[quote]chillain wrote:
[quote]BrickHead wrote:
There is only one reality and one Mother Nature. I’d say up until about twenty years ago, people looked at the world through such a perspective. Somewhere along the way, in the 2000’s, mushy-headed, over-compassionate Americans made up concepts such as “my reality” and “his/her reality”. Although each person’s life experiences, thoughts, perspectives, attitudes, and trials are different from one another, there is only one reality. [/quote]
As DoubleDuce suggested, “traditional reality” was poor word choice on my part, because I certainly didn’t mean to suggest multiple realities or Mother Natures.
Rather, my point was simply that the sexual dimorphism in our species isn’t always clear-cut. Consider the small percentage who are born anatomically ambiguous via genetic and hormonal factors. Certainly that minority compromises the “most obvious” of the intersex individuals created by Mother Nature, but who’s to say that less obvious manifestations aren’t also created. And in such cases, nearly all we have to go on is their own reported subjective, anecdotal experiences. Now THAT is what I meant re: broadening our framework of understanding.
And I do agree re: mushy-headed, over-compassionate Americans and their contrivances, because of course.
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When I wrote, “up until 20 years ago,” I was not thinking so deeply or far back in history. I was going by my own experience and how I saw the world around me up until now. It might have been better to express myself in more detail and reflect more considering sexual bolshevism, moral relativism, suicidal altruism, and above all, as I believe it is with the case of Matt Kroc in the fitness community, false piety, have been around for a long time.
And then there are statements regarding judgment that starting to pop up more and more to me in the 20 years. Perhaps they were always around and people believed in this asinine blabber. “Who are you to judge?” “Who am I to judge?” “Judge much?” “You’re judgmental.” It’s quite ironic that I see such statements on bodybuilding forums, a community in which the majority are always of people are constantly gauging where they are on the fitness and genetics ladder. Didn’t even Dave Tate have a scale in which he judged lifters from bad to good: “shit, suck, good, great”?
Who lives a successful or at least even-keeled life without judgment on a near day-to-day basis? It used to be that someone who expressed judgment was considered to have good taste. After all, if not for judgment, then everyone should go on a date with the first schmuck who winks at him or her and every father should accept his daughter marrying a scumbag! When my father-in-law accepted me as a future part of his family, I was judged, as necessary!
When I apply for a job, I am judged. When I interviewed people and reviewed their references and resume, I judged them, because it is appropriate for the profession and part of the job, and employers did the same for me, as they should!
Guilty people in court are condemned, judged.
The examples are endless, but even though even handicapped people and animals use judgement to live life as they can, droves of people (judgmental as they are too), are now expressing their dim views on judgment. These are the same people who have no problem saying stuff like, “I wouldn’t go there. It’s a bad neighborhood,” and “I wouldn’t send my kids to school there,” and “that guy’s not that strong.”
And here’s the seemingly simple qualification to judge others: be an ordinary, moral, civic-minded person. That’s it! That’s all that is need to use judgment to live one’s life safely, balanced, or even very successfully! So when someone asks me, “Who are you to judge?”, my answer is simple: “A grown man. That’s enough.”
