Monday, July 24, 2017

When women reject a higher nature, what takes over?

In my last post I drew a distinction between elevated and base aspects of womanhood. The elevated aspect is inspiring to men and is associated with feminine virtue:


Men who only see women spiritually as elevated creatures are at risk of becoming "white knights" who hold men alone as responsible for problems within the family. They aren't likely to understand the civilisational effort that is needed to keep women from falling down toward their baser nature.

I mentioned in my last post some of the characteristics that can make female behaviour petty, unstable and destructive. First, women's emotions can slide easily along several horizontal axes, one of which has "fun" at one end and "bored" at the other; another with "love" at one end and "hate" at the other. Women tend more than men to have an external locus of control, believing that what happens to them is the result of cosmic forces that have to be divined.

By chance, soon after writing this post I came across the columns of Karley Sciortino, who writes for Vogue. She is someone who has given herself over to these baser qualities of womanhood to an unusual degree, so she illustrates where the "liberated woman" (i.e. a woman "liberated" from traditionally feminine virtues) will finally arrive.

The purpose of writing this is twofold: first, to encourage women to cultivate virtue and, second, to persuade men that it can't just be left to chance that women will be formed successfully for marriage and motherhood - that this requires the culture to push in whatever way it can toward the virtues.

At first, it seems as if Karley does not prove my point about women externalising. In my first post I asserted:
...women tend to externalise. In their experience, they are acted upon by external forces, so that they don't "own" their personal emotional states. These states happen to them, in ways difficult to understand, perhaps brought about by cosmic forces they cannot control.

...most modern women still give some credence to various forms of fortune telling such as tarot cards. Even highly educated, professional women will use spells or magic to try to ward off "negative energies" that exert a baleful influence over them. Some women still go to fortune tellers to help them make major life decisions, such are those relating to marriage or divorce.

If you read Karley Sciortino's columns they are analytical and self-reflective and therefore disprove my point - until, that is, you read Karley's descriptions of her own female peers:
...even in notoriously skeptical New York, it’s increasingly difficult to find someone who doesn’t believe that some magical cosmic force is dictating everything from subway timing to whether or not they’re getting laid.

And I note too that she is not above dabbling in such matters herself: one of her columns is titled "Can a shaman cure my fear of normalcy?"

What really stands out in Karley Sciortino's writing is her fear of sliding along that axis from fun to boredom. It has been her ruin:
Last weekend, I found myself sitting in front of a shaman in a mansion in Berkeley, talking about my commitment problems. You know, cliché white people stuff. “I have this fear,” I told the shaman, “that I’m going to wake up one day with a husband, two kids, a house in the suburbs, and wonder how I got there, as if it’s my destiny. So to avoid it, I continually destroy my relationships at the first sign they’re headed in that direction.”

...In the past, once a relationship began to feel routine, I cheated...Basically, as soon as something feels stable, I sabotage it. I’ve often thought this impulse stems from my super-white-bread, middle-class upbringing: I grew up in a small town with married parents who loved each other. It felt safe but not interesting, and I’ve spent my life fighting that fate.

She is worried that she will be bored by marital love, motherhood and security and so sabotages her relationships. She also finds virtue in men boring. She explains that she goes for men who are sexually uninhibited because:
the goal is certainly to live a life full of intense and new experiences. And if you prioritize thrill and excitement over security, then a hedonist is the right choice.
And that,
Every time a relationship with a different sex maniac comes to a fiery end, I have the same thought: “This time I’m going to date someone nice, who’s never even once been accused of sexual harassment.” Every time I say it to myself in this really self-congratulatory way, like I’ve just discovered the cure for cancer. But then, without fail, when I start dating one of these nice, in-control people, within two weeks I want to kill myself. It’s hard to get off on virtue alone.

And what about pettiness? This is how Karley Sciortino filters men:
Essentially, we are far more discriminating in our 30s than we were in our 20s, which is both a blessing and a curse. We know more about what we want and what we won’t tolerate—but to a point where almost no one is good enough. I find myself having thoughts like, “I could never date him, he wears V-necks.” Or, “He was nice, but he sleeps in a mezzanine bed.” And this perpetual dissatisfaction is especially true in New York, where inflated egos are paired with incredibly high standards and the illusion of infinite choice. That cliché of thinking “someone better might be just around the corner” is real.

Karley also fits everything that the red pill sites say about the modern girl lifestyle. She rode the carousel during her 20s, but now that she is in her early 30s is worried that she has hit the wall. She has written a whole column explaining her change of heart, which includes this:
...it’s not just that being single suddenly feels alienating in your 30s. It’s also that dating itself becomes more difficult. For one, the stakes are higher. You don’t want to waste your time on someone who doesn’t feel like they could be “the one.” But simultaneously, thinking “would he make a good dad?” after knowing someone for the duration of a martini makes you feel like an insane, rom-com cliché of a woman. Not ideal.

...The catch is, as we become increasingly picky, the pool of soul mates keeps getting smaller. Here’s another 30s development: Now, when I meet a cute guy, he’s often already married...

But after so long with so many men she is, by her own admission, very jaded. She writes that she has given up on meeting a hotter circle of men and is finally thinking of settling. She writes:
Now, being jaded doesn’t simply mean that you’re “over it.” It’s more that you’ve become sick and tired after overindulging in something. And I’m pretty sure that my current state is the result of binge-eating on sex and relationships for the past 15 years. Some of the telltale signs include: Being around cheery, optimistic people makes me nauseous...I often swipe through Tinder in front of my friends, sighing unnecessarily loudly and saying things like, “See, this is what I have to choose from!”...When I see engagement notifications on Facebook, I think, She must have settled. (Or, if I’m in a particularly bad mood: She just ruined her life.)

It’s gotten to the point where I’ve pretty much convinced myself that my options are either to be single forever or eventually be like, “Eh, you’ll do.”...But even if you know you’re jaded, that doesn’t mean you have the power to control it.

Would you really want your son to be the man who ends up marrying this woman? Is this woman likely to successfully pair bond? Is it not likely that she will see her future husband as a beta male she settled for and who will therefore always be on the back foot trying to please her? Is it not likely she will want to go back to the thrill of the low-virtue, uninhibited men she spent her formative years with?

It is true, no doubt, that Karley Sciortino has pushed the "liberated" girl lifestyle further than others, but her mindset illustrates what is possible, negatively, within the nature of women. Does anyone believe that you can form stable marriages from this kind of lifestyle? Or maintain a civilisation?

It is wrong to disregard the choices women make, or to think that it is only masculine virtue that counts. Women have to be drawn to a standard of virtue - this is something basic to family formation, to the possibility of marital love, to a society successfully reproducing itself, and to men being inspired to defend their own tradition.

10 comments:

  1. She sounds like a drug addict, chasing cheap thrills.

    Maybe there is also a content vs covetous axis. Eve disdained paradise to taste the only fruit that did not pertain unto her.

    That our culture encourages this, the most selfish and destructive behavior, is a sure sign it won't continue.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Also, she takes her health and that if her partner for granted. Without good health, this lifestyle is impossible. Likely the disabled are invisible to her as well.

    She views marriage as perpetual fun times where both remain attractive and able bodied.

    What will she do as they eventually age? Or face ill relatives? Those are the times the bond of marriage matters most.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Actually, she has a number of posts on the disabled, about how they have trouble getting access to sex.

      Delete
    2. I stand corrected then.

      But encouraging the disabled to fornicate is not in their best interest.

      Delete
  3. One has to wonder about such women having genital herpes and HPV too. I think the probability must be very high. I really don't know what happens to such women as I only read the columns they write in their late '30s or early '40s.

    ReplyDelete
  4. You'll do. Words of a self absorbed narcissist.

    Scary. It never seems to occur to her that may she the one who 'won't do'.

    She has zero insight into how men select and what will make for a successful marriage. Hint: it depends greatly on what you did before you entered the relationship.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Her columns are an illuminating example of what I can only call "aware lack of awareness". She writes what comes into her head, and describes the phenomena accurately, but with zero insight. Her experiences confirm what anyone familiar with the Manosphere knows to be true. "I like bad boys, I hate betas." But there is zero understanding that this is not "her", this is women generally; this is hypergamy, this is the female imperative.

    She has utterly ruined herself and is incapable of marriage. "I continually destroy my relationships at the first sign they’re headed in that direction." No, wrong. She is incapable of maintaining a relationship, and her post hoc reasoning is a justification, not a description of what happened.

    If she had any true introspection, she would realize that everything the Manosphere says about women is spot on.

    ReplyDelete
  6. "When women reject a higher nature, what takes over?"

    After I read that, the first thought to enter my mind was, "we've seen 'what takes over' for the last fifty years".

    ReplyDelete
  7. The never ending debate over a fixed or fluid "nature" of man can't be won by a man embedded in it. "We do not know what our nature permits us to be" seems to have the upper hand. High or low, it's all in our natures.
    I've used this analogy many times: You have a petri dish filled with bacteria. You add an antibiotic to the dish. Most of the bacteria dies. But, enough of the bacteria contains a little noticed natural enzyme that allows it to survive. It now thrives on the dead remains of the formally dominate bacteria. Nothing new has been created. No new species. Something that has always existed is liberated.
    Karley Sciortino's "mindset illustrates what is possible, negatively, within the nature of women", and men.
    Our higher natures seem to need a shared, protective context. They're increasingly unstable and fragile.
    Take as an example, something as repugnant as "prison sex", or "situational sex", which have always existed. It appears to be hidden low in our natures, rising to a need.
    I have long defined modern liberalism as the denial and the defiance of an immutable natural order of being, which traditionalist conservatism accepts and embraces along with the necessary constraints and trade-offs. Is this natural or must it be studied and learned? What then, is a natural order? Low and high.
    Men and women "need to be drawn to a standard of virtue" because everything imaginable is on the table. Virtue is hard to come by. It's said that we're approaching a point where no antibiotics will work. Physically and metaphysically.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have long defined modern liberalism as the denial and the defiance of an immutable natural order of being, which traditionalist conservatism accepts and embraces along with the necessary constraints and trade-offs.

      Well put. There is certainly evidence for this in Karley Sciortino's columns. She vehemently doesn't want to go along with anything external to her own will/desires. It's the "I will decide, not some order of being" instinct. In this sense she is right to consider herself a rebel, even though she is going along with the tide of society. She is rebelling, with society, against the fact that we can't just make things up to be however we want them to be.

      Delete