In the aftermath of the Parkland school massacre we are experiencing what, for conservatives, is a curious disconnect. On the one hand we have the usual liberal suspects clamoring for gun control. On the other hand we have the evidence of major governmental failure: failure to follow up on multiple opportunities to deal with the accused mass murderer before he struck; failure of the armed police guard at the school to intervene, and general government incompetence up and down the line.
What is going on here?
I return once again to my Georg Simmel line, that in the modern era with the emergence of women into the public square we are going to see women move the public square into a direction that conforms with a "more feminine sensibility."
One of the forms of feminine sensibility is that every woman expects, as of ancient and immemorial instinct, that she should be protected.
In the bad old days of the patriarchy every woman was protected by living in a household that was headed by a man. That man was responsible for the woman's protection. Today we find many women -- independent women, in the words of Simone de Beauvoir -- that do not live in a household headed by a man. But all women still expect to be protected.
You can see how this plays into the whole gun-control issue.
Obviously, if the proverbial patriarchal male no longer provides protection to our independent woman; someone else must step in to provide protection. Obviously there is only one agent that can do that: the government's police force.
And just as obviously, it makes sense to disarm all men so that our independent woman would be free from attack by a deadly weapon, and thus protected. Thus, the feminine sensibility would affirm, with the disarmament of men and the enabling of the police, women are once more safe.
I believe this is what is called magical thinking.
In the first place, the banning of deadly weapons is not going to protect women. There are ways of violating women other than with guns: there are knives; there are blunt objects; there are fists; there are threats.
In the second place, government is not going to protect women. This is obvious from the actual record of government failure in the Parkland school massacres. It is obvious from the science of bureaucracy, that predicts, after a brave beginning, that every bureaucracy will devolve into utter immobility. This is because the logic of bureaucracy is that is almost always more sensible to do nothing than to do something. No doubt this is why Dickens calls his stereotypical bureaucrats at the Circumlocution Office: Barnacles and Stiltstockings. He does not call them Braveheart or Producer.
In reality governments across the world and down the ages have promised protection but delivered oppression. The cost of protection is usually servitude.
Our age is notable, for its Great Enrichment has freed both men and women from the necessities of immediate survival. In the old days you either got with the program or you died. And often you died anyway. But in our age we can experiment and not immediately experience the penalty of failure. This has its good side and its bad side. The ability to experiment has produced both the Great Enrichment of global capitalism and also the Great Massacres of the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and Maoist China.
I suspect that in the great and glorious future, as all the bright ideas and the silly failures shake themselves out, we will find that women still expect to be protected, and that the most efficacious way for a woman to be protected is through the agency of some man.
There is no mystery about this. Men are fighters and women are lovers. For men the complications of caring and relationships cut into the simple life of fighting, whether against the next-door tribe or the next-door market competitor. For women the existential perils of the fight cut into the necessary complications of loving and caring.
And so, I predict, at the end of the Age of Feminine Sensibility we will find that women will want to be feminine and leave the masculine stuff for the men. Because Darwin, or evolution, or something.
What is going on here?
I return once again to my Georg Simmel line, that in the modern era with the emergence of women into the public square we are going to see women move the public square into a direction that conforms with a "more feminine sensibility."
One of the forms of feminine sensibility is that every woman expects, as of ancient and immemorial instinct, that she should be protected.
In the bad old days of the patriarchy every woman was protected by living in a household that was headed by a man. That man was responsible for the woman's protection. Today we find many women -- independent women, in the words of Simone de Beauvoir -- that do not live in a household headed by a man. But all women still expect to be protected.
You can see how this plays into the whole gun-control issue.
Obviously, if the proverbial patriarchal male no longer provides protection to our independent woman; someone else must step in to provide protection. Obviously there is only one agent that can do that: the government's police force.
And just as obviously, it makes sense to disarm all men so that our independent woman would be free from attack by a deadly weapon, and thus protected. Thus, the feminine sensibility would affirm, with the disarmament of men and the enabling of the police, women are once more safe.
I believe this is what is called magical thinking.
In the first place, the banning of deadly weapons is not going to protect women. There are ways of violating women other than with guns: there are knives; there are blunt objects; there are fists; there are threats.
In the second place, government is not going to protect women. This is obvious from the actual record of government failure in the Parkland school massacres. It is obvious from the science of bureaucracy, that predicts, after a brave beginning, that every bureaucracy will devolve into utter immobility. This is because the logic of bureaucracy is that is almost always more sensible to do nothing than to do something. No doubt this is why Dickens calls his stereotypical bureaucrats at the Circumlocution Office: Barnacles and Stiltstockings. He does not call them Braveheart or Producer.
In reality governments across the world and down the ages have promised protection but delivered oppression. The cost of protection is usually servitude.
Our age is notable, for its Great Enrichment has freed both men and women from the necessities of immediate survival. In the old days you either got with the program or you died. And often you died anyway. But in our age we can experiment and not immediately experience the penalty of failure. This has its good side and its bad side. The ability to experiment has produced both the Great Enrichment of global capitalism and also the Great Massacres of the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and Maoist China.
I suspect that in the great and glorious future, as all the bright ideas and the silly failures shake themselves out, we will find that women still expect to be protected, and that the most efficacious way for a woman to be protected is through the agency of some man.
There is no mystery about this. Men are fighters and women are lovers. For men the complications of caring and relationships cut into the simple life of fighting, whether against the next-door tribe or the next-door market competitor. For women the existential perils of the fight cut into the necessary complications of loving and caring.
And so, I predict, at the end of the Age of Feminine Sensibility we will find that women will want to be feminine and leave the masculine stuff for the men. Because Darwin, or evolution, or something.
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