Atlas Shrugged: The Mocking

Monday, June 30, 2008

What's Wrong With Megan.

Megan's nose is out of joint because the feminists dissed her. She excludes other people, they don't exclude her! But we're getting ahead of ourselves. First, Megan tells us people are born with mean impulses.

Lots of behaviors are natural, like rape and murdering strangers, that we
struggle mightily to overcome--and mostly succeed.

Do I have to say rape and murder aren't natural? Do I? And do I have to add that this rapacious, murderous impulse isn't what we usually have to overcome? Most of us struggle with laziness, greed, lust, and impatience, to name some common vices. If we have to struggle to overcome our murderous impulses, we have bigger problems than some feminists calling us non-feminist. Priorities, Megan, priorities.

Even if my gender has a preprogrammed tendency to self-define through the
people we can exclude from the group, we can rise above that.

That's not pre-programming, Megan, it's nastiness based on anger and pain. If you get your jollies excluding people, if you define yourself by whom you won't let in your world (which of course you do), then you have a serious problem with self-hatred.

Feminists who use the phrase "anti-feminist" to describe anyone who
disagrees with them are choosing to view the world as composed of two mutually
exclusive groups: feminists, us; and the bad people who have not joined the
group and are therefore our sworn enemies. They are choosing, too, the nastiness
that tends to result from giving into our baser primate instincts.

Didn't you just say excluding others was innate? Didn't you just say your socialization skills consist of identifying those who don't fit in your group and then loudly, prominently, ostracizing them?
I expect this also explains the visceral pleasure that most women get from
gossip, which most men really don't seem to enjoy nearly so much--the perhaps
sad truth is that I feel closer to my female friends when we have gotten through
a really good round of "what's wrong with everyone else"


Why, yes, you did. I'm sorry, Megan, but you can't hang out with the smart girls smoking cigarettes behind the library, discussing existentialism, Buffy, and abs of the guys in gym. Not after you spent all year talking about them behind their backs and calling them dykes.

P.S. Prep school ended a long time ago. Get over it.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Mutually exclusive" does not mean what she thinks it means.

Yeah - it takes all my might every single day to not fly into a murderous rage when I encounter strangers.

Susan of Texas said...

Little does Megan know that it's she that makes everyone fly into a rage, not nature.

Anonymous said...

Men don't like to gossip? She must not know any men. We gossip plenty - just not in the same way as women.

I feel closer to my female friends when we have gotten through
a really good round of "what's wrong with everyone else"


Which is functionally not unlike when me and my guy friends stand around all day talking about what is wrong with the Redskins.

Susan of Texas said...

I"ve heard guys discuss people's private lives in great detail, but yes, usually that of sports figures.

What amazes me is that McArdle admits she regulary trashes her friends. Wouldn't her next cocktail party or ladies' lunch be a little awkward?

Susan of Texas said...

My spelling/typing also amazes me, lol.

Anonymous said...

No, I'm sure those conversations are perfectly unawkward. After all, they're loaded with gossipy women.