Wednesday, July 18, 2007

On the Eve of Evedom

Many moons ago, around the time that I finally began to wake up and to realize that I might oughta get more serious about life (that was about the time that I joined the military), I began to immerse myself in the study of what became for me a genuine love, almost an obsession - the study of American History, particularly early American History.

This being for me an absolutely independently sought out endeavor given that it was really the only way in which I knew of or had the means to pursue it, there was no real outside influence to speak of leading me to the pursuit of what I'd call now 'revisionist history.' Oh, prior to this stage of my life I had made short work of a pursuit for higher learning at a two-year college relatively near my home. And there it was that I enrolled in an 'American History' course wherein the professor - who was very good at proffessing...his view of American History - and I got off on the wrong foot from day one.

I'm going to pause and throw some props over Dad's way here because as I've noted on occasion over at the greater blog, during my upbringing he was very good at dropping little bits of wisdom here and there perfectly suited to the stage of development that my mind and my deportment had reached at a given moment. Dad, being a very capable educator in my opinion, seemed to have had an innate understanding about how best to communicate an idea to an unrefined mind and to cultivate the seeds of knowledge he had so early planted in what I hope may be said to have been 'good ground.'

Of course, what I was getting at with regard to my college profess-or is that he was rather a liberal sort of fellow, and my dad being the excellent father he was (and is) had at least prepared me enough to recognize that more or less instinctively. So from about the third day or so of attending his classes, I pretty much wasn't listening to anything he had to 'profess' except as it gave me cause and opportunity to challenge his assertions.

Before I go too far here though, I want to turn y'all on to yet another intriguing piece you should at least find interesting, if not altogether absorbing. As for me I certainly found myself becoming more and more of the latter as I read VA's take on the situation. And to wet your appetites just a bit here, I'll insert an excerpt from her excellent post; says she:

One of the liberal ideas which has taken hold in our society is that any difference or separation is 'discrimination' and a violation of the principle of equality, which principle must be absolute. This is a bad idea which has had far-reaching consequences. We have re-interpreted equality to mean absolute sameness, which is not possible, whether between races and ethnicities and nationalities or between men and women. It was not discrimination to have all-male schools or clubs, or all-female schools. And division of labor was simply a common sense way to divide up the necessary work: women excelled at certain things, and preferred certain tasks, and these were the 'women's work.' And yes, there are always exceptions who feel at odds with the traditional roles, but a few exceptions, no matter what liberals say, do not justify throwing out all the rules.



Certainly we all have our own personal experiences which tend to create in us certain predispositions on various subjects. And my case in this regard is no different than anyone else's. But I'm ever mindful of and thankful for all those little seeds of wisdom Dad was so very capable of planting in my youthful mind, because later on they would come to bear, if I may be so bold as to say it, some pretty good fruits.

One of the seeds that Dad early planted in my mind was that 'this nation was originally founded on Christian principles,' and that's about the extent to which the idea developed during my formidable years. Dad was not as concerned with giving me specific examples -and looking back on it I don't know that they would have taken anyhow- as much as he was with establishing a broader context for the idea which he seems to have rightly calculated would likely lead to an independent investigation of the matter for myself when I was more ready to absorb it.

Eventually I most certainly was led to make some independent discoveries therein which at length caused me to further investigate my faith as well. And I can claim without the slightest reservation that I never learned so much about the Christian faith in church as I did in investigating America's early history, by a long shot even. I certainly don't want you to misread what I'm saying here. I'm NOT saying stop attending church. I am saying though that American churches are more or less corrupted these days particularly in the way in which they tend to avoid making the irrefutable connection between their profession of faith and its early and significant influence on Americanism.

In VA's piece posted over at her blog, I think she identifies one way in which the church in America has indeed succumbed to the pressure of radical feminism. And that I may describe here, for lack of a better way of putting it, as attempting to make 'equals' of men and women in all things. As VA writes, and as my experience certainly confirms, women tend to be more 'emotional' than men, or to rely more on their emotional take on a given situation than are men who tend to be less emotional and more inclined to reason through a matter. Of course I'm speaking in generalizations here, and I certainly do not deny the exception to the rule on both sides of the equation. But as has been said before, it's a poor policy to govern according to the exception.

I'm purposely trying to avoid adding anything to what VA has already said because I'd really just like for you to go over and read her wonderfully 'masculine' post on the subject. But I can hardly keep from giving at least my 'two cents worth,' with regard to 'church and state' and the worldview responsible for this nation's founding...

We read early on in the Holy Scriptures that it was 'not good that man should be alone,' and that God in turn made him an help meet for him. As far as our reading of the account goes, it is not long after this that man's helper (woman) is separated from her husband wondering about in the garden of Eden all alone. And it is in this wondering vulnerability that the serpent approaches and eventually beguiles Eve in the absence of her husband. And it was all an emotional thing as the devil knew that Eve, being the weaker vessel and having likely received her instruction on God's prohibitions from her husband, was the much more approachable of the two given that Adam had received his instruction directly from God.

Essentially, Satan knew that the way to corrupt the whole of the human race was to cause Adam to sin, and the easiest way to do that was to go through his wife who was much more capable than Satan was of beguiling Adam, at least in a direct sort of way. And in light of VA's piece on the subject, doesn't it seem that there are some real parallels between the biblical story of original sin and that of the ongoing saga of our women more or less wondering about in the American garden independently of their husbands? Might we eventually, as were our original parents, be banished therefrom? Time will tell, I suppose.

This'n oughta be fun...

-DW

2 comments:

John Savage said...

Terry, I’m trying to come up with a post on this topic, but it’s a hard topic for me to collect my thoughts on. Unlike in most areas, I think traditionalists (possibly because of a belief that the story of Adam and Eve is the last word on the topic) have been almost as careless in developing their position on sex differences as liberals have.

The typical liberal thought pattern is to assume that all behavioral differences between men and women are socially or culturally constructed. The typical traditionalist thought pattern seems to be exactly the opposite, which to me is certainly a stretch to believe. That is, we assume that all the traditional behavioral differences between men and women are natural. Thus we act as if traditional patterns of male and female behavior don’t even need defending, because they’re just built into our nature.

To me, the validity of some traditional stereotypes about men and women has already broken down in many subcultures. Is this because liberals are forcing people to behave contrary to their nature, or just because much of femininity in particular was wrongly thought to be natural?

I suppose that’s where we inevitably get into larger theological questions (which could conflict with science) about what it means for something to be natural. Traditionalists essentially believe that the traditional, monogamous family was ordained by God, and is in that sense “natural”. On the other hand, from an anthropological perspective, a primitive culture with few restrictions on sexual behavior is more “natural”, insofar as it corresponds to the way humans would have behaved before complex civilization superimposed itself on what a scientist would call human nature. If we put aside the theological sense of “nature” and think of “nature” as “the way humans behave in the absence of cultural socialization to do otherwise”, then I’d argue that post-sixties, we have been reverting to our nature. To overcome this development, we’d have to reassert the primacy of culture over nature. And now that the genie of women’s lib is out of the bottle, I’d imagine it becomes very hard to just turn the clock back in that way.

Hopefully, more later.

Terry Morris said...

John, I certainly hope you're able to collect your thoughts on this question because I'm particularly interested in reading them. Already I see by your comments here that there's some good discussion material there.

I'll be looking for it.

-Terry