In 2009, women have more choices than they did 40 years ago. They can choose to have kids with a partner, in a traditional marriage or not. They can choose to stay childless, live as single parents, or choose a same-sex partner. They can be like the single mothers who raised a president of the United States and a brand-new Supreme Court justice. They can be like Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin. They can be like Diane Sawyer, Michelle Obama, Sandra Day O’Connor, or like Nancy Pelosi, who spent the first half of her life staying home to raise five children and then went on to become the first female Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. Or anything else they can imagine.
If being able to choose anything you want is progress, then did Arnie have the right to choose whatever he wanted? Is that progress for men? Or are men supposed to do the right thing, whilst their feminist wives promote family breakdown?
Seriously, Maria Shriver was married with children. She should not have been celebrating the decline of marriage as a step toward choice and progress. Her feminism was not at all in her own interests or that of her children.
Mark said,
ReplyDelete"If being able to choose anything you want is progress, then did Arnie have the right to choose whatever he wanted?"
Lol.
I don't have much sympathy for powerful men who marry feminists. Their status alone is more than enough to attract women who are not imbued with leftist ideology.
ReplyDeleteNevertheless, it's a nice pipe dream to imagine an op-ed from some agony aunt describing Arnold as 'embattled' and 'a victim of one's success and biology'!
I have little sympathy for Shriver. A man cannot repent from an old lapse in judgement so many years in the past?
ReplyDeleteI despise Maria Shriver and I'm sick and tired of the leftist obsession with Barack Obama, the Tea Party, "conservative" radio hosts and Sarah Palin. I'm sick of libertarians and right-liberals. Glorify family break-down all you want but it ain't pretty.
ReplyDeleteThe movie "Atlas Shrugged" by right-liberal atheist author Ayn Rand has bombed at the box office.
ReplyDeleteIf being able to choose anything you want is progress, then did Arnie have the right to choose whatever he wanted?
ReplyDeleteOh, come on, Mark Richardson, you should know by now that when feminists write of being able to "choose anything you want" they are referring only to women. Women have choices, men have responsibilities.
Is that progress for men?
Of course it is, by the definitions of feminism. "Progress for men" means that men cater to the whims of women, and yet continue to fulfill their responsibilities. Women in a sense get to live in the "now" while men are required to live as though it is still the 19th century.
Or are men supposed to do the right thing, whilst their feminist wives promote family breakdown?
In this case, the answer is of course "yes". In the broader sense, men are supposed to do the right thing (where "right thing" is defined as "whatever women want at any given moment") whilst their feminist partners promote, well, anything they want to promote.
Once again: feminism is the ideology that seeks to continually increase choices for women while retaining responsibilities for men.
It's basically female supremacy. This is not difficult to understand, and I'm hoping your questions are rhetorical rather than genuine.
I have little sympathy for Shriver. A man cannot repent from an old lapse in judgement so many years in the past?
ReplyDeleteJonathan Wolfe, you should know by now that any wrongdoing by a man can never fully be repaid for, in feminist ideology. Furthermore, the cynic in me suspects that Maria Shriver knew of this adultery some time back. Now that she is no longer Madam Governor, divorcing Arnold has a much lower cost -- and, of course, still retains high financial benefits for her.
As a bonus, the ex Governor will certainly owe a whopping amount of child support, because as I understand it in California only money that goes through the appropriate state agency counts as child support. So all that money he gave to his mistress over the years doesn't count towards child support. In fact, his arrears would justify his arrest and imprisonment as a "deadbeat dad" until his attorney comes across with the money required, if a judge wanted to push the issue. I doubt that will happen, though, because putting Arnold in jail would throw a spotlight on the inequity of the anti-family court system. Can't have that, now can we?
No, not at all.
Arnold did not realize this kid would cause so much "Collateral Damage."
ReplyDeleteI'm hoping your questions are rhetorical
ReplyDeleteThey were.
feminism is the ideology that seeks to continually increase choices for women while retaining responsibilities for men
If you are the same anonymous reader who wonders why I identify autonomy as a problem, there you have it.
If it's thought that women have been oppressed in the past by having less autonomy than men, and that progress and gender equality therefore require that women's autonomy be boosted whilst men's "privilege" is deconstructed, then that is what you end up with. You end up with a focus on women being able to self-determine what they want to do, whilst men are assumed to have a surplus of this quality anyway.
But not all choices are equal. It's thought wrong for women to choose goods other than autonomy, so these choices tend to be discouraged or disallowed over time.
Maria and Arnie also made a comment along the lines of "the children are our first priority".
ReplyDeleteObviously they are not, otherwise you would not divorce.
I was watching tv and this guy says that Arnie has two other children out there for a total of seven.
ReplyDeleteI can't believe that Maria didn't know about this woman who worked in here home and TMZ says that the child is a boy and looks exactly like Arnie.
Maria only has her self to blame because she know Arnie was a sleeze before she married him and as the old saying goes..a leopard can't change it's spots.
I'm hoping your questions are rhetorical
ReplyDeleteThey were.
Fine. That's a relief.
feminism is the ideology that seeks to continually increase choices for women while retaining responsibilities for men
If you are the same anonymous reader who wonders why I identify autonomy as a problem, there you have it.
I do not wonder why you identify radical autonomy as a problem. I question your habit of reducing every social problem to "radical autonomy", no matter how much you must bend, fold or twist things to get them to fit.
There were plenty of bad people and bad things back in the middle ages, when "radical autonomy" for all practical purposes didn't exist, you know.
"A man cannot repent from an old lapse in judgement so many years in the past?"
ReplyDeleteThere is no way to recover the time that a child experiences without a father. AS made choices to impregnate a woman and then deprive his offspring of a parent. It is grievances like that that lead some women to believe in the cult of feminism.
I don't care much at all for Shriver and she is in no place to critique AS from her 'autonomy is super' POV, but I don't care much for AS either because he is deceitful, a negligent father and gives fodder to feminists with which men can be vilified.
She's an idiot. You reward reckless behaviour from players, marriage avoiders and bad-boys and don't get surprise that this is all you get. It's like subsidizing something and expecting it to decrease while taxing something greatly and expecting it to be increased. You get "bad men" because you are a "bad woman" and avoid men of good character.
ReplyDeleteI question your habit of reducing every social problem to "radical autonomy", no matter how much you must bend, fold or twist things to get them to fit.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous reader,
The modern liberal West is a strange place to live in.
The students at my public high school are indoctrinated to within an inch of their lives. They are presented with a a "moral vision" of the world by their teachers which is strongly and repeatedly impressed upon them.
But this "moral vision" is a suicidal one for the West and is an inversion of the morality that has guided most societies over the course of history.
So the question becomes why the lower intellectuals - the middle-aged female English teachers and the like - have the moral vision they do.
The ordinary person only ever gets presented with the moral vision. They don't know where it comes from. So they don't know where to begin a criticism of what is happening. They might just think the world has gone mad; or they might think sinister forces are pulling strings behind the scenes; or they might be intimidated and think they are an immoral person if they act against the ruling ideas of the day.
It's not unless you look further than the lesser intellectuals, and look at the debates that are had by the political theorists and by the more politically minded activists, that you get an idea that the moral vision doesn't just spring out of anywhere.
It is based on a particular view of what it means to be human, of what the proper ends of human life are, and of ideas of justice, equality and human dignity that flow from this.
In my writing I try to bring things back to this underlying source - to connect the end point (the moral vision) with the underlying political assumptions (liberal autonomy theory). In doing so, I hope to make people aware of the shaky foundations of the liberal moral vision and of how it might be challenged at the level of principle.
This is not something that has been done very often, particularly outside of academia. It's more usual for people to accept the moral vision, but to argue for a different application of it.
So you end up with everyone endorsing the liberal foundations of society, and over time the minor adjustments are swept aside as the logic of the liberal position unfolds, seemingly relentlessly.
I don't want to follow the same failed pattern. I want to bring the debate back to the level of principle. Sometimes, I know, that makes my posts repetitive, particularly as I can't assume that new readers already know the basic arguments I'm presenting about autonomy theory. I am forced to retell them - that's a limitation of the blog format as opposed, say, to a book where you only have to spell the argument out once clearly.
Maria Shriver never said it is okay for men or women to lie, cheat, and commit adultery.
ReplyDeleteI believe in the same things you cited in the Maria Shriver quotation you posted. But I expect to maintain my marriage vows and I expect my husband to do the same. Not everyone needs to get married, in my view, but once you make that choice, you have to stick to it.
Maria Shriver never said it is okay for men or women to lie, cheat, and commit adultery.
ReplyDeleteTrue. But she did say that it's a great thing that marriage is declining in society because it means that women have more choices, such as the choice to become a single mother.
A woman who is serious about marriage doesn't say such things. Nor would she want her husband to hear such things being said - she'd be worried that the husband might get ideas that marriage isn't so important after all.
Georgina, you can't expect people to be shizophrenic on these kinds of issues. You can't on the one hand have people believe in one part of their brain that marriage is a bedrock institution and that our vows are a matter of import and in another part of their brain spout off the belief that it doesn't matter what people choose, marriage, single motherhood or whatever floats their boat.
The two ideas won't coexist for long. They aren't compatible. You can't have a serious belief in both.
I do view marriage as a luxury and not a necessity. I am glad that unmarried pregnant women are not forced to get married or give up their children against their will. And I would hope that, if my husband were ever to find our marriage unbearable, that he would let me know and we could talk about a divorce. The last thing I would want is for my husband to be tethered to me in misery out of a sense of obligation.
ReplyDeleteSo perhaps you are right that people like me or Ms. Shriver have to accept the possibility of divorce in our own lives because it is a logical consequence of our beliefs.
And yet, an endorsement of lying is not part of anything either Ms. Shriver or I advocate. The governor promised to be faithful and Ms. Shriver (I assume) gave him fidelity in return in reliance on that promise. She built a life with him based on her reliance on his word. She gave up opportunities to be with other men, she invested emotionally in their joint life together, had children with him and presumably intertwined her finances with his. Now it turns out that he was betraying her all along, her children have to deal with having a half-sibling they didn't even know existed, and his support obligations may in some manner affect her finances as well.
The real double standard is blaming her for her husband's deception.
CAVEAT: If it turns out she was cheating too, then well, a pox on both their houses. But I don't believe there is any evidence or reason to believe she was.
That last comment was from me.
ReplyDeleteShe built a life with him based on her reliance on his word.
ReplyDeleteYou can't have an anything goes society and then turn around and expect men to suddenly burst forth with such high levels of personal integrity and masculine honour that they will live by their word.
Society says to women: it is your right to choose in any direction. You can have a husband if you want, but you can also equally embark on a fatherless family. You can abort your child or keep it. You can sleep around and you can unilaterally divorce your husband without there being fault on his part. What is thought to matter in our society is not the particular choices a woman makes but the freedom of making choices for better or worse.
It represents an assumption of amorality in the choices we make. What then comes to matter in morality is not being judgemental; not having hang ups; being personally liberated and so on.
It's corrosive to the belief that we are bound in a serious way to the commitments we make - that there is a moral order and an objective moral standard that we must measure up to in what we choose to do.
It's not possible to run a dual moral system, not when the two systems are incompatible. You can't say "It's liberating for women to be able to choose in any direction" and then say "Men have to have a depth of masculine honour and moral integrity in their word giving".
Mark Richardson
ReplyDeleteIt's not possible to run a dual moral system, not when the two systems are incompatible. You can't say "It's liberating for women to be able to choose in any direction" and then say "Men have to have a depth of masculine honour and moral integrity in their word giving".
Of course, the above is exactly what the vast majority of MRA's say...for which they are called "evil", "hedonistic", "useless" and many other things by trad-cons.
So tell me, why is it acceptable for you to point out this double standard, and evil for me to do the same? Tell me in simple words, I'm too stupid to understand the big ones.
I wasn't aware we live in an "anything goes" society. Where I live, breaking your promises and lying about it is not OK --regardless of your sex. Men and women who break those social norms pay the price reputationally, professionally, maybe legally.
ReplyDeleteI also find it doubtful that adultery is a logical consequence of the right to an abortion, no-fault divorce and women's autonomy. I think that adultery was fairly common pre-feminism. Somehow, fathering a child out of wedlock with the maid has a distinctly 19th century ring to it, no? The difference is that in the past, women simply had to tolerate their husbands' adultery and illegitimate children.
Anonymous reader,
ReplyDeleteThe modern liberal West is a strange place to live in.
Yes, it is, and the indoctrination of students is quite astounding, especially if one grew up before the 1990's. But that's not the point. You've doubtless run across the saying "To a man with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail".
Seems to me that you make far too much of your "radical autonomy" theory, so much so that it's your hammer, and every social problem, no matter what it may be, is just another nail. Honestly, if you someday blame dandruff and ingrown toenails on "radical autonomy" I won't be surprised.
That's my point. Maybe it seems to you that you've found a single taproot for all ills in the world. Frankly, sometimes you remind me of a Marxist, who finds "oppression" in type fonts used in different articles in the newspaper.
Humans are fallible, and gullible, and prone to group think. Some ideas have gained tremendous sway over the body politic that are doing great harm. Ascribing everything that is wrong in the world to a single abstract notion seems just over the top.
That's my point.
Georgina Charlotte
ReplyDeleteI wasn't aware we live in an "anything goes" society.
You are correct. We live in a society where "anything goes -- for women". Thanks for pointing out that error.
Mark, to recognise the reality of choice is not to blind yourself. There is no going back for any of us. The choices you prefer will have to be made optimal WITHIN those that exist. Enumerating them as Schriver did is not the devils work, it probably the beginning of her own philosophical inquiry.
ReplyDeleteYou do yourself an intellectual disservice in that no where have I read a condemnation of the one who has betrayed the primacy of the marriage . Where is the condemnation of the man who has betrayed his children from both sides by dishonesty, financially cheating them but what is worst cheating them of the example of an honest man as a father whos first job is to be there for them and their mother. Throwing both these children and their mothers to the press wolves for his own sexual gain? Denying the child/ren of his mistress his fatherhood? Where in this column am I reading the outcry against this less than man? I gave comments against single monthers which woudl be widely unacceptable genuine consideration because I truly thought that they were honestly motivately- now I see the baseness and hypocricy. The only comments in critism have come from a woman commentator. A pity because the philosophy was getting interesting. Martha Maus
Where is the condemnation of the man who has betrayed his children from both sides by dishonesty, financially cheating them but what is worst cheating them of the example of an honest man as a father whos first job is to be there for them and their mother.
ReplyDeleteYou see, my immediate response to this comment is to agree that men should be held to such a moral standard, but at the same time to wonder how a liberal society expects this to work out.
It's not like a little thing is being asked for, such as staying five minutes longer at the office. Men are being asked to make big sacrifices and to maintain a strong self-discipline in their behaviour over the course of a lifetime.
So you can't ask this of men merely as an afterthought. You can't bring up men within an anything goes player culture, in which marriage is trashed on all sides, in which the pursuit of a hedonistic self-interest is thought primary and then, at the end of it all, suddenly add on that you want men to be creatures of strong moral integrity dedicated to the service of their families.
Now, not all women mix things up in this way. A woman who has herself promoted a more traditional morality and sought to live by it can be taken seriously when she asks men to make sacrifices for what is right.
But Maria Shriver did not do this - and that was the focus of my post. Maria Shriver was one of the women battering away at marriage in favour of a "free to do whatever you choose" philosophy.
It cannot work. It just cannot work. Standards will collapse no matter how much empathy Maria Shriver might get on her next appearance on Oprah.
Of what benefit would an expression of empathy on my part be? That wouldn't help the future Maria Shrivers to start thinking about what role they might play in holding things together.
Maybe it seems to you that you've found a single taproot for all ills in the world.
ReplyDeleteNo. I don't believe there is any utopian strain in what I have written. I have never suggested that if the autonomy issue were resolved that the ills of the world would be cured.
It would be fairer to say that I believe that if the autonomy issue were resolved that we would be "back to normal programming" in the sense that we would return to the more usual issues and afflictions of traditional societies, rather than the very particular (and suicidal) ones that are characteristic of modern liberal societies.
Anonymous reader, we shouldn't be surprised that there is a connection that we can identify in the key themes of liberal society. That is exactly what you would expect. We have a society that is run according to a particular ideology and so the effects of this ideology won't be quarantined to just one area. The effects will be apparent in a number of areas, particularly those areas that are most relevant to the ideology.
Where I live, breaking your promises and lying about it is not OK --regardless of your sex. Men and women who break those social norms pay the price reputationally, professionally, maybe legally.
ReplyDeleteAre you talking about business contracts? Perhaps you're right that in the sphere of business a reputation for keeping to your contracts is important.
But when it comes to marriage, then you are wrong. The marriage vow is meaningless at an official level. It can be broken with impunity. Our society is morally neutral when it comes to marriage vows. Divorce is available on a no fault basis. A woman who breaks her vows will not be treated any differently in the courts to a woman who keeps hers. We allow websites which promote adultery to advertise in the mainstream press. There is no shortage of "adultery was good for my marriage" stories which run in women's magazines.
And, anyway, you are missing the point. You cannot compartmentalise moral sensibility. You cannot encourage abandon as an expression of individual liberation for most of a person's life and then suddenly ask for conscience and self-discipline.
I also find it doubtful that adultery is a logical consequence of the right to an abortion, no-fault divorce and women's autonomy. I think that adultery was fairly common pre-feminism.
Yes, the temptation to adultery will always be there, no matter how a society is organised. Adultery is obviously not a creation of feminism.
But the issue here is something specific: it is whether a man might take seriously a moral appeal to remain monogamous within a marriage.
He is more likely to do so when women do their part to uphold a culture of family life and when society takes issues of moral conscience and integrity seriously.
Of course, the above is exactly what the vast majority of MRA's say...for which they are called "evil", "hedonistic", "useless" and many other things by trad-cons.
ReplyDeleteBut it's a question of how you respond to the situation.
If women are being told to do whatever they want and men are being told to do the right thing, then how do you get back to some kind of symmetry?
Too many MRAs think you do it by encouraging men to do whatever they want. But that strikes me as a kind of nihilism. The position is justified on the basis that it will hasten the collapse of society, but that "let it burn" attitude is a key feature of the various kinds of nihilism that cropped up in the West over the past 150 years.
The response tradcons would urge is tht both sexes be expected to do the right thing by their families and by society. We see that as also being in the best long term interests of individual men and women.
I wrote:
ReplyDeleteAs a bonus, the ex Governor will certainly owe a whopping amount of child support, because as I understand it in California only money that goes through the appropriate state agency counts as child support. So all that money he gave to his mistress over the years doesn't count towards child support.
Turns out I'm totally wrong. The boy that was fathered by Schwarzaneggar outside of his marriage was birthed by a married woman, who claimed her husband as the father. Therefore there is no child support issue.
Of course, the father was cuckolded. His wife broke her wedding promise in the most fundamental way, and if it is true that they are divorced, well, this was likely a factor.
So let's view the press coverage: lots of talk about Schwarzeneggar (rightly), lots of talk about how Maria Shriver was wronged, some talk about the domestic servant who had a sexual liason with her employer, some discussion of the boy. And who doesn't count? Who isn't worth one word?
The man who was cuckolded. The husband whose wife cheated on him, gave birth to a child that she lied to him about. Anyone commenting on him? Anyone asked him about this whole fiasco?
Nah. He's just a man. Just a husband. Just a father.
He's nobody of importance, not to the press, certainly not to feminists and not to any traditional conservatives, either.
So for all the talk tradcons like to gas out about marriage, when it comes down to it, they do not stand with a husband who was wronged.
I wrote:
ReplyDeleteOf course, the above is exactly what the vast majority of MRA's say...for which they are called "evil", "hedonistic", "useless" and many other things by trad-cons.
But it's a question of how you respond to the situation.
No, it isn't. I could take your exact words and send them to The Emoting Housewife under an MRA tagname and she would all but certainly denounce them as "evil". You don't get it, do you?
You tradcons routinely denounce righteously angry men for saying the same things that you say.
Do you have any idea how incredibly hypocritical that is, and how obnoxious it is, and how foolish it makes tradcons look?
MR
If women are being told to do whatever they want and men are being told to do the right thing, then how do you get back to some kind of symmetry?
Well, the tradcon approach appears to be "order the men to continue on in the same way as always, while from time to time offering up a mild, milquetoast criticism of women -- but hastily retreating if criticized". Is it likely to work?
Too many MRAs think you do it by encouraging men to do whatever they want.
You know better than that, you read "Spearhead". Some MRA's think that way. Others are MGTOW. Others are just angry and lashing out. Others are married but worried for their sons and / or daughters. Others are sunk so far into depression after the financial and emotional rape of a divorce under marriage 2.0 that they are just numb.
To claim that MRA's are all a bunch of playboys, as you just did, is simply dishonest. It's another example of how you tradcons stand shoulder to shoulder with feminists, hurling the same old tired shaming language at men.
But that strikes me as a kind of nihilism. The position is justified on the basis that it will hasten the collapse of society, but that "let it burn" attitude is a key feature of the various kinds of nihilism that cropped up in the West over the past 150 years.
I get it. You think that men should just be whipping boys. You think that men should just take whatever unjust, flat out wrong, down right evil actions that feminists can dish out, and ask for more, is that it?
The response tradcons would urge is tht both sexes be expected to do the right thing by their families and by society.
Yeah, but how many tradcons will actually do anything? The next time those evil, hateful, nihilistic MRA's try to change something, anything, maybe push for mandatory paternity testing at birth (which would have given options to the man cuckolded by Schwarzaneggar, for example), who will be there in the legislative battle? Well, the feminists will be supporting cuckolding, lying and cheating by women (of course), and the MRA's will be pushing for openness and honesty.
And then, on the sidelines, will be the tradcons, finger-wagging and tut-tut-tutting, with a few White Knight rushing in to Defend Womanhood by -- opposing mandatory paternity testing. Why? Because it's an insult to womanhood...or some such.
So in my view, tradcons talk. They don't do.
We see that as also being in the best long term interests of individual men and women.
Oh, spare me. If tradcons really cared about individual men, they'd be out in force, screaming about the issue of false rape charges. False rape charges put men innocent of any crime in prison every year. Individual men are deeply harmed by this. Where are you tradcons?
Nowhere, at best, or fighting for the other side at worse.
Spare me the hollow sanctimony. Tradcons care about something, but individual men? Hah!Don't make me laugh.
Maybe it seems to you that you've found a single taproot for all ills in the world.
ReplyDeleteNo. I don't believe there is any utopian strain in what I have written. I have never suggested that if the autonomy issue were resolved that the ills of the world would be cured.
Odd, I've had the impression for over a year that you distinctly did blame all modern ills upon radical autonomy, and all but state flat out that if it could be done away with, we'd return to some sort of golden age. But perhaps that is just my incorrect, or careless reading.
Anonymous Reader,
ReplyDeleteYou've got a fixed idea that tradcons are the enemy. You interpret everything to fit this idea. It means that the discussion here is not advancing us in any way.
Maria Shriver's impending divorce suggests two things about her character. (1) She shares America's ridiculous obsession with fidelity as prove of ... well, what exactly? She should opt for the sophistication of French and European women. (2) She's probably a racist, since the man she's divorcing is Austrian and his mistress isn't white-skinned. Does Maria hate blacks?
ReplyDeleteWell. It appears that replies to Mark Richardson on this thread once again are, shall we say, "going away". It is ironic that he accuses me of his own flaw.
ReplyDeleteSo I'll try again. Let's see how long this posting lasts.
I'll point it out again: not one traditional conservative has chosen to say one word about the man whom Schwarzeneggar cuckolded. Not one. Shriver, Ahnold, oh, yes, you can talk about them.
The man who was lied to by his wife? Nothing. Zip. Nada. He doesn't matter to you. Where is your criticism of the woman who cuckolded her husband by cheating with her employer? Nowhere.
Where is your traditionalist morality now, eh? Where is your claimed sympathy for men now, eh? Where is your claimed scorn for lying, cheating wives, eh?
Nowhere. There isn't any. Put to the test, you fail.
Hypocrites.
I'm not sympathetic to Shriver because she deluded herself into thinking she could tame an alpha. She set herself up for failure. Could she have known he would be so despicable about it? No, but I believe somewhere deep down she knew she wasn't going to be enough for his ego and yet she took the risk anyway.
ReplyDeleteWhere is your criticism of the woman who cuckolded her husband by cheating with her employer?
ReplyDeleteAnon reader, you are desperately looking for criticisms. I wrote a very short blog post not a major analytical essay. I focused on a single point regarding Maria Shriver's anti-family rhetoric. If you really want to you could find tens of thousands of injustices perpetrated on men which have never been covered on this blog, or on any other.