Background On The Nature Of Man

I. Introduction

Today’s post serves as a backdrop of, and provides background for, several posts that I will be writing in the near future. All of the posts will rely on the theological principles laid out in this post. Originally I was intending to do only a single comprehensive post, but it was starting to become too unwieldy. So I decided to split it up into several posts, each of which will be far more focused in their intended purpose. Hopefully this won’t stifle the discussion too much. Since this is a background post, I would ask that the discussion here focus on the theological points involved, rather than the eventual topics to be discussed.

Just to warn folks, this post and the attendant series will be heavily Catholic/Apostolic in nature. It relies heavily on Eastern Church (Eastern Catholic) theology as well as some Thomasist theology from the Western Church. A few other odds and ends may be noticeable as well.  If you have any questions feel free to ask in the comments.

II. Human Nature

Human beings are unique among God’s creation in that we possess three distinct features: A Body, Soul and Spirit. No other creature shares these three like Man does.

A. The Body

Our Body is our physical representation on the material plane. It is what human beings have in common with the animals. It encompasses all of our physical presence in this world. There are two key features that come of possessing a Body: Senses and Appetites.

Senses includes all of the five physical senses: sight, sound, touch, smell and taste. Again, these are all things that we share in common with the animals. Senses are how we gauge the material world around us. We use them to know what is real in a physical sense.

Appetites include all of our bodily desires and urges: to eat, to drink, to sleep, to procreate. Again, all things that we share in common with the animals. Our appetites are what keep us alive on a daily basis, as well as provide for the continuation of the species. We use them to determine what purely material things we may want.

Our Senses provide information on the world around us, as well as the state of our Body, and our Appetites respond to this information by generating impulses for us to act upon. Feelings and Emotions are matters of the Body, as they are controlled by both our Senses and our Appetites [they also can have a connection with the Soul as well].

Blood ties as well as material desires are all inherently tied to our Body. They are almost always short-sighted, focusing on continuation or propagation.

Our Body is the foundation of our existence as human beings, in that it is the first part of us that develops. Long before we achieve free will or can build a spiritual life we possess senses and appetites. Sadly, many human beings never rise above material concerns. They focus purely on matters of the body, letting the soul and spirit anguish. One very important thing about the Body is that because it is material, it is also inherently mortal. Our physical form will eventually end. We die. As the Psalmist once wrote: “Man cannot abide in his pomp, he is like the beasts that perish.” Our body may be our beginning, but unlike our soul or spirit, it will also end.

B. The Soul

Our Soul is our mind and the attendant abilities that comes with it. It is what separates us from and elevates us above the animals.  Possessing a soul is what human beings have in common with the Angels. They too have souls. However, human beings are different from the Angels because in order to use our Soul, we must have a functioning body. If our body shuts down (such as in sleep or death- which is just another type of sleep), then our soul shuts down as well. There are two key features that come of possessing a Body: Reason and Free Will.

Reason is our intellect, our ability to logically understand matters both physical and metaphysical. It is our Soul’s counterpart to our Body’s Senses. We use our Reason to understand Truth. Science is what happens when Reason and our Senses combine- it is an attempt to fully measure the physical world and come to a complete understanding of it. Theology is what happens when our Reason and Spirit combine- we try to discern the nature of God, and come to an understanding of Him.

Free Will is our ability to choose what actions we will and won’t take. In Summa Theologica St. Thomas Aquinas explained that “[t]he will is the name of the rational appetite,” hence it is the Soul’s counterpart to our Body’s Appetites. It is through our Free Will that we decide what kind of life to live. In other words, Free Will is what we use to decide what is Good.

Essentially, our Reason determines what our options happen to be, and our Will determines which option we will actually take. Truth + Good= the life we live.

Abstract matters of mind, not matter, are of the Soul. Those who devote themselves to “higher” pursuits (for example, Philosophy) are seeking matters of the Soul. Matters of the Soul can be short-term or long term. Devotion to friends or country (outside of immediate blood interest), for example, are matters in which the Soul dominates.

Unlike our Body, our Soul must develop over time. It is effectively dormant until we reach the age of Reason. Unlike our Body, the Soul is eternal and Immortal. Yet, as noted before, we human beings require a Body to actually use our Soul. The Angels are not so limited. Those who truly develop their soul can live a much deeper and more fulfilling life than those who are guided by mere material pursuits.

C. The Spirit

Our Spirit represents the highest form of life that we can live- the divine life. It is the potential that we human beings have to partake of the divine nature, to become like and become one with God. It is not so much that we share a Spirit with God, but rather He shares His Spirit with us. It is the highest form of life that Man can live. “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1:27). That image is the life of the Spirit- that which God shares with us.

The three virtues of Faith, Charity/Love and Hope mark our Spirit. All three are the key features of our Spirit. “So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” (1 Cor 13:3).

It is important to understand that the Spiritual Life is not possible through either our Senses or Reason alone. Revelation was necessary for us to perceive this higher form of life. Hence, even the greatest of philosophers were not able to know of it.

Our Spirit is our connection and union with God. It is a life not connected with our physical body, or even the physical world. It is a life that transcends the material world- “what is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.” (John 3:6). Since it comes from God, it is also immortal and eternal. Our Spirit endures forever, and from what I understand, does not “shut down” like our Soul does (I’m not certain about this and may correct it later if I should be wrong).

As Christians we understand that we cannot achieve this life on our own. Rather, it is only accessible through the aid of God. “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, ⁴ by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, that through these you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of passion, and become partakers of the divine nature.” (2 Peter 1:3-4).

It is only through a life of Christian discipline that we can build a Spiritual life for ourselves. It is notable that neither Adam nor Eve had to do so- they were created with a full spiritual life. Which brings us to the next section.

III. The Fall

The Fall dramatically reshaped how human beings were. What we were like before the Fall was very different from how we are now. Here are some ways we changed-

A. Spiritual Death

Prior to the Fall both Adam and Eve possessed full Spiritual lives. But then Death came into the picture.

Now the serpent was more subtle than any other wild creature that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree of the garden’?” ² And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; ³ but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” ⁴ But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die. ⁵ For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

(Genesis 3:1-5)

The Death that is referred to in the Garden of Eden re: The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is not a purely physical death (in fact, it may not have been physical death at all). What God warned about was much worse: Spiritual Death. By eating of the forbidden fruit, Adam and Eve rebelled against the Lord. The price for that rebellion, the price of Sin, was to be cut off from the Lord. To be cast out of the Garden. Since God is the source of all Spiritual Life, by cutting off union with God they cut off the source of their Spiritual Life. Thus, it died within them. And so it was for all human beings afterwards until the time of Jesus- they all had dead Spiritual lives. Only the Sacrifice of the Cross allowed for human beings to be reunited with God again, and through it to be able to live a Spiritual Life.

It should be noted that the Serpent lied about many things there. Not the least of which is that eating of the fruit would make human beings like God. In fact, the opposite occurred- because we died Spiritually we became unlike God, in Whose image we were originally made.

B. Disorder and Weakness

Prior to the Fall, our Spiritual life was our dominant life. Our Body and our Soul existed to serve our Spirit. The Order in priority was Spirit, then Soul, and then finally Body. The Fall changed all of that.

Because human beings died spiritually as a result of the Fall, part of our being became Disordered. Our Body, which used to occupy the least dominant position in the hierarchy of our nature, assumed the dominant position. Our Soul, which used to serve our Spirit, came instead to serve our Body. And since it was dominant, the desires and weaknesses of the Flesh (Body) came to dominate mankind. The goal of living out a Spiritual life is to restore the right order, and elevate our Spiritual Life to the dominant position. That way we can become primarily divine beings again, and be able to, as it were, walk with God as we did in the beginning.

Speaking of the weaknesses of the flesh, that was another consequence of the Fall. Our bodily appetites, which used to properly serve us, essentially ran rampant. Our appetites became contrary to reason.  Instead of craving natural things in their proper place, human beings developed cravings for unnatural things or natural things outside their proper place. This is known by many names, among them Concupiscence. Now, this doesn’t mean that our Bodies are totally corrupt. Rather, it means that our body is weakened, vulnerable. This weakness was a punishment imposed upon us by God as a consequence of our rebellion. As a result, we are vulnerable to temptation and sin because our body is inclined towards disorder. This inclination, which St. Thomas Aquinas referred to as the Fomes of Sin, persists as long as we shall live. No matter how Holy we may become, we will still struggle with sin.

C. A Choice Must be Made

Because of all of this, every human being must make a choice. He or she must choose to either live out a material life, or a Spiritual life. Our Savior explained it to us: “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” (Matthew 6:24). Mammon refer to the world and the things of the world. We must choose whether to serve God, which means letting the Spirit dominate, or to serve Mammon, and let the Flesh dominate. “Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. ¹⁷ For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want.” (Galatians 5:16-17).

Those are the two paths available to us. There are no others. The Flesh and the Spirit are opposed, they do constant battle with one another. Neutrality is not possible. We have to choose a side. Either we are with God, or against Him. Not choosing isn’t possible- the default position, thanks to the Fall, is to choose the Life in the Flesh.

This choice is made by our Soul, which acts as the fulcrum point in this battle. Specifically, our Will (which is part of our Soul) must choose to partake of the Divine nature, or to partake of the base pleasures of the body. Now, Reason helps us decide what is True, but it is our Will which chooses what is Good. Both the Spirit and the Flesh have very different ideas on what is True and what is Good.  As Christians we understand that the Flesh misleads us, and that what Mammon offers is an illusion. When we speak of “saving souls”, we mean that we help incline a Soul towards choosing to serve God, and not Mammon.

This struggle is constant, and far from easy. “For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” (Matthew 7:14). We cannot do it by ourselves; on our own we haven’t a chance. Thankfully, we have God on our side. “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” 

IV. Of Heart And Love

[In a case of extreme sloppiness on my part I forgot to include this in the original post. Thanks to Deep Strength for pointing that out.]

As some might have (and some clearly have) noticed, my explanations thus far have not addressed two very important topics: Heart and Love. Both matters are intimately connected, and in fact we often use the symbol of a heart to mean love.

From what I understand of the Eastern Church perspective, the Heart is associated with both life and Love. Further, there is no separate “Heart feature.” Instead, there are three different meanings of the word Heart. Each meaning is associated with one of our features. In addition, there are two different ways of looking at each Heart. One centers around the Life component, and the other centers around a form of Love. In this sense we might understand one to be internal (life), and the other external (love).

Also, and not coincidentally, each meaning of Heart is associated with a different form of Love. As many of readers will be aware, ancient Greek had three different words for love that saw general usage: Eros, Philia and Agape. Each one of these loves is associated with a particular feature of human nature, and its respective Heart.

A. Body

When we speak of Heart in connection with the Body, we refer to the physical organ itself that keeps the body alive. As the pump that moves blood around the body, it is a source of Life. It is no accident that when doctors speak of death, they speak of the heart stopping.

The form of Love that is associated with the Body is Eros, which refers to bodily/sensual wants and desires. When Eros is used it is mostly in connection with sexual desires, but all produces of our Appetites fall here. As hinted at just now, Eros is connected to our Appetites. When we say we “love” a type of food, pizza for example, we refer to the love known as Eros. Unfortunately for us, Eros can overwhelm the other loves and become “inordinate”, which means that our Will serves it and our Spirit dies).

Emotions are something special, in that they mix both bodily desires/Appetites with the product of the Soul as well. When we speak of Emotions, we refer to them as “coming from the heart.” The Jews and Greeks thought that the organ itself was responsible. We know that isn’t the case now, as it is the brain instead. But that is still a function of the Body. This is why animals can have emotions. Yet we also recognize that the Soul also plays a role as well- which explains why emotions are much more developed in human beings. Sometimes when Scripture refers to the Heart, it refers to that connection with emotions- a product of both Soul and Body.

B. Soul

When we speak of Heart in connection with the Soul, we refer to our innermost being- the depths of who and what we are. What keeps our soul alive. This is the form of Heart used most commonly in the New Testament. This Heart is also connected with emotions and feelings.

The form of Love associated with the Soul is Philia. This is the faculty which allows our soul to “desire” immaterial things like friendship, or peace or philosophical ends. Philia is a higher form of Love than Eros, and since it is immaterial can last forever (presumably we can still love our friends in Heaven). Pursuit of this form of Love leads to a more fulfilling life. Philia is associated with our Free Will, and resides in the Heart of our Soul.

C. Spirit

When we speak of Heart in connection with the Spirit, we refer to our union of God. The life of the Spirit, that divine life within us which is provided by a connection with God. “¹² But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God; ¹³ who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:12-13). When we treasure the things of God, and build up Spiritual treasure, then our Heart resides with Him. “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” (Matthew 6:21).

The form of Love associated with the Spirit is Agape, or Caritas (Charity). This Love resides in the Spirit and is the expression of wanting that the Spirit demonstrates. It is a desire for God, to be fully united with him. Agape or Caritas is a self-sacrificial love that gives and asks nothing in return- this makes it the highest form of love, and ultimately the most fulfilling. Naturally enough, this is the Love that God has for us. Caritas is the greatest of the theological virtues, and the first gift of the Holy Spirit. If we are filled with the Holy Spirit, then we cannot help but demonstrate Caritas (think the Evangelizing by the Apostles after the descent of the Holy Spirit- they were punch drunk with Love). Since it is associate with the Spirit, this Love is only possible with Grace- we can’t do it without God.

[This section is still a little light, I need to do some more inquiry here. Expect it to be updated in the future.]

V. Conclusion

That brings this background post to a finish. The next few major posts of mine should tie back to this one. Hopefully it will soon make sense why I went to the effort to write all of this. In the meantime, any questions about what I’ve written can be left in the comments. I will try and address them as time permits. In addition, I will likely update this post to correct any deficiencies as they come to my attention, or to clarify anything that needs further explanation.

Note To Self #138

• Do not name your daughter after a virtue.

Especially a cardinal virtue. If you give her a name like Chastity or Grace it is just asking for trouble. Names can and will doom children. Or at least that is how it seems to work as far as I can tell. Nearly all of instances of virtue named women I have met haven’t lived up to that virtue whatsoever.

As for why this is the case, perhaps it is because Churchians are the most apt to so name their children these days. And given their attitudes and theology, we shouldn’t be surprised that many of their children end poorly.

On an unrelated note, I have been working on a major post idea lately. However, I’ve decided to break it up into several different posts instead. The first post will act as a sort of foundation for the follow-ups. I hope to have it up by the end of the weekend.

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.

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.]

Yet Another Domino…

…hits the floor.

As the article makes clear, you cannot win as a Christian who professes orthodox beliefs. Compliance with their sundry demands is not enough. It will not, it cannot, be enough that you don’t act on your beliefs. You won’t be aren’t allowed to voice them either. And very soon (already?) you will be forced to voice beliefs that are not your own. Followed not long after by being forced to act consistent with their beliefs.

You know who they are.

And you know who their father is.

[This is a follow-up to my post here.]

Resisting Timidity In The Modern Church

Monseigneur Pope has an excellent article discussing St. Paul’s freeing of the sooth-saying slave girl and how that relates to widespread cowardice in the Church today. A snippet:

And what of us today? We have gone through a long period during which the faith could be lived quietly and generally fit quite well into the world in which we lived. Harmony and “getting along” were highly prized. Particularly here in America, Catholics wanted to reassure the general populace that our faith in no way hindered us from being full participants in the American scene and that we could fit right in and be just like everyone else. With the election of the first Catholic president back in 1960, we could say that we had finally made it and had been fully accepted. Finally we fit in.

Of course the culture was not in such disrepair in those days and there was a fairly wide moral consensus rooted in the Judeo-Christian vision. Now that we have finally “made it,” the fire of our distinctively Catholic culture seems to have faded away. At the same time, Western culture has also largely died. (Is it a coincidence?)

In recent years, so-called Catholic universities and other institutions have been caving in to pressure. They are affording marriage benefits to same-sex bedfellows and succumbing to the HHS mandates to provide contraceptives and abortifacients. This is sad, pathetic, wrong, and cowardly—hardly the revolutionary faith that got Paul arrested.

And now we are coming full circle. We must rediscover how revolutionary our Catholic faith truly is to this world gone mad. And as we proclaim healing and profess an allegiance to something other than this world, we will become increasingly repugnant to the world around us.

I would encourage my readers to read the entire article.

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.

A Mountain Out Of A Molehill

This post is an opportunity for my readers to help my out. I am concerned that I might have made something out to be a bigger deal than it really was. Or perhaps misunderstood the point that was being made. It began when I read this post over at Leane’s blog. This paragraph in particular caught my eye:

Men left to themselves too long tend to become rough, brutish, and even evil. I saw enough of this in the Army during the two years overseas with the same outfit. There was something vital missing in the lives of these soldiers. It was the influence of their mothers, their sisters, their wives, and their sweethearts. The deterioration of the soldiers overseas was slow and gradual but still very definite. The great mass of mankind finds it pretty difficult to climb very much above its environment. An all-male environment is not good for a man over a long period of time. God never intended for the average man to so live. Eve appeared on the scene soon after Adam.

I reacted… rashly to this message. Here is my response:

I don’t know how to describe this paragraph other than as vile. The central argument is that without women (presumably good women) in their lives then adult men will become uncivilized savages. To the best of my knowledge there is zero support for this in Sacred Scripture or Tradition. A great many monastics lived lives which stand as a strong testament against the proposition advanced here.

Furthermore, even if this were true, and I contend it is not, this is an awful thing to include in advice supposedly directed at women. It is the worst kind of pastoral care. More than a few women will read this as saying that their presence is the only thing keeping the men in their life from being “ough, brutish, and even evil.” This feeds into the worst parts of female nature. It is especially poisonous for wives who have rebellious tendencies- which happens to be all of them, as all human beings are rebellious at heart. Simply put, there is no good reason to include this paragraph in this particular work.

Additionally, if I or another man was to write something similar, only with the roles reversed- describing the awful things women will do if left too long to themselves, would anyone simply leave it be? Or would it be called out?

I am going to stop here. I am sorry for hijacking this comment thread, but I could not remain silent.

This drew, as expected, some opposition from female commenters, as well as the blog hostess herself. What I hope to hear from my readers is whether my reaction to that paragraph was on target, and whether I over-reacted or not. As a quick recap, and to help folks better understand what I was saying, here are the three general points I was making:

1. The argument which the author made is not supported by Sacred Scripture or Tradition.
2. It was bad pastoral practice to include this paragraph in the book it was found in.
3. A similar paragraph or statement with the roles reversed would not be ignored like that paragraph was.

If anyone thinks I was wrong, please indicate where I screwed up. And if you have any problems with my response, besides the bad proofreading, please let me know. Don’t hold back, let me have it. [Although I will say that I think the response of one of the female commenters to a piece of red meat I left in the second point justifies my third point.]

So, did I make a mountain out of a molehill?

[Update: It wasn’t clear from my post, but Leane did not write that paragraph. Her post was quoting from a book called The Wife Desired. The book was written by a Catholic priest back in 1951.]

Tall, Dark And Handsome

One of the arguments that I’ve raised on this blog which has consistently generated the most opposition is that Christian women have the same sexual attraction or arousal filters that secular women have. In fact, I created my LAMPS/PSALM model in large part as a response to Christian women who objected that they “Were Not Like That.” My goal in creating LAMPS/PSALM was to provide a universal blueprint of the different factors or attributes that influence a woman’s sexual attraction or arousal to a man. Naturally enough, that model has received its fair share of opposition (not all of it from women, it should be noted).

Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it) reality has a way of providing plentiful evidence to back up my theories. In particular, there are numerous accounts from Christian women which completely back up my theory. One such account, a sad tale indeed, can be found here. A thoughtful reader has helpfully alerted me to yet another account that supports my model. [It should be noted that this reader lives outside of America and Europe, and has confirmed that the harms of feminism and sexual liberation are not limited to those respective regions.] The title of the article is that of this post- Tall, Dark and Handsome. I recommend reading the whole article. It shouldn’t take much time, as it isn’t a lengthy one. As you will hopefully have read, the account contained therein follows the usual pattern:

• Good Christian Girl meets tall, dark and handsome Stranger
• Good Christian Girl learns that the Stranger is not a Christian (or his faith is lukewarm)
• Good Christian Girl is invited to spend time with Stranger
• Good Christian Girl decides that spending time with him is ok, its not like anything will happen
• Good Christian Girl discovers that she enjoys spending time with Stranger
• Good Christian Girl starts to experience “feelings” towards Stranger
• Good Christian Girl lies to herself about her “feelings”
• Good Christian Girl gets invited to some event or place where she would be alone with Stranger

This is where the usual pattern is broken. Fortunately for Camerin (the authoress of the article), she had some good friends with more sense than she did. They pointed out what was going on, and managed to get her to engage in some self-reflection. In having these friends Camerin demonstrated great luck. In acting reflecting on the situation, Camerin demonstrated far more wisdom than is typical in this day and age. It would have been very easy for things to have gone quite differently for her if she had lacked either.

As this story, and the countless other ones out there, should demonstrate, Christian women are affected by the same sexual attraction/arousal attributes that secular women are. This used to be common knowledge. Sadly, that wisdom was lost all with so much else in the last few generations. Christian mothers need to impart this knowledge to their daughters as they grow up, so that their daughters stand a chance resisting the temptations of this world. And Christian women need to stop deceiving themselves that they aren’t as drawn to the Tall, Dark and Handsome man as other women are.

Before I go, I wanted to quote and highlight this little tidbit:

The next time I saw Jake was at a dinner with some friends. Jake and some of the guys told stories about stupid things they’d done while drunk. I knew they were exaggerating a bit to impress and/or shock us girls, but I still should have been turned off. But for some inexplicable reason, I was still attracted to him.

This thinking is what you get when Christian Churchian culture misleads women about their own nature. If Camerin had known about what she was really attracted to it might not have made a difference. She might not have realized what was going on until her friend forced her to confront the truth. But perhaps she might have been clued in sooner. That could only have been a good thing for her.

P.S. It should also be noted that Camerin’s account appears to contain some other manospherian memes or tropes. There is Max, “my best guy friend,” who is most likely a Beta Orbiter. And there is the delusion about what she was actually attracted to: “I also realized that most of my attraction had been to his attention and flattery.” There are probably others, if I took the time to dig into the article further.