Poor old Tony Abbott just can’t catch a break it seems. He makes some completely benign, not uncommon, absolutely reasonable pro-marriage comment and all the tolerant, compassionate, accepting, non-judgemental, empathetic, morally righteous ‘progressives’ and feminists take it as an opportunity to unleash upon him any vile, cruel, dehumanizing accusation and epithet their corrupt little minds can generate.
Abbott’s comment inspired the above nasty, predictably anti-male and anti-Western civilization screed by Jenny Noyes in the radical feminist propaganda pamphlet The Age. As usual, this was an invitation to all the exemplars of virtue and goodness on the ‘progressive’/feminist Left among the general public to weigh in with their own wise and insightful observations in the comment section. In other words, there was a lot of this sort of thing:
Sharon F: “Cockhead”
Sezzy: “Being a woman myself, I feel like I need protection from idiots like him. Bloody ignorant fool!”
Bubba: “the irony is that marriage has not protected his missus or kids from having a complete dickhead as a husband and father.”
Stephen: “The man is just a delusional fool. I cannot wait to see the look on his hideous head when we finally receive true equality.”
Faye W: “Abbott you are a dickhead and an embarrassment.”
So a contributor to the comment section, Carl L, tried to raise the quality of the discourse by injecting some factual evidence into the discussion:
Carl L: Children of divorced or never-married mothers are six to 30 times more likely to suffer from serious child abuse than are children raised by both biological parents in marriage.
Which provoked quite a few responses like these from folks who won’t let truth get between them and their preferred version of reality:
Kirsten A: “So, not a peer reviewed piece of literature.”
Lisa B: “Source is more than 5 years old lol”
My rebuttal, directed primarily at Lisa, is a breakdown of an extremely common thinking pattern which a lot of bad thinkers default to when they are confronted with evidence and argument that refutes their self-confirming, subjective beliefs. It’s the “Truth or Concept Pattern”. It highlights the distinction between people who have an attachment to a belief or concept which they find personally gratifying in some way, and those who have an attachment to truth. When you become aware of the pattern, you’ll see it all of the time…. particularly when debating ‘progressives’, feminists, Leftists etc..
Going to Getugly: “Source is more than 5 years old lol”. Just like Kirsten Alys above. I’ll tell you how your mind is working here Lisa so you can improve your reasoning in the future:
Lisa’s mind: “I have a specific perception of this issue and I’m really attached to it because it’s very satisfying to my ego. And I’ve never bothered to look into it because I just assume I’m right if a particular belief appeals to me.
Now I’m presented with credible information that completely invalidates my preferred assumptions and which gives me insight into actual, objective truth.
But I’m not interested in objective TRUTH! MY priority is preserving my preferred but false perception… because the satisfaction I derive from believing it is WAY more important to me than having an authentic appreciation of reality.
Problem: I refuse to update my understanding of this issue based on this new information (like a mature thinker would do)…. but I need some excuse that appears to justify my irrational denial of reality.
Solution: Oh, look! This was published in 2012. I’ll assert that because the study was published FIVE WHOLE YEARS ago… that makes it invalid somehow! Sure, that makes no sense…. it’s a completely arbitrary proclamation…. and if I’m asked to explain why that invalidates it I’ll have to make something else up on the spot. But it’s all I’ve got! Oh yeah…. and I’ll put a condescending ‘lol’ at the end (even though that’s the sort of thing 14 year olds do) to convey that I’m so much more ‘aware’ and ‘clever’ than the dummy who provided the information.”
Do you see how transparent this flawed thinking process is, Lisa? Hopefully now that it’s been pointed out, you and Kirsten… as well as a lot of other women posting here…. will catch yourselves before you default to this pattern of inadequate reasoning in the future.