John C. Wright's Journal

I am not obsessed with Zoe from Firefly

One of the scientific impossibilities in the television show (which sparked much heated debate in the Wright household) was the assertion in the opening credits of a “hundred new earths” being colonized in a new “solar system”. The question about terraforming and FTL is answered in movie. The whole verse is one solar system where every single planet and moon has been terraformed–rendered habitable by artificial means. There is no faster than light drive. That most of the outer system planets looked like Arizona is not any more unrealistic a conceit than that the planets could all be terraformed.

It is not unrealistic in science fiction to assume the star is not a small g-type star: a giant like Rigel might have hundreds of worlds and asteroids orbiting it. The terraforming technology could be highly advanced, able to make a greenhouse of Pluto, a garden of Venus.

Joss Whedon’s preachiness, I think, was kept to a minimum, and will not disturb anyone who is not too sensitive to it. (One has to be a little thick skinned to be a conservative Christian in these days, as in most ages: the world doesn’t like us. No big surprise.) Merely the fact that a preacher was included in the crew at all, and the preacher was not portrayed as an ax murderer or child eater or something, is a large-hearted gesture, coming from modern Hollywood, after all.

Whedon could have just as easily pulled a Pullman, and made the main badguys the Uber-Church of Evil (a la Jim Starlin’s DREADSTAR) instead of making the badguys the Union from the reconstruction. Scarlett O’Hara would approve.

Honestly. I am NOT obsessed with Zoe from Firefly.

No: I have to respectfully disagree with the criticism by Onelowerlight. FIREFLY and the movie SERENITY were both good space opera and good horse opera. In my humble opinion, Mal was a more interesting character than either Buffy or Angel, Whedon’s two other famous creations. An embittered ex-military man with a heart of gold and a longing for freedom in a world that is slowly fencing him in–that is a mature character idea, one with more dimensions to it than, let us say, a cheerleader vampire-slayer or a moody self-pitying vampire.

Whedon can portray thugs like Jayne and doctors and preachers and whores with the same sympathy and humanity–it is simply one of the better shows that has been on TV for the last ten years.

Rush out right now and buy the DVD collection.

Rome established one of the largest empires in history, held it for nearly a thousand years, and was known for having an entirely utilitarian method of warfare, relative to the way warfare was practiced by her enemies. England’s longbow archers contributed greatly to the end of the Knight dominating the battlefield in Europe, sipmly because one of them could drive an arrow straight through a heavily armored knight, without a knight ever having a chance to retaliate. The great empires of Europe were all established long after chivalry and knighthood were largely dead, as such notions cannot survive well in the gunpowder era. Most of the success of global empires and colonization was due to technological superiority against the natives and due to having far more efficient management and discipline than them as well. What little did survive, such as the absurd idea of forming up into neat formations and presenting one’s self to the enemy in blocks of men to be shot, was annihilated by the invention of the Machine Gun, which proved to the the ultimate teacher in utilitarian ethics. By the end of World War 1, everyone was fighting from cover, using ambushing, using manuver warfare, and finally using tanks. (Tanks were reckoned as a most cowardly and “dishonorable” invention.. until people say that the side with the tanks could break through any trench line and was nearly impervious to small-arms fire).

Today the United States Army and Marines, reckoned to be the premier fighting forcesof the world, teach entirely utilitarian methods of warfare: Night-raids using optics that let a man strike at his enemy without ever being seen. They also espouse the use of combined-arms barrages to disrupt and kill an enemy’s command-control-coordination system, leaving him broken and leaderless, and unable to resist an assault. They teach a hand to hand combat system that goes directly for the kill, not leaving the enemy a chance to fight back. Our military uses stealth-aircraft, cruise-missiles, UAVs, and other such things that place us at almost no risk during a battle. We do not believe in fighting fair, but in fighting to win.

I think, perhaps, that you are mistaking utilitarian warfare methods for barbarism. They are not the same thing, at all. The Japanese lost World War 2, not because of their honor/dishonor practices, but because they simply lacked the resources to take on the United States, in a strategic sense, and because they failed to capitalize on the gains they had made in destroying most of the US surface fleet, and because they did not have as many, or as effective, a carrier force as the United States Navy did. They also lost because of the sheer grit, determination, and tenacity of the crews and pilots on those four remaining US carriers, the cunning of US submarine commanders in the pacific, and because our Devil Dogs, were who able to match and exceed any self-proclaimed Samurai in ferocity and skill.

Pick up any modern combat or modern warfare book about the US military, John, and you’ll see what I’m talking about. Honor is good for storytelling and space opera, sure. However, in real war, it has no place. The commander’s goal is to win, defeat the enemy, and accomplish whatever mission assigned to him by his superiors. Today, that is done by overwhelming the enemy on all fronts, denying him every resource that he’d need to fight back, and precisely by *not* playing fair at all.

My comment:

Sorry, I was not clear.

I am serious, but I am not saying what you think I am saying.

I am saying that the American ferocity toward the Japanese during World War II was due to the dishonorable nature of the Pearl Harbor attack. Had they declared war before striking, I doubt we would have demanded unconditional surrender. I am not saying ‘they lost because they were dishonorable’ but I am saying ‘more died than needed because they were dishonorable–which provoked a savage retaliation on our part.’ A demand for unconditional surrender was very rare, almost unheard-of, in the Napoleonic Wars.

Let us compare and contrast that with the American Civil War. The combatants there behaved with sufficient civility toward each other that there are cases where they share medical and field hospital facilities. At the surrender, the Rebels wore their swords and were allowed to go still carrying their swords. The upshot of it is that the South was reunited with the North; not without illwill–but reunited nonetheless.

I suspect that Western notions of honor are so ingrained that you do not see them for what they are. If the commander’s goal in combat was to defeat the enemy without regard to honor, in our current war, we would atom-bomb Tehran by stealth, and have snipers shoot their doctors, smartbombs blast their hospitals when the enemy attempted to save the lives of survivors. We would then publicly announce our willing to talk peace, raise the white flag, and kill the enemy ambassadors when they came to talk.

The entire debate about “letting the inspector do their work” before the invasion of Iraq was a debate about the niceties of honor. It was only a question of whether Saddam had broken his word of honor when he promised to abide by the terms of the cease-fire. A cease-fire is a quarter. The idea that you do not attack when the foe calls quarter is an idea having its roots in a mystical idea of honor.

The whole dance in politics before the invasion of Iraq was nothing other than ‘letting the enemy pick up his dropped epee.’ And we kicked Saddam’s ass anyway. We waited a year until all of the demands of honor were satisfied, and the discontent about the invasion was and is because the high standards of honor were not fully met: the claim is that Saddam gave us no causus belli. What is causus belli except a rule of war, that is, a rule of honor? The Bush Doctrine of preemption is a violation (or a pragmatic exception, take your pick) of an ancient and respected rule of European warfare, dating back before the treaty of Westphalia.

The Falklands War was entirely a matter of the national honor of the British Empire: there was no economic value to those worthless islands, certainly not enough to pay for a single warship the Queen dispatched. The Argentine reason for the attack was entirely a matter of honor: they needed the prestige of attacking and overcoming a European power in order to quiet discontent at home.

The invasion of Grenada was entirely a matter of honor: it was meant as a signal to the communists to show them that the West would accept no more loss of prestige. Surely there was no economic benefit, no military threat, involved.

The Cuban Missile crises was entirely a matter of honor: the threat posed by Russian missiles in Cuba was an affront to our dignity as a nation, independent of the actual military threat. The actual military threat never manifested itself, as it would have done had either nation pursued a philosophy of Total War. Instead, the two tomcats puffed up; the two rams butted heads; the two knights rattled their sabers. The noise of the saber rattling was a sufficient sign to indicate where the boundaries of acceptable honor lay: the Russians backed down, but to save Russian honor, the Americans agreed to pull missiles out of Turkey.

The Korean War was entirely a matter of honor: the United States defended South Korea because she was our ally, and we had given our sacred word of honor we would defend her.

World War II was entirely a matter of honor: did you think Britain had any real interest in the fate of northern Poland?

World War I was entirely a matter of honor: the Huns sought to increase the prestige of Germany by floating a great fleet, which the British took as an insult to their prestige as well as a threat to her national and imperial interests.

The Peloponnesian War was entirely a matter of honor: Sparta and Athens were in competition for greater influence and prestige. Ditto for the Punic Wars. 

Is your dismissal of the rules of honor confined only to the battlefield, or are you talking into account the reasons why politicians and leaders and princes make their decisions? Are you taking into account rules of engagement?

Indeed, were it not for our sense of honor, were it not for the rules of engagement and the rules of war our public deems honorable, our current enemies would have no ability to attack AT ALL. The current war is entirely a psychological war: it is fought only for the sake of the media. The whole point of asymmetrical warfare is ‘white blackmail’ i.e. the expectation that we play fair and live by high standards while the foe plays dirty and lives by standards calculated to be as low and dishonorable as possible.

A US Marine, given a choice between attacking the heavily-armed Republican Guard and attacking a blind pregnant nun, will attack the Guard. That is because Marines are badasses. A Jihadist, given a choice between attacking a Marine and attacking a blind pregnant nun, will attack the nun. That is because Jihadists are craven, but also because the Jihadist correctly sees the psychological and spiritual weakness of the West: our notions of honor make it reprehensible to us, to our own sense of justice, to attack a weak and cowardly enemy, or to kill the innocent.   

If our soldiers were told to shoot women and children carrying suspicious packages, and to decimate the innocent male populations in retaliation for any act of outrage, to nerve-gas any towns or cities reporting suspicious activity, and if our press simply suppressed any knowledge of Coalition wrongdoing, if, other words, we were as “practical” as the Romans, don’t you think our conduct of the war would be far different?

Please don’t tell me that such dishonorable means of conducting war are matters of practicality and not of honor: while honor is not practical on the personal level (it IS impractical to let an enemy pick up an epee, after all) there is a logic and a practicality to honor in the long term, and on the general level. It is meant to hinder the horror of war, and to permit the possibility of peace.

* * *

UPDATE: I am told it is dishonor to the Corps if I do not capitalize the word ‘Marine’ in this context. Naturally, I make the correction with alacrity, trembling with fear. No one wants a US Marine mad at him. No one. The Praetorians were sissies compared to these guys. Go Marines!

On the other hand, I didn’t put up much of a fight, so maybe they wouldn’t think of offering me a beer. On the gripping hand, I did exactly as I said I would, admitting wrong rather than making up some dumb lawyerly excuse to maintain my position, so I may retain some honor for that, among philosophers, if not among soldiers and paladins.

One side-note: some people wrote in and seemed to think I was saying women are dishonorable, i.e. are not honest and trustworthy. You people win the Poor Reading Comprehension Prize. However, honor is honor, so if you are willing to fight and bleed and die over a perceived insult when no insult was given, this still proves the point, and, in fact, proves it better, that women can be as full of honor (by which I mean as full as macho machismo bulls-hit) as the boys.  

Here is the proof:  

Me:  

Miss, are you outraged enough to fight me over the matter? Pistols at dawn, sabers or rapiers?

castaly replies:

absolutely–i’ll take the rapiers, thanks.

Me:  

Rapiers! Pfui! Girlish weapon!!

But no matter: any girl willing to fight and die merely because a guy says girls are not willing to fight and die over trifles proves your point and carries the day. I concede: you have defeated me.  

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Anonymous:

Even if women don’t fight themselves, they send the men out, encourage them, patch them up or bury them, raise their children to respect their fathers as being honorable for pursuing fights that may well be lost causes.

Me:

Oh, doubt this not! I should not have said anything that could even be misinterpreted to say women of honor do not know what it is like to bury their dead. So have women always done, since the sad dawn of our sad history in this sad world.  

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Sophysduckling

It also ticked me off. I have no sense of honor? wtf? For that, I will come by and clean your clock. With my bare hands, if I need to, though obviously I prefer swords and can do pistols in a pinch. Sadly, though, I’m not in the USMC. Will the Army do

Me:  

This lady is not merely willing to duel over this trifling matter; she also TALKS like a pissed-off guy. The offer to fight with bare hands if blade and bullet were disallowed is what cinches it. This gal is a REAL MAN.  Go Army!

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My wife says:

The problem with your challenge, Handsome, is that someone might actually show up to fight you…in which case, I would, of course, feel obliged to throw myself in front of you to save you…which would kind of undue the whole point.

My comment:

No woman of honor will show up to fight me, because, as I said, I will wimp out and beg for mercy in public, whining like a craven toad, after offering an apology: in which case there is no honor to be gained in fighting me. I just wanted to prove that no women would care enough about (masculine notions of) honor to do so.

Beside, it would prove, not disprove my point, if a woman sacrifices herself for something practical, like her loved ones. It is the willingness to fight MERELY to improve one’s reputation the one loves to fight we are discussing.  

I am happy to see that I am wrong: there are at least two or three women of the Spartan ‘tonight we dine in hell’ variety of manliness who have actually risen to the challenge.

Well, well—I am not sure what to make of this. Nonetheless, I made a universal statement, and even a single contrary example serves, in logic, to disprove a universal.

I leave it as a debate among the readers as to whether it is good thing or a bad thing that we have such masculine women among us.  If BOTH sexes act this way, from whence is the voice of sweet reason to come?

(One big advantage, of course, is that our ladyfolk are evidently tough enough that they can beat up the French. If our women have bigger brass balls than the sick and cowardly Paynims who are our foes in the current round of the thousand-year-old war with Mohammedans, the psychological damage to our enemy will be significant.)  

The other thing to note here is, that we have here on these last two threads, the spectacle of guys talking about honor in a fashion that shows they “get it” even less well than these three macho ladies. Make of that what you will.

In any case, I was wrong, and am happy (albeit dishonored) to admit wrong. The spirit of the Pioneer Woman is not dead. (I wish I knew the ages of these ladies, though, because I wonder if this is a too-young-to-know-better kind of thing. Nonetheless, a gentleman does not ask a lady her age.)

Now all you ladies go out and buy firearms and do likewise. You can look perfectly feminine shooting in a skirt. Remember to wear ear protection.

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Let me not leave this topic without saying, in all sobriety, that there is something admirable in a man who is willing to duel, but something more admirable in a man whose highmindedness, justice and civility does not permit him to do so. A law code is better than an honor code; a moral code is better than either.

Either due to the perversity of evolution or due to the Fall of Man (take your pick) human nature seems to have the flaw that we cannot sustain ourselves or our civilization on a moral code or a legal code without some sort of honor code beneath. I far prefer to live in a time and nation where the practice of dueling has been entirely suppressed, rather than in the time of  Aaron Burr or Andrew Jackson: but  there is a  note of cowardice and  peevishness, a thin-skinned admiration of mere whining, which runs through our current culture, which seems to hinder our practical ability to conduct matters of war and peace.

(quoting me) “But the guys in the locker room establish a male pecking order based on strength and aggression, and that reputation for aggression called honor. Honor is something women don’t understand, don’t like, and don’t do very well.”

honor –noun
1. honesty, fairness, or integrity in one’s beliefs and actions: a man of honor.
2. a source of credit or distinction: to be an honor to one’s family.
3. high respect, as for worth, merit, or rank: to be held in honor.
4. such respect manifested: a memorial in honor of the dead.
5. high public esteem; fame; glory: He has earned his position of honor.
6. the privilege of being associated with or receiving a favor from a respected person, group, organization, etc.: to have the honor of serving on a prize jury; I have the honor of introducing this evening’s speaker.
7. Usually, honors. evidence, as a special ceremony, decoration, scroll, or title, of high rank, dignity, or distinction: political honors; military honors.
8. (initial capital letter) a deferential title of respect, esp. for judges and mayors (prec. by His, Her, Your, etc.).
9. honors, a. special rank or distinction conferred by a university, college, or school upon a student for eminence in scholarship or success in some particular subject.
b. an advanced course of study for superior students. Compare honors course.
10. chastity or purity in a woman.

You usage of the word “Honor” seems to be aimed at a particular form of definition number 3. It is not what comes to mind for me first (or even second) when the word honor is used. It seems intentionally inflammatory to use a very peripheral version of meaning and then go on to generalize about women using the general term.

 My reply: Forgive me for being unclear. I thought I was using the words in their ordinary, common, and original sense.

I defined the term in the middle of the paragraph: “Honor involves fighting when you don’t need to fight, so that friend and foe alike has no reason to doubt your quality when you do need to fight.”

The opening paragraph which introduced this thought reads; “It is a curious blend: a man polite enough to wait while you picked up your dropped epee, honest enough to show up at the dueling field at dawn as promised, and warlike enough to wound or kill you when you needed it.”

As such, it fits definitions you quote 1 through 7. What the definition you quote fails to mention, however, is the context in which I used the term; I was speaking not of the ‘honor’ of being a chess champion or of a poet ‘honored’ for writing a poem.

Honor, for a philosopher, means the intellectual integrity needed to answer a question when challenged, and to change one’s mind when defeated in a contest of logic. Honor for a poet means as much loyalty to your muse as a knight has for his standard. These are, of course, secondary meanings, or analogies. Neither philosophers nor poets ordinarily put their life and limb at hazard when answering challenges.

I speaking of honor in its original and normal meaning, as a part and parcel of the life of a gentleman and a fighting man, what is normally called a “real” man. A man who fights when challenged does so in a literal way.  

So: “integrity in one’s beliefs and actions” is referenced when I speak about the integrity of a man “who show up at the dueling field at dawn as promised” Likewise “fairness” is allowing a foe to pick up a dropped epee.

2. “Credit or distinction”: men who are bellipotent and courteous and unafraid in war, and yet unyeilding on points of honor do it so that they may be credited as such. They distinguish themselves from the common herd of cowardly or non-magnanimous men.

3. “high respect” The whole point of the behavior, of fighting when you do not have to fight is so that brave men will respect you and cowards will fear you. It is done to win respect.

4. “such respect manifested” Same as above. Such deeds are not done in secret, but done for the pragmatic purpose of inspiring courage in friends and fear in enemies. It is for this reason that brave acts are rewarded by medals and memorials, songs, monuments by the society. 

5. “high public esteem; fame; glory” This is exactly what I am talking about. No woman I have ever met (not even women playing male characters in a medieval fantasy role-playing game where reputation, honor, and glory mean everything, and have a direct and immediate military purpose) ever fight for glory. They might fight for their children, for pay, for their unit, but not merely to win the reputation of being eager for war. Women — at least the ones I know — are too pragmatic to fight, and too practical to be merciful once the fight begins. There as surely exceptions to this, but I have never encountered them. Men fight for glory. I have never heard any women express the least interest in such a thing. They regard it (and rightly so) as macho foolishness and posturing.

6. “the privilege of being associated with or receiving a favor from a respected person…” In this case, we are speaking of the privilege of public opinion, both of allies and enemies. 

7. “military rank” given, of course, because ‘honor’ in the other meanings of the word has been earned. They do not give medals and promotions to cowards.

Now, you go on to call this ordinary use of the term “Intentionally inflammatory.” I admit I am dumbfounded with puzzlement. Are you certain we are discussing the same topic? It sounds as if you are ascribing to me some sinister motive (this is the usual meaning of “intentionally”) that I am attempting to provoke a controversy where no real controversy exists, to inflame passions with an insulting word rather than using a neutral or un-provocative word (this is the usual meaning of “inflammatory”). 

You are, in effect, accusing me of dishonoring someone (I am not sure whom) because I use the word “honor” when talking about the concept of honor. Here, unfortunately, your comment fails the giggle test. Surely you jest.

Perhaps you can define your point more clearly. (If you are honorable enough, as a philosopher, to answer a question when challenged.) 

Are you honestly saying that EVEN TO USE THE WORD HONOR when talking about men of honor is an insult to  … your honor? The honor of women? The honor of craven cowards?

If it is not an insult, then what, exactly, do you say I am deliberately trying to inflame when you say I am being inflammatory? 

As far as I can tell, no woman in her right mind would be insulted by telling her that she is not a macho jackass who gets into brawls at the drop of a hat.

I will make you a bargain. If you can find a woman in the Marine Corps or a policewoman willing just to say that she will come by my house and kick my ass for no reason, I will issue a public apology to all women everywhere, and accept the dishonor and shame of backing down before a distaff threat. Is any lady out there willing to say she is offended by my comment that she will risk facing me with saber or dueling pistols at dawn? I am a fat old guy, and not a good shot, so your chances are better than even. 

Just to make things square with the law, let me say at the outset that I will not fight, and that these comments are meant as an experiment only, not a real challenge to fight a duel. (Fighting duels is illegal in Virginia, as it is and should be in all civilized nations)

This is a great bargain! The woman does not have to actually come kick my fat pale droopy buttocks, she just has to be WILLING TO SAY SHE WILL, and I will back down and admit I dishonored the fair sex, and you will win the argument. 

The only other qualification is that the lady issuing the challenge has to own either a blade or a firearm. The toy swords used in sport fencing count.

Come now, all you warlike ladies, now is your chance.

Here’s a handy metaphor: let’s approximate one astronomical unit — the distance between the Earth and the sun, roughly 150 million kilometres, or 600 times the distance from the Earth to the Moon — to one centimetre. Got that? 1AU = 1cm. (You may want to get hold of a ruler to follow through with this one.)

The solar system is conveniently small. Neptune, the outermost planet in our solar system, orbits the sun at a distance of almost exactly 30AU, or 30 centimetres — one foot (in imperial units). Giant Jupiter is 5.46 AU out from the sun, almost exactly two inches (in old money).

We’ve sent space probes to Jupiter; they take two and a half years to get there if we send them on a straight Hohmann transfer orbit, but we can get there a bit faster using some fancy orbital mechanics. Neptune is still a stretch — only one spacecraft, Voyager 2, has made it out there so far. Its journey time was 12 years, and it wasn’t stopping. (It’s now on its way out into interstellar space, having passed the heliopause some years ago.)

The Kuiper belt, domain of icy wandering dwarf planets like Pluto and Eris, extends perhaps another 30AU, before merging into the much more tenuous Hills cloud and Oort cloud, domain of loosely coupled long-period comets.

Now for the first scale shock: using our handy metaphor the Kuiper belt is perhaps a metre in diameter. The Oort cloud, in contrast, is as much as 50,000 AU in radius — its outer edge lies half a kilometre away.

Got that? Our planetary solar system is 30 centimetres, roughly a foot, in radius. But to get to the edge of the Oort cloud, you have to go half a kilometre, roughly a third of a mile.

Next on our tour is Proxima Centauri, our nearest star. (There might be a brown dwarf or two lurking unseen in the icy depths beyond the Oort cloud, but if we’ve spotted one, I’m unaware of it.) Proxima Centauri is 4.22 light years away.A light year is 63.2 x 10³ AU, or 9.46 x 10¹² Km. So Proxima Centauri, at 267,000 AU, is just under two and a third kilometres, or two miles (in old money) away from us.

But Proxima Centauri is a poor choice, if we’re looking for habitable real estate. While exoplanets are apparently common as muck, terrestrial planets are harder to find; Gliese 581c, the first such to be detected (and it looks like a pretty weird one, at that), is roughly 20.4 light years away, or using our metaphor, about ten miles.

Try to get a handle on this: it takes us 2-5 years to travel two inches. But the proponents of interstellar travel are talking about journeys of ten miles. That’s the first point I want to get across: that if the distances involved in interplanetary travel are enormous, and the travel times fit to rival the first Australian settlers, then the distances and times involved in interstellar travel are mind-numbing.

In reaction to Mr.Stross’ article,  here is what Centauri Dreams has to say.

The money quote:

Matloff has studied sail mission concepts using so-called Sun-diver trajectories that deploy a sail at perihelion. In a subsequent telephone interview, he added: “We’ve learned that it is quite possible to take both large ships and small probes to the nearest star within a thousand years or so. Using the sail alone. But it is very difficult to get the trip time down below 800 or 900 years.”

The reason for the paradox is that the feminist mindset pursues the goal via the wrong means. Simple justice demands that women be treated with the same respect men get: but feminists seem to think this means being treated as men are treated. The feminist interprets this to demand is that ladies no longer be ladylike, and men no longer be gentlemen. But when men are not gentlemen, they act according to young-bachelor-male standards of values, which, frankly, are pagan and barbaric. So, in order to be equal with men, the feminist wrongly concludes the woman should act — and be treated!— the rough way these primitive barbaric males act: not the gentlemen of the court, but the guys in the locker room.

But the guys in the locker room establish a male pecking order based on strength and aggression, and that reputation for aggression called honor. Honor is something women don’t understand, don’t like, and don’t do very well. Honor involves fighting when you don’t need to fight, so that friend and foe alike has no reason to doubt your quality when you do need to fight. The women thrown into that system falls short in the pecking order: she is not as manly as they young barbarians. If she is not treated like a lady, an object of respect, if she is just one of the guys, she is treated as a small, frail, guy. A guy without a dick. A girlish girl is a girl, and object of gentle love and adoration. But if she is one of the guys, a girlish guy is a sissy, an object of contempt.

The mystical Christian attitude which makes weak things into holy things is lost when we return to the pagan barbarian days. The pagans were a reasonable, straightforward peoples: they looked quite reasonably at the weakness of womanhood, and quite reasonably decided to exploit and oppress the weaker sex, and so all of human history has done. China and India and the bloody civilizations of pre-Columbian South America had many great accomplishments: but nowhere on Earth is there any hint of the concept of the equality of women, outside of Christendom.

Well, the feminists are not about to admit weakness, so they have to deny femininity. When, for the reasons given above, the boys in the locker room treat the women like sissies, the feminist demand is that the locker room now be policed by the thought-police, and that men be touch to be soft and emotional and sensitive to the feelings of others, so that we will all be sissies together. This has an effect beyond the locker room, of course: male friendships become rare and tenuous, and the conduct of the nation in wartime becomes increasingly neurotic and dishonorable—need I actually give examples of this, or have you read the papers lately?

( I mean both the antiwar movement on the Left and the pro-torture talk on the Right. Resorting to torture is is a womanish way to fight a war. The Sioux braves were not the one that tortured missionaries that fell into their hands—that task was left to the squaws. )

The reasonable and straightforward feminist demand that women be equal to men has somehow corroded into the unreasonable demand that women be masculine (something to which they are not suited by nature or upbringing) and that men be effete, and so no one, male or female, ends up being very good at or very comfortable in his role.

The place it strikes me as particularly odd is in movies. We live in a day and age when the equality of the sexes is as complete as possible, and yet, by and large, women in movies are cast in roles as sex objects and sexy action heroes, and there is no work for actresses above 30, or in roles as wives, mothers, businesswomen, newspaperwomen, politicians, leaders, what-not. They never play a role model worthy of respect. The paradox is that this age of female equality has led to less respect for women, not more, at least insofar as our popular entertainments are concerned: women are nowadays routinely portrayed in degrading situations, or used and abused as sex objects, which is the mere opposite of what any (sane) feminist would wish upon her sisters.

The strongest and best portrayal of a woman character I’ve seen recently was the schoolteacher on BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, who, due to the death of the President and all his secretaries, finds herself in the role of President, and must live up to the responsibilities as the civilian leader of a beaten and broken population.

Oddly enough, the worst portrayal of a woman character, and one for whom I could not suspend my disbelief, was the portrayal of a blonde hottie as the cigar-smoking, whiskey-drinking, hotshot pilot Starbuck. The scene where she takes a swing at her C.O., and he punches her, epitomized what is wrong with the whole character concept of taking a sweet young bombshell and making her play one of Sergeant Fury’s Fighting Roughnecks. No one likes seeing a dewy-lipped doe-eyed lady getting socked in the gob. You show it on TV enough, little boys soon enough come to think it is normal to punch little girls. If men and women are equal, then men should be as rude and rough with women as they are with each other, right, guys?

Meanwhile the unspoken language of the sexes falls mute. The system of understood signs and symbolic gestures by which her femininity was represented is vanished; the unspoken rules that respected femininity are gone; the feminine mystique is gone. The subtlety is gone. The only way she can now show off her femininity, her only outlet of female pride, is to be blatantly sexual: wear skank clothing and act the whore.

Movies reflect this, and we have harlots instead of Harlowe. Instead of  Greta Garbo playing Queen Christina of Sweden, we have Keira Knightly playing the King of the Pirates.     

I am not alone in this opinion about modern movies being anti-woman. This is from Libertas 

Nothing annoys me more than when people — usually leftist feminist types — proclaim Katharine Hepburn a woman ahead of her time. What a load of garbage.

[…] at no time in the history of film did women have it better than during the reign of the studios in the 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s. Women made more films, had better roles, had more starring roles, and actually made money equal to their male counterparts.

Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck, Judy Garland, Joan Crawford, and Garbo were HUGE stars in their day — above the title stars — who starred in their own pictures two to three times a year. And they always played strong women. They were all Meryl Streeps. Now we only have Meryl Streep and she usually shares top billing and makes only a single picture a year.

Most other women stars today are relegated to romantic comedies, sex-pot roles, women in jeopardy thrillers, and horror films. Yes, there are exceptions, but they are exceptions, whereas in the big studio days huge “A” prestige pictures with strong female starring roles came out on a monthly basis.

Katharine Hepburn wasn’t ahead of her time, she was a perfect product of her time. And thankfully she — and her counterparts — are forever captured on miles of celluloid for those of us not impressed with the classless roles too many of today’s so-called feminist stars denigrate themselves in under the guise of liberation.

[I] looked with my spy-glass at the Watcher of the North-East–the Crowned Watcher it was called, in that within the air above its vast head there hung always a blue, luminous ring, which shed a strange light downwards over the monster–showing a vast, wrinkled brow (upon which an whole library had been writ); but putting to the shadow all the lower face; all save the ear, which came out from the back of the head, and belled towards the Redoubt, and had been said by some observers in the past to have been seen to quiver; but how that might be, I knew not; for no man of our days had seen such a thing.

And beyond the Watching Thing was The Place Where The Silent Ones Are Never, close by the great road; which was bounded upon the far side by The Giant’s Sea; and upon the far side of that, was a Road which was always named The Road By The Quiet City; for it passed along that place where burned forever the constant and never-moving lights of a strange city; but no glass had ever shown life there; neither had any light ever ceased to burn. And beyond that again was the Black Mist. 

Beyond these, South and West of them, was the enormous bulk of the South-West Watcher, and from the ground rose what we named the Eye Beam–a single ray of grey light, which came up out of the ground, and lit the right eye of the monster. And because of this light, that eye had been mightily examined through unknown thousands of years; and some held that the eye looked through the light steadfastly at the Pyramid; but others set out that the light blinded it, and was the work of those Other Powers which were abroad to do combat with the Evil Forces. But however this may be, as I stood there in the embrasure, and looked at the thing through the spy-glass, it seemed to my soul that the Brute looked straightly at me, unwinking and steadfast, and fully of a knowledge that I spied upon it. And this is how I felt.

Before me ran the Road Where The Silent Ones Walk; and I searched it, as many a time in my earlier youth had I, with the spy-glass; for my heart was always stirred mightily by the sight of those Silent Ones.

And, presently, alone in all the miles of that night-grey road, I saw one in the field of my glass–a quiet, cloaked figure, moving along, shrouded, and looking neither to right nor left. And thus was it with these beings ever. It was told about in the Redoubt that they would harm no human, if but the human did keep a fair distance from them; but that it were wise never to come close upon one. And this I can well believe.

And so, searching the road with my gaze, I passed beyond this Silent One, and past the place where the road, sweeping vastly to the South-East, was lit a space, strangely, by the light from the Silver-fire Holes. And thus at last to where it swayed to the South of the Dark Palace, and thence Southward still, until it passed round to the Westward, beyond the mountain bulk of the Watching Thing in the South–the hugest monster in all the visible Night Lands. My spy-glass showed it to me with clearness–a living hill of watchfulness, known to us as The Watcher Of The South. It brooded there, squat and tremendous, hunched over the pale radiance of the Glowing Dome.

Much, I know, had been writ concerning this Odd, Vast Watcher; for it had grown out of the blackness of the South Unknown Lands a million years gone; and the steady growing nearness of it had been noted … A million years gone, as I have told, came it out from the blackness of the South, and grew steadily nearer through twenty thousand years; but so slow that in no one year could a man perceive that it had moved.

Yet it had movement, and had come thus far upon its road to the Redoubt, when the Glowing Dome rose out of the ground before it–growing slowly. And this had stayed the way of the Monster; so that through an eternity it had looked towards the Pyramid across the pale glare of the Dome, and seeming to have no power to advance nearer.

And because of this, much had been writ to prove that there were other forces than evil at work in the Night Lands, about the Last Redoubt. And this I have always thought to be wisely said; and, indeed, there to be no doubt to the matter, for there were many things in the time of which I have knowledge, which seemed to make clear that, even as the Forces of Darkness were loose upon the End of Man; so were there other Forces out to do battle with the Terror; though in ways most strange and unthought of by the human mind.
[…]
And so have I set out something of that land, and of those creatures and circumstances which beset us about, waiting until the Day of Doom, when our Earth-Current should cease, and leave us helpless to the Watchers and the Abundant Terror.