If misogyny and homophobia counts as 'generally agreed upon' anyway then much of that's pretty on the nose, but his response to it's been very atypical, like straight up amnesia at points.
Yes, those are some of the things that annoy me about Spats' worldview.
I was able to find an ocean of forgiveness for him when I found out he was Trinidadian. I shit thee not, I know women who fled to Canada from Trinidad bc they were afraid for their lives. Domestic abuse is not only common there, but expected. It's a hyper macho culture that instills violence in men from the cradle.
But fortunately, not every Trinidadian is a horrid wife beater. Some of them are not so awful when you can grit your teeth through the misogynistic words and listen to what drives them. They're also very religious people. More so than Americans on average. They're mostly Xtian(Xtianized) with some other older practices mixed in.
Their homophobia comes from a deeply religious view of what is "natural" vs "unnatural." It goes beyond the usual "ick" reaction that non religious ppl like myself have about other ppl's buttsecks. I can ignore that nastiness bc it's not happening to me and I don't have to listen to it/smell it/ feel it. I can keep sex out of the discussion with somebody who doesn't want to hook up with me, and I can appreciate what they have to offer the world when everything is not all about sex.
But to deeply religious ppl, there are gateways to this world from the spirit world(s?) where scary things can come through and mess with ppl's lives. Human bodily orifices are some of those places. So they wrap said orifices up in mysticism and ritual and ideas about what's good and proper. To keep the "evil" out. It's considered every woman's duty to marry young and have as many babies as possible bc the perfect little infant souls in heaven are all up there waiting for their turn to be born. Denying them their god given right to life is considered one of the most horrible sins a woman can commit. I'm not talking about actively taking a fetus' life, either. I'm talking about the mere act of refusing to allow her womb to be penetrated and used as a church sanctioned vessel for the unborn to join the living. Even refusal is considered a sin.
'Degenerate' sex is believed to be even worse bc 2 men are refusing to put their sperm in a woman where a little expression of god's love can grow to its most saintly potential. And the back door to the demon world is wide open when men fuck each other... or smthg like that :D
lol butt demons
But that's what they believe. And this is what we have to understand if we can be arsed to argue with religious zealots. We have to carefully chip away at the points in their narratives that are truly damaging, that even the zealot himself/herself can admit are not working until s/he can let go of them, and believe that s/he reached these conclusions all on his/her own.
Otherwise we're seen as agents of satan tryinta open up that back door to let the invading force of evil in to take over the world.
So yeah, Tony says some things that seem odd to the rest of us, but when you consider the belief system that was likely taught to him from childhood, his reasoning doesn't seem that damaged. The premises at the core of his belief system, the foundations on which his entire worldview rests are flawed, for sure. But when you keep in mind that somebody else taught him to accept this, the later premises that he formed as a result, and his reasoning process as a whole don't seem all that crazy.
Technically incorrect, yes.
But he's not fully responsible for the non sequiturs that define most of his existence, and continue to create new (and from what he's said, often disappointing) experiences for him.
