Monogamy, Polygamy, Socialism, Madness
A reader writes:
That’s not what modern gender theory dictates, though. So the misunderstanding is with you, perhaps as a result of hearing it explained by people who didn’t understand it or those with agenda benefited by misleading people (not your fault necessarily). Modern gender theory suggests that masculinity/feminity is in significant part a construct, but by no means a “meaningless” one. It’s hard to disagree entirely, either, when for example one looks at how many identifiers of masculinity in, say, the early 1700s, have become identifiers of feminity by the early 1900s, or how it varies between cultures. The world would be a very different place if things were as hardwired as some in the 1930s theorized, for example.
Without addressing the original topic where this remark is found, I would like to comment on the underlying assertion being made:
It is the weasel word ‘construct’ which brings into derision Modern Gender Theory (sic: he means ‘sex’ unless it is a linguistic theory). Like most modern theories, it is at once saying something perfectly obvious and saying something utterly opposite the truth, and when confronted on the point that is utterly opposite the truth, the modern blandly denies the second meaning and retreats to repeating the utterly obvious.
As for example, from the observation (utterly obvious) that human languages differ, the modern linguist concludes (utterly outrageous) that thought is conditioned hence controlled by speech. Hence the modern addiction to political correctness: as if one could abolish misogyny by substituting ‘he and she’ for ‘he’ as the genderless pronoun.
As for example again, from the observation (utterly obvious) that all men are created equal, we reach the (utterly outrageous) conclusion that all cultures are equal, the barbaric, backward, stupid and savage somehow magically indistinguishable from the civil, advanced, enlightened and cultured. Hence the modern act of civilizational suicide known as multiculturalism.
This form of argument is called ‘Motte and Bailey’ tactics, where the speaker retreats to the obvious when confronted, and pretends the outrageous is not being asserted.
It is utterly obvious that things like costume and hair styles and mannerisms of speech and conduct that are routinely used to emphasize the differences between the sexes or uses as symbols of sexual attractiveness change from time to time and nation to nation, hence are constructed, that is, manmade.
It is utterly opposite the truth to say that things like the physical, mental, and spiritual differences between the sexes are manmade.
As with any manmade object or institution, the only real question is whether the sexual roles are or are not fitted for the purposes for which they were made. The assertion, which has its roots in Frankfurt Institute ‘Critical Theory’ hence in Marx, that the role merely by being a role exploits and insults women, and acts to their benefit to the detriment of men, is absurd on its face. Mothers would not have raised even a single generation to fulfill those roles had this simplistic theory been so.
Hence the question cannot be whether there should be roles, but which should their be? The ideal of having none, or having each individual invent his own anew (which amounts to the same thing) has produced sufficient havoc in the last three generation that the question is moot. Whether nonhuman beings born under hypothetical conditions differing from ours could erect a society without social roles differing by sex is a moot question: ours cannot, and the attempt to do so has been an unmitigated disaster.
The only choice man has over the sexes and their roles is how these two fit together.
In effect, the only part of the question that is manmade is whether the social incentives will made the roles fit and complement those sexual differences (which was done in all civilization and pre-civilization prior to the current generation) or whether the social incentives defy and minimize those differences.
Human beings are altricial and mammalian, hence the young must be cared for. The three possible social arrangements for caring for the young are monogamy, polygamy and socialism.
Under polygamy, the woman’s position is that of chattel, and men enforce their rights by endless acts of violance and cruelty: see Shariah Law for details.
Under socialism, women bear bastards out of wedlock, and are supported by the state, who acts as absentee father. The young are reared without a father figure, the male turn into apelike engines of violence and the women turn into harlots. Harlot turns out not to be the fun and endless organ as proclaimed, the harlots are exploited and abused by the hyperviolent menfolk, and in ever growing numbers commit suicide or aborticide. That is the current trend.
The remaining choice is monogamy, that is, Christian marriage. In Christian marriage, the consent of the bride is required, her role as queen of the household is promoted, and the male role is a paradox of being both master and servant to her. Marriage is lifelong, which means the man cannot divorce his bride for a trophy wife or younger model later in life, and fidelity required from both partners, meaning that fornication and seduction is illegal.
This set of customs and laws requires honor be paid to mothers and virgins, whereas the barbaric alternatives of socialism and polygamy pays honors to seducers and corrupters, lotharios and loose women, those who break the family rather than maintain it.
It is quite easy to disagree entirely that anyone, male or female, has benefited from the difference in custom between 1930 and today. Contraception was unknown, women were respected and cherished, and busied themselves with the more important tasks of raising the young, and left the matters of politics, business, war and hard labor to the men. The women of that day would have been horrified, and justly so, at the piles upon piles of baby corpses left over from late term abortions which our generations has heaped into pyramids by the millions, and burned on trashheaps without the benefit of Christian burial.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
