Category Archives: The Decline

Broken Identity

At this point you’re probably aware of the alphabet soup that sexual identity has become. LGBT has been replaced by LGBTQIA, while others are rolling in even deeper distinction, such as the unintentionally hilarious acronym, LGBTTQQFAGPBDSM being used by Wesleyan University. Facebook has 56 different gender identity options, but even FB’s heroic attempts at inclusivity doesn’t include an array of other identities covering every possible combination of sexuality possible and ignores that special magic known as otherkin. Then of course there’s an slew of other identities that aren’t even sexual, (I think), such transable, transfat, and the hilarious transnigger.

And you thought I was joking.

 

Certain segments of young people tend to take these identities and run with them for all they are worth. Most of us have come across an insane Tumblr profile of someone listing off a half-dozen different identities to which they hold and demanding people address them by the ‘proper’ pronouns. Here’s a sample list of some of them, and, if the rabbit-hole really interests you, here’s a guide to creating your own personalized pronoun.

It is easy to laugh at all this craziness, but this trend of extreme self-identification points to something much deeper than a few troubled individuals. This letter to Ask Amy illustrates nicely:

However, I was never very open about my sexual orientation. I felt like I always knew, but at the same time I didn’t know how to figure it out.

When I was 17 I went to a party; there was a girl there I liked, but she came with a guy. At some point, she came over and just started kissing me and it was like magic. Then the guy came over. It turns out she wasn’t interested in me, but was doing something he had talked her into.

That was my only experience with another woman — but I know I’m bisexual. I came out at school to some friends, but no one took it seriously. I even came out to my family — but my mom is the only one that took it seriously.

I have been in a relationship now with a man for a year and a half. I love him, but I feel like a part of me is missing. Turning 20 is a wake-up for me. I’m figuring out what I want to do in my life (and friends are getting married). The guy I’m with takes my confession of being bi as, “You’re just bi-curious.”

I’m thinking about asking if we could take a break so that I can try and find myself, but I’m terrified that if I do the door will close entirely. Should I “come out” again and hope I’ll be taken seriously and that he’ll support me?

Here’s a girl whose sole lesbian experience is a single meaningless kiss at a party and who’s in a serious relationship with a man, but still feels compelled to identify as bisexual, even to the point of destroying her relationship to experiment. The key to the whole issue is that she feels a part of her is missing and she wants her identity taken seriously.

A key need of man is identity. His identity informs him as to who he is, but man is a social animal, so who he is almost entirely a function of his social relations. He cannot create his identity in isolation. Once developed, his identity exists as a spiritual sense of place telling him where he belongs in the world and how he relates with the people around them.

A key part of growing up is developing this identity, finding out who you are. A mature adult has discovered and established his identity; he might further develop, refine, or even alter his identity, but he has a secure sense of his place in the world.  (There is a reason listening to 40-year-olds talk about finding themselves is disgusting, it is an aberrant and unhealthy infantalization of themselves).

The proper time for developing this identity is early adulthood, what we now call adolescence. A child’s identity, his spiritual sense of place, is not something that really exists as independent of his parents, he is basically a cypher of his parents. It is early adulthood where his he really begins to form his own independent identity.

In a healthy society, identity formation is a relatively straightforward process. You belong to you family, you adopt the faith, ideology, and history of your thede, to a greater or lesser extent, you become economically productive and contribute to society, you find a spouse get married and have children, you make a few friends, involve yourself in the community, and adopt a leisure activity or two along the way. Your particular quirks, skills, and deficiencies naturally grow out of this process.

It is fairly easy to have a sense of place when you can tell yourself “I am John Yeoman, son of Jack Yeoman, an Englishman of the County of Smallshire. We Yeoman’s have been Anglicans attending Smallshire Church for 5 generations. I am a farmer who works the land my fathers have for more generations than can be counted. I am husband of Jane Yeoman and father of 4 children. At the pub on Fridays, where I am known for losing at cards, I play the fiddle and retell stories about our childhood pranks on Mr. Cooper with my childhood friends.

That sort of identity writes itself and grows naturally. When you are part of a culture, do things for others, and are socially connected to the community around you, your identity forms on its own and you learn who you are organically. A spiritual sense of place just happens.

In our modern society though, this process doesn’t happen. Think of your average “adolescent”. At the time when a person should be developing his identity, he is stuck in a public school doing nothing productive to anyone else, while learning multiculturalism, how evil his country and people have been to oppressed minorities. He lives with his family in a neighbourhood he moved to just a few years ago when his parents upgraded their house. His family, if he is lucky, consists of an intact nuclear family, maybe a cousin or two, and the occasional visit from his grandparents, if he is not, he lives in a broken home with a single mother, maybe a step-father. He probably has some friends, most of which he will never see again after high school. He probably doesn’t go to church or participate in any social activities with anybody who is not also an adolescent. He is definitely not married and any relations with the opposite sex he has had has assuredly been temporary and known to be so beforehand. Maybe he has a hobby or a sport or two, maybe he doesn’t.

So what is he supposed to base his identity upon? His disconnected family? His Christmas-evening only religion? His oppressive country? His lack of culture (called multiculturalism)? His grades? His sport? It’s all kind of lacking isn’t it?

Look a the letter writer above? She’s 20, she’s been a biological adult for 6-8 years now and she’s just now thinking of “finding herself” possibly by destroying the one thing she has that will let her actually find an identity. What has she accomplished that she can base her identity? What place has she found in her community? Has she been economically productive? Maybe a few part-time jobs. Does she have a family of her own? Just a boyfriend she’s considering leaving. She needs an identity, something that defines her in relation to the world around her, and will make the world take her seriously (ie. will give her a spiritual sense of place). Yet she doesn’t have anything, and it’s not really through any fault of her own.

This is the allure of these weird identities young people have taken too adopting. They do not have the experiences, productivity, community, or social relations to create true identities, so they have to start making up their own. Creating identities usually requires hard work though; you can not become a violinist without practicing or a volunteer without volunteering.

But if you take and magnify a personal quirk, you can easily create a new identity. Like to emotionally bond to people before having sex? You’re a demisexual. Have a low libido? You’re asexual. Like White Fang and think wolves are cool? You’re a wolfkin.

This extend beyond just the weird sexual deviancies though. How many young moderns base their sense of identity on other hedonic pleasures? How many young people have their music consumption as their main identity? How many young people have gamer as one of their main identities? How many young people are identified through their drug use? Their fashion sense? Their sexual conquests? Their television tastes?

Doing these activities may or may not be particularly wrong, but using such as a primary identity indicates something is broken somewhere. Something is missing in their development when a young adult’s primary identity come through shallow pleasures rather than through something true and real.

But this goes beyond just young adults, even our adults are constantly “finding themselves.” Stable social relations, productive economic work, community involvement, friendships, family, all are declining. People are becoming more isolated from each other and more alienated from their work. They need to find something to fill this gap.

This is why a homosexual can’t just be a guy who privately sodomizes other men, he must be out of the closet displaying his pride. He has no other identities to hold onto, for he has no deep social relationships and no spiritual sense of place, so he has to make an identity out of where he enjoys sticking his penis. This is the true horror of the homosexual movement, the abolition of the self until only your identity is your penis.

This is the modern world, a place where people are so empty, their identities so broken, that it has become mainstream for people to base their identities on, to relate to the world through, their hedonic tastes. A healthy society is one where identity creation is a natural process that flows organically from the process of growing up. A person should be able to naturally find and fill productive and healthy social roles, so he can find a spiritual sense of place, so he can belong.

Women are Achieving

The Guardian has an article on how boys are a mess (h/t: TRP), there’s nothing all that new there other than its the Guardian acknowledging the problem and its somewhat RP’d. But it has this little bit that comes up with all these articles:

“Men are opting out and women are opting in. Women are working harder at jobs, they’re working harder in school, and they are achieving – last year women had more of every single category of degree, even engineering. This is data from around the world. Now in many colleges there’s a big gap as boys are dropping out of school and college.”

Zimbardo estimates that there are, in Britain and the US, 5-10% more women than men at many colleges and universities. “So they’re going to have to have affirmative action for guys because obviously one reason you go to college is to find a guy.”

Everytime the crisis of boys/men comes to the fore, there’s always the section on how women are achieving. The triumphalism varies, this one tones it down quite a bit compared to, for example, this but there’s always this note of woman are doing better.

Except, are they?

Women are going to school more, getting more education, and outnumber men in the workforce. So, they are achieving more, at least for the mediocre positions, men still dominate the elite positions.

But are they really better off? What exactly are they achieving?

To most men, work is/has been something they had to do so to obtain a wife, then provide for the resulting family. Most men probably took pride in a job well done or in creating, but the purpose of going in to work was to earn to provide for his family. He could have gotten the pride of creation elsewhere, not to mention in today’s white-collar, paperwork world, satisfaction from creating something tangible is rapidly disappearing. Likewise, since the growth of mass post-secondary education, getting a degree for men has primarily been about avoiding a job doing physical labour, getting a better job to hopefully attract a prettier wife, and provide a more materially rich life for his family. The main purpose of post-secondary education was to get a family and provide for it, while making provision easier.

Men did this work, not for its intrinsic own sake, but for the extrinsic good of the family.

To repeat, as an aggregate woman are achieving more, but what are they achieving?

Women are now doing the work men did to support their families, without having families to support, barring (the usually poor) single mothers, who are not the kinds of women-in-the-workplace these articles are happily pointing to as signs of success. In fact, statistically speaking, these women are less likely to have families and when they do these families are smaller.

So, what are they achieving?

The only thing they seem to be achieving is more consumption and more money to be spent on the consumptive treadmill. Is that something we should be proud of? Is that kind of achievement really something we as a society should be pursuing and pushing our boys and girls to pursue?

The other question then becomes, are men really being left behind?

If a young man has no need to support a family, because he doesn’t have a wife, he might not get a wife, and when he does his wife will work and IF they have children, there will only be one, maybe two, why does he need to work?

Is he really falling behind if his part-time McD’s gig pays for his quarter of the bachelor pad’s rent, beer, and the new XBox?

Is a man really worse off spending his hours playing video games and chilling with his bros rather than spending them working hard to get a bigger (but still empty) house and a (nominally) better car?

Why is empty, high-work, high-stress consumerism somehow assumed to be better than empty, low-work, low-stress consumerism?

Either way it’s empty, but the latter is a lot easier and more enjoyable.

Maybe this ‘high achievement‘ is not some victory for women, maybe it’s simply that men know the score: Work sucks, but is (was) necessary to get a wife, regular sex, and a family. Now that men can get sex without a wife and aren’t getting a wife or family anyway, why work?

On the other hand, women seem to have been tricked into thinking that grinding away at a white-collar job is its own reward. They’re doing the shit men were forced to do and mostly disliked, while not even having the reward of a wife having supper ready for them when they get home.

Is it just the boys that are mess? Are the women really achieving?

Guest Post From Europa: Demographic Figures

Today’s post are some talks and demographic figures compiled by a European reader who wishes to remain anonymous. I haven’t watched the videos, so I can’t guarantee their content.

Remember, we are willing to accept guest posts as long as they are readable, on-topic, and provide some value.

UN figures 2010 European women 1.5
Greece 1.4,
Spain 1.4,
Portugal, 1.3,
Italy 1.3,
Germany 1.3
Ireland 2.1
Europeans over 65 up to 2030 up 40%
Nothing changes by 2040 2 workers per retiree

1900 25% World population in Europe
2050 7%
29 countries, including 12 EU countries Fertility Rate below Replacement Level
Germany 82m – 71m
By 2050 number of 16 – 64 year olds in Europe declined 20%
By 2050 EU Short of 35m workers
Same period South Asia workforce up 50%
Same period Central Africa workforce tripled.
At present there are more people over 65 than under 16 in the UK.
In the EU now 4 workers per pensioner.
By 2050 2 workers per pensioner.
In the US 10,000 Baby Boomers are retiring every day and Social Security has an $80 BILLION deficit.
Germany 80m today four generations 10m.
Scotland extinct within 5 generations.
In Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore the birth rate is falling towards 1.0 meaning a 50% population fall per generation. Not even the Black Death had such a catastrophic impact.
Germany 1.41 children per woman
USA 2.06,
Sweden 1.67,
Spain 1.48,
In the USA there will be more people by 2050 over 80 that under 15.
There are more pets, especially dogs, than children in Japan.
Lee Kwan Yew Singapore elder statesman, unless things change there will be no more original citizens.
Japan current trends Government estimates population 2012 121m today 48m 2112.
60 years of age +
Japan 42%
Germany 38%
These figures assume that Japan and Germany’s birth rate will increase.
Russian population decline.

143m today 2030 10% less

EU today & 2050 750m

Spain today 46m 2050 48m through immigration
Italy today 61m 2050 62m through immigration

Germany today 82m 2025 79m
Minus 0.02% Growth Rate
Half the population 44 or younger
1.4 children per woman
21% over 65
Contraceptive use 66%
Life Expectancy 80

Fertility has declined by 50% last 50 years.

Over 90 countries have sub-replacement fertility rates.

During the lifetime of today’s young people the World’s population will start to decline.

The US is the ONLY developed country with a healthy fertility rate.
UN Population office.
Latvia 1.3
Romania 1.3
Andorra 2.13
Spain 1.3
Lithuania 1.3,
Italy 1.3,
Hungary 1.3,
San Marino 2.13
Bosnia 1.3
Germany 1.3,
Russia 1.3,
Japan 1.3,
Armenia 1.3,
Croatia 1.3,
Singapore 1.4,
Estonia 1.4
Austria 1.4
Lichtenstein 1.4
Switzerland 1.4
Portugal 1.5
Georgia 1.5
Czech Republic 1.2
Slovakia 1.2
Slovenia 1.2
Republic of Korea 1.2
Moldova 1.2
Bulgaria 1.2
Belarus 1.2
Greece 1.3
Poland 1.3

In Russia 140 deaths for 100 births
Russia today 145M 2045 70M

Latvia more deaths than births 1989 – 2002 13% population decrease.

Within a generation this situation will unfold throughout Europe.

Since 1970 immigrants and their children have prevented decline in the US population. By 2040 the world population, according to one UN estimate, will start to decline.

World population around 2065 will peak and then start to decline.

The US workforce will remain stagnant over the next two decades.

The EU work force will decline after 2040 indefinitely, as far as demography can see.

The number of Europeans 30 – 40 will decline significantly, by 15% – 20% possibly, in the coming decades.

By 2050 every region of the World will have a significantly higher proportion of older people.

US 3 workers per retiree today by 2030 2 workers per retiree.

As of 2010 the working age population of all the rich countries combined has already started to shrink, see birth rates.
1.78 Norway,
1.74 Finland
1.74 Denmark,
1.68 Holland.

Since 1990 60% of US population growth has come from immigrants and their children. This figure is 80% in Europe.

Population Loss by 2050

Russia 57m 40%
Germany 32.5M 40%
Italy 26.5m 46%
Ukraine 22m 48%
Spain 21m 46%
Poland 18.5m 46%
UK 14m 25%
Czech Republic 5m 50%
Belarus 4.8m 50%
Austria 4m 41%
Serbia 3m 41%
Switzerland 2.9m 38%
Bosnia 2.3m 50%
Lithuania 1.8m 50%

Average 611 divide 14 = 44%

Mexico 6.8 children per woman 1970 and 2.3 today.

NYT Tries to Have a Pregnant Women Murdered

Jim has noted that two NYT journalists published Darren Wilson’s home address so the Ferguson mob can lynch him and kill his pregnant wife.

In response, common citizens can help show them not to wage war on us. I do not have a big a platform as the NYT but I can help boost the signal. Here is the information on the two responsible for doxing Officer Wilson:

Julie Bosman
5620 N Wayne Ave Apt 2
Chicago, IL 60660-4204
Cook County
Twitter
Work Phone: 312-552-7204
Mobile: 646-753-2052

Campbell Robertson
1113 N Dupre St
New Orleans, LA 70119-3203
Orleans County.
Twitter

If you’re ever in either neighbourhood, why don’t you stop by and say hello.

Cyclical History

Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?
A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever…
All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it;
the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.
What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done,
and there is nothing new under the sun…
There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance
of later things yet to be among those who come after.
(Ecclesiastes 1 ESV, Selected)

History is cyclical. There is nothing new under the sun.

Civilization is in constant war with chaos. Chaos eventually, inevitably, triumphs. The civilizational cycle of growth and death never ends.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

Everything man creates turns to ashes, there is no relief from the curse of Adam.

Man endures until he can’t; death his only relief. His children then endure until they can’t.

Moth and rust destroy; thieves break in and steal. All go to the grave.

Everything man builds collapses; every institution man creates falls.

Every institution but one:

The Catholic Church has yet to fall. It has been corrupted, it has been split, it has been broken, but it has always endured.

This is the light in the darkness man constantly wars against.

There is no hope, there is no relief, there is no victory, but one.

The cycle was broken once: a bloody body upon an instrument of torture, an empty pit of death.

A fire descended, a burning illumination among the horrifying darkness.

The cycle of death and entropy never ceases, but that small fire promises hope that it will.

There is a final escape from the entropic cycle for those who have the eyes to see.

For those that keep their eyes closed, the chaos will follow them beyond the grave.

***

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.
(Revelation 21:3-4,8 ESV)

We’ve Lost

How can the left defeat the reactionaries? — They’ve already defeated us. http://t.co/WjbAgwC87h

— Free Northerner (@FreeNortherner) July 20, 2014

Reactionaries have been defeated, we have lost. Neoreaction was defeated before it began.

This is reality.

The left has either captured, killed, or subverted every major institution in the West: the family, the church, the government, the courts, the media, the education system.

The system is dying, we have lost.

In fact, having lost is almost definitional to the term reactionary. If we were winning, we would be called conservatives or centrists. A reactionary is one wanting a return to a previous order, meaning the previous the old order no longer exists. This implies that at some point in the past the reactionaries (and conservatives) were defeated.

I used the term ‘winning’ purposefully. Reactionaries and a conservatives can never win, entropy is eternal and unstoppable. Chaos is always pounding at the gates and there is never any rest nor relief for the watchmen. The barbarians are always encircling the fortress and only leave once the looting and raping is over.

There was far too much pushback on Twitter on this. Some reactionaries don’t seem to get this basic point. This is foundational reaction. Cthulu swims left. To be a reactionary is to suffer defeat after neverending defeat. As long as you are a reactionary, you are defeated.

Our goal then is to advance to the point where we can become conservatives. That is the end point of reaction, to have a society worth conserving. Once we start winning we stop being reactionaries and we become conservatives.

The goal of reaction is ideological self-annihilation.

****

The reason conservatism is wrong is not because there is anything inherently wrong with conservatism, it is because modern conservatives have not yet realized there is nothing left to conserve. They have not yet realized that they have lost. It is over, it is done.

In fact, the conservatives have been so roundly defeated that the best of them are conserving liberalism thinking it to be conservatism.(The worst of them no longer even try to conserve liberalism).

This is the difference between the modern conservative and the reactionary:

The reactionary suffers in endless defeat, the conservative has not only been defeated, but has been so entirely and thoroughly pwned that he does not even understand he has been defeated, so he barely suffers.

My next post will outline how thouroughly we’ve lost, but to tide you over I recommend Derbyshire’s We Are Doomed.

If you are optimistic, if you think there is some hope of a “win”, if you believe it can be turned around, you are wrong and you do not yet understand reaction.

There is only the endless cycle of struggle against chaos, loss to chaos, and rebuilding during chaos so we can continue the struggle. Death and the final winnowing are the only relief from the cycle.

Reaction should not make you happy or hopeful, the only thing it can do is is help your children survive to create more children to survive to create more children.

It’s called the dark enlightenment for a reason.

Patriarchy = Civilization

I’ve implied this before, but now I will make it explicit:

Patriarchy is civilization. Civilization is patriarchy.

The two concepts are indistinguishable, differing only in emphasis.

Any time someone says patriarchy, they are, whether consciously or not, referring to civilization.

****

Civilization is built when men produce more than they need to satiate their desires; civilization is the surplus value males create for the future, particularly their children.

Men will only produce surplus value if it will increase their returns in the marriage market (h/t:RPR). It is not that marriage itself is of value to men, rather marriage provides a means by which man can ensure paternity of his children. With the paternity of his children assured, man can invest invest in his children. Assured paternity binds father to children.

This binding of father to son and daughter is civilization, it may even be humanity itself.*

Patriarchy is a word encompassing all the mechanisms society has created so that man can be assured of the paternity of his children and will bind himself to them. It includes monogamy, pre-marital chastity, prohibitions on adultery, slut-shaming, the criminalization of prostitution, cad-shaming, father as the household head, proscriptions on divorce, patrilineality, and fatherhood itself.

These mechanisms are what create civilization.

****

From the wiki for JD Unwin who completed a marriage study on civilization and marriage in the 1930s.

Unwin’s conclusions, which are based upon an enormous wealth of carefully sifted evidence, may be summed up as follows. All human societies are in one or another of four cultural conditions: zoistic, manistic, deistic, rationalistic. Of these societies the zoistic displays the least amount of mental and social energy, the rationalistic the most. Investigation shows that the societies exhibiting the least amount of energy are those where pre-nuptial continence is not imposed and where the opportunities for sexual indulgence after marriage are greatest. The cultural condition of a society rises in exact proportion as it imposes pre-nuptial and post-nuptial restraints upon sexual opportunity.

The whole of human history does not contain a single instance of a group becoming civilized unless it has been absolutely monogamous, nor is there any example of a group retaining its culture after it has adopted less rigorous customs.

Decadence leads to barbarism.

****

The problem is free-riding. For both men and women, it is in an individual’s self-interest to get around the mechanisms of patriarchy. A man can have more darwinian success if he impregnates a woman and another man raises the child or if he impregnates many women. A woman can have more darwinian success if she has is impregnated by a fitter man than she can marry then has an attainable man raise the child. When free-riding becomes too common, the assurance of patriarchy weakens, then disappears.

What we experienced in the 20th century was the triumph of the free riders over civilization. The culture that was indispensable for suppressing the free riders was hijacked and turned on its head. Not only does culture now fail in its primary pro-civilizational mission, it actively discourages women from cooperation and makes it as easy as possible for them cheat their responsibilities… The cost of this failure is civilization itself and there can be no greater price to pay than Eden.

The bond between father and child is destroyed. Men lose their will to create a surplus and build for the future.

Civilization dies.

****

Patriarchy is civilization.

Anybody opposing patriarchy is opposing civilization. The destruction of patriarchy is the destruction of civilization.

Whatever feminists and liberals may think of patriarchy, the violence and rapine of barbarism is far worse.

****
* The binding of father to children has many benefits on an individual level as well.

The Simpsons and Cultural Decline

I’ve been watching the first two seasons of the Simpsons the last couple weeks. It’s been years since I’ve watched the show, but I still remember the first ten seasons or so as some of the best TV yet produced.

The first season came out in 1989-90, just 25 years ago, and I remember the show being controversial when it came out; I wasn’t allowed to watch it until some time in high school, about a decade after it first started showing. It was controversial enough that Bush actually used the Simpsons as a negative example of a family. Yet, re-watching now, it’s amazing how tame and traditional it is compared to media offerings today.

Obviously the ‘offensive’ humour in the Simpsons is nothing compared to stuff like Family Guy or South Park, but that’s not the whole of it or even the most important part. It’s not the stated messages, but the basic assumptions in the show.

The Simpsons family is intact and stable, if slightly dysfunctional, and hold to functional, almost traditional, family values. They all love each other, however much they might bicker. Homer is a flawed man, often selfish or stupid, but still loving and caring towards his family. Marge is shown to love and respect Homer, despite her occasional anger at his flaws. Bart disrespects Homer occasionally, but it is shown as a clear deviancy for laughs; it also clearly shown that he does look up to and admire Homer. The kids fight, but at heart care for each other.

Compare those family values that to the three highest-rated sitcoms of 2013: Big Bang Theory, Two and a Half Men, and Modern Family. The first is about a bunch of (fornicating) nerds and their slut friend who spend the entire show snarking at each other. The second is about a cad, his divorced brother, and his nephew who regularly snark at each other; the cad is shown as cool, while the ‘family man’ is shown as a loser. According to Wiki, the third is about a blended family, a somewhat normal family, and a gay couple; the ‘modern family’ is so screwed up wiki needs a chart to keep family relations in order.

The Simpsons has a subtext of Homer as patriarch. A few times in the first couple of seasons Homer makes a family decision, whether it is selling the TV to attend counseling, buying a new TV, or choosing a camping spot, to name a few examples. The rest of the family complains or looks unhappy, yet it is not even questioned that, however flawed he or his decision may be, it is Homer’s place to decide these things. The show just assumes the father makes the major family decisions. Other than Duck Dynasty, would any modern show simply assume the father’s position as head of the home?

The episode Homer’s Night Out, centres around a picture of Homer dancing with a belly dancer at a bachelor party. The (non-nude) picture creates a town-wide scandal, brands Homer as a ‘swinger’, and is seen as something fundamentally deviant and abnormal. In any modern show would bachelor party antics, especially such comparatively tame ones, be shown as being so shockingly deviant?

The show assumes that normal people go to church on Sundays and say grace at mealtime. Prayer is a casually accepted part of the show, as is religion. Does any major show today, other than Duck Dynasty, so casually accept religion as a normal, unremarkable, everyday part of life?

Other, less remarkable, moral lessons are also included. The pro-family/loyalty message of Life on the Fast Lane. How Marge’s sisters constant denigration of Homer is shown as negative, destructive behaviour. In one episode, Marge is casually referred to as Mrs. Homer Simpson.

All this is not to say the Simpsons is a font of traditional values, it is a liberal show, it does have some fem-centrism, and is rather subversive, but it is a good example of just how fast our culture is collapsing. Just a couple decades ago, the Simpsons was a controversial show that was held up by the president as an example of family dysfunction. Yet compared to today’s cultural wasteland, where broken families are common, disrespect and degeneracy are the norm, and the husband as the head of the family is, at best, a joke, it is very tame, almost traditional.

25 years is all it took. In 20 years, will Two and a Half Men and Modern Family be relatively tame and traditional?

Repost: Patriarchy: Restraining Males

In light of the Isla Vista massacre, I bring an old post of mine to your attention:

I came across this today, a discussion about patriarchy by a feminist (named Clarissa). She’s discussing a post from another feminist (named Soraya) at Alternet.

Soraya believes that nasty, old, religious men hate and fear young women for some unspecified reason and instill patriarchy because of this fear.

She’s wrong in that the patriarchy is designed to oppress women; any control occurring over women in patriarchy is only incidental to patriarchy’s primary purpose of controlling men.

Clarissa notes the obvious, that the non-religious and women are just as interested in maintaining  patriarchy as the religious. She notes that the patriarchy “oppresses people who can’t or won’t conform to traditional gender roles.”

She’s more right. In a later post she clarifies what she means by patriarchy.

The patriarchy is a system of social relations where… people accept and enforce strict gender roles in order to perpetuate the system where men castrate themselves emotionally and psychologically in order to be able to purchase women and women castrate themselves sexually and professionally in order to be able to sell themselves.

She believes this to be a bad thing.

She’s right, in that patriarchy is designed to psychologically and emotionally castrate men, she’s wrong in that this is necessarily a bad thing.

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Let’s start at the beginning.

The male human is the single most ruthless, deadly, and dangerous predator ever brought forth by nature. A single male human is capable of wreaking terrifying damage. A group of male humans can execute almost unfathomable levels of destruction.

In addition to being capable of mass destruction, the male human is naturally inclined towards violence.

The male human is the apex predator.

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In addition to being a predator, the human male is also a creator, capable of building wonders beyond imagination.

The human male is also capable of extreme laziness and hedonism.

The average male, is  generally neutral in his inclination to his choice between hedonism, destruction, and creation.

Hedonism is easiest and is enjoyable, but scarcity makes it impossible but for those living in abundance and safety. Hedonism also does nothing to benefits society; rather it simply consumes resources.

Creation requires the most effort and is the least enjoyable (at least in the short-term), but it creates value for society and meaning for the male human.

Destruction is enjoyable and is easier than creation, but it does not create value, it either value and/or takes value from someone else.

Society requires males humans to engage in creation to advance, but out of the three creation requires the most effort out of the male and is (often) the least enjoyable.

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So, how does society encourage a male human to create?

There are really only three ways: force, access to resources, and sex/family.

Force is problematic. It requires other male humans to threaten this, so you have to encourage them to do so (so it doesn’t really solve the problem, only transfers it). It is also only moderately effective: a human male will usually counter with his own force when threatened and will often die before submitting, especially if the male has nothing to lose. Even if force works, an enslaved man will generally only work the bare minimum necessary to keep the threat at bay. The incentive structure for slaves is not set to maximize their creative potential.

Access to resources works, but only to a point and can be unreliable. Human males don’t require much to be happy: food, shelter, some entertainment (ie. destruction), and sex. He will create to get these basics, but attempting to bribe more creation out of him will likely be fruitless, he will often prefer his leisure to more resources. Also, if resources are withheld, he may simply respond with destruction to gain the resources.

The third option is sex/family. A male human will willingly create and undergo hardships he wouldn’t otherwise for the benefit of his mate and his children, and their futures. He will try to create (or destroy) to attain more resources than he would normally need or want simply to give to his family.

The third option is the only stable and reliable option where the majority of males will willingly create rather than engage in leisure or destruction. It is also the only option for society where the male doesn’t have a decent chance of responding with destruction.

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The problem with the third option is a male human can not know if a child is his or not. The human female knows exactly which children are hers and can invest in them secure in that knowledge, the male does not and can not.

The male will rarely create for the sake of children not his own and will often attempt to destroy those children not his own.

For the male to create, he needs reassurance that his children are his own.

Also, if sex is freely available to a male, there is no need for him to create to access sex.

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Hence, patriarchy.

Under patriarchy sexual access is highly controlled by social mores and/or force.

Because sex occurs only in marriage, the married male human knows that the children of his wife are his and his alone. He will then be induced to create as much as he can to provide for them and ensure their future.

Because sex is restricted solely to marriage, the male can not go outside marriage for sexual access, so he needs to create to win and provide for a wife.

These restrictions on males force the male into creation to gain sexual access.

The patriarchy castrates his destructive impulses. His desire to rape, his desire to murder, his desire to burn, his desire to loot, his desire to laze about in leisure, they are all controlled, because if the male engages in this behaviour he loses his ability to engage in sex and reproduce. He loses his future.

Monogamous patriarchy goes further: by restricting sexual access for each male to a single female and ensuring that all but the greatest losers have sexual access, it decreases the likelihood of violent competition for sexual access by lowering the stakes and ensures that each male will have a family and children, ensuring he is invested in the future.

The patriarchy is essential to controlling male humans’ destructive impulses.

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Isn’t castrating a male’s natural impulses under patriarchy wrong?

No, it is a necessary element of civilization. Marriage is the basis of civilization.

Civilization can not come into being without it.

Without this castration, society will either be chaos (as male humans fight for sexual access) or very primitive (think lost tribe in the jungle).

Everybody suffers.

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Any controlling of female humans in a patriarchal society is incidental. The controlling of women’s sexuality, by having social mores limiting her from having sex outside marriage, is a necessity for controlling males, but it is not the purpose of patriarchy. It is a by-product of controlling the males.

People who condemn the patriarchy are missing the bigger picture.

They live in a culture where the patriarchal castration of humans males is the norm and has been for millenia. They do not think outside it, so they see only the bad (the control) not the good.

They see only the castrated males, those males who have been inculcated for generations to create, not to destroy.

They assume all males are naturally like this. They do not realize that the mass castration of males through patriarchal mores has throughout history been what has suppressed their natural predatory instincts.

They react in horror when males engage in the violence that is natural to them. They seem to believe that this is somehow abnormal.

They do not realize that rape, murder, burning, looting, war, and violence are the norm.

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The breakdown of the patriarchy can have will lead the male to either hedonism or destruction:

1) Male disengagement: As males’ desire for sex can be accessed outside of patriarchal marriage, they will contribute less to society. They will let laziness take over.

As our current patriarchy is breaking down, we can see this occurring in our society in two inter-related movements: the child-man and MGTOW. The child-man and MGTOW realizes that sex can be gotten outside the patriarchy (or forgoes sex altogether) and has no family to create for, so he creates only enough to sustain himself. He no longer creates what society needs to advance. If these movements become big enough, they could significantly impact the society’s production and continued health.

2) Violence: As males’ become less engaged they may engage in violence either in rage, to obtain resources, or for entertainment.

This is unlikely to occur on mass scale anytime soon, although it might. The destruction of the patriarchy in the black community has resulted in high criminal rates. The rest of society could follow.

The prevalence of porn and video games will leave most males too sated in relation to both sex and destruction, for a number of males to have enough inclination to engage in socially and legally proscribed violence, which should prevent a mass movement towards male violence.

Incidences of violence from individual males can be expected. Notice how among the examples of violence I posted, the perpetrators were single. Anytime you see a mass murder, a terrorist act, etc., check the relationship status of the male perpetrator; he will almost always be single. Patriarchal marriage reduces a male’s inclinations to violence.

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Neither outcome is good for females.

Male disengagement means less resources for women, less resources for their children, less resources and progress for society as a whole, and a lack of fatherly involvement in their children with the attendant social problems.

Being less inclined to violence and less physically capable women are at the mercy of males should males decide to engage in violence.

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The patriarchy exists to control males; control of females is incidental.

The patriarchy is good for both females and males and for society as a whole.

Children and Hopelessness

Thus says the LORD:
“A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping.
Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children,
because they are no more.”

Thus says the LORD:
“Keep your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears,
for there is a reward for your work, declares the LORD,
and they shall come back from the land of the enemy.
There is hope for your future, declares the LORD,
and your children shall come back to their own country.
(Jeremiah 31:15-17 ESV)

Children are a sign of blessing and hope for the future. It is through children that men leave their legacy and by bringing forth children one shows hope that there is a future for your children. A society with hope for the future will usher forth many children.

On the other hand, failing to reproduce is a sign of despair. A society not reproducing itself has given up on itself. A society failing to reproduce is a society lost in hopelessness.

Our society has given up on itself.

They might not say it outside of private conversations or obliquely in public opinion polls, but everyone knows the West is dying. They despair for they know there is no hope for our civilization; winter is coming.

This is why they don’t reproduce, why we don’t reproduce.

We are stuck in the polar twilight, knowing the polar night is descending, but we do not wish to our children to have to endure the harsh, cold winter night. Instead, we enjoy the revelry of twilight, eating and drinking, for tomorrow we die.

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The saddest part of this twilight is the state of the church.

Christians have been given the first blessing and first command, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

We have been given a promise of a new life, yet we have given into the world’s despair.

This struck me recently at a church I occasionally visit. The priest was speaking on Psalm 137. During the sermon, he stated that ‘biblically, babies always mean hope‘.

This church is one of the few growing, young churches I know of. It’s congregation is composed of a couple hundred is mainly young adults. Despite the youth of the congregation, there are few young children. The church is perfectly poised to carry out the first command if only it would accept the first blessing. I still have some hope for it, but only some.

I talk with Christians. I asked my father if he had to do it over again, if he would get married or stay single.* He said he might marry but he wouldn’t have children in this age as our world is going to soon enter times of trouble.

I talk with other Christian men my age, some agree that children are a sign of hope, yet still are limiting the number of children they have. I talk with Christian women my age, children are a low priority for most. Their careers, teaching, music, writing, are more important to them at this point.

I talk with other Christians my age of the Kali Yuga, of our decline, none seem to actually reject the notion, some even embrace it. We talk of the dying church; everybody knows the church is dying, none dispute it. Yet, I talk of how the church could reinvigorate itself and retake our civilization if only Christians embraced the first blessing, yet there is always something more important.

I doubt any would say they despair, but the sinking nihilism of progressivism has taken hold.

The despair is not emotional, it is existential.

I despair for the church emotionally, yet there is existential hope.

The church has survived dark times before and can do so again.

Civilization has always re-arisen from the ashes.

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Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.

When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the LORD, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the LORD, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.
(Jeremiah 29:4-7, 10-14 ESV)

This then is the reactionary project: show hope, have children.

Traditional communities in Idaho are okay, recreating gangs and tribes is excellent, but these are sideshows.

Winter is coming, the darkness descends. The collapse is inevitable. We need to write of the reasons for the decline and illuminate it as it occurs, so that future generations can learn from our mistakes, rebuild, and hopefully stave off a future decline.

We also need to reproduce so there is a future and raise our children right so they can look forward to a brighter future.

We need to have hope, endure, and out-wait the night.

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Finally, you don’t have anything more important to do than reproduce.

Only a fraction of a percent of the population has something more useful to impart to the future than children. Unless, in this hyperbolic world, your work is regularly described as “ground-breaking”, “world-changing”, and/or “revolutionary”, it’s probably not anywhere near as important as another well-raised child or two would be.

Are you Norman Borlaug?

All the jobs, all the economic activity, everything we build is made for people. Without people they are worthless. Are teachers of any value if there’s no one to teach? Is writing of any value if there’s no one to read? Is a bridge of any value if there’s no one to drive over it?

We build things, we create, we save, so that future generations can benefit from them. All worthwhile economic activity is for future generations. What isn’t for the future is empty consumerism.

The choice for the vast majority of people is reproduction or consumerism. For the exceptional, such as the aforementioned Borlaug, important improvements for future generations.

If demographics is destiny; children are the weapons of ideological war.

Evangelicals often complain of how the US is no longer a Christian country. Well, they make up a quarter of the country; if every evangelical followed the first command, had five children, and trained them up in the way they should go, the US would be a Christian country within two generations. If evangelicals in their 20s and 30s were fruitful, they could all live to see the re-Christianization of the US. They would win the culture war within my lifetime.

Will anything you do: your career, finding yourself, your hobbies, etc. have more impact than that? Probably not. If you are a Christian and you aren’t a missionary, evangelist, or priest, your children are the most important thing you can do for the furtherance of the Kingdom.

If you think something you do is more important than reproduction, in all likelihood your priorities are wrong. You are probably thinking in selfish, narcissistic terms, where “important” is defined as what you think feels good for now rather than what’s good for the future.

Also, even if you think it feels good now, it probably won’t in the long run.

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* I asked a number of my married friends this as well. The general response was; being married is different but not necessarily better, you gain some, but sacrifice some. Although none regretted it.