Some Scattered Thoughts

Today’s post is a short one, owing to a lack of time and imagination on my part. There are a few posts around the ‘sphere that I want to comment on or highlight for my readers.

To begin with, Beefy Livinson critiques the liberal “distinction” between “Rule of Law” and “Rule of Men.”  As he explains it,

Government simply is authoritative discrimination in favor of one alternative instead of others.

Worth a read, especially for those with a political bent.

Deep Strength has a couple of posts up that are interesting. His most recent covers his first meeting with “her father.” I think it is well worth the read, especially for those single men looking to marry among my readers. He made a number of unforced errors, and hopefully others can learn from his experiences. Like some of the other readers, I thought that the father’s actions were also doubtful at parts. At the same time, it is evident that he truly cares about his daughter, which is a rarity these days. I think it is worth pointing out that the father may not have any prior support to help him in his own vetting process. Christian fathers are often as bereft of knowledge these days as young Christian men looking to marry. Past generations dropped the ball for everyone.

Additionally, Deep Strength examined the matter of vetting and the risk of divorce. Lots of good analysis there. I want to take a stab at answering the questions that Deep Strength posed at the end of the post. In particular, I want to offer an additional theory: the “Feminine Mystique.” Women like to maintain the air that the female of the species is ultimately unknowable. In the context of DS’s post that means unpredictable. I know Rollo has a post or two on the subject, but as I see it women like to keep men in the dark about how they really are as it benefits them for men (or most of them) to be ignorant. Ignorant men cannot catch on to strategies like AF/BB, for example. Also, it helps women filter for male attractiveness- those rare men who do “get them” are more likely to be successful with women, and thus probably superior genetic stock. There are probably other reasons, but I think I’ve established enough for what it is. It is also worth mentioning that much of it might be unconscious on the part of women- almost reflexive, as it were. But not all, of course.

Cane Caldo has made some dramatic life choices recently. The first post is here. The second is here, and the third here. A point he brings up is that patriarchy, as far as daughters are concerned, is heavily focused on protecting and guarding them. The same can be said of sons as well, in an indirect fashion. By ensuring that women are raised right, fathers in a patriarchy can ensure that their sons have access to decent pool of marriageable women. Without the protection of Patriarchy, such a pool will dry up quickly. See the present day for reference.

Zippy is back, at least for one post. Once again he covers the lies inherent in a democratic form of government. What surprised me is that he predicts our present system has as many as 50 years left in it. I wouldn’t have given it that long, but unfortunately he might be right. Ours has proven to be a surprisingly robust socio-political system, and inertia can have a profound effect.

Finally, congratulations are in order to blogger Chad, who became recently engaged to the young woman he has been courting for some time.

Where The Wild Things Are

[I’ve updated the post with new thoughts. Look towards the bottom to find them.]

In his guest post The Irrational Female, commenter mdavid offered his thoughts on why many modern women have gone “feral.” At the time I was too busy to offer my own thoughts, and intend to give them now on that subject. Since it has been a few days, and a few other posts have intervened, I think a new post on the topic would be appropriate.

Having read through mdavid’s post, and the responses to it, I have to say that while I agree with many of his observations, I disagree with many of his conclusions. Family size is tied to the phenomenon of “feral” women, but I don’t think it is a causal factor. Rather, it is a symptom of the actual forces at work.

My personal theory on the matter is that in our present “fallen” state, all human beings start out as feral. It is our “natural” state- or perhaps better termed, “base” state. In order for a human being to not be feral, he or she must be reared and socialized appropriately. Furthermore, since our “base” nature is feral, then it is the norm towards which we revert. Absent other forces at work, human beings will slowly revert back towards being feral. A failure to properly socialize and raise a child means that the child never leaves a feral state in the first place, or will quickly revert back to being feral once left to their own devices.

In order to keep humans from reverting to our feral nature, civilization developed and evolved various structures which promoted civilized behavior. In other words, we incentivized good behavior, and decentivized bad behavior. Laws, cultural codes and mores were all put in place in order to keep humans from going feral. These tools are, or rather, were, in place at every stage of a person’s life.

They were no means fool-proof, either. There have always been those who bucked the laws and customs of civilization. Various names have been used to describe them: criminals, outlaws, malcontents. However they are described, for the large part most have rejected the institutions and tools by which civilization was maintained. At the same time, civilizations would do their best to contain and isolate these individuals. A failure to do so almost invariably ended with the destruction of the attendant civilization.

What we see now in the West in the form of “feral women” is the natural result of the slow dismantling of the tools of civilization. Women, no less than men, needed strong social institutions and customs in place to keep their “wild side” in check. However, in the last few centuries those checks have been either removed or weakened. For the most part, women are no longer punished for socially destructive behavior. They are shielded in many instances from the worst consequences of their conduct. Everything that used to be in place to coerce women to behave is either going or gone.

Even worse, women are often encouraged to engage in this self-destruction. It isn’t enough that women no longer face barriers in the way of their exercising their feral nature. Simply being allowed to engage in what they want doesn’t go far enough. Instead, they must be affirmatively enabled in this. All of which is to say that “empowerment” as used today is nothing more and nothing less than the creation of a new social structure whose purpose is to allow women to go feral.

So, for a brief summary:

• Human beings start feral and need to be socialized throughout their lives in order for them to become “civilized”
• The tools civilization created in the past to socialize women so that they could be civilized have been weakened or dismantled
• In recent years this has been taken a step further and new tools have been put in place which make it easier for women to act feral

Update:

Based on the comments below, I have reworked my original theory. First some background, and then I will start at the beginning.

Ours is a God of Order. (1 Cor 14:33). It stands to reason then that harmony with the will of God is in natural alignment with Order. On the other hand, that which is not in harmony with God’s will must be consistent with chaos, or Disorder. With this in mind, we might imagine a simple continuum, with Order on one side and Disorder on the other. The further we are towards Order, the more in line we are with God’s will. And the further towards Disorder, the less in line we are with God’s will. With this in mind lets to move to human beings.

Human beings have a couple of different forces acting upon them. First, you have our sinful inclinations as result of the Fall. Sin leads us away from God, and thus is inherently a tool of Disorder. Second, you have “the law written in our hearts.” This is our latent understanding of the Natural Law. Since the Natural Law is in harmony with God’s will, it is inherently a tool of Order. Thus, human beings are at their core conflicted- we have the effects of the Natural Law and of the Fall both working within us.

This conflict between those two forces within us, between Order and Disorder, form our base nature (not us being “feral” as I asserted before).  Unfortunately, the Fall damaged our ability to understand the Natural Law. This impairment means that, by ourselves, we can only ever have an imperfect understanding of it, and will only be able to imperfectly follow it. Hence, it is extremely rare for human beings to, on our own, live an Ordered life. But it isn’t impossible. Some individuals are gifted with a greater ability to reason and act rationally. This permits them to act more consistently with the Natural Law, and thus create Order. These individuals are the ones who build civilizations. Especially when they can work in concert, they can instill Order in the world around them. However, as stated before, most individuals aren’t like that. By themselves, they will act in a Disordered way.

One way this can be overcome is of course through careful parenting. Scripture is filled with numerous admonitions of the importance of disciplining children. And for good reason- this is essential to help them develop the tools necessary to live an Ordered life. When parents fail to properly raise their children, they risk those children “backsliding” and becoming captive to their passions.

Another method for instilling Order is through Law. Whether it be formal laws imposed by whatever government exists, or informal customs or conditions, they all have as their function the imposition of restraints on human behavior for the purpose of instilling Order. These social tools are essential to maintaining Order in any society. St. Paul explained why:

⁸ Now we know that the law is good, if any one uses it lawfully, ⁹ understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, ¹⁰ immoral persons, sodomites, kidnapers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine…

(1 Timothy 1:8-10)

There are some who are just inclined towards disobedience. There are others who will have trouble obeying. Thus, social restraints are essential for keeping them in check.

Throughout history, numerous civilizations have tried to impose their own version of Order. However, as noted earlier, they were operating under an imperfect understanding of the Natural Law. This means they would never, could never, achieve true order. They were always conflicted. Thus, you had the Aztec Empire committing human sacrifice, and the Romans maintaining a slave state, and various Indian empires using an inflexible caste system, just to name some examples. Because they lacked a complete understanding of the Natural Law, they were doomed to fail. Any civilization that is founded only on worldly things is so doomed. If an external threat doesn’t destroy them, internal conflicts will. [Incidentally, those civilizations that were closest to obeying the natural law were also the most secure.]

What changes this is Christ. With Christ and the sacraments, human beings can overcome the limitations placed on their understanding of the Natural Law by the Fall. This means we can determine the means to create a truly Ordered society that is in harmony with God’s Will. But at the same time, we are still human beings who sin. So we can reject the Grace extended to us. Because of that, we still need law, as there will always be those who are disobedient.

In the West now there are several things going on. First, we have a widespread rejection of Christ- a rebellion against sound teaching and doctrine. That invariably leads to Disorder, as it brings people further away from grasping the Natural Law. We also have a massive dismantling of social restraints. What I said earlier in the post still applies. Those restraints are essential, no matter the society. There will always be those who disobey or who are likely to stray. Without them, Disorder is only to be expected. Since the restraints on women in particular have been removed the most, we are seeing a lot of Disordered (or “feral”) women in the West these days. I expect that as Disorder continues to grow in the West that men will increasingly follow suit.

And now for an attempt to re-summarize:

• Human beings are conflicted at heart- we are torn between Order and Disorder
• Since Disorder tends to win out for most, human beings need to be conditioned and subject to various social restraints in order to stay “civilized”, that is, to be Orderly
• Women are not reared as well now as they were in the past
• The tools civilizations created in the past to restrain female behavior have been weakened or dismantled
• In recent years this has been taken a step further and new tools have been put in place which encourage Disorderly female tendencies
• As a result, women in the West have become more and more Disordered

Guest Post: The Irrational Female

The following is a guest post from reader and comment mdavid. As always with guest posts, they represent the beliefs of the author and not my own. I am hosting it both because I think it has some value, as well as the fact that it should hopefully generate some good discussion. [Yes, this is pretty much the same disclaimer as before.]

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The blog Rational Male explores the psychological ‘why’ of male-female relations. It’s fairly taboo stuff; the author writes under the moniker Rollo Tomassi (the guy who gets away with it). The general theme: helping men understand the indifference of female hypergamy.

 

It’s an exceptional blog. For those detached from today’s sexual marketplace, it resembles an honest, all-guy watercooler discussion about today’s sexual landscape. It’s nearly always thought-provoking. Needless to say, I read Rollo regularly.

 

Rollo recently did a live interview with Goldmund. Below is a transcript of a part I found intriguing. It called to my attention how marriage has become a wholly bimodal institution. The traditionally religious now have completely different marriages than secular versions. This was not the case even 30 years ago. Rollo mused:

 

I think that after 19 years of marriage there is a certain degree of development between the two of you where you know what’s expected of one another. And I also understand that it could all end tomorrow; you know, that’s another thing to keep in mind. Even if you think you have the most unique woman in the world, you think you have the best marriage you ever had, you know there’s a lot of guys in divorce court right now who’ve said exactly the same thing. And I understand that. If you are looking for a woman it’s important, if you want to have a long term relationship you have to keep that in mind. I wrote in the book this chapter called The Pet and how women can go feral on you and if you really, really want to have some sort of an honest relationship with a woman it’s important to accept the fact that she can go feral on you.

 

What I found so intriguing about the above comment was its bland, stoical acceptance that a marriage may simply “blow up” at any time. Note that Rollo’s a smart, experienced guy and no blowhard; I accept what he says as fact for the average American male. Divorce is an ever-present risk, one that looms over a modern man’s marriage.

 

Nevertheless, I cannot personally agree with Rollo’s above quote. Why? It’s simply not true for people of my religious background. I have familiarity with a fair number of traditional people; exactly zero of them have been in divorce court. None seem concerned with spousal abandonment. More than a few are of low SES status and thus more statistically prone to divorce, so it’s not that I travel in elite circles and am ignorant of the proletariat. Divorce is frankly not even a minor concern for traditional religious people.

 

This makes sense. For a traditional religious woman to divorce she must reject her extended family and entire community. She would become alienated from her (likely numerous) children. She would be a public disappointment, an embarrassment to everyone she knows. Women, unlike many men, are sensitive to social pressure, so divorce simply doesn’t happen often in these communities.

 

In Rollo’s interview (which is worth listening to, by the way) he is asked: “What’s the most important trait you as a man can display to prevent [a wife] from going feral?” I was once again dumbfounded at the underlying assumption. Is there really such an outrageous expectation of male performance today? Is it now a man’s purview to prevent his wife from destroying her own marriage? Divorce is certainly not in a woman’s best genetic interest in nearly every case, since her fertility window is tight and modern culture is very K-strategy focused. Single mothers may have raised Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, but they are far more likely to visit their kid in prison than the White House. And they know it.

 

So why do modern women so often go feral? It can’t be traditional female nature; traditional women don’t behave this way at all. Seen many Amish feminists lately? Me neither. My hypothesis: The modern loss of female fidelity is an organic reaction to below replacement birth rates. Modern women intuit they are going extinct* and this triggers a subconscious yet frantic quest for a fruitful mate.

 

I’m inclined to this explanation since it handles the data while avoiding fuzzy psychological, religious, or moral guesswork. For every childless woman in a tribe, it’s a plain fact that another woman must crank out 4.2 children just to break even (only 7% of women of childbearing age are currently doing so). Natural selection would likely evolve a feral response for unfruitful women since empty wombs are a first-order death knell of any culture. Visit Southern California for pointers. Brush up on your Spanish first.

 

Having children is a woman’s primary raison d’être. She either breeds at replacement or vanishes into the dustbin of history. Empty wombs (especially amid the extreme wealth of today) should cause modern women to go feral. Men, however, are not encoded to so panic, having evolved to find meaning and purpose as worker bees for the tribe (e.g. soldiers). This enables their brothers, extended family, and tribe to march on to genomic victory.

 

The battle between the sexes has clearly heated up to epic levels. Men have responded to the challenge of women’s unilateral control of family with a brilliantly effective scorched earth tactic: boycotting the husbanding of children and family while taking sex whenever possible. Subconsciously men believe all is genetically well, since they are having sex and that’s enough for r-strategy survival. For this reason, men’s happiness versus women’s has been increasing over the last decade. What’s not for him to like? Less work, more varied sex options, and no family obligations.

 

Women, undeniably barren, are driven into unhappy desperation. As a final insult, they are expected to work outside the home and can’t help but subconsciously note migrants populating the gaps left by their own lack of children. For most men this culture, while worth enjoying, is certainly not worth fighting for. So they sit poolside, having accepted and even embraced the status quo.

 

*US Census shows 42% of women of childbearing age currently have no children. 22% have two, 17% one, 12% three, and 7% four or more. That means only 1/5 of women today have yet to dodge the ignominy of the Darwin Award. Interestingly, nearly all of the traditional women I know (who eschew divorce, natch) are in that final 7%. Having won the genetic lottery, why go feral? Domesticated animals rarely leave the warm farm if the farmer is feeding and breeding them well.

Patriarchy and Fatherhood

Novaseeker recently left a comment in this post over at Dalrock’s that is so good it clearly deserves its own post. Here it is in its entirety:

By saying that children don’t need fathers and women don’t need them to raise children successfully, you cut the legs out from under the arguments for child support.

Well, the thing is that in some places donors can actually be successfully sued for child support. It isn’t universal but there have been cases where sperm donors have been made to pay child support precisely because they are the biological fathers. It certainly isn’t 10% airtight for sperm donors, although it does vary by state.

On the broader issue, it really makes plain what everyone here already knows: fatherhood, in the era of feminist matriarchy, is solely dependent on whether the mother wants it to exist. A mother can choose full fatherhood (i.e., married to the bio dad), reduced, or semi-, fatherhood (divorced with “visitation” or “shared parenting” arrangements), or no practical fatherhood but financial, or no fatherhood at all. It’s a menu for mothers, now, and they can switch between different menu items at any time without cost to themselves. Fathers have precisely as much of a role in their children’s lives as the mother, at any point in time, wants and is willing to accept.

Of course, anyone who has been paying attention should not be surprised by this. You can’t really retain a meaningful fatherhood on a mass scale when you ditch patriarchy. More than anything else, patriarchy was about securing fatherhood — securing paternity, which is the basis of fatherhood. When you get rid of it, you ipso facto undermine fatherhood in a way that motherhood can never be undermined because fatherhood is simply more tenuous than motherhood is. And so we shouldn’t be surprised that in a society which has loudly and triumphantly and enthusiastically discarded patriarchy, that fatherhood is amorphous, tenuous, uncertain and in many ways simply failing.

A society can’t have this both ways, really. Either you support fatherhood institutionally, and get more fathers and less fatherlessness, or you undermine fatherhood institutionally in the name of equality and empowering women and their reproductive and romantic freedoms, and you get less fathers and more fatherlessness. It isn’t rocket science. But our society is so “all in” committed to burying all aspects of patriarchy under the banner of female liberation and empowerment that it will choose, again and again and again, every manner of artificial and nonsensical support mechanism to prop up fatherlessness, rather than simply admitting that it was a bad idea to get rid of patriarchy. In other words, as between less freedom/empowerment for women and more fathers, on the one hand, and more freedom/empowerment for women and less fathers (and more fatherlessness), our society will happily choose the latter, and with gusto and enthusiasm, and will simply find more props to support fatherless families.

The main point which can be taken from this comment is simple:

Patriarchy = Fatherhood

Or perhaps better stated…

A = Patriarchy

B = Fatherhood

If A, then B; if not A, then not B

(or something like that; its been way too long since I took a logic class)

In order to have effective Fatherhood, you need at least some form of structural Patriarchy (in a general sense of the term). Without it fatherhood, as an institution, cannot be sustained against the ravages of time + human nature. In terms of Dominoes, the domino of Fatherhood can only be placed upright after, or perhaps at the same time as, Patriarchy. Contra what most of society believes and states, Patriarchy is progress; our current social path is actually regression. The structural benefits of a strong institution of fatherhood, secured only by Patriarchy, are petering out now in the West. We can see the consequences all around us.

Fatherhood, as an institution, is only going to get worse as time passes. The West has pretty much dismantled/destroyed the foundation of Patriarchy, and put (in Novaseeker’s words) a feminist Matriarchy in its place. Of course, I don’t think the two are really separate, but that doesn’t matter in the context of this post. What does matter is that Fatherhood cannot be fixed until we rebuild a solid foundation for it. Simply reversing bad laws isn’t enough. A complete social reorganization will be necessary. And I just don’t see that happening voluntarily. There are simply too many who are invested in this system, man and woman alike, for peaceful change to happen on any meaningful time scale. The whole system would collapse before then. Which is to say that the whole system will collapse. Or at least, that is what I’m seeing from my vantage point right now. I’d love to be wrong, but I don’t think that I am.

With that in mind, the Benedict Option is something that Christians should be considering right now. I know that I am. Novaseeker has some thoughts of his own about the Benedict Option.

Also worth reading: this comment by Dalrock.

Words Of Power

I recently came across this essay by Bonald, who blogs over at Throne and Alter. Somehow I had missed it when he posted it a few weeks back. I wish I hadn’t as there were some interesting points raised both in the main post as well as in the comments. This [post will explore a few of them. Naturally enough I hope my readers will provide their thoughts.

To start with, I found this paragraph concerning customs of how men should interact with women interesting:

Men are stronger than women.  Women thus enter the public sphere from a position of weakness.  The sense of helplessness this might inspire is alleviated by customs whereby men appear to cede high status to women, what we now call “chivalry” (which is, of course, distinct from the medieval warrior code of the same name).  Our many ritual acts of deference to our ladies, holding the door for them and so forth, wouldn’t make sense except as a corrective to the real power everyone knows men hold.  Manosphere writers misunderstand these customs when they imagine them stemming from a view that women are inherently more valuable, while feminists who regard such “benevolent sexism” as a part of the patriarchy are basically correct (but with their moral evaluations reversed, as always with them).

I’ve always found the argument that deferential behavior was driven by some biological recognition that women were more “valuable” than men to be a stretch. At least, a stretch to imagine that was the only force at work. Fortunately a commenter by the name of JMsmith offered this:

As you say, the old courtesies were the means whereby a man signaled that he was not a sexual threat. For instance, a man removed his hat to make himself shorter and less physically imposing. He also spoke in tones that were lower and more soothing. In various ways, some of them entirely symbolic, he put his strength and hardihood at the woman’s service. I remember being taught that, when walking with a girl, I must always walk on the outside of the sidewalk, lest a passing car splash her with mud, slush or puddled water.

But none of these courtesies were emasculating. On the contrary, they affirmed a man’s manhood, which is why the feminist declared war on them (sort of). The old courtesies allowed a male to be gentle and a man. In other words a gentleman.

The behavior of the “consummate gentleman” was, in other words, a sexual “kill button.” It served to set women at ease by assuring them that they were not in, or about to enter, a sexual situation. The manosphere is largely populated by men who were misinformed about this, and who consequently went through life leaning on the sexual “kill button” under the mistaken belief it was a sexual detonator.

Now this has some real merit to it, I think. Especially that last paragraph. When you think about it, deferential customs (when they are kept to sane levels) help to make social interactions between men orderly. In fact, you can extend it to women as well. De-sexualizing social interactions helps to reduce competitive behaviors between men and women. Modesty is a female counterpart to male deference- modestly dressed women are less overtly sexual and thus less likely to incite or generate more sexualized responses from men. This will naturally lead to competition between men, which strains the social order.

Bonald’s mention of “language of conquest” was also worth noting:

Men want sex more than women.  This means women have a stronger bargaining hand in the bedroom.  No man wants to beg for sex; that would be humiliating and contemptible.  We thus ritually correct the power asymmetry by describing sexual intercourse in terms that flatter the man’s agency:  he “took her”, “had his way with her”, and so forth.  Feminists misunderstand this language by taking it literally, thinking it reflects a “rape culture” and that men experience their sexual appetite as a strength rather than a weakness.  In fact, men often experience lust as perturbability, as weakness, and we are embarrassed by its power over us.  Here it is the writers of the manosphere who seem closer to the mark, pointing out that the woman herself prefers to be “conquered” than to be petitioned.

I’m not sure that I agree with the first two sentences, at least in how they translate into “ritual language.” Men, being stronger than women, really can “take it” if they want to. Of course, there might be serious consequences for it, but that potential still exists. However, civilized living requires men to set aside that power or at least severely restrain it. In that sense men are willfully restricting their power in a manner similar to, although not the same as, deferential custom. I would wager that men use that language because it allows them to remove, at least in their minds, the restraints that society places on their sexuality. That it comes from stronger female bargaining power seems a bit weak to me.

On the other hand, I very much agreed with this paragraph:

And this role we hate.  Folk wisdom has it that when a boy pulls a girl’s pigtails, it probably means he likes her.  I’m sure this is true.  When a man becomes attracted to a girl, he feels a paradoxical urge to tease and offend her.  Girl’s are cute when they’re shocked and offended–no doubt about that.  If you can amuse and shock a girl all at once–get her to exclaim “I can’t believe you just said that!” in between suppressed giggles, it feels like, like victory.  You’re not some beggar pleading for sex.  No!  It feels like you’re in charge.

Lastly, in the comments the subject of women wanting sex and how they react when it was denied came up. I think that the strong reaction women have isn’t simply that they aren’t used to being denied it. Rather, I think that women cannot handle rejection in this area as well as men normally done. Possibly it is because women experience it less. But I think that there is an innate female aspect to this as well.

Of course, I might be completely wrong, and my readers have a chance here in the comments to demonstrate my folly.

[As an aside, I am working on a follow-up to my post on sympathy, as it is obvious that some things need to be cleared up, in addition to my desire to explore the nature of the responses to that post.]

Falling Dominoes: Enforcing Silence

This is the first in an irregular series that will continue the ideas I expressed long ago in my post It’s Not The Fall That Kills You. It will cover various ways that society, the church or various institutions are starting to fall apart. In that post I compared the collapse of society with lines of dominoes toppling, one after another. Here is a snippet of that explanation:

Many people seem to expect that there will be some kind of “collapse”, or catastrophic event which marks “the Decline,” or perhaps its culmination. This is proceeded usually by a period of free-fall which may be what most think of in terms of “the Decline.”

Instead Ace provides us with an analogy which highlights that the Decline is a series of discrete events, each of which when triggered will fall and potentially trigger another event. The sheer complexity of the situation is too much for a single line of dominoes, instead we are talking about lines and lines of dominoes, linking around and intermixing with one another, all connected by a myriad of pathways. So even a few dominoes being toppled will quickly lead to line after line being set into motion; before long matters will quickly spiral out of control. Everything will topple.

Today’s post addresses a subject that a few others have addressed before, although I aim to explore it in a somewhat different light: the enforcement of “anti-discrimination” laws so as to require Christians to engage in conduct they otherwise would not want to engage in. Most recently this has focused on bakeries owned or operated by Christians who have been asked to cater for same-sex unions.

Now, others have examined whether Christians ought to refuse or not before, with Deep Strength’s post on the subject being a good example. But that is not my focus. Whether or not Christians should refuse or not isn’t what concerns me. Rather, what I am concerned with is “anti-discrimination” laws in the first place, and the enforcement regime they create.

As I see it, such laws (at least when the subject of homosexuality is concerned) have two greater and generally under the radar purposes-

The first is social affirmation. Protecting something means that is has value; this can apply to behavior or identity or some combination thereof. Anti-discrimination laws (in this context) give those they “protect” a sense of validation that essentially allows them to feel good about themselves.

The second, and ultimately more important purpose, is to squelch any public expression of Christian orthodoxy when it comes to homosexuality. However, refusing to recognize homosexual behavior is only among the first aspects of the Faith belief to be targeted. It won’t end there.

I won’t mince any words here. The goal, the long term goal, is to criminalize any outward signs of orthodox Christian beliefs. Anything that is an orthodox Christian belief will be targeted if it conflicts with modernist sensibilities. Nothing is sacred, and nothing is safe. In fact, it won’t stop there. Christians may well be affirmatively required in some circumstances to express views that conflict with core tenets of the Faith.

I called this particular post “Enforcing Silence” because silencing Christians is the main goal. But even silence may not be enough for some. Those who refuse to parrot acceptable slogans might will find themselves under suspicion. Christians who hold to orthodox beliefs will find it increasingly difficult, as time passes, to work within the general confines of society. Their silence will not be overlooked.

Ultimately, I suspect that those who hold to orthodoxy will have to isolate themselves from greater society. Think the Amish. While it may not be enforced at the point of a gun, it will be the only way to be safe from the intrusions of the State. Of course, this might well only work for a time. The Amish have been tolerated for some time, and those who join them in isolated Christian communities might be tolerated as well. But modernists (and especially SJWs) are relentless and totalitarian. There is a very good chance that they would turn their eyes upon those communities given enough time, and without other, more pressing distractions. The real question is whether the system will last that long.

As for how this ties in to falling dominoes? Well, every time such a law is enacted a domino falls. Every time one is enforced a domino falls. Every time a Christian is forced to close his or her business, or cannot voice their beliefs, another domino topples.

The acceptance, by many Christians Churchians, of these kinds of laws, is a demonstration of just how many dominoes have toppled already. Things are already so far gone most Christians fail to see the situation for what it is. And even if they could, many would still choose to love the world, and not God.

Where is this heading? Well, the past (especially the earliest days of the Church) holds some clues. But things are somewhat different, and I might, in another post, explore why the future will not be a repeat of the past.

[Apologies for the roughness of this post. Some of the ideas are still not crystal clear in my head, but I felt that it was important to get this post out sooner, rather than later. Hopefully the comments will provide needed clarity and expansion of thought.]

A Man, A Mission, And A Podcast

Ace of Spades recently appeared on a podcast hosted by a gentleman who goes by the name of Beppo Venerdi. You can find the podcast, and Ace’s post on the subject, here. I cannot recommend it enough.

A wide array of subjects are discussed, ranging from a little bit of Ace’s bio to how he found the ‘sphere to whether the Red Pill or The Sunglasses are a better analogy all the way to how men need to approach their Mission in life. It has given me a lot to think about, and I should probably get around to writing a post or two in response.

The most likely subject that I will write about will tie in to a post of mine that Ace mentioned in the podcast, It’s Not The Fall That Kills You. That post is almost 2 years old now, and I still think it is one of my best. Its long past overdue for me to take that subject up again and continue where I left off. In the interim, listen to the podcast if you can find the time. I think most will find it quite profitable.

Reconciling Different Views of Women

Courtesy of Free Northerner, I came across a post at the Orthosphere which tried to resolve the apparent differences the manosphere and traditionalists hold about the nature of women. I was intrigued by the post because a number of the points were quite similar to some I’ve argued in the post. One example includes this snippet:

I observe that women are generally conformists. They don’t want to rock the boat. They don’t want to make waves. They just want to get on with living as pleasant a life as possible, and this requires having good relations with other people and not feeling like a fish out of water when they listen to our leaders. Most women just want to agree with what the authorities are teaching and get on with having a comfortable existence.

And this need not be a bad thing. When the times are properly ordered, it is good for a woman not to waste her precious psychic resources tilting against windmills when there is important practical work to be done raising the next generation. The ability and desire to raise children well is the unique gift of the woman, and the world is generally better off when most women leave the idealism to the men.

Remember, generalizations are generalizations. Readers of the Orthosphere are different. If you’re reading these words then you’re probably not a conformist. But most of your sisters are.

Many men are conformists too. But manliness is antithetical to conformity. Men, on average are different.

This advances the same idea I raised in my post The Herd and Women-Good/Men-Bad:

When society at large encourages moral behavior and discourages immoral behavior, more women than men will behave morally, but when society at large discourages moral behavior and encourages immoral behavior, more men than women will behave morally.

Its always nice to know that I’m ahead of the curve. One thing that deserves to be commented on is this:

Through most of human history, when the authorities taught the ideals of pre-marital chastity and post-marital fidelity, most women, being conformists, felt allegiance to this ideal. Being human, they occasionally failed to reach it. And those who fail to reach an ideal are tempted to deny it. But most women, most of the time, endorsed the ideal.

I have two problems with this. The first, which is addressed in the comments, is that teaching is not what made the system what it was. Teaching chastity and fidelity are the small and easy steps. What matters, and what “traditional” societies did until recently, was to enforce what they taught. Tied to this is whether most women really “endorsed” the ideal. I don’t think that they did, any more than men did. Endorse is too strong of a word, it indicates far more support than I think most had. Rather, women accepted the requirements the ideal imposed on them. Some certainly accepted, or even endorsed, the ideal. But they would be the minority. The majority accepted it because the they wanted to avoid the consequences of deviancy.

Now, I did have some disagreements and observations about other parts of the post. For example, I definitely disagree with this statement:

So why is the modern woman different? Because she’s a conformist, and so she conforms to the new ideal of selfishness.

While I do agree that woman are conforming to that ideal, that is not the only reason why modern women are different. In fact, I would argue that conforming to selfishness has only a small part to do with it. But that is a subject for my next major post.

Next, I wanted to point out a flaw with this part:

Traditionalism of the Orthosphere variety doesn’t just order men to “man up and marry the woman” (to paraphrase a popular Manosphere saying.)

That isn’t a paraphrase of the manosphere saying, it is an alteration of it. And by alteration I mean change so significant as to be almost disingenuous. A more accurate paraphrase would be “Man Up and Marry That Harlot.” The difference between those two versions of the saying is profound, and thus a correction is necessary.

Also, I think that this bit:

if men abdicate their responsibility en masse then the human race will founder

has pretty much been definitely proven by now. Our present “civilization” is a living example of what happens when men abdicate responsibility en masse. I suspect that there is little we can do about it now besides try out best to preserve and pass on that wisdom to the next few generations, in the hopes of not repeating that error again anytime soon.

Ordering Deception

A short post today.

In my most recent Musings post I made the assertion that women were more prone to being deceived than men. A brief debate ensued, and after some study and careful thought I came to reconsider my original position. Here is what I expressed later:

I think that what might account for susceptibility to deception might in fact be primarily a result of deception from the other sex. I suspect that it might be that women are susceptible to men deceiving them. And the reverse definitely seems to be true based on many accounts from these parts.

In other words, women seem prone to deception, at least to men, because women are more susceptible to being deceived by men. And the reverse is also true- that men are prone to being deceived by women. A possible implication of this is that men are less susceptible to being deceived by other men, and women are less susceptible to being deceived by other women.

I think that the principal reason this might be the case is that men tend to be less knowledgeable about women. They don’t know how they think, or what they think, or what they value, or why, to the degree that they do with men. And of course vice-verse. There are plenty of anecdotal stories from the manosphere which would back up that men can be deceived, easily even, by women. While the reverse has tended to be a predominate view, or at least was for a long time, that might be because most of the authors of such advice were men. Women might have, and probably did, have other ideas about how easy men were to deceive.

Seeing as I love to categorize, I see four different scenarios when individual deception is concerned (that is, individuals deceiving other individuals). They are:

• A man deceiving a woman
• A man deceiving another man
• A woman deceiving a man
• A woman deceiving another woman

What I wonder about is the order of susceptibility. By that I mean, which scenario is the most potent? Or are they the same between the opposites? That is, are men just as good at deceiving women as women are at deceiving men? I would invite my readers to contribute their thoughts on these questions, and the order of the specific scenarios from easiest to hardest.

The Gift Of Advice

Long time readers might be familiar with the book A Christian Man’s Guide to Love and Marriage in the 21st Century, which I plugged last year. The author of the book, Don Riefstahl, has edited and updated his book and just released a second edition. Even better, he is offering a free PDF copy to anyone interested. If you want to check it out, or would like to send a quick and easy gift to a man in need, you can download it here. The book is published under a creative commons license and can be freely shared and copied.

The book itself is short (about a hundred pages) and provides a very brief encapsulation of much of what is discussed here and on other Christian monsopherian blogs. Don has cleaned up a lot since his first edition, and the book reads better and gets the point across much more smoothly. One thing that Don deserves a lot of credit for is sourcing – he has lots of footnotes providing all the sources for his quotes and statistics. They definitely raise the credibility of the book significantly.

The book is aimed at the dating crowd, however, even if a Christian man isn’t interested in marriage (or is too young), this book still has a lot of value. Don explores a great deal of male and female nature which every man should know. Truthfully, there is a lot in there for pretty much any Christian man to find something educational and edifying.

As Don explained it to me:

I have yet to find a book this size (or any other size for that matter) that shows how gender relations work in the framework of a contract between the sexes, and how that contract was built upon how God designed men and women. This book also tackles the wage gap myth, MGTOW, and “manning up” – all key topics that men today need to be aware of, whether they are looking to get married or not.The church today largely doesn’t understand these issues, so they are blaming men (and single men especially) for the breakdown in the system. We need to get this message to the men of the church so that change can come from informed believers within.

While this book is not an exhaustive treatise on everything a Christian man should do or know, it does serve as an effective primer and “wake-up call” for the average Christian man. It provides a good, basic explanation of socio-sexual behavior that will be helpful to nearly anyone. So I strongly recommend it to those who are new to this part of the web or who haven’t ever heard this kind of message before.

For those interested in a paper copy as a gift, it is sold via Amazon.