OT
Originally posted on the - American Thinker web site - the below could be easily said about Britain - substituting Labour's Harriet Harman and her ilk for Democrat Nancy Pelosi:
When Masculine Virtues Go Out of FashionBy Tom Hoffman
The culture war begun in the sixties has, in large part, been won by the left. Nowhere is this clearer than in the feminization of men. The virtues of manhood which had been extolled and celebrated throughout the middle ages right up to the 1950s have been completely expunged from academia and pop culture. The baby boom generation was the last to be taught the values of rugged individualism, risk-taking, courage, bravery, loyalty, and reverence for tradition. John Wayne epitomized the rugged individual who was committed to fighting "the bad guy," but he was only one of a whole host of competing figures cut out of the same cloth. What happened?
Today, the Boy Scouts are fighting the last battle in a lost cause. Any man who stands up to the "women's movement" is completely marginalized as a sexist and homophobe. These names have become just as stigmatizing as "racist" used to be. It is no wonder that women now are the majority of college graduates and are increasing their role in every institution from private enterprise to public service, including the military. Is this a healthy trend? The answer is clearly "no."
Edward Gibbon chronicles the increasing femininity of the Roman Empire in his six-volume work, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. He catalogues the progressive decadence that rendered the once-proud republic into spoils for barbarian hordes. The consuls in the early republic, who were warrior-generals adhering to a strict code of honor, gradually gave way to the backroom emperors who were no more than brazen criminals and thugs. It is the same script in all noble human enterprise: The fabric which bred success is torn apart by the complacency of the successful. When warfare is demonized as violence and negotiation is raised to an art, the end is near. Today, we are there.
Today's politics reminds me of the make-believe kingdom of Queen Herzeloyde. She was the mother of Parzival, the hero of Wolfram von Eschenbach's 12th-century epic poem Parzival. This masterwork is widely touted as a literary cornerstone of Western civilization. It not only extolled the virtues of knighthood and chivalry, but it also exhorted men to overcome all obstacles on the path to individual greatness.
Parzival's mother was married to a knightly king whose military campaigns against worldly evil kept him away from his kingdom for years on end. Herzeloyde is heartbroken to hear of her husband's death and vows to keep her son sheltered from the knightly world. She sets up a royal court in the wilderness with a deadly sanction against anyone who would allow her son to come in contact with a knight. The boy grows up oblivious of the outside world until he confronts two knights in shining armor on horseback. His mother is distraught to discover that there will be no discouraging her son's ambition to become a knight. She goes so far as to dress her son as a fool upon his setting out upon his adventure in hopes that he will be humiliated and return to her.
Academia, with the help of the media, has labeled all reference to manly virtue as patriarchal, sexist, and homophobic. Womanly virtue, on the other hand, is extolled. Caring, compassion, sensitivity, and understanding are virtues meant to blur the distinction between good and evil and drown out the call of manly conscience to "do the right thing." Like a mother who refuses to see the evil in her son, the feminist professors cast all moral standards as relative and subjective.
Exit the cowboy and enter the mama's boy. Queen Herzeloyde would have no problem raising young Parzival in today's schools, as devoid of examples of manly virtue and rugged individualism as they are. All reference to the service of a higher calling -- to God and country -- has been replaced by the call to community service with the emphasis on care and compassion for the downtrodden.
We now have a would-be queen named Pelosi who sits atop a vast bureaucracy dedicated to rooting out all reference to God and a higher calling while making sure that any reference to manly virtue, rugged individualism, and decency is stigmatized as "hate speech." No nation has ever demonized manhood to its own reward. A nation that renounces violence, no matter how just the cause, signs its own death certificate -- and for a violent death at that.
It is not as dispiriting as it looks.
In my own experience, women themselves are getting a little afraid, that with men taking a back seat, they may have to confront the barbarians. They realise that they just do not have the testosterone, to do so. In any case, Muslim men do have any respect for women.
On another occasion, I was in a discussion with some 6 women. I was the only male. When things got heated, unknowingly I became aggressive. It must have been my body language, but to my surprise, they responded quite meekly. I quickly resumed my normal gentle manner. Since then, its all been quite lovely - as it should be.
Posted by: DP111 | June 04, 2010 at 06:27 PM
Also worth reading
Transformer
A crunch is coming to a country near you; has already come to several countries in Europe; is likely to transform the entire Western world within the space of our lifetimes. It will obviate all the trends to which we have become accustomed.
But while I have no doubt of this, I have no idea what will emerge from it. Human beings cannot see the future, except perhaps prophetically under divine inspiration.
We can see such rational things as "three into two won't go," and easily predict the catastrophe itself. We have not only an impending fiscal collapse, but escalating "culture wars" that will be resolved one way or another.
http://www.davidwarrenonline.com/index.php?id=1142
Posted by: DP111 | June 04, 2010 at 06:32 PM
DP111.. Those women probably thought you were unstable, first aggressive then docile, no wonder everything is 'lovely' now. They are apprehensive. ;) Anyway this gives insight into why the 'right wing' is smeared as racist and hateful; conservatives exemplify the old school way and men of the left wing are of the new school, as it were.
Posted by: S. Wolf | June 05, 2010 at 02:29 PM
We all get along fine. Its simply a matter of drawing the line.
Posted by: DP111 | June 07, 2010 at 04:02 PM
Ha Ha HA HA. You must be Europeans. Ask my wife, on whom I have never laid a hand in anger, if I would hesitate to beat you within an inch of your life if you dared threaten her. Europe is going down the crapper because you wait for your limp wristed, morally relevant, boot licking governments to fight off these thugs for you. Rise up, take matters into your own hands, and see how fast the government responds when it realizes it can no longer control your anger. The 2 million man US Army won't be able to control 308 million Americans (or even 2% of them) and neither will the UK.
Posted by: nojizyatax | June 10, 2010 at 03:29 PM
I have to agree with nojizyatax.
The fact of women filling the universities and getting equal pay in jobs (horror!) is not because men are being "castrated" by their women.
The real problem is that EVERYBODY in Europe is pussyfooting for fear of being accused of "offending" some crackpot or another.
Men and women should be willing to fight together for what they believe in. Whether it is for equality under the law, equal opportunity in education and employment, or the right to be a Victorian miss, swooning behind the back of her protector.
America became what it was because the men & women faced danger together, not because 50% of the population was in purdah.
Oh and DP111 - when a man gets aggressive, I get aggressive back - not meek. What absolute rubbish!
Get aggressive to my children and you will find out whether women are meek or not.
Posted by: gsw | June 18, 2010 at 06:16 AM
The mighty desert is burning for the love of a bladeof grass who shakes her head and laughs and flies away.Do you like it?
Posted by: jordan 11 | August 06, 2010 at 05:19 AM