Cracked asked a question, saying they’re asking honestly, so I’ll answer. First the question:
See, we’ve done a few articles on sex workers and porn stars (including a woman who has sex with a ventriloquist dummy on camera) and we keep coming to the same conclusion:
A) The demand for these people’s services is enormous;
B) The vast majority of us partake in some form or another (by consuming porn, if nothing else);
C) They thus fulfill a basic need in a way that the world would sorely miss if they stopped; and
D) We fucking hate them for it. Like, to the point of violence.
Why? We’re honestly asking. Someone let us know.
A & B are both easy to explain: the sex drive of a healthy man is a ravenous beast. Men need sexual release and need it constantly. The fire burns in the loins and the mind and never really stops burning except for those precious few hours after release.
To make matters worse, in today’s liberated society, the male is constantly assaulted with sexual imagery. One can not walk down the street without seeing a girl in a tight and/or low-cut top or ass-accentuating jeans. It’s a constant war for most men between their base urges and societal propriety. They’re constantly seeing on display what they can not have, what they could take but won’t; the whole of society enforcing the cruelty of placing a hamburger in front of a starving man. And man is always starving.
Sex work offers release. A temporary reprieve from the incessant burning and deprivation.
A third aggravating factor can be found in the article:
In other words, a key skill is learning how to simply hang out with clients and make them feel comfortable. Despite what you hear about how men primarily are all about looks, a lot of guys go to strip clubs for more than ogling boobies — they miss (or have never known) having a woman in their life, and for whatever reason this is the only place they can get something a little like that.
Men not only want sex, they want female companionship, a soft place to land, where they can comfortably offload their struggles. Traditionally, a wife would supply this role, but with today’s independent women who value traditionally masculine values over traditionally feminine ones, a soft place to land is not always as easy to obtain.
So there is a demand and this demand is aggravated by modern mores.
Now C is where their observation is not fully accurate as they do not distinguish between the personal and the societal. While sex workers fulfill individuals’ needs, it fails society’s needs. Society needs men to be fathers and to produce. Fatherhood is civilization, but unlike motherhood, fatherhood is not natural, it is a social construct. Like all social constructs it must be maintained and reinforced throughout society or it breaks down.
Sex work tears at fatherhood, it tears at civilization. That is where the seeming contradiction of D comes in, although disapproval or disgust would be a better word than hate. Here are a few of the ways it tears at away at fatherhood:
1) Sex work creates bastards. Children without fathers suffer and generally are less likely to become productive members of society. Before “reliable” birth control was common, bastards were inevitable, but even modern birth control is not as reliable as people claim, and bastards still occur. Fatherless children are societal problems.
2) A man partaking in paid sexual services (or is successful as a cad) is expending effort outside of being a father. He is not spending those same time and resources creating, providing for, and raising his own children. His own family suffers.
3) In many cases, sexual services (or fornication) may even replace marriage and fatherhood entirely. In this case, the man has no family, he raises no children to carry society forward, women are deprived of a potential husband, and he produces less for society as he produces only for himself, not for his family.
4) A woman turning to sex work is a woman not being a wife and mother. Instead of creating and raising children in a stable family environment she is providing sex for profit. Each sex worker is one less young woman in the marriage pool for men, reducing the incentives for men to work towards marriage. Even after a sex worker retires, she is still not a good prospect for marriage.
If you think this is all no problem, just look at our current society as it has relaxed its mores against fornication and paid sexual services. About 40% of children are born out of wedlock, a third of children live without fathers, a fifth of children live in poverty, our birth rates are well below replacement levels, and young men are dropping out of marriage and the workplace.
On a more personal level: women dislike sex workers because they are in direct competition against them for men, even their own husbands. Men dislike sex workers because it is degrading having to pay for what you wish you could achieve naturally and they’ll externalize this self-hatred.
This is why sex workers are disdained. They tear at the fabric of civilization.
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Another point, what they think of as hate is not always hate, but rather desire and perverted forms of love, particularly when it comes to violence or individual actions. Just looking through the examples of “hate” Cracked provide illustrates this clearly.
Yeah, there’s something about women who are willing to show off their bodies without shame that enrages a very specific sort of terrible person. It’s like they can’t stand the idea of the performer retaining any kind of power at all. “If I’m paying to see her body, I should get total access, regardless of what she says.” Every customer service job requires dealing with entitled dicks, but we’re guessing you’ve never had to deal with that.
…
61 percent of strippers report experiencing someone trying to penetrate them via finger, 82 percent have been punched, and a balls-out terrifying 56 percent reported having a customer freaking follow them home at least once.
That’s not hate, that’s textbook frustrated desire. A man getting handsy or attempting to have sex is not hating, he’s desiring. A man following a woman home is not hate, it is very strong desire.
Where hate might come in is after the fact (ex: the punching): its not all that particularly surprising someone would be hated for rejecting someone by the person being rejected, however irrational that hatred might be.
Donal’s response is, as he admits, somewhat unordered and incoherent, but essentially he denies that men act as a class and states that modern weaponry has lowered the power differentials between men and women.
Chad’s response is wrapped in parable. I’ve never been too good with allegory and as of my writing this I don’t think he’s done yet, but from my understanding he’s likening men to land and women to water. The land shapes the environment and guides and controls the water, but the water flows where it flows within the framework the land has shaped and has the power to either destroy the land or make it bountiful.
From these, I don’t think we disagree as much as my critics think we do.
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First, on the nature of power:
The female, and indirect method, is to make the world desire to change and help it do so.
I think many of my critics are missing or misunderstanding a critical piece:
any power [women] may display is simply proxy power given them by men.
They can not, as a class, have power in the public sphere that is not given them by men.
So maybe I should restate a little: women as a class do not have any inherent public/political power.
Women do have political/public power but only that given them or supported by men. Indirect power, the power the make the world desire to change and to help change is only effective when men give them men’s power to effect that change.
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Second, we will go more into the nature of the public and private realms:
Oh, and another thing: the personal is the political, at least in the sense that political power is heavily influence by personal and private spheres of power. As anyone who has worked in the political field knows, politics is largely about managing personal connections and networks of like-minded people.
Donal seems to be misunderstanding what I meant, which is understandable as I didn’t explicitly state or link to some background assumptions:
In the public realm, where personal relationships are superseded by hierarchical and organizational ones, physical violence is power and power is physical violence,
The Way of Men has more on this, but men exist in a world of function-based, hierarchical organizations, ie. public organizations, while women exist in a world of one-on-one personal relationships. The former does not eliminate personal connections or friendships, but rather changes the nature of them: the personal relationships and networks exist in a framework where function, shared virtue, and ability towards a shared goal are the measures of judgment rather than emotional closeness, non-judgmentalism, and acceptance.
To explain what I mean, think of the playground. Boys generally self-organize into large group activities, such as soccer, where most other boys are allowed to join as they will (except maybe the occasional incompetent or nerd). Girls generally break up into pairs. This doesn’t mean the boys playing soccer don’t have personal relationships, but that the relationships exist in a public, hierarchical, function-based environment, the soccer team, and are superseded by a higher value, winning the game. Politics is playground soccer on a grand scale. The management of personal relationships and networks in such a public system is different than that in a private system, such as the family.
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Finally, on women and men as a class.
Speaking of unified displays of male strength, I think that it should be noted that men rarely act together as a “class.” It isn’t how we are wired. There isn’t really a Team Man counterpart to Team Woman. So any argument founded on a notion that men can overcome women “as a class” fails as a foundational matter.
This misses the entire point of my argument. There is no ‘overcoming women’. There is no war between men and women, to think there is a class war based on sex is to fully adopt the neo-marxist foundations of feminism. To think there is a power conflict between men and women is to lose the ideological war entirely before it even begins. If we accept a sexual class struggle exists, we might as well give up now and enjoy the decline because we’ve already accepted the enemy’s frame and joined him.
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Here we get to the main point I’m trying to make:
Men and women are not enemies and are not in competition, they are naturally made to complement each other. Women are naturally creatures of the private sphere, men are naturally creatures of the public sphere and the social arrangement of men and women, often referred to as patriarchy, of each tending to own their sphere works fantastically well for both men and women. Women have no inherent public political power because their inherent power rests in the private sphere, the sphere in which they are comfortable.
We do not have a competition between male power and female power, because the nature of their power is different. Rather we have a competition between one group of civilization-hating men and other groups of men, particularly white conservative males, in which women are but one group being used as weapons. Women are involved because the former group, using their control of cultural institutions, have managed to take the concerns of a small group of hurting, betrayed, broken, self-destructive, and/or high-testosterone women and elevate them to a class struggle in which most of the class does not share the small groups concerns and does not want to fight and most of those that do want to are primarily doing so because they have been lied to and the struggle is just the accepted environment in which they live.
The war is against that group of civilization-hating men. Feminists are the symptom of entropy not the disease. If we want to start winning we have to avoid mistaking the leaves for the roots.
Some have disagreed with my previous post, both in the comments and on their blogs. The jist of common objections are:
Women have the power of supplying willing, enthusiastic sex.
Only a Godly woman, submitted to a man with Godly masculinity, will be able to resist. His masculinity will appeal to her flesh, he will be put in authority by God, and hr will derive his direct power from God in the same way she will derive her indirect power from the same source. She will magnify everything in that household to be more as her husband and more as God, and the same in the community.
It overlooks the realm of indirect/private/influence power.
Now these are not wrong, a woman does have power in her private sphere: she has power to influence her husband, power to inculcate values in her children, and power to otherwise influence her local community and personal relationships.* I even briefly mentioned this in my original post: “Women do have a specific power: women are wonderful.” But this power is irrelevant to the discussion as women’s power lies in the realm of individual private relationships.
On the other hand, men’s power lies in the realm of hierarchical public organizations, although, they can bring their power to bear in the private sphere as well.
That is why I specified that women as a class are powerless. A class can only exist in the public realm and women’s power does not transfer into the public realm unless men allow it to and support it. (This does not mean that women’s power if meaningless or non-existent, only that it does not exist in the public realm).
In the private realm, emotions and personal relationships rule. Where harmonious relationships are paramount power can come in many forms as emotional and spiritual violence, the kinds of violence women excel at, are just as effective against individuals as physical violence and the use of physical violence is often destructive to harmonious personal relationships.
In the public realm, where personal relationships are superseded by hierarchical and organizational ones, physical violence is power and power is physical violence, however well-hidden the violence may be. Spiritual and emotional violence are useless as as they can only truly work against isolated individuals or family units, not tribes or thedes. In the public realm, even when public power may come from authority, legitimacy, expertise, tradition, at heart it still flows from physical violence or the implication thereof. Democracy is bloodless war, public policy is coercive confiscation, redistribution, and regulation, authority derives from implied violence, and legitimacy derives from being a part of a hierarchy backed by violence. In our modern society, violence is mostly implied and hidden behind many layers of bureaucracy, but the system still rests on it.**
And women, as a class, are not capable of violence. They can not, as a class, have power in the public sphere that is not given them by men.
In the public realm there is know balance of power between the patriarchy and the matriarchy, there is only a power balance between civilized men and uncivilized men, and the women belonging to either group.
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Why do you think feminists try to make the personal political?
If feminists could succeed at extending the personal realm into the public realm, to have it annex the public realm, women would be able to exert far more power over the public realm through their power in the private realm.
Of course, the personal can not be made political, you can not have individual private relationships with more than about 150 people, let alone millions. It is impossible for the private realm to conquer the public realm, but the public realm can conquer the private realm, so when trying to mix the two the public realm always comes out on top. This is why feminism always ends in bureaucracy. This is why leftism, however pro-anarchy it may be, always ends in bureaucracy.
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This separation of public and private power makes a case for extreme subsidiarity. If most political decision making is devolved to the Dunbar level, the private realm could conquer the public realm, and we could have a political structure that does not fundamentally rest on violence. This is called tribalism.
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As for sex explicitly, there is nothing women could do if men decided to take it forcefully. Thankfully, due to the Christian civilization feminists are intent on destroying, most men have been inculcated with values that are in opposition to rape. While women’s love might be a strong private force, I’m fairly sure that if civilized Christian values stopped being indoctrinated into children from a young age, most men would not be as adverse to rape as a few of the commenters think they are.
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As for female serial killers: as I said, “There is a .01% of women capable of physically matching the average man. This is not significant.” Some women are outside the norm, that doesn’t mean anything to women as a class.
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* I should mention that even here, those powers exist only because the stronger men in her life allow them to women. Men could easily take them away, making those powers dependent on men.
** This is not necessarily a moral judgment; morally legitimate violence is necessary for any polity. Also, for those wanting to get metaphysical on my use of morality here, God is good because God is powerful.
“Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” – Chairman Mao
Donal wrote a post on patriarchy where he mentioned my previous post. He included graphs on the healthy balance of power between the sexes.
The graph is nonsense though, as it is based on a mistaken presupposition. Donal, and almost everybody, get the same thing wrong:
Women have no power. None.
Women as a class have are powerless. Any ‘power’ they have is simply proxy power given them by a group of men. This is nature, this is reality.
All power is, at base, violence. The iron fist may be wrapped in any number of velvet gloves, but at base the iron fist rules. Violence is power, power is violence.
Men, as a class, are the apex predator, the greatest enactors of violence our planet has ever seen. Women, as a class, are incapable of effective violence,* as women simply do not have the strength capabilities to enact effective violence, and therefore are at the mercy of men. This is reality; any system that doesn’t take into account women’s powerlessness is a denial of such.
Because women are incapable of effective violence, they have no power in their own right**, any power they may display is simply proxy power given them by men.
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This is important to know, because feminists are not the real enemy. Feminists are not the disease, they’re a symptom that would not have changed society at all if men did not change it for them.
It’s not the female judge or female bureaucrat booting you from your home and kidnapping your children, it’s the male cop (as for female cops, would a 5’4″ really be able to remove you from your home if she didn’t have men to call on?). It wasn’t women who decided Roe vs. Wade or gave women the vote. It wasn’t women who passed the Title IX, the Equal Pay Act, or the VAWA. It’s not feminists who own Jezebel, Gawker, Slate, or Salon. These things only happen because men do them.
Women only have the power that is given to them by one class of men who are using modern, feminist women as weapons against the rest of society. If they were not being used as tools, feminists would be powerless. If it were not for the men trying to destroy our society by female ’empowerment’, the modern women would be powerless.
There is no power balance between men and women. There is only a power balance between men who desire civilization and men who hate civilization (or at least love the pleasures of the flesh and harems more), the women follow the lead of whichever group of men they choose to follow. Sadly, the men who hate civilization offer temporarily pleasing but ultimately self-destructive gibmedats, while civilization can only offer a life of duty and future for civilization.
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* If you don’t believe me, try a test: if you are a man, the next time you shake a woman’s hand don’t hold back, if you are a woman, ask a man you know to shake your hand as he would shake a man’s hand (this won’t work with a limp-wristed mangina). There is a .01% of women capable of physically matching the average man. This is not significant.
** Women do have a specific power: women are wonderful. Men like women and will got to great lengths to protect, provide for, and please women they see as being in their care.
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.
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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.
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.
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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.
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.
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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.
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.”
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 wreakingterrifyingdamage. A group of male humans can execute almost unfathomablelevels of destruction.
In addition to being capable of mass destruction, the male human is naturally inclinedtowardsviolence.
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 wondersbeyondimagination.
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.
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.
****
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; hewillalmostalwaysbesingle. Patriarchal marriage reduces a male’s inclinations to violence.
I came across this article from some feminist who, according to the little blurb at the bottom, has written for “Jezebel, The Frisky, The Huffington Post and The Good Men Project.” In it she complains of the incivility of men in public:
It’s a drizzly Friday in Chicago and I’m leaving a bar with my roommate sometime after midnight. We’re on a quest for tacos and we’re discussing the finer points—Should we get pork or beef? From where? How many?—when you decide to make our conversation your business. You’ve been loitering outside the bar with your friends, but you hear the word “taco” and soon you’re in lock step with us, asking us about our “tacos,” laughing, hooting back to your friends. We push past—literally shoving you—and continue on our way.
Here are some things you should know about my week: I’m on the phone with my mom on my way to yoga when a guy leans out of a doorway, drags on his cigarette and gestures with his pelvis how much he is enjoying my yoga pants. I’m walking home from the grocery store and a middle-aged guy, maybe high, maybe drunk, yells at me, “Get back here, girl!” I’m waiting for the bus when a carful of bros whips by; one leans out the passenger window, points at the girls waiting at the bus stop and yells, “Yes, Yes, No…Yes!” After work, I’m walking from the train to my apartment and four teenagers are trailing me, discussing my body, guessing measurements; they know I can hear them.
This behaviour causes her to feel unsafe. This is understandable as she is a young woman and these men are quite obviously under-civilized brutes; rape or violence would not seem to be an impossibility in some of these situations and given the inherent physical inequalities between the sexes there is little she could do to defend herself (excepting carrying a gun, which someone who writes for Jezebel is unlikely to do).
This is not my issue with what she has written. The incivility of modern times sometimes irks me as well, although, as a tall, broad-shouldered man with confident bearing, I rarely worry for my physical safety.
Rather, my issue is that, as feminists are wont to do, she blames “the patriarchy” for the incivility of ruffians.
She, of course, being an miseducated feminist is oblivious to the twin facts that:
1) Men being uncivil is not “the patriarchy”, it is the breakdown of the patriarchy. It is men being freed from the constraints which the patriarchy put upon them.
2) The left-wing feminist politics she advocates are the primary cause of this breakdown.
Because of this her analysis, such that it is, is flawed.
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Men’s sexuality, absent civilizational constraint, is naturally aggressive and promiscuous. These men laughing at a woman’s “taco”, grabbing ass, and doing pelvic-thrusts, are acting out their natural sexuality.
At one point in our society, this would have been unacceptable behaviour. Under the old order, lovingly referred to as the patriarchy, but probably more accurately referred to as civilization, civility towards woman was standard; it was called chivalry.
Men raised under this order would have been loath to issue even a mild oath in the presence of a woman, let alone crassly harass a woman over her “tacos”. Had a man been uncivilized enough to harass a woman in such a way, he would have suffered immediate consequences in the form of violence from other honourable men, and more permanent consequences from a loss of social status.
As an example of the sort of man the old order raised, we can use one Samuel Proctor, who tipped his hat towards a woman. When said woman asked what that meant he replied:
Madame, by tipping my hat I was telling you several things. That I would not harm you in any way. That if someone came into this elevator and threatened you, I would defend you. That if you fell ill, I would tend to you and if necessary carry you to safety. I was telling you that even though I am a man and physically stronger than you, I will treat you with both respect and solicitude. But frankly, Madame, it would have taken too much time to tell you all of that; so, instead, I just tipped my hat.”
A man raised in the old order as Mr. Proctor was, would never have even considered joking about a woman’s “tacos”.
Civilization was used to control men’s natural sexual aggressiveness to create men like Mr. Proctor, who acted civilized and would control their aggressive sexuality for the betterment of society and the safety of women.
Some decades ago, a cabal of dissatisfied women under the label of feminism and a small, but vocal minority under the banner of affiliated progressive ideologies decided they did not care for civilization and its constraints. They rebelled against it and fought a long, hard ideological war to destroy it.
They won.
This cabal destroyed the old order and with it the control it had over men’s sexuality.
Men are now free to be uncivil brutes. Civilization no longer holds full sway over them.
Hence, “tacos.”
****
So, in finale:
Dear Feminist,
This is the world you desired.
You and your ideological kin spent decades ruthlessly destroying the old order which kept men civilized. You smashed the patriarchy which kept men’s naturally externalized sexuality healthly internalized and productively directed.
You denigrated the institutions which controlled men, smashed the civilization which ordered men, and have created a generation of brutes and half-men.
You asked for sexual license. Men are now free to express their sexuality without consequence.
You asked for freedom to pursue hedonism. Men are now pursuing hedonism.
You asked to be freed from the rules of civilized conduct. Men are now freed from these rules as well.
You rejected your role as a lady. Men are rejecting their role as gentlemen.
These rules were made to protect you, dear woman. The patriarchy was made for your benefit. The old order existed to serve you.
You desired, nay demanded, them destroyed, and destroyed they have been.
When you destroy civilization, incivility will be the order of the day.
Some chick at the Atlantic is asking for chivalry to come back. As is standard is many modern pro-chivalry arguments, she is talking only of men treating women as special, not about women’s corresponding duties under chivalry.
At one point in the article she asks:
Feminists want men to treat women as equals; traditionalists want men to treat women like ladies. Are the two mutually exclusive?
She then goes on about some stupidity about respect and civility.
The simple answer though is yes.
Chivalry and equality are not and can not exist simultaneously.
Chivalry is based in a hierarchical world-view and can not be separated from that worldview.
Chivalry is far more than simple respect and civility. Chivalry is a code whereby the stronger and superior man (the knight) extends his strength and protection to his inferiors who were too weak to protect themselves (women and children).*
In the chivalric hierarchy knights were strong protectors, women were weak and in need of protection. Inherent inequality is built into chivalry.
In exchange for this protection, women submitted to men and acted like ladies. They complemented the men’s strength.
Chivalry rested on this traditional order of society, where inequality and feminine submission is an accepted fact of life. Without this old order, chivalry is impossible.
****
Besides inherent inequality, chivalry also requires on other thing: that women act like ladies.
If either of those two conditions is broken then chivalry can not exist. Any acts you do to be “chivalrous” are nothing more than chumphood and supplication.
A lady was originally a noblewomen. Over time, in romantic chivalry it came to refer to a virtuous women. Nowadays, its usually used as somewhat more polite/formal term for women. Only ladies deserve gentlemen, a term with similar origins and complementary meanings as that of lady.
Fundamental to the conception of both the lady and the gentleman is the concept of honour. A man’s honour in the romantic realm was found in his protection of and graciousness towards women. A women’s honour was found in her chastity and her graciousness towards men.
We already know how a gentleman acts; we call it chivalry. So, I will not go further into his duties. But how does a lady act?
A lady is chaste; she does not slut it up, she does not dress like a cheap hooker, she does not tease, and her flirting is light, discrete, and indirect. A lady does not compete with men. A lady acts with propriety and decorum; she is gentle, polite, well-mannered. A lady is feminine, she knows her nature and acts according to it. A lady is beautiful; she knows that her natural god-given beauty is a delight for the rest of the world, so she seeks to maintain it rather than destroy it. A woman who acts this way is deserving of chivalry.
Chivalry is for ladies. It is not for modern, independent women.
****
Women, you have a choice.
You can like ladies and accept either inequality or submission or you can cast these off.
If you decide to act like ladies, men can act like gentleman and be chivalrous in return.
If you decide to act like modern, independent women, then you have made the choice to reject chivalry. If you ask for men to be chivalrous, all you are asking for is unearned privilege. You sound like a spoiled brat.
If you do not hold up your end of the chivalric bargain, why the hell should men be expected to hold up their end?
Do not ask for or expect chivalry; in fact, you should be repulsed by chivalry.
Enjoy your hook-ups.
****
At this point some may be wondering if I am anti-chivalry. The answer to that is no, I am very pro-chivalry.
But chivalry exists as a part of the old order. Apart from that old order it is meaningless.
I am pro-chivalry, because I believe in resurrecting that old order. Within that old order, chivalry is a wonderful thing for both men and women. Outside that order, it is nothing.
As long as the old order remains buried, no male has a general duty of duty towards women.
In fact, every male should refuse to extend chivalry to a modern, equal, independent woman.
****
If you are thinking of being chivalrous ask yourself three questions:
1) Does the woman I am about to be chivalrous think she is my equal?
2) Does the woman I am about to be chivalrous to think a women’s place is to submit to a man?**
3) Does this women I am about to be chivalrous comport herself as a lady?
If the answer to the first is yes and the second is no, treat her as the equal she believes herself to be. (If you do not know the answer, use social cues to determine the likely answer).
Do not give her chivalry. Do not hold the door open for her. Do not pay for her. Do not fight for her. Do not die for her.
As well, I would suggest not marrying her, but that’s an argument distinct from chivalry.
To give chivalry to any women who believes she is equal to you is to insult her. Chivalry implies and necessitates inferiority; by giving it to her you are telling her she is either inferior to or in submission to you. Given her stance on equality this should be repugnant to her.
Any women who believes they are equal yet demands chivalry is either insulting herself, selfish, or just plain stupid. Refuse to play into her stupidity.
Respect a women who thinks she’s your equal by treating her like an equal.
If the answer to the third question is no, then she is not a lady and not worthy of knightly protection. Do not waste yourself on her.
If a women acts like a lady, and believes in either male superiority or complementarianism, then be chivalrous. She is submitting to you, your protection, and your providence and is deserving of having it provided to her. Do not fail her.
****
* The worldview of the chivalric code was also based on militarism, fuedalism, and Christianity. From these flowed other parts to the code such as knightly honour, duties to countrymen/Christians, and duties to God, which are also intrinsic to the code, but these aspects are not what most discuss when talking of chivalry nowadays. For this particular post, chivalry will refer only to knightly duties to women as distinct from the other parts of the code, unless otherwise stated. I’m not sure if it is possible for the part of the code dealing with knightly duties to women can be separated from the rest of the code and remain logically coherent, but in practice it has been, so I will assume for this post that it can be.
** This second question allows for complementarians/first mates who may hold to metaphysical equality, but not practical equality. I would argue that practical inequality is all that is fully necessary for chivalry to be extended, so complementarians and first mates should be provided with the protection of chivalry. But I could see where it could be debatable to hold metaphysical inequality as being necessary for chivalry; in which case you would withhold chivalry from most complementarians/first mates.
The simple fact is that if you are to be a patriarch, finding a wife who wants a full quiver is essential.
Despite the grinding, remorseless slog that is online dating, I still have a couple profiles, and invest a minimal amount of time in them (about once or twice a week I login, check who’s new within my parameters, and send a short message or two if anyone’s interesting).
Like most men, I do most of the primary messaging, but I do get a small amount of messages (about one every month or two) from women who I did not contact beforehand. The women who send me unsolicited messages always came in one of two categories:
She is overweight/unattractive and reeking of desperation. Often women in this group don’t even seem to have read my profile. (Hint: If a guy says he is looking for a Christian wife and wants lots of children, he will not respond positively to messages from an atheist who doesn’t want marriage or children. Exception: She is offering very easy sex, in which case he might be tempted into entertaining thoughts of carnal sin).
She is in her late-20s or early-30s (ie. older than me) and her profile shows her as being very interested in having children.
After initially trying to be polite by replying to these, I’ve since stopped replying to both groups after a bad experience where some polite responses to a girl I was not interested in broke down into receiving lengthy hysterical messages outlining how awesome she thought she was, along with an extended detailing of her life story after I declined her advances.
Anyhow, moving away from my digressions, the second group is what I am going to write about today.
Before I dipped my toe into the manosphere, I wondered about these women. They often seemed as desperate as the overweight women, but there didn’t seem to be any reason for it. They were fairly physically unattractive for their age and didn’t seem to have anything in their profiles that would obviously disqualify them from finding a decent man. Yet, here they were, hitting on a much younger guy, with an obvious tinge of desperation in their profiles and messages (even in my blue-pill days I was cognizant enough to know women generally preferred older men and vice versa).
I wondered why, if they were so family-oriented and wanted children so very much, they were unmarried in their late-20s or early-30s when there wasn’t any reason they shouldn’t have been able to find a decent husband much earlier.
Reading the manosphere, I’ve since realized that these women are suffering from what is often derogatorily referred to as “baby rabies”. They have lived it up in their 20s, are now hitting the wall and realizing their fertility is waning, and are desperate to get a bun in the oven before it’s too late.
(I will continue to use the term baby rabies, despite it’s moderately derogatory nature, as I can not remember another simple term for this phenomenon while writing this post).
****
So, these women suffering baby rabies are loudly proclaiming how family-oriented they are and it is very apparent how much they desire to have children.
For the MTGOW or PUA, the obvious response to the desperation of these past-their-prime women is either ignore it or take advantage of it, respectively, but how should the patriarch-to-be* respond this kind of women, when her stated goals so closely align with his own?
The same as the MGTOW’s: ignore them.
There is a fundamental difference between a traditional women looking to raise a large family and a women in the grip of baby rabies.
A traditional women will plan her life around her desire to have children; raising and maintaining a family will have always been a priority for her. She will have prepared herself for this goal and learned the virtues necessary to meet this goal.
On the other hand, a women in the grip of baby rabies has not made raising a family a priority. She is merely responding to an emotional impetus pushed on her by her changing hormones and has not prepared herself for the demanding task of raising children.
There is a fundamental difference between a women whose goal is to be a wife and mother and a women who is experiencing baby rabies.
Do not mistake the two.
****
The question then becomes, how does a young man distinguish the two?
The most obvious and easiest to observe answer is age.
On the other hand, a women in her 30’s(or older) has very obviously not made raising a family a priority, otherwise she would already be married and raising children. If you want to be a patriarch, do not marry a women this old, whatever her potential virtues, she does not have the same goals as you.
****
Now, you may have noticed I didn’t include women aged 25-29. That’s because these women are not so cut and dry.
They aren’t as obviously in the throes of baby rabies as older women, but at that age, you wonder why, if a family is of such a priority to them, they have waited until past their prime fertility to get serious about marriage.
I would say to generally avoid them, but would not categorically reject a woman in that age range as I would those in one in her 30s. If they have enough other virtues and their reason for not getting married earlier is not silly, they may be worth considering.
But be cautious, use your judgment.
****
Now, some may raise objections to my eliminating women in their 30s out of hand and advising against women in their late 20s, but the patriarch is looking for a particular type of women, one for whom marriage and children are a high priority.
A women who waits until her late-20s or 30s to pursue marriage has amply demonstrated that marriage and children are not a high priority for her.
What of her education and career?
A bachelors can be achieved by the age of 21, so that’s not really an excuse.
Even if it was, a women who pursues an education and career above a marriage and family, self-evidently puts the former as a higher priority.
That’s fine, it’s her choice, but it does mean that she is not a good candidate for a patriarch looking for wife whose highest priority is family.
But what if she didn’t have the opportunity to marry?
What if she couldn’t find a good man?
She did have opportunity; she didn’t take it. She did find a good man, she rejected him.
Women have a lot of options of the marriage market when they are young; most men would be surprised (and jealous) of how many they do have. Even a woman with below average marriage market value will have far more opportunities to pursue marriage handed to her with minimal effort than even the highest value men will get through huge outlays of effort.
You average women will have met a large number of decent guys throughout her late-teens or early-20s. If she has not married one of them that shows that she either:
Puts a low priority on marriage and children, in which case she is not what a patriarch is looking for.
Had some flaws that were strong enough that no other decent man pursue he and propose to her, in which case sound judgment would warn any other man to avoid her.
Has far too unrealistic standards of her husband. Anybody who marries her will not be able to live up to them (that includes you, you’re not special), setting the stage for a bad marriage.
She has been open to many suitors and either dated a large number of them or simply had one or two long-term relationships that went nowhere. She didn’t end up marrying them because, for whatever reason, none of the men she dated were of sufficient quality for marriage. In this case, she has shown that she has a history of poor choices regarding the type of men she has allowed into her life. These poor choices shows that she has poor judgment in men, which likely means poor judgment in other areas of life. Poor judgment is not something any patriarch should want to attach themselves to. (Either that or see #3;they were of sufficient quality, she just had unrealistic standards).
A women who is still single by her late-20s is simply not the kind of women any patriarch should be looking to marry. She may be a good women, but she is not the type of women a patriarch should choose.
****
Even if we assume that, somehow, her failure to be married and raising children already are not due to her own choices, there are other considerations that are simply unavoidable at that age.
There is, of course, the biological fact that a women in her 30s is rapidly losing her fertility and there likely won’t be enough time to raise a large family before infertility and/or a high risk of mutation strikes. Even for a women in her late 20s: if you take the time to court her (say a year), then have a child every two years, you’re approaching her 40s by the time you get to child five, which is a bit late to be having children. The amount of children you will be able to have will be limited.
As well, simply living independently for a decade or so following high school/college is itself a problem. By that time, a women will have adapted to her situation as an independent, single adult with little responsibility. Re-adapting back to the interdependence of a marriage will likely present a challenge for her (and her husband). In addition, adapting to the responsibility of a child (let alone many children) at that age following so many years of a lack of responsibility may prove problematic.
****
What of men in their 30s; should young women looking for a patriarch avoid them? It’s kind of sexist to have a double standards.
First, I am writing for young men, not for women and am focusing on what young men should concentrate on. Women have their own things to look for, which I might write about at another time, but this post is not aimed at them.
Second, it’s not a double standard, it’s two different standards. Men and women have different priorities for potential mates. Stop trying to force women’s priorities on men.
Third, a man has not likely had the same opportunities as a women for marriage. As the pursuers in the marriage market place, men do not have the same overwhelming array of options handed to tham from which to choose that women do. They have to work very hard simply to have a small fraction of the options open to your average young woman. (Take heart young man, the situation reverses itself sometime in your 30s). He may have pursued many women who he thought might make good potential wives, without being overly picky, and been shot down by all.
As well, his fertility will last him well into middle/old age, so that worry is off the table.
That being said, there are a couple problems a young women might face with a man in his 30s (or older). He may be approaching the age where his children may be at higher risk of mutation. Also, he has likely gotten used to living independently, just as women have, and will face the same problems settling down.
****
Age by itself is not a perfect guide. For a younger women, rather than being a traditional women wanting to be a patriarch’s helpmeet, she may simply be a gold-digger or someone who believes raising children and being dependent is easier than working. I’m not going to get into that at this time, but will give you this link (which I’ve already used thrice above; read it is essential to this post) once again.
Other things you can look for two distinguish between the two:
Desperation: A traditional women will be looking for a husband, but in a calm, sensible manner. A women with baby rabies will have a tinge of desperation to her.
Singular Focus: Is she focusing on the marriage, you, and children more or less equally, or does her primary focus seem to be having children, while marriage and her potential partner seem secondary?
Particularity: Related to that, does she want your children (or at least a good man’s children) or does she not seem to very selective about who fathers her children?
Preparedness: Has she prepared herself to be a good wife and mother (see previous link) or does she seem to just be acting impulsively?
Timing: Has she always wanted to be a mother, or is this something that just recently appeared for no good reason?
Number: Does she want just one designer baby to fulfill her itch or is she looking to raise a whole family?
That’s probably not a complete list; I’m sure others will have things I missed in the comments. The thing is to recognize that there are potential pitfalls and that just because she says she’s family-oriented and wants children does not necessarily make it so. Use your judgment and consider things rationally to come to the choice that fits your life goals.
****
Just to head off some objections I’m sure will come up.
Aren’t you being judgmental?
Why, yes I am. Thank you for noticing.
Anybody who is not extremely judgmental in choosing the person to whom they are swearing a solemn oath before God, the state, and their family to spend the rest of their lives with is a fool. Anybody who is not even more extremely judgmental in choosing the woman who will be the mother of their his children is an abject fool.
This goes for women as well. If you aren’t extremely judgmental about the kind of man you consider marrying and fathering your children, you are a fool.
This is not to say young men and women should make a large list of stupid superficial requirements for potential mates. Use your reason. Judge on the important things: loyalty, reliability, judgment, shared values, work ethic, shared morality, religion, family attitudes, sexual attractiveness, etc., while being forgiving on the superficial/small things.
This is probably the most important earthly decision you will make in your life. Do not be too compromising.
Aren’t you being unfair about *******? What of *******? Isn’t ******* an exception?
Life’s unfair. Get used to it.
Also, NAWALT, I know.
I am giving young men some rules of thumb to help them make the best decision they can. It is up to them to apply them using their own discretion and judgment.
Rather than whining about how others are unfair and judgmental and how you deserve something just because, look at your own choices and try to change them so you are best able to achieve your goals.
If having a family is important to you, make choices that reflect their importance.
You’re an asshole.
Probably, but that’s irrelevant.
****
Despite my prior dismissal of exceptions, I will note one.
There is the rare exception of the early widow. A women who married (or was engaged) young and was a loyal, loving wife (or fiance), but whose husband (or husband-to-be) died tragically early, is a special circumstance. A widow will likely come with some extra emotional needs (and possibly previous children), but if you are willing and able to comfort and emotionally support her (and raise her children), she could make an excellent wife for the young future patriarch (assuming she meets the other basic requirements you should have).
A faithful widow would also probably make an ideal marriage candidate for an older widower or man who’s been cheated on and/or abandoned by his wife. All things being equal, she would likely would be a much better potential wife (and mother) than either a divorcee or a women who has put off marriage to much later in her life.
* All of the above advice is written particularly for young men in their 20s/early-30s looking to become patriarchs, but anyone else looking to marry should take heed.
I came across this article (h/t: Instapundit) about the squeeze middle-aged folks, particularly women, are under as they are stressed caring for both their children and their aging parents. According to the article, it is supposedly difficult and stressful to care “for both their children and their aging parents while also managing their income-generating jobs and keeping their partners happy–all at the same time.”
To which the only possible response is: no duh.
It is difficult, if not impossible, because nobody was ever meant to do all that at once. People simply do not have the time and energy to deal with children, old people, a career, and other activities at the same time.
Traditionally, there have always been societal and biological mechanisms to deal with this, but, over the last few decades, we’ve decided to spit in the face of both.
Throughout history, these mechanisms have varied. Tribal structures, villages, and the like made raising children and taking care of old people a community thing for most people. Combined with the typical “low” age of average death, “early” child-bearing ages, and large families things mostly worked themselves out.
When people started living longer and tribal and community ties began to die due to the mass dislocations caused by industrialization and urbanization, society adapted by adopting what we now know of as the traditional nuclear family in the early 20th century. Combined with some help from local churches and community organizations this worked fairly well, reaching its apex in the decades following war boom.
In the nuclear family model, the family adopts a division of labour to help the running of the household. The husband works and the wife takes care of the family. Families have many kids and they have them at a young age, so when they get old, the children can care for their parents.
Given the realities of modern, mass society, this structure works.
Having children young (in your late teens/early 20s) provided future children to take care of you and makes it so that by the time you need to take care of your elders, your children are already nearing self-sufficiency. It means that you have your youthful vigor to raise your children when you need. (Did you ever think of why you are able to go with minimal and erratic sleep when you’re young? It’s because it lets you physically handle the realities of a squalling infant unable to tell time. You are not built to naturally be able to take care of young children in your 30s and 40s, you lose the vigor necessary to do so as you age.)
Having lots of children meant that there would be enough people to take care of you when you aged without it being an undue burden on any single child.
Having the wife stay home provided the family with a person who had the time to take care of the children. She had time to take care of elderly relatives. She had the time to take care of sick family members.
There was no generational squeeze, because the division of labour and proper family planning inherent in the nuclear family model gave each individual only what they could actually handle and there was no undue burden on any single family member.
****
When feminists, and others, criticize the “housewife”, they miss the importance the housewife has for modern, mass society. Absent the traditional bonds of tribe and villages, anomie was destroying people in an urbanized, industrial environment.The development of the housewife held this back.
The housewife may not contribute to “GDP” but she contributes something just as important, she socially bonds the family together and bonds the family to the rest of the community. She has time to take care of dependent family members. She has time to develop meaningful relationships in the neigbourhood and the family’s social circle. She had time to support local organizations and by taking care of the household, she gave the husband time to support them.
The bread-winning husband is economically productive, while the housewife is socially productive.
In a modern, urban society, social productivity is as essential to the health of society as economic productivity, as the natural social relations and community of a tribal or village lifestyle simply do not exist. But building community takes time, something people working full-time, while taking care of children, simply do not have. The housewife had this time.
She has time to get to get to know Edna down the street and develop a meaningful relationship, which would then transfer into a meaningful family relationship, building community. If Edna’s husband, Bill broke his leg and couldn’t work, her neighbour, the housewife, would have the time to comfort them; she would prepare meals, look after Edna’s children, provide emotional support, run errands, etc., which she was able to do because she had time. She would know that Edna would do the same if something happened to her family.
The housewife would build community where community did not naturally exist.
****
But, some sections of society (read: leftists and feminists) were unhappy with this adaptation to modern society and set out to destroy it.
The traditional, nuclear family was “oppressive” and being a housewife was unfulfilling, so patriarchy had to be destroyed. (Because working 40 hours in a dead-end office job simply to expand your ability to mindlessly consume was somehow more fulfilling than meaningful community).
The housewife was replaced by a second provider. The traditional family replaced by the broken family. Social productivity was exchanged for economic productivity, with little real benefit.
The squeeze occurred, as no one is able to work full-time, raise children, care for elders, and develop community. There is simply not enough time in the day and peopel simply do not have that much energy.
****
So, how was the squeeze handled?
The traditional family was replaced by the broken family and the surrogate family.
The broken family lost the husband and father. Of course, raising a child, while also providing for this family is brutally hard work, almost impossible. So, the husband and father the broken family did not have was replaced by the state, which became a surrogate husband and father. The state would offer provision through welfare, mandated leave, tax breaks, funded child care, public health care, and a wide array of other benefits.
The housewife was working and could no longer raise her children. Instead, families gave them to a surrogate mother: subsidized daycare and the public school system.
The housewife no longer had the time to take care of elderly or ill relatives and the relatives had forgone having enough children. The work of supporting them became overly onerous, it simply was impossible. So, families entrusted their elderly and ill to a surrogate child, the state. Social security, subsidized senior housing, public health care, and a wide array of government benefits replaced the family.
****
The problem with using the state as a surrogate family is twofold.
First, the state can only provide bread, but man does not live on bread alone. People need community, friends, family, and social interaction. The state is incapable of providing this; it is a cold, faceless, bureaucratic institution. The best it can do is hire a paid nurse or teacher to tolerate your company for a few hours.
The state can not build community. It can only replace community with economic transaction or destroy it.
The state can not end the squeeze, as personal relations are still necessary for the elderly, the infirm, children, and the building of community. It may alleviate is somewhat, but the squeeze remains.
Second, is the cost. The state’s coffers are not bottomless and when the benefits of social capital that were previously built by unpaid labour, now has to be built by labour paid by the state, the costs become onerous.
The state goes broke.
Greece is experiencing it. Other part of Europe will experience it soon. North America will experience it in time if her course does not reverse.
When the state goes broke, it can no longer replace community, but people have lost the community to replace the state. There can only be a void, with people left to their own devices. Those unable to repair community or provide for themselves suffer.
Without the traditional family, the squeeze is unavoidable.
****
The traditional family, particularly the housewife, was essential to building community. The state as a surrogate family has replaced the traditional family. Mindless economic production and consumerism replaced community. The bureaucratic state expanded and replaced community.
For what benefit? A squeeze on the middle, a dubious increase in material well-being, and the end to an amorphous concept of oppression.
