The last few months have seen the remarkable emergence of psychologist Jordan B. Peterson, whose bestseller 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos has found a particular audience in young men. Peterson is, of course, recalling young pajama boys to responsibility from their parents' basements.
The other puzzling phenomenon is the rise of special snowflake girls at our nation's universities during the Obama years. They seem to be insisting on safety: from sexual harassment and from unwelcome ideas. This is not surprising to me. What Women Want is protection. All the rubbish about women being superheroes and rough tough corporate execs is just that: left-wing rubbish. The point is, I think, that a woman cannot go about being a woman unless her safety is provided for.
There is no mystery about this. The central activity of women in the world is the birthing and the raising of children. To do this, a woman needs a quiet, safe place to care for her little ones. That is why, for instance, recent opinion polls report that a clear majority of mothers want to stay home with their kids. No kidding! The fact is that women don't like the free-for-all of the sexual revolution; they don't like ultra competition; they don't like business startups; they don't like the open outcry of the battle of ideas; they don't like being separated from their young children.
This is not to say that women should be forced to stay home, forced to stay out of trouble, forced to live modest lives. Not at all: the essence of freedom is the right to make a complete mess of your life and go against all sensible cultural memes without being put in the stocks. But I think that it is a cruel injustice to teach girls that they ought to be adventurous and career oriented and live life just like a man.
Of course, the cultural force that teaches women to be "independent women" and to live against the wisdom of the ages is the modern phenomenon of the left. I do not know exactly why it is that the left teaches, nay, bullies women to be unwomanly, and men to be unmanly. I suspect it has something to do with the blind leftist hatred of everything bourgeois and middle class.
I suspect that we are approaching a crisis in the cultural authority of the left. This was highlighted for me in a piece on the cultural divide between left and right. It shows that since 1994 the right has moved a little to the right, but the left has moved a lot towards the left.
In my view the movement to the left is getting beyond folly to real social damage, and is creating such emotional stress for individual leftists that it will soon reach a breaking point.
The point of the left has always been the idea of liberation from the iron cage of existence. Why should people have to suffer when the means of their liberation is available? In the Marxist utopia we should be able "to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner." In the early 21st century, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi exults over the wonders of Obamacare:
Let us analyze this with my reductive Three Peoples theory. In my theory the People of the Subordinate Self are liberated from exploitation and oppression when they come to learn and practice the virtues of individual responsibility. It is a hard thing to do, and many people prefer to live as virtual serfs, as government program beneficiaries or as government bureaucrats with lifetime tenure, rather than accept the burdens of responsibility. Likewise, in my theory the People of the Responsible Self rise up into a life of creativity from a base of a responsibility. They do not imagine themselves being liberated from responsibility if they decide to become "a photographer or a writer or a musician."
But in the crazy-cakes world of the left the artist or the feminist or the gay is endeavoring to liberate herself from the shackles of responsibility; indeed she is really a victim for being forced by society to observe its bourgeois norms. This kind of thinking is an almost irresistible temptation for someone on the left because the default program of the left is the liberation of helpless victims from exploitation and oppression. It is only a small step from advocating for ex-slaves or victims of the patriarchy to imagining oneself, who so longs to escape the coils of responsibility into the ethereal heights of creative art, to be just as much a victim as the real victims of society.
I think it is best to regard all liberation, except in the strict sense of liberation from actual slavery or serfdom, as a fantasy. We are humans, social animals, members of society, and that means that we should endeavor first of all to contribute to society and build up a credit balance in the bank of cooperation before we draw it down in a risky creative venture. For any well-born would-be creative to regard themselves as a victim, because the government has cut grants to the arts, or because they can't afford health insurance, is laughable.
Indeed, if there is real privilege is these times it is the privilege we create that allows people to do experimental things, in art or in business, at all. In most societies down the ages experimentation was regarded as a very present danger and was stopped in its tracks. Because when an experiment goes wrong it often causes real hardship to others in society.
In my view both the alt-right and the safe-spaces left are experiencing the same thing. Something is wrong, so we must return to the old ways to find safety and reconnect with responsibility.
The other puzzling phenomenon is the rise of special snowflake girls at our nation's universities during the Obama years. They seem to be insisting on safety: from sexual harassment and from unwelcome ideas. This is not surprising to me. What Women Want is protection. All the rubbish about women being superheroes and rough tough corporate execs is just that: left-wing rubbish. The point is, I think, that a woman cannot go about being a woman unless her safety is provided for.
There is no mystery about this. The central activity of women in the world is the birthing and the raising of children. To do this, a woman needs a quiet, safe place to care for her little ones. That is why, for instance, recent opinion polls report that a clear majority of mothers want to stay home with their kids. No kidding! The fact is that women don't like the free-for-all of the sexual revolution; they don't like ultra competition; they don't like business startups; they don't like the open outcry of the battle of ideas; they don't like being separated from their young children.
This is not to say that women should be forced to stay home, forced to stay out of trouble, forced to live modest lives. Not at all: the essence of freedom is the right to make a complete mess of your life and go against all sensible cultural memes without being put in the stocks. But I think that it is a cruel injustice to teach girls that they ought to be adventurous and career oriented and live life just like a man.
Of course, the cultural force that teaches women to be "independent women" and to live against the wisdom of the ages is the modern phenomenon of the left. I do not know exactly why it is that the left teaches, nay, bullies women to be unwomanly, and men to be unmanly. I suspect it has something to do with the blind leftist hatred of everything bourgeois and middle class.
I suspect that we are approaching a crisis in the cultural authority of the left. This was highlighted for me in a piece on the cultural divide between left and right. It shows that since 1994 the right has moved a little to the right, but the left has moved a lot towards the left.
In my view the movement to the left is getting beyond folly to real social damage, and is creating such emotional stress for individual leftists that it will soon reach a breaking point.
The point of the left has always been the idea of liberation from the iron cage of existence. Why should people have to suffer when the means of their liberation is available? In the Marxist utopia we should be able "to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner." In the early 21st century, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi exults over the wonders of Obamacare:
"As you hear from these stories, this is a liberation... This is what our founders had in mind--ever expanding opportunity for people.See, I think this has things exactly backward. I think it is a wonderful thing for people to take risks and attempt to live the creative life. But I strongly believe that such risk-takers should do it on their own dime, and not force ordinary people to subsidize or pay for their risk-taking. The fact is that universal healthcare enslaves everyone in a mandatory government program so that some people can be liberated from the responsibility of managing their own risks.
"You want to be a photographer or a writer or a musician, whatever -- an artist, you want to be self-employed, if you want to start a business, you want to change jobs, you no longer are prohibited from doing that because you can’t have access to health care..."
Let us analyze this with my reductive Three Peoples theory. In my theory the People of the Subordinate Self are liberated from exploitation and oppression when they come to learn and practice the virtues of individual responsibility. It is a hard thing to do, and many people prefer to live as virtual serfs, as government program beneficiaries or as government bureaucrats with lifetime tenure, rather than accept the burdens of responsibility. Likewise, in my theory the People of the Responsible Self rise up into a life of creativity from a base of a responsibility. They do not imagine themselves being liberated from responsibility if they decide to become "a photographer or a writer or a musician."
But in the crazy-cakes world of the left the artist or the feminist or the gay is endeavoring to liberate herself from the shackles of responsibility; indeed she is really a victim for being forced by society to observe its bourgeois norms. This kind of thinking is an almost irresistible temptation for someone on the left because the default program of the left is the liberation of helpless victims from exploitation and oppression. It is only a small step from advocating for ex-slaves or victims of the patriarchy to imagining oneself, who so longs to escape the coils of responsibility into the ethereal heights of creative art, to be just as much a victim as the real victims of society.
I think it is best to regard all liberation, except in the strict sense of liberation from actual slavery or serfdom, as a fantasy. We are humans, social animals, members of society, and that means that we should endeavor first of all to contribute to society and build up a credit balance in the bank of cooperation before we draw it down in a risky creative venture. For any well-born would-be creative to regard themselves as a victim, because the government has cut grants to the arts, or because they can't afford health insurance, is laughable.
Indeed, if there is real privilege is these times it is the privilege we create that allows people to do experimental things, in art or in business, at all. In most societies down the ages experimentation was regarded as a very present danger and was stopped in its tracks. Because when an experiment goes wrong it often causes real hardship to others in society.
In my view both the alt-right and the safe-spaces left are experiencing the same thing. Something is wrong, so we must return to the old ways to find safety and reconnect with responsibility.
No comments:
Post a Comment