Goldberg: feminism is a cure for the world

There is a lot for traditionalists to cheer on in the men's movement, but also ideas that we can't support.

Take, for instance, two recent posts at The Spearhead. One was a worthwhile criticism of Jonah Goldberg, the editor of National Review Online. NRO is supposed to be a conservative publication, but Goldberg has written a post that is remarkably uncritical of feminism.

Goldberg begins with a quote by Kay Hymowitz:

For the first time ever, and I do mean ever, young women are reaching their twenties with more achievements, more education, more property, and, arguably, more ambition than their male counterparts.

Goldberg treats these social trends as unproblematic. He writes,

These are the fruits of feminist success. And, as the father of a little girl, I’m grateful for many of feminism’s achievements.

He then goes on to argue that feminism has completed its mission in America and should now focus its efforts overseas:

The good news for those who want to continue the fight for women is that there is plenty of work left to do — abroad.

The plight of women in other countries is not only dire, it’s central to global poverty and the war on terrorism.

As The Spearhead post puts it, Goldberg is a kind of feminist imperialist, wanting to spread it from his own country to other lands.

Goldberg is extraordinarily complacent about feminism. It is naive to believe that feminists will suddenly declare their mission to be over in America. If a larger aim of feminism is to make our sex not matter, then feminism will always be at war with how society operates.

Goldberg is also blind to the negative consequences of the social trends described by Kay Hymowitz. Hymowitz herself believes that the male role in society has been undermined, with many young men now trapped in a pre-adulthood:

My book grew out of my observation that relations between the sexes during this protracted period I call pre-adulthood are, at best, very confused. I have tried to figure out why so many young women today complain about men being thoughtless, immature and boorish. I also wanted to know why large numbers of men have become so profoundly hostile to women.

...As a number of commenters have correctly noted, feminism celebrated women’s independence sometimes to the point of making men seem an expendable part of family life. Throughout the 1990’s when many of today’s pre-adult men were growing up, the entire culture turned into a you-go-girl cheering section...Boys might have also observed their uncles or fathers, perhaps good men, being taken to the cleaners by wives...

All of this seems to have passed Goldberg by. He complacently accepts the underlying assumptions of feminism and doesn't understand that once you endorse feminist principles you will want to see them implemented in society in ever more radical ways, even if this means coercive state intervention. Therefore, what is the point of being a Goldberg? What do you achieve? You cheer on left-wing changes to society whilst impotently arguing that things have gone far enough. History will inevitably record your failure to halt the onward march of a principle that you yourself endorsed.

The second post at The Spearhead begins well enough with an encouragement to men to act in a more masculine way to attract women. But it then urges on men a radical policy of self-determination. The author believes there are three important ways that men could become more self-determining.

First, by getting a vasectomy:

men are entitled to exercise discretion over their own bodies in the extreme. Advances in vasectomies have given men the option of having a vasectomy in their single years with the possibility of reversal later on. In this day and age of uncertain paternity and women who derive significant income from child support, my advice would be for men to undergo a vasectomy as a form of birth control.

The decision to do so is ultimately private and need not be shared with prospective sexual partners, girlfriends, or even wives. A woman is not required to notify her husband of an abortion, and her husband is not bound to notify her that he had a vasectomy before they got married. Additionally, having a vasectomy gives a man a degree of reproductive self-determination that a woman cannot influence...

Should a man choose a polygynous existence, he can do so knowing that he is free from the concern of impregnating any girlfriend or mistress he might have. He is free to enjoy sex on his own terms, to be affirmed by it as he sees fit without facing exploitation from a former lover.

Second, by replacing Western marriage with a more temporary Islamic version:

There are innovations from other cultures that we might import here as we restore our political power and voice. We might take the example of Iranian Muslims who enter into a contract called the sigheh, where a type of temporary marriage is entered into. The conditions are spelled out at the beginning, from the amount of support that will be provided to the amount of sex that will be given. The contract can be anywhere from a few hours to months or years in duration, and it is renewable.

This seems like a far more reasonable arrangement for men to pursue than the antiquated institution of full-blown marriage...Sigheh represents the best of what marriage has to offer without any of the finality or restrictions.

Third, by dating older women:

Simply put, a male in his twenties is better suited to pursue a relationship with an older woman. A woman hits her sexual peak in her thirties, and a man at that age ought to realistically assess what he wants from a relationship and pursue it without shame. Moreover, older women have their own means and their own status, and the introduction of a younger man into the networks they’ve already established can be important to later success in employment and business. Your peers in the same age group cannot offer you either the status, the connections, or even the same sexual competency as an older woman because they don’t have any of those things.

The economics of the matter do not lie. The older someone is, the more likely they are to have a better economic footing.

This is all justified in terms of male autonomy:

But most importantly, realize that the brotherhood you have with your own kind will be key to resurgence in male self-determination...

It’s time to ... take concrete steps to achieve sexual self-determination and pride for men on their own terms. It’s time to empower men to define their own lives however they see fit, to remove the institutional and social obstacles to men who seek to live life as an alpha male by their own merits.

I understand this response. Men grow up observing the attempt by society and the state to maximise the autonomy of women. So some men will inevitably argue that the same should be done for men. They will try to envisage what maximum autonomy would mean for men.

And the answer given above is that men should not have children; that they should marry on a temporary, contractual basis only; that they should marry for money and status; and that they should focus on removing obstacles to satisfying sexual desires.

But, as with any attempt to make autonomy the overriding value, this denies important aspects of our nature. The advice that single men should get vasectomies is particularly poor, given the importance to so many men of becoming fathers. The advice to marry older women for money and connections is also poor as it denies to men the kind of passionate relationship that is more likely to be found as a young man with a young woman.

It's a vision of society in which what matters is career and status and casual sexual relationships, with little concern for family or nation. It would inevitably be as corrosive to society as feminism has been, if not more so.