Want to know what makes people resort to crime and guns to settle their differences? Ask a “community organizer, music producer and social entrepreneur.” In this case, that expert in the social sciences is convicted felon Richard Edmond Vargas (AKA Richie Reseda), who’s currently doing time in California’s Soledad prison for armed robbery and is the subject of a documentary, The Feminist in Cell Block Y.
The answer, explained by Vargas in a CNN article, is that all the shooting is really the fault of the patriarchy. Oh, and toxic masculinity, too.
…when 98% of mass murders are committed by men, and 90% of all murders are committed by men and 80% of those arrested for violent acts are men, it’s safe to say there is something wrong with how our culture socializes men.
Patriarchy is a social system that defines men as being inherently violent, dominant and controlling while rewarding them with power for being that way. It is no secret, especially these days, that we live in a patriarchal society. Why are we continually surprised when a man takes up arms and commits mass murder?
Vargas is no dummy. Even from his prison cell, he’s got his finger on the most reasonably current version of popular social science talking points and faculty lounge theories. And from that he’s managed to start teaching programs in feminist critical theory while behind bars. And at least some of his fellow prisoners appear to be lapping it up.
Cartoons, video games and contemporary politicians exalt male violence. This glorification echoes in our sports and movies. When the right person is performing it or it’s being performed for the “right reasons” (think police officers or members of the military), people even call male violence heroic. So why wouldn’t angry, entitled men seek to rectify their qualms with the world through unimaginable carnage? Every social cue they’ve received since childhood declared violence their birthright, it’s what makes them real men.
Of course! It’s a wonder that more men aren’t blasting each other on street corners over perceived slights and imagined disses. The patriarchy demands it!
It’s due to this experience with patriarchy and the bad choices that I’ve made because of it that I see how patriarchy can lead men to becoming mass murderers. It’s true, America has a gun problem. The correlation between the availability of guns and the amount of mass shootings a country suffers is staggering. The work that the young Parkland shooting survivors and the #neveragain movement are doing, along with the leagues of their predecessors, is necessary and lifesaving. But we also must confront mass shootings’ other ingredient: men.
Give this guy credit. This act is downright brilliant. He’s spouting all the right buzzwords and has managed to catch the attention of a “filmmaker” who’s documented what he’s doing as heĀ leads “an inmate rehabilitation program centered around feminist literature.”
What doing anti-patriarchy work in California prisons and in my own life has taught me is that men have the capacity to feel, share and regulate the spectrum of human emotions. When we do this, the violence we’ve been taught comes so naturally to us feels foreign and unnecessary.
This blather is the perfect responsibility dodge for anything he and those in his encounter group classes have done. It’s like screaming, “It’s society’s fault!” but couched in terms that any Women’s Studies undergrad can understand and nod their head at in knowing agreement.
If the patriarchy and its ineluctable popular entertainment output is so toxic, why aren’t even more men succumbing to the lure that violence and gunplay present? Why have violent crime rates fallen so steeply since 1992, a time when the number of firearms in America has almost doubled and those cartoons, video games and movies have only become more graphic?
Expect a “grassroots” campaign to spring Vargas/Reseda to pop up any day now (if the CNN post isn’t already the leading edge of that effort). This man has so much to teach us…we need him out here, fighting the patriarchy and raising the consciousness of these poor, unsuspecting men in the community who, without his message and lessons, will surely be swept up in the school-to-prison pipeline.
“At three I had a feeling of ambivalence toward my brothers,
And so it follows naturally, I poisoned all my lovers.
But now Iām happy; I have learned the lesson this has taught;
That everything I do thatās wrong, is someone elseās fault.”
This personified
He sounds like he’s been somebody’s bitch inside for too long.
I don’t listen to insurgents, felons, or feminazis. But I repeat myself.
That goes double for the ones who openly advertise their status as murders with their face tattoos.
They’re just trying to help, painting targets on their faces.
What a load of bullshit
Patriarchy is the foundation of society. It is the God ordained pattern for creation. God is Creator and Lifegiver over all (Father in a sense). He commissioned men to lead their wives and children in a way that reflects His goodness. Since Genesis 3, we have lived in a fallen world, and proper patriarchal leadership is difficult.
While he is in there, I wonder if he could survey his neighbors for the data on the periods of time in their formative years when their biological fathers lived with them: Year 1; Year 2; . . . Year 17; Year 18. How many of these biological fathers had criminal records? How many lived with adult male co-habitants of their mothers who had criminal records?
I’m not immediately convinced that the problem comes necessarily from the patriarchy. Conceivably, it comes from the matriarchy; or, possibly, from an absence of a positive adult male father-figure.
BINGO. The absence of the biological father from the child’s home is the strongest predictor of any social ill you can name. More over:”1% increase in the proportion of single-parent families in a neighborhood is associated with a 3% increase in an adolescentās level of violence. In other words, adolescents who live in neighborhoods with lower proportions of single-parent families and who report higher levels of family integration commit less violence.”
This jailbird has it exactly backwards but that presupposes he believes what he is spouting. More likely is that this is a ploy for attention, money, and advocacy for his own release.
Source: http://www.fathers.com/statistics-and-research/the-consequences-of-fatherlessness/2/
Yup. There is definitely a tremendous cultural fail occurring that’s causing this criminality, but it’s the lack of “patriarchy” that contributes to the problem.
First they would have to figure out who is the father.
I don’t think the father needs to biological, he just needs to be there and be good at parenting. Growing up near a military base, I knew a few kids whose fathers had died. Their stepfathers were all good guys who brought up the children (step or biological) properly.
Step fathers can be great if they are permanent. That is a different concept than a series of boyfriends with no commitment. Kids need stability.
“Patriarchy” (as this guy defines it) is a survival stratagem. Although I can’t say anything about the Aborigines, it seems that violence or symbolic violence such as sports, are a central part of every single human culture on the face of the planet for as far back was we can trace our history. We cannot change our basic genetic architecture by engaging our “feminine side.”
But there is something more to this whole question, I read a very interesting research article any number of years ago that suggested that the difference in violence between some men and others, and blacks in particular, is that they react emotionally/irrationally rather than logically. How many men have you met with the proverbial chip on their shoulder? How many times have we seen a young (black) person getting up in some one’s face, “you dissin’ me, man?” “You gotta respect me.” (I’ve seen this conduct in both sexes.) Wait a second here, junior, why do I have to respect some teenage mutant punk? What have you done that is deserving of respect? Respect is not given, it is earned.
In a functioning patriarchy, older, influential men direct natural male behavior into culturally useful channels and emotionally fulfilling pursuits. Thanks to postmodern progressivism, we no longer have a functioning patriarchal society (or a healthy society, period).
It’s interesting how there were virtually no indiscriminate mass-shooting incidents in America prior to the feminist takeover of American culture, circa 1970, despite the constant availability of effective firearms. Guns don’t kill people, feminism does.
^This!
Another way of saying nothing is my fault.
I agree with Mark “family” without a positive male role model are huge part of crime problem.
That’s the cat with the kool-aid on his lips and pumps.
Monkeys fight over fruit trees. Violence in primates is not new, isn’t going to change soon and certainly isn’t a symptom of “patriarchy”. Were we not a violent species that got a chemical reward in it’s own brain for successful violence we simply wouldn’t exist because something else would have hunted us to extinction long ago.
I’ve said this before: The vast majority of people have no idea what we are and therefore are totally unqualified to speak on the topic(s) of how we operate. All the feelz in the world won’t change the fact that a billion year of evolution made us what we are today and that the animal that stands in the modern world is 1) unprepared for this world and 2) inherently bred for survival which requires violence, sometimes extreme violence.
The combination of these factors when mixed with piss poor social upbringing results in people who are completely maladjusted. Feminism of the flavor this guy is using (to curry favor with a parole board no doubt) won’t fix that. The only outcome this kind of tomfuckery CAN have is to make the situation infinitely worse.
He looks like a forced prison feminist, that’s why he wants to get rid of patriarchy in prison, to save his own rear end, literally…
How many of the 98%, or the 90%, or the 80%, were:
1) born of an unwed mother (THE “PERFECT” FAMILY UNIT FOR THE LEFT)
2) given up for adoption and placed in a home.
3) raised by other family members
4) raised in a group home
5) have mood altering prescription drugs on board from pre-birth, or at an early or formative age
6) WOULDN’T EVER KNOW WHAT TRUE MASCULINITY IS IF PEOPLE LIKE THAT ASSHOLE IS ALLOWED TO TEACH IT
F em all
It’s all the womens fault. If they kept their virginity til the wedding night and only had a baby once their husband had proved himself none of these ‘victims’ would have even been born.
Damn homie…you look like you have a tear tattoo. Murder someone? At least he’s somewhat honest admitting guilt. Unlike all the dindu’s…š
Social science or pseudo science?
The role of a male is spelled out in the Bible.
In a nut shell
protect and honor others more than yourself.
“ā¦when 98% of mass murders are committed by men, and 90% of all murders are committed by men and 80% of those arrested for violent acts are men, itās safe to say there is something wrong with how our culture socializes men.”—
When 99.9% of males in this country are not committing murders or violent acts, it’s safe to say there is something right with how our culture socializes men. The criminals are the outliers. Look at how the criminals are socialized and you will see the real problem. (Hint: it is a subculture in America, look at where the vast majority of violent crimes are taking place on a daily basis.) Answer= The inner cities of Chicago, Baltimore, Los Angeles, etc.
First he does prison time, then he goes into politics. Which is the opposite of what happens in Illinois.
I for one would love to get some lessons about morality from violent criminal. Let me schedule them right after sex ed class taught by Pope.
I completely agree that toxic masculinity is an factor in the incidence of mass killings. Is it solely responsible? No. But is it a factor? Obviously. Otherwise we’d see more female shooters, duh.
The fact is that unlike girls, boys are too often “not allowed” to have feelings, express love for each other, cry, and do or say a whole host of things that are “gay” or “feminine.” Tell me, what do the peers of a boy who likes figure skating, gymnastics, or ballet call him? Why is it that half the population is encouraged to love, care, and talk about their feelings, while the other half is taught and expected to be stoic and emotionally distant? Why is it that “friendship is magic” if you’re a girl, but dude, ponies are sissy? You think this kind of treatment doesn’t shape how boys view themselves, or how they respond to stress? You think it doesn’t factor into the fact that mass shooters are nearly all males? I’ll bet that it does. I know for sure that if we treated boys like, I don’t know, actual human beings, that we’d alleviate a great deal of the problems males disproportionately face – problems like suicide and depression, and yes, violent crime.
Considering this person’s message doesn’t mean we have to all burn our bras and start clamoring for government-funded maternity leave. Maybe this person is on to something.
Maybe he is onto something. Then again, maybe heās a full of shit convict who is smart enough to know how to game the system in advance of his next parole hearing.
Ponies? Friendship is magical? Failure to recognize this results in mass shootings? In a word, bullshit. As a society weāve been feminizing the shit out of boys for going on two decades. Iād argue that outside of the gang life, that suppression of what was previously considered normal behavior for boys is what has resulted in the new wave of broken as f*ck psychos weāve been seeing.
Maybe heās the girl on the inside?
Lifeās hard, man-up, leave the cat at home.
Men are the way they are because GOD made them first, outa dirt. HE made woman outa man, a soft floating rib part of Man, and Adam said, āthis at last is bone of my bone and flesh of my fleshā, and he was so happy that he, like the cured blind men, forgot to thank GOD. But that was manās last soft moment allowed, because, after the apple thing sh_t got crazy.
How does he explain the overwhelming majority of men who murder no one?
White privilege, obviously.
the overwhelming majority of The majority
It’s funny how a group of violent, lawless men that were almost exclusively raised in single mother households would blame the Patriarchy for their own sins; obviously, they refuse to take responsibility for their own actions, but the indolent, violent, anti-intellectual, scofflaw environment in which nearly all of them were born and raised was created and fostered by women who chose to wed themselves to the Welfare State instead of to honorable men. The children born of booty-calls will always be disfunctional and usually violent. This is the result of the Nanny State, not the fictional Patriarchy.
Patriarchy let him down. He also wanted the stuff the person had that he robbed.
Our culture? I’m pretty damned sure you and I didn’t grow up in the same culture. My father actually owned pocket protectors, and he used them.
I’m still amazed at blacks who believe only the “nasty white police”, should be the only ones with guns. Having self control or promoting self control is not something most really care about.
i stopped reading at the word feminist.
“The correlation between the availability of guns and the amount of mass shootings a country suffers is staggering.”
Yeah, and the correlation between the availability of snow and the amount of snowball attacks a country suffers is staggering, too (to a moron like this guy, anyway).
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