man has mastered the rules governing good manners, a woman can be sure that he will never, at any time, question her ideal value as a woman, which he has long since been conditioned to respect, not even after she has ceased to attract him.
Psychologists state that happiness comes with laughter. faith with prayer. This is true, but only for men. If he treats woman as a superior being, she will become a superior being for him. Women are more gifted to differentiate between fact and fiction. Unlike other methods of manipulation, good manners are not the result of conditioned forms of behavior based on profound psychological motivation. Children are taught `to behave' relatively late, and manners are particularly easy to recognize as a form of women's exploitation. It is a puzzle why even today such old tricks are still successful.
The advice a mother gives to her teenage son going out on his first date is a good example of woman's audacity: Pay the taxi; get out first; open the door on the girl's side and help her out. Offer her your arm going up the steps or, if they are crowded, walk behind her in case she stumbles so that you can catch her. Open the door into the foyer for her; help her out of her coat; take the coat to the cloakroom attendant; get her a program. Go in front of her when you are taking your seats and clear the way. Offer her refreshments during the intermissions - and so on.
And on top of that we should not forget that the average type of play is an outdated form of entertainment because most of them are aimed at the intellectual level of women (as, indeed, are many of those things which we like to label `cultured'). Pity the poor man who has to submit to all this. He probably has an inkling that not only he but the assembled company of directors, actors, and producers awaiting them are there only to form the background for woman and her clique. This background is simply a place where she can indulge in her inane orgies, where she and other women can take part in their grotesque masquerades, with the extras, the men, suitably costumed in black.
The most cynical aspect of the `good manners' etiquette is the role of protector which is forced on a man. This begins harmlessly enough, it is true. He follows her when going upstairs, or walks on the traffic side of a pavement. It is when we reach the level of military service and war that the significance of this becomes more serious. One of the most important rules is that a man must, under all circumstances. protect a woman from unpleasantness - even, if necessary, with his life. And as soon as he is old enough, he will do just that. This training is accomplished at such an early age that in any catastrophe a man will save women and children before he thinks of himself - at the cost of his own life.
[Source: Esther Vilar - The Manipulated Man]
Emotional blackmail
We have already mentioned woman's lack of emotional capacity. The fact that women make every attempt to suppress man's ability to express his emotions is a certain indication of this. Yet she still contrives to create the myth of feminine depth of feeling and vulnerability.
The tear ducts are tiny pouches containing fluid. With training they can be controlled, just as one controls the bladder, so that there is no more need for an adult to cry than there is for him to wet his bed. A male child is taught very early in life to control both these functions. Once again, woman degrades herself `Boys don't cry! You're not a little girl!' Little girls, on the other hand, are never taught to control their tears and they quickly learn to use them to advantage. If a man sees a woman crying, it would never occur to him that she may be incontinent. He assumes her feelings are aroused to a considerable extent and even judges the degree of feeling by the quantity of liquid shed.
This is obviously a mistaken interpretation. Women really are callous creatures mainly because it is to their disadvantage to feel deeply. Feelings might seduce them into choosing a man who is of no use to them, i.e., a man whom they could not manipulate at will. They might even actively come to dislike men (after all, men are beings who should be alien to them) and decide to spend their lives exclusively in the company of women. In fact, however, there are far fewer overtly homosexual women than homosexual men, and such women are generally well-to-do or at least financially secure. A woman with feelings would have to think and work, to take on responsibilities, and to learn to do without all the things which mean so much to her. Because she does not want this, she decides to remain callous, but she knows, at the same time, that it is necessary for woman to enact the role of a sensitive being or man would become aware of her essentially cold, calculating nature. Still, as her emotions are always faked and never felt, she can keep a clear head. You can take advantage of someone's feelings only if you are not involved yourself. Therefore, she turns her partner's emotions to her own profit, only taking care to make sure he believes she feels as deeply as he himself, perhaps even more deeply She must make him believe she, `as a woman,' is much less stable, much more irrational, much more emotional. Only thus may her deception remain undetected.
But manipulation has, in any case, already taken care of that. A real man does not weep or laugh very loud (reserved smiles have a sympathetic effect on those around him and make him seem a serious person to his business associates); he never shows surprise (he never screams Ahhh...!' when a light goes on nor `Ohhh...!' when he touches cold water); he never shows that he is making an effort (by saying `Uff...!' when he has lifted a heavy case); he does not even sing when he is happy. Therefore, if a man notices all these emotional reactions in a woman, it never occurs to him that he has been conditioned by a woman not to express his own similar feelings. As a result, he assumes she is much more sensitive than he is, for otherwise she would not dare to exhibit her feelings in such an uncontrolled manner. A man who would cry only if a real catastrophe occurred (perhaps the death of his wife) must assume that when his wife breaks into floods of tears because of cancelled holiday plans, for example, her emotions are equally strong, but for a lesser cause. He even thinks himself loutish and callous because he cannot share her grief. What an advantage a man would have if only he realized the cold, clear thoughts running through a woman's head while her eyes are brimming with tears.
[Source: Esther Vilar - The Manipulated Man]
The tear ducts are tiny pouches containing fluid. With training they can be controlled, just as one controls the bladder, so that there is no more need for an adult to cry than there is for him to wet his bed. A male child is taught very early in life to control both these functions. Once again, woman degrades herself `Boys don't cry! You're not a little girl!' Little girls, on the other hand, are never taught to control their tears and they quickly learn to use them to advantage. If a man sees a woman crying, it would never occur to him that she may be incontinent. He assumes her feelings are aroused to a considerable extent and even judges the degree of feeling by the quantity of liquid shed.
This is obviously a mistaken interpretation. Women really are callous creatures mainly because it is to their disadvantage to feel deeply. Feelings might seduce them into choosing a man who is of no use to them, i.e., a man whom they could not manipulate at will. They might even actively come to dislike men (after all, men are beings who should be alien to them) and decide to spend their lives exclusively in the company of women. In fact, however, there are far fewer overtly homosexual women than homosexual men, and such women are generally well-to-do or at least financially secure. A woman with feelings would have to think and work, to take on responsibilities, and to learn to do without all the things which mean so much to her. Because she does not want this, she decides to remain callous, but she knows, at the same time, that it is necessary for woman to enact the role of a sensitive being or man would become aware of her essentially cold, calculating nature. Still, as her emotions are always faked and never felt, she can keep a clear head. You can take advantage of someone's feelings only if you are not involved yourself. Therefore, she turns her partner's emotions to her own profit, only taking care to make sure he believes she feels as deeply as he himself, perhaps even more deeply She must make him believe she, `as a woman,' is much less stable, much more irrational, much more emotional. Only thus may her deception remain undetected.
But manipulation has, in any case, already taken care of that. A real man does not weep or laugh very loud (reserved smiles have a sympathetic effect on those around him and make him seem a serious person to his business associates); he never shows surprise (he never screams Ahhh...!' when a light goes on nor `Ohhh...!' when he touches cold water); he never shows that he is making an effort (by saying `Uff...!' when he has lifted a heavy case); he does not even sing when he is happy. Therefore, if a man notices all these emotional reactions in a woman, it never occurs to him that he has been conditioned by a woman not to express his own similar feelings. As a result, he assumes she is much more sensitive than he is, for otherwise she would not dare to exhibit her feelings in such an uncontrolled manner. A man who would cry only if a real catastrophe occurred (perhaps the death of his wife) must assume that when his wife breaks into floods of tears because of cancelled holiday plans, for example, her emotions are equally strong, but for a lesser cause. He even thinks himself loutish and callous because he cannot share her grief. What an advantage a man would have if only he realized the cold, clear thoughts running through a woman's head while her eyes are brimming with tears.
[Source: Esther Vilar - The Manipulated Man]
The need of a purpose
Only the oppressed have any real need of freedom. Yet as soon as they are free and providing they have the intelligence to weigh their freedom against the possible consequences - this need changes. The former longing for freedom reverts to a sense of fear accompanied by an intense longing to be tied and secure. In the first years of life man is never free. He is hemmed in by adult rules and, having no experience of social conduct to guide him, he is entirely dependent on them. As a result he develops an acute desire for freedom and feels a desperate need to escape from his prison at the first opportunity. Once a human being is free, if it happens to be rather stupid (and women are stupid) it will be quite happy with its freedom and try to retain it. As the unintelligent human being is incapable of abstract thought, it will never feel the need to leave its familiar terrain and consequently will never fear that its very existence might he threatened. It is not afraid of death because it cannot imagine it. There is no need to find a meaning or reason for life: its desires are fulfilled in its own personal comforts and these provide reason enough for living. Even the need for religion is comparatively unknown to a person of low intelligence and, if it does arise, it is very easily satisfied. A stupid person has an infinite capacity for self-adoration. If a woman chooses to believe in God, it is for one reason only: she wants to go to heaven. And what, after all, is the dear Lord but yet another man who will arrange things for her?
The situation of the intelligent person, i.e., a man, is very different. At first he welcomes his newfound freedom with a sense of relief, drunk with the vision and perspective of life before him. But the moment he puts this freedom to the test, that is, as soon as he wants to commit a given act which might send him in a given direction, he gets scared: since he is capable of abstract thought, he knows that each of his acts has a series of possible consequences, not all of which can be predicted. If he decides to act of his own free will, the responsibility will be his alone. At that moment, man would be delighted to cease all activity; but because he is a man and it is man's destiny to act, he begins to long for the rules of his childhood, to long for someone who will tell him what to do, to give meaning to his now meaningless actions. These actions are meaningless because they serve his comfort, but what does he serve? At this point he will search for a new deity, one to take the place of his mother, the deity of his childhood. The moment he finds her, he becomes her abject slave. Given the choice, of course, man would prefer a deity that is strong, just, wise and omniscient - rather like the God of Christians, Jews, and Mohammedans. But as he is an intelligent being, he knows that such a deity cannot exist, that every adult is, by definition, his own personal deity who must make his own rules.
Every adult, i.e., every man, must satisfy his craving for non-freedom, a regression to a sort of infantile dependency which gives him pleasure and he can do this only by imposing rules (deities) on himself, which he then sets out to fabricate. When man creates rules he unconsciously compares experiences with other men. Finding something in common with them, he derives generalizations. These `rules' become laws for future `reasonable' conduct (in other words, beneficial to someone other than himself), to which he voluntarily subjects himself The systems thus created grow collectively and individually more and more and soon they are so complex that the individual can no longer oversee them: they achieve autonomy and become `divine.' One can only believe in these laws - just as an inexperienced child must believe in the partly senseless, partly sensible rules of its parents. To trespass carries the threat of exclusion from society and loss of security. Marxism, brotherly love, racism, and nationalism all evolved in this way. A man whose personal need for religion is satisfied by such larger systems will be relatively safe from subjection to the rule of an individual (woman).
The majority of men prefer to subjugate themselves to an exclusive deity, woman (they call this subjection love). This sort of personal deity has excellent qualifications for the satisfaction of religious needs. Woman is ever-present, and, given her own lack of religious need, she is divine. As she continuously makes demands, man never feels forsaken. She frees him from collective gods, for whose favors he would have to compete with others. He trusts in her because she resembles his mother, the deity of his childhood. His empty life is given an artificial meaning, for his every action is dedicated to her comfort and, later, to the comfort of her children. As a goddess, she can not only punish (by taking away his sense of belonging) but she can reward as well (through the bestowal of sexual pleasure).
The most important requirements for woman's divinity are, however, her propensity to masquerade and her stupidity. A system must either overwhelm its believers with its greatly superior wisdom or confuse them with its incomprehensibility As the first possibility is unavailable to women, they take advantage of the second. Their masquerade causes them to appear strange and mysterious to men; their stupidity makes them inaccessible to scrutiny. While intelligence shows itself in actions that are reasonable and logical, hence permits measurement, predictability, and control, stupidity shows itself in actions that are completely unreasonable, unpredictable and uncontrollable. Women are protected by a screen of pomp, mummery, and mystification as much as any Pope or dictator: they cannot be unmasked and will increase their power unhindered, gaining strength as they go. In return man is guaranteed, in the long term, a divinity in which he can deeply believe.
[Source: Esther Vilar - The Manipulated Man]
The situation of the intelligent person, i.e., a man, is very different. At first he welcomes his newfound freedom with a sense of relief, drunk with the vision and perspective of life before him. But the moment he puts this freedom to the test, that is, as soon as he wants to commit a given act which might send him in a given direction, he gets scared: since he is capable of abstract thought, he knows that each of his acts has a series of possible consequences, not all of which can be predicted. If he decides to act of his own free will, the responsibility will be his alone. At that moment, man would be delighted to cease all activity; but because he is a man and it is man's destiny to act, he begins to long for the rules of his childhood, to long for someone who will tell him what to do, to give meaning to his now meaningless actions. These actions are meaningless because they serve his comfort, but what does he serve? At this point he will search for a new deity, one to take the place of his mother, the deity of his childhood. The moment he finds her, he becomes her abject slave. Given the choice, of course, man would prefer a deity that is strong, just, wise and omniscient - rather like the God of Christians, Jews, and Mohammedans. But as he is an intelligent being, he knows that such a deity cannot exist, that every adult is, by definition, his own personal deity who must make his own rules.
Every adult, i.e., every man, must satisfy his craving for non-freedom, a regression to a sort of infantile dependency which gives him pleasure and he can do this only by imposing rules (deities) on himself, which he then sets out to fabricate. When man creates rules he unconsciously compares experiences with other men. Finding something in common with them, he derives generalizations. These `rules' become laws for future `reasonable' conduct (in other words, beneficial to someone other than himself), to which he voluntarily subjects himself The systems thus created grow collectively and individually more and more and soon they are so complex that the individual can no longer oversee them: they achieve autonomy and become `divine.' One can only believe in these laws - just as an inexperienced child must believe in the partly senseless, partly sensible rules of its parents. To trespass carries the threat of exclusion from society and loss of security. Marxism, brotherly love, racism, and nationalism all evolved in this way. A man whose personal need for religion is satisfied by such larger systems will be relatively safe from subjection to the rule of an individual (woman).
The majority of men prefer to subjugate themselves to an exclusive deity, woman (they call this subjection love). This sort of personal deity has excellent qualifications for the satisfaction of religious needs. Woman is ever-present, and, given her own lack of religious need, she is divine. As she continuously makes demands, man never feels forsaken. She frees him from collective gods, for whose favors he would have to compete with others. He trusts in her because she resembles his mother, the deity of his childhood. His empty life is given an artificial meaning, for his every action is dedicated to her comfort and, later, to the comfort of her children. As a goddess, she can not only punish (by taking away his sense of belonging) but she can reward as well (through the bestowal of sexual pleasure).
The most important requirements for woman's divinity are, however, her propensity to masquerade and her stupidity. A system must either overwhelm its believers with its greatly superior wisdom or confuse them with its incomprehensibility As the first possibility is unavailable to women, they take advantage of the second. Their masquerade causes them to appear strange and mysterious to men; their stupidity makes them inaccessible to scrutiny. While intelligence shows itself in actions that are reasonable and logical, hence permits measurement, predictability, and control, stupidity shows itself in actions that are completely unreasonable, unpredictable and uncontrollable. Women are protected by a screen of pomp, mummery, and mystification as much as any Pope or dictator: they cannot be unmasked and will increase their power unhindered, gaining strength as they go. In return man is guaranteed, in the long term, a divinity in which he can deeply believe.
[Source: Esther Vilar - The Manipulated Man]
what a man's gotta do ?
Man has a thirst for knowledge (he wants to know what the world around him looks like and how it functions). Man thinks (he draws conclusions from the data he encounters). Man is creative (he makes something new out of the information achieved by the above processes). Man is sensitive (as a result of his exceptionally wide, multidimensional emotional scale, he not only registers the commonplace in fine gradations but he creates and discovers new emotional values and makes them accessible to others through sensible descriptions, or recreates them as an artist). Of all the qualities of man, his curiosity is certainly the most impressive. This curiosity differs basically from that of woman.
A woman takes interest only in subjects that have an immediate personal usefulness to her. For example, if she reads a political article in the newspaper, it is highly likely that she wants to cast a spell on some political-science student, not that she cares about the fate of the Chinese, Israelis, or South Africans. If she looks up the names of some Greek philosophers in the dictionary, it does not mean she has suddenly taken an interest in Greek philosophy. It means she is trying to solve a crossword puzzle. If she is studying the advertisements for a new car, she is not doing it with a platonic interest in its technical features, but because she wants to own it.
[...]With his many gifts man would appear to be ideally suited, both mentally and physical, to lead a life both fulfilled and free. Instead he chooses to become a slave, placing his many discoveries at the service of those who are incapable of creation themselves - at the service of `mankind', man's own synonym for women, and of the children of these women. How paradoxical that this very sex, which is capable of leading a life as nearly perfect as possible, is prepared to give it up, to offer it all to the female sex, which is not interested in such perfection. We have grown so accustomed to the blunted mechanism of one-sided exploitation of one group of human beings by a parasitic clique that all our moral values have become completely perverted. Without really giving the matter any thought, we consider the male sex as a kind of Sisyphus: he has come into the world to learn, to work and to father children: his sons, in their turn, will learn to work, and produce children, and so it will continue forever; it has become almost impossible to think why else men should be here.
If a young man gets married, and starts a family and spends the rest of hise life working at a soul-destroying job, he is held up as an example of virtue and responsibility. The other type of man, living only for himself, working only for himself, doing first one thing and then another simply because he enjoys it and because he has to keep only himself, sleeping where and when he wants, and facing woman when he meets her on equal terms and not as one of a million slaves, is rejected by society The free, unshackled man has no place in its midst.
How depressing it is to see men, year after year, betraying all that they were born to do. New worlds could he discovered, worlds one hardly dares even to dream of could be opened by the minds, strength, and intelligence of men. Things to make life fuller and richer - their own life, that is, of which women are ignorant - and more worthwhile could be developed: all these things could be done by men. Instead, they forsake all these tremendous potentials and permit their minds and their bodies to be shunted onto sidings to serve the repulsively primitive needs of women. Man has the key to every mystery of the universe in his hand, but he ignores it, he lowers himself to the level of woman and insinuates himself into her favor. With his mind, his strength, and his imagination, all intended for the creation of new worlds, he opts instead for the preservation and improvement of the old. And if he happens to invent something new, he needs to prefix it with the excuse that it will one day be useful to `all mankind,' i.e., to women. He apologizes for his achievements, for making space flights instead of providing more comforts for his wife and children.
[...]We have absolutely no idea what the world would be like if men really used their intelligence and imagination instead of wasting it. Inventing pressure cookers that cook faster, wall-to-wall carpeting that is more stain-resistant, detergents that wash whiter and lipsticks that are more water-resistant is a waste of time. Instead of producing children who will in turn produce children, thus pushing the enjoyment of life, still further out of their own reach, they should try living themselves.
Instead of probing the depth of woman's 'mysterious' psyche - 'mysterious' Only because there is nothing behind it - they, should study their own psyche. perhaps even that of creatures possibly inhabiting other planets, and think of new ways and means of establishing contact with them. Instead of inventing ever more deadly weapons to fight wars destined only to defend private property, i.e., women's, they should be developing ever more efficient methods of space travel - travel which would tell us more about worlds we never dreamt of.
[...] Without thinking, men fight women's wars, father women's children and construct women's towns. Women just sit back getting lazier, dumber and more demanding and, at the same time, richer. A primitive but effective system of insurance policies policies for marriage, divorce, inheritance, widowhood, old age and life - ensures this increasing wealth. For example, in the US half of the total private capital is in the hands of women. Yet the number of working women has constantly decreased over the last decades. The situation is not much different in industrial Europe. At this time women already have complete psychological control over men. It won't be long before they have material control as well. Men seem to be quite unaware of these facts and go on finding happiness in their own subjugation. There could he justification for their attitude only if women really were the charming, gracious creatures men believe them to be: fairy princesses, angels from another world, too good for men themselves and for this earthly existence. It is quite incredible that men, whose desire for knowledge knows no bounds in every other field, are really totally blind to these facts, that they are incapable of seeing women as they really are: with nothing else to offer but a vagina, two breasts and some punch cards programed with idle, stereotyped chatter; that they are nothing more than conglomerations of matter, lumps of stuffed human skin pretending to he thinking human beings.
[Source: Esther Vilar - The Manipulated Man]
A woman takes interest only in subjects that have an immediate personal usefulness to her. For example, if she reads a political article in the newspaper, it is highly likely that she wants to cast a spell on some political-science student, not that she cares about the fate of the Chinese, Israelis, or South Africans. If she looks up the names of some Greek philosophers in the dictionary, it does not mean she has suddenly taken an interest in Greek philosophy. It means she is trying to solve a crossword puzzle. If she is studying the advertisements for a new car, she is not doing it with a platonic interest in its technical features, but because she wants to own it.
[...]With his many gifts man would appear to be ideally suited, both mentally and physical, to lead a life both fulfilled and free. Instead he chooses to become a slave, placing his many discoveries at the service of those who are incapable of creation themselves - at the service of `mankind', man's own synonym for women, and of the children of these women. How paradoxical that this very sex, which is capable of leading a life as nearly perfect as possible, is prepared to give it up, to offer it all to the female sex, which is not interested in such perfection. We have grown so accustomed to the blunted mechanism of one-sided exploitation of one group of human beings by a parasitic clique that all our moral values have become completely perverted. Without really giving the matter any thought, we consider the male sex as a kind of Sisyphus: he has come into the world to learn, to work and to father children: his sons, in their turn, will learn to work, and produce children, and so it will continue forever; it has become almost impossible to think why else men should be here.
If a young man gets married, and starts a family and spends the rest of hise life working at a soul-destroying job, he is held up as an example of virtue and responsibility. The other type of man, living only for himself, working only for himself, doing first one thing and then another simply because he enjoys it and because he has to keep only himself, sleeping where and when he wants, and facing woman when he meets her on equal terms and not as one of a million slaves, is rejected by society The free, unshackled man has no place in its midst.
How depressing it is to see men, year after year, betraying all that they were born to do. New worlds could he discovered, worlds one hardly dares even to dream of could be opened by the minds, strength, and intelligence of men. Things to make life fuller and richer - their own life, that is, of which women are ignorant - and more worthwhile could be developed: all these things could be done by men. Instead, they forsake all these tremendous potentials and permit their minds and their bodies to be shunted onto sidings to serve the repulsively primitive needs of women. Man has the key to every mystery of the universe in his hand, but he ignores it, he lowers himself to the level of woman and insinuates himself into her favor. With his mind, his strength, and his imagination, all intended for the creation of new worlds, he opts instead for the preservation and improvement of the old. And if he happens to invent something new, he needs to prefix it with the excuse that it will one day be useful to `all mankind,' i.e., to women. He apologizes for his achievements, for making space flights instead of providing more comforts for his wife and children.
[...]We have absolutely no idea what the world would be like if men really used their intelligence and imagination instead of wasting it. Inventing pressure cookers that cook faster, wall-to-wall carpeting that is more stain-resistant, detergents that wash whiter and lipsticks that are more water-resistant is a waste of time. Instead of producing children who will in turn produce children, thus pushing the enjoyment of life, still further out of their own reach, they should try living themselves.
Instead of probing the depth of woman's 'mysterious' psyche - 'mysterious' Only because there is nothing behind it - they, should study their own psyche. perhaps even that of creatures possibly inhabiting other planets, and think of new ways and means of establishing contact with them. Instead of inventing ever more deadly weapons to fight wars destined only to defend private property, i.e., women's, they should be developing ever more efficient methods of space travel - travel which would tell us more about worlds we never dreamt of.
[...] Without thinking, men fight women's wars, father women's children and construct women's towns. Women just sit back getting lazier, dumber and more demanding and, at the same time, richer. A primitive but effective system of insurance policies policies for marriage, divorce, inheritance, widowhood, old age and life - ensures this increasing wealth. For example, in the US half of the total private capital is in the hands of women. Yet the number of working women has constantly decreased over the last decades. The situation is not much different in industrial Europe. At this time women already have complete psychological control over men. It won't be long before they have material control as well. Men seem to be quite unaware of these facts and go on finding happiness in their own subjugation. There could he justification for their attitude only if women really were the charming, gracious creatures men believe them to be: fairy princesses, angels from another world, too good for men themselves and for this earthly existence. It is quite incredible that men, whose desire for knowledge knows no bounds in every other field, are really totally blind to these facts, that they are incapable of seeing women as they really are: with nothing else to offer but a vagina, two breasts and some punch cards programed with idle, stereotyped chatter; that they are nothing more than conglomerations of matter, lumps of stuffed human skin pretending to he thinking human beings.
[Source: Esther Vilar - The Manipulated Man]
Female wars
Whatever men set about to impress women with, counts for nothing in the world of women. Only another woman is of importance in her world.
Of course, a woman will always be pleased if a man turns to look at her - and if he is well dressed or drives an expensive sports car, so much the better. Her pleasure may be compared to that of a shareholder who finds that his stocks have risen. It will be a matter of complete indifference to a woman if he is attractive or looks intelligent. A shareholder is hardly likely to notice the color of his dividend checks.
But if another woman should turn to look - a rare occurrence, for her own judgment is infinitely more remorseless than that of a man - her day is made. She has achieved the impossible - the recognition, admiration, and `love' of other women.
Yes, only women exist in a woman's world. The women she meets at church, at parent-teacher meetings, or in the supermarket; the women with whom she chats over the garden fence; the women at parties or window-shopping in the more fashionable streets; those she apparently never seems to notice - these women are the measure of her success or failure. Women's standards correspond to those in other women's heads, not to those in the heads of men; it is their judgment that really counts, not that of men. A simple word of praise from another woman - and all those clumsy, inadequate male compliments fall by the wayside, for they are just praises out of the mouths of amateurs. Men really have no idea in what kind of world women live in; their hymns of praise miss all the vital points.
Of course woman wants to please man as well: don't let us forget, after all, that he provides the material means. But that is much more easily done. Men have been conditioned to react to a certain degree of differentiation: they expect women to conform to certain types of sex symbols created by make-up and other standard trappings: long hair, painted lips, tightfitting sweaters, miniskirts, sheer stockings, high heels - all done in a moment.
It is those living works of art which are beyond man's comprehension - those creatures walking the fashionable streets of Paris, Rome, and New York. The skill of eyeliner and shadow expertly applied; the choice of lipstick and its application, with or without lipbrush, in several layers or only in one; the compromise to be achieved between the pros and cons of false eyelashes, the matching of a dress, a stole, or a coat with the lighting - all this is an art requiring expert knowledge of which man hasno conception. A man lacks any kind of appreciation for this. He has not learnt to interpret the extent of female masquerades and he cannot possibly evaluate these walking works of art. To achieve perfection in such skill needs time, money, and an infinitely limited mind - all these requirements are met by women.
In fact, when a woman dresses, she considers a man to a slight extent - the extent necessary to hold him and to encourage him to provide (in the widest sense) for her. Every other investment is aimed at other women. Man has importance only as the provider.
If a firm wants to get hold of a specialist in some field, it will flatter and entice him in every possible way until he weakens. Once the contract is signed, his employers can relax. Their leverage over him continues to increase. A woman behaves in much the same way with a man. She gives her man just enough rope to ensure his preferring life by her side to breaking his contract with her.
A woman may, in fact, be compared to a firm in a number of ways. After all, a firm is only an impersonal system aimed at achieving a maximum profit. And what else does a woman do? Without any emotion - love, hate, or malice - she is bound to the man who works for her. Feelings become involved only if he threatens to leave her. Then her livelihood is at stake. As this is a rational reaction with a rational cause, it can be rationally dealt with and adjusted to. She can always place another man under contract. How different is her reaction from those of a man who finds himself in a similar position. He is racked by jealousy, humiliation and self-pity - but she is emotionless.
A woman would hardly ever feel jealous in such a situation, since the man is leaving her only for another woman and not in order to be free. In her eyes he is not improving his position in any way. The adventure of a man's love for a new woman is nothing more than a nuisance. She is seeing it all from the angle of the entrepreneur who loses his best worker to a competitor. As far as a woman is concerned, the heartache involved is nothing more than a reaction to letting good business go elsewhere.
Consequently, it is quite absurd for any man to think his wife is being faithful merely because she does not go off with other men - men who, in his eyes, are more attractive. Provided he is working hard and is supplying all the things that really matter to her, why should she? A woman's faithfulness has nothing in common with that of a man. Women are, in contrast to men, practically immune to the looks of the opposite sex. If a woman flirts with her husband's best friend, her intention is to annoy his wife, whose feelings do matter, unlike those of her own husband. If she felt deeply about the man in question, she would never show her emotions in public.
In pluralistic sex practices such as wife-swapping, which has now taken over from flirtation as a pastime, it is the other wife who is the object of attack. History is full of anecdotes about male potentates enjoying themselves with many mistresses at the same time, but there are few such stories about female potentates. A woman would be bored to tears with an all-male harem. This has always been the case and will remain so.
[Source: Esther Vilar - The Manipulated Man]
Of course, a woman will always be pleased if a man turns to look at her - and if he is well dressed or drives an expensive sports car, so much the better. Her pleasure may be compared to that of a shareholder who finds that his stocks have risen. It will be a matter of complete indifference to a woman if he is attractive or looks intelligent. A shareholder is hardly likely to notice the color of his dividend checks.
But if another woman should turn to look - a rare occurrence, for her own judgment is infinitely more remorseless than that of a man - her day is made. She has achieved the impossible - the recognition, admiration, and `love' of other women.
Yes, only women exist in a woman's world. The women she meets at church, at parent-teacher meetings, or in the supermarket; the women with whom she chats over the garden fence; the women at parties or window-shopping in the more fashionable streets; those she apparently never seems to notice - these women are the measure of her success or failure. Women's standards correspond to those in other women's heads, not to those in the heads of men; it is their judgment that really counts, not that of men. A simple word of praise from another woman - and all those clumsy, inadequate male compliments fall by the wayside, for they are just praises out of the mouths of amateurs. Men really have no idea in what kind of world women live in; their hymns of praise miss all the vital points.
Of course woman wants to please man as well: don't let us forget, after all, that he provides the material means. But that is much more easily done. Men have been conditioned to react to a certain degree of differentiation: they expect women to conform to certain types of sex symbols created by make-up and other standard trappings: long hair, painted lips, tightfitting sweaters, miniskirts, sheer stockings, high heels - all done in a moment.
It is those living works of art which are beyond man's comprehension - those creatures walking the fashionable streets of Paris, Rome, and New York. The skill of eyeliner and shadow expertly applied; the choice of lipstick and its application, with or without lipbrush, in several layers or only in one; the compromise to be achieved between the pros and cons of false eyelashes, the matching of a dress, a stole, or a coat with the lighting - all this is an art requiring expert knowledge of which man hasno conception. A man lacks any kind of appreciation for this. He has not learnt to interpret the extent of female masquerades and he cannot possibly evaluate these walking works of art. To achieve perfection in such skill needs time, money, and an infinitely limited mind - all these requirements are met by women.
In fact, when a woman dresses, she considers a man to a slight extent - the extent necessary to hold him and to encourage him to provide (in the widest sense) for her. Every other investment is aimed at other women. Man has importance only as the provider.
If a firm wants to get hold of a specialist in some field, it will flatter and entice him in every possible way until he weakens. Once the contract is signed, his employers can relax. Their leverage over him continues to increase. A woman behaves in much the same way with a man. She gives her man just enough rope to ensure his preferring life by her side to breaking his contract with her.
A woman may, in fact, be compared to a firm in a number of ways. After all, a firm is only an impersonal system aimed at achieving a maximum profit. And what else does a woman do? Without any emotion - love, hate, or malice - she is bound to the man who works for her. Feelings become involved only if he threatens to leave her. Then her livelihood is at stake. As this is a rational reaction with a rational cause, it can be rationally dealt with and adjusted to. She can always place another man under contract. How different is her reaction from those of a man who finds himself in a similar position. He is racked by jealousy, humiliation and self-pity - but she is emotionless.
A woman would hardly ever feel jealous in such a situation, since the man is leaving her only for another woman and not in order to be free. In her eyes he is not improving his position in any way. The adventure of a man's love for a new woman is nothing more than a nuisance. She is seeing it all from the angle of the entrepreneur who loses his best worker to a competitor. As far as a woman is concerned, the heartache involved is nothing more than a reaction to letting good business go elsewhere.
Consequently, it is quite absurd for any man to think his wife is being faithful merely because she does not go off with other men - men who, in his eyes, are more attractive. Provided he is working hard and is supplying all the things that really matter to her, why should she? A woman's faithfulness has nothing in common with that of a man. Women are, in contrast to men, practically immune to the looks of the opposite sex. If a woman flirts with her husband's best friend, her intention is to annoy his wife, whose feelings do matter, unlike those of her own husband. If she felt deeply about the man in question, she would never show her emotions in public.
In pluralistic sex practices such as wife-swapping, which has now taken over from flirtation as a pastime, it is the other wife who is the object of attack. History is full of anecdotes about male potentates enjoying themselves with many mistresses at the same time, but there are few such stories about female potentates. A woman would be bored to tears with an all-male harem. This has always been the case and will remain so.
[Source: Esther Vilar - The Manipulated Man]
Technology
Life offers the human being two choices: animal existence - a lower order of life - and spiritual existence. In general, a woman will choose the former and opt for physical well-being, a place to breed, and an opportunity to indulge unhindered in her breeding habits.
At birth, men and women have the same intellectual potential; there is no primary difference in intelligence between the sexes. It is also a fact that potential left to stagnate will atrophy. Women do not use their mental capacity: they deliberately let it disintegrate. After a few years of sporadic training, they revert to a state of irreversible mental torpor.
Why do women not make use of their intellectual potential? For the simple reason that they do not need to. It is not essential for their survival. Theoretically it is possible for a beautiful woman to have less intelligence than a chimpanzee and still be considered an acceptable member of society.
By the age of twelve at the latest, most women have decided to become prostitutes. Or, to put it another way they have planned a future for themselves which consists of choosing a man and letting him do all the work. In return for his support, they are prepared to let him make use of their vagina at certain given intervals. The minute a woman has made this decision she ceases to develop her mind. She may, of course, go on to obtain various degrees and diplomas. These increase her market value in the eyes of men, for men believe that a woman who can recite things by heart must also know and understand them. But any real possibility of communication between the sexes ceases at this point. Their paths are divided forever.
One of man's worst mistakes, and one he makes over and over again, is to assume that woman is his equal, that is, a human being of equal mental and emotional capacity. A man may observe his wife, listen to her, judge her feelings by her reactions, but in all this he is judging her only by outward symptoms, for he is using his own scale of values.
He knows what he would say, think and do if he were in her shoes. When he looks at her depressing ways of doing things, he assumes there must be something that prevents her from doing what he himself would have done in her position. This is natural, as he considers himself the measure of all things - and rightly so - if humans define themselves as beings capable of abstract thought.
When a man sees a woman spending hours cooking, washing dishes and cleaning, it never occurs to him that such jobs probably make her quite happy since they are exactly at her mental level. Instead he assumes that this drudgery prevents her from doing all those things which he himself considers worthwhile and desirable. Therefore, he invents automatic dishwashers, vacuum cleaners, and precooked foods to make her life easier and to allow her to lead the dream life he himself longs for.
But he will be disappointed: rarely using the time she has gained to take an active interest in history, politics or astrophysics, woman bakes cakes, irons underclothes and makes ruffles and frills for blouses or, if she is especially enterprising, covers her bathroom with flower decals. It is natural, therefore, that man assumes such things to be the essential ingredients of gracious living. This idea must have been instilled by woman, as he himself really doesn't mind if his cakes are store bought, his underpants unironed, or his bathroom devoid of flowery patterns. He invents cake mixes to liberate her from drudgery, automatic irons and toilet-paper holders already covered with flower patterns to make gracious living easier to attain - and still women take no interest in serious literature, politics, or the conquest of the universe. For her, this newfound leisure comes just at the right moment. At last she can take in herself: since a longing after intellectual achievements is alien to her, she concentrates on her external appearance.
Yet even this occupation is acceptable to man. He really loves his wife and wants her happiness more than anything in the world. Therefore he produces non-smear lipstick, waterproof mascara, home permanents, no-iron frilly blouses and throwaway underwear - always with the same aim in view. In the end, he hopes, this being whose needs seem to him so much sensitive, so much more refined, will gain freedom - freedom to achieve in her life the ideal state which is his dream: to live the life of a free man.
Then he sits back and waits. Finally, as woman does not come to him of her own free will, he tries to tempt her into his world. He offers her coeducation, so that she is accustomed to his way of life from childhood. With all sorts of excuses, he gets her to attend his universities and initiates her into the mysteries of his own discoveries, hoping to awaken her interest in the wonders of life. He gives her access to the very last male strongholds, thereby relinquishing traditions sacred to him by encouraging her to make use of her right to vote in the hope she will change the systems of government he has managed to think up so laboriously, according to her own ideas. Possibly he even hopes that she will be able to create peace in the world - for, in his opinion, women are a pacifist influence.
In all this he is so determined and pigheaded that he fails to see what a fool he is making of himself - ridiculous by his own standards, not those of women, who have absolutely no sense of humor.
No, women do not laugh at men. At most they get irritated. The old institutions of house and home are not yet so obviously outdated and derelict that they can't justify relinquishing all their intellectual pursuits and renouncing all their claims to better jobs. One does wonder, however, what will happen when housework is still further mechanized, when there are enough good nursery schools nearby, or when - as must occur before long - men discover that children themselves are not essential.
If only man would stop for one moment in his heedless rush toward progress and think about this state of affairs, he would inevitably realize that his efforts to give woman a sense of mental stimulation have been totally in vain. It is true that woman gets progressively more elegant, more well-groomed, more `cultured,' but her demands on life will always be material, never intellectual.
Has she ever made use of the mental processes he teaches at his universities to develop her own theories? Does she do independent research in the institutes he has thrown open to her? Someday it will dawn on man that woman does not read the wonderful books with which he has filled his libraries. And though she may well admire his marvelous works of art in museums, she herself will rarely create, onlycopy. Even the plays and films, visual exhortations to woman on her own level to liberate herself, are judged only by their entertainment value. They will never be a first step to revolution.
When a man, believing woman his equal, realizes the futility of her way of life, he naturally tends to think that it must be his fault, that he must be suppressing her. But in our time women are no longer subject to the will of men. Quite the contrary. They have been given every opportunity to win their independence and if, after all this time, they have not liberated themselves and thrown off their shackles, we can only arrive at one conclusion: there are no shackles to throw off.
It is true that men love women, but they also despise them. Anyone who gets up in the morning fresh and ready to conquer new worlds (with infrequent success, admittedly, because he has to earn a living) is bound to despise someone who simply isn't interested in such pursuits. Contempt may even be one of the main reasons for his efforts to further the mental development of a woman. He feels ashamed of her and assumes that she, too, must be ashamed of herself So, being a gentleman, he tries to help.
Men seem incapable of realizing that women entirely lack ambition, desire for knowledge and need to prove themselves, all things which, to him, are a matter of course. They allow men to live in a world apart because they do not want to join them. Why should they? The sort of independence men have means nothing to women, because women don't feel dependent. They are not even embarrassed by the intellectual superiority of men because they have no ambition in that direction.
[Source: Esther Vilar - The Manipulated Man]
At birth, men and women have the same intellectual potential; there is no primary difference in intelligence between the sexes. It is also a fact that potential left to stagnate will atrophy. Women do not use their mental capacity: they deliberately let it disintegrate. After a few years of sporadic training, they revert to a state of irreversible mental torpor.
Why do women not make use of their intellectual potential? For the simple reason that they do not need to. It is not essential for their survival. Theoretically it is possible for a beautiful woman to have less intelligence than a chimpanzee and still be considered an acceptable member of society.
By the age of twelve at the latest, most women have decided to become prostitutes. Or, to put it another way they have planned a future for themselves which consists of choosing a man and letting him do all the work. In return for his support, they are prepared to let him make use of their vagina at certain given intervals. The minute a woman has made this decision she ceases to develop her mind. She may, of course, go on to obtain various degrees and diplomas. These increase her market value in the eyes of men, for men believe that a woman who can recite things by heart must also know and understand them. But any real possibility of communication between the sexes ceases at this point. Their paths are divided forever.
One of man's worst mistakes, and one he makes over and over again, is to assume that woman is his equal, that is, a human being of equal mental and emotional capacity. A man may observe his wife, listen to her, judge her feelings by her reactions, but in all this he is judging her only by outward symptoms, for he is using his own scale of values.
He knows what he would say, think and do if he were in her shoes. When he looks at her depressing ways of doing things, he assumes there must be something that prevents her from doing what he himself would have done in her position. This is natural, as he considers himself the measure of all things - and rightly so - if humans define themselves as beings capable of abstract thought.
When a man sees a woman spending hours cooking, washing dishes and cleaning, it never occurs to him that such jobs probably make her quite happy since they are exactly at her mental level. Instead he assumes that this drudgery prevents her from doing all those things which he himself considers worthwhile and desirable. Therefore, he invents automatic dishwashers, vacuum cleaners, and precooked foods to make her life easier and to allow her to lead the dream life he himself longs for.
But he will be disappointed: rarely using the time she has gained to take an active interest in history, politics or astrophysics, woman bakes cakes, irons underclothes and makes ruffles and frills for blouses or, if she is especially enterprising, covers her bathroom with flower decals. It is natural, therefore, that man assumes such things to be the essential ingredients of gracious living. This idea must have been instilled by woman, as he himself really doesn't mind if his cakes are store bought, his underpants unironed, or his bathroom devoid of flowery patterns. He invents cake mixes to liberate her from drudgery, automatic irons and toilet-paper holders already covered with flower patterns to make gracious living easier to attain - and still women take no interest in serious literature, politics, or the conquest of the universe. For her, this newfound leisure comes just at the right moment. At last she can take in herself: since a longing after intellectual achievements is alien to her, she concentrates on her external appearance.
Yet even this occupation is acceptable to man. He really loves his wife and wants her happiness more than anything in the world. Therefore he produces non-smear lipstick, waterproof mascara, home permanents, no-iron frilly blouses and throwaway underwear - always with the same aim in view. In the end, he hopes, this being whose needs seem to him so much sensitive, so much more refined, will gain freedom - freedom to achieve in her life the ideal state which is his dream: to live the life of a free man.
Then he sits back and waits. Finally, as woman does not come to him of her own free will, he tries to tempt her into his world. He offers her coeducation, so that she is accustomed to his way of life from childhood. With all sorts of excuses, he gets her to attend his universities and initiates her into the mysteries of his own discoveries, hoping to awaken her interest in the wonders of life. He gives her access to the very last male strongholds, thereby relinquishing traditions sacred to him by encouraging her to make use of her right to vote in the hope she will change the systems of government he has managed to think up so laboriously, according to her own ideas. Possibly he even hopes that she will be able to create peace in the world - for, in his opinion, women are a pacifist influence.
In all this he is so determined and pigheaded that he fails to see what a fool he is making of himself - ridiculous by his own standards, not those of women, who have absolutely no sense of humor.
No, women do not laugh at men. At most they get irritated. The old institutions of house and home are not yet so obviously outdated and derelict that they can't justify relinquishing all their intellectual pursuits and renouncing all their claims to better jobs. One does wonder, however, what will happen when housework is still further mechanized, when there are enough good nursery schools nearby, or when - as must occur before long - men discover that children themselves are not essential.
If only man would stop for one moment in his heedless rush toward progress and think about this state of affairs, he would inevitably realize that his efforts to give woman a sense of mental stimulation have been totally in vain. It is true that woman gets progressively more elegant, more well-groomed, more `cultured,' but her demands on life will always be material, never intellectual.
Has she ever made use of the mental processes he teaches at his universities to develop her own theories? Does she do independent research in the institutes he has thrown open to her? Someday it will dawn on man that woman does not read the wonderful books with which he has filled his libraries. And though she may well admire his marvelous works of art in museums, she herself will rarely create, onlycopy. Even the plays and films, visual exhortations to woman on her own level to liberate herself, are judged only by their entertainment value. They will never be a first step to revolution.
When a man, believing woman his equal, realizes the futility of her way of life, he naturally tends to think that it must be his fault, that he must be suppressing her. But in our time women are no longer subject to the will of men. Quite the contrary. They have been given every opportunity to win their independence and if, after all this time, they have not liberated themselves and thrown off their shackles, we can only arrive at one conclusion: there are no shackles to throw off.
It is true that men love women, but they also despise them. Anyone who gets up in the morning fresh and ready to conquer new worlds (with infrequent success, admittedly, because he has to earn a living) is bound to despise someone who simply isn't interested in such pursuits. Contempt may even be one of the main reasons for his efforts to further the mental development of a woman. He feels ashamed of her and assumes that she, too, must be ashamed of herself So, being a gentleman, he tries to help.
Men seem incapable of realizing that women entirely lack ambition, desire for knowledge and need to prove themselves, all things which, to him, are a matter of course. They allow men to live in a world apart because they do not want to join them. Why should they? The sort of independence men have means nothing to women, because women don't feel dependent. They are not even embarrassed by the intellectual superiority of men because they have no ambition in that direction.
[Source: Esther Vilar - The Manipulated Man]
"Global Warming" war
First was the "cancer war". Then we had the "drug war". Now we have the "terrorist war". Next one is the "grobal warming war".
The following are exerpts of Robert Murray - Global Warming, Getting to the bottom of it.
Fallacies about Global Warming
It is widely alleged that the science of global warming is `settled'. This implies that all the major scientific aspects of climate change are well understood and uncontroversial, and that scientists are now just mopping up unimportant details. The allegation is profoundly untrue: for example the US alone is said to be spending more than $4 billion annually on climate research, which is a lot to pay for detailing; and great uncertainty and argument surround many of the principles of climate change, and especially the magnitude of any human causation for warming. Worse still, not only is the science not `settled', but its discussion in the public domain is contaminated by many fallacies, which leads directly to the great public confusion that is observed. This paper explains the eight most common fallacies that underpin public discussion of the hypothesis that dangerous global warming is caused by human greenhouse gas emissions.
1 - Scientists have accurate historical temperature data
Historical temperature records taken near the surface of the Earth are subject to various biases and recording errors that render them incorrect. In the early days thermometers could only show the temperature at the moment of reading and so the data recorded from that time was for just one reading each day. Later the thermometers were able to record the minimum and maximum temperatures, and so the daily readings were those extremes in the 24 hour period. Only in the last 20 or 30 years have instruments been available that record the temperature at regular intervals throughout the 24 hours, thus allowing a true time-based daily average to be calculated. The so-called `average' temperatures both published and frequently plotted through time are initially based on only a single daily value, then later on the mathematical average of the minimum and maximum temperatures. Although time-based averages are now available for some regions they are not generally used because the better instrumentation is not uniformly installed throughout the world and the historical data is at best a mathematical average of two values. The problem is that these averages are easily distorted by brief periods of high or low temperatures relative to the rest of the day, such as a brief period with less cloud cover or a short period of cold wind or rain. Another serious problem is that thermometers are often located where human activity can directly influence the local temperature. This is not only the urban heat island (UHI) effect, where heat generated by traffic, industry and private homes and then trapped by the manmade physical environment causes elevated temperatures. There is also a land use effect, where human activity has modified the microclimate of the local environment through buildings or changes such as land clearing or agriculture. Only recently have the climatic impacts of these human changes started to receive detailed scrutiny, but many older meteorological records are inescapably contaminated by them. The integrity of some important historical data is also undermined by reports that various Chinese weather stations that were claimed to be in unchanged locations from 1954 to 1983 had in fact moved, with one station moving 5 times and up to 41 kilometres. The extent of this problem on a global scale is unknown but worrying, because shifts of less than 500 metres are known to cause a significant change in recordings. The observed minimum and maximum temperatures that are recorded, albeit with the inclusion of possible local human influences, are sent to one or more of the three agencies that calculate the `average global temperature' (NASA, NOAA, UK Hadley Centre). These agencies produce corrected data, and graphs that depict a significant increase in average global temperature over the last 30 years. However, this apparent rise may at least partly result from the various distortions of surface temperature measurements described above. No-one has independently verified the temperature records, not least because full disclosure of methods and data is not made and the responsible agencies appear very reluctant to allow such auditing to occur. In reality, there is no guarantee, and perhaps not even a strong likelihood, that the thermometer-based temperature measurements truly reflect the average local temperatures free from any distortions. There is also no proof that the calculations of average global temperatures are consistent and accurate. For example, it is known that at least two of the three leading climate agencies use very different data handling methods and it follows that at least one of them is likely to be incorrect. It is stating the obvious to say that if we don't know what the global average temperature has been and currently is, then it is difficult to argue that the world is warming at all, let alone to understand to what degree any alleged change has a human cause.
2 - Temperature trends are meaningful and can be extrapolated
That temperature trends plotted over decades are meaningful, and understood to the degree that they can be projected, is one of the greatest fallacies in the claims about man-made global warming. Any trend depends heavily upon the choice of start and end points. A judicious selection of such points for can create a wide variety of trends. For example, according to the annual average temperatures from Britain's CRU:
trend for 1900-2006 = 0.72 °C/century
trend for 1945-2006 = 1.05 °C/century
trend for 1975-2006 = 1.87 °C/century,
None of these trends is any more correct than either of the others. Despite the common use of temperature trends in scientific and public discussion, they cannot be used to illustrate possible human greenhouse influences on temperature unless episodic natural events, such as the powerful El Nino of 1998, are taken into account and corrected for. Trends cannot be extrapolated meaningfully unless scientists: (a) Thoroughly understand all relevant climate factors; (b) Are confident that the trends in each individual factor will continue; and (c) Are confident that interactions between factors will not cause a disruption to the overall trend. The IPCC's Third Assessment Report of 2001 listed 11 possible climate factors and indicated that the level of scientific understanding was `very low' for 7 of them and `low' for another. No similar listing appears in the recent Fourth Assessment Report, but it does contain a list of factors relevant to the absorption and emission of radiation that shows that the level of scientific knowledge of several of those factors is still quite low. Scientists are still struggling even to understand the influence of clouds on temperature. Observational data shows that low-level cloud outside the tropics has decreased since 1998, but scientists cannot be certain that the decreasing trend will continue, nor what such a decrease would mean. Perhaps clouds act as a natural thermostat and higher temperatures will ultimately create more clouds and this will have a cooling effect. Again, if random natural events dictate the historical trend, then extrapolation of the trend makes no sense. Even if those natural events can be expected to continue in the future, their severity - which often dictates the short-term trend - is unknowable.
3 - The accuracy of climate models can be determined from their output
A common practice among climate scientists is to compare the output of their climate models to historical data from meteorological observations. (In fact the models are usually `adjusted' to match that historical data as closely as possible, but let's ignore that for now.) The accuracy of a model is determined by the accuracy with which it simulates each climatic factor and climatic process rather than the closeness of the match between its output and the historical data. If the internal processing is correct then so too will be the output, but apparently accurate output does not confer accuracy on the internal processes. Two issues to watch are: (a) The combination of a number of inaccuracies can produce acceptable output if calculations that are `too high' counterbalance those that are `too low' (b) If the internal processes are largely based on data that changes almost immediately as a consequence of a change in temperature, then the output of the model will probably appear accurate when compared to historical data, but it will be of no benefit for predicting future changes.
4 - The consensus among scientists is decisive (or even important)
The extent of a claimed consensus that dangerous human-caused global warming is occurring is unknown and the claim of consensus is unsupported by any objective data. However, this is irrelevant because by its nature any consensus is a product of opinions, not facts. Though consensus determines legal and political decisions in most countries, this simply reflects the number of persons who interpret data in a certain way or who have been influenced by the opinions of others. Consensus does not confer accuracy or `rightness'. Scientific matters are certainly not settled by consensus. Einstein pointed out that hundreds of people agreeing with him were of no relevance, because it would take just one person to prove him wrong. Science as a whole, and its near neighbor medicine, are replete with examples of individuals or small groups of researchers successfully undermining the prevailing popular theories of the day. This is not to say that individuals or small groups who hold maverick views are always correct, but it is to say that even the most widelyheld opinions should never be regarded as an ultimate truth. Science is about observation, experiment and the testing of hypotheses, not consensus.
5 - The dominance of scientific papers on a certain subject establishes a truth
This fallacy is closely related to the previous discussion of consensus, but here the impact is an indirect consequence of a dominant opinion. Funding for scientific research has moved towards being determined by consensus, because where public monies are concerned the issue ultimately comes back to an opinion as to whether the research is likely to be fruitful. Prior to the last 20 or 30 years, research was driven principally by scientific curiosity. That science research funding has now become results-oriented has had a dramatic, negative impact on the usefulness of many scientific results. For, ironically, pursuing science that is thought by politician to be `important' or `in the public interest' often results in science accomplishments that are conformist and fashionable rather than independent and truly useful. Targeting of `useful' research strongly constricts the range of scientific papers that are produced. A general perception may arise that few scientists disagree with the dominant opinion, whereas the reality may be that papers that reject the popular opinion are difficult to find simply because of the weight of funding, and hence the research effort, that is tailored towards the conventional wisdom. Science generally progresses by advancing on the work that has gone before, and the usual practice is to cite several existing papers to establish the basis for one's work. Again the dominance of papers that adhere to a conventional wisdom can put major obstacles in the way of the emergence of any counter-paradigm.
6 - Peer-reviewed papers are true and accurate
The peer-review process was established for the benefit of editors who did not have good knowledge across all the fields that their journals addressed. It provided a `sanity check' to avoid the risk of publishing papers which were so outlandish that the journal would be ridiculed and lose its reputation. In principle this notion seems entirely reasonable, but it neglects certain aspects of human nature, especially the tendency for reviewers to defend their own (earlier) papers, and indirectly their reputations, against challengers. Peer review also ignores the strong tendency for papers that disagree with a popular hypothesis, one the reviewer understands and perhaps supports, to receive a closer and often hostile scrutiny. Reviewers are selected from practitioners in the field, but many scientific fields are so small that the reviewers will know the authors. The reviewers may even have worked with the authors in the past or wish to work with them in future, so the objectivity of any review is likely to be tainted by this association. Some journals now request that authors suggest appropriate reviewers but this is a sure way to identify reviewers who will be favourable to certain propositions. It also follows that if the editor of a journal wishes to reject a paper, then it will be sent to a reviewer who is likely to reject it, whereas a paper that the editor favours to be published will be sent to a reviewer who is expected to be sympathetic. In 2002 the editor-in-chief of the journal `Science' announced that there was no longer any doubt that human activity was changing climate, so what are the realistic chances of this journal publishing a paper that suggests otherwise? The popular notion is that reviewers should be skilled in the relevant field, but a scientific field like climate change is so broad, and encompasses so many sub-disciplines, that it really requires the use of expert reviewers from many different fields. That this is seldom undertaken explains why so many initially influential climate papers have later been found to be fundamentally flawed. In theory, reviewers should be able to understand and replicate the processing used by the author(s). In practice, climate science has numerous examples where authors of highly influential papers have refused to reveal their complete set of data or the processing methods that they used. Even worse, the journals in question not only allowed this to happen, but have subsequently defended the lack of disclosure when other researchers attempted to replicate the work.
7 - The IPCC is a reliable authority and its reports are both correct and widely endorsed by all scientists
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) undertakes no research for itself and relies on peerreviewed scientific papers in reputable journals (see item 6). There is strong evidence that the IPCC is very selective of the papers it wishes to cite and pays scant regard to papers that do not adhere to the notion that man-made emissions of carbon dioxide have caused warming. Four more issues noted above are also very relevant to the IPCC procedures. The IPCC reports are based on historical temperature data and trends (see 1 & 2), and the attribution of warming to human activities relies very heavily on climate modelling (see item 3). The IPCC pronouncements have a powerful influence on the direction and funding of scientific research into climate change, which in turn influences the number of research papers on these topics. Ultimately, and in entirely circular fashion, this leads the IPCC to report that large numbers of papers support a certain hypothesis (see item 5). These fallacies alone are major defects of the IPCC reports, but the problems do not end there. Other distortions and fallacies of the IPCC are of its own doing. Governments appoint experts to work with the IPCC but once appointed those experts can directly invite other experts to join them. This practice obviously can, and does, lead to a situation where the IPCC is heavily biased towards the philosophies and ideologies of certain governments or science groups. The lead authors of the chapters of the IPCC reports can themselves be researchers whose work is cited in those chapters. This was the case with the so-called `hockey stick' temperature graph in the Third Assessment Report (TAR) published in 2001. The paper in which the graph first appeared was not subject to proper and independent peer review, despite which the graph was prominently featured in a chapter for which the co-creator of the graph was a lead author. The graph was debunked in 2006 and has been omitted without explanation from the Fourth Assessment Report (4AR) of 2007. The IPCC has often said words to the effect `We don't know what else can be causing warming so it must be humans' (or `the climate models will only produce the correct result if we include man-made influences'), but at the same time the IPCC says that scientists have a low level of understanding of many climate factors. It logically follows that if any natural climate factors are poorly understood then they cannot be properly modelled, the output of the models will probably be incorrect and that natural forces cannot easily be dismissed as possible causes. In these circumstances it is simply dishonest to unequivocally blame late 20th century warming on human activity. The IPCC implies that its reports are thoroughly reviewed by thousands of experts. Any impression that thousands of scientists review every word of the reports can be shown to be untrue by an examination of the review comments for the report by IPCC Working Group I. (This report is crucial, because it discusses historical observations, attributes a likely cause of change and attempts to predict global and regional changes. The reports by working groups 2 and 3 draw heavily on the findings of this WG I report.) The analysis of the WG I report for the 4AR revealed that: (a) A total of just 308 reviewers (including reviewers acting on behalf of governments) examined the 11 chapters of the WGI I report (b) An average of 67 reviewers examined each chapter of this report with no chapter being examined by more than 100 reviewers and one by as few as 34. (c) 69% of reviewers commented on less than 3 chapters of the 11-chapter report. (46% of reviewers commented on just one chapter and 23% on two chapters, thus accounting for more than two-thirds of all reviewers.) (d) Just 5 reviewers examined all 11 chapters and two of these were recorded as `Govt of (country)', which may represent a team of reviewers rather than individuals (e) Every chapter had review comments from a subset of the designated authors for the chapter, which suggests that the authoring process may not have been diligent and inclusive. Chapter 9 was the key chapter because it attributed a change in climate to human activity but:
(a) Just 62 individuals or government appointed reviewers commented on this chapter
(b) A large number of reviewers had a vested interest in the content of this chapter
- 7 reviewers were `contributing editors' of the same chapter
- 3 were overall editors of the Working Group I report
- 26 were authors or co-authors of papers cited in the final draft
- 8 reviewers were noted as `Govt of ...' indicating one or more reviewers who were appointed by those governments (and sometimes the same comments appear under individual names as well as for the government in question)
- Only 25 individual reviewers appeared to have no vested interest in this chapter
(c) The number of comments from each reviewer varied greatly
- 27 reviewers made just 1 or 2 comments but those making more than 2 comments often drew attention to typographical errors, grammatical errors, mistakes in citing certain papers or inconsistencies with other chapters, so how thorough were these reviews with very few comments?
- only 18 reviewers made more than 10 comments on the entire 122-page second order draft report (98 pages of text, 24 of figures) and 9 of those 18 had a vested interest
(d) Just four reviewers, including one government appointed team or individual, explicitly endorsed the entire chapter in its draft form - not thousands of scientists, but FOUR! The claim that the IPCC's 4th Assessment Report carries the imprimatur of having been reviewed by thousands, or even hundreds, of expert and independent scientists is incorrect, and even risible. In actuality, the report represents the view of small and self-selected science coteries that formed the lead authoring teams. More independent scientists of standing signed a public letter to the Prime Minister of Canada cautioning against the assumption of human causation of warming than are listed as authors of the 4AR Summary for Policymakers. More than 50 scientists also reviewed the Independent Summary for Policymakers, the counterview to the IPCC's summary that was published by the Fraser Institute of Canada.
8 - It has been proven that human emissions of carbon dioxide have caused global warming
The first question to be answered is whether the Earth is warming at all. As the discussion of fallacy 1 showed, there is no certainty that this is the case. But even were warming to be demonstrated, and assuming a reasonable correlation between an increase in carbon dioxide and an increase in temperature, that does not mean that the former has driven the latter. Good evidence exists from thousands of years ago that carbon dioxide levels rose only after the temperature increased, so why should we assume that the order is somehow reversed today? The IPCC claims a subjective 90% to 95% probability that emissions of carbon dioxide have caused warming but that assumes (a) that warming has occurred, (b) that such a subjective probability can be assigned and is meaningful, and (c) that because existing climate models cannot produce correct results without including some `human' influence, then the only allowable explanation is that humans have caused warming. Remarkably these claims are accompanied by an admission that the level of scientific understanding of many climate factors is quite low. This means that the IPCC's claim for dangerous human-caused warming rests primarily on the output of climate models that are unvalidated and recognized to be incomplete. The other foundation for the claim of dangerous warming is based upon laboratory work and theoretical physics regarding the ability of molecules of carbon dioxide to absorb heat and re-transmit it. Using these principles, and ignoring other factors, it can be shown that an increase in carbon dioxide beyond pre-industrial levels will cause a very small increase in temperature and that the warming will become less as the concentration of carbon dioxide increases. However, these principles were developed in laboratory environments that don't match the complexity of real world climate, and the `other factors' that are ignored are actually an integral part of the climate system. With few exceptions, the actions and interactions of these factors are poorly understood. Moreover, empirical tests of the amount of warming that will be caused by a doubling of human emissions suggest a non-alarming figure of only about 1 deg. C. One major stumbling block for the hypothesis that carbon dioxide has caused significant warming is that since continuous and direct measurements of carbon dioxide began in 1958 global temperatures have both risen and fallen while at all times the concentration of carbon dioxide continued to rise. It would seem that if carbon dioxide is causing any warming at all then it is easily overwhelmed by other, probably quite natural, climate forces. Scientists are continuing to investigate the possible impacts of solar forces on climate and in some cases have shown strong correlations. Other scientists are questioning whether cosmic rays may influence the formation of clouds that then control the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth's surface. Changes in ozone have also been proposed as drivers of climate. That all three of these issues are actively being explored gives the lie to claims that climate science is settled and that carbon dioxide is known to be the sole major cause of recent climatic warming. Very recently several scientists have said words to the effect `Yes, the natural forces do drive the climate but we believe that carbon dioxide adds to the warming', though they notably refrain from defining how much warming the carbon dioxide may have caused. The reality is that there is no clear evidence that human emissions of carbon dioxide have any measurable effect on temperatures. Such a claim rests on climate models of unproven accuracy and on lines of physical argument that expressly exclude consideration of other known important drivers of climate change.
Conclusions
The hypothesis of dangerous human-caused warming caused by CO2 emission is embroiled in uncertainties of the fundamental science and its interpretation, and by fallacious public discussion. It is utterly bizarre that, in face of this reality, public funding of many billions of dollars is still being provided for climate change research. It is even more bizarre that most governments, urged on by environmental NGSs and other self-interested parties, have either already introduced carbon taxation or trading systems (Europe; some groups of US States), or have indicated a firm intention to do so (Australia). At its most basic, if scientists cannot be sure that temperatures are today rising, nor establish that the gentle late 20th century warming was caused by CO2 emissions, then it is nonsense to propose that expensive controls are needed on human carbon dioxide emissions.'
Reprinted from http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org
The following are exerpts of Robert Murray - Global Warming, Getting to the bottom of it.
Fallacies about Global Warming
It is widely alleged that the science of global warming is `settled'. This implies that all the major scientific aspects of climate change are well understood and uncontroversial, and that scientists are now just mopping up unimportant details. The allegation is profoundly untrue: for example the US alone is said to be spending more than $4 billion annually on climate research, which is a lot to pay for detailing; and great uncertainty and argument surround many of the principles of climate change, and especially the magnitude of any human causation for warming. Worse still, not only is the science not `settled', but its discussion in the public domain is contaminated by many fallacies, which leads directly to the great public confusion that is observed. This paper explains the eight most common fallacies that underpin public discussion of the hypothesis that dangerous global warming is caused by human greenhouse gas emissions.
1 - Scientists have accurate historical temperature data
Historical temperature records taken near the surface of the Earth are subject to various biases and recording errors that render them incorrect. In the early days thermometers could only show the temperature at the moment of reading and so the data recorded from that time was for just one reading each day. Later the thermometers were able to record the minimum and maximum temperatures, and so the daily readings were those extremes in the 24 hour period. Only in the last 20 or 30 years have instruments been available that record the temperature at regular intervals throughout the 24 hours, thus allowing a true time-based daily average to be calculated. The so-called `average' temperatures both published and frequently plotted through time are initially based on only a single daily value, then later on the mathematical average of the minimum and maximum temperatures. Although time-based averages are now available for some regions they are not generally used because the better instrumentation is not uniformly installed throughout the world and the historical data is at best a mathematical average of two values. The problem is that these averages are easily distorted by brief periods of high or low temperatures relative to the rest of the day, such as a brief period with less cloud cover or a short period of cold wind or rain. Another serious problem is that thermometers are often located where human activity can directly influence the local temperature. This is not only the urban heat island (UHI) effect, where heat generated by traffic, industry and private homes and then trapped by the manmade physical environment causes elevated temperatures. There is also a land use effect, where human activity has modified the microclimate of the local environment through buildings or changes such as land clearing or agriculture. Only recently have the climatic impacts of these human changes started to receive detailed scrutiny, but many older meteorological records are inescapably contaminated by them. The integrity of some important historical data is also undermined by reports that various Chinese weather stations that were claimed to be in unchanged locations from 1954 to 1983 had in fact moved, with one station moving 5 times and up to 41 kilometres. The extent of this problem on a global scale is unknown but worrying, because shifts of less than 500 metres are known to cause a significant change in recordings. The observed minimum and maximum temperatures that are recorded, albeit with the inclusion of possible local human influences, are sent to one or more of the three agencies that calculate the `average global temperature' (NASA, NOAA, UK Hadley Centre). These agencies produce corrected data, and graphs that depict a significant increase in average global temperature over the last 30 years. However, this apparent rise may at least partly result from the various distortions of surface temperature measurements described above. No-one has independently verified the temperature records, not least because full disclosure of methods and data is not made and the responsible agencies appear very reluctant to allow such auditing to occur. In reality, there is no guarantee, and perhaps not even a strong likelihood, that the thermometer-based temperature measurements truly reflect the average local temperatures free from any distortions. There is also no proof that the calculations of average global temperatures are consistent and accurate. For example, it is known that at least two of the three leading climate agencies use very different data handling methods and it follows that at least one of them is likely to be incorrect. It is stating the obvious to say that if we don't know what the global average temperature has been and currently is, then it is difficult to argue that the world is warming at all, let alone to understand to what degree any alleged change has a human cause.
2 - Temperature trends are meaningful and can be extrapolated
That temperature trends plotted over decades are meaningful, and understood to the degree that they can be projected, is one of the greatest fallacies in the claims about man-made global warming. Any trend depends heavily upon the choice of start and end points. A judicious selection of such points for can create a wide variety of trends. For example, according to the annual average temperatures from Britain's CRU:
trend for 1900-2006 = 0.72 °C/century
trend for 1945-2006 = 1.05 °C/century
trend for 1975-2006 = 1.87 °C/century,
None of these trends is any more correct than either of the others. Despite the common use of temperature trends in scientific and public discussion, they cannot be used to illustrate possible human greenhouse influences on temperature unless episodic natural events, such as the powerful El Nino of 1998, are taken into account and corrected for. Trends cannot be extrapolated meaningfully unless scientists: (a) Thoroughly understand all relevant climate factors; (b) Are confident that the trends in each individual factor will continue; and (c) Are confident that interactions between factors will not cause a disruption to the overall trend. The IPCC's Third Assessment Report of 2001 listed 11 possible climate factors and indicated that the level of scientific understanding was `very low' for 7 of them and `low' for another. No similar listing appears in the recent Fourth Assessment Report, but it does contain a list of factors relevant to the absorption and emission of radiation that shows that the level of scientific knowledge of several of those factors is still quite low. Scientists are still struggling even to understand the influence of clouds on temperature. Observational data shows that low-level cloud outside the tropics has decreased since 1998, but scientists cannot be certain that the decreasing trend will continue, nor what such a decrease would mean. Perhaps clouds act as a natural thermostat and higher temperatures will ultimately create more clouds and this will have a cooling effect. Again, if random natural events dictate the historical trend, then extrapolation of the trend makes no sense. Even if those natural events can be expected to continue in the future, their severity - which often dictates the short-term trend - is unknowable.
3 - The accuracy of climate models can be determined from their output
A common practice among climate scientists is to compare the output of their climate models to historical data from meteorological observations. (In fact the models are usually `adjusted' to match that historical data as closely as possible, but let's ignore that for now.) The accuracy of a model is determined by the accuracy with which it simulates each climatic factor and climatic process rather than the closeness of the match between its output and the historical data. If the internal processing is correct then so too will be the output, but apparently accurate output does not confer accuracy on the internal processes. Two issues to watch are: (a) The combination of a number of inaccuracies can produce acceptable output if calculations that are `too high' counterbalance those that are `too low' (b) If the internal processes are largely based on data that changes almost immediately as a consequence of a change in temperature, then the output of the model will probably appear accurate when compared to historical data, but it will be of no benefit for predicting future changes.
4 - The consensus among scientists is decisive (or even important)
The extent of a claimed consensus that dangerous human-caused global warming is occurring is unknown and the claim of consensus is unsupported by any objective data. However, this is irrelevant because by its nature any consensus is a product of opinions, not facts. Though consensus determines legal and political decisions in most countries, this simply reflects the number of persons who interpret data in a certain way or who have been influenced by the opinions of others. Consensus does not confer accuracy or `rightness'. Scientific matters are certainly not settled by consensus. Einstein pointed out that hundreds of people agreeing with him were of no relevance, because it would take just one person to prove him wrong. Science as a whole, and its near neighbor medicine, are replete with examples of individuals or small groups of researchers successfully undermining the prevailing popular theories of the day. This is not to say that individuals or small groups who hold maverick views are always correct, but it is to say that even the most widelyheld opinions should never be regarded as an ultimate truth. Science is about observation, experiment and the testing of hypotheses, not consensus.
5 - The dominance of scientific papers on a certain subject establishes a truth
This fallacy is closely related to the previous discussion of consensus, but here the impact is an indirect consequence of a dominant opinion. Funding for scientific research has moved towards being determined by consensus, because where public monies are concerned the issue ultimately comes back to an opinion as to whether the research is likely to be fruitful. Prior to the last 20 or 30 years, research was driven principally by scientific curiosity. That science research funding has now become results-oriented has had a dramatic, negative impact on the usefulness of many scientific results. For, ironically, pursuing science that is thought by politician to be `important' or `in the public interest' often results in science accomplishments that are conformist and fashionable rather than independent and truly useful. Targeting of `useful' research strongly constricts the range of scientific papers that are produced. A general perception may arise that few scientists disagree with the dominant opinion, whereas the reality may be that papers that reject the popular opinion are difficult to find simply because of the weight of funding, and hence the research effort, that is tailored towards the conventional wisdom. Science generally progresses by advancing on the work that has gone before, and the usual practice is to cite several existing papers to establish the basis for one's work. Again the dominance of papers that adhere to a conventional wisdom can put major obstacles in the way of the emergence of any counter-paradigm.
6 - Peer-reviewed papers are true and accurate
The peer-review process was established for the benefit of editors who did not have good knowledge across all the fields that their journals addressed. It provided a `sanity check' to avoid the risk of publishing papers which were so outlandish that the journal would be ridiculed and lose its reputation. In principle this notion seems entirely reasonable, but it neglects certain aspects of human nature, especially the tendency for reviewers to defend their own (earlier) papers, and indirectly their reputations, against challengers. Peer review also ignores the strong tendency for papers that disagree with a popular hypothesis, one the reviewer understands and perhaps supports, to receive a closer and often hostile scrutiny. Reviewers are selected from practitioners in the field, but many scientific fields are so small that the reviewers will know the authors. The reviewers may even have worked with the authors in the past or wish to work with them in future, so the objectivity of any review is likely to be tainted by this association. Some journals now request that authors suggest appropriate reviewers but this is a sure way to identify reviewers who will be favourable to certain propositions. It also follows that if the editor of a journal wishes to reject a paper, then it will be sent to a reviewer who is likely to reject it, whereas a paper that the editor favours to be published will be sent to a reviewer who is expected to be sympathetic. In 2002 the editor-in-chief of the journal `Science' announced that there was no longer any doubt that human activity was changing climate, so what are the realistic chances of this journal publishing a paper that suggests otherwise? The popular notion is that reviewers should be skilled in the relevant field, but a scientific field like climate change is so broad, and encompasses so many sub-disciplines, that it really requires the use of expert reviewers from many different fields. That this is seldom undertaken explains why so many initially influential climate papers have later been found to be fundamentally flawed. In theory, reviewers should be able to understand and replicate the processing used by the author(s). In practice, climate science has numerous examples where authors of highly influential papers have refused to reveal their complete set of data or the processing methods that they used. Even worse, the journals in question not only allowed this to happen, but have subsequently defended the lack of disclosure when other researchers attempted to replicate the work.
7 - The IPCC is a reliable authority and its reports are both correct and widely endorsed by all scientists
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) undertakes no research for itself and relies on peerreviewed scientific papers in reputable journals (see item 6). There is strong evidence that the IPCC is very selective of the papers it wishes to cite and pays scant regard to papers that do not adhere to the notion that man-made emissions of carbon dioxide have caused warming. Four more issues noted above are also very relevant to the IPCC procedures. The IPCC reports are based on historical temperature data and trends (see 1 & 2), and the attribution of warming to human activities relies very heavily on climate modelling (see item 3). The IPCC pronouncements have a powerful influence on the direction and funding of scientific research into climate change, which in turn influences the number of research papers on these topics. Ultimately, and in entirely circular fashion, this leads the IPCC to report that large numbers of papers support a certain hypothesis (see item 5). These fallacies alone are major defects of the IPCC reports, but the problems do not end there. Other distortions and fallacies of the IPCC are of its own doing. Governments appoint experts to work with the IPCC but once appointed those experts can directly invite other experts to join them. This practice obviously can, and does, lead to a situation where the IPCC is heavily biased towards the philosophies and ideologies of certain governments or science groups. The lead authors of the chapters of the IPCC reports can themselves be researchers whose work is cited in those chapters. This was the case with the so-called `hockey stick' temperature graph in the Third Assessment Report (TAR) published in 2001. The paper in which the graph first appeared was not subject to proper and independent peer review, despite which the graph was prominently featured in a chapter for which the co-creator of the graph was a lead author. The graph was debunked in 2006 and has been omitted without explanation from the Fourth Assessment Report (4AR) of 2007. The IPCC has often said words to the effect `We don't know what else can be causing warming so it must be humans' (or `the climate models will only produce the correct result if we include man-made influences'), but at the same time the IPCC says that scientists have a low level of understanding of many climate factors. It logically follows that if any natural climate factors are poorly understood then they cannot be properly modelled, the output of the models will probably be incorrect and that natural forces cannot easily be dismissed as possible causes. In these circumstances it is simply dishonest to unequivocally blame late 20th century warming on human activity. The IPCC implies that its reports are thoroughly reviewed by thousands of experts. Any impression that thousands of scientists review every word of the reports can be shown to be untrue by an examination of the review comments for the report by IPCC Working Group I. (This report is crucial, because it discusses historical observations, attributes a likely cause of change and attempts to predict global and regional changes. The reports by working groups 2 and 3 draw heavily on the findings of this WG I report.) The analysis of the WG I report for the 4AR revealed that: (a) A total of just 308 reviewers (including reviewers acting on behalf of governments) examined the 11 chapters of the WGI I report (b) An average of 67 reviewers examined each chapter of this report with no chapter being examined by more than 100 reviewers and one by as few as 34. (c) 69% of reviewers commented on less than 3 chapters of the 11-chapter report. (46% of reviewers commented on just one chapter and 23% on two chapters, thus accounting for more than two-thirds of all reviewers.) (d) Just 5 reviewers examined all 11 chapters and two of these were recorded as `Govt of (country)', which may represent a team of reviewers rather than individuals (e) Every chapter had review comments from a subset of the designated authors for the chapter, which suggests that the authoring process may not have been diligent and inclusive. Chapter 9 was the key chapter because it attributed a change in climate to human activity but:
(a) Just 62 individuals or government appointed reviewers commented on this chapter
(b) A large number of reviewers had a vested interest in the content of this chapter
- 7 reviewers were `contributing editors' of the same chapter
- 3 were overall editors of the Working Group I report
- 26 were authors or co-authors of papers cited in the final draft
- 8 reviewers were noted as `Govt of ...' indicating one or more reviewers who were appointed by those governments (and sometimes the same comments appear under individual names as well as for the government in question)
- Only 25 individual reviewers appeared to have no vested interest in this chapter
(c) The number of comments from each reviewer varied greatly
- 27 reviewers made just 1 or 2 comments but those making more than 2 comments often drew attention to typographical errors, grammatical errors, mistakes in citing certain papers or inconsistencies with other chapters, so how thorough were these reviews with very few comments?
- only 18 reviewers made more than 10 comments on the entire 122-page second order draft report (98 pages of text, 24 of figures) and 9 of those 18 had a vested interest
(d) Just four reviewers, including one government appointed team or individual, explicitly endorsed the entire chapter in its draft form - not thousands of scientists, but FOUR! The claim that the IPCC's 4th Assessment Report carries the imprimatur of having been reviewed by thousands, or even hundreds, of expert and independent scientists is incorrect, and even risible. In actuality, the report represents the view of small and self-selected science coteries that formed the lead authoring teams. More independent scientists of standing signed a public letter to the Prime Minister of Canada cautioning against the assumption of human causation of warming than are listed as authors of the 4AR Summary for Policymakers. More than 50 scientists also reviewed the Independent Summary for Policymakers, the counterview to the IPCC's summary that was published by the Fraser Institute of Canada.
8 - It has been proven that human emissions of carbon dioxide have caused global warming
The first question to be answered is whether the Earth is warming at all. As the discussion of fallacy 1 showed, there is no certainty that this is the case. But even were warming to be demonstrated, and assuming a reasonable correlation between an increase in carbon dioxide and an increase in temperature, that does not mean that the former has driven the latter. Good evidence exists from thousands of years ago that carbon dioxide levels rose only after the temperature increased, so why should we assume that the order is somehow reversed today? The IPCC claims a subjective 90% to 95% probability that emissions of carbon dioxide have caused warming but that assumes (a) that warming has occurred, (b) that such a subjective probability can be assigned and is meaningful, and (c) that because existing climate models cannot produce correct results without including some `human' influence, then the only allowable explanation is that humans have caused warming. Remarkably these claims are accompanied by an admission that the level of scientific understanding of many climate factors is quite low. This means that the IPCC's claim for dangerous human-caused warming rests primarily on the output of climate models that are unvalidated and recognized to be incomplete. The other foundation for the claim of dangerous warming is based upon laboratory work and theoretical physics regarding the ability of molecules of carbon dioxide to absorb heat and re-transmit it. Using these principles, and ignoring other factors, it can be shown that an increase in carbon dioxide beyond pre-industrial levels will cause a very small increase in temperature and that the warming will become less as the concentration of carbon dioxide increases. However, these principles were developed in laboratory environments that don't match the complexity of real world climate, and the `other factors' that are ignored are actually an integral part of the climate system. With few exceptions, the actions and interactions of these factors are poorly understood. Moreover, empirical tests of the amount of warming that will be caused by a doubling of human emissions suggest a non-alarming figure of only about 1 deg. C. One major stumbling block for the hypothesis that carbon dioxide has caused significant warming is that since continuous and direct measurements of carbon dioxide began in 1958 global temperatures have both risen and fallen while at all times the concentration of carbon dioxide continued to rise. It would seem that if carbon dioxide is causing any warming at all then it is easily overwhelmed by other, probably quite natural, climate forces. Scientists are continuing to investigate the possible impacts of solar forces on climate and in some cases have shown strong correlations. Other scientists are questioning whether cosmic rays may influence the formation of clouds that then control the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth's surface. Changes in ozone have also been proposed as drivers of climate. That all three of these issues are actively being explored gives the lie to claims that climate science is settled and that carbon dioxide is known to be the sole major cause of recent climatic warming. Very recently several scientists have said words to the effect `Yes, the natural forces do drive the climate but we believe that carbon dioxide adds to the warming', though they notably refrain from defining how much warming the carbon dioxide may have caused. The reality is that there is no clear evidence that human emissions of carbon dioxide have any measurable effect on temperatures. Such a claim rests on climate models of unproven accuracy and on lines of physical argument that expressly exclude consideration of other known important drivers of climate change.
Conclusions
The hypothesis of dangerous human-caused warming caused by CO2 emission is embroiled in uncertainties of the fundamental science and its interpretation, and by fallacious public discussion. It is utterly bizarre that, in face of this reality, public funding of many billions of dollars is still being provided for climate change research. It is even more bizarre that most governments, urged on by environmental NGSs and other self-interested parties, have either already introduced carbon taxation or trading systems (Europe; some groups of US States), or have indicated a firm intention to do so (Australia). At its most basic, if scientists cannot be sure that temperatures are today rising, nor establish that the gentle late 20th century warming was caused by CO2 emissions, then it is nonsense to propose that expensive controls are needed on human carbon dioxide emissions.'
Reprinted from http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org
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