I donno!
The Te of Piglet by Benjamin Hoff
expert from chapter -The Eeyore Effect (on feminist)
Eeyore Amazons are so masculinity-oriented that they think of success, power, and all
that in aggres-sive, combative masculine terms. And so, just when a good many of us
men have discarded earth-family-and-society-damaging machismo, along come the
Eeyore Amazons, curs-ing and plundering like pirates in a bad Hollywood movie. Not
exactly what we would call Advancing the Feminine. Yet even as they imitate and
in-crease the worst sort of masculine energy, they denounce practically everything they
dislike as masculine and a threat-to the extent of seeing masculinity and threats that
aren't there. Stranger and stranger. For example, the Amazons want to eliminate what
they call the "masculine" (neutral) nouns, pronouns, and adjectives of the English
language because, they say, these words are demeaning to women. Then they
substitute words that are de-meaning to everyone. First, they made us change
chairman to chair-person- which meant the same thing as chairman, only it was harder
to say, longer to write, and just a bit silly. After a while, recognizing that chairper- -
son was indeed rather awkward and stupid, they made us change it to chair. You know
what a chair is. It's a thing. You sit on it.
So now Plain English has been turned into patronizing Lawyer-Politicianese . . .
If a person does not keep pace with his or her companions, perhaps it is because he or
she hears a different drummer [or drummerette?]. Let him, or her, step to the music
which he, or she, hears, however measured or far away.
. . . and equally nonsensical Pluralspeak:
If a person does not keep pace with their compan-ions, perhaps it is because they hear
a different, drummer.
For a classic example of what Eeyore Politiciz-ing can do to a language, here's a
not-so-brief-any-more passage from the "improved" Oregon Revised Statutes--one of
many such passages rewritten to avoid "masculine" terms and voted into law:
(a) When owned or leased by a farmer and used in transporting the farmer's own
agricultural commodities, agricultural products or livestock . . . that were originally grown
or raised by the farmer on the farm of the farmer, or when used in any transportation
which is incidental to the regular operation of the farm of the farmer, or when used to
transport supplies, equipment or materials to the farm of the farmer that are con-sumed
or used on the farm of the farmer.
When all the books and so on have been censored and rewritten to suit the Eeyore
Ama-zons, precisely what will have been accomplished? And why are words so
important to them, anyway? For example, if they marry, they reject their hus-bands'
family names. These names are paternal and are therefore symbols of "male
chauvinism," they say. So they keep their unmarried names-which came from their
fathers. (And their fathers were
strong advocates of women's rights?) Behind their antimasculine words, it's
Over-masculinity
as Usual, as the Eeyore Amazons imi-tate the lowest sort of masculine behavior and
further the very energy they criticize. They break up Men's Clubs, which, they say,
mean discrimi-nation. Then they establish Women's Clubs, in which no men are
allowed. They accuse men of being Sexists. Then they behave like Sexi~ts. They say
they want Sensitive Men. When they' encoun-ter such men, they shove them about. To
put it plainly, their New Woman wants to be like the Old Man. And maybe even worse. .
In a world that's practically screaming for re-lief from the Heavy Hand of
Hypermasculinity, the Eeyore Amazons give us More of the Same. Who needs it?
Countering Hypermasculinity with Hyper-masculinity is rather like dousing a fire by
pouring gasoline on it. You can't beat sensitivity into peo-ple. But you can beat it out of
them.
I
nto what sort of future, and what sort of world, are the Eeyore Amazons pushing
us? Where is respect for the feminine going? As anyone can see, women are being
Used and Abused more than ever. Never have they been portrayed so de-meaningly in
movies, television shows, magazines, and books. And, according to statistics, the
femi-nine side of the work force is not being paid as much for its efforts as it was twenty
years ago. The influence of the Eeyore Amazons may not exactly be setting femininity
Free, but it is making it Re-markably Cheap. If truth be told, respect for the feminine is
sinking like the Titanic-and, consequently, so is the state of the earth, the family, and
society. The Eeyore Amazons blame men for all this. They might be wiser to blame
misguided, excessive masculine energy-including that which they are advancing.I .1
When the original Titanic went down, it was Women and Children First into the
lifeboats. Now it' s Women and Children Last. As a young man explained to us after a
particularly nasty remark to his secretary, "We don't have to be nice to them anymore."
As do Eeyores in general, the Eeyore Ama-zons want men to stop being Chivalrous
(not that many are now, anyway). Chivalry is Patronizing and Demeaning to Women,
they say. But is it~ And is chivalry limited to the behavior of meIJ toward women?
Whether of the European or th€ Asian variety, the code of chivalry makes kindness.
consideration, and respect fashionable, and makes it admirable and desirable for the
advantaged t<J assist the disadvantaged. Without chivalry, it'5 Claw and Fang, Might
Makes Right, Kill or be Killed. So we, along with past Taoist writers,/ knights-errant, and
forest outlaws, would say: Ii you do away with chivalry, and do away with th
~feminine, Watch Out. To close this chapter, we would like to quote
from Hope Against Hope: A Memoir, in which ~al dezhda Mandelstam described the
Eeyore Effect at work in Stalinist Russia. Unfortunately, the Principle involved is not
limited to another society at another time, but is universal and ever-present:
There were once many kind people, and even un-kind ones pretended to be good
because that was the thing to do. Such pretense was the source of the hypocrisy and
dishonesty so much exposed in the realist literature at the end of the last century. The
unexpected result of this kind of critical writing was that kind people disappeared.
Kindness is not, after all, an inborn quality-it has to be cultivated, and this only happens
when it is in demand. For our generation, kindness was an old-fashioned, vanished
quality, and its exponents were as extinct as the mammoth. Everything we have seen in
our times-the. . . class warfare, the constant "unmasking" of people, the search for an
ulterior motive behind every action-all this has taught us to be anything you like except
kind.
expert from chapter -The Eeyore Effect (on feminist)
Eeyore Amazons are so masculinity-oriented that they think of success, power, and all
that in aggres-sive, combative masculine terms. And so, just when a good many of us
men have discarded earth-family-and-society-damaging machismo, along come the
Eeyore Amazons, curs-ing and plundering like pirates in a bad Hollywood movie. Not
exactly what we would call Advancing the Feminine. Yet even as they imitate and
in-crease the worst sort of masculine energy, they denounce practically everything they
dislike as masculine and a threat-to the extent of seeing masculinity and threats that
aren't there. Stranger and stranger. For example, the Amazons want to eliminate what
they call the "masculine" (neutral) nouns, pronouns, and adjectives of the English
language because, they say, these words are demeaning to women. Then they
substitute words that are de-meaning to everyone. First, they made us change
chairman to chair-person- which meant the same thing as chairman, only it was harder
to say, longer to write, and just a bit silly. After a while, recognizing that chairper- -
son was indeed rather awkward and stupid, they made us change it to chair. You know
what a chair is. It's a thing. You sit on it.
So now Plain English has been turned into patronizing Lawyer-Politicianese . . .
If a person does not keep pace with his or her companions, perhaps it is because he or
she hears a different drummer [or drummerette?]. Let him, or her, step to the music
which he, or she, hears, however measured or far away.
. . . and equally nonsensical Pluralspeak:
If a person does not keep pace with their compan-ions, perhaps it is because they hear
a different, drummer.
For a classic example of what Eeyore Politiciz-ing can do to a language, here's a
not-so-brief-any-more passage from the "improved" Oregon Revised Statutes--one of
many such passages rewritten to avoid "masculine" terms and voted into law:
(a) When owned or leased by a farmer and used in transporting the farmer's own
agricultural commodities, agricultural products or livestock . . . that were originally grown
or raised by the farmer on the farm of the farmer, or when used in any transportation
which is incidental to the regular operation of the farm of the farmer, or when used to
transport supplies, equipment or materials to the farm of the farmer that are con-sumed
or used on the farm of the farmer.
When all the books and so on have been censored and rewritten to suit the Eeyore
Ama-zons, precisely what will have been accomplished? And why are words so
important to them, anyway? For example, if they marry, they reject their hus-bands'
family names. These names are paternal and are therefore symbols of "male
chauvinism," they say. So they keep their unmarried names-which came from their
fathers. (And their fathers were
strong advocates of women's rights?) Behind their antimasculine words, it's
Over-masculinity
as Usual, as the Eeyore Amazons imi-tate the lowest sort of masculine behavior and
further the very energy they criticize. They break up Men's Clubs, which, they say,
mean discrimi-nation. Then they establish Women's Clubs, in which no men are
allowed. They accuse men of being Sexists. Then they behave like Sexi~ts. They say
they want Sensitive Men. When they' encoun-ter such men, they shove them about. To
put it plainly, their New Woman wants to be like the Old Man. And maybe even worse. .
In a world that's practically screaming for re-lief from the Heavy Hand of
Hypermasculinity, the Eeyore Amazons give us More of the Same. Who needs it?
Countering Hypermasculinity with Hyper-masculinity is rather like dousing a fire by
pouring gasoline on it. You can't beat sensitivity into peo-ple. But you can beat it out of
them.
I
nto what sort of future, and what sort of world, are the Eeyore Amazons pushing
us? Where is respect for the feminine going? As anyone can see, women are being
Used and Abused more than ever. Never have they been portrayed so de-meaningly in
movies, television shows, magazines, and books. And, according to statistics, the
femi-nine side of the work force is not being paid as much for its efforts as it was twenty
years ago. The influence of the Eeyore Amazons may not exactly be setting femininity
Free, but it is making it Re-markably Cheap. If truth be told, respect for the feminine is
sinking like the Titanic-and, consequently, so is the state of the earth, the family, and
society. The Eeyore Amazons blame men for all this. They might be wiser to blame
misguided, excessive masculine energy-including that which they are advancing.I .1
When the original Titanic went down, it was Women and Children First into the
lifeboats. Now it' s Women and Children Last. As a young man explained to us after a
particularly nasty remark to his secretary, "We don't have to be nice to them anymore."
As do Eeyores in general, the Eeyore Ama-zons want men to stop being Chivalrous
(not that many are now, anyway). Chivalry is Patronizing and Demeaning to Women,
they say. But is it~ And is chivalry limited to the behavior of meIJ toward women?
Whether of the European or th€ Asian variety, the code of chivalry makes kindness.
consideration, and respect fashionable, and makes it admirable and desirable for the
advantaged t<J assist the disadvantaged. Without chivalry, it'5 Claw and Fang, Might
Makes Right, Kill or be Killed. So we, along with past Taoist writers,/ knights-errant, and
forest outlaws, would say: Ii you do away with chivalry, and do away with th
~feminine, Watch Out. To close this chapter, we would like to quote
from Hope Against Hope: A Memoir, in which ~al dezhda Mandelstam described the
Eeyore Effect at work in Stalinist Russia. Unfortunately, the Principle involved is not
limited to another society at another time, but is universal and ever-present:
There were once many kind people, and even un-kind ones pretended to be good
because that was the thing to do. Such pretense was the source of the hypocrisy and
dishonesty so much exposed in the realist literature at the end of the last century. The
unexpected result of this kind of critical writing was that kind people disappeared.
Kindness is not, after all, an inborn quality-it has to be cultivated, and this only happens
when it is in demand. For our generation, kindness was an old-fashioned, vanished
quality, and its exponents were as extinct as the mammoth. Everything we have seen in
our times-the. . . class warfare, the constant "unmasking" of people, the search for an
ulterior motive behind every action-all this has taught us to be anything you like except
kind.