Men and women are different - as a strong true generalisation - so it should not be a surprise when they are seen to be different.
One difference relates to abstractions: men are more at home in the perilous world of abstractions, and when women live-by abstractions they may become seriously disorientated. Women are the preferred bureaucrats in modern, totalitarian institutions - because women are easier to corrupt into servility to the rules.
When it comes to abstractions; women are more prone than men to a kind of institutional Stockholm Syndrome - when captives identify-with their captors; when the miserable slaves of regulations become emotionally committed to the regulations that enslave them.
Women intrinsically hate regulations and prefer personal relations - but once persuaded that regulations are their defence and guarantor; they lose all sense of perspective. The only response to the problem of regulation is seen to be more regulation - and thus they are trapped.
At worst (and that worst is not uncommon) women become helpless/ help-resistant pawns when manipulated by abstraction-wielders - which is why women are the prime, self-made, self-trapped victims of modernity and Leftism.
This is a simple fact - in the sense that so many women choose not to marry, to delay marriage until too late, choose not to have children, choose not to care for the children they have - and become blinded by anger and vengefulness when this insanity is pointed-out, or when any effective action is proposed to remedy it.
(For most women, not all but a very large majority...) In comparison with such self-inflicted - and remedy-resisting - life-destroying life-choices - nothing that modern culture can provide will come close to compensating.
And given that modern women (like modern men) have become materialist religion-deniers; this life is everything, and when they self-wreck this life there is no compensation and no repentance. And narcissism, plastic surgery, drugs or becoming an attention/sex-junkie are no more than momentary compensations - massively worsening the underlying problem.
Yet (unless women are coercively-enslaved - in which case these domains are destroyed and life emptied), women innately rule the love-and-sexual arena, women determine the existence of families, women provide the peer networks that bridge between families... If women will not or cannot do these things, then they will not be done - and life is impoverished.
The modern world depends on a spiritual-Christian awakening - both men and women are necessary; but it cannot happen without women. At present women are solidly driving the Left-Liberal-bureaucratic-totalitarian agenda (including within the fake-Christian churches); and if they do not stop, then the agenda will not stop (although it may be replaced by something different but equally bad).
The first step is for individual women to escape the toils of abstraction that enmesh them from early life; and take control of their own lives with reference to their true selves, their hearts - rather than being (as at present) dupes and tools for the implementation of the evil global Establishment strategy.
The problem for us is that to "buck the system" is to be somewhat masculine. :( Correct me if I'm wrong but it seems to retain femininity (modesty, maternal instincts, putting family above career), you have to think for yourself in today's world (at least in the West). And to do this is in today's world is somewhat rebellious and requires a lady to think for herself.
ReplyDeleteWhich somehow makes me feel masculine. Like if I was truly feminine, I would go along with the narrative because it seems more feminine to be obedient? I hope this makes sense. It is something I struggle with.
Kind regards and thanks for your blog.
This is very much the case, it is men that have the innate iconoclasm to resist the prevailing mood of their own culture, especially systematic abstract thought, which they are more prone to see as arbitrary inventions of other men. To women, the general consensus of society that a system of abstract thoughts is "reality" itself is harder to question.
ReplyDeleteThis is because women are, by virtue of bearing and nurturing children, far more dependent on social relationships to ensure their reproductive success. But I think that, while this is a feminine tendency, it is not necessary or desirable to carry it all the way to effeminacy. A virtuous woman doesn't fall for the first man to offer to impregnate her the way a man would tend to fall for the first offer of a woman. Nor should she entirely lack some similar reserve about settling for a society to assist her in motherhood.
@CCL - Women and men are different - some of those differences can plausibly be explained in terms of natural selection; but to a Mormon Christian the differences go all the way down: a man or woman in isolation is incomplete - the full (i.e. fully divine) human is a man and a woman.
ReplyDeleteThe most intelligent women I know regularly assert that there is nothing a man can do that a woman cannot do (and better). This is coupled with a belief that everyone should be doing everything they can to benefit the wider society. On the other side of things, the more intelligent men are, the more willing they seem to be to acknowledge that there are things that only women can do, and not just in bearing children, but with things involved in holding together the fabric of society. This is coupled with a kind of indifference toward the wider society, which men tend to regard with calculated self-interest and/or suspicion.
ReplyDeleteSo the ones who care the most, and seem to have the most at stake, have an impaired ability to acknowledge the reality of sexual differences and complementarity (and apparently this impairment increases with female intelligence). And the ones with a better grasp on the reality of the situation, just are not as motivated toward caring about maintaining social cohesion.
I suppose a lot of it has to do with the sheer prosperity in the modern world, the over-success of men in robustly protecting against dangers and providing the necessities of life in abundance.
I feel there is some reflection of eternity in all this, that masculinity involves exploring and conquering new ground, protecting the boundaries, and providing the necessities (maybe even something like indifference toward domestic management), whereas eternal femininity involves work to be done within established boundaries, nurturing growth of new life, and maintaining relationships between interior individuals (maybe even something like a complacent feeling that all that really matters is the work women do).
Because of my perception of the fundamental differences, I feel the urgency to be for mature individuals (especially mothers) to take initiative in redefining a path for the young women in their lives, to help them identify themselves as part of a lawful rebellion that will ultimately succeed over illegitimate authority, to recognize that their truest loyalty will, for now, be at odds with the loyalty they want to give to people in society. A big help in this will be to encourage young women to choose to make themselves available to marry righteous men who honor the important differences between man and woman, father and mother.
I put the onus especially on mothers because I just have not observed, in myself and the women around me, the ability in youth to be discerning enough to resist the dominant social messages without significant mentoring. And women simply do not have the same kind of leeway for youthful mistakes that men have. The best hope for individual young women will be for those with mothers and grandmothers willing to resist the dominant social trends and willing to rethink and overtly correct any loyalty to feminism.
@Lucinda - Thanks for this.
ReplyDeleteHigher intelligence - of itself - brings a greater tendency to use abstractions, as well as a greater ability at using abstractions. The most-intelligent women (measured by IQ) in long-term follow-up studies going back to the 1920s - show ultra low chosen fertility - averaging about 0.5 children per woman (i.e. most choose to have no children).
Therefore, higher intelligence in women adds-to (or multiplies-with) the greater vulnerability to be ruled by abstractions such as 'wider society/ the good of the poor/ women/ society/ the world/ the planet'.
In Mormon women - by contrast, in the only study I saw, average fertility rises up to include college graduates, then declines among those who do graduate/ professional training - maybe due to higher average intelligence, and also due to longer years in full time education/ training.
In men, some studies show little effect of increased intelligence on fertility, or a slight increase in fertility with intelligence.
(Of course, in the modern world, the fertility of the non-religious majority in developed nations is well below replacement level, so it doesn't make much difference).
"I feel there is some reflection of eternity in all this" - I agree, and these two descriptions of tendencies are the same as Coleridge and Barfield suggest as the most basic polarity - in a metaphysics that regards this polarity is the primary unit of analysis in explaining basic reality.
And this fits with the primal situation described in Mormon doctrine - of Heavenly Parents as the Unit from-which creation arose. It is more naturally understood in terms of love of Heavenly Parents leading to the creation of all ordered reality, including the birth of (spirit) children.
Love of Heavenly parents is made creative by their different, complementary, polarity (neither, alone, would or could be creative of reality)
Rethinking a bit, it must be mostly an affliction of modern women to be so ignorant of male contribution, because of women's liberation. When women are liberated, then male skepticism and adversarial strengths fight against women also, whereas when men feel a kind of ownership of (or responsibility over) women, then the women will not be considered competitors as much as prizes (as in being prized and valued).
ReplyDeleteI guess what I'm getting at is that I think the complementarity/polarity is basically nested, as opposed to equal. For a woman to experience appreciation for a man's contribution, she must somehow be within his boundaries and experience his battles from his side. This seems the most reliable way to get them (man and woman) looking in the same direction, allowing for true friendship. But women's liberation has ensured that women only regard male battles as unnecessary (because he should just cooperate!) and leave men feeling the impoverishment of fighting only for himself.
The well-intentioned in the West stumbled into the sexual revolution by blindness on the part of both men and women. Good men believed women would have more aptitude for self-defense. From what I can tell, even given the evidence, men cannot comprehend how really helpless women are, always favoring cooperation with the powerful over competition with the powerful even to their own detriment. And the women had no concept of the importance of the protection they were giving up when they threw off 'oppressive' male authority.
The scriptural phrase "mother of harlots" seems a very apt description of the modern situation with regard to women, and a key in understanding how women can fight against being tools of evil. Mothers must raise daughters that honor worthy men and are faithful to them.
Regarding Mormon women, I do hope previous trends hold, but the increasing accommodation for feminist assumptions has been difficult for me. Primary and youth Sunday school teachers seem to have no confidence in teaching topics about male-only priesthood authority or the vital importance of women choosing motherhood as a priority. The official teachings are there, but the heart and conviction are missing among the most active participants involved in teaching the young.
@Lucinda - It seems likely that the abstractness of feminism makes it difficult to deal with, for those who cannot truly work with abstraction. Feminism creates a problem; then, once feminism has moved the subject onto abstract grounds, the self-created problem becomes intractable.
ReplyDeleteI think, especially post French Revolution and with the advent of Communism, that modern man tends to focus politically on abstract things like universal 'rights', independent of any context of responsibilities and duties to his fellow man. This created a vacuum which Feminism was able to fill, with the interests of scoundrels being enforced through government involvement.
ReplyDeleteSo I believe women are harmed by abstractions-- that is, abstractions which abstract away the human responsibilities from human 'rights', leaving a bare excuse to wield power. It is, oddly enough, possibly the mistrust of and lack of good philosophy that, to my view, characterizes the war zone that is the 20th century.
In other words, when Lucinda said that women had no concept of the importance of the protection they were throwing off when they threw off male authority, I agree. They did so at the behest of corrupt men, and they were throwing off the truth that men need to protect women, and women need to be protected by men. They definitely imbibed a stockholm syndrome type of viewpoint.
I'm not sure if the lack of good philosophy is simply symptomatic, or if it somehow lies at the root of the issue.
@Ransom - I think the lack of a good philosophy - the prevalence of a false positivistic/ materialist set of metaphysical assumptions - is what maintains our desperate state. Especially because people believe that they no such fundamental assumptions, believe that such assumptions are childish nonsense superceded by science and pragmatism. Thus we are trapped.
ReplyDelete