Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit very kindly linked* to my recent post Call me unchivalrous:
THE RISE OF THE UNCHIVALROUS CHRISTIAN. “From the very beginning chivalry’s teaching on men and women was a parody of Christianity.”
Glenn’s interest in the subject would be well known to his readers. His wife Dr. Helen wrote a book titled Men on Strike a few years back, and it is a common theme for him. Moreover, the single sentence he quoted would remove any doubt.
From the very beginning chivalry’s teaching on men and women was a parody of Christianity.
However, the discussion is predictably filled with readers who are sure Glenn and I are talking about chivalry on the battlefield, and therefore have the whole thing terribly confused. It is very much like any discussion during the cold war regarding the nature of communism. Criticize communism and you would be in for a lengthy dissertation regarding the Soviet Union and China having nothing to do with communism. It was an effective tactic in the short term, but history was not on their side. The same will prove true for what laymen most commonly call chivalry, and what literature professors call courtly love. For the reality of the foolishness of courtly love becomes more obvious with each passing day. White knight is now a pejorative even white knights recoil from, and it will only get worse. Yet in a moment of desperation a white knight might offer in their defense:
Yes, modern white knights are creepy pedestalizers, but the original white knight was Lancelot, a most brave and noble man!
Indeed Lancelot was brave. And indeed he is the archetype for the white knight, as this was the moniker Lancelot went by before he learned his real name. But Lancelot was not noble when it came to women. He creepily obsessed over another man’s wife (Guinevere), and when he famously fought for her honor after she was accused of adultery it was with full knowledge that she was guilty as charged. Look up pathetic white knight and you will find a picture of Lancelot.
Moreover, when people say what we need is more chivalry, 99% of the time they are not talking about fighting duels, holding prisoners for ransom, or going on armed adventures. What they mean is men need to become like Lancelot. Indeed C.S. Lewis made this very point in his essay The Necessity of Chivalry.
The word Chivalry has meant at different times a good many different things—from heavy cavalry to giving a woman a seat in a train. But if we want to understand chivalry as an ideal distinct from other ideals—if we want to isolate that particular conception of the man comme il faut which was the special contribution of the Middle Ages to our culture—we cannot do better than turn to the words addressed to the greatest of all imaginary knights in Malory’s Morte D’Arthur. Thou wert the meekest man, says Sir Ector to the dead Launcelot. Thou wert the meekest man that ever ate in hall among ladies; and thou wert the sternest knight to thy mortal foe that ever put spear at rest 1.
Lewis understood that not many men could become like Lancelot, but still, Lancelot is the ideal he was arguing for when he called for a return to chivalry:
…the Middle Ages fixed on the one hope of the world. It may or may not be possible to produce by the thousand men who combine the two sides of Launcelot’s character. But if it is not possible, then all talk of lasting happiness or dignity in human society is pure moonshine.
If we cannot produce Launcelots, humanity falls into two sections—those who can deal in blood and iron but cannot be “meek in hall,” and those who are “meek in hall” but useless in battle—for the third class, who are both brutal in peace and cowardly in war, need not here be discussed.
Lewis concludes the essay with (emphasis mine):
I have tried to show that this old tradition is practical and vital. The ideal embodied in Launcelot is “escapism” in a sense never dreamed of by those who use that word; it offers the only possible escape form a world divided between wolves who do not understand, and sheep who cannot defend, the things which make life desirable. There was, to be sure, a rumour in the last century that wolves would gradually become extinct by some natural process; but that seems to have been an exaggeration.
Related: Wilson, Lewis, and Pseudo-Christian Pedestalization Game
*For a more sympathetic response to Glenn linking to my post see this post by blogger Bill Quick.
Dalrock, how much of this do you think this misunderstanding of what chivalry is due to the people having been exposed only to a very sanitized version of the Arthur legends? For example, one person I knew who recently watched the musical Camelot didn’t realize until now that in the legend Lancelot has an affair with Arthur’s wife; in a moralized version of the Arthur legend I have in my bookshelf, Lancelot and Guinevere never have an affair. Mordred spreads the rumors about them and then tries to set them up into looking like they are having one.
How many people know that in the original legend, Mordred is Arthur’s bastard son through his half-sister and whom Arthur tries to drown as an infant? How many people know that Merlin was a literal child of the devil? Those aren’t tied directly to courtly love, but I wonder if people who don’t know about those tidbits are equally unaware of what chivalry actually looked like in the tales.
Not entirely clear whether you approve or disapprove of Lewis’ plea to be like Launcelot. Seems here he changes his disapproval of courtly love in The Discarded Image to approval, without nuance. Am I missing something?
@The Question
Right. We “tamed” courtly love by bringing it into marriage. But instead of taming it, we merely made it more dangerous since the evil is much harder to spot.
@Hmm
Are you asking if I meant “pathetic white knight” in a bad way or a good way?
I’m not familiar with that work, but his view in The Necessity of Chivalry fits with his carrying on with another man’s wife late in life. Granted it wasn’t until after her husband got fed up with his wife moving in with Lewis and divorced her that they consummated the relationship. But the whole business was embarrassingly ugly, albeit one that Lancelot would fully sympathize with.
I would also add that Lancelot never actually existed being a fanciful fictional invention of a late-12th-century French poet with far too much time on his hands. He could have saved Western Civilization much grief if he had alternatively put that time to something productive, such as nailing horseshoes to horses for example.
Dalrock
Of course Lewis and that married woman were involved in a spiritual friendship and nothing more. Nothing more, I tell you!
Sam Allberry would surely approve…
C S Lewis (an Englishman) married Mrs Gresham (an American woman). Mrs Gresham ‘s husband (also American) was the author of Nightmare Alley brilliantly filmed by 20th C. Fox with an outstanding cast which included in the lead role Tyrone Power (Irishman) playing against type in what was surely his greatest screen performance. Fantastic movie – hard to forget.
At least from that quote Lewis was not talking about romantic chivalry. He’s actually pretty bare knuckled about women elsewhere.
@Anonymous
I also don’t really think Lewis actually did consummate, and that it was a spiritual friendship. And here’s why.
Lewis was never really all that cagey about human failings including his own. He also wasn’t really sideways on morality either. Is it possible? Sure. Just kind of doubtful in context given what I know of who he was at the time.
There’s something rednecky about assuming if a man and woman are hanging out they must be banging or one of them is trying to. I’ve had female friends my whole life, that I wasn’t trying to start anything with.
Lewis is one of my great intellectual idols and a genius in every sense of the word, but women generally and marriage overall were always a blind spot with him. In Letter 49 Tolkien rightfully calls out Lewis’s views regarding marriage in a pretty brutal takedown:
@greenmantlehoyos
I’ll grant that he was coy about it. Any other man and you could assume he had no idea what Lancelot’s morality toward women was. But Lewis knew exactly what in hall among ladies meant.
Lewis married her.
Twice.
Plus for the record, Joy was divorced before the romance with CSL started, and her husband had already had another woman living in their house. So “frivorce” doesn’t seem to apply here, if your husband invites another woman to live in your house, that’s not usually something you can pin as the wife’s fault.
Man, I read some of the comments from at Instapundit, and so many miss the point.
The point is not what meanings one can defensibly attach to the label “chivalry” in an academic paper. The point is what it means now. It’s packaged as “not killing prisoners” or whatever, but the contents always seem to reduce down to “doing what women want.”
The knight fought in the tournament for “his” lady, and thought himself great for being so generous. The lady watched, and thought herself great for being worth fighting for. And neither noticed the hungry orphans looking on, nor the rumors of the approaching army.
However innocent the intentions, CS Lewis committed adultery marrying a divorced woman.
But that is the chivalric tradition.
Dalrock, I think it may be useful (from a communications perspective) to explicitly separate male bravery/disposability with chivalry. These types defend chivalry by pointing to the necessity of male bravery in battle (or something similar), while ignoring the fact that this ubiquitous practice predates “chivalry” by thousands (perhaps millions) of years. Heck, even roosters know it’s their job to defend hens in their coop.
I had no idea about the adultary themes before visiting your site, so my first instinct was to avoid throwing the baby out with the bathwater and defend “my version” of chivalry–which I then considered synonymous with the “brave knight” archetype. Understanding the difference between benevolence to women and deference to women (i.e. love your wife vs. make your wife “feel loved”) was important to separating the two.
@greenmantlehoyos
Our casual replacement of the word adultery with romance is but one glaring symptom of the disease of chivalry. But beyond that, from what I’ve read at the New York Times the whole business was quite ugly:
But the uglier, the more romantic. No?
I derailed myself:
The point is what it means now, what images it conjures in the heads of those who hear it. If you have to say “chivalry is actually…” then you have already lost, stop immediately, the conversation is no longer about the same thing.
Whether anyone likes it or not, the modern meaning of the word, “chivalry,” is not associated with
gangs of menknightly orders, but with a dude fawning over a woman. Gangs of men and fraternal orders are great, but when I start to put one together I get put on an SPLC list. Turns out that form of chivalry isn’t what people are praising!Were some Platonic True Chivalrous Knight totally unstained by Venus-worship to find himself time-warped to the modern era, he’d be looking for a SEAL team to join, not someone to write poems to.
@ seriouslypleasedropit
Who was often another man’s wife. Arguably, the worst part of chivalry is that it makes adultery into something noble.
Also: if he were of a remotely practical bent, he’d quickly abandon the term for one that would actually conjure up what he had in mind. “Fraternity” would be a good start. A contradiction I hope to point out in some future argument that will never happen: “Chivalry” is supposedly a great thing, but “fraternities” are supposedly the monied equivalent of underclass gangs, surviving on beer, Cheetos, and rape. Riddle me that one.
@Yer
It is true that chivalry is a broad term. C.S. Lewis notes the same in the opening of his essay that I quote in the OP. But I don’t think it would help if I clarified that I wasn’t talking about military codes like Song of Roland or Bushido. Nor would it help if I clarified that I’m not against a man sacrificing himself for his family (or even others) when needed. Nor do I think it would help if I specifically stated what I’m rejecting when I say I’m rejecting chivalry.
The reason I say this is I did all of those things. See the section in the post titled What am I rejecting by rejecting chivalry?
See also the Q&A, including:
Not every issue is solved by clearer communication. Sometimes there is a huge investment in misunderstanding.
greenmantlehoyos
There’s something rednecky about assuming if a man and woman are hanging out they must be banging or one of them is trying to. I’ve had female friends my whole life, that I wasn’t trying to start anything with.
Lol. That whoosh over your head isn’t a drone.
C’mon get real: how many of those female friends were married to another man, yet moved in with you?
seriouslyplease
Exactly. Chivalry in the Current Year has zero, zilch, nada, nothing to do with Roland, the Cid, etc.
seriouslyplease
Asking the question answers it. Which of the two benefits whims of women, and which does not?
It is not an exaggeration to say there is a war on masculinity.
IMO a good read on traditionalism and feminism, Dalrock.
https://www.avoiceformen.com/women/aggrieved-entitlement-womens-reaction-to-temporary-loss-of-chivalry/
@Dalrock
In case someone else hasn’t said it already, courtly love (chivalry) is toxic masculinity.
On a side, for all those who criticize the idea of being “unchivalrous” one can simply inquire when their wives are available for some courtly lovin’.
I’ll repeat here what I said late in the meta of an earlier post: consider using the phrase “post-chivalry” rather than unchivalrous. It at least has the benefit of unfamiliarity and post-anything sounds modern.
To try to push chivalry back to its original meaning is like trying to reclaim the word “gay”.
@Hmm
I don’t understand the benefit. Unchivalrous has meaning. Ironically despite all of the feigned confusion by some instapundit commenters it means a man who doesn’t follow the rules of chivalry towards women. Why would I choose a different term? It seems weaselly. Why not say what I mean?
Who is trying to reclaim the original meaning of the word? Are you saying I am? I’m taking the word as it is most commonly used today. I bring up the history because the claim is that it started out as noble but was later corrupted. But what we know as chivalry was corrupted from the beginning.
Pingback: No true Lancelot. | Reaction Times
Given Lewis’ use of the tale about Lancelot to decry “courtly love,” I don’t understand why he turned right around and used him as an example for something he believed to be moral and that needs to be brought back. Surely there was someone else he could have used as an example instead.
This just in: Overcomer, from Sherwood Forest.
@anonymous
Dude, I’m cynical as fuck, but Lewis was kind of an old man. Celibacy is less of a stretch when you’re an older smoker with less of an interest in sex to start with. Not saying he was always a saint, but even in his non Christian days he wasn’t exactly a skirt chaser.
All I’m saying is that there’s a case if she wasn’t married that it’s not adultery. I’ve read multiple accounts of his relationship with Joy and at the time the Anglican Church didn’t consider remarriage of divorced persons adultery and the Roman Catholic Church at the time and to this day would have considered her first “marriage” as possibly eligible for annulment. He definitely kept her at a distance for a good long while and didn’t do anything until the rules of the church he communed with said it was licit.
I just think some gun jumping is happening here, just because knocking great men down is kind of fun. Joy definitely “hunted” him a bit, but his actions strike me as grey. Not ideal sure, but not black and white adultery either. I’m just going to give the benefit of the doubt here personally. I’m still with the program on chivalry being awful, but I’m not about to jump on the dogpile either. Hell maybe it was wrong, I’m just saying it’s not simple and I can see how a good man could get himself in that situation without being a chump or a hypocrite.
@Dalrock
Not every issue is solved by clearer communication. Sometimes there is a huge investment in misunderstanding.
While I agree that many tradcons are too ego-invested to change, I think there’s a second group of dissenters who essentially agree with us on principle. As evidenced by the lengthy debate over rhetoric under the previous post, there appears to be a sizable group that entirely agrees with your theology and on-case argumentation, but does not accept your all-out rejection of the term “chivalry.” It is the underlying frame of this second group (specifically in regards to this term) that I meant to address.
Among this group, the logic appears to work something like the following. “Say chivalry has 10 planks. Most of them are good—courage, honesty, helping the weak, etc. Dalrock has convinced me that some of the planks are bad, however most of them are still good!” Within this flawed frame, you can disagree on whether chivalrous virtues are mostly good or mostly bad, but it’s all a matter of degree. I think you inadvertently play into this frame with your statement endorsing some chivalrous virtues in the section clarifying terms.
Q: Do you reject all virtues that chivalry promotes?
A: No. Chivalry claims to promote Christianity even though it is a parody of Christianity. I also don’t reject the virtues of courage, keeping your word, being polite, and protecting the weak.
This frame still credits chivalry with promoting the values of courage, honesty, etc. However, these are the same positive associations that lead some readers to concede and outweigh the more icky themes you present. Of course, if we understand “chivalrous” as referring to a specific creed (as opposed to a generic compliment), it should be identified solely by its unique characteristics. Consider why antifa was so laughable. They proudly stated they were against fascism, slavery, and genocide. Whenever somebody rejected the validity of antifa, they would respond “what are you, a fascist?” With that in mind, consider the following well-intentioned clarification:
Q: Do you reject all virtues that antifa promotes?
A: No. I reject fascism, slavery, and genocide.
While this statement isn’t technically incorrect, this kind of rhetoric is a compliment to antifa. It implies they should be (partially) identified as “anti-genocide,” as opposed to their actual distinguishing identity—violence against conservatives. Of course, the group’s acceptance of some banal universal values doesn’t outweigh this defining identity. Similarly, chivalry thrives by obscuring itself with associations to universally admired virtues such as bravery and honesty—which are about as controversial as “opposing genocide.” The communication challenge I referred to isn’t convincing readers of your on-case argumentation, but that these banal associations aren’t legitimate, and don’t outweigh the defining identity of chivalry.
greenmantlehoyos
Dude, I’m cynical as fuck, but Lewis was kind of an old man.
There’s that “Whoosh!” sound again…
HINT: Who is Sam Allberry?
HINT: What does “love sanctifies…” mean?
HINT: Try reading all of Dalrock’s replies to you.
Or not. As you prefer.
Anyway…
This subtopic clearly arouses a lot of emotion in you.
Question: Is your icon of C.S. Lewis above your family altar, or just on a pedestal?
PJ media comments are annoying to read due to the use of Disqus, so I have not bothered. Using nothing more than a Magic 8 ball from a garage sale I can predict that the vast majority of commenters are over 50 if not over 60, and so they are going on about the “TROO Chivalry” as if it’s still 1972. Or maybe 1958. Hey, “Father Knows Best” is coming on, tell your sister to come watch!
I am confident that the entire comment stream is an exercise in “Ought!” while denying “Is”.
Who here is piling on Lewis? As a very great admirer of C.S. Lewis all I can see are a bunch of people acknowledging his very real blind spots.
”No true…” is the go-to retort of the coward. Lazy Christians will retort to the Crusades as ”They weren’t true Christians…”, as if the sacrifices of the Crusaders didn’t mean anything, when in fact we are free today is because they fought sacrificially and died.
”That wasn’t true Communism…” is also the retort of the lazy Left. They should always be asked ”How then would YOU do things differently to Lenin, Stalin, Mao or Pol Pot? How many people will have to die so that you could bring in ”true Communism”” ?
When it comes to ‘true chivalry”, any man sticking to it needs to be told, ”It’s 2019, bro. Chivalry is dead and feminists killed it, along with their unborn babies”.
@Dalrock
Considering The Necessity of Chivalry was first published in August 1940 and The Discarded Image in 1964, we should view his statements in the second as more indicative of his thought as he aged. His treatment of courtly love in The Allegory of Love published in 1936 is pretty harsh in its treatment of the topic, which leads me to believe that Necessity could be something else masked in the terms of chivalry. Could it be that Lewis, like many of the commenters at Instapundit, was taking a stance similar to the one described by @Yer where he wasn’t willing to abandon what he perceived as the good from the concept of chivalry because of the bad? To me it reads more like Lewis is arguing against “men without chests” and more for what has become known as the sheepdog mentality than he is discussing chivalry in the sense you’ve described in recent posts and focuses on the very martial concepts in Necessity.
Kinda related to chivalry. Two kick-ass women decided to get into the face of a large guy at a hot dog stand and the ensuing fight didn’t go like the movies. The women complained no one helped them but they wanted equality and no one would help guys in a streetfight.
https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Downtown-Los-Angeles-Woman-Punched–504995921.html
My gut says Lewis studiously ignored the implications of chivalry as a whole concept because it was actually his job to help sustain the morale of the British people during WWII by writing newspaper columns and radio addresses and so he knowingly endorsed chivalry as the artful and ancient tradition RAF pilots could upon to defend their homeland; a homeland whose highest circle had been a chivalric order for 600 years. When you’re country is pummeled with Nazi bombs day and night, hour after hour, then you do your best to bolster the man next to you according to the symbols and meanings that he will understand. It was no accident that Lewis left out adultery and romantic love and all that rot while he encouraged the people of Britain–and the air forces in particular–to fight with vigor and fortitude secure in the knowledge that they defended something fragile yet worthy of the cost. In short: It seemed like pretty good rhetoric to get them through the moment.
But there was a cost. Chivalry is what it is so even though it was used for ointment, the fly of women’s superiority and men’s submission poisoned the subject it meant to heal. Today Christians believe in chivalry, but they do not believe in the Bible. If you show them that the two are at odds, they will say the Bible is true, but choose to act against it and towards the tenets of chivalry; praising prideful and loudmouthed women even though the Bible condemns them, repeatedly, in strong terms.
Lewis was wrong. He should have known he was wrong. Perhaps he did and did it anyway. More importantly we all (or almost all) who came after Lewis (and who aren’t even British!) have nothing like his excuse. If my memory serves correctly: Dalrock got on this anti-chivalric path because he read Lewis’ “The Allegory of Love”. This post isn’t about how wrong Lewis was on chivalry while Nazis bombed London and he tried to keep the spirit of his nation going. It’s about how wrong it is to defend it when we can see how corrosive it is even to a thinker of the depth of C.S. Lewis.
Chivalry is a treacherous stone shoved under the foundation of Western Civilization (especially of the Anglosphere), and it has caused us great instability.
The Question: how much of this do you think this misunderstanding of what chivalry is due to the people having been exposed only to a very sanitized version of the Arthur legends? … in a moralized version of the Arthur legend I have in my bookshelf, Lancelot and Guinevere never have an affair. Mordred spreads the rumors about them and then tries to set them up into looking like they are having one.
That’s the modern version that cuckservatives still read.
In the post-modern version (e.g., the 2011 TV series, Camelot), Guinevere is a Strong, Independent, Kick-Ass Woman, who insists on wielding a sword alongside the men when Camelot is attacked. Arthur meekly agrees, as Guinevere will take no macho guff from him or from any of the other knights.
Behold the modern day Guinevere
https://goo.gl/images/SBecGm
Dear me they are acting prissy on the Instapundit forum comments.
I’ll add myself to the unchivalrous bunch. Men don’t have to be chivalrous ladies. Romantic love is a fucking farce. It’s bullshit.
Men can treat you, like you treat them; like shit. Enjoy!
Never mind that even if we took the ‘code of warriors’ argument. It very much holds that knights did this because they were above the masses, people were in submission to them, they had power in their position as knights.
Women no longer submit to men so no longer deserve any protection or providing for by men. Equality has its consequences. Open your own damn doors, ladies. I’d sooner close the door in your face than help you.
The difference though is that Chivalry has lasted for far longer than Communism and has a far deeper cultural foundation across the world. Every cultures’ women (and beta males) readily accepted, even welcomed chivalrous thought, be it India in the 19-20th century, or China first in the late Qing, and then in the late 20th century. These chivalric influences can be picked up just by observing their way of life today, or even observing which themes dominate their popular media. (eg: Chinese Cinema routinely show wives beat up their husbands for “comic relief”) Unlike Communism, the end for Chivalry is nowhere in sight for now, and in this global society we live in today even winning over America might not be enough.
@anonymous
I try to talk online like I talk in person, not better and not worse. If that’s how you talk in real life, I don’t think you’ve got many male friends, because snark and accusing me of idolatry without addressing what I wrote is coming across kind of how women argue. Calling a mans actions grey isn’t the ringing endorsement you might think.
Anonymous Reader says:
“PJ media comments are annoying to read due to the use of Disqus, so I have not bothered. Using nothing more than a Magic 8 ball from a garage sale I can predict that the vast majority of commenters are…”
A good number of them are crusty libertarians and atheists who are triggered by any mention of Christian morality. I think Dalrock’s thoughts about chivalry should keenly interesting to any Western man, Christian or not, but many of Instapundit’s readers are so hostile to Christian sexual morality, they lose their minds when exposed to it.
So… having divorced her husband and secured custody of their two sons, she takes them out of their country, that is to say from the town in which live, away from their family and friends and on arriving in England dumps the boys in what is a cross between a borstal and a prison, training for a spell in Stalag Luft XVII namely an English boarding school so that she is not disturbed in her adulterous ‘romance’ with Mr Lewis. Ah, I just love that male middle-class privilege, something like this:
You filthy peasant, do not defile the name of Sir Lancelot, you speak of chivalry and yet you do not refer to him by even the slightest of proper honorifics, and you defile his values. This is pure slander!
@Opus
Having divorced a husband (although again, may be morally closer to an annulment) who had returned to habitual drunkenness and moved another woman into the house, she put her kids in a boarding school, which is pretty normal for English and Americans of a certain class (everyone from CSL to Tucker Carlson, the royal family, Donald Trump etc.). And again, it’s not adultery if you’re not married or is it?
I don’t know man, I’m not saying everybody is behaving great here, but I’m not just going to force a template on something. My father always said intelligence is the ability to make meaningful distinctions between similar things. If you see nothing but adultery here, make your case.
@opus by catholic standards her husband had been previously married so it wasn’t a real marriage anyway, she would have been considered eligible to marry.
@Dalrock:
What I was trying to get at is that you want the word “chivalry” to carry with it the courtly love context of adultery and woman worship, while to most moderns it means opening doors for women and giving up your seat on the bus. First impressions mean a lot (to some people, everything), and the first impression from the word “unchivalrous” is brutish. I am simply suggesting a word that at present has no hardwired first impression. This leaves room to open up the topic without having to overcome cultural inertia.
But it’s your site, your choice and your initiative. Maybe the initial shock is a better way.
I applaud what you are trying to do. We are just disagreeing about the method.
Love C.S. Lewis and quote him in my TRUE story, “faulty Christian.” And as a Southern Christian and lady, chivalry is important. Please consider reviewing “faulty Christian” which is an international story and the only non-fiction book about an online dating marriage. At 46, I joined online dating and married a successful Canadian. The Holy Spirit nagged me and told me not to marry him, but I did. Bizarre events occurred and living out of God’s will- my reactions are shocking. I tell how the devil uses our emotions to trap us. This true story plants a seed in the non-believer and reminds Christians that we all struggle. Praise God for grace. Read the first chapter of non-fiction “faulty Christian” on Amazon. https://amzn.to/2U3wNVw
[D: Letting through for comedic value. No need to respond to her. I promise I didn’t make this up.]
Chvalry is dying, and not fast enough!
https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Downtown-Los-Angeles-Woman-Punched–504995921.html
There were definitely not a single white knight in that crowd. Plus, no one said anything or intervened. If the guy was in the wrong, I suspect people would have said something and not cheered.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6645153/Thug-punches-two-women-ground-outside-LA-nightclub-row-hot-dogs-bystanders-cheer.html
I like this. I also am an unchivalrous Christian.
Thanks for leading the way on this Dalrock.
Weird. More punching. This women appears to be a random victim.
https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/crime/woman-randomly-punched-in-the-face-in-downtown-fort-worth-while-walking-with-her-children/287-ab65e0fb-cbc4-422c-82d7-b265f4fb7b7b
@Cane Caldo
This is a good point, and dovetails with the point of the OP. Lewis knew Lancelot was the man the average man would think of as a valiant knight. He didn’t pick Roland, or even Sir Galahad, because Lancelot is the image that conjures up chivalry, and vice versa.
I was actually making a simpler point, that Lancelot is what we collectively think of when we think of chivalry. But your deeper point is excellent, and I agree that the point isn’t to slam on Lewis.
I promise I didn’t make this up.
Rest assured, that idea would have never crossed my mind. There’s nothing out there these days that’s too bizarre and twisted to not be believable.
Dalrock, I enjoy your blog but the comments section is a mess. You should do it like heartiste, where commenters can “reply” instead of doing the whole “@” thing. I like reading your feedback to commenters but it is a pain to navigate. Some of the best material you write is in the comments section but I don’t want to slog through 400 chronological comments to find it. Do it like CH where you reply in bold in the text of the comment you are discussing.
I had not been much concerned with Mrs Gresham’s marital affairs – merely the off-loading of her children. I understand well enough how boarding schools came about and why they may have been a necessity but we were tired of the white-man’s burden and having off-loading our Empire and even so in England the majority of schools are day-schools and most of those are free, not that payment of fees seems to have been a problem for the happy new couple Boarding schools are largely an indication social snobbery (for which the children have to suffer – well I did). I thus looked more carefully at Mrs Gresham and I see that she was not a Christian at all (any more than she was English) but a Hebrew. Those Jewish ladies never backward in coming forward I have noticed (others like Mark have less charitable views) can be very persuasive. She comes to England and persuades that old fool Lewis (look I loved the Narnia Chronicles as much as anyone but Screwtape – never got that) to marry her for the sake of a Green Card – is that chivalrous or what? Later when the Doctors say she had not long for this world and she having now become (like the present Archbishop of Canterbury), Anglican (colour me truly surprised) Lewis persuades a heretical Anglican priest to marry them much to the disapproval of his friends and acquaintances who then proceeded to shun them. As I understood it neither The Anglican communion or The Roman Church will marry Divorcees and the only way one may marry if one is divorced (that is to say in the eyes of the Churches mentioned, still married) is if death brings an end to the union. Gresham died after his wife and so the civil marriage was legal but the Anglican heretical. As for the Gresham Divorce: I do not recall that Drunkenness or Adultery is a ground for divorce recognised by the Churches (those circumstances alone hardly appealed to my own mother) and anyway Gresham is not around to give his side of the story. She chose to marry him and so presumably knew what he might be like (he was artistic after all): those arty-types are always rather free and easy.
If the poison of chivalry is to be annihilated from Christianity entirely never to return. Then perhaps its our LORDs intention for 800 years for it to fully manifest its fruits before its removal.
I have wondered why God seemingly allowed this to fester for such long time by our standards.
@white
Or it will persist even longer. Pray that the LORD eradicates this scourge soon.
It has also come to my mind that Mrs Gresham, a member of The Communist party came to England at the same time as the Congressional hearings into anti-American activities. Could Mrs Gresham have had an ulterior and unspoken motive in foisting herself on Lewis?
Dalrock any time I’ve brought up anything you’re teaching here I get attacked. How do you teach people who hate you in such a way?
@Opus, a lot of people were Communists before conversion, like Bella Dodd and Whittaker Chambers.
What’s happened is, you’ve lost the adultery argument, so now you’re calling her a communist.
@Opus, just for clarity, Mr. Gresham’s previous marriage invalidated his second marriage to Joy by Roman Catholic standards, so she was free to be married. It’s also not uncommon for Jews to convert, like St. Paul, or Benjamin Disraeli.
@Hmm
Opening doors for women, etc, also comes from courtly love just like submitting to your woman in fear in reverence.
But is it unchristian? Does a Christian man sin if he does not open a door for a woman or give her his seat. I mean the question regarding men and women in general. Are these obligations Christian? I’m not asking if a Christian man has an obligation to love his neighbor, and therefore should stand if he is able bodied and he sees someone who is infirm or otherwise really needs to sit (carrying a baby, for example). For a Christian woman should do the same, and that isn’t chivalry.
Put another way, you are saying the problem is that Christians have mistaken courtly love for Christian teaching, and many will therefore mistakenly accuse me of being unChristian when I say I’m an unchivalrous Christian. If you are worried that I’ll tempt them into sin, I sort of get it. But the reality is I’m trying to help them come out of it.
Cane’s comment reminds me of medieval siege warfare.
The word “undermine” derives from a method of penetrating a fortified castle. Combat Engineers (called “sappers” and “miners” back then) would dig trenches (saps) up to the castle wall, then dig (mine) underneath the wall. They would set up beams to support the wall, then stack up straw, wood and other fuel around the beams, set fire to the kindling, and get the hell out.
The fire wold consume the beams, the wall would have nothing but a void beneath it, and so it would collapse.
With the undermining complete, infantrymen would then pour into the breach, and the slaughter, pillaging, plundering and raping would commence.
That’s the effect of chivalry on Christianity in general, and Christian marriage in particular.
Joe, the punching of the woman seems random, but what happened to the two young women earlier doesn’t seem so. For a reason, they were fighting. And what bugs me of is that not only people laughed, but not a single one said “hey, stop!” or intervened. I want to know the other side of the story.
Women start troubles sometimes. Btw, some news already called that man a thug. Imagine if Jorge Peña didn’t have cameras and people filming when he defended himself against a woman assaulting him in the train. Bonus video
@bigjohn33
I like nested comments too and started out that way. The problem I ran into was when you get past a certain number/velocity of comments it gets unwieldy. If there are a large number of comments you can’t easily find the most recent comments once they fall off the right hand bar.
Seen on Rollo’s twitter feed from Rian Stone:
A weak man can’t stop a woman from becoming the worst version of herself.
Was Lancelot a weak man? How about Arthur?
I don’t think it can be the case that as the second marriage of Mr Gresham was not recognised by the Roman Catholics that the legal validity of that marriage would be in doubt and would thus rightly block so long as Gresham lived Mrs Gresham’s remarriage in an Anglican service. I am neither an American or a Canon lawyer. I am always, whether it is Mendelsohn or Mahler (converts to Anglicanism and Catholicism respectively) suspicious of Jewish converts to Christianity, for being Jewish is as much about tribe as it is about religion (and communism – one of their inventions – seems to be a very Jewish ideology). Certainly my Jewish former Girlfriend from New York State who when I met her was at-least Christian-lite has now reverted to Judaism albeit of a new-agey version complete with adherence to Marx (Karl not Groucho – sadly). I had at the time failed to appreciate just how desirable a white English male would be to a Jewish woman but ran for the hills anyway despite copious offerings of Mozzaball soup.
I’ll just say I’m very glad Dalrock has taken this tack of late. Much spinning of wheels has occurred in the sphere on the question, “What then is to be done?” There are no easy answers that will solve everything at a stroke, which means answers that solve some of the problem, without making the rest worse, are to be prized. “As we are, minus chivalry,” is a small enough step that any man can take it—and each who does makes it easier for the next man.
So. A general “Bravo.”
[D: Thank you.]
Regarding A.G., the authoress who posted above, I’d never heard of her, but judging by the Amazon page it looks as though she’s serious and sober enough to write a book about her bad experiences under her real name.
@Opus, matzo ball soup is delightfully filling on a cold day though, so maybe you missed out.
@Oscar
Thanks for the quick history lesson. Chivalry hollowed out the foundation and put romantic love as the support.
Now feminism is burning away the illusion that romantic love of a woman can be foundation for our society and civilization.
Our enemy is not feminists – but the powers and principalities that put all of those forces in motion.
Glad to see Helen Smith cited here. She’s been chipping away at Total Feminism quite a few years now, with not a lotta support. Except a few misogynists like me.
I will enjoy seeing her rewarded.
@ SirHamster
This is one reason I love reading this site. One man presents an idea, another man from a different background, with different experiences and training adds something else to it, then another adds to it, and so on.
I’ve learned a lot here, and not just from Dalrock.
That’s an older video of some feral Ocasio-Cortez voters further corrupting NYC transit. Do NOT let Puerto Rico become a state. Honestly, I would like to see the 1917 Jones–Shafroth Act rescinded stripping the island’s population of U.S. citizenship and done retroactively meaning ALL Puerto Ricans no longer have U.S. citizenship.
@ American
While we’re at it; can we kick California and NY out of the Union?
Dalrock may have some new source material soon.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-6648979/Experts-discover-seven-fragments-700-year-old-text-telling-legend-Camelot.html
@Oscar, it would be a national security risk to allow those two states to turn into sovereign nations. They’d basically become proxies of China, Russia, etc… right on our East and West borders. I recommend:
1. Strip away their statehood and declare them both unincorporated organized territories in which their respective citizens are no longer U.S. citizens with any ability to vote or receive federal monies of any kind whatsoever. If they enter any of the remaining 48 states they would be illegal aliens subject to imprisonment for breaking immigration law followed by deportation.
2. Line up barges and encourage the inhabitants to self-deport to Africa to diversify it with themselves so they aren’t hypocrites.
I understand that means us MAGA patriots in said states would need to make the sacrifice but it would be worth it to disenfranchise the tens of millions of leftards surrounding us and dragging the rest of the country down.
Chivalry is allowing women to get away from murder from the earliest days of America like in (1907):
”Is there a “dementia Americana” for women murderers?
Are women who kill men protected from capital punishment by an “unwritten law” which, says they shall not be hanged?
The plea of the eloquent California lawyer who defended Thaw that the “unwritten law” justifies a man in killing another under certain circumstances finds an equally strong counterpart in a public sentiment firmly fixed in most States which silently protests against capital punishment for women.
Is this sentiment, which may be called the new “unwritten law,” the incentive to recent numerous murders of men by women.
The question whether women become murderesses because they are, through a maudlin public sentiment, immune from the severest penalty of the law, is one which criminologists and the legal profession now discuss without reaching a solution which will receive general approval.
The hanging of a. woman in Vermont a few years ago for the murder of her husband, though the people of the State protested, proved that the executive of the State was firm in heeding the cold demand of the law. On the other hand, the commutation of the death penalty to life imprisonment. In the case of Mrs. Aggie Myers would indicate that the chief executive of this State yielded to the almost unanimous prejudice against capital punishment for women.
The recent killing of Walter S. Guerin, a young artist, by Mrs. Dora McDonald, wife of an ex-gambling and political boss of Chicago, has given rise to the question whether the woman committed the deed in the full realization that the sentiment opposing capital punishment for women would save her from the severe penalty of the law, or whether she counted on the strong political influence and wealth of her husband to extricate her.
~ Chicago Sentiment Divided. ~
Although in Chicago sentiment is divided as to justification or lack of justification for the killing, the feeling is strong that she ought not, and probably will not, have to face the risk of the extreme penalty should she be convicted.
There are, however, numerous precedents to make the baroness hopeful that she will either be acquitted or escape the death penalty. There are the cases of Florence Burns, Rosa, Salza, Josephine Terranova, and Nan Patterson. The first three named who killed men were set free by juries in the case of Nan Patterson, the former show girl was placed on trial three times for the alleged murder of Caesar Young, an English sporting man, who died from a pistol shot while in a cab with her. There was no proof that Nan Patterson shot the man but his severance of his relations with her was claimed by the prosecution to furnish the motive which probably led her to kill him.
The prosecution amassed much circumstantial evidence to show that Nan Patterson committed the crime, but on each one of the trials as many different juries failed to be convinced and disagreed. She was given her freedom. Since then she became reconciled to her husband, and the two are living together. Only her trial will determine whether Goldie O’Neil, a once popular chorus girl will fare better, as well, or worse than Nan Patterson. She stabbed her husband to death with a hatpin. She claims self-defense, and her friends and relative’s sustain that plea.”
http://unknownmisandry.blogspot.com/2016/01/chivalry-justice-in-1907-usa.html
” John E. W. Wayman – Prosecuting attorney of Cook county (Chicago). – 1912
“The ordinary man such as a juror finds it difficult to differentiate between an exceptional and abnormal woman, as most murderesses are, and the everyday woman he has known since he was a boy. When a woman appears for trial before him, straightway in his own mind he manufactures some extenuating circumstances, some excuse to account for her of the murder.”
He feels sure that this woman who looks so much like the women of his own family must have been abused and hounded and driven insane by the cruelty of the man she killed. So in almost all cases the juror, unsophisticated in the subtle psychology of the woman criminal, has made up his mind long before he retires to the jury room that the woman on trial committed her crime during some violent brain storm that rendered her irresponsible.”
“A woman’s crime as a rule exhibits a far greater degree of moral turpitude than a man’s. Few murders by women are the result of impulse. They are marked by premeditation, cunning, cruelty and cold blooded diablerie. For the most part the crimes of women have these characteristics in common.”
Women usually take their victim unawares. Many of their victims are killed while asleep. The saving clause for the woman in most cases is that the murder is committed without eye witnesses. Usually the woman and her victim are alone when the murder occurs. This invariably is the result of the woman’s cunning plan. It enables her in court to tell whatever story she chooses and there is no one to contradict her. The charge of murder stands on purely circumstantial grounds.”
John E. W. Wayman – Prosecuting attorney of Cook county (Chicago). – 1912
“It appears absolutely impossible to find 12 men in this country who will convict a woman of murder. This mistaken idea of chivalry has resulted in numerous miscarriages of justice and a reckless abandon, on the part of women who are criminally inclined. All that is necessary for a woman is to retreat behind the protecting wall of her sex, and an avalanche of tears, and make no other defense.”
Agnes McHugh – Chicago attorney – 1916
“A man jury will not convict a woman murderer in this county, if the prosecutor is a man. I think this leniency may be traced to the chivalry latent in every man. The jurors see two or three big strong men sitting at the prosecutors’ table, and subconsciously feel that these fierce prosecutors are attacking the frail, pretty woman in the prisoner’s chair. Their instinct is to defend her. Perhaps their pity would not be stirred so profoundly if a woman was in the prosecutor’s chair. I believe the leniency of juries with feminine slayers is responsible for the wave of ‘affinity crimes’ sweeping Chicago. The woman criminal will receive justice only when there’s a woman in court to prosecute her. We demand justice for women — not maudlin sympathy or leniency.”
Maclay Hoyne – Illinois State’s Attorney of Cook County – 1914
“The manner in which women who have committed murder in this county have escaped punishment has become a scandal. The blame in the first instance must fall upon the jurors who seem willing to bring in a verdict of acquittal whenever a woman charged with murder is fairly good looking and is able to turn on the flood gates of her tears, or exhibit a capacity for fainting.”
Alice Robertson – U.S. House of Representatives (Oklahoma) – 1921
“Women who murder get off too easy. They’re not judged according to the same standards as men who murder, but you don’t hear the suffragists demanding equal rights for the men, do you? No the suffragists want equal rights for women with special privileges.”
Thomas Lee Woolwine – Los Angeles District Attorney – 1922
“The reason it is well night impossible to punish women for crimes of violence in particular is simple: It is because they are women, and because sex plays a vital part in every such trial. Men are innately loath to punish women. Women naturally arouse a feeling of false chivalry in men which allays and tempers their judgment upon the evidence. It is more difficult for a prosecutor to overcome this powerful factor than it is to convince a jury upon the state of facts presented.”
http://unknownmisandry.blogspot.com/2011/09/chivalry-justice-quotes-from-judges.html
They certainly knew how to write well in Chicago in the early years of the previous century. I have known three female murderesses, one of whom did exactly what John E.W. Wayman wrote in 1912 that is to say killed her husband whilst asleep and then argued that it was a delayed reaction to years of abuse. Naturally, she was acquitted and even now walks free. No woman has been executed in England since 1956 when Ruth Ellis a courtesan was hanged for the murder of her boyfriend, a racing driver. That Ellis was a peroxide blonde (aged thirty nine) that is to say wall-banging but tarty made her a cause celebre with the liberal intelligencia. Even the Athenians , so I read in Herodotus had difficulty executing female murderers, indeed failed to do so wringing their hands in impotence.
Actually…
Few murderers are women and likewise few victims (despite Feminist rhetoric) are of that sex. Come on Girls, show us that you are the equal of men and increase your percentage both as murderer and victim. I know how much you luuuurve ecwauliteee.
Opus says:
January 31, 2019 at 5:47 am
Actually…
Few murderers are women […]
Allow me to differ, Opus! Women kill more children, more boys than anyone else. They’re the biggest offenders or accomplices in domestic abuse. Problem is, often, prosecutors and DA will only file for unvoluntary manslaughter or stuff of the kind for someone else’s death or agression by a woman.
Also, women have to use weapons or another man if they want to kill someone. And, finally, poison is a woman’s weapon. That’s why so many women in Japan, France, USA, can go years and years without being noticed as the cold killers, Black Widows that they are.
I’m advise you to view the show Deadly Women.
According to the FBI, in 2015, men committed 9,553 murders and non-negligent homicides in the USA.
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2015/crime-in-the-u.s.-2015/tables/expanded_homicide_data_table_3_murder_offenders_by_age_sex_and_race_2015.xls
That same FBI report tells us that women committed 1,180 murders and non-negligent homicides.
According to the CDC, in 2015 (the most recent year I found), women murdered 638,169 of their own babies in the womb.
https://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/data_stats/abortion.htm
That gives women a verified body count of 639,349 vs 9,553 for men. But we’re the “toxic” ones.
That gives women a verified body count of 639,349 vs 9,553 for men. But we’re the “toxic” ones.
The FBI, being as satanically corrupt as the rest of America’s institutions, doesn’t consider the slaughter of babies in the womb to be murder.
@Dalrock, I know you and I have butted heads– politely– about your equating of “Chivalry” and “Courtly Love”; honestly, most of your refutations in the “Unchivalrous” post answered my objections pretty well. But I think the best summation of the argument is above, that what we both object to is what laymen most commonly call chivalry, and what literature professors call courtly love, emphasis mine. And I think of it as a literature professor would, only minus the salary of one.
Lancelot should be whipped for a whoreson knave: no true “Lancelot” can ever be told without the adultery with the queen. Downplay it for kids’ editions by focusing on SIr Kay or Gawain or Percival, but “the queen’s lover” is as much who he is as “King of the Britons” is essential to Arthur. Better no Lancelot at all than an “unsoiled” one. He is the most prominent knight in most of the stories and the least likeable, except in T. H. White.
But whether we do redeem “Chivalry” to its honorable state, or let it go like “gay” that used to be “merry” and “faggot” for a cigarette or a bundle of sticks, it would be unvaliant of me not to cede the field, sir, on this point. Not despite the import of words’ meanings, but because of it.
@J. J. Griffing
Thank you. I am in your debt for persevering with me and helping me understand the distinction I needed to make. I made a deliberate effort to incorporate your feedback into my “unchivalrous Christian” post. That it didn’t help with a specific set of Instapundit commenters isn’t in my mind due to either of us not being clear.
How I see it is that you as a defender of military chivalry and I as a defender of Christianity share a common enemy. For we are both against the same pretender, the cuckoo that invaded both nests with the advent of courtly love. I’ll apologize in advance for mixing my parasite metaphors, but Courtly love used military chivalry as a host on it’s path to infect Christianity. The problem is, those who wish to preserve courtly love have a huge temptation to hide their perversion as really being a proponent of military chivalry. Our common goal therefore should be to jointly smoke them out. For only then can we remove courtly love’s stain on both Christianity and military chivalry.
I don’t think we can redeem “chivalry” as a stand alone term. The corruption happened centuries ago and the roots are too deep. The garter on every British subject’s passport is proof of that. I think we both will have to caveat what we are talking about.
Adding a bit more, Lewis’ use of Lancelot as the embodiment of military chivalry is another piece of evidence that “chivalry” alone is corrupted as a term. One proposal you might consider is the term martial chivalry.
We certainly must engage in defending women’s definitions of words to the last possible breath, and obsessively ignore any larger problems in our pursuit of ever smaller minutae to disagree over!
Sir Griffing, I tip my custom-made fedora to you! Keep up the good work!
@Oscar
If there is justice to be done in the USA. There should be after proper detective work about 1000 female executions for 9000 male executions for the crimes of 2015 alone.
Good evening, D.
-j
Thanks, and I like your handle, too. You’re far from jung at the art of wordplay yourself.
However guilty CSL was in his romance with Mrs. Davidson (when was her divorce final? why did she divorce her first husband? et c.) I don’t think his lauding of chivalry or of Lancelot was to blame. He was a medaevalist and a well-read medaeval scholar even before he became a Christian, and even as an amateur apologist in “Mere Christianity” he is somewhat liberal– theologically, in terms of how sternly he holds to biblical inerrancy or doesn’t– and if his immoral choices or compromises were the result of downplaying scripture or the cause of it, they’re nearer to it than his excuses for, or misreading of, Courtly-love chivalry.
I think he fell in love with the Arthurian mythos at large and the bowlderized Victorian versions (Tennyson et al) as a boy, so the allegiance to Lancelot was perhaps the reason for excusing his sins… though that might also be a root cause of his later moral weaknesses.
(And I’m still parsing it like a professor, ain’t I?)