Post #135,835
1/15/04 1:00:03 AM
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Fundamental Units
I now understand why this problem has been so on my mind lately, because the solution is at hand - we now have a basic definition of even the mildest feminism, and can point to why even that is bad:
Feminism is the idea that the fundamental unit of society is the individual human, without regard to sex.
In fact, through all of Western history, the fundamental unit of society is the family as created through the institution of marriage. Therefore the only consistent way to implement feminism is to abandon the idea of marriage completely, and reorganize all of society around the individual from the bottom up. This means that childern will be the responsibility of either the lone individual, or everyone in the community, because that is first "derived unit" - societal molecule. I suggest that the latter is alreadly happening. You can make up your own mind when you look at your own kids, if you want it that way. -drl
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Post #135,863
1/15/04 9:39:26 AM
8/21/07 5:57:28 AM
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Yesterday's Denver Post
Had a headline that screamed "Bush to Promote Marriage".
Something about a program focused on lower income folks to provide pre-matrimonial counseling to prospective couples on interpersonal relationships. Rather akin to what most churches make you go through - only now funded with tax dollars.
So maybe this guy gets it!
Or maybe he's just pushing his conservative christian agenda. I didn't see anything on tax relief for married people. At the moment, you take a financial hit if marrying someone of similar income level.
Incidentally, today's screams "Continue the Journey" which is meant to push the space program thing but somehow brings up the lame "don't change horses in mid-stream" ads from Wag the Dog.
"I believe that many of the systems we build today in Java would be better built in Smalltalk and Gemstone."
-- Martin Fowler, JAOO 2003
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Post #135,865
1/15/04 9:42:32 AM
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Re: Yesterday's Denver Post
It's a gross perversion of the idea and exactly the opposite of what needs to happen - for government to stay out of the natural relations people have developed over millenia.
In fact such a thing demonstrates that, as far as the traditional idea of a family as basic societal unit goes, the game is over.
-drl
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Post #135,868
1/15/04 10:36:18 AM
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A question for you...
Do you think it is a gross perversion of the Government to have created cyclic welfare? Many of the "rules" were definately anti marriage and anti nuclear marriage.
After much thought, I think that many of our (people born post '50s where television ownership became ubiquitous) notions of what a family is supposed to be came from Hollywood. I can definately say that I would rather my 4 year old son watched the Andy Griffith Show (picked specifically because Andy was a widower) than Will and Grace. Some say Hollywood "reflects" society, but I think it does a little more.
There is no doubt in my ex-military mind that the women's movement had many consequences that may or may not have been planned. Such as: the best and the brightest women in the country no longer automatically went into teaching and nursing, two professions that sadly miss them. In essence, the labor pool increased by almost half, and drove wages down. This created the phenomena of two wage earners to make the equivalent of one. It also created a societal attitude that sort of demeaned women who chose to stay home and raise the kids. This is just off the top of my head...
Counter to what has been said, Congress enacted an end to the "marriage penalty" in their tax reform, it just doesn't kick in until 2006, unless we elect a Democrat as president. It seems that they are all tripping over themselves to repeal the tax cuts. Greedy dumb bastards...
Just a few thoughts,
Danno
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Post #135,887
1/15/04 11:54:32 AM
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Never mind...
I read this forum first, before I ventured into the News forum. You've answered my question in spades... In my best online Gilda voice, "nevermind".
Just a few thoughts,
Danno
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Post #135,873
1/15/04 10:52:03 AM
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Re: Fundamental Units
Throughout Western history, maybe. But Western history (specifically, Modern Western History) is but a small slice of the human endeavor. The tribe has a much broader, and longer, history as the Fundamental Unit of society, for societies both greater and (admittedly) and lesser than the vaunted Western society you so avidly defend as the penultimate of human society.
Harumph!
jb4
shrub\ufffdbish (Am., from shrub + rubbish, after the derisive name for America's 43 president; 2003) n. 1. a form of nonsensical political doubletalk wherein the speaker attempts to defend the indefensible by lying, obfuscation, or otherwise misstating that facts; GIBBERISH. 2. any of a collection of utterances from America's putative 43rd president. cf. BULLSHIT
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Post #135,876
1/15/04 10:58:16 AM
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Tribe _is_ a society
--
"It\ufffds possible to build a reasonably prosperous society that invests in its people, doesn\ufffdt invade its neighbors, opposes Israel and stands up to America. (Just look at France.)"
-- James Lileks
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Post #135,889
1/15/04 12:01:32 PM
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Fundamental Units
Yup, it's fundamental units all right - that's our problem. The traditional sturcture of Western society for thousands of years was the kingdom and all authority was vested in the king. We don't have kings any more and that's obviously the cause of all our social problems and why Levis has closed it's factories.
Our current society emphasizes the individual with little regard to birth status. Serfs are given rights similar to those of noble birth. That's just plain WRONG! - completely against traditional society, the Bible and all reason.
In a proper society what the king says goes and there's no arguing. If anyone steps out of line his head gets raised on a pike with his guts hanging down for the flies to eat. You'd better believe in the God given rights of the king, and you'd better believe in the right God or you'll be riding the one legged horse. That's what's RIGHT and conducive to a cohesive society.
Yup, the total authority of the king is the keystone of society, and lacking that, those of noble birth are troubled by having to deal with the serfs as if they were actual people rather than a variety of cattle. That serfs should have rights - how peculiar!
Yup, that's our problem and why Levis has closed its factories.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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Post #135,926
1/15/04 5:43:34 PM
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Re: Fundamental Units
This is shallow. Of all people would I deny the rights and value of the individual?
The problem is, the individual is meaningless out of context. What I am doing by identifying the family as fundamental unit is applying the idea of complementarity to society - a family is composed of individuals, but there has never been an individual who did not have a family. He may be orphaned and not know it, but it will be there in his collective unconscious. You can't just consider individuals out of context. Feminism is an attempt to redefine the context in terms of an abstraction (the State), instead of something concrete and historical (the family).
Strong families produce strong individuals. No accident.
-drl
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Post #135,930
1/15/04 5:54:07 PM
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Not used to so much hand-waving from you
"collective unconscious"? And please explain how the State is more of an abstraction than the Family.
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Post #135,934
1/15/04 6:05:45 PM
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Re: Not used to so much hand-waving from you
Uh, Fu, how does a baby zebra know that it better learn to get on its feet and be ready to book? Genetics transmits much more than eye color. No one tells a horse to get up as soon as it gets born - it "just does it".
Les Abstractoirs seem to have a low opinion of biology - curious.
-drl
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Post #135,956
1/15/04 7:13:56 PM
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Confusing sex with marriage
This thread started with you saying feminists want to abolish marriage. Now you're trying to prop up marriage (a social institution) with genetic inheritance? 'Tain't concrete, McGee--marriage is just as much an abstraction as is the State; in most societies, the State defines (usually perpetuates) and enforces marriage norms.
Regardless, you seem to be on the verge of saying that people who have no Opposite-Sex-Significant-Other are "meaningless". So why should we listen to *you*, oh great self-proclaimed individual? :D
I was one of the original authors of VB, and *I* wouldn't use VB for a text
processing program. :-) Michael Geary, on comp.lang.python
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Post #135,960
1/15/04 7:20:44 PM
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Re: Confusing sex with marriage
I apparently don't communicate very well :)
Actually I started these threads because I have had a vague sense that feminism has done a lot of unanticipated societal damage. I see the damage all around me and want to understand it.
It's very difficult to communicate intuitions, particularly when they are emotionally charged.
(Biologically, individuals who aren't getting any *are* failures, but I never claimed that applied to humans. Of course it *is* in a sense a sad thing to be "out of the life loop" by having no family, as I can personally attest.)
-drl
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Post #135,961
1/15/04 7:22:50 PM
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I suspect you're looking at the wrong cause.
I'd put a lot more damage of the type you're talking about at the feet of the advertising industry and at the gigantic change in the distribution of income/assets that have happened over the last forty years or so.
For example, if you read texts dating from the Great Depression and the Gilded Age, it's very apparent that the family was in pretty poor shape back then, too.
--\n-------------------------------------------------------------------\n* Jack Troughton jake at consultron.ca *\n* [link|http://consultron.ca|http://consultron.ca] [link|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca] *\n* Kingston Ontario Canada [link|news://news.consultron.ca|news://news.consultron.ca] *\n-------------------------------------------------------------------
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Post #135,967
1/15/04 7:30:44 PM
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Re: I suspect you're looking at the wrong cause.
The key factor is divorce rates and "divorce shame". It's hard for us to believe, but divorce used to be a very shameful thing. An act that carries a lot of shame, gets that way by being actually bad for society.
-drl
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Post #135,969
1/15/04 7:34:40 PM
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Yeah,
'course, in the old days, they'd just take off. This happened a lot, esp. in the lower classes.
--\n-------------------------------------------------------------------\n* Jack Troughton jake at consultron.ca *\n* [link|http://consultron.ca|http://consultron.ca] [link|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca] *\n* Kingston Ontario Canada [link|news://news.consultron.ca|news://news.consultron.ca] *\n-------------------------------------------------------------------
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Post #136,132
1/16/04 12:56:56 PM
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Bad for society?
Sexuality in humans is extremely powerful. Evolution has changed and expanded its roll far beyond the simple reproductive function it formerly had. Sexuality has developed into a major cohesive factor in our society.
The power of sexuality is instinctively recognized by every repressive regime, whether church or state, and their first move is to harness that power by controlling sexuality. To this end "social norms" are created that yield control of sexuality to the state or to the church. These norms are enforced by regime instituded "shame", and by laws.
Repressive regimes have gone so far as to be the main provider of sex to important populations (military and police). Note the brothels run by both the Nazi and Japanese governments as recent examples. This gives the state ultimate control over this most powerful social factor.
Note the reluctance of the population to support war during the sexually permissive '60s. That is why every repressive regime, whether church or state, fears a liberalizing of sexuality above all else and will move to maximize the "shame" of stepping out of it's control.
"Feminism" is a movement that breaks sexual repression for a huge and formerly heavily repressed population, thus is feared by church, state, and others who benefit by the status quo - or who are simply unaware of the repression under which they live.
Does "feminism" cause social disruption? Yes it does. So did the fall of kings (which began when people started taking their meals in their private (family) quarters rather than at their lord's long table - a practice loudly decried as destructive to society).
For those who do not care for repression this is not a problem, we can work it out just fine. The functions of "family" will survive, perhaps in greatly altered form, but will survive. The "family" is a fairly recent concept anyway (see "kings" above).
For those more comfortable with repression, the liberation of "feminism" is disruptive and uncomfortable. Too fsck'n bad.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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Post #136,137
1/16/04 1:04:13 PM
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+5 Thought provoking. Thanks.
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Post #136,140
1/16/04 1:12:45 PM
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Re: Bad for society?
Depsite your assumption, sex was never regarded as shameful - talking about it was in poor taste. Obviously people have been humping away forever. The Victorians were, I'm sure, inveterate humpers. Pay close attention, for example, to an old movie, say, one from the 40s when the censors were most active - you'll hear all kinds of sexual innuendo but no cussing and no explicit humping. The women of that day exert a powerful sexuality that need not be discussed because it is so obvious.
I mean shameful in the Japanese sense - that certain behaviors would damage your honor and this injury would be as permanent as losing an arm.
Also - despite their reputation for liberation, the 60s were nothing compared to the 40s. The apparent "sex revolution" of the 60s was simply the lifting of the ban on discussion combined with available, effective contraception for women. The 20s were wild in comparison, and the 40s were dripping (no pun intended) with sex from every possible direction - possibly any era coming after a great catastrophe like the first War and the Depression is charged with sexual energy.
About the 60s - the thing that in my mind really distinguishes them - the rise of vanity in men as an indication of the rejection of the Actual Masculine for "wrestling masculine". The classical "virtues" (vir = man) were suddenly less important. Thus the sex revolution of the 60s is really one that took place in men, not women. Women had their sex revolution in the 40s.
-drl
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Post #136,146
1/16/04 1:19:32 PM
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What are you smoking?
"Virgin at marriage" is an explicit shame-inducing state (set up and controlled by religion, as Andrew pointed out). If you were female and weren't a virgin when you were married, you were considered unclean.
Regards,
-scott anderson
"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
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Post #136,156
1/16/04 1:30:36 PM
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Re: What are you smoking?
This was never actually a virtue - I asked my Dad about the attitudes of his day. He said there were always loose girls, but even "nice" girls would "put out", and this was in a small Georgia town. During his war experience as a 19-23 year old in the states (E. St. Louis, Florida, Nevada) and later England, having a fling was as easy as the asking. The old saw for a successful liberty was "stewed, screwed, and tatooed". The key thing was secrecy. Very little has changed other than the age at which people become sexualized and the ease with which it is discussed. You can pretty much discard all religious banter as this was just as ignored in the past as it is now, only people are far more willing to admit it.
[link|http://www.jackinworld.com/library/articles/kinsey.html|http://www.jackinwor...icles/kinsey.html]
50 percent of women and 67 percent of men had premarital sex in the 40s - and this was based on who would admit it.
Even less talked about than POMWS (plain old man-woman sex) is chicken-choking, a nearly universal behavior that did not even come up in movies.
-drl
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Post #136,160
1/16/04 1:36:11 PM
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Re: What are you smoking?
The key thing was secrecy. Because if you weren't secret about it, you were given to feel shame. Thanks for making my point. Regards,
-scott anderson
"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
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Post #136,161
1/16/04 1:41:47 PM
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Re: What are you smoking?
It wasn't "shame" - it was something that you didn't talk about, like picking your nose (the Kinsey report has small print that states "97% of men have dug for gold, and most succeeded"). That's not shame, it's "good manners". Among friends, I'm sure that my Dad and his pals talked about nothing more than nailing girls. Well, maybe fishing and hunting.
-drl
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Post #136,163
1/16/04 1:46:22 PM
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No, you're wrong.
Maybe by the 50s/60s, but back in Victorian days (and before) it was shame. If you were discovered to be less than virginal, you were an outcast and not considered to be marriage material.
Regards,
-scott anderson
"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
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Post #136,166
1/16/04 1:57:47 PM
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Re: No, you're wrong.
Then why were the streets of London and Paris crawling with prostitutes, who were mainly ignored by the law, unless it was to regulate them the same way as the Queen's Pint? The idea of a staid, uptight Victorian age is a complete myth. Cocaine and opium use were widespread among the upper classes (who could afford the leisure time to enjoy them). Free, non-binding sex was everywhere - most likely including pedophilia and other "perversions".
[link|http://www.umd.umich.edu/casl/hum/eng/classes/434/charweb/zablocki3.htm|http://www.umd.umich...web/zablocki3.htm]
[link|http://www.umd.umich.edu/casl/hum/eng/classes/434/charweb/zablocki1.htm|http://www.umd.umich...web/zablocki1.htm]
A female unescorted immigrant to the US was tacitly assumed to be a prostitute.
-drl
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Post #136,167
1/16/04 1:59:50 PM
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For the men, not the women.
Regards,
-scott anderson
"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
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Post #136,170
1/16/04 2:10:57 PM
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Exactly!
In the Victorian Age, you were either considered a proper virgin or a loose woman. The loose women were all over, granted, but the prostitutes of that day were still looked down upon with shame. In fact, IF I remember correctly, there were even establishments which wouldn't allow prostitutes to enter or be served there, or frequent the place of business.
However, the men never viewed the prostitutes with a shameful-view, other than when questioned about it by wives or other upright abiding citizens. So they essentially looked down on the loose women only when it suited their needs. BUT, if one of THEIR daughters behaved as such, the men were deeply ashamed of their child and looked down on them.
Nightowl >8#
"It is understanding that gives us an ability to have peace. When we understand the other fellow's viewpoint, and he understands ours, then we can sit down and work out our differences." Harry S. Truman
"Whenever you're in conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the difference between damaging your relationship and deepening it. That factor is attitude." Timothy Bentley
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Post #136,168
1/16/04 2:03:31 PM
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Re: No, you're wrong.
I agree. Even in my day, the 70's/80's, having premarital sex was considered to be a shameful act, by just about everyone I knew that was older. Now, the kids themselves, well that was different, but the adults in that age, considered it shameful and that you had "ruined" yourself for marriage, and all sorts of things.
Nightowl >8#
"It is understanding that gives us an ability to have peace. When we understand the other fellow's viewpoint, and he understands ours, then we can sit down and work out our differences." Harry S. Truman
"Whenever you're in conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the difference between damaging your relationship and deepening it. That factor is attitude." Timothy Bentley
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Post #136,259
1/17/04 4:03:00 AM
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Don't skip so fast over The Pill
- the true emancipator, because whatever one's personal view of exchanging precious bodily fluids - THAT was the palpable (burpable) Damocles over every pleasurable event. Population pressures decree that: desire for children shall be ameliorated, perhaps replaced with eXtreme Segway Sports. 'Til there are fewer huddled masses, but about the same number of bundled pairs.
And that genie ain't Never goin back into the bottle, whatever the morphing conception of 'family' becomes (many now find they prefer to select their own family; screw the accident of birth and weird Uncle Porky and his brood). 'Course the Mormons and a few are obsessed with genealogy; such shall always be with us.
Millenium: when everyone finally acknowledges that, we are *all* Mongrels.
Atilla the Hunk
Arf
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Post #136,261
1/17/04 4:41:41 AM
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True but overrated
..because it was not foolproof, had severe side effects including the dreaded fatness, was enjoined among Catholics, and in any case the Urge always found a Way. Again, men were the "beneficiaries" mostly, as now sport fucking was less likely to require an visit to an alley doctor.
-drl
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Post #135,975
1/15/04 8:08:00 PM
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I think you communicate a certain sense
re the (more than just normal Machiavellian daily effects) of making Capitalism ones's raison d'etre. My intuition of that predicament isn't much different from what you have suggested.
Methinks though, that you are forgetting a (once demonstrated) deeper understanding of the pop-fantasy we (and, even many 'scientists') love to call Causality. Just like the String Boys do.
Assigning the current morass within the minds of those Ever Searching for --> MORE {material crap to 'own'} -- and the me-me-me whining, whilst grovelling for that-same-More, no matter what -- assigning that to 'feminism' as root cause? Red Herring #n. Surely, when well(-er) you can do better than that, despite your admitted relative-disconnect re 'social skills'.
But where we appear to ~agree: Murican culture reflects the hollowness of its Aims, the shallowness of its thinking about the repeatedly demonstrated consequences of crass materialism. (All abetted by the omnipresent Noise on all channels and elevators, natch)
This root-cause (IMO) is now into crisis mode, as this National solipsism alienates ex-friend and foe alike, via the machinations of a certifiably-loony band of (yes - Narcissists ;-) who are directing the vacuous puppet they -but especially Rove- groomed precisely for the task.
Want a single-point-of failure to affix personal blame? nee 'causality'?
I nominate one Karl Rove, the Svengali who successfully kept the brain-dead Shrub pretending to be Governor (of a state which -fortunately- gives little power to its Executive.) Without Rove, the PNAC would still be stewing in its visceral juices, subverting.. subverting.. pining and masturbating (for such folk: that's Thinking Political Coups Yet-to-come).
Never mind 'feminists' for now: these Troglodytes have no slightest acquaintance with theirs (or anyone's) emotional center. They are marlowes, but with very much more manipulative skill, and well-honed scripted dissemination of daily blab-words (though their rhetoric betrays their inhumanity, their abject unacquaintance with Heart). Words of feeling ever stick hollowly in their craws; are seen to be caricatures of "heart-felt". Dead eyes.
This last incompetence - even to Fake That: I expect to be the final undoing of this sordid chapter in Murican profligacy. Expect is too strong; no one has ever fully plumbed the depths of Murican group-naivete; so call it - Hope.
(Then we can return to.. The Proper Roles for Men and Women in a culture cleansed of resistant-strains of toxic Puritanism: in another decade, mayhap?)
Ashton anti-Causality,
in most non-physics, non-material masques of speech
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