Al Owski > Recent Status Updates

“When men lie to women, presenting a false self, the terrible price they pay to maintain "power over" us is the loss of their capacity to give and receive love. Trust is the foundation of intimacy. When lies erode trust, genuine connection cannot take place. While men who dominate others can and do experience ongoing care, they place a barrier between themselves and the experience of love.”

“Allegiance to male domination requires of men who embrace this thinking (and many, if not most, do) that they maintain dominance over women "by any means necessary." While much cultural attention is given to domestic violence and practically everyone agrees it is wrong for men to hit women as a way of subordinating us, most men use psychological terrorism as a way to subordinate women.”

“being saved... involves embracing rather than renouncing one’s past. It is true that Christ makes a man anew, that there is some ultimate change in him. But part of that change is the ability to see your life as a whole, to feel the form and unity of it, to become a creature made for and assimilated into existence, rather than a desperate, fragmented man striving against existence or caught... just outside of it.”

“Part of the mystery of grace is the way it operates not only as present joy and future hope, but also retroactively, in a way: the past is suffused with a presence that, at the time, you could only feel as the most implacable absence.”

“"It is impossible that any practical equality of rights can exist," Stevens told a Lancaster audience... "where a few thousand men monopolize the whole landed property." For "how can republican institutions, free schools, free churches, free social intercourse exist in a mingled community of nabobs and serfs"? Creating and safeguarding such institutions required seizing and redistributing the land of the elite.”

“Created in March 1863 to investigate the condition of emancipated slaves, the AFIC submitted its preliminary assessment: "The chief object of ambition" among blacks, it reported, was "to own property, especially to possess land, if it be only a few acres." Freed people believed that centuries of arduous but unpaid work by themselves and their ancestors had earned them the right to become independent small farmers.”

“Stevens's plan...did not stop at legal and political change... economic and social structure must be transformed... seizure of the rebel planters' landed property and its distribution among former slaves in the form of small farms. That would create a more egalitarian society. It would also give black voters the economic independence they would need in order to resist political intimidation by white employers.”

“The time had at last arrived, he declared, when "demagogues who talk to us about differences of races must be ashamed and skulk from the face of the world." The nation must recognize "universal and impartial suffrage as the only foundation upon which Government can stand... When you attempt to depart from it you cease to be men and become tyrants, deserving the execration of the human race."”

“When the new House convened that December, it created its own Reconstruction committee and placed Stevens in the chair. In March 1868, that committee offered to restore full rights to Alabama, but only on several conditions — "that the right of suffrage of citizens of the United States shall never be denied or abridged in said State on account of race, color, or previous condition of slavery"...”

“The Republicans' 1867 electoral setbacks in the North and the backlash against radicalism within the party made it harder than ever for Stevens and his co-thinkers to resist the readmission of additional rebel states to Congress. But he had no more reason than ever to trust the political proclivities of most southern white voters. So he tried to couple readmission with multiple safeguards.”

“Results of congressional elections in 1867 differed by region. Black voters empowered Republicans in the South, but elsewhere outcomes weakened the party. In state and local elections across the North, the size of the Republican vote shrank dramatically compared with a year before. A variety of local issues influenced that outcome, but most observers saw it as a reaction against black enfranchise- ment in the South”

“Still, the new black voters made it clear that they would not become pawns or rubber stamps for Republican leaders. When they attended mass meetings held for that party's candidates, they specified what they needed and expected.”

“As a group of freedmen in Asheville, North Carolina, explained, since congressional Republicans "have evidenced their determination to exhaust every effort to secure to us all the blessings of freedom, we recognize in them and their supporters our best friends and doubt the sincerity [sic] of all pretended [sic] friends who op- pose their general policy."”

“An elderly freedman in Georgia observed, "Every creature has got an instinct. The calf goes to the cow to suck, the bee to the hive. We's a poor, humble, degraded people, but we know our friends. We'd walk fifteen miles in war time to find out about the battle; we can walk fifteen miles and more to find how to vote."”

“Black men welcomed the chance to enter the political arena. Although some freed people made substantial educational gains during the first years of freedom, most were still illiterate. They learned how to act politically by doing so.”

“IT IS NO accident that greater cultural acceptance of lying in this society coincided with women gaining greater social equality. ... Now that women's earning power has greatly increased...and women are more economically independent, men who want to maintain dominance must deploy subtler strategies to colonize and disempower them.”

“Carl Jung insightfully emphasized the truism that "where the will to power is paramount love will be lacking."”

“Patriarchal masculinity requires of boys and men not only that they see themselves as more powerful and superior to women but that they do whatever it takes to maintain their controlling position. This is one of the reasons men, more so than women, use lying as a means of gaining power in relationships.”

“That yearning does not go away simply because they become men. Lying, as one form of acting out, is a way they articulate ongoing rage at the failure of love's promise. To embrace patriarchy, they must actively surrender the longing to love.”

“Regardless of the intensity of the male masquerade, inwardly many men see themselves as the victims of lovelessness. Like everyone, they learned as children to believe that love would be present in their lives. Although so many boys are taught to behave as though love does not matter, in their hearts they yearn for it. That yearning does not go away simply because they become men.”

“Estrangement from feelings makes it easier for men to lie because they are often in a trance state, utilizing survival strategies of asserting manhood that they learned as boys. This inability to connect with others carries with it an inability to assume responsibility for causing pain. This denial is most evident in cases where men seek to justify extreme violence toward those less powerful, usually women,...”

“Victor Seidler stresses: "When we learn to use language as boys, we very quickly learn how to conceal ourselves through language. We learn to 'master' language so that we can control the world around us.... Even though we learn to blame others for our unhappiness and misery in relationships we also know at some unspoken level how our masculinity has been limited and injured as we touch the hurt and pain...."”

“Even boys raised in the most progressive, loving households, where parents encourage them to express emotions, learn a different understanding about masculinity and feelings on the playground, in the classroom, playing sports, or watching television. They may end up choosing patriarchal masculinity to be accepted by other boys and affirmed by male authority figures.”

“John Stoltenberg's 'The End of Manhood': A Book for Men of Conscience analyzes the extent to which the masculine identity offered men as the ideal in patriarchal culture is one that requires all males to invent and invest in a false self. From the moment little boys are taught they should not cry or express hurt, feelings of loneliness, or pain, that they must be tough, they are learning how to mask true feelings”

“The very concept of "being a man"... has always implied that when necessary men can take action that breaks the rules, that is above the law. Patriarchy tells us daily through movies, television, and magazines that men of power can do whatever they want, that it's this freedom that makes them men. The message given males is that to be honest is to be "soft."”

“Often, men who would never think of lying in the workplace lie constantly in intimate relationships. This seems to be especially the case for heterosexual men who see women as gullible. Many men confess that they lie because they can get away with it; their lies are forgiven. To understand why male lying is more accepted in our lives we have to understand the way in which power and privilege are accorded men...”

“Lots of men shared with me that it was difficult for them to tell the truth if they saw that it would hurt a loved one. Significantly, the lying many boys learn to do to avoid hurting Mom or whomever becomes so habitual that it becomes hard for them to distinguish a lie from the truth. This behavior carries over into adulthood.”

“Males learn to lie as a way of obtaining power, and females not only do the same but they also lie to pretend powerlessness. ... For many young males the earliest experience of power over others comes from the thrill of lying to more powerful adults and getting away with it.”

“Sometimes children are fascinated by lying because they see the power it gives them over adults.”

“Among any group of kids it is never clear why some quickly learn the fine art of dissimulation (that is, taking on whatever appearance is needed to manipulate a situation) while others find it hard to mask true feeling. Since pretense is such an expected aspect of childhood play, it is a perfect context for mastering the art of dissimulation.”