When I first saw the story making the rounds about ROTC cadets being forced to march in women’s shoes I thought it was a hoax. But I see that the Washington Times has picked up the story and has a photo from a similar march at a different university showing ROTC men marching in uniform wearing red high heels. The caption under the picture reads:
ROTC cadets participate in a “Walk a Mile in Her Shoes” event held at Temple University on April 1, 2015.
While the date of the Temple photo is (suspiciously) April first, the date of the Times article is April 21st. The Temple march also shows up on April first on the event calendar for the organization, so the photo appears to be legitimate (although perhaps somewhat misleading). As the Times mentions this isn’t a new event for the Army, and I was able to find a photo on army.mil of U.S. men in uniform marching in high heels in Germany back in 2011:
“We are here to raise awareness,” said Capt. Lonnie Colbert, company commander for Delta Company, 1st Battalion, 2nd Infantry Regiment, 172nd Infantry Brigade. “Raising awareness ensures our Soldiers are educated on the subject to better take care of our families and always be ready to deploy and take care of each other. We want our spouses to thrive while they are back home waiting for their Soldiers.”
It still hasn’t been confirmed that the recent ROTC event was really mandatory, so I would take the claim with a grain of salt until proven. According to this article a spokesman from US Army Cadet Command (commanded by Major General Peggy C. Combs) confirmed that the ROTC detachments were directed to participate in the event, but marching in women’s shoes was not mandatory:
I contacted the US Army Cadet Command and asked them about this. I received a response from the command public affairs officer, Mister Mike Johnson. According to Mr. Johnson, ROTC detachments were directed to participate in university activities that focus on reducing sexual assault. No instructions were given on how they were to participate. Participation by cadets was not mandatory and no directive was given to penalize absent cadets. According to Mr. Johnson, only 15 or so cadets at Temple participated as the walk was held during class hours. The Army did not require the purchase of high heels and is looking into that question.
Either way, the ugly feminist compulsion to extinguish manly pride is on full display.
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Monty Python was prescient.
It’s a start but they need to pair them with the new girlie Marine hats and maybe a nice matching handbag.
In America, they teach High School students all about eQualism, Feminism, Homosexuality, and White Privilege. In Russia they teach their high school students to disassemble and reassemble an ak-47;
Putin is so going to win…
Yes but…. can they do that in high heels?
My own favorite conspiracy kook theory includes some revision of a Black Israelite position (yes, they are kooky as hell, but a stopped watch is right sometimes). Feminism came along about the same time as Vietnam. The removal of fathers from working-class (largely Black) homes was the result. This led to a lot of desperate young men with no backbone, who were looking to be managed and given some structure. Where would they go but the army? Becoming cannon fodder for rich people’s foreign expeditions is the obvious solution to this new problem.
I think it’s more likely that degeneracy just begot more of the same, in the random way history works, but I can see why the BI kooks are suspicious, and this theory has more substance than most.
Now those poor young black dudes can join the army and take orders from slacker white college students, who got indoctrinated in some campus glory hole to wear women’s clothes. They’ll all die together in a ditch someplace, and the world will keep spinning. The whole spectacle would be laughable if it weren’t so disgusting.
Boxer
You do know that high heels for women in Eastern Europe is like a national uniform or something…they learn to walk in high heels on ice from the cradle!
Seriously, this turn of events was predicted by Mad Magazine:
(to the tune of Battle Hymn of the Republic)
Mine eyes have seen the glory of an army that’s co-ed
of a navy where the captain has to subdivide the head
of an air force where they issue flowered sheets for every bed
The times are changing now
Glory, glory basic training
never was more entertaining
there’s more action, who’s complaining?
The times are changing now.
They are wearing battle outfits that are full of fancy frills
they’re a credit to the union and we call ’em G.I. Jills
if George Patton were alive today he’d take off for the hills
The times are changing now
Glory, glory foes they’ll shake up
armed attacks they’re sure to break up
then they’ll freshen up their make up
The times are changing now
They are trained to shoot a rifle and they show no signs of fright
they’re as strong as any man and never run from any fight
that’s unless one gets a headache and she tells you, “not tonight”
The times are changing now
Glory, glory tell her mister
if she struggles when you’ve kissed her
no one likes a draft resister
the times are changing now.
TFH, you fail to appreciate the brainwashing aspect of the exercise. In the Communist countries, such as East Germany, the USSR, etc. propaganda was both overt and covert. The main effect was to require people to lie to each other, often, and incessently. It was just expected. When we lie to others enough, it becomes habitual.
These “walk a mile in her shoes” events are in a sense a mix of Soviet era brainwashing and Maoist “self-criticism sessions”. They are not so much intended to teach “sensitivity” as they are intended to humilate and embarrass, while forcing men to pretend to go along with such nonsense.
It’s of a piece with the Lara Croft / Title IX / equalism fantasy, forcing men to believe things and say things that they all know are utterly ridiculous. Because then they all are being forced to lie to each other, in order that they’ll swallow other lies more easily.
This is of a piece with the NFL forcing players to wear pink gloves on the field. Nowadays, at the National Feminist League, there are women everywhere you look… refereeing, front office, broadcasting, etc.
One day soon — as soon as the political class thinks it can be forced down our throats — there will be a woman Secretary of Defense, and a woman on the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
― Theodore Dalrymple
“Either way, the ugly feminist compulsion to extinguish manly pride is on full display.”
No, I’d imagine that if you talked to the cadets who actually participated, as well as their superiors who are advancing these directives, many would be smugly prideful about their enlightened attitudes toward sexual assault, especially compared to neanderthal conservatives like yourself, who of course hate women and support rape.
They would be gravely mistaken, but it is not my experience that any of this is about “extinguishing pride,” even where a few ounces of humility would do a world of good.
My grandfather was in WWII and retired from the Army. My father was in Vietnam and retired from the Air Force. In HS, I did three years of ROTC and planned to follow the great men of my family before me when I realized that I wouldn’t be entering the military I knew and grew up in.
This is more confirmation that my insight and perception was spot on.
For your viewing pleasure.
Didn’t Barack Obama say that “women can do anything a man can do.And they can do it in heels”.
Is it therefore not pertinent to put women cadets in heels with a full backpack, rifle and ammunition, and have them march?
Female soldiers walking in men’s boots, courtesy of Soviet communism:
@TFH
Why Daesh and Al Qaeda act the way they do:
http://scholars-stage.blogspot.com.au/2013/10/radical-islamic-terrorism-in-context-pt.html
http://scholars-stage.blogspot.com.au/2013/10/radical-islamic-terrorism-in-context-pt_10.html
Equality isn’t about building women up, it’s about tearing men down. And we are still going to be unequal.
Just to be clear, this:
I contacted the US Army Cadet Command and asked them about this. I received a response from the command public affairs officer, Mister Mike Johnson. According to Mr. Johnson, ROTC detachments were directed to participate in university activities that focus on reducing sexual assault. No instructions were given on how they were to participate. Participation by cadets was not mandatory and no directive was given to penalize absent cadets. According to Mr. Johnson, only 15 or so cadets at Temple participated as the walk was held during class hours. The Army did not require the purchase of high heels and is looking into that question.
Is a meaningless statement coming from an Army level-command PAO.
Directives are often–correction USUALLY–taken to the next, ridiculous level of enforcement by local commanders and first line supervisors. When the cadet posted that his unit was threatened with a negative OER bullet for not participating (which is intended to be a career ender) I am inclined to believe him.
Speaking of Lara Croft … strong, Amazonion warrior women, who are WAY stronger than men, are the norm in sci-fi/fantasy:
I suspect that many young women imagine that this reflects reality.
‘Feminism came along about the same time as Vietnam. The removal of fathers from working-class (largely Black) homes was the result.’
You could probably go back to WW1 to get the roots of feminism…and it was starting to gain traction in WW2. Nonetheless every unjust war which takes the men out of the home and country usually has some form of feminism develop as a result.
I could make the case that another world war is feminism (war between the genders, divorce, abortion).
Feminism even took advantage of the Civil War.
Don’t know why you’d think it’s a hoax, firefighters and cops are also commonly “directed to participate”, it might not be mandated, but they don’t have a choice. Of course the whole thing is a scam, and actually somewhat denigrating to women like fraternity pledges wearing bras and makeup
I served in the military for 13 years (Army and Air Force). One of my brothers was career Navy. My oldest son served 3 years in the Army including the invasion of Panama. My youngest son is career Navy and has spent time in Afghanistan. At this point, I won’t be encouraging any of my grandchildren to join the military. I sent those pictures to some Army vets I know and one replied, “This is why our enemies don’t fear us.”
Furthermore, if I were one of those ROTC cadets (especially those in the lower two years who have no military commitment), I’d resign from ROTC. This PC bullcrap is just a small taste of what’s going on in the military today.
@Isa
Well, that was just stupid. But any Japanese movie that doesn’t have samurai or Godzilla (or both!) is going to be stupid.
@Red Pill Latecomer,
I was a young girl when the Lara Croft movies came out and my mom and I used to love them immensely. I remember specifically that my dad would not watch them with us and I never did understand why until Jodie Foster’s Brave New One came out when I was a teenager. I watched the movie and remember trying to make a case for it’s plot to my dad in an attempt to get him to watch it and he clearly explained why he doesn’t waste his time watching movies with female protagonists kicking men’s butts. I always assumed he didn’t like the storylines but it wasn’t about the plot all along, it was about the underlying message. I understood it after that because it doesn’t take but a reminder to realize that these movies are not in line with reality. But I have to say, they are successful in their indoctrination. I used to pretend to be Jennifer Lopez from her movie Enough where she takes revenge on her husband. I am thankful that my dad never watched garbage with our family while we were growing up. Now, I don’t watch garbage either.
@The Other Jim,
What in the hell is Russia going to win with below replacement fertility, low oil prices, and poorly performing economy? I don’t consider the ‘At Least We Don’t Suck as Bad as the Ukraine’ trophy much of a prize.
TFH, ” I didn’t know high heels were mandatory for women. ” Quite right. These “Walk a mile in her shoes” campaigns seem to assume that women are FORCED to wear high heels by jackbooted, thuggish men. Same with the makeup nonsense. Women wear those things because they want to. (No woman EVER wore lipstick to please me. I find it repulsive.) I recall a line from Mrs. Doubtfire, where Robin Williams is in drag and curses under his breath as he gets off the bus: “Wait until I get my hands on the misogynist who invented these things [high heels].” That makes some big assumptions: that it was a man who invented them; that he was misogynist; that women are FORCED to wear the things. What if a man said: “Wait until I get my hands on that misandrist bitch who invented neckties!” No one would be amused.
‘What in the hell is Russia going to win with below replacement fertility, low oil prices, and poorly performing economy?’
Every superpower has an inherent weakness (probably by banker created design). How is China going to win with all it’s oppression, abortion and pollution?
It’s a matter of which weakness is the strongest.
The reality is that the roots of feminism go back at least to the Temperance movement. Which of course was an outgrowth of 19th Century American Evangelical Christianity. Temperance was virulently anti-male and was in many ways the first example of church leaders pedestalizing females and demonizing men, for simply being men. I am surprised more men in the Christian manosphere haven’t made more of this connection. But maybe you have to be of a certain age to remember the power of the “Drys” When I was a young’un my parent”s denomination (United Methodist) headquarters was home for both the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and the Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights. Birds of a Feather.
@Lastango
I am pretty sure we will see a Sheryl Sandberg commercial beseeching a bunch of soldiers to do housework in one of her Disney sponsored #BendOver campaigns.
From the reading of the tea leaves, it is becoming painfully obvious that America will eventually be defeated, not by any foreign enemy, but by the persistent, insidious and multi-faceted attacks of feminism. This cancer will eat at every fabric of America’s soul and every sinew of its joints until all that is left is an empty, wobbly shell.
How the mighty have fallen in the midst of the battle! America lies slain on your high places. How are the Mighty fallen, and the weapons of war perished!
@earl
I am making the point there are no ‘winners’ really. Russia or China aren’t going to takeover the world, they will be lucky to keep their nations together over the next century.
I saw the link for this on the other thread and read the article last night. I really can’t believe that any man would willingly wear those in public so I’m inclined to agree that they were compelled to by their superiors. As someone said upthread it is no wonder our enemies are so bold and do not fear us. I sometimes wonder what my own children will have to deal with in the future given the extremes to which the politically correct and the SJW’s will go. So far their father and I have been able to instill in them a disdain for feminism. Our oldest mentioned to me the other day that a girl in her class was talking to her about some feminist blog she liked to read. My daughter said to her “Well I’m no feminist.” You really can counteract a lot of what they teach in the public schools if you talk to your kids about these things often enough.
You really can counteract a lot of what they teach in the public schools if you talk to your kids about these things often enough.
Definitely. This, coupled with a universal public stand against feminism, so that the SJWs don’t easily get a pass when they advocate their harebrained ideologies. It takes a lot of efforts to maintain the veneer of feminism on our society. Once this ideology is starved of fresh minds, and its tenets are persistently confronted, it will fail even more quickly.
Some other confusion as ASU is mentioned with the similarity between Tempe and Temple.
Feminism came along about the same time as Vietnam.
Not even close. History suggests that in the US, the first wave of feminism came about in the late 1800s (think Victoria Woodhull). It was most likely fueled by the Universalist movement of the early 1800s.
If you really want to see things track together, feminism and psychology (as a science) go hand in hand. Both serving as a tool for the other.
Now those poor young black dudes can join the army and take orders from slacker white college students, who got indoctrinated in some campus glory hole to wear women’s clothes. They’ll all die together in a ditch someplace, and the world will keep spinning. The whole spectacle would be laughable if it weren’t so disgusting.
This might make sense if the infantry were not from families disproportionately whiter and richer than the general population of the United States.
It would be an interest case study to see if one of the after effects of war is feminism. Certainly taking men out of the family by killing them in pointless wars would do it. Now the system has made it easier with no-fault divorce that war doesn’t even have to be an option anymore.
@Emily
Even if feminism isn’t really about equality. Equality or egalitarianism is still an unrealistic ludicrous concept that has not relation to reality other than possible spiritual worth.
It is a falsehood that give the envious a tool to bash the head of those who are superior to them and gain power in the process.
@Dr Torch
Ancient origins of feminism:
https://societyofphineas.wordpress.com/2013/10/19/defining-tradcon-feminism-part-1-theory/
http://gynocentrism.com/2013/07/14/the-birth-of-chivalric-love/
Dear Info Warrior:
I can’t get into Society of Phineas, but the second link is quite well done.
http://billmoyers.com/content/ep-5-joseph-campbell-and-the-power-of-myth-love-and-the-goddess-audio/
Uncle Joe talked a bit about this too.
Boxer
Emily-
I sometimes wonder what my own children will have to deal with in the future given the extremes to which the politically correct and the SJW’s will go
A friend of mine asked me recently “do you believe your children will die a peaceful death?”
I am afraid they probably won’t.
If you want to get real technical…the origins of feminism go back to Eve with the serpent whispering in her ear that she could be like God.
Off Topic:
Your four-year old might not know how normal it is for her teacher to lick a stranger’s butthole, in the public toilet of the dive bar downtown. Here’s why that’s a problem…
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/lesbian-teacher-how-i-convince-kids-to-accept-gay-marriage-starting-at-4-ye
Canadian dykes bring the poz to the kindergarten day school.
Remember, you weren’t ever mandated to wear an AIDS ribbon either:
@Boxer
Wow, there is no shame anymore.
When my own daughter had her unit on reproduction in health class her teacher stated up front that they would ONLY be discussing heterosexual sex. I was actually quite surprised as I had wondered how our county would deal with it. It is not a rural county so I expected something different. I was pleasantly surprised. Wonder how long that will last.
Marissa
You are absolutely right. The combat arms are mainly white heterosexual middle class family men. The most despised people in America and the west in general today.
You are absolutely right. The combat arms are mainly white heterosexual middle class family men. The most despised people in America and the west in general today.
Confirmed. When you need something done administratively (pay issues, travel, pretty much anything where you have to walk up to a window with some paperwork filled out and need help) the soldier behind the desk, is, something else.
@greyghost; that’s exactly why they’re trying to make even the idea of masculine pride extinct. It only persists in degenerate black thug-culture.
Another recently active, now reserve guy. Scott is absolutely correct. Black folks in combat arms are scarce. Women of course proliferate all POG MOS’s
The truly sad part is how many male cadets went along with it. Truly, the end times are near.
I can’t imagine putting on high heels. They are made for women and therefore they belong on women.
“We are here to raise awareness”
I can think of no more nauseating expression or term commonly used today, and that’s saying a lot given the competition.
I can think of no more nauseating expression or term commonly used today, and that’s saying a lot given the competition.
“The healing process” comes pretty close, but agreed–yours is number 1.
“that’s exactly why they’re trying to make even the idea of masculine pride extinct. It only persists in degenerate black thug-culture.”
Seems like there is no shortage of gay pride.
‘I can’t imagine putting on high heels. They are made for women and therefore they belong on women.’
Besides ‘walking a mile in their shoes’ is supposed to be a metaphor.
@Earl
With the irony being that men in general are much better at feeling empathy for women than the other way around.
@Dal, if you liked that you’ll love this:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/apr/19/marine-corps-weighs-lower-standards-for-women-afte/
SODS,
There is actually a musical play/company going around the country right now where the concept is designing women’s high heeled boots just for men to wear (drag queens), where the heels are strong enough to support a man’s physical weight.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinky_Boots_(musical)
Do we add this to the end of the world watch too?
Ancient origins of feminism:
Can’t get into Soc of Phineas either. But that’s why I explicitly pointed to feminism in US- feminism’s history is far too long to discuss here.
It’s connection to psychology is something I rarely see mentioned, but it was women who were promoting early Mesmer and Freud in high-brow social circles. It’s no coincidence that it’s a hugely popular degree major for college co-eds, and that many counseling methods are deeply entwined with feminist thought and philosophy. My anecdotal observations are also that many (most?) male counselors are noticeably effeminate.
roots of feminism go back at least to the Temperance movement.
Absolutely. Feminism got a solid rooting in the low churches throughout much of the US. It’s now just becoming more overt, as our host often points out.
I especially hate “This is a safe space.”
If they announce this is a safe space…start looking for the hidden camera and microphones.
Here’s a question: where the hell did they get a bunch of high-heeled shoes that would fit men? Did they use our tax dollars to buy these idiot shoes just for the purpose of humiliating our potential soldiers? Good lord, I usually think of the military as one of the few places where government money is, if not well spent, at least potentially properly spent. But then they manage to do something even more useless with it than the most pointless bureaucracy.
Eidolon
They had to have gone to one of those tranny cross dressing shops. The same place that 6 foot plus Ru Paul fella would buy his clothes. Should be easy to find now that open homosexuality and to be a tranny is perfectly fine in the military now. PS I would not last long as a Marine today.
@ Crank
How about “… sparked outrage”? You know whatever is attached to that is some buuuuullllshit.
I love fucking with kooky feminists who claim to be knowledgeable in the psychoanalytic tradition. I’ve basically specialized in giving these types meltdowns, in record time.
“I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father’s protection.”
(Sigmund Freud, in Civilization and its Discontents — possibly the greatest antifeminist work I’ve ever read.)
Freud’s student, Carl Jung, and Jung’s student, Joseph Campbell, all said some really interesting stuff in the subtext of their exegeses on mythology. There are common mythological themes (at least in Classical and Nordic myths) that these guys traced back to the patriarchal establishment, having to overthrow the lawless savages in the matriarchal, prehistoric past. I’m not a psychoanalyst nor an anthropologist, but to my layman’s mind it is especially interesting and relevant to our work here in the manosphere.
Best,
Boxer
@greyghost
Fantastic. So they a) supported feminism by b) forcing good men to attend an idiotic function to c) support and publicize lies and to d) humiliate said good men by moronically forcing them to wear shoes which they e) wasted our taxpayer money on by f) buying them from a bunch of perverts and purveyors of perversion.
So I count at least 6 ways this violates everything decent people stand for in one fell swoop. All in a day’s work, I suppose. I’ve heard military bureaucrats were spineless toadies but I had no idea they’d be willing to go this far.
Speaking of depressing signs in the military, Scott, how do you feel about those “Strong men seek help” signs all over the bases I’ve been to the last few years? Is there any more demoralizing message to a warrior than “it’s okay, you can cry, we’re here for you”?
redpilllatecomer & earl & everyone,
Women get very-very suspicious when men gather alone and do things without women in their presence. They assume (incorrectly) that when men gather together to do anything, that men are somehow “colluding” in some unethical manner to find a way to thwart things that are important only to women OR they have other women around to give them s-xual release in someway. They assume that because quite often that is what they do when women gather together. Go to the redbox and rent that movie “Afternoon Delight” and skim all the way to the end where Kathryn Hamm gets together with her girlfriends from the Synegog to discuss women’s stuff over 4 bottles of wine to see just for one minute what I mean by that. That conversation they were having, rest assured, if her husband knew what she did it might jeapordize their marriage.
Problem is, when men gather it is NOT about “safe space” the way it is for women. It is instead about men getting to do what they want to do but never really get to do when they are around women. And that is even MORE THREATENING to some women than men “colluding” because women start to feel that men can freely fill their time without us constantly thinking about their va-jay-jay (something women want us to ALWAYS be concentrating on because that uninterupted concentration gives them all the power in a relationship where they needn’t submit.) If anyone gets a chance to watch “Knocked Up” and you see that scene where Leslie Mann forces her way into her husband’s “safe space” suspicious that he was getting lap dances from strippers, only to find her husband sitting with other men to have a harmless fantasy Rotiserie Baseball draft, you’d think Mann would rather her husband be getting lapdances instead of building a baseball team on paper. She is horrified! How could he have this other “interest” that is just so “childish”, so “male” focused, so NOT involving memememememe?!?!
Such as it is with video gaming. When men gather infront of the XBox or Playstation or whatever and start killing digitized images, they are really not concentrating on p-ssy. Women don’t really like that. That means men have the power to freely fill their time doing things that do not (nor would it ever) benefit women in any possible way. Moreover, married women don’t like their menz wasting time. Why play that video game when the grass needs clipping and I think there might be a wastebasket in the house with one piece of trash in it that you should empty. What are you doing in that fantasy baseball draft, I need sh-t to get done around the house! See how this works?
Directives are often–correction USUALLY–taken to the next, ridiculous level of enforcement by local commanders and first line supervisors. When the cadet posted that his unit was threatened with a negative OER bullet for not participating (which is intended to be a career ender) I am inclined to believe him.
I’m in the DoD, not the Army or ROTC. But frequently, our idiot immediate bosses will make something mandatory that the higher ups say is voluntary. Funny how they never have the balls to punish the ones that still don’t go, though.
Now that I think of it, I might have to start ignoring them when they do so. “Mr. HIGH-N-MIGHTY’s email says voluntary so I’m going to sit here and be productive. Write me up then.”
Here’s a question: where the hell did they get a bunch of high-heeled shoes that would fit men? Did they use our tax dollars to buy these idiot shoes just for the purpose of humiliating our potential soldiers?
Alas, the answer is almost certainly yes.
Good lord, I usually think of the military as one of the few places where government money is, if not well spent, at least potentially properly spent
Sorry, friend, but not even close to being the case. After two decades of active duty and nearly another two spent doing contract work for the DoD on a nearly fifty percent time basis, I can assure you that the Pentagram is peerless at wasting money for purposes that are not only not beneficial to legitimate national defense, but harmful to it.
And as an Army brat, I seem to recall frequent times when my dad would get the same “voluntary-mandatory” BS treatment.
Here’s a question: where the hell did they get a bunch of high-heeled shoes that would fit men? Did they use our tax dollars to buy these idiot shoes just for the purpose of humiliating our potential soldiers?
Check out this article. Apparently the cadets were required to buy the shoes with their own money.
If anyone gets a chance to watch “Knocked Up” and you see that scene where Leslie Mann forces her way into her husband’s “safe space” suspicious that he was getting lap dances from strippers, only to find her husband sitting with other men to have a harmless fantasy Rotiserie Baseball draft, you’d think Mann would rather her husband be getting lapdances instead of building a baseball team on paper.
But she most definitely WOULD rather have seen him getting a lap dance. That would give her all the justification/blackmail ammunition she needed for either gaining dominance in the marriage or straying off for some alpha dick herself whenever the mood struck her, maybe even followed up by a frivorce. That her husband, by doing normal and healthy “guy things” with other men, robbed her of any such leverage is INFURIATING, a stab in the back to the FI and a deprivation of fuel for her natural rebelliousness.
Military Vets
Remember the combined federal campaign and the voluntary charity drive. “the Skipper wants 100% participation.”
This is going to filter out any remote red-pill, or even self-respecting men from the military. Let the manginas who still stay in the military after more and more of this, bear the costs, as is the natural order.
Which is going to make me guffaw even harder next time I hear some sperm-waste Washington, D.C. bloviator threaten Russia or China with “military action.” I’m sure both of those countries are just quaking in their boots and soiling themselves at the thought of confronting an Army full of Klingers.
Remember the combined federal campaign and the voluntary charity drive. “the Skipper wants 100% participation.”
Yeah, I remember them days, for both CFC and Navy/Marine Corps Relief. The only thing either of those two organizations and their fundraising drives ever got from me was 100 percent of my middle finger, raised in reverent salute.
I forgot about that Navy/Marine Corps Relief thing
In Berkeley in the ’80s and ’90s, there was a guy called the “Red Ribbon Man.” I believe his real name was Donald Twombey, which came out because he later got into some trouble with the law.
Anyway, his schtick was to stand at the corner of Telegraph and Bancroft, the most trafficked entrance to campus, and ask everyone passing by “Would like to you wear a red ribbon against apartheid?” And if you didn’t answer, or worse, said no, he would harangue you with invective until you were well out of earshot. “How’d you like to live on Soweto!” and the like.
Great to see this is now US government policy.
Speaking of depressing signs in the military, Scott, how do you feel about those “Strong men seek help” signs all over the bases I’ve been to the last few years? Is there any more demoralizing message to a warrior than “it’s okay, you can cry, we’re here for you”?
This, of course is popping up with the backdrop and larger context of the rise in suicide rate over the last 12 years, which I have written about here: http://www.westernphilosophyeasternfaith.blogspot.com/2015/01/throw-military-suicide-rate-in-reverse.html
Both Dalrock and SSM when she was blogging at her old site have written about the feminist meme of the modern woman being a poor immitation of men. I think something similar to that is occurring with these campaigns.
It seems like there is a concerted effort to understand what a “real man” would do, but people who really have no idea, so they just make it up as they go along. “Real men” and what they were once like have been purposely erased from the collective consciousness to be honest with you. Its why so many men are flocking to sites like this, or RoK, or Rollo, or…
They (including me) can only hear the echoes of it, and are trying to reinvent it from scratch.
Does a “real man” ask for help? I don’t know. My gut tells me that asking for help is not related to manliness (or “non-manliness”) at all.
Lot of errors in that one. Most importantly, “the rise in the MILITARY suicide rate” and “BY people have really have no idea.”
I can’t think of any prior “feminist police states” unless we count the mythical Amazons. Some have tried to make this claim for late Rome, but it doesn’t work. The Romans did some arguably proto-feminist things, and inarguably passed some laws that favored women at the expensive of men, but nothing like a “‘feminist’ police state + goddess cult.”
Since, as you seem to acknowledge, there are no examples of universal or even widespread female suffrage until the late 1800s, it seems like a stretch to lay all the blame for the current predicament on feminism or women. Feminism is an epiphenomenon of modernity, and not even the most important or most recent.
All regimes have a life-cycle. There is a cycle of regimes, not a cycle of one regime. Democracy is a stage within that larger cycle.
I enlisted in the Army out of high school and got out just before they gave black berets to everyone, formerly only worn by Army Rangers. I don’t regret my time, but if I were a younger man now there’s no way in hell I’d join up.
You have answered none of the points I raised.
TFH,
They have no choice. They have wives will will frivorce them for cash and prizes if they don’t go with the feminist imperative. They have jobs in elected office that they will lose (in re-election) if they don’t go with the feminist imperative.
What would you have them do?
No, feminism is an intellectual/political movement whose roots trace to the late 18th century. (I would never use the word “philosophy” to describe it, although—like many ideologies—it is descended from a branch of philosophy.)
If feminism were just another name for some supra-historical natural dynamic (“the feminine imperative”) then it should be possible to identify past societies where this dynamic either took over or at least held cultural and political power similar to what it holds now. Furthermore, if it is true that all democracy always culminates in a “ ‘feminist’ police state + goddess cult,” then it ought also to be possible to identify past societies where this has happened.
It would seem, however, that the other implication of what you wrote is closer to the truth—viz., that feminism is a relatively recent phenomenon in human history, as is its outgrowth, universal female suffrage, and neither of these has yet to “run its course.” So while it’s possible to envision “whither we are tending,” we don’t yet know the outcome. We certainly don’t know it based on some reading of a past in which it’s all already happened.
Societies and democracies have collapsed in the past, and ours looks to be falling (that’s the way to bet). Some of the reasons will be the same as or similar to the reasons that have felled democracies in the past. But not all of them will. (“History doesn’t repeat itself, but sometimes it rhymes.”)
TFH
You know the next step after loser ones job is criminal prosecution of non believers. As MGTOW grows to say you disagree will be more than lose your job. The police state is already in place, killing and tazing.
The rate the military is going soon the veterans will be more masculine and capable than the active duty military. Will be an interesting period When the peace time grind and the garrison routine sets in.
So which is it? Is this a permanent dynamic that has felled “all” democracies? (Your original and oft-repeated contention.) Or is it something new which is corroding modern, contemporary democracy?
The continued attempted to equate feminism with the “FI” now extends to war? Yes, it’s certainly true that men have overwhelmingly suffered more in wars than women. You can go back well before the US Civil War and all the way back to Homer and the Bible.
But that was for the precise opposite reason from any “FI”. It was because MEN concluded that there is an inherent, irreducible difference in the sexes that made men (or some men) suitable for war and (all) women unsuitable. Women were both weaker and reproductively more valuable. You can try to extrapolate the FI from that latter fact, but the more decisive fact remains that it was MEN who were making that determination and the political decision that arose from it.
None of this, it should go without saying, is to deny that feminism is playing a role in the erosion of democracy and civilization today. But there’s no need to ret-con history to insist that this is the way it’s ALWAYS happened. It hasn’t. This is something (relatively) new.
The rest is just non sequitur. Decoy flares?
There’s no rational reason left to enlist anymore.
Meanwhile, Mormoms seem to be taking over the officer corps. Nobody seems to be noticing or talking about that.
(I, for one, welcome our new Mormon overlords.)
Ecoffier and TFH,
You are making this much too complicated. It is far simpler than this. Rush Limbaugh penned it perfectly….
24. Feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women access to the mainstream of society
Never has a sentence been so perfectly created to define an ideology that has been so utterly destructive towards all of Western Civlization. Were it not for the fact that some women are just plain butt-ugly (from the moment of their birth until their death) the Patriarchy would be able to create more than enough resources for all the women of the West such that they would be happy enough not to have to bother with feminism. Alas, some women gain nothing from the Patriachy simply because… they are ugly. They will never in their lifetime gain access to a man’s accumulated resources. It will not happen. And thats not fair. So ugly women banded together to create feminism to (at first) get votes for women so that they could (by the Democratic process) vote into office men who would do the bidding of the feminist imperative and (more importantly) vote out of office any man that might get in the way of the feminist imperative. Feminism seeks to accomplish by way of government authority what attractive women already gained from Patriarichal men of their own free will.
I leave it to you to reduce a complex 250 year intellectual development to a 1980s talk show quip.
Occam’s Razor Escoffier
@innocentbystanderboston
Two things stood out to me amongst the many, many commenters who responded to you over at WHTM:
1. Virtually every married woman who responded to you took great pains to describe how excellent her marriage is, how long it is, how there are no plans to divorce, and how she and her husband still have regular sex.
2. The perception of Christianity and Jesus is that the only thing he said is not to judge people, and that he forgave everyone’s sins (except judging?) and placed no expectations on them to actually stop sinning.
(A quick read of Revelation reveals Jesus’ actually-quite-judgmental nature, especially if the church.)
@Boxer
Futrelle may very well be black-knighting; I’ve got no other explanation for how he’s kept it up this long.
Escoffier,
I think if one looks at the late Ming (the dominance of the eunuchs in the wake of the de facto abdication by the emperor) as well as the role of women in late antiquity, there are similarities to be found. How did Athens lose its democracy?
@Escoffier @innocentbystanderboston
Feminism started with the fall of Man, when woman first tried out the “rebelling against male authority” thing, followed shortly thereafter by man trying out “let’s not lead my wife or confront her sin, but instead use her as an excuse for my own sin”.
Alongside every other vain philosophy that has set itself up against God, such as the devil trying to supplant God himself, Cain discovering murder, antediluvian society’s wickedness, pre-Babel society’s wickedness, Sodom’s wickedness, Pharoah’s wickedness, and on and on.
IBB,
“They have no choice. They have wives will will frivorce them for cash and prizes if they don’t go with the feminist imperative. They have jobs in elected office that they will lose (in re-election) if they don’t go with the feminist imperative.
What would you have them do?”
Grow a pair?
“From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee.
But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.
Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.
For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works.”
– Matthew 16
John N
This is a typical liberal trick. You don’t try and argue with your opponent’s point if you know that your opponent is smarter than you are AND right. Instead, you reframe the argument. Liberals typically reframe arguments they can’t win by making things personal. Instead of talking about feminism in the abstract, they had to single out their individual circumstances without acknowledging that theirs might not be the norm OR that I wasn’t addressing any one of them individually. That is because by my attacking feminism, they felt attacked.
When their feelings really started getting hurt at my “end” was when I told them that there is no-such-thing as same-s-x-marriage. And I calmly explained why without making it personal. I told them that their behavior and living together, everyone tolerates it but that doesn’t mean anyone has to accept it. And that is really what they want, total acceptance. And they aren’t getting it. So they do what feminists do and try and force society at large to accept something by mandating it by government authority, as if the government has any control over how any of us think.
When you are never used to having your behavior judged by others in a soceity where everyone is wearing kid gloves and walking on egg shells, it stings like you got shot with rock salt when someone comes along and calmly and rationally rips your entire life apart. I didn’t want to hurt their feelings. I am not a hurtful person. But I am not going to sit there and go along with the mob and its insanity when I know right from wrong. I try to exibit at least a minimum amount of integrity.
What one sees in late antiquity is just what one sees in this very post, and that which I believe Dalrock (unusually) gets wrong: a rash of women lusting after manly pride and more or less achieving it, at great cost to all around them and ultimately also themselves.
The sort of women who rise in the ranks of our institutions to the positions from which they issue directives like the “Walk a mile in her shoes” travesty are in fact over-welling with manly pride to the extent to which they are grossly unfeminine and thus have difficulty attracting a man a forming and healthy family. Female humility is a great grace that undergirds any functional society. Without it, we are eventually lost, as have other societies become that likewise lost it over time.
“Feminism started with the fall of Man, when woman first tried out the ‘rebelling against male authority’ thing”
But is there nothing distinctive about this new thing that calls itself “feminism” over against that old thing (rebellion against male authority)? I’m not sure if the new thing can’t be at least primarily put down to the unchallenged hegemony of American Empire (as the Roman led to similar problems with their own women over time), but surely there is more to modern feminism than mere rebellion.
Reblogged this on Patriactionary and commented:
The same event happened in Toronto a few years back, among civilians; I wrote a post about it at the time, here.
Des,
That is pretty much the argument that Dr Victor Davis Hanson uses as to why he will NOT run for office in the state of California, that and coupled with all that he has said that is politically incorrect (political capital ammunition to be used by his opponents.)
Off topic… This is worth reading:
This 1910 anti-suffrage book—modeled after a children’s rhyming book—depicts women suffrage activists as actual toddlers, and their crusade as a tantrum on par with protesting bedtimes and demanding sweets.
http://dangerousminds.net/comments/most_offensive_piece_of_anti_woman
VDH is unelectable in California. So is Dennis Prager. Both are more or less “purple pill” but moving in the right direction, as evidenced by Pragers article this week about black crime.
When Bruce Herscensohn lost to Barbara Boxer, it was the beginning of the end for my home state.
Tragic, as it is the most beautiful state in the union, (acknowledging my bias, of course).
IBB: “What would you have them do?
Desiderian: “Grow a pair?”
+1, Desiderian. They can only destroy you once and then you’re free. It’s much better than living in fear and helplessness.
…
IBB @ 2:24 pm:
“So ugly women banded together to create feminism to (at first) get votes for women so that they could (by the Democratic process) vote into office men who would do the bidding of the feminist imperative and (more importantly) vote out of office any man that might get in the way of the feminist imperative.”
If ugly women are that well organized and forward-thinking then maybe they truly are superior to men, although you’d think Obamacare would then be focused on cosmetic surgery not child support. Also, female ugliness is usually a question of age and behavior not genetics so I question whether “ugly women” is a clearly defined group.
There is not too much you can do to fix…. ugly. And the objectively ugly women, they know that they are ugly and have been that way pretty much their whole life.
@MarcusD
Great find on that link my friend!…Maybe you have noticed from reading our “dailies” that there is a ‘happenstance’ that happens around our communities.This does not happen in the Toronto area…that I have seen…but,in surrounding communities.I believe that they refer to it as “Take back the night”.???? The first time I saw this was,I believe was in Stratford,Ontario?….(Home of Justin Beiber….YEH). The mayor,the MPP,MP and city councilors all show up in a parade and wear “pink high heels”…in support of “sexual harassment,rape..etc..etc.).What a bunch of faggots! Gotta love these government flunkies.They will do anything to get their picture in the paper(as do-gooders) and suck the taxpayers dicks…….F*** them!
More to the point, it is not superiority so much as it is ease of understanding of an issue and knowing definitavely what side you must be on as it relates to your own situation.
The root of feminism is physical unattractiveness. Ugly women banded together (in a completely decentralized way) at the turn of the century for women’s suffrage the way single men with assets to lose are banding together (in a completely decentralized way) in 2015 for MGTOW. No centralization among ugly women other feminism. Because they are “ugly” they already know (or think they know) that they need it. Same is true for any single man today who is not Christian. No centralization for single men with things to lose in marriage 2.0. There simply is no reason for him to marry and he already knows it without taking that red pill.
Of course the idea that the women cadets should “walk a mile in a man’s shoes” is completely out of the question.
@WillS
Thank you for the link……..I know that this happens around this area.I have seen “Gay Pride Day…& Slutwalk”……UGH!!!!!!………. Kudos my friend for posting this BS.
Mark how is life in the Great White North?
This. When I was married: one day, I was mowing the lawn when a good friend called me on my cell phone. I stopped to take the call; we talked for 20-25 minutes. The wife saw me talking on the phone and came outside to read me the riot act. The short, short version: I had no right whatsoever to do anything at home that was considered by her to be of no benefit to her or the household. Of course this was when I was still deep, deep in the blue pill mentality.
When I finally started getting the red pill following the separation, one of the first things that happened was that I put my soon-to-be-ex on notice that I would no longer tolerate her temper. If she blew up again, I would hang up on her or walk away and not reengage for a time. And then I did it. So she hasn’t blown her temper around me in several years. A recent story: she came to my house one night. I took a call from that same friend and we talked for about 20 minutes. The ex came into my study while I was on the phone. I motioned her to stay away and go back to the living room. She went without an objection and didn’t say anything afterwards other than to ask who called. I told her none of your business and that was it. What a change! So important to have hand and not tolerate crap conduct …
Someone has already said why don’t the women try walking a mile in combat boots and a 75lb backpack.
We need a parody of the Camry superbowl ad where the father takes his Army daughter to the airport:
The father would be taking his son to the airport, thinking of the baseball games, learning to jump his dirt bike, getting into a minor fight, etc. Then the father pulls up to the airport, and his son hops out in digital camo and red high heels, walking hand in hand with the other young men dressed the same. Ending shot of the father with a tear in his eye watching his son and the other cross dressing soldiers skip into the terminal. He did good. His son is finally a man.
Random,
Thank you for the kudos.
Sadly Random, it could be argued that the only reason why you “have hand” is because she already frivorced you and (thus) no longer has any real leverage/power to get you to do her bidding on her time schedule. So yes, she simply MUST put up with you dismissing her while you are on the phone if she comes over to talk to you. She has no choice, nothing to “threaten you” with if you continue to “have hand.” For men who are married and want to remain this way, they can’t “have hand” in this way.
@Mark
I think a lot of them are self-righteous (SJWs, probably). My interactions with MP(P)s have reinforced this time and time again. It’s been said before that politics is all about self-aggrandizement. In my observations, feminist organizations have really worked that angle; they emphasize what supporting them will do for the politician’s reputation, rather than whether it’s good or bad. I think that’s why they often focus on reputation: defending or reinventing theirs (perhaps only in their own minds…), or destroying others (e.g. Twitter witch-hunts).
Dad gets parental rights: Shockingly, law not on side of a woman who used turkey baster to impregnate herself
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/world/dad-gets-parental-rights-shockingly-law-not-on-side-of-a-woman-who-used-turkey-baster-to-impregnate-herself
There is also no other concept around which ‘conservatives’ happily jettison any and all other principles they had (personal responsibility, low taxes, small government, matching authority with accountability) than misandric, FI-compliant ideas.
If you have any evidence that so-called “conservatives” ever actually HAD any principles (as opposed to just endlessly posturing and paying lip service to them rather than living them), I’m definitely interested in seeing it.
The truth of the matter is that I was the one who filed. I rationalized that as there were no children so best to separate before any came along. She didn’t want the divorce, she liked the status of being married but she was living in some fantasy that allowed her to believe that she could keep disrespecting me and I would always tolerate it. Well she took that too far and I broke. She actually cried and begged me to stay the day I had her served. But then later her anger came back out and I realized after some counseling that she wasn’t going to change that much so I said no more talking about getting back together.
On the bright side, I have a real low tolerance for crap conduct and have booted women out of my life for much less than what I let my ex get away with.
Here are a few vids that deal with some of the issues discussed here.
I’ve learned a lot from Bill Whittle, but I don’t think he realizes that political correctness has been creeping into – and stifling – the military for a long time. It’s part of a much bigger force than he seems to realize. He makes some good points, though.
This next one is much funnier, and more crass.
Same dude, but much more serious. It also blends two issues often discussed here.
Dad gets parental rights: Shockingly, law not on side of a woman who used turkey baster to impregnate herself
I’m sure, if all else fails (i.e., that the inevitable appeal of this verdict is denied or the decision upheld) that hastily crafted legislation will be rammed through in order to make sure that this NEVER happens again.
“How did Athens lose its democracy?”
Cycle of regimes. That’s the short answer, anyway.
The cycle was not smoothly circular in Athens—they lurched through various tyrannies and reform democracies—but after Peisistratos there’s a fairly clear arc.
Basically, they became powerful after taking the leading role in defeating Persia, founded the Delian League, transformed that into an empire, extorted the members of the league to get rich, with wealth and more democracy became licentious and immoderate, and with power scared Sparta into starting the war.
Even then they might have won. Thucydides posits several “what ifs?”. What if they hadn’t unwisely divided command of the Sicilian Expedition? What if Nicias hadn’t been spooked by that eclipse? What if they hadn’t later fired Alcibiades in a fit of pique? Etc.
Even so, they would have fallen eventually. But women appear to have had nothing to do with it.
BTW, I completely agree that feminism is not identical with Biblical rebellion. The latter may have something to do with the former—it almost certainly does. Rebellion is apparently a permanent feature of human nature, which is exactly what the Bible is trying to teach. And feminism may in the end be one form of rebellion. But it is a peculiar modern form with many new traits of its own not found in rebellions of old.
“When Bruce Herscensohn lost to Barbara Boxer, it was the beginning of the end for my home state.”
It was predetermined before that, based on demographics.
It will happen to Texas too, Dalrock.
Random,
Okay so if there are no kids, I have a follow up question, why did she stop by your house while you are on the phone? I mean, there is no real reason why the two of you need to communicate unless she is picking up her alimony check. Do you still do things for her? Just curious, no disrespect meant.
The call came while she was at my house; her visit was interrupted by the call.
I don’t go out of my way for her. If she wants help, she comes to me, I don’t go to her. She needed my help on a matter and the help was compensated for monetarily. Either that or a blow job which she still won’t do, lol. At least she understands quid pro quo.
Dalrock,
In a milestone for Women in the Military, the first ladies to go through Ranger School started on Monday. Here’s a progress update:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/04/22/ranger-school-women-infantry-ft-benning/26196703/
While I don’t fault the women for getting after it (and indeed wish them luck – Ranger School sucks), this is the end result of a long string of leadership failures by the Army. Certainly not as bad as the red shoe incident, but it’ll probably end up killing more (of our) people in the long run.
Ah Gents, I present for your viewing pleasure, the latest push to have us all man up and love large, er, I mean, EMPOWERED women. The comments, are of course, just what you’d expect.
http://body-paint.sfglobe.com/2015/04/21/empowering-photo-shoot-of-plus-size-models/?src=fbfan_40281
Random, your little bit about gaming reminded me of this. I think the author has a point, that gamers were/are able to beat back the SJW bullshit, because they battle evil constantly in their games. A wonderful point that has me thinking of a plot for a Sci-Fi story, about how the west is saved by the basement dwelling gamers from feminism!
http://danaloeschradio.com/gamergate-why-you-should-care
Oscar,
I like his partner Andrew Klavan better, but Bill Whittle has some good points. I think both are fairly blue pill though, unfortunately.
Dalrock,
OT, but I saw this news story via Google News and I thought it indicated the poor state of things:
http://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2015/04/22/jury-iowa-man-not-guilty-of-abusing-wife-who-had-dementia
A man in Iowa was taken to court for having sex with his own wife, because she couldn’t provide consent. They were married! That should imply consent, but we are pretty messed up today and this is another pointer to that.
Random,
You are free to do as you please and I would be strongly tempted to do the same in a similar situation, but always realize it has no Biblical justification. Not sure if you claim to be a Christian or not, but I realize I would be in sin if I did so and you are as well. Clearly ignore this if you do not follow His teachings as you have plenty of other issues to deal with than just this.
More information here: http://weaponsman.com/?p=22192
Looks like the men even had to pay for the shoes themselves.
Painting plus size models white? The Melville jokes write themselves.
Escoffier,
“Cycle of regimes. That’s the short answer, anyway.”
Gender role distinction also goes in cycles (cf. Strauss and Howe) and we’re due to be at peak differentiation – you can certainly see that in the mating preferences of the young, for instance – but it’s getting blocked both by Boomer solipsism/Hegelianism/demographic heft on the one hand, and “conservatives” as progressives who are slow on the uptake on the other. The severity of the ensuing train wreck is the big thing that makes this go round of feminism (gender role inversion) feel distinctive from prior ones.
“It was predetermined before that, based on demographics.
It will happen to Texas too, Dalrock.”
What, have you gone all Calvinist in your old age? It’s not like the waves of immigrants and their offspring are all hot for Modernism or anything. My instinct is that all it would take would be a party arising with balls and a decent amount of savvy. That could be the Ds the Rs or something else. No one is enamored with the present choices.
“Basically, they became powerful after taking the leading role in defeating Persia, founded the Delian League, transformed that into an empire, extorted the members of the league to get rich, with wealth and more democracy became licentious and immoderate, and with power scared Sparta into starting the war.”
Sounds painfully familiar. From what I’ve read, their greatest strategic vulnerability was relying on food shipments from the Dnieper river valley in what is now the Ukraine, that had to pass through the Hellespont/Dardanelles. Those were the short hairs the Spartans eventually were able to secure. I don’t recall anything about Athenian women – other than Xanthippe.
I do recall reading a couple places that late Rome was plagued by female offspring of great men who sought glory for themselves rather than their families, but unfortunately do not recall the specifics.
“But it is a peculiar modern form with many new traits of its own not found in rebellions of old.”
Would be curious for specifics there.
Army Morale Low Despite $287 Million “Optimism” Program
http://legalinsurrection.com/2015/04/army-morale-low-despite-287-million-optimism-program/
This idea is actually quite a good representation of feminist thought and propaganda:
A female problem mostly caused by the women themselves is cherry-picked without considering the problems of men and then presented in cheap and illogical manner. Meanwhile some men (be they useful idiots, trying to score points with women, or fearing repercussions) play along and give the idiocy a degree of pseudo-legitimation.
The weird attitude of many women (not always feminists) that high heels, make-up, whatnot, is something that men do to them or that is a burden that women cannot escape is particularly disturbing, being not only illogical and unfair, but effectively turning the truth on its head. Women do this by their own volition or under the influence of other women. Many men, including yours truly, would even prefer if they spent less time on this “beauty” nonsense. (The net-effect of high heels on a woman’s looks might be positive, provided that she can walk without staggering, but I find e.g. long fingernails and bright red lipstick to be definite turn-offs.)
it seems like a stretch to lay all the blame for the current predicament on feminism or women
It doesn’t seem to me he actually did that.
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No one has mentioned that there are various ladies who will (for a fee – the going rate is presently £150.00 an hour) assist in transforming the hunkiest of men into a pouting, pantyhose wearing, high-healed imitation of a woman. The sexual kick is of course one of humiliation; those ladies will also assist you in your desire to be cuckolded by a well-endowed black male – as she stands above you whip in hand informing you that you are a pathetic excuse for a man. I seem to be going all Sacher-Masoch.
The continued attempted to equate feminism with the “FI” now extends to war? Yes, it’s certainly true that men have overwhelmingly suffered more in wars than women.
It’s certainly true, but nevertheless this is consistently ignored, and the opposite thesis is propagated in mainstream discourse. This is one way the FI has always asserted itself on society.
It was because MEN concluded that there is an inherent, irreducible difference in the sexes that made men (or some men) suitable for war and (all) women unsuitable.
It wasn’t just men’s decision by far. Warfare can be interpreted as a societal expression of the “let’s you and him fight” script. Women have played a substantial role in provoking and escalating armed conflict. This, again, is completely ignored and closed to discussion, of course, and society is expected to accept the opposite view, namely that women are inherently pacifists and there would be no more wars if they were in power. This is yet another way of the FI asserting its will.
If feminism were just another name for some supra-historical natural dynamic (“the feminine imperative”) then it should be possible to identify past societies where this dynamic either took over or at least held cultural and political power similar to what it holds now.
It’s not just another name for it. It’s the latest societal expression of it. Not the only one, of course. By the way, hasn’t Unwin described this historical dynamic in “Sex and Culture”?
innocentbystanderboston says:
Feminism seeks to accomplish by way of government authority what attractive women already gained from Patriarichal men of their own free will.Feminism seeks to accomplish by way of government authority what attractive women already gained from Patriarichal men of their own free will.
All women eventually become unattractive through aging. You can’t blame feminism on a small cohort of women.
And yet neither of you can name another society where this “universal and historical dynamic” has happened before.
@Opus
What do you think drives a man to seek out that kind of humiliation?
@ seriously…
He answered that question in the statement.
‘The sexual kick is of course one of humiliation’
@seriouslyserving
I am not qualified to answer that question, but as we have Scott on tonight’s panel, I will pass the question along to him, as a practicing and trained psychologist, for the correct answer.
I expect that the answer will involve the use of words such as Paraphilia and Fetish and probably Sublimation. You might also be interested than in reading Giles Deleuze’ essay Coldness and Cruelty which (my copy before me) is bundled in one volume with Sacher-Masoch’s Venus in Furs from Zone books – nice edition.
No, that’s not what Unwin described in Sex and Culture. (Though, admittedly, I haven’t read the whole 600 pages, but I read a great deal of it.) There is no “feminist police state” or “goddess cult.” What he describes is very akin to the cycle of regimes. In primitive societies, sexual mores are loose and little is achieved. In those societies in which manage to rein in sexual mores, growth and development to “higher” states is possible. But this very success eventually undermines itself. Societies get rich and peaceful, lose the immediacy of the felt need for restraint and virtue, and become indulgent and lax.
Unwin hangs it all on sex; or rather, that’s what he concentrates on, either because that’s what interested him, or he thought it was understudied, or both. He does not prove, nor even try to prove from my reading, that sex alone is always the historical cause of this cycle. Rather he shows that it is a major contributor. Something past thinkers knew, I believe, but didn’t elaborate to the extent that Unwin did.
“Usually provinces go most of the time, in the changes they make, from order to disorder and then pass again from disorder to order, for worldly things are not allowed by nature to stand still. As soon as they reach their ultimate perfection, having no further to rise, they must descend; and similarly, once they have descended and through their disorders arrived at the ultimate depth, since they cannot descend further, of necessity they must rise. Thus they are always descending from good to bad and rising from bad to good. For virtue gives birth to quiet, quiet to leisure, leisure to disorder, disorder to ruin; and similarly, from ruin, order is born; from order, virtue; and from virtue, glory and good fortune.”
~Machiavelli, FH V 1. See also Discourses I 2, which is based on Polybius VI, plus Republic VIII and IX and Politics III-VI..
“What, have you gone all Calvinist in your old age?”
Not Calvinist by a longshot. But I do not see an endlessly “diverse” US hanging together indefinitely.
In any event my point about Texas was merely this. So long as the present dispensation of culture/government lasts, then demographically, Texas is destined to become Democratic. Demographically, it just is. There is only one example of large “Hispanic” voting block going Republican consistently over a long period—the Miami Cubans—and 1) they were always a majority within a majority, not an overarching majority; and 2) that is already going, e.g., Obama one them in 2012. And 3) nothing about their experience suggests it can be scaled nationwide to woo “Hispanics” generally to become conservatives or Republicans.
So, it’s just a fact that everywhere in the US Hispanics have a majority, those places go Dem. If Texas were somehow to be the first to escape that trend, then the streak would be broken to be sure, but on what basis do we hope for that? Beyond mere hope?
Now, the present dispensation of culture/government won’t last forever and who can say what comes after that. But I find no reason to believe that it will be some like-minded but multi-ethnic grouping together of people who want to return to some semblance the pre-Davos era order. A party with balls may indeed emerge—there will likely be many parties with balls—but those parties are overwhelmingly likely to be more or less avowedly dedicated to only one ethnic group each.
If Texas were somehow to be the first to escape that trend, then the streak would be broken to be sure, but on what basis do we hope for that? Beyond mere hope?
The read I got that described what is currently happening made intuitive sense, but I think in the end your prediction will come true.
It was a map that showed the huge concentration of hispanics in the southern border counties. It also analyzed voting behavior by county. The counties down south with the huge hispanic concentraions don’t vote. The counties in the rest of the state do, and they are all Republican dominated counties (with the exception of Austin and Dallas metro areas).
But eventually, it will spread and the state will fall to Dems. It is why I am not planning on retiring here.
“But I find no reason to believe that it will be some like-minded but multi-ethnic grouping together of people who want to return to some semblance the pre-Davos era order.”
Depends how bad post-Davos* gets; but yeah, I think the likeliest scenario is the one you sketch out, it just isn’t predestined.
* – mamas currently want their babies to grow up to be globalists, not nativists, which drives a lot the rest that we’re seeing. That could change – mamas tend to be pretty savvy about such things.
It’s not like the waves of immigrants and their offspring are all hot for Modernism or anything.
They’re hot for welfare and could not care less if Modernism is attached to it.
“Even so, they would have fallen eventually. But women appear to have had nothing to do with it.”
Was thinking about that. Sure they seem to be missing from the histories (political correctness somewhere along the chain of transcription?), but there is no shortage of women in the plays, epics, and mythology acting in ways resembling modern feminism and worse. Well, ok, as bad.
Xanthippe herself was no walk in the park. She always makes me think of this
@Esscofier:
Des, I am thinking that next year I will do a paper on Aristophanes’ “women plays.” I only have time to do one paper a year (at most) and this year’s is on The Prince. Last year I did a “woman” topic on Xenophon, much of which I blogged about first over at Nova’s. The post is still there, I believe, called “Xenophon’s Wisdom.” I did get the paper publilshed in a scholarly journal, which is a minor miracle, given peer review.
Classic B.B. – “I gave you seven children, now you want to GIVE THEM BACK”
Dear Scott:
We should see the system in North America for what it is: Democrats and Republicans are two wings in a one-party state.
If anything, I admire liberal democrats. At least they’re honest, in talking about how they’re going to fuck men over. CONservatives like to tickle our ears with lots of innuendo and doubletalk, until they get elected, when they sell us all down the river, every single time.
Boxer
“Would be curious for specifics there.”
Here are three off the top of my head.
-radical egalitarianism. This is actually just about the most fraught question in all of political philosophy. I once promised the J4G guys that I would write a post on it but I never got around to it. In any event, the basic issue is that there are obvious ways in which people are unequal and obvious ways in which people are equal. And then there are various gray areas. But just to stick with the obvious ways: Which should take precedence and in which circumstances? Which are politically relevant and which are not?
Ancients and moderns have different answers. The ancients subtly emphasize the unequal aspects of man’s nature while admitting that the equal aspects undermine any practical attempt to base real politics on inequality. (Aristocracies in practice all tend to become oligarchies, for example.) The moderns emphasize equality, at first in a prudent way that recognizes inequality, but as modernity marches on, the “equalist” doctrine becomes more and more simplistic. And since one of the hallmarks of modernity is “Enlightenment”—the supposed diffusion of rational truth to the masses—the doctrine is eventually radically oversimplified so that every ancient and early modern caveat about the value and purpose of inequality is denied and forgotten so all we are left with is the radical egalitarianism of our times.
(This is something, BTW, that the paleos and writers like Roissy—whom I generally admire a lot—do not understand. The see the late modern corruption of “e quality,” take it be equality in toto, and so denounce equality root and branch. The truth is more complicated.)
But this oversimplified “equality” is of course an ideological driver of feminism that is not present in Eve’s rebellion. I suppose you could argue that her envy of Adam had a basis in her resentment of (perceived) inferior status, but that is still something distinct from modern ideological egalitarianism which drives feminism (and many other -isms). In fact, the germ of the concept of later political equality (as opposed to the demos merely standing up for its partisan share of the loot) is the Christian idea of equality before God. Which I believe is not present in the OT, and certainly not empahsized.
-the second would be the “Historical” sense and idea of “progress.” This is a mid- or late-modern invention. Long and involved, naturally, but like “equality” the rather sophisticated original idea (which, unlike equality, I still believe to be wrong) has been distilled into something very simplistic, viz., that history always marches forward toward greater justice, equality, understanding, and so on. And of course by “forward” one should read “leftward” since the “values” or goals of this “Historical process” tend to coincide exactly with the leftist agenda. It’s not a coincidence that they like to call themselves “progressives,” capitalized or not. They get this basic idea from modern philosophy.
Of course, according to this outlook, progress absolutely requires not just equality of the sexes but also “justice” defined very broadly as redistributing not just money but offices, honors and other goods from men and to women.
-finally there is modern hedonism. Hedonism is as old as the hills, but it’s only in modernity (with the qualified exception of Epicureanism) that hedonism receives the imprimatur of philosophy as the highest purpose of life. Modernity at its most radical rejects God and rejects a teleological nature. Nature is reduced to necessity—the necessity that impels us to seek self-preservation and once achieved, self-actualization or fulfillment. The ancient idea that man has a teleological nature, pointing toward heights or ends, and the purpose of life is to fulfill as best as possible is discarded. The purpose then becomes the satisfaction of worldly wants. The only limits recognized are A) you’re not supposed to harm anyone else in pursuit of your wants, and “harm” is construed very narrowly to mean “draw blood”; “a victimless crime is by definition not a crime”; and B) it’s acknowledged that the old virtues are useful in achieving one’s earthly happiness, because it takes a certain self-restraint to avoid the gutter. But those virtues are seen as purely instrumental, not goods-in-themselves as they are for the ancients, things to be done for their own sakes.
Once the goal is reduced to earthly happiness, the limits imposed by the old understanding of nature come to be seen as intolerable. And not just by women but by men too; the men indeed were the first to rebel in this way. But it’s a different kind of rebellion than Biblical rebellion. It’s an inherently atheistic rebellion, and—if not necessarily nihilistic (although I believe it gets there before the end)—it is certainly anti-nature or explicitly based on a narrow conception of nature. A conception of nature deliberately drawn to “liberate” humans from sacred restraints and obligations.
So all this at least, and probably much else, separates or distinguishes modern feminism from ordinary or time-honored rebellion.
I thought you lived in Montana Scott?
Scott,
I thought you lived in Montana.
Not yet. Headed up there this summer to buy the land that will become “rancho de scotto.”
And as an Army brat, I seem to recall frequent times when my dad would get the same “voluntary-mandatory” BS treatment.
And I recall that during the late Cold War Era (1970s-1980s), conservatives would often mock Communists for having mandatory “voluntary” events.
Actually, we’d criticize Communists for all sorts of things that Americans do today.
Ray Manta,
Not to their husbands if their wives truly love them. When I look at my wife, I still see her as young as the day I met her. I suspect 20 years from now when the majority of her looks are gone, I would still be willing to (Patriarcally) die for her no matter what she looks like. She is my help-meet. That is the way God designed us.
Feminism was for the ugliest of women (even at younger ages) who never had that Patriarical man in their life and they never would. That is what they are angry with the Patriarchy. It gives them (personally) zero in the form of resources. Since women are net resource consumers, the ugliest of women are left to the charity of government for their provisioning.
Well of course you can. Ugly women may only be a tiny percentage of women (women whom of no fault of their own, can’t do a thing about their ugliness) but collectively, they comprised millions of disenfranchised women spread out across all of Western Civilization in early 20th century society.
I’ll just leave this here….
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-04-23/the-unborn-can-be-murdered-too
There would be no real debate on this issue (legal or philisophical) were it not for feminism.
@Escoffier: Your argument reminds me of what Aristotle spoke about the Spartan women in his Politics, Book 2 –
Again, the license of the Lacedaemonian women defeats the intention of the Spartan constitution, and is adverse to the happiness of the state… And this is what has actually happened at Sparta; the legislator wanted to make the whole state hardy and temperate, and he has carried out his intention in the case of the men, but he has neglected the women, who live in every sort of intemperance and luxury. The consequence is that in such a state wealth is too highly valued, especially if the citizen fall under the dominion of their wives, after the manner of most warlike races, except the Celts and a few others who openly approve of male loves. The old mythologer would seem to have been right in uniting Ares and Aphrodite, for all warlike races are prone to the love either of men or of women. This was exemplified among the Spartans in the days of their greatness; many things were managed by their women. But what difference does it make whether women rule, or the rulers are ruled by women? The result is the same. Even in regard to courage, which is of no use in daily life, and is needed only in war, the influence of the Lacedaemonian women has been most mischievous…We are not, however, considering what is or is not to be excused, but what is right or wrong, and the disorder of the women, as I have already said, not only gives an air of indecorum to the constitution considered in itself, but tends in a measure to foster avarice.
“The Legislator” referred to there is Lycurgus. See also Plutarch’s Lycurgus, 14-18.
@innocentbystanderboston
What’s sad is that any father-less female could join a proper scriptural church, submit to its male leadership, and experience the blessings of a patriarchal social structure.
Likewise, in my circles, unattractive women are assortatively married off to unattractive men. Everyone’s OK with the arrangement, since we learn from an early age that jealousy, vanity, covetousness, lust, and pride are sins (and likewise that marriage is to produce children and glorify God, not to satisfy one’s own avariciousness).
Most unmarried guys I know are such because they consider marriage to be for life, and don’t want to take the risk of divorce. Or they didn’t want to marry someone of equal attractiveness to themselves and choose celibacy instead.
Correction: being unattractive by being fat doesn’t count; unmarried, overweight women are viewed about the same as a guy who chews tobacco, lost half his teeth, and that everyone knows has a gigantic porn addiction.
Marissa,
“They’re hot for welfare* and could not care less if Modernism is attached to it.”
That’s neither here nor there. They’re here, they’re queer, but not necessarily queer in the way that Escoffier is most concerned about. They’re not likely to support the Rs in their current incarnation, but the current incarnation of the Rs isn’t doing much against the onslaught of Modernism anyway.
* – Ron Unz makes a pretty good case that your mistaken there. Either way, they need to be deported. Immigration policy is another historically cyclical phenomenon being blocked by Boomer solipsism/conservative fecklessness. They’re depressing wages, promoting lawlessness, adding undue volatility to the electoral process, and fatally weakening societal cohesiveness.
Unz is … well, I shouldn’t say what I think Unz really is on a family website.
Suffice it to say, however broadly or narrowly you want to define “our” side, Unz ain’t on it. He is opposed.
“There would be no real debate on this issue (legal or philisophical) were it not for feminism.”
Do you really imagine eugenics to be a unpopular as it is unspoken?
Another thing sees widely among the ancients.
“He is opposed.”
His case is nonetheless not easily refuted on that narrow question, if not on the benefits of immigration as a whole.
As for his side, he hosts Sailer and is at least against the prevailing totalitarian mediocrity, which seems the most pressing matter at the moment.
The only thing Unz has in common with Sailer or any of the other writers on his website is that, like them, he is knee-jerk anti-war and anti-Israel.
Actually, I give Sailer credit for being prudentially anti-war and nuanced or at least “complicated” in his views on Israel. Everyone else on that site loves America’s enemies and excuses whatever they do simply because they hate America in its current incarnation so much. It’s one thing to praise Putin for his nationalism, natalism and a few other things, but when the morons start to deny that Iran is an enemy, or if it is, the whole thing is America’s fault, they’ve just circled around to the far left.
Take Jeb Bush’s domestic, economic, cultural and immigration policy (plus his smarmy finger-wagging overclass condescension) and mix that with fever-swamp anti-American leftism in the foreign and defense policy realm, shake, pour, and you have Ron Unz.
Phillyastro,
“But what difference does it make whether women rule*, or the rulers are ruled by women?** The result is the same. Even in regard to courage, which is of no use in daily life, and is needed only in war, the influence of the Lacedaemonian women has been most mischievous…”
So money.
* – Ds, journalists (notice how many of the most egregious are female, weaponized Gell-Mann effect), low-level functionaries, PR/HR flacks, toxic SJWs
** – Rs, white knights, wealthy benefactors for NGOs
@ Beefy Levinson
I also served and finished my time before the issuing of Black Berets to all troops. It was Big Army’s way of saying “Our basic infantry corps is just as special or more specialer than your special forces” to other European armed forces that gave all their troops berets. Such womanish shit coming from one of the manliest institutions in Western Civilization.
It was a slap in the face to Rangers in the same way women were earning red berets and qualifying as Airborne while testing at lower physical fitness standards. Disgusting.
Escoffier,
“Take Jeb Bush’s domestic, economic, cultural and immigration policy (plus his smarmy finger-wagging overclass condescension) and mix that with fever-swamp anti-American leftism in the foreign and defense policy realm, shake, pour, and you have Ron Unz.”
Yep, I’ve more or less come to discover that unhappy truth myself this past month, though Jeb and his ilk would never allow Sailer a platform in a million years. I sometimes suspect their entire raison d’être is to keep the non-Empire alternative suppressed (i.e. actual Republicanism).
As for anti-American, the empire itself seems to have turned against it’s host country, so lines are not so clear there. I’m with the host. Does one say Cato the Younger was anti-Roman for arguing against empire?
“Here are three off the top of my head.”
Thank you. Wish there were a way to pay commenters. That passage alone was worth the price of a decent used hardback. More than that, actually, since I’m saved the effort of finding the most bon of the mots. I wouldn’t be surprised to find the rough equivalent of some of those points in the natural passing of other civilizations (the late Ming, perhaps, or the Central Asian, Incan, etc…), but I don’t know enough about them to make a rigorous case, and I’ll trust you that the Western case is as you say.
Escoffier,
What red pillers (such as you and I) have to keep reminding ourselves (regarding the GOP and conservatism) is that the GOP shares one all important trait with the deomcrats, they hate to lose. And how they GOP wins (and loses) is well documented.
To win, be like President Dubya and pander to specific groups and demographics in specific geographic locations. Don’t be like Romney and stand firm on character and principles if it means you lose.
That is it. Do you want to win, or do you want to stand for something and lose? Because you can’t do anything if you don’t get elected. And you are not going to get elected if you don’t give certain people certain things (legs up over others) because they wont vote for you. Romney learned that. He learned that in 2012. So did we all.
By any measurement, Governor Willard Mitt Romney is 10 times the leader/man that POTUS Dubya and POTUS Obama ever were or ever will be. He is a man of character, integrity, and principles. And he chose a brilliant running mate who perfectly understands complex mathematics, taxation (and what it has on the middle class and job creation), and economics. And for that (Romney’s integrity and doing what he felt was in the best interest of serving a nation that has been so good to him), he lost. We are not fit for leaders like that in our country, we are not deserving of them. Instead we get leaders who pander to win votes (like Dubya pandering to the elderly with taxpayer subsidized prescription drug benefits and Obama on basically everything he does.) Senator McCain tried to OUT-pander then Senator Obama by choosing an incompetent fool as his running mate to see if he could peel away just barely enough of the women’s vote. He failed. But our “war hero” who traded in wives and knows zero about economics still got more votes (if less electoral votes) that Governor Romney simply by pandering and choosing that moron from Alaska.
Ronald Reagan could never be elected (today) with our current demographic make-up of the voters of our country. Jeb Bush WILL pander. He wants to win. He WILL pander to illegal immigrants. Demographics forces him to do so. He thinks he has to, in order to win. That worked for his brother Dubya (twice) who followed the pandering script written perfectly by winning-is-everything Karl Rove. So he is going to do the same thing. Get used to it. We are in the end of days because this Democracy thing simply can’t work when you give women the vote.
IBB,
“That is it. Do you want to win, or do you want to stand for something and lose?”
Whatever.
Romney lost because he was a pussy. See:
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/in-new-film-a-dramatic-look-at-mitt-romneys-loss-of-confidence/article/2542430
Even if you were right (you aren’t) why would anyone want to follow your advice anyway? I’m not a pussy who needs to pander and kiss ass to get “ahead”. Are you trying to advertise to the world that you are?
It isn’t my advise. It’s Karl Rove’s and he wins. I am not saying they should follow that advice. I am only saying that they will be pandering because Romney proved (even after winning all the debates and not having even one skeleton in the closet) you can’t win an election for POTUS if you don’t pander.
And it not about proving anything to world. Its only about winning. The world doesn’t care how much integrity you have, how much you refuse to pander. You’ll still lose when politics are concerned.
“Does one say Cato the Younger was anti-Roman for arguing against empire?”
Definitely not.
It’s not the rejection of bipartisan foreign policy (it’s a stretch, to say the least, to call it “imperialism” but that’s for another day). I think there are many sound reasons to question and even reject America’s post-Cold War foreign policy. There are also many purely narrowly patriotic and nationalistic reasons to support it, which none of these critics seems to realize.
But where it gets just stupid are when you have these people praising avowed enemies of America and boo-hooing like spurned betas about how mean we are to Iran (and the like) and so we have it coming. Or, really, they are not even that coherent. In the same breath they will deny that Iran (or others) mean or ever meant us any harm and then insist that all the harm they have done us, well, we had it coming. Because we are so mean.
Sailer is mostly above this and too sensible for it. The dynamic on that site is a good proxy for the difficulty of diffusing nuanced thoughts. Just watch how many of his followers and those he influences can only hear his criticisms of the ruling class and then conclude from that that everyone opposed to that ruling class must be good or at least justified.
It’s one thing to say that (for instance) the Iraq war was imprudent precisely from the standpoint of American interests. It’s quite another to whitewash the regime’s horribleness and danger to American interests. That’s Michael Moore territory.
Why would a Jeb victory be good for any of the things Des and I care about? I am assuming that he and I care about many of the same things. IBB, on the other hand … well I have no idea what he really cares about, but if he would be enthused by a Jeb Bush victory, then he doesn’t care about the same things that Des and I care for, or if he does, then he is completely deluded about Jeb Bush.
Ecoffier, I am NOT enthused by a Jeb victory. I don’t think a Jeb victory would be good for this country. I think a Romney victory would have been GREAT for this country (Mitt is almost red pill) but no, I am not gung-ho for Jeb. The only thing I have done is define what will be happening whether you or I or Des like it or not.
It doesn’t matter, Jeb will not be able to “out-pander” Hillary. She WILL be POTUS. Its over.
“It’s Karl Rove’s and he wins.”
Are you completely daft?
He’s squandered billions. You know who every former R I know, including several with a lot of power – financial and otherwise – blames for the reason they went D?
Karl Rove.
Character is ever and always the first thing in republican politics. The man has less than none and revels in the fact.
“is define what will be happening”
You are worse than wrong. Sit this one out.
“There are also many purely narrowly patriotic and nationalistic reasons to support it, which none of these critics seems to realize.”
Those having recently become edged out by the level of havoc that can be wreaked when the Lefties themselves and/or those opposed to the interests of the country itself get the keys to the Death Star. Bush should have stuck to the humility upon which he originally ran, and won.
“Those having recently become edged out by the level of havoc that can be wreaked when the Lefties themselves and/or those opposed to the interests of the country itself get the keys to the Death Star”
Amen to that.
Des,
Who are these former Rs that became Ds? What elected office do they hold? I need names. If these are just “people you know” who are voters, then I don’t care and neither should you.
You are worried about Karl Rove’s caharacter? Oh I hope you are kidding. His character meant nothing. He’s not a politician anymore and it could be argued he never was. Karl Rove’s character is irrelevant as Rove doesn’t really run for office. He helps other candidates run for office. He is the wartime consiglierie. He is the lawyer for “the Don.” He was for POTUS Dubya was John Spencer/Leo McGarry was for Martin Sheen/President Bartlett in “The West Wing.” He’s the bean-counter, the intellectual heavy in the background, the David Axelrod.
He matters because he helps other people win. And when he said to Dubya in 2003….
….you want to be re-elected? Start talking about prescription drug benefits for seniors and $15 billion for AIDS in Africa and possible amnesty for illegals and stop patrolling that border on the South and maybe you’ll get an extra 10,000 votes in New Mexico, 30,000 votes in Florida, and 5,000 votes in Colorado.
He counts Des. He does the counting, not the running. Character? (blows air) Right.
Rove could not work for Romney. Romney was not going to listen to Rove as there is ZERO CHANCE Romney was giving a prescription drug benefit to anyone, ZERO CHANCE that illegals would get amnesty anywhere, ZERO CHANCE he would be taking men off the Mexican border. That is because Romney is a better man than Dubya with Integrity and Character. That is why he lost.
You get it now?
innocentbystanderboston said in response to my comment:
All women eventually become unattractive through aging.
Not to their husbands if their wives truly love them.
Jim Donald calls it “wife goggles” and I agree that it’s a real phenomenon.
I also said:
You can’t blame feminism on a small cohort of women.
Well of course you can.
Well, no, I don’t think you can. The cock carousel and delayed marriage are caused by women’s hypergamy and the desire to trade up; they aren’t being manipulated by ugly women. The same is true for female voting patterns and the continuous pressure to transfer resources from men to women.
Unrelated. Just looking for traffic. Carry on!
http://westernphilosophyeasternfaith.blogspot.com/2015/04/academics-meticulously-and.html
Ray,
Yes you can. I will explain to you point by point, why.
You are relating too many separate things. Let me separate and combine gradually by looking at history.
The first wave of feminism was caused by ugly women not having husbands or a government that gave a d-mn about them because they couldn’t vote. They had to get the vote first (here, in England, in Australia, in New Zealand, all about 1900) before they could get government resources. That is when the discussion really began.
The cock carousel was caused by the second wave of feminism (in the 1960s) not the first. This again related to ugly women (a smallish number) who couldn’t find husbands because men didn’t want to marry ugly women but ugly women still wanted to get laid and wanted to feel NO SHAME for getting laid out of wedlock. The uglies were getting provisioning from government because they had the vote, but not ‘gina tingle. They could get laid outside of wedlock (guys who would never marry ugly women would be willing to f-ck them because they are like mopeds, “fun to ride but you don’t want anyone to see you on one”) but then they would be shamed for carousel riding in society. That had to stop. Ergo, second wave of feminism. The side affect of removing shame from uglies riding the cock carousel is that now the pretty girls who could get married wanted to ride it as well. Which led us into…
…the delay of marriage caused by this third wave of feminism (1990s and beyond.) This relates to the concept of the girls who are pretty enough to get married BUT they still want to get “experience” riding the cock carousel because they can because they aren’t getting shame for it thanks to ugly women and their work during the second wave of feminism. Compound this with more and more men who LOVE this concept of riding the cock carousel because now pretty much ALL the girls will f-ck outside of marriage (not just ugly ones) so they get to f-ck for conquest… which is what they want. Everyone wins in this third wave (except Christian men in the manosphere who want to marry a virginal wife at 22.)
Not necessarily so. SSM and Elspeth and the pretty girls who DO get married, they may not want anymore transfer payments. And why? Because those transfers take money out of their husbands’ pockets. Any government transfer is likely a transfer AWAY from them and their children to someone else (and her children.) Now because they are women and they have the vote (and women vote emotionally) they might still be motivated to vote for transfer payments and abortion and the like. But it is not as likely as an ugly girl who could never catch a man for marriage.
It all goes back to the ugly women not being able to get married. As Rush said, they needed access to the mainstream of society.
Yep. It’s like watching The Quiet Man and thinking, “Sheesh, why doesn’t he just tell her why he won’t fight? He doesn’t have to blubber into her lap about his fears, but surely just opening up long enough to say, ‘I don’t want to fight your brother because I killed a man once and it still haunts me,’ would be better than losing her.”
But people watching that 50 years ago probably didn’t think that at all; they took it for granted that he had to keep it to himself. As you say, we’re trying to figure this stuff out from scratch without much context to work with.
Right. There are certainly many similarities to the American Empire: foreign wars they couldn’t afford or justify, fighting on too many fronts, developing the attitude that all other states should happily support their Empire, cults of personality, etc. But it went from a democracy where men (not women) voted, to an oligarchy where a few men (still no women) controlled things, then back and forth between different forms for a while, but always run by men.
If there’s information out there about Athens becoming feminist or developing a “goddess cult” at the time, I’d be fascinated to read about it, since Athenian democracy is probably the clearest example of pre-modern democracy we have. (Obviously they worshiped goddesses, including their city’s namesake, but they always had, and as far as I know that didn’t increase with the end of democracy.)
innocentbystanderboston says:
You are relating too many separate things
Don’t think so – I’m simply using Occam’s razor to find the simplest explanation that fits the facts. Ugly women causing feminism and its excesses is hard to reconcile with the presence of attractive feminists such as Naomi Wolf or Gloria Steinem or hot-looking Lesbians Until Graduation.
The first wave of feminism was caused by ugly women not having husbands or a government that gave a d-mn about them because they couldn’t vote.
If that were true it’s hard to understand how they would have enough social clout to effect any change at all. Feminist-inspired atrocities such as the White Feather Campaign in England and Prohibition in America can hardly be explained by ugly women doing their man-hating thing. In the first case it often enough was abused by girls who had tired of a boyfriend and in the second case Prohibition was widely supported and lobbied for by married women who didn’t appreciate their husbands spending time and money at the local watering hole instead of on them and their children.
That being said, I don’t deny that ugly women can be especially misandrist. I just question your argument that they’re the prime mover behind feminist mischief. It can more simply be explained by the feminine imperative and female herding.
The cock carousel was caused by the second wave of feminism (in the 1960s) not the first. This again related to ugly women (a smallish number) who couldn’t find husbands because men didn’t want to marry ugly women but ugly women still wanted to get laid and wanted to feel NO SHAME for getting laid out of wedlock.
Again, that doesn’t really explain why average and attractive women are eagerly squandering their prime years seeking out the most attractive men. That tells me that absent strong social controls, that’s the default mating pattern. The attraction of the cock carousel to women is it allows them to mate way above their real sexual market value.
It all goes back to the ugly women not being able to get married.
Way back when, assortative mating took care of that. Generally speaking, the unattractive married the unattractive, the average married the average, and the attractive married the attractive.
IBB,
“Who are these former Rs that became Ds? What elected office do they hold? I need names. If these are just “people you know” who are voters, then I don’t care and neither should you.”
Doctors, corporate execs, retired and otherwise, with healthy stock portfolios, medium business owners, clergy with affluent congregations. The traditional bedrock of the Republican Party and almost certainly part of any majority that has been or is likely to be of any use for the country. My parents fall into this category, as do many folks in their age range with which my wife and I socialize.
Engineers, small business types, higher IQ/more well-informed types who were not already sold on the Ds are unlikely to swing that way whatever happens. Some will, however, not show up to vote R. Especially if the Rs are represented by pussies and charlatans.
“He counts Des. He does the counting, not the running. Character? (blows air) Right.”
He was the one sitting next to Megyn Kelly on election night with his negative T-level hanging out all over the place. As long as he’s associated with the R brand, he’s poison.
And character, both low and high, does matter in republican politics whether you like it or not (your own weak character is no excuse for imagining such a character will have wide appeal). It is foolish for a bad man to support a candidate (or a party) without integrity, as he (or it) will not stay bought. It is foolish for a good man since such a candidate (or party) will lack the steadfastness or courage to act in defense or furtherance of that which both believe to be good and right. That’s what we have in the Congress.
As far as I can tell, it’s based on a caricature of Mexicans as portrayed in Hollywood movies mostly set in the 1800s.
Clytemnestra, for instance, is specifically portrayed as acting “against the natural order” by acting like a man, and it’s clearly a bad thing. But that doesn’t tell you whether the Greeks generally disapproved of masculine women and the story reflects mainstream, or if it was actually becoming a common problem and Aeschylus was telling a cautionary tale. You’d have to go deeper than just reading the story, which I haven’t.
“The side affect of removing shame from uglies riding the cock carousel is that now the pretty girls who could get married wanted to ride it as well. Which led us into…”
Well, the young, pretty girls don’t stay young and pretty forever. They age and and can get fat, and turn into not so pretty, or even older ugly girls, and with worse personalities and a blown-out vagina, large school loan debt and quite often STD’s. They find themselves at 30+ competing with the much cuter, prettier, fitter, tighter 20-22 year olds for the desirable guys that they want to marry, but can’t. Many women are their own worst enemy. Women don’t understand that time is not their friend. Any man that these women eventually “settle” for for marriage will be a lesser man than what she could have gotten when she was in her younger prime years, but wasted screwing around – and this will cause a lot of resentment and problems in their marriage and later life. Just like Chris Rock says: Have you ever caught your wife giving you a strange look? She’s looking at you that way because you weren’t her “first choice” for a husband:
The point is not the grim demographic future of the GOP, who can all go hang. The point is the grim demographic future of the USA–or to be more precise (since the USA as a political entity is certainly dying) of the territory of North America in which many of us and our descendants live and will live for the foreseeable future. It becomes more dysfunctional with every passing year and this is not good for any of us personally nor for civilization.
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@Escoffier
There are 2 societies that have degenerated into feminism. Ancient Rome and Saudi Arabia. As shown in the video above I posted about the traditionalism cycle.
Escoffier,
“The point is the grim demographic future of the USA–or to be more precise (since the USA as a political entity is certainly dying)”
There we disagree – on the certainty, not the dying, which is of course on the wind. Granting mere extrapolation the weight of certainly seems imprudent. The Roman Republic lasted for over 600 years, with some undoubtedly as dark as our own, yet managed to survive until the coming of Caesar. There is no Caesar currently on the world stage.
Modernism has long lost its power to move powerful minds, and post-modernism has shown itself to be merely the white noise at the end of the day rather than the next thing. Either the arrival of the next thing itself or the reassertion of some older thing come again into its own* could change everything. Or, if not everything, enough to matter.
* – having shown itself now by the test of time better than Modernism – there are several candidates that have passed that test – as the very preoccupation presently of mediocre minds with the fleeting appeal of Modernism itself casts it in relative ill-repute among minds who can move men.
Escoffier,
“I am assuming that he and I care about many of the same things.”
You have no idea. I have yet to discover a discrepancy, nor with the author of this blog that I am aware of. Unlike you, though, I believe there to still be a useful and achievable majority in this country to be built on a list less comprehensive that you, I, and that majority care about.
radical egalitarianism.
Movements promoting that very concept have existed in the Middle Ages and even in Ancient history.
the equal aspects undermine any practical attempt to base real politics on inequality
Why exactly? I think of the Apartheid regime and I’m reminded of the fact that it took multiple parallel proxy wars, lavish Cuban and Soviet support to its enemies, plus an international economic boycott to bring it down. Surely their attempt was practical, wasn’t it?
But this oversimplified “equality” is of course an ideological driver of feminism that is not present in Eve’s rebellion.
The feminist doctrine of gender equality is simply bullshit designed to pander to the masses. They believe in female societal primacy and moral-intellectual supremacy, not equality.
Hedonism is as old as the hills, but it’s only in modernity (with the qualified exception of Epicureanism) that hedonism receives the imprimatur of philosophy as the highest purpose of life. Modernity at its most radical rejects God and rejects a teleological nature. Nature is reduced to necessity—the necessity that impels us to seek self-preservation and once achieved, self-actualization or fulfillment. The ancient idea that man has a teleological nature, pointing toward heights or ends, and the purpose of life is to fulfill as best as possible is discarded. The purpose then becomes the satisfaction of worldly wants.
Self-actualization and fulfillment can also be a practical response to one’s environment. This reminds me of something Roosh observed in a podcast. Suppose you’re an average, young, single white man. What purpose can you find? You cannot identify with your race and live accordingly, because that’s taboo. You can’t live like a patriarch either, because it isn’t even legally feasible. You could join a local church, but they are all feminized cesspools that don’t really want you. You could dedicate yourself to a company and work there until you die, but the idea of mutual trust and loyalty between employer and employee, like the one that was an important principle in Japan, is long gone. You could join the armed forces but, as it has been discussed here, they’re all hotbeds of feminism as well, and they consider you cannon fodder and a nuisance to be properly brainwashed.
In short, the hedonistic path is the only one open to you. There’s no other way for you to find a worthy purpose.
And yet neither of you can name another society where this “universal and historical dynamic” has happened before.
One that comes to mind is Soviet Russia. We’ve discussed that on J4G a long time ago. Frivolous divorce, collapsing birthrates, sexual promiscuity, the decline of religion, feminist policies, the doctrine of equality – it was all there. And it seems most of the damage done to Russian society as a result is irreversible.
When TFH speaks of a goddess cult, I doubt he means it literally. “Goddess cult” makes me think of gynocentric doctrines and belief systems which promote female ideals as supreme foundations for a desired social order, and demonize male ideals as biologically defective and dangerous. Women are celebrated as the creators of life, bringers of social harmony and innate pacifists, whereas all acts of violence, all forms of social dysfunction are blamed on men and their perverted, corrupted minds. This mindset has always existed.
Nothing surprises me at this point.
I welcome things like this, and all future attempts by radical lefties / cultural Marxists to apply SJW ideas to the US military. And I say this as a former SGT in the Army with one stint in Afghanistan.
Why?
The US is going to collapse in some form. There is a decent chance that whatever or whomever is running the vestige of the Federal Government will try to use military assets against the civilian population. Or, to try and ease economic burdens from the collapse of the dollar and unrestrained immigration, the US govt might try to launch a war of distraction. It’d be best for that to fail and fail hard.
We should all celebrate the weakening of the US military. It is the sword of an ever growing corrupt left wing oligarchy.
#wombenvy
Des, I just don’t see it.
Machiavelli praises the liberal Roman immigration policy at several points. But there are so many differences. First is the obvious cultural and linguistic compatibility between the surrounding cities from which Rome took so many immigrants in the republican era. Second is the policy of ruining surrounding cities so that (former) inhabitants had no choice but to move and no allegiance to a polity that no longer existed.
In the imperial era, Rome absorbed so many disparate peoples that it could not assimilate them and stopped trying. Sound familiar?
And even with the supposedly “assimilated” ones, the cities of the Italian peninsula, how assimilated were they really, given the revolts during the Second Punic War, and the Social War (only ~40 years before Caesar).
Then there is the whole issue of “a people unused to living free” (D 16-18).
As for Caesar, I don’t see one either. But he may be out there. Caesarism may in fact be a not-bad outcome, given the alternatives.
There are 2 societies that have degenerated into feminism. Ancient Rome and Saudi Arabia. As shown in the video above I posted about the traditionalism cycle.
I didn’t watch the video and I am far from an expert on SA, but from what I know of it, the claim sounds preposterous.
I do know something about ancient Rome and it in no way degenerated into feminism. I have seen this meme in the sphere that tries to take certain imperial laws, such as the Lex Papia, and try to make that into a “bachelor tax” when in fact it (or laws much like it) were also applied to women. And the purpose was the opposite of the purpose of modern feminism. It was to promote marriage and childbirth in an attempt to restore the Roman family.
In certain respects, Imperial Rome looked like our society today, in that peace and wealth led to hedonism and frivolity. This seems always to happen in any successful society. In such an environment women, as well as men, often indulge themselves in material and sexual ways, which definitely happened in Rome. But there was no feminism as we know it, either as an intellectual doctrine, political movement, or state-mandated set of edits.
You watch. Next it will be ACU shirts with miniskirts for a slut walk.
America. It could have been great.
Escoffier,
“Machiavelli praises the liberal Roman immigration policy at several points.”
To be clear, I’m not praising liberal American policy at any point after 1965, and especially not the refusal to follow the American tradition of having a period of restrictive policy to clean up any messes from a period of liberality.
I am saying that for a nation suffering through a life-threatening bout of Modernism, springing a leak of some ten or twenty million pre-Moderns is not going to be obviously fatal. Given that nation’s demonstrable inclination to nobilize any savages it finds running around, it could even (re)learn a thing or two, or at least find cover to reassert some things conveniently forgotten.
“In the imperial era, Rome absorbed so many disparate peoples that it could not assimilate them and stopped trying. Sound familiar?”
Of course. If things are to turn around, there will have to be significant deportation and assimilation. Rivalry with China is one way to get that ball rolling. One of my favorite ways to motivate African-American students is to let them know how stupid the Chinese think they are and/or how far ahead of them the average Chinese student is. The latter works for non-AA students as well. In both cases it is understood that I have every confidence those Chinese can be proven wrong, caught, and passed. They can.
“Then there is the whole issue of ‘a people unused to living free'”
Homo Sapiens is an adaptable species. The adaptable species, in fact. We’re a long way from free in any event.
“As for Caesar, I don’t see one either. But he may be out there.”
He is certainly out there, he always is, but the conditions are not yet conducive to his emergence. Hence the Republic is not yet dead.
“Caesarism may in fact be a not-bad outcome, given the alternatives.”
It’s often better than that, until Caesar dies.
hoellenhund2 @ 4:40 am:
“One that comes to mind is Soviet Russia. We’ve discussed that on J4G a long time ago. Frivolous divorce, collapsing birthrates, sexual promiscuity, the decline of religion, feminist policies, the doctrine of equality – it was all there. And it seems most of the damage done to Russian society as a result is irreversible.”
Agree 100%. Our Communists are doing exactly what the Russian Communists did, except ours don’t talk about workers’ paradises and five-year plans. They just lie, steal and betray with no particular endgame.
You don’t suppose modern feminism is nothing more than the Commies punishing us for winning the Cold War? It would explain a lot, like our Elites’ insistence on mass illegal immigration and crippling our military. They’re doing a Carthage on us.
Movements promoting that very concept have existed in the Middle Ages and even in Ancient history.
Such as what? And in what ways did they mirror modern egalitarianism? But whether they did or didn’t is a judgment I suppose I can make for myself, once I know which movements you mean.
Apartheid
No, it goes back much further than that and it’s fundamentally a theoretical concern.
The basic question of politics is always Who Rules? Various people or types of people will stake a claim to rule, but who is right? “Might makes right” is but one way to resolve this question, and the easiest to refute rationally. Another is to assert that anarchism is the natural state of man, all politics is unnatural coercion, etc., which is also easily refutable.
So let’s leave them both aside and reduce the claims to rule to the handful that are most typical, they come down to the one or few best, the few rich, or the many. Monarchy, aristocracy, oligarchy, democracy.
Obviously the best solution to the question of who rules is to allow the “Best” to rule. We all complain about the lousy quality of current leadership, after all. We’d all rather be led by “better” people. But that turns out to be rather hard to accomplish. First we have to define “best.” Then we have to get the political community generally to agree on that definition, AND identify the same people as “best” AND convince them that these “best” ought to rule them. THEN we have to convince the “best” to rule.
All of this turns out to be very difficult. Philosophers can come up with a coherent definition of “best” that is airtight rationally. What it turns out they cannot do, at least not reliably, is persuade the masses to accept it. There is thus always resistance to the claim of the “best” to rule, and indeed to ANY claim to rule. This is THE perennial political problem.
Equality is one typical solution to that problem. And, on a certain level, equality is true. Nature has not delineated some men as the natural rulers of others, the way nature clearly does so with certain social animals. In this decisive respect, “all men are created equal” in terms of equal ownership of their own bodies and labor and equal rights to self-preservation and so on. The only exception is Aristotle’s “natural slave,” a naturally defective human who needs to be ruled for his own good. But these natural slaves turn out to be a burden, not a benefit, for their rulers (hence all conventional slavery is unjust), and in any event, they are a tiny portion of the population and so offer no guidance about natural claims to rule.
So, nature and nature’s God have—all at once—made man the social and political animal with reason and speech, who cannot live will except in cooperation with others, and who naturally seeks the society and cooperation of others. Yet they have also made men unequal in wisdom, talent, virtue, and character. But not so obviously unequal that it’s clear who ought to rule once men do get together to form society. What’s more, many or some men are by nature resistant to claims of rule by others and will not brook even what the wisest would agree is the most just claim to rule by the most virtuous man.
This is true of any given population. This is not some argument for one world government or the brotherhood of man. Politics is by nature closed and particular and depends on the distinction between friends and enemies, which—however arbitrary or accidental in any particular case—is fundamental and natural to man’s situation as man. So even in a linguistically, ethnically, culturally and religiously homogenous population, you will still run into this problem. It never goes away.
Self-actualization and fulfillment can also be a practical response to one’s environment
I don’t think so, not in the way you mean. But that aside, that’s not what happened in this case. When the philosophers who first made this argument did so, the types of circumstances you describe were not prevalent anywhere in the west. They did so in rebellion against God and nature.
Regarding the Soviets, that was—to say the least—NOT a case of “democracy” following its inevitable cycle. That was an anti-democratic hard-left ideological tyranny. And, as I recall the discussion from J4G, many of those early policies were reversed in short order. At the time of the regime’s demise, it was wholly ruled by men and was much less feminist than the West.
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Des, the demographic question appears to me to be decisive. When you couple it with our own internal rot—which it has badly exacerbated—I don’t see this turning around.
Now, I could envision this happening regionally, maybe even on a state or group-of-states level. Though, if the feds are anything like as strong as they are now, they would crush it mercilessly and immediately.
But some continuation of the US as it is, with its current government, territory, AND it’s population, that seems impossible. In any nominally “republican” form.
What I could see happening is “Caesarism”, the takeover of the state apparatus by a quasi-monarchy. Most bureaucracies—at every level—just go on as they have been going. In a way we already have this, as the differences between the two parties at the national level are now so small.
Another possibility is that the Democratic national majority becomes so impregnable that they simply can coast and win every election forever. This we retain the republican form and even hold elections as a formality, but the mean nothing. They mean very close to nothing right now, so this is not a stretch.
However, as Sailer points out, there are fault lines in the Dem coalition. Even if the pusillanimous Republicans refuse to exploit them (which seems likely), they will still crack on their own. There will be intra-party fights over who gets what. More to the point, the more successful they get, they more they will want to punish any resistance and get after productive sectors to squeeze resources.
Then two things may happen, and perhaps both. First, there might finally some kind of revolt among the “legacy majority.” This could either threaten the power of the ruling class and/or threaten to reduce output and make everyone a whole lot poorer. Second, the ruling class may actually be wise enough to see that allowing its radical base to go too wild in persecuting the “legacy majority” is not a great idea. They may try to rein that it. If they’re successful, then they could perpetuate the rotten system a long time. “All experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.” Or they may provoke their unruly base into even more bad behavior, which may then cause some big boom.
The other thing that tells against the ongoing elections thesis is that eventually someone will get in there who doesn’t want to leave. And the people, or a large part of the people, may form a deep attachment to that person and their family. It’s a sign of how corrupt we are that our two likeliest candidates this year are named Bush and Clinton. And then down the road we have more Bushes, Clintons and even Obamas to face.
So I would not rule out Caesar.
The upside to Caesar is twofold. First, given how corrupt we already are, some smooth transition to the next stage has a lot of advantages. Assuming I am right that we are not, in our present dispensation, going to get our liberty back, then maybe the next best thing would be to squeeze a hundred or two (or three) years out of the old nag before she finally collapses and dies. The resultant chaos and pain would be minimized. The standard of living and civilization that could be maintained would be a lot higher than after some collapse.
Second, there is nothing inevitable that says that Caesar must be THEIR Caesar. Caesar could well be one of ours. Remember that Sulla was in effect dictator for life 30 years before Caesar. He renounced the office voluntarily. Pompey lost to Caesar at Pharsalus on a fluke. Etc. I see absolutely zero inclination amongst anyone on “our” side to even begin thinking in these terms, not even as last ditch contingency planning, but you never know what may happen as conditions change (worsen).
Machiavelli shows that it’s far from the worst fate to be ruled by a non-barbarous prince. And in the case of dysfunctional multi-culti behemoths, that’s really the only way to hold them together. Now, some bad princes will undoubtedly come along. That’s not ideal but neither is it decisive against the whole prospect. And anyway, it’s not like we really have much of a choice at this point.
If “us” v. “them” were a more regional dynamic I might see some possibility of breakup. As it is, it’s a mess. “They” are everywhere “we” are, and they feel the same way about us.
Dat_Truth_Hurts
I agree with this 100% At this time I do not mind the military being degraded for feminism and homosexuality.
Escoffier
The state of Texas is extraordinary. It is almost as if the state is trying to be in a position to succeed. The economic here is heavily manufacturing based with more exports than any state by an extreme margin. It is also one of the most heavily armed and gun friendly states in the union. Maybe the only state with hunting from helicopters with silencers and night vision and full auto.
It’s also right on the Mexican border (roughly 1,000 miles worth) with a population soon to be majority Mexican.
That’s a target rich environment with a 1000 miles of maneuvering room.
@Escoffier
Rome had women’s emancipation:
http://local.droit.ulg.ac.be/sa/rida/file/2000/vigneron_gerkens.pdf
1st Women successfully pressured the Senate to rescind the Oppian Law:
http://no-maam.blogspot.com.au/2003/01/history-of-rome-by-titus-livius.html
Women then rose in influence and the Senate again tried to limit the influence of women which have grown since then with the Lex Voconia Act which prohibits those who had 100000 Sesterces from making women the heir. A protest of women led by Hortensia forced their way into the forum and Hortensia gave a speech that demanded the equality of rights for women in Roman government. The forum tried to force her out but the crowd prevented them from doing so. They made several compromises in favor of women as a result.
Seriously I recommend you to watch the video. This is some of the historical information contained therein.
Such as what? And in what ways did they mirror modern egalitarianism? But whether they did or didn’t is a judgment I suppose I can make for myself, once I know which movements you mean.
The Servile Wars. The peasant uprising of 1381 in England. The Hussite Wars. The German Peasants’ War. The Muenster Rebellion and similar medieval Christian communist movements against the established Church. The ideology of egalitarianism was present in all of them.
No, it goes back much further than that and it’s fundamentally a theoretical concern.
So you’re saying Apartheid was not an attempt to base real politics on inequality? In that case, racial inequality?
That paper doesn’t even come close to proving that Rome had “women’s emancipation” in any sense like modern feminism or modern political practice. It tries to hang its argument on Livy 34, the repeal of the Oppian law, a sumptuary law that governed the possession and wearing of gold and jewelry and certain clothing by women, and regulated how and when they could appear in public. It was basically a modesty law passed in the depth of the 2nd Punic War both to save gold and to reinforce pious behavior. The emergency over, a throng of women pressed for repeal, which after a contentious debate, was passed.
Livy calls the issue “trivial to relate” (which the author of that paper leaves out). It did not lead to anything more than women wearing more jewelry and being able to take carriage rides at certain times which had previously been prohibited.
I suppose in Dalrockian terms, we could call this “rebellion”, which shows in part that some of the same natural passions operate in all peoples at all times (something I would be the last person to deny). Ditto the stuff about property.
BUT—in neither republican nor imperial times did women ever ascend to, or become eligible for, curile offices. They didn’t staff the bureaucracy. They weren’t in the military, either in command, in the rank and file, or in support. There were no wealth transfers akin to modern welfare or child support laws. There were no quotas and preferences for jobs—and indeed no push to get women access to the various professions and arts.
And above all, there was no intellectual doctrine or movement anything like modern feminism. The closest thing there was to that was … Christianity! Which I say not to annoy our host, but to point out the simple fact that one of the reasons Christianity was considered subversive and revolutionary at the time was how it raised the status of women in the ancient world by treating them as human souls equal in the eyes of God. To a pagan, that was insane heresy.
Look, I am as interested as anyone—more so—in finding parallels in the past to the present day. And there are many. But there are also decisive ways that the modern world is just different than the past and the parallels are not exact. Modernity is a “new” thing (if anything 500 years old can be called “new”). The world fundamentally changed in ways that make exact parallels to the past forced and unilluminating. Certain passions and causes remain the same, but the overall intellectual climate in which they operate is different, and hence makes them operate somewhat differently.
H, in none of those cases was anything like the modern doctrine of equality present–that is, the philosophic doctrine which emerges in early modernity and which animates virtually every western regime today.
Regarding Apartheid, I don’t know how you could possibly have come to that conclusion. If you’re not interested enough to read what I write, why prompt me to write more?
You attributed this statement, which I suppose you agree with, to the ancients:
the equal aspects undermine any practical attempt to base real politics on inequality
I suppose we can agree that Apartheid was such an attempt. It is, of course, likely that the equal aspects undermined it. But that erosion, so to speak, was far from enough to bring it down.
H, in none of those cases was anything like the modern doctrine of equality present–that is, the philosophic doctrine which emerges in early modernity and which animates virtually every western regime today.
It wasn’t the equivalent of that modern doctrine, but the general doctrine of egalitarianism was a main motivating force.
Escoffier,
“Livy calls the issue ‘trivial to relate’ (which the author of that paper leaves out). It did not lead to anything more than women wearing more jewelry and being able to take carriage rides at certain times which had previously been prohibited.”
His estimation that community norms for sexual behavior (especially female, as it plays out) are trivial does echo the modern, and, worse, the post-modern, condition.
“And above all, there was no intellectual doctrine or movement anything like modern feminism. The closest thing there was to that was … Christianity! Which I say not to annoy our host, but to point out the simple fact that one of the reasons Christianity was considered subversive and revolutionary at the time was how it raised the status of women in the ancient world by treating them as human souls equal in the eyes of God. To a pagan, that was insane heresy.”
This is dead on. It is Christ himself who is without blemish, not Christianity nor His Church nor its Doctors and their doctrine, so there is nothing in the truth you describe to annoy. What exactly is meant by “equal” that rings false to the pagan?
The case of Jerome and Paula is also illustrative of this subversion* in practice as well as theory, with that dynamic going back to the earliest church (Paul of Tarsus, et. al.). That feminist root can be traced back mostly readily through the Hebraic line to the prominence of women in the Old Testament, and in fact has been, ad nauseum, in seminaries throughout the land, lo these last 50 years, as legitimate calls have declined and the seminaries converted themselves into de facto nunneries with a need to keep their charges occupied, so feminism it is, and a particularly bleary brand.
* – Christ is never subversive (cf. Mat 5:14-16)
You know, since Modernism loves to think of itself as the epitome of newness in all things, your fervor to assure modern feminism of its newness has something of the ring of pedestalization to it, if only to the extent Moby ended up on a pedestal for Ahab. Useful to make sure we get the details right on what came before, of course.
Apartheid was at root just another example of imperialism, which is as old as the hills. The distinction between citizen and stranger, friend and enemy—also as old as the hills—explains it in part. Greeks v. barbarians. “Our” people are superior to their people and so deserve to rule them. An ancient impulse, embedded in human nature.
The point is, even within a population that is 100% African, or one that is 100% Afrikaner, you will have tension between equality and inequality. Ethnic diversity may exacerbate the problem but it is neither the cause nor the root of the problem. The problem will exist even in the most homogenous of societies. There will always be some people who have greater talent/brains/skills/virtues than others, and there will always be a general sense among the masses that they don’t want to be ruled by those who consider themselves their “betters” but to whom they do not concede that distinction.
To be fair to Livy, the text cuts off after book 45 (167 BC) and we know that the original had 142 books, taking the history to 9 BC. So it’s quite possible that while he saw the Oppian Law as trivial, he was more concerned about licentiousness (female and otherwise) later in the work. It seems likely given his overall conservatism and other scattered remarks.
Tacitus, in any case, is quite sharp on this point. So other Roman historians definitely held such an opinion.
As to the newness of feminism, what can I say, I really to think it is new. There is much animating it that is old, as I have acknowledged, but in this particular package, and in its effects, it is new. Just as hedonism is old, but modernity gives it a new twist with new effects.
Christ changed the world, but then some of His rebellions subjects tried to change it again, to stamp out His influence. History mostly plods along according to permanent dynamics, but every once in a while, big things happen that change, if not everything, then quite a bit.
Ping Dalrock:
I think it’s fair to assume that Gavin McInnes reads your blog. 🙂
Boxer
Escoffier,
“As to the newness of feminism, what can I say, I really to think it is new. There is much animating it that is old, as I have acknowledged, but in this particular package, and in its effects, it is new.”
I know, I’m (mostly) giving you some shit. I also enjoy spiting feminism by denying it the one thing the Modern cares about above all else, novelty. They’ve got their hands full these days trying to reconcile that with mortality/dealing with actual novelty nipping at their heels, so maybe I should find something better to do rather than piling on.
“Now, I could envision this happening regionally, maybe even on a state or group-of-states level. Though, if the feds are anything like as strong as they are now, they would crush it mercilessly and immediately.”
Yeah, I mean things seem actually to be going reasonably well on a state and local level. My R governor just got elected by a 30%+ margin, our Obama jr. mayor just got replaced by a fiscally sane conservative R last fall. My wife says he likes to check out her boobs, but that’s just another thing we have in common as he’s pretty solid otherwise. Do you think that if the Rs continue to do well electorally that legislative bodies will just become so many stables for Caligula’s horses? A possible Article V Convention ignored? the case of Boehner/McConnell does not inspire overconfidence.
“All experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”
Not all. Washington was not happy about the lack of advancement opportunities for a man of his quality and talents in the British Army and/or government. You have an entire generation of white males in Washington’s shoes as we speak thanks to Boomer intransigence.
“And anyway, it’s not like we really have much of a choice at this point.”
Well, that’s true for me too in a sense different than it evidently is for you. My hometown was named after the society formed by founders of my country to honor a man who embodied different virtues, shall we say, than Caesar’s. Given the motto of that society, my republicanism will go to the grave with me, and given the behavior lately of those calling themselves Democrats and our late experience with the depredations of a too pure democracy, it looks as if Republicanism will have to as well.
“If ‘us’ v. ‘them’ were a more regional dynamic I might see some possibility of breakup. As it is, it’s a mess. ‘They’ are everywhere ‘we’ are, and they feel the same way about us.”
You’ll have to speak for yourself there. The ‘they’ I know personally I do not feel that way about as by and large their political allegiances are incidental to who they are and are in any event based on either a tissue of lightly-held misconceptions or concerns about Rs most of which I share myself. Neither do they who know yours truly feel that way about me. I’ve had many opportunities to teach/preach to and with them and they’ve made their feelings known on many occasions. Civil war/secession will have to come from without my neck of the woods, not within.
The weird thing about this whole high heel thing is that plenty of men would actually benefit if high heels were an ordinary article of clothing for men. They did, once — there’s a famous painting of one of the Louis kings of France wearing them — but no longer.
Women who wear them effectively have adjustable heights depending on what kind of shoes they’re wearing. A diminutive 5’0″ woman can be 5’3# just by changing shoes. Men get, at best, a one-inch-thick sole with which to add height.
And a man will happily date a very short woman whereas few women will even consider short men. Imagine being a man of about 5’3″ or 5’4″ and learning of some faraway society where men, and not women, have the option to wear high heeled shoes daily. Such men would suddenly be in the field of view of a huge number of women just by picking up a few inches in height!
Why does our society allow the gender for whom height plays little to no role in attractiveness to be the only one that can easily increase height using shoes, whereas the gender for whom being tall is practically mandatory is not allowed to do so?
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@Kyo
Our society encourages women to be more like men (and thus become taller), but is repulsed by lesser-men who try to be better men.
Nonetheless, a man can get away with consistently wearing work boots, combat boots, or cowboy boots. I have a pair that adds an unwanted 2″ of height to me.
Maybe they will bring back platform shoes Bootsy Collins used to wear them.
http://www.amazon.com/Funtasma-Glamrock-01-ZPFR-B-Lace-Up-Oxford/dp/B00756SEGE/ref=sr_1_26?s=apparel&ie=UTF8&qid=1430171019&sr=1-26&keywords=platform+shoes+men
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