Which Is Worse: Trump's Insults or The Racist Canard?

We all know that all educated suburban women are disgusted with -- cannot believe! -- the crudities of President Trump, the Twitter Insult Dog.

But I have a question for you educated suburban women. What do you think about the lefties in our land that think nothing of calling anyone with an opinion they don't like of being a "racist?"

Which is worse? A presidential insult? Or the admission that when you are a billionaire, women will let you pet them in the crotch?

Or being accused of being a "racist" the Summum Bonum of the Pejorative Culture?

Now, I would think that there is no contest. A few insults on Twitter, about Slow Joe Biden or Pencil Head Schiff, are just joshing among the guys, the kind of thing that is normal and natural on, say, the locker room and the golf course.

But I realize that among women such insults are experienced in a conversation at the coffee shops as "I can't believe he said that." An abomination!

Whatabout the accusation of "racism?" Isn't that much, much worse? Particularly if it means that your husband loses his tech industry job because some woke HR woman had it in for him?

OK, ladies, I'm waiting for your answer.

I was thinking about this, as one does when you have had an idea for a blog and haven't yet written it.

And then I thought, OMG. Yes, even I say OMG from time to time.

Because I realized that the question of honor among men, and honor among women, as developed by James Bowman in Honor: A History applies here. And how!

Bowman's simple dictum is that honor among men is the reputation for courage; among women honor is the reputation for chastity. Or, to quote Bowman directly:

[T]he basic honor of the savage -- bravery for men, chastity for women -- is still recognizable beneath the surfaces of the popular culture that has done so much to efface it. If you doubt it, try calling a man a wimp or a woman a slut.

Now, Bowman develops the idea that the institutionalization of society leads to a situation where the honor culture of bravery among men gets diluted by the presence of women and the substituting of police and courts for the revenge culture of the tribesman or the gang member.

In fact, following Nietzsche, we could say that Christianity and "the priests" have switched entirely the bravery culture among men for the good vs. evil culture among women. And what, says Nietzsche, would happen if good finally triumphed over evil, so there was no evil in the world, but only good? What then?

So here is what I think. I think that, indeed, it has been necessary and appropriate to diminish the honor-as-bravery culture among men and dilute it with the chastity culture among women, so that men become good little boys in the peaceful market economy.

But whatabout women? And here I return to the prophecy of Georg Simmel from a century ago, who understood that things were going to change, what with women emerging out of the home.

Obviously, Simmel wrote, the public sphere, the world outside the home, in the short term would still be defined by men for men, but in the long term women would transform the public square to suit "a more feminine sensibility." 

But do you know, I am coming to think that the opposite is true, and that women in the public aquare will have to adapt to a more masculine sensibility. In other words, following Nietzsche, they will have to acquire something of the culture of the Übermensch, the "free spirit:"

Who will prove to be the strongest in the course of this? The most moderate; those who do not require any extreme articles of faith; those who not only concede, but love a fair amount of accidents and nonsense… human beings who are sure of their power and represent the attained strength of humanity with conscious pride. 

I don't think you can thrive in the public square unless you are a person "sure of their power" and someone that can not just endure but "love a fair degree of accidents and nonsense."

Now, it seems to me that the women's culture of chastity demands absolute purity. You are not allowed to make mistakes; you are not allowed to push against the community of women that define what "good" is in your community. In this sort of culture it makes perfect sense to name, shame, and shun people who are not perfectly chaste in all their actions. That's all very well in the private women-only culture of the tribe, where men live in a different world of war and hunting.

But the modern public square cannot be a perfect moment of chastity maintained to eternity. It is a roiling mess of accidents and nonsense, and that's just on a normal day. Why is this? Because the public square is the old world of tribal warfare and defending the border that has been civilized into the market economy and democratic politics.

So I say to educated suburban women: if you don't like the male honor culture of Trump, and insist of enforcing the name and shame and shun culture of "she's a racist-sexist-homophobe" then you had better retreat from the public square and live in a male-provided safe space.

And one thing is for sure. You are not a liberated woman.