A thought. I'm sure most men have experienced in their lives a strong feeling of desire for a woman, such that he wished to possess that woman in mind, body and soul. In sex a man sometimes feels this instinct to possess. The counterpoint for a woman is to give herself, to yield, to belong. But to do this she must see the man as worthy of her. And, more than this, in giving way she makes herself vulnerable and therefore there must be trust.
Does feminism promote trust between men and women? I don't think so. Feminism urges women to believe that we live in a rape culture; that domestic violence is widespread amongst all social classes, with men always being the perpetrators; that men go out to work to keep women down; that women must be independent of men; that men and women are locked in a political contest for power and status; that women are oppressed on all measures for the benefit of men and so on.
How can young women raised in these beliefs trust men? And if women cannot trust men, then how can they "let go" in relationship with a man? One part of the relationship dynamic between men and women is then lost. One aspect of the feminine is then lost.
It seems to me that, for the Left (including its feminist wing), this part of the male-female dynamic is acceptable when it appears among Muslims, or when the man is a Muslim. This sort of inconsistency, in many contexts, leads me to suspect that the Left's is real goal is to tear down the West (not immediately, but in the long run). The business about male/female equality, sexual interchangeability, normalization/sacralization of homosexuality and transsexualism - all of this may be intended, not as enduring values, but as a means, in combination with official multiculturalism and mass immigration, of destroying Western cultures over the course of a few generations. We are not supposed to catch on, of course. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think it is a good working hypothesis.
ReplyDeleteIan, it's possible for both to be true. For a radical leftist driven by ressentiment, the aim might be to destroy "the fathers" and therefore to see the destruction of one's own society as the real aim. But for some intellectual moderns, caught within the larger modernist philosophical world view/understanding of life, the transsexualism, multiculturalism etc might be thought to be just.
DeleteI don't think we can cure those suffering from ressentiment, but what we can do is to try to stop younger intellectual types from falling into the liberal political orthodoxy, so that is what I have tended to focus on.
Certainly, the Left presents itself to the general public (dishonestly, of course) as the defenders and champions of Enlightenment, liberal values, seeking only to apply them more consistently and inclusively. No doubt, this is what is believed by the majority of the Left's supporters among affluent ladies-who-lunch and golf-playing suburban professionals and businessmen. My suggestion is that this is merely a public relations ploy; the elite groups that generate the causes the Left takes up, it seems to me, are seeking something entirely different from a realization of Enlightenment values, namely, their ultimate destruction (along with the West itself as a cultural entity and the West's pre-Enlightenment heritage) and replacement with ---something else.
DeleteInteresting to read Ian's remarks about Islam as that is where my thoughts went also after reading Mark's words in the post.
ReplyDeleteRegarding Islam and the male-female dynamic, a particular defense is needed against the right-liberal frame of things. Ian rightly notes that leftists seem not to notice the egregious violations of their claimed principles of equality between men and women when these violations occur within Islamic cultures, and Mark rightly points out that ressentiment as the overall impetus explains the consistency in what otherwise appears to be a gross inconsistency.
However, the right-liberal framing of the male-female dynamic vis-a-vis Islam is a concession to this ressentiment in its own way, even if not quite as bitter. The frame is characterized by the challenge to leftists in the form of the question "if you are genuinely concerned about the plight of women, why don't you focus on where women are truly oppressed - among Islamic cultures?" I.e., WE - the right-liberals - are the TRUE feminists who truly care about oppressed women.
The right-liberal therefore concedes the narrative of man as oppressor of woman, just not here in our enlightened, democratic societies. It's over there in cultures not like ours. Men are naturally oppressors of women, and the antidote is to adopt modern liberal democracy to guard against it.
John, that's very well put. You can see how easy it is for those who are by nature conservative to get caught within the right-liberal framing. After all, right-liberals are not hammering away exclusively at Western men the way that left-liberals are. And yet the social order the right-liberals are ultimately defending is a liberal one.
DeleteMy friend, feminism is not evil at all. It urges young women to believe we live in a rape cultured world because we do so many girls and boys for that matter! Have had this happen in some form to them, feminism is the equality of the sexes and it is most certainly good.
ReplyDeleteSincerely, Princess Oak