Fall of the Empire, Thy Name is... Woman?

Pussy power

[This is our first new content in over a year... Thanks for your patience!]

This past March, as the coronavirus raged, 'International Women's Day' would be the last major public gathering for many months. The UN's Antonio Gutierrez remarked:

Men have used and abused power to control women and prevent them from achieving their potential for millennia. Deep-rooted patriarchy and misogyny have created a yawning gender power gap in our economies, our political systems, our corporations, our societies and our culture.

Women are still very frequently denied a voice; their opinions are ignored and their experience discounted. There is no justification for women’s continued exclusion. 

It's true that for most of human history, women and their way of seeing the world have been shut out from the halls of power. In the late 18^th century, antiquarian Thomas Amyot summed up the spirit of the age by claiming that women were

‘formed for the lighter duties of Life,’ because of the ‘delicacy of their Frames, the Sensibility of their Dispositions, and, above all the Caprice of their Tempers.’ He proclaimed: ‘A virtuous wife and an affectionate Mother are perhaps the most amiable Characters in the Universe. To these Characters let every female aspire and let us hear no more of the Rights of Woman.’ 

A woman's place

In 1871 Madeleine Dahlgren, writer, poet, and founder of the Literary Society of Washington, led a petition before Congress asking them not to give women the vote:

The advocates of female suffrage claim that if women had the right to vote they would purify legislation of many abuses. But, on the other hand, we hold that the new status will prove to be the worst kind of communism. 

… The mothers, sisters, and daughters of our glorious past will exist no more and the female gender will vanish into the epicene. Involved in one common ruin from our present proud preeminence, we shall become a laughing-stock and a by-word to the nations of the world. 

Not all women wanted the vote

The special advantage as a safe advisor to man that woman holds at present arises entirely from the neutral ground she occupies in the political world. … The fact is, women reason less and feel more deeply than men. … Take woman out of her proper sphere, and in place of man's precious and true guide and best coadjutor she becomes his worst antagonist and enemy. (1)

 Targets of mockery 

But the sufragettes fought hard. At the height of the debates in 1917, feminist Olive Schreiner laid out their plans:

'For the present we take all labor for our province. From the judge's seat to the legislator's chair; from the stateman's closet to the merchant's desk; from the chemist's laboratory to the astronomer's tower, there is no post or form of toil for which it is not our intention to fit ourselves. There is no closed door we do not intend to force open, no fruit in the garden of knowledge it is not our determination to eat.' (2)

British policeladies, 1918

In the ensuing century, not only has all this come to pass, but the feminine spirit has seeped into every nook and cranny of Western society. Have the results been to our benefit?

The Madonna and the Whore

A summer day at the Englischer Garten in Munich

(The coronavirus crisis has plunged some into inactivity, while others are busier than ever. We fall into the latter camp. Thus we must slightly postpone our newest article. In the meantime, as a belated celebration of International Women's Day, we offer this re-print of our piece on the conundrum of Western Woman. We hope you will find it of interest. Stay tuned next month for new material!)

[Re-post, original post here.]

Cheerleaders of mass immigration from the South to the North have a number of arguments:

1) They spice up our lives:

'Silly' Midsummer Festival, 'Vibrant' honor killing

'I think that's what makes many Swedes jealous of immigrant groups. You have a culture, an identity, a history, something that brings you together. And what do we have? We have Midsummer's Eve and such silly things.'

---Swedish Social Democrat MP Mona Sahlin, in a speech to the Turkish youth organization Euroturk, March, 2002.

2) They boost our standard of living:

The prosperous, innovative future of England

'Various surveys of [London] employers come to the predictable conclusion that migrants are better employees: they are more highly skilled, work harder and are prepared to do jobs that locals disdain. They may also be more innovative. In America they are disproportionately responsible for tech start-ups; similarly, they are over-represented in Silicon Roundabout, the tech hub east of the City, ... firms set up or managed by migrants are more innovative.' 

---The Economist, opinion leader since 1843 for the elite and those who strive to join them

3) Diversity is a religious principle the Gods of Equalitarianism want us to uphold:

This man's hurt feelings are worth more than 13 American lives.

'I'm concerned that this increased speculation could cause a backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers ... Our diversity, not only in our Army, but in our country, is a strength. And as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that’s worse.'

--George W. Casey, highest-ranking general in the U.S. Army, reacting to the Fort Hood army base shooting, in which a Palestinian army major cried 'Allahu Akbar!' while killing 13 and wounding 30.

One of the oddest things about such cheerleaders, especially in Europe, is their avid support of 'women's rights.'  Odd, because the peoples with which they long to fill up their countries share no such notion.  The proof is starting to bubble to the surface.  Besides the honor killings, child marriages, genital mutilation, polygamy, and gender segregation these neo-colonists have brought to the West, they are starting to act out against the native populations.  The results give pause.

Being a Progressive, Yesterday: Race

(We are offline due to a much-needed research period this winter/spring, so we've decided to re-publish some earlier pieces you might have missed the first time.)

Votes for women-- white women only, please

'The Conservative is afraid of the future,' goes the old trope, 'and the Progressive is afraid of the past.'

What the Progressive especially fears is his own past—that is, his fellow travelers of yesteryear. As Joe Biden is learning, what passed for 'leftist thought' 30 or 40 or 100 years ago can turn a modern-day liberal's ears scarlet. We hope you find this stroll down memory lane as fascinating as we did.

*     *     *

[Re-post, original post here.]

Slate ran a series a few years back, 'Liberal Creationism,' after the brouhaha over James Watson's remark that Afros were less intelligent than other groups.  In this prescient piece, the author warns that many of the old 'racialist' tropes are likely to soon be proved true, and that the average progressive should mentally steel himself for it:

If this suggestion makes you angry—if you find the idea of genetic racial advantages outrageous, socially corrosive, and unthinkable—you're not the first to feel that way. Many Christians are going through a similar struggle over evolution. Their faith in human dignity rests on a literal belief in Genesis. To them, evolution isn't just another fact; it's a threat to their whole value system. 

The same values—equality, hope, and brotherhood—are under scientific threat today. But this time, the threat is racial genetics, and the people struggling with it are liberals. ... You can try to reconcile evidence of racial differences with a more sophisticated understanding of equality and opportunity. Or you can fight the evidence and hope it doesn't break your faith.

The proof is at this point hard to ignore, even if thought leaders are doing their level best to conceal it. As blogger JayMan asks from atop his mountain of scientific data, How much hard evidence do you need?  It is likely that in the next several years some lab finding will 'clinch' the question once and for all, pushing HBD into the mainstream as it has germ theory or heliocentrism.

Microbes and Planets: The skeptics had to be convinced

At that point, what is a sincere progressive to do?  The notion of cognitive or behavioral differences between ethnic groups is, for him, deeply repugnant.

One is tempted to hand him the same 'deal with it' doled out by his ilk to those who found the monkey-to-man mythos unpalatable:

But it may be more kind to invite such folks to spend some time with their own forebears--the Progressives of the late 19th / early 20th centuries.  People who like themselves were born with a desire to make the world a better place, but who unlike themselves did not shy away from the realities of human biodiversity.

So who is this creature, the Progressive?  What did he once believe and may believe again?

Racism: The New Witchcraft?

'The Love Charm': a young witch casts a spell 

which brings her beloved to the door

The late Larry Auster wrote,

As we all know by now, racism, like witchcraft, is a difficult accusation to defend oneself against. The reason is that the word no longer has a defined meaning. I was first struck by this phenomenon several years ago when New York City’s closing of a hospital in Harlem, as part of an economy move, was ferociously denounced as “racist” by black leaders. 

This was a new and startling use of a highly charged word that I had associated mainly with race hatred. “Racism” now apparently meant anything that, in the view of black people, hurt their interests or offended them or, indeed, anything they did not approve of. In recent years, this limitless definition has come to include the entire structure of our predominantly white society, as well as all white people.

Steve Browne at Taki Mag is even  blunter:

It has to be evident to all thinking people by now that racism is the new witchcraft. Once you’re branded with the Scarlet “R,” some people do not regard it as immoral to assault you…or worse.  Calling someone a racist is sufficient to brand them as outside the pale of civilized company. In academia, the accusation is a career-wrecker. Socially it is enough to get you dropped from the A-list of the best parties.

The comparison is bold--witches were pursued in large numbers in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries, losing their assets, families, very often their lives. Are there any real parallels? Or are Messieurs Auster and Browne just blowing smoke?

Witches burning, 16th-century German woodcut

The Madonna or the Whore?

A summer day at the Englischer Garten in Munich

Cheerleaders of mass immigration from the South to the North have a number of arguments:

1) They spice up our lives:

'Silly' Midsummer Festival, 'Vibrant' honor killing

'I think that's what makes many Swedes jealous of immigrant groups. You have a culture, an identity, a history, something that brings you together. And what do we have? We have Midsummer's Eve and such silly things.'

---Swedish Social Democrat MP Mona Sahlin, in a speech to the Turkish youth organization Euroturk, March, 2002.

2) They boost our standard of living:

The prosperous, innovative future of England

'Various surveys of [London] employers come to the predictable conclusion that migrants are better employees: they are more highly skilled, work harder and are prepared to do jobs that locals disdain. They may also be more innovative. In America they are disproportionately responsible for tech start-ups; similarly, they are over-represented in Silicon Roundabout, the tech hub east of the City, ... firms set up or managed by migrants are more innovative.'

---The Economist, opinion leader since 1843 for the elite and those who strive to join them

3) Diversity is a religious principle the Gods of Equalitarianism want us to uphold:

This man's hurt feelings are worth more than 13 American lives.

'I'm concerned that this increased speculation could cause a backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers ... Our diversity, not only in our Army, but in our country, is a strength. And as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that’s worse.'

--George W. Casey, highest-ranking general in the U.S. Army, reacting to the Fort Hood army base shooting, in which a Palestinian army major cried 'Allahu Akbar!' while killing 13 and wounding 30.

One of the oddest things about such cheerleaders, especially in Europe, is their avid support of 'women's rights.'  Odd, because the peoples with which they long to fill up their countries share no such notion.  The proof is starting to bubble to the surface.  Besides the honor killings, child marriages, genital mutilation, polygamy, and gender segregation these neo-colonists have brought to the West, they are starting to act out against the native populations.  The results give pause.


I. Foreign Predation in the West


Belgium:

A college student, hoping to raise awareness about street harassment in Brussels, secretly filmed one of her strolls through the capital and unwittingly showed the world that her country's catcalling epidemic is not a man problem but a Muslim one:

'Sexy ass.' 'Tramp.' 'Whore.' 'You turn me on.'  'Let's have a drink...at my place...or in a hotel, directly.'  Without stopping once nor looking anyone in the eye, modestly-dressed student Sophie Peeters fields a barrage of sexual propositions on her afternoon stroll through Brussels.  As the hidden camera shows, every single one clearly comes from the mouth of a foreigner.

Boats Against the Current

For some who think about HBD and public policy, it's become an idée fixe that the 1950s is a line in the sand before which things went well, and after which things went to hell.

For others, our slow slide towards atomized, post-religious hedonism was inevitable: It had to follow the Industrial Revolution, like night follows day.

So who's right?  One way to know is to go back and see what folks were saying and doing as the second Industrial Revolution reached its end.  Was this the beginning of what we've become?  Did it have to be this way?  Hop in the touring car and take a brief spin with us through post-WWI America:


Women

The notion that before the 1960s all or even most women were full-time homemakers is of course ahistorical; most women in history have been farmers' or artisans' wives, with all the labor that entails.  Only women of the leisure class have ever been spared hard work. And after WWI, industry blew up that leisure class to proportions never before seen.  Just how old is 'the new woman'?

O tempora! O mores!

One last vacation post. Between holiday-making, we at Those Who Can See have stumbled upon a few news stories that so vividly called to mind Juvenal's satires that we couldn't help but take a peek side-by-side.

The empire was still centuries from falling when the Roman satirist so scathingly critiqued her vices.  Today many of us find ourselves tempted to proclaim 'the end is near!'  But decadence can have a long shelf life. Inertia, some claim, is itself one of the mightiest forces in human history. Who knows what lessons then (if any) can be drawn from comparisons such as these.  Perhaps wiser minds than us can say.



'How can a woman who wears a helmet be chaste?'

'Lewd, idle, froward, and unconstant'

Image source

                            'Yes, Zeus made this the greatest pain of all:
                             Woman.
                            A man who's with a woman can't get through
                            a single day without a troubled mind.'

           
                                                      Semonides of Amorgos, 'Woman,' 7th century B.C.

           Receptionist, to novelist Melvin Udall:   'How do you write women so well?'
        Melvin Udall:   'I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability.'

                                           Mark Andrus, 'As Good As It Gets,' 1997 A.D.

Those born and raised amid the Late Twentieth Century Delusion were force-fed many lies.  'Race is only skin-deep,' for one.  'Anything unpleasant happening anywhere on the planet is somehow attributable to Europeans'-- We've all heard that one.  But perhaps the most insidious?

'There are no real differences between women and men.'

How silly it sounds, and yet how thoroughly this bêtise has seized the spirits of our educated classes.  Denying it can cost you your professional reputation, the respect of your peers, even your plum job as president of Harvard.

But reaction has set in. The radical (for our days) notion that women are not the same as men has found eloquent defenders, from the unsentimental Chateau Heartiste to the optimistic Dalrock.  Perusing such sites could prove demoralizing for woman weaned on Late Twentieth Century Delusion.  Yet it is often the case that in criticism lies truth.  Disagreeable truth, but isn't much truth disagreeable?

In this realm as in many others, men who came before us had things to say, though they are today considered high heresy. When a group we belong to is criticized, our first reaction is to shift blame.  The problem lies not with us, no, it lies with you, you hater of the feminine, you misogynist.  And yet... Looking at ourselves through the eyes of this Other Tribe, these Men, could tell us much.   Dare we meet these dead men's gazes unflinchingly?
 

Handicap

Hard to find someone who'll argue this person isn't handicapped:

Butch Lumpkin is one of the approximately 5,000 [Thalidomide] survivors world-wide.  Born with what he calls “short arms,” he really has what amounts to no functional arms at all.  Three fingers extend from his left side in a flipper like manner, and his right arm ends before the elbow with three fingers that point backward toward his body. 

If your tears of pity are flowing, dry them watching Butch enjoy a round of golf followed by a brisk set of tennis.

Or this person--handicapped?

Three years ago Oscar Pistorius had never stepped onto a track, let alone run a race.  Today he is an athletics sensation - holder of world records in the 100m, 200m and 400m events.  His coach, Ampie Louw, says Oscar is "a natural champion - born that way". [...] But Oscar's Olympic bid is like no other - he is a double amputee.

I'd say so.

What about this person?

Sara Blakely had been selling fax machines and office copiers door-to-door for seven years when she had an idea for a clothing line that would transform her from an employee into a successful entrepreneur.  In 2000 she began selling Spanx in major department stores such as Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue. […]  Today, Spanx, based in Atlanta, Ga., is a $150 million company with 55 employees and 100 different styles.

Handicapped?  She probably doesn't think she is.   In this day and age, most people probably don't.

I do.

Because I have the same handicap she does. 

Can you guess what it is?