tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post6173386090212822097..comments2024-03-26T06:17:49.527-07:00Comments on Had Enough Therapy?: Sex Without RulesStuart Schneidermanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12784043736879991769noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-76070000953227059882014-04-03T07:50:00.386-07:002014-04-03T07:50:00.386-07:00Reminds me of Bloom's discussion of the sexual...Reminds me of Bloom's discussion of the sexual landscape in Closing of the American Mind. Modernity wiped away the rules, first in the name of freedom (sexual revolution) then in the name of equality (feminism). From the standpoint of gratifying our desires, this turns out to be a much better deal for men then for women, in general. I think you've made this point before. Kristina and others may really be naive enough to believe that the no-rules culture will work out great, but one gets the feeling that they must know better deep down and are only putting on a good face. <br /><br />"Modernity promised that all human beings would be treated equally. Women took that promise seriously and rebelled against the old order. But as they have succeeded, men have also been liberated from their old constraints. And women, now liberated and with equal careers, nevertheless find they still desire to have children, but have no basis for claiming that men should share their desire for children or assume a responsibility for them. So nature weighs more heavily on women.<br /><br />In the old order they were subordinated and dependent on men; in the new order they are isolated, needing men, but not able to count on them, and hampered in the free development of their individuality. The promise of modernity is not really fulfilled for women.<br /><br />[…] All our reforms have helped strip the teeth of our gears, which can therefore no longer mesh. They spin idly, side by side, unable to set the social machine in motion. It is at this exercise in futility that young people must look when thinking about their future.<br /><br />Women are pleased by their successes, their new opportunities, their agenda, their moral superiority. But underneath everything lies the more or less conscious awareness that they are still dual beings by nature, capable of doing most things men do and also wanting to have children. They may hope otherwise, but they fully expect to pursue careers, to have to pursue careers, while caring for children alone. And what they expect and plan for is likely to happen.<br /><br />The men have none of the current ideological advantages of the women, but they can opt out without too much cost. In their relations with women they have little to say; convinced of the injustice of the old order, for which they were responsible, and practically incapable of changing the direction of the juggernaut, they wait to hear what is wanted, try to adjust but are ready to take off in an instant. They want relationships, but the situation is so unclear. They anticipate a huge investment of emotional energy that is just as likely as not to end in bankruptcy, to a sacrifice of their career goals without any clarity about what reward they will reap, other than a vague togetherness.<br /><br />Meanwhile, one of the strongest, oldest motives for marriage is no longer operative. Men can now easily enjoy the sex that previously could only be had in marriage. It is strange that the tiredest and stupidest bromide mothers and fathers preached to their daughters — “He won’t respect you or marry you if you give him what he wants too easily” —turns out to be the truest and most probing analysis of the current situation. Women can say they do not care, that they want men to have the right motives or none at all, but everyone, and they best of all, knows that they are being, at most, only half truthful with themselves."Matthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00469930063420911843noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-41215698000240300172014-04-03T04:02:39.459-07:002014-04-03T04:02:39.459-07:00Exactly. There is no rules now.
http://samanthabva...Exactly. There is no rules now.<br />http://samanthabvance.wordpress.com/presentation-page/Jockernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-28364775875963420582014-04-02T14:12:19.876-07:002014-04-02T14:12:19.876-07:00"And yet, these new arrangements are not immo..."And yet, these new arrangements are not immoral either. Today’s young people are not breaking rules. If there are no rules, you cannot break the rules."<br /><br />Yeah. <br /><br />Except that Ma'at exists, so the transcendent moral order is there whether you know about it or not, or care about it or not, or notice it.<br /><br />It's really discovery morality, kind of like how monotheism is the discovery of God.<br /><br />And Ma'at has nothing to do with "updating the POH of the society". <br /><br />This is also where Chapter XVI of Meditations on The Tarot, the Tower of Destruction, comes into play. <br /><br />However, my understanding is that Ma'at only covers the important things. <br /><br />It's not clear to me how these relationships are implicated in the moral order.JPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11126071014909954387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-11273698731668723892014-04-02T13:05:31.637-07:002014-04-02T13:05:31.637-07:00I just laughed when I read this. The Kristina par...I just laughed when I read this. The Kristina part was just pure gold. Did anyone else notice the number of "Like"'s that came up when she was talking. Yeah, that's marriage material right there, lmao.<br /><br />I'm in my early 40's and I work at a university so I see this nonsense all the time. As Dennis said, it's just watching a train wreck waiting to happen. Thank God I stayed single so I could steer clear of this hot mess with today's women.<br /><br />-Blagga the HuttAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-13722117451761314652014-04-02T12:25:01.195-07:002014-04-02T12:25:01.195-07:00From a Muggeridge's "The Great Liberal De...From a Muggeridge's "The Great Liberal Death Wish," and apropos to so many things regarding this issue and so many others:<br /><br />"On a basis of liberal-humanism, there is no creature in the universe greater than man, and the future of the human race rests only with human beings themselves, which leads infallibly to some sort of suicidal situation. It's to me quite clear that that is so, the evidence is on every hand. The efforts that men make to bring about their own happiness, their own ease of life, their own self-indulgence, will in due course produce the opposite, leading me to the absolutely inescapable conclusion that human beings cannot live and operate in this world without some concept of a being greater than themselves, and of a purpose which transcends their own egotistic or greedy desires. Once you eliminate the notion of a God, a creator, once you eliminate the notion that the creator has a purpose for us, and that life consists essentially in fulfilling that purpose, then you are bound, as Pascal points out, to induce the megalomania of which we've seen so many manifestations in our time - in the crazy dictators, as in the lunacies of people who are rich, or who consider themselves to be important or celebrated in the western world. Alternatively, human beings relapse into mere carnality, into being animals. I see this process going on irresistably, of which the holocaust is only just one example. If you envisage men as being only men, you are bound to see human society, not in Christian terms as a family, but as a factory--farm in which the only consideration that matters is the well--being of the livestock and the prosperity or productivity of the enterprise. That's where you land yourself. And it is in that situation that western man is increasingly finding himself."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-78016168745272207142014-04-02T09:47:33.478-07:002014-04-02T09:47:33.478-07:00Someone writing in an aviation magazine once noted...Someone writing in an aviation magazine once noted that "If you do anything with your airplane that is not consistent with the Pilot's Operating Handbook, then you are a test pilot."<br /><br />The customs of a society are sort of like a POH for the inhabitants of a society, and when the POH is thrown away, then everyone becomes a test pilot. But in society as in aviation, the number of people with the skills and orientations to make good test pilots is pretty limited.<br /><br />There is no question that the POH of a society needs frequent updates, some of them major. Widely-avaiable and reliable contraception requird such a major update, as much as does the retrofitting of a DC-3 with turboprop engines. The problem in our society today is that too many people in positions of supposed expertise...professors, consultants, media types...decided that they *whole* POH needed to be trashed, together with its accumulated knowledge, rather than rationally updated.David Fosterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15464681514800720063noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-14002225415503389682014-04-02T09:18:09.083-07:002014-04-02T09:18:09.083-07:00It is awful. I wonder what todays young people wil...It is awful. I wonder what todays young people will be like when they reach middle and old age? <br />Their experiences and ways of thinking are so foreign to previous generations that I cannot imagine what they will mature into.Kathnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-20305246985574512342014-04-02T08:40:53.452-07:002014-04-02T08:40:53.452-07:00I'm in my early 40s and all this seems very fa...I'm in my early 40s and all this seems very far from my own college experience. Maybe where I studied was very straight-laced, but people still dated and there was not a sexual free-for-all. It is strange but I feel like an old timer when I read stories like this. I could never in good conscience treat a woman like this. Why do women permit this to happen? As Dennis wrote, I think the feminists have a lot to answer for in their crusade to transform women/girls into the same mindset and behavior patterns as sex-addled teenage boys.<br /><br />God help us when the wreckage accumulates even more. <br /><br />Some days I reread Malcolm Muggeridge's "The Great Liberal Death Wish" and marvel how right he was all those years ago...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-58126556930194343592014-04-02T08:23:24.547-07:002014-04-02T08:23:24.547-07:00Hooking up is basically master bating using anothe...Hooking up is basically master bating using another person's body and doing everything possible to not think about the humanity of that person. You have come a long way baby.<br />I just love feminism. It is like watching a train wreck in which the engineers are determined to run off the rails and destroy themselves. http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/04/01/yoga-pants-evanston-kirsten-powers-rape-culture-column/7177111/Dennishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14962996070458991675noreply@blogger.com