Shanti418 wrote:I think that view is only good in a theoretical world
So long as we continue to meet and interact with people who don't cleave to the stereotypes, examination and contestation will be worthwhile... unless we want a world back that complains about uppity niggers or considers women chattel.
There're a few levels of that; as silently implied, collective and received opinion may be that women 'get away' with selective memories and changes of mind because of their gender. Indeed, it's easy to slip into considering an individual (or the individuals of our experience) as indicative of a whole. Hence all Scots are mean, all Welsh are sly, sheep-buggering thieves and all Americans arseholes.
One thing seems pretty certain: repetition ingrains things culturally. They don't improve unless we put in the effort to cudgel them out of usage.
Unfortunately this leaves standup comedians a bit stranded, but they'll cope...
...crap, where was I? Um, yeah: I know plenty of women who aren't two-faced, fickle self-justifiers who only register what they want to—certainly the majority of the time—and more than a few men who are. People in general are gits. Especially when it comes to looking at their own behaviour in relationships.
Shanti418 wrote:BTW, I really like your American History essays, esp. the New Deal one. It was quite interesting to read about American History and presumably what they teach you about American History from a different perspective. American History here is basically smoothed over propagandistic deification of a patriotic sort, at least until you reach the latter portion of college.
College being what sort of age? (We have secondary school 11-16, 6th form college 17-18, typically university 19-21.) Ours tends to be a bit blunt and unfocused until college, too, although it's in the national character to scourge politicians.
That essay's a really good example of why not to knock off 2000+ words the evening before an assignment, as it's basically an overview cribbed from three semi-credited texts with some personal opinion thrown in. With appalling sentence structure. Stick in some more conditional modifiers and I don't think there's much I wouldn't stand by, though.