(incorporating the International Ex-Fetus Association)

The Paradox of Secularism, or:

The Opposite is Usually The Case

Copyright: Peter Zohrab 2003

Beliefs

Although I have not been at all religious for about 40 years, I have become aware of certain drawbacks in Western secularism. I have arrived at this awareness through my criticism of Feminism, but one thing leads to another .... Feminism has put a lot of nails into the coffin of Religion that had already been built by Science and Technology, and the abortion battle has been (in many countries) a major turning-point in the War between Feminism and Religion. But what have we replaced Religion with, in Western countries?

One characteristic of modern Christianity is that it does not (these days) claim to say a lot about the contemporary real world. If you are religious, your beliefs can affect how you act in the real world, and what you think about it, but they do not affect what you actually perceive, because they are very "other-wordly". There may be exceptions to this generalisation, but I think it's generally correct.

Ideologies such as Feminism, on the other hand, are not other-wordly. They claim to speak "the truth" about the real world. Being an established ideology, Feminism -- just like an established religion -- is able to use State funds to propagate itself.

Christianity propagates beliefs such as:

• Jesus Christ was the son of God;
• Pray and you will receive eternal life;
• If you sin and do not repent, you will go to Hell.

And Feminism propagates beliefs such as:

• Women are disadvantaged/oppressed, compared to men;
• Sexism against women is much more common than sexism against men;
• We need to pass laws to correct injustices against women.

If you compare the two sets of statements, it is clear Feminism says things that have much greater social implications than the things that Christianity says. The social consequences of praying, for example, are arguably less tangible than the social consequences of passing Acts of Parliament.

 

Rationality

Religion has suffered, and now says less about the real world, for the reason that Science and Technology have proved themselves to have more accurate things to say about it. This has made us value rationality, and this rationality is opposed to religious beliefs that can never be proved or disproved, such as the three Christian beliefs cited above.

We may now believe in rationality, but have we become more rational ? We may have turned away from irrational religions, but it doesn't seem plausible to me that we have suddenly become more rational in the last century or two. Evolution doesn't work that fast !

From that point of view, we should perhaps look to see what irrational beliefs have replaced Religion in our minds. In my opinion, what has taken over and now channels our irrational impulses is Ideological Correctness (usually called "Political Correctness") -- and Feminism is perhaps the most powerful force within this ideology.

 

The Opposite is Usually the Case

The problem that we have now is that we see this ideology as rational, because we see ourselves as more rational than we actually are. In Communist countries, a constant awareness about the need to struggle against "the class enemy" (Capitalists) was maintained -- even after all capitalists had been wiped out. Similarly, State Feminism in Western countries keeps churning out propaganda about how women are supposedly "oppressed" (at home and in other countries). This is not rational behaviour -- it is based on an Ideology, according to which women are disadvantaged or oppressed -- by definition, almost.

Men and Fathers throughout the World have been claiming that the Law -- especially the Family Courts -- is biased against men. From the point of view of Ideological Correctness, this is absurd. Ideological Correctness in Western countries teaches everyone in the Legal system to avoid "gender bias". Moreover, the Feminists (male and female) who run the legal system "know" (from their ideological textbooks) that only women are discriminated against. So how could the legal system possibly be biased against men ?

A couple of days ago I walked out of a Law School tutorial, where my Ideologically Correct (Male Feminist) tutor had just discriminated against me by preventing me from replying to a point made by a Feminist student. The issue under discussion was whether men were discriminated against by sexist language. An official course document stated that women (and, by implication, only women) were discriminated against by sexist language. This article was written by a lawyer, who was just parroting the ideas of Feminist linguists, which I (being a Linguist) had refuted long ago -- see: Sexist Language: Does Satan think She's Male ?

As I walked out, this tutor (who checks my spelling, but himself spells "relevance" as "relevence") was stating to the class that most sexism was directed against women. I pointed out to him that he was being sexist against men right then ! This tutor had obviously never done or read any research into sexism against men - his statement was an ideological tenet, based on nothing more than faith.

In Western law, politics and academia, the opposite is usually the case. Statements of ideology are usually the opposite of the truth. The systems are run by Ideologically Correct people who use belief-statements about who is oppressed in order to oppress the people (e.g. men) whose real-world experience contradicts the Ideology. These people have no insight into their own bias, and cannot be expected to correct this bias in the Family Courts, in Law Schools, or anywhere else.

Last Update: 20 August 2004

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