Balance in All Things

The internet, in connecting many, many, people, also allows issues to completely divide people in ways never seen before. A trend I notice is that in all these arguments, the reigning opinion tends to always swing between two radically different viewpoints.

Take, for example, feminism. Feminism is fundamentally a good thing. For a very long time, the pendulum was stuck far into the men's side. Women couldn't vote, were expected to stay at home, serve their husbands, etc. Thanks to the heroic efforts of feminists, near all the rights that men have extend to women as well. (In America, at least.) Women's rights still has issues that need solving. Equality, and trivialization of rape, to name some. Then the pendulum swung too far. Very radical feminists began to spring up, and with the help of the internet, grouped together. Their goal was not equality between men and women. No matter how they put it, what they wanted was for women to be dominant over men. It reached the point of misandry, with many fun phrases like "male tears," and "ban men." It also led to unfortunate people such as Chanty Binx. Trivialization of rape is a real problem. How many salty league players, or angry facebook comments have you seen wishing someone would get raped? These people, however, started equating catcalls and staring as rape. Although it is quite rude to do so, calling these things rape is an insult to actual rape victims, and actually trivializing rape in itself. Then the pendulum swung too far once more, this time the fault of the other side. People began to send death threats to radical feminists, which is never okay. Feminism itself began to be attacked even though it is very different from it's radical counterpart. We saw a growing number of "meninists," which, although is probably ironic, was seen as serious by a great many people and further inflamed both sides. (Poe's Law anyone?) Again, a radical group began to make it's small, but loud voice heard, saying that feminists were trying to oppress men. This in turn angered actual feminists. And the pendulum swings.

The feminists have a noble goal, and I hope it is achieved one day, but if they didn't take it too far it would be great. Realize that men can be discriminated upon too. Domestic violence can happen to men. Men can be raped. That is the meaning of equality, that both sides are equal. To the opposition, learning how to distinguish feminism from misogyny would be a start. Most feminists don't want to take away your rights. Death threats are never okay.

As you can see, many issues can gain sudden clarity if you step away from whatever "side" you may be on, and look on at the problem as a whole. Instead of saying "Riven is OP, her X needs to be nerfed because of Y" or it's counterpart, "You can beat Riven if you just X instead of Y, so stop whining and get good," try taking a step back, and looking at both sides. Don't disregard both sides, as often there is a little truth mixed in with the rage. Before you post that thread saying that Riot's Lore team is trash, try to understand. Yes, lore is not in a good state right now. Skarner, Amumu, all these poor champions deserve more than that. Lore is integral to some players, and Riot messed it up. But Riot is a company made of humans, and humans make mistakes. Don't demonize them and think that they trashed it because they hate you, that's just false. On the other hand, Riot does need to step their game up if they want to appease the players. They are taking steps toward this, I recognize that, but if they truly want to solve their problems, it's going to take more than what they are doing now. Yes I realize that balance is pretty messed up right now. Kalista hops everywhere, champions are overloaded, with stacking passives, (It's always three,) and a knock-up, and Riot does need to haul their asses and fix stuff. Realize, however, that those glorious days from so long ago that you remember fondly weren't that glorious. Now, I joined mid-Season three, so what do I know, but from what i've heard, Riot did some pretty messed up stuff back in the day. Xin, Leblanc, heck, the top lane meta from Seasons three to four was basically "can you beat Renekton?" They're working on it, I promise. It'll get better.

And the pendulum swings.

If there was anything I missed, or anything I got wrong, please tell me. I'd hate to preach about political correctness, while being politically incorrect myself.