tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6832901.post2501154123772956009..comments2024-03-25T19:48:24.624+11:00Comments on Oz Conservative: The Pope, Penny Red & the ecology of manUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6832901.post-91923925301860288832009-01-30T10:41:00.000+11:002009-01-30T10:41:00.000+11:00Milton Friedman's son has an interesting commment ...Milton Friedman's son has an interesting commment about the contradiction of liberals who accept evolution but can't accept it's implications in terms of gender or racial differences:<BR/><BR/>"It's a widespread view, but true in only a narrow sense. People who say they are against teaching the theory of evolution are very likely to be Christian fundamentalists. But people who are against taking seriously the implications of evolution, strongly enough to want to attack those who disagree, including those who teach those implications, are quite likely to be on the left."<BR/><BR/>http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/2008/08/who-is-against-evolution.html<BR/><BR/>http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/005501.htmlAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6832901.post-4459954133365721582009-01-13T04:15:00.000+11:002009-01-13T04:15:00.000+11:00"Women across the world remain unaware of the exte..."Women across the world remain unaware of the extent to which the Western model of masculinity is damaging"<BR/><BR/>A few points about the left's continued Western Civ bashing:<BR/><BR/>1. I would like to hear of an existing model to follow, then. Not a Utopian fantasy inside someone's head but an honest to goodness existing culture in which masculinity is defined completely differently from the Western standard, men and women adhere voluntarily to this standard and the society functions harmoniously. Modern Sweden doesn't count as the government suppresses any dissenting views and financially punishes those not on board unless they are Islamic. Societies with birthrates below 2.0 child/woman should probably be eliminated from contention in general as cultural suicide is a form of societal illness I believe.<BR/><BR/>2. The Christian West has always had a role and place for women who didn't get married. It may not be the role they would like, but they were certainly not non-persons if they chose or were unable to marry. Some other societies have provided roles for unmarried women (Some American Indian tribes had medicine women or other such priestesses that did not need to have a spouse to be important.) Even so, when married, motherhood was expected to be the main focus of their lives. Most major civilizations have expected marriage and motherhood to be the only legitimate place for women. <BR/><BR/><BR/><BR/>"So I have this dream about a new kind of feminism - one that recognises that it is not only about liberating biological women from the constraints and indignities associated with their sex, but about liberating all human people from the cruelties and limitations imposed on them by their gender ..."<BR/><BR/>Then feminism is probably the wrong term. Genderlessism is really more descriptive. The traditional feminine role seems to be the one that causes the most ire for feminists so the term "feminism" would reinforce that difference.<BR/><BR/>Jal, <BR/>I've thought that part of their agenda is beyond anti-civilization and on to anti-humans in general. Few of them have articulated or thought that this is where the philosophy leads(although there is a movement for voluntary human extinction.) They just want to rebel against any order. Some like Penny here seem to spend a lot of energy thinking and writing but never revealing just where the end game of all this leads. Are they hiding it or denying it? I don't know. Some just view the tribal society as superior to the organized civilization. Entropy in motion, perhaps.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6832901.post-25491762358107076222009-01-12T21:39:00.000+11:002009-01-12T21:39:00.000+11:00Leon, I notice that someone at Penny's site has ma...Leon, I notice that someone at Penny's site has made the same point as you - that it is Penny who is being totalitarian (intolerant?) in wanting to force people to abandon gender identities. <BR/><BR/>Jal, a very interesting comment. You're right that Penny's position can be criticised from both a religious and secular position.<BR/><BR/>I don't think I can put your argument as well as you do, but I understand the gist of it as follows: the natural condition of man is a harsh one and we have done well to build a civilisation to rise above it. In attacking gender, marriage and the family, Penny Red is more likely to undermine the traditions on which an advanced, civilised life is made possible than to liberate individuals from oppression.<BR/><BR/>It's a good argument, though I would describe human nature as being more a combination of higher and lower qualities.<BR/><BR/>Here is another approach to this issue for someone with a secular world view.<BR/><BR/>Science has increasingly shown that sex differences are hard-wired.<BR/><BR/>Therefore, the existence of sex distinctions is natural and doesn't need to be explained in terms of power relationships.<BR/><BR/>Furthermore, we can observe in our own experience, and that of others, that sex distinctions are often a positive aspect of life. They are deeply ingrained in our sense of identity and in our experiences of heterosexual love.<BR/><BR/>It is therefore reasonable for a society to not only accept sex distinctions but to positively encourage the higher masculine and feminine qualities - the ones associated with a higher, more civilised form of manhood and womanhood.<BR/><BR/>Jaz, you are a long way from a bad old conservative habit, of being too defensive and giving away too much to liberalism when making objections to it.Mark Richardsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15961688379656119701noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6832901.post-60653745413923719152009-01-12T15:31:00.000+11:002009-01-12T15:31:00.000+11:00She's like someone who goes into the Louvre, looki...She's like someone who goes into the Louvre, looking at the Mona Lisa, and saying "it's rubbish" and proclaiming a Jackson Pollack a masterpiece. No, she hasn't judged the art--the art has judged her.<BR/><BR/>And if she proclaims the created order to be deranged, instead the created order determines her to be deranged.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6832901.post-89240667494409481922009-01-12T15:19:00.000+11:002009-01-12T15:19:00.000+11:00Also, the idea that the self can (never mind shoul...Also, the idea that the self can (never mind should!) be self-constructed needs to be critiqued as the nonsense it obviously is. <BR/><BR/>Whether, as the Pope says, out nature is given by God, or whether it is given by nature, we cannot afford to ignore it and expect happiness to follow. <BR/><BR/>One can view nature, semiotically speaking, as a manifestation of divine order or alternatively as an unfeeling and hostile force that threatens civilisation; through the lens of a religious worldview in which human communities have a sanctified place, or when this view is in decline, as an atavistic and anti-social principle. <BR/><BR/>One can look at natire as Wordsworth saw it, or as Baudelaire did. But one cannot credibly ignore it or deny that it exists, as liberals and postmodernists do.<BR/><BR/>I think that religious and non-religious conservatives can agree<BR/>that, whether by obedience to a divine plan or by respect for traditional forms of community whose fuction is to tame the destructive Darwinian struggle for existence, we must approach nature, inner and outer, with due reverence. <BR/><BR/>I feel that there is always a hidden and perhaps unconscious agenda behind feminist and liberal attacks on gender, marriage and the family. In the name of liberty equality these people are seeking to destroy the thin veneer that civilisation, or religious discipline, places over our egoistic, animal natures; to replace the harmonious compromise between men's and women's interests that marriage represents, with unrestrained competition, both inter- and intra-sex, for reproductive advantage.<BR/><BR/>The result of this is of course that the family, which is the basic unit of society, breaks down and the next generation grows up not as autonomous, "self-created" androgynes, but, like that of their parents, does not really grow up at all.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6832901.post-7665100783969145222009-01-11T17:25:00.000+11:002009-01-11T17:25:00.000+11:00I think her hatred of gender distinctions says mor...I think her hatred of gender distinctions says more about her, to be honest. <BR/><BR/>And I think the idea of forcing everyone to abandon gender identities, even if they are happier with them, seems to be a little totalitarian, or "fascist".<BR/><BR/>Truth is that most men are happy to be men, and most women are happy to be women. Hence why Penny Red will never achieve her social(ist) objectives.Leon Bertrandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07904286692877156809noreply@blogger.com