The Oracle: "And don't worry about the vase."
Neo: "What vase?"
He turns and knocks a vase off the table to the floor, and it smashes.
The Oracle: "That vase."
Neo: "I'm sorry."
The Oracle: "I said don't worry about it. I'll get one of my kids to fix it."
Neo: "How did you know?"
The Oracle: "What's really going to bake your noodle later on is, would you still have broken it if I hadn't said anything?"
The above excerpt from the seminal movie The Matrix, released in 1999 when the threat of the Millennium Bug potentially doomed mankind to turning the clock back instead of forward, played on fears of dystopian tendencies of nascent computer tech/intelligence. More so, the excerpt from the film speaks on many volumes on reality and even expectations, if a person is told: "don't look down," what do they usually do? Glancing over the shoulder causes the back to itch and the mind to buzz with paranoia that someone is watching, goading the sense of danger that slumps postures and quickens steps. Forebearance is reliable when knowing the level of peril around us, assessing threats such as not venturing down a grimy alley in a bad area but paranoia comes when people glimpse danger in the innocuous or every day. If a person expects the worst, they become prone to find it in a cynical self-fulfilling prophecy, resulting in that confirmation bias that ensures people see themselves as a victim.
Nurturing the victim narrative is vital for those that benefit from it, such as progressive institutions that gain money through funding, such as colleges and charities. Therefore by drip feeding fear to their willing audiences, they perpetuate a culture where those in minorities constantly view themselves as undermined constantly. Dr Joanna Williams is yet another example of an academic that has stuck their heads above the parapet, to face the fire of the ire that fellow socialist academics will direct towards anyone that doesn't tow the party line. Dr Williams, a lecturer in Higher Education at Kent University, joins the likes of Christina Hoff-Sommers, Janice Fiamengo, Gad Saad, Jordan Peterson and Bret Weintstein in voicing her displeasure at the feminist condition. Her book: "Women vs Feminism: Why We All Need Liberating from the Gender Wars," Williams posits that the fashionable brand of feminism today preaches that misogyny and sexual harassment are rife.
She argues that "Everyday Sexism" along with notions of "rape culture" have a debilitating effect on girls' confidence:
“It is increasingly out of touch with reality. Girls are doing so much better at school than boys, and yet we are having people like The Everyday Sexism Project are coming into schools sends out a message of: ‘just you wait, there are real difficulties ahead’. It can also be tragic. I gave a talk at my university and a young woman came up to me at the end and says she doesn’t leave her room after dark. When you teach girls they are victims they believe it. But this is not in keeping with reality and it can become quite debilitating."
She argues that the better women’s lives become, "the harder it seems that a new generation of feminists must try to justify their purpose through uncovering ever more obscure problems". And this is the sum of modern feminist's problems; by outperforming boys in school and entering Higher Education at a greater ratio to their male peers, they still receive ominous messages about being constantly at risk of sexual assault. With young men increasingly a minority and their boisterousness demonised, a boisterousness that to SJWs has sinister undertones, a wariness pervades young women towards the smaller populace that these progressives would deem as discrimination towards other groups. In turn, young men feel pushed out and have the added pressure of receiving a narrative that their innate maleness is wrong, damaging, predatory in a supoosedly learned environment that is often hostile towards them.
The level of paranoia and the victimhood culture is somewhat addictive and people often are prone to jump on bandwagons. Although the #MeToo and #EverydaySexism no doubt highlight many examples of sexual assault and misogyny, there are likely many cases of hyperbole and wishes to say "Me Too". From personal experience, the furore around sexual assault even made me think that I have experienced it too; back when I was 19 or 20 and indulged in what is politely known as "George Michael behaviour". On one occasion an older guy entered the stall I was in and started to perform a sex act on me and I was shocked at the speed it happened. After several attempts to push the unnattractive guy off and him refusing to relent I managed to overpower him; at the time I was furious but the victim culture mayhem of modernity made me wonder if that incident constituted sexual assault. Sexuality is instinctual and sometimes it doesn't act on etiquette, even when people are enjoying sex mutually, one party may do something the other may dislike, which has happened to me before. The problem is when force becomes applied and at that point people need to distinguish between what real danger is, creating a climate of fear risks desensitising people from instances of true peril, as they are too fixated on perceived threats as opposed to reality. However, with ideologues in college pulpits it seems fear is a valuable tool to keep questions at bay, which is feminism equals the divine and masculinity is the Satanic, a method used since ancient Christendom to keep the masses in line.
If you like my writing, please consider donating to my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/bradjames
Or throw me a dollar via PayPal: https://www.paypal.me/BradleyYellop