Kevin Kully’s use of the “honorific” Mrs. is either insult or ignorance (Gazette, Your Views, Aug. 22). It is certainly archaic and hearkens back to the days when, under English law, women did not have agency in their own right.
I could as well refer to him as Mrssrs. Kully to indicate he is married and derives his identity from that fact. Or I could just use just Mrs. or Ms. before his name because neither term is insulting in itself. Kully seems to agree with Jordan Peterson, another non-progressive, that the prerogative in the use of titles lies with the addressor, rather than the addressee.
But the bald assertion that I “reject the idea of love” is, among other things, a negative indication of his ability to infer valid conclusions from given premises. I entirely believe in love, the real thing and not a sentimental substitute. And he obviously can’t see any contradiction in making this prejudiced assessment right alongside his opinion that “human beings … are far more adept at – and adapted to – killing each other and everything around us; thus is our nature.”
How bleak, dismal and terrifying! What God would or should “save” such beings?: why create them? And if that is the case, better it is we should become extinct. In fact, according to religious tenets, the great majority are born for perdition and only a tiny fraction will escape it. Some God. Some hope. Some “love.”
I take the opposite view in agreement with the naturalist Kropotkin who sees mostly co-operation, love, reason, and beauty in nature and humankind as opposed to the wrongly interpreted Darwinian view of “nature in tooth and claw.” The evil is the work of a relative few obscenely wealthy and brutal individuals and institutions that promote endless wars for personal power, resources, cheap labour and territory.
Kully seems unaware that in this great, planet-wide neoliberal capitalist system, a person, usually a child, dies of starvation every 10 seconds or at the rate of more than three million a year. He hasn’t explained, either, how 100 million died as a result of communism. That system was not permitted to develop and the country was attacked by 14 Western countries in 1918 because it threatened the Capitalist monopoly. The ridiculous figure of 30 million deliberate casualties of the Holodomar is often quoted when that number comprised the entire Ukraine population in 1933. Russia exported no grain that year because of severe drought and crop failure.
Kully’s discourse on sex and its “divine” purpose is prescriptive, not descriptive. In the real world, sex is often anything but love and results in unwanted children and exploited women who have no say in the matter. These children have virtually no hope of a decent life and are in addition victims of sex traffickers and other brutal exploiters. Talking divine purpose is of no help when the burden of actuality falls on women and unwanted children. Incidentally, one of two main Christian church theologians is St. Augustine, and believe me – or check for yourself – his ideas on sex, even in marriage, were not sanguine and loving.
The idea of “loving your enemies” surely is as Christian a precept as can be, but it doesn’t mean aiding those who oppress and kill millions. To interpret it as such is surely a blasphemous twisting of Christ, and the essence of evil. But so is “creating” enemies as a means of promoting war.
Regarding Nick Palliser’s letter (Your Views, Aug. 22), I would like to point out that to say parents don’t own their children doesn’t imply that somebody else does. I was addressing the word “own” used by someone else.
Parents have and should have authority over their children, but there are limits in a secular society. Children must attend school until age 14 and that is enforced by law, at least in principle. Children have been medically treated against their natural parents’ wishes – for good or ill is moot. And abused children are removed from their homes, sometimes with ill effects. But, again, that is the law. The word “own” is used as a metaphor in this context: nobody owns anybody else, least of all children.
Doris Wrench Eisler, St. Albert
