tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6832901.post4204691490629446674..comments2024-03-25T19:48:24.624+11:00Comments on Oz Conservative: The power of sexual surrender 2Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6832901.post-40710125585946596672016-08-22T19:26:40.498+10:002016-08-22T19:26:40.498+10:00Unknown, good question. I think right wing fighter...Unknown, good question. I think right wing fighters point is very much plausible, but I would have to consider it a bit before committing to it. As for periods of history, I think Professor John Carroll's account is a good one. He sees the underlying principle of modernity as having been around for a long time (since the Renaissance/Reformation) but as having been held together with pre-modern values, e.g. Christian and aristocratic. Therefore, when you look back in history you see differing, unstable fusions between the modern and traditionalist outlook, with the modern generally extending its sphere of influence over time. So it's not easy, at least since the early modern period, to say that a society was grounded in defensible values, as the best you can say is that traditionalist values still had some influence, alongside the modernist ones (e.g. aristocratic codes of honour). Here's another point: there were once influential classes of people who defended the more traditional values (e.g. gentry, clergy), but the last great resistance seems to have ended with the death of Queen Anne and the ascension of the Hannoverians in the early 1700s.<br /><br />For some time, liberal modernity has gone it alone, without seeking to fuse with any other source of value, hence its radical nature. I would say that high culture has been almost entirely liberal in nature since the interwar years.Mark Richardsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15961688379656119701noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6832901.post-23284880282773170672016-08-22T08:25:33.769+10:002016-08-22T08:25:33.769+10:00Second attempt, 're right wing fighter: can yo...Second attempt, 're right wing fighter: can you or the blog author expand on this idea that the 50's and the Victorian era were merely reactions? When was the last traditional period that was grounded in defensible values? Do you mean Christianity, or has traditionalism always been 'unprincipled'? I'm which case what sets apart the 50's/Victorians? Mantlehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00360710405640154823noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6832901.post-68134623228650940142016-07-20T02:47:08.562+10:002016-07-20T02:47:08.562+10:00Just finished reading Robinson's book from the...Just finished reading Robinson's book from the link you gave - thank you for sharing this as well as your thoughts on the book.<br /><br />I am certain the phenomenon was not present at the time Robinson wrote the book, at least not nearly to the extent that it is today, but her description of the neurosis that frigid women experience in their relationships with men was eye-opening. In our present day this neurosis has become accepted as normal course, with the result being that women think it a first principle that they must have a distrust for men as a sex. Men by and large coddle the neurosis themselves, and, so I suspect, partake in it.<br /><br />It's true that such a malformed view of the sexes is widespread, but I also suspect that it is deep-seeded in very few women*. With a little light shed on the neurotic nature of such a view of men many women would do away with these views. How this light is to be shed in such a society as ours, which has invested itself deeply in the perpetuation of the neurosis as something healthy (i.e., feminism), I have no good answers. <br /><br />*I am no expert on such things, but Robinson's dependence upon early childhood development as an explanation for a later malformed psyche rings true in the case of the chronically frigid woman. While all women (and men) have less than ideal childhoods, I suspect it is very few who have childhood experiences so traumatic that they find it difficult to escape neuroses they have conditioned themselves to foster in an attempt to understand the world. It seems that with feminism, the deeply neurotic have by-and-large been given exclusive access to the microphone, giving the impression that the neurosis that afflicts them is the normal way to view the world.Johnnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6832901.post-70658479062615883692016-07-08T23:07:46.842+10:002016-07-08T23:07:46.842+10:00This is precisely correct: The collapse of author...This is precisely correct: The collapse of authority leaves us all -- women, men, parents, children, shepherds, sheep -- in total chaos. "Question Authority" was the thought-stopping mantra, and the Greatest Generation had no answer. God had already been declared irrelevant by those who were certain they were on the Right Side of History. They were under the impression that they had defeated Evil and were in the process of mastering nature.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6832901.post-71073595991828358752016-07-05T12:27:35.196+10:002016-07-05T12:27:35.196+10:00Many people have remarked that the problem with th...Many people have remarked that the problem with the Victorian era was that it wasn't based on anything. That is, that it's conclusions weren't drawn from principles, but were just held in the air instead. This is because it was a violent throwing on of the breaks against the French revolution. England, as you said, was always more classical. When the bloodshed of the French revolution become fully known; when its philosophical implications become clearer, there was a strong backlash against it.<br /><br />In the case of the later Victorian era, the effect of the French revolution began to wear off. Generation succeeded generation and people forgot it over time. And that's also why the Victorian era ended so abruptly: when academics and the like began pulling on its philosophical underpinnings, they found nothing because there was nothing. Victorianism was a throwback - an assumption of ancient habits without the ancient _reasons_ for those habits. Many things the Victorians did were correct. But that didn't change the fact that their era was a throwback era. Many of their _conclusions_ were correct. But they had little philosophic backing and could not defend their conclusions.<br /><br />It's similar to the brief post-World War II throwback in America. The late 40s through the early 60s were a pretty nice time. But like the Victorians there was no philosophic backing. Many of their _conclusions_ were correct. But they couldn't defend them. Thus in the 50s and early 60s authority was universally respected. But when the student rioters questioned authority and demanded its justification, the authorities had no reply. The authorities were correct: but they had no philosophic underpinnings. As such they couldn't defend themselves. This is why the post-World War II era ended so abruptly.<br /><br />I didn't mean to make this an essay on Victorianism. But I hope this helps to spell out my thinking a bit more.<br /><br />--<br /><br />I'd like to say that I've enjoyed many of the quotes you've posted so far. I'm not criticizing her book wholesale. But I wanted to bring up these points.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6832901.post-73854381602227806582016-07-05T10:00:37.048+10:002016-07-05T10:00:37.048+10:00That's very well put, thank you. Regarding you...That's very well put, thank you. Regarding your first argument, I don't feel qualified to give a confident reply. However, English thought even prior to the French Revolution, tended toward a classical view which pitted reason against the passions. Reason was higher than the passions and men were thought to embody reason more than women. So early feminists like Wollstonecraft went to great lengths to argue that female irrationality/emotionalism was a product of upbringing and not her nature and that women could and should imitate men. The classical view is correct, I think, at one level, namely that the passions have to be subject to reason/guided by reason, but at the same time a dry rationalism isn't right either, as it is the higher intuitive sense of man that helps to create a fully natured person - hence the backlash against the classical view during the Romantic era of the later 1700s and early 1800s. You might be right that in England a backlash against the French Revolution led to an emphasis on the individual subjecting her/himself to authority external to individual will (I just don't know), but by the later Victorian period this isn't true, as John Stuart Mill became the leading intellectual figure and his view was most certainly a liberal one that what mattered was the primacy of individual will/autonomy (though he thought that with sufficient education people would choose to be honourable Victorian gentlemen - history has proven him very wrong).<br /><br />As for your second argument, you are mostly correct that Marie Robinson emphasises the positive effect of rejecting feminism on the life of the individual, though to be fair (and I haven't quoted her on this yet), she does also mention the positive role of what she suggests on the family and also on "the race" - by which she seems to mean the Western peoples.<br /><br />Nonetheless, your final point stands, I think. It is definitely a more radical break with feminism (modernity really) to argue for the good of society (or, for that matter, for objective moral goods/virtues). Mark Richardsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15961688379656119701noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6832901.post-5504619856897527092016-07-05T08:10:06.850+10:002016-07-05T08:10:06.850+10:00I don't believe that Victorian sexual repressi...I don't believe that Victorian sexual repression in women was caused by a desire for revenge. I believe it was caused by the French revolution.<br /><br />The French revolution had turned the world upside down by declaring man to be God. As such, everything man wanted was justifiable. The Victorians reacted violently to this, and said that only a repressed life, one guided by rules and authorities outside our own will was acceptable. The goal was to get man out of the pilot's seat so he wouldn't crash the human plane. The passions fell under the same category as "those things which carry man away with himself" and as such were attacked as dangerous. I believe this is the real reason for the sexual puritanism of the Victorians.<br /><br />--<br /><br />This woman has a lot of interesting things to say, but I recommend a pinch of salt. Like you said in your first post, the book isn't perfect.<br /><br />An example of this is when she said:<br /><br />"For one hundred and fifty years now women have blamed their problems on the outside world. [...] They have indulged in an orgy of finger-pointing and self-pity. If the results had been different, if this attitude had brought them happiness and fulfillment, if feminism and Victorianism had made them good mothers and joyful wives, or even pleased them with their new place in industry, the game might have been worth the candle."<br /><br />This implies that her cast of mind is more towards what makes women happy, as opposed to what is good for society. I've noticed this in many anti-feminism books that women have written. Even the ones that say very bold things against feminism always come back to the ultimate goal of "what makes women happy." In this way, they haven't actually moved beyond feminism and the supremacy of the individual. They are still arguing from the liberal premise that personal happiness is the goal. Until they focus on _good_ over _happiness_, they aren't going to make progress against feminism. This is because feminism already has a monopoly on the road to happiness. Not long-term happiness of course. But when people seek happiness, they are seeking it in the short-term, not the long-term. As such, when the goal is happiness, and a woman has the choice between womanhood and feminism, she has this choice: feminism, which promises immediate gratification of desires; or womanhood, which promises a fulfilling life of carrying out womanly duty; a sort of warm glow of happiness with streaks of joy in it.<br /><br />Obviously feminism will wreck the woman who chooses it. But for those seeking _happiness_, they will choose the short-term path pretty much every time. I think the pervasiveness of feminism proves this.<br /><br />The answer is not to try to get women to accept the slow, thoroughgoing, warm-glow happiness of womanhood as a way to get happiness. Instead, the answer is to teach them to value _good_ over _happiness_. When they seek good instead, and live healthy and productive lives _as women_, they will have happiness too.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com