Seth's World

I’ve been thinking about objectifying women from a mechanical level. Reducing people to objects is wrong if this leads you to forget that the person is an agent of their own interests. They aren’t an object upon which my interests can be fulfilled without consent on their part. And there’s no reason to see this as a topic that only relates to sex, I could be interested in having women hang around me while I go bar crawling. In this scenario, their consent is as important.

It seems objectifying is flat wrong but then, objectifying comes from something. I think there is a useful purpose in the basic ability to objectify someone but I don’t think that purpose is generally applicable in the sense that you can’t just use it all the time, it’s a specific case kind of skill. Objectifying a soldier might be done by commanders so that they can move soldiers as pawns on the battlefield. Thinking too much about the individual agency of each soldier might be counterproductive when the focus needs to be on a strategic level.
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Okay. You know how you have heaven and hell? They exist as opposites, right. In cases like values which heaven and hell hint at, the existence of one implies the other. If I see Satan for example, and I leap to the existence of a god, then I’m aware that both god and Satan are from the same book. I’m acknowledging the book. That’s a mistake an atheist like me isn’t going to make.

You know how you have pretty women? They exist as opposites, right. Everybody else is ugly or we can get modern and be like “normal” is the opposite of pretty. This kind of makes normal the new ugly.
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I snapped at my girlfriend. I emailed a friend. I started a thread on the forum. And it’s all about this topic. I want an utopia. It’s what I want, and I’m not fucking apologizing for wanting to experience such a place. However, I do not know for sure how realistic it is to want such a thing.

I’m a portion of many different types of people. I’m part white South-Eastern American male. I’m part atheist. I’m part penis. I’m part philosophical. I’m contrarian. I’m a writer. I’m a software engineer. I could potentially be polyamorous or at least an ally. I think racism, sexism and more are still alive and will take active work to make the experience of my fellow women and minority citizens better. I’m not even selfless. I don’t care about other people as a whole. I like some individuals for all sorts of reasons and I just want their experience to be as pleasant as possible. I want a utopia.
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I watched Gran Torino last night after 10pm which means that I’m surprised I paid attention. But I did and the movie exceeded my expectations. On one of my hour and a half commutes, I got to thinking about it some more. I saw the movie as a commentary about different types of people and their feelings of entitlement.

Clint Eastwood played Walter Kowalski, an aging Vietnam Korean War vet who’s wife’s funeral begins the movie. He’s gruff and difficult and his kids don’t like him any better than he likes them. The first sense of entitlement displayed was his kids and grandkids and how they felt like he should love them or behave differently because they deserved it, even though the audience probably didn’t see a whole lot of endearing qualities from Walter’s kids.
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I know a question on my mind. Can I articulate how I evaluate people of importance in my life so that prospective important people and current important people can reasonably evaluate their own standing and predict how I might value them?

I’ll be friends with anybody in a sense. Intellectually, I’ll hang out with anybody. I’ll help anybody. I’ll sit next to anybody. I’d have sex with anybody. All things are possible if the chemistry is right. And one thing being not possible doesn’t drag the rest of the possibilities away. That’s my standard. I may or may not meet that standard. I prefer certain activities with certain types of people. I like my sports with more energetic people. I like my sex with women. I prefer to help those I trust. But I don’t reserve any of those activities (in the conceptual world) to any of those groups. I firmly believe we have to transcend expectations and one way to do that is to reduce the limits by which I will investigate a potential friend for a potential type of bond. In this case, the bonds identified are helping out, sitting near, having sex, and sports.
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