WESTERN THINKING AND WOES OF CANADIAN MEN Ever since the beginning of Western philosophy in ancient Greece there have been two fundamental approaches to life in general: materialism and spiritualism. The moment has come, where we must see that human emotion is by far more important in the question of life and death, namely in psychosomatic illness, than all the riches of the world. Westerners are inclined to be analytic in their approach to reasoning and perception. They focus on some central object or person, attend to its properties, categorize it, and apply rules to it, including the most formal of rules, namely logic. East Asians are inclined to be holistic in their reasoning and perception. They focus more broadly on the field in which central objects are located, they attend to relationships and similarities among elements in the field, they are less concerned with categories and rules, and they rely on dialectical reasoning. Faith, of course, is itself a positive quality. A sense of faith in God can provide a focus in life, a promise of hope or belonging, the strength to persevere in an overbearing world, and a foundation of ethics in a person who might otherwise become “lost” or unguided in life. Apart from faith in God, we do seek for faith in our partners, family and friends as well as the citizens of our province. Most importantly, we do look for justice in the judiciary of our province. It is very sad to note that lying in court, both verbally and in affidavits is the norm of our judicial system, especially where the husbands / fathers are concerned. There are lawyers who are a major contributor and are routinely guilty of suborning perjury in one form or another. Many people who are concerned about social justice for women and children seem to be morally blind when it comes to the rights—if not the humanity—of divorced and separated fathers. In today’s social and political climate, it is not considered appropriate to speak in defense of divorcing and divorced men, or even of divorced fathers. This prevailing anti-male, anti-father attitude, employed in tandem with a lot of misinformation and flawed data, has succeeded in convincing most divorcing fathers that they are less than human. Under current conditions, there are several reasons (other than the welfare of the children) for a wife to battle strenuously to obtain sole custody. The more custody the mother has of the child, the more financial support, the courts will award her. Often, however, the main reason is totally unrecognized by the courts : the bitterness and need for revenge which amounts to so many marital breakups. Instead of recognizing the devastating effects this can have on everyone and attempting to minimize them, the legal system encourages the use of the children as weapons in divorce court. When a marriage breaks up, regard, less of the couple’s financial and child, care arrangements, the courts presume that the wife has an equal right to the money and property her husband’s and/ or her labor has produced. The mother makes all decisions about the children’s education, health, religion, appearance, rules of behavior and discipline. Yet this system still demands money from the father. He becomes an economic object rather than a father. But the system takes the rewards of parenthood from a divorcing father and leaves him with nothing but the burdens. Child-support enforcement is the most punitive form of debt connection in Canada. There is no verification of amounts (women were asked simply how much they receive; noncustodial parents were not asked for corroboration, nor were court records checked); nothing is done to correct obvious sources of false data [e.g., the known tendency of welfare recipients (the mothers) to underreport outside income]; no data is gathered on how many noncustodial parents (the fathers) are unemployed or underemployed. The men have been made the scapegoats by the women. Justice is not an intellectual exercise. It is still being denied all around Canada, causing vast amounts of human misery. It is high time, justice is done to the men of Canada and people stop thinking about materialistic things in life and concentrate on love, trust, family and togetherness.