Remember when your kid would go into dramatics over a slight fall? Imagine that instead of of giving them a quick kiss and telling her to go play again, you pick her up, put her in a blanket, give her a sweet snack, and tell how terrible it was that that little fall happened to her. She would turn into a neurotic monster within a month.
This is what these college counselors are doing at a mass scale.
When I was a preschool teacher I learned not to pay immediate attention to a child who fell, because if they weren't severely hurt they would pick themselves up and go back to play. If I showed immediate concern they would start wailing --- hurt or not. Waiting until the child clearly needed help, led to much less wailing and much more resilience. I think reactivity is the issue. If the kid is bleeding or in great pain you give them necessary attention, but you let them deal with the ordinary. And you also give a lot of positive attention for the good stuff so a kid doesn't need to have something bad happening for attention.
My grandsons had a different approach. Whenever they fell, ran into something or were hit by something; they would immediately demonstrably declare, “I’m okay, I’m okay.”
Very insightful. Of course making things even more difficult is the risk of being called sexist for merely suggesting systems could be gendered. We have a continuation and acceleration of Blank Slate censorship. From the purging of Harvard's Lawrence Summers for even commenting on gendered disparities in STEM to today's gynocentric victimology. This is what happens when intersectional feminism is subsidized by the state. Rufo actually understands the problems
I'm amazed at the number of otherwise intelligent people who don't seem to grasp basic statistics. Just because a majority of women have agreeable personalities doesn't mean that all women do. It is not sexist (or racist, or whatever-else-ist) to point out statistical realities.
If we are discussing Harvard.. and more broadly any pushback against blaming sexism for disparities in STEM, I'm of the opinion that the vast majority do understand the basics. What they want are loyalty oaths declaring "sexism, racism" are the main problems. It's entirely ideological/religious. The activists rule by terror, so everyone is afraid to speak up when the mob comes for someone like Summers.
—“In reality, it was fake empathy utilized as a left-wing power strategy.”
This. All the talk about “being kind” is really just a way to manipulate people and use them to get more power and control.
I find this post of particular interest because I remember after the Floyd riots, some of my very well-off educated left leaning female ex-friends (apparently I was not “empathetic” enough about Covid or the BLM movement, meaning I was skeptical and asked questions they didn’t like, so summarily ejected from the friend circle) made hysterical posts on social media about feeling marginalized. I found it incredible that these people, who had more advantages (as did their children) than the vast majority of people in this country, were saying things like this. Then I realized after some reflection that they knew deep down they were *not* disadvantaged, so they had to identify themselves with a group that was, presumably in order to assuage their guilt at being successful and having it so good, or perhaps also to make it seem as if they weren’t quite as advantaged as it appeared. This really seems to fit well with what you’ve written in today's post.
Thank you for this thought provoking and well written piece!
I have a friend who grew up w wealth and became a sjw in grad school. In talking to her about all this woke stuff of late, I have found she really doesn’t know a lot of the theory and roots of what she advocates for. I read an analysis of cult levels lately that lines up well w the left, the outer ring buying the tag lines but not knowing the depths of the belief set. My friend fits w this exactly. I was gobsmacked that she actually knows so little! Like, how do you not recognize that Paolo Freire is absolutely Marxist?! (We’re both in education.) Or that there are ppl who detransition?! The desire to belong to the “right” group is strong.
Right after the Floyd riots a group of Black graduate students at Stanford University penned a letter to the president claiming that Stanford was a racist institution and demanding funding for various pro-black benefits. These people are some of the most privileged people on the planet.
The letter was appalling in its simplicity and complete lack of reasoning; they provided no evidence or even anecdotes for the claim of rampant racism on campus. As an alumni I was embarrassed as hell.
One thing I'm studying today is what is referred to as FDIA or Factitious Disorder Imposed on Another which is the DSM-5 definition of what used to be referred to as Munchausen syndrome. If you explore further upstream into the home, it is mothers needing attention who are causing this current hysteria that is altering education in the USA.
> Doesn't this "language of the therapeutic" come directly from the big pharma business model?
100%
Tried group counseling to try to get a hold on my panic attacks. Some of the most deranged "therapy" I have ever seen in my life. It was basically several hours of self-pitying ruminations followed by an instructor led exercise that had nothing to do with anything. For example, we spent one afternoon talking about "privilege" It was clear the sessions were just window dressing to get to the prescribed zombie pills that was their main business.
The solution that worked for me? Less time online, cold Showers, punching bag, breathing exercises. Total cost? About 100 dollars. Getting help outside big pharma's tentacles? Priceless.
Your mileage may vary.
After Covid, some people are getting wind of jus how corrupt the entire industry is.
I had to laugh about your solution to your panic attacks (a laugh of acknowledgement). Of course it was brilliant and effective. Why did I laugh? My 19 year old daughter was very socially timid--she was afraid to speak to someone in a store, restaurant, etc. about a problem, need, etc. Then one day I find out she and a male friend (also very timid) of hers had been engaging in their own "rejection therapy." THey would spend the evenings going into stores, restaurants, hotels, fire stations and other things and simply asked them for something in the place (a T-shirt, a hat, a coke, etc.) -- just so they could get rejected, recover and move to the next place. You know what happened? They were almost never rejected and they would come home with bags full of free stuff they've been given! No more anxiety for them!! I was so proud of her discovering this and actually doing it!
Modern Western women (the only kind I'm at all familiar with) live under constant pressures to meet a set of ever increasing expectations. It used to be that she "only" had to be the perfect women, the perfect wife, and the perfect mother. Now she is expected to be all of that and to work outside of the home to help pay the bills. And if the woman is unfortunate enough not be a POC, she is told that she has "White Privilege and Fragility". It's hardly surprising that many struggle to live up to such fickle demands; the weight must be incredible.
I may be labelled sexist and get flamed for this for this, but I think the Rolling Stones figured some of this out back in 1966 and as a result penned "Mother's Little Helper". Based what I have heard from my wife and friends, things are even more different today - now they have marginalized identities and have to be "woke" as well . No wonder so many women are mad and aggressive, Its enough to drive anyone over the edge. The majority of women I know ages 25-50 have regular counseling sessions, many women over 30 have regular prescriptions. It is a perfect environment for the modern university to become a “therapeutic institution".
Agreed! I just wrote a post about how I think sleep studies are simply a front for selling CPAP machines. I'm determined to avoid conventional medicine as much as possible unless absolutely necessary. Like you i have had far too many negative experiences, and far too much experience of figuring out cheap or free and far more effective solutions on my own.
Very interesting. There is an entire book in this comment on the lives of modern families and how they have ceased to function in a meaningful way towards the benefit of the unit itself and individuals within it. Well done.
Yet again you have a perfect score here. Having worked in Higher Education for 40 years I have seen the very careful and insidious rise of this whole thing. The only jobs that government produces are those that spring up to support whatever absurd rules and regulations they have created.
Currently the largest field in the academic and corporate world is DEI. There are almost as many DEI administrators as there are students. That needs to change immediately if academia intends to stay alive. Universities are more concerned with policies and rules than they are about educating indecently thinking adults.
In fairness we can't lump all female administrators into the Mean Girl Club because I have worked with very brilliant and talented administrators that are female. Rather this whole mindset seems linked to the Marxist idea that everyone is oppressed and those individuals will right all the wrongs etc. when they get into power. Once in power they have been given unfettered control without any oversight or accountability. It's a very adversarial relationship to say the least. Now add the whole mental health aspect to this recipe and you have the current state of affairs.
As for the Provost that had the stones to try and bully you with safety, I surely hope that they are enjoying the private sector, namely Walmart greeter. These people have no respect or empathy for anyone that isn't in their special club.
Chris, keep grinding and fighting. Once unmasked they wither, so we must keep fighting for our children's futures and our national sanity.
I must admit, I have been missing the energy of alpha male leaders, and welcome their appearance on the increasingly rare occasions when they emerge. On the other hand, I have absolutely no intention of allowing men "to take the reins back." Maybe you are not old enough to remember what that was like, but I am. I suggest you take a look at some of the cultures where men truly hold the reins, such as Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, much of Latin America, and actually, the majority of countries on the planet.
I'm in my 60s, and would respectfully disagree with your premise that those societies are terrible because they are male dominated. They are terrible because they lack the tempering influence of Christianity. Indeed, as that influence diminishes here at home we find men increasingly resembling their Saudi and Afghan brethren.
On your inference that things are better for women today: pull the data on titanic survivors. They were overwhelmingly female because the men prioritized the lives of women and children over their own. Historically women were never allowed in combat, not because men were mysogenistic but because our "male dominated" society deemed women precious and indispensable. Like you, I remember a different time. A time when men leapt up to offer their seats to women on the bus. When they curbed their language out of respect for the women in the room. When they referred to us as the "fairer sex". When they opened doors and invited us to enter a room first. When they stepped forward time and time again to do the hardest, dirtiest, most dangerous jobs so we wouldn't have to.
Now that the tables have turned, what equivalent respect and deference do women afford men? All I see is ingratitude and open contempt. It's no wonder they no longer find us worthy of their chivalry.
Well, you definitely have a perspective that differs from mine, as I would no more welcome or agree with a nicer version of the Saudi culture than I do with the current barbaric one. I do share with you an admiration for gentlemen, and more generally, I very much miss the civility that used to be the norm in my youth. It created a feeling of friendly community out of casual encounters with strangers.
Where you say that all you see is "ingratitude and open contempt" on the part of women towards men, that is very different from my experience. I do see that attitude out there, but mostly from the woke minority. A lot of woke women appear to genuinely view most heterosexual men as oppressive, at least if they are white. The ones who strongly see themselves as disempowered, traumatized victims might be more likely to do that. It's part of the dynamic, like Mr. Rufo suggested, that you basically can't be a victim without an abuser and vice versa.
The women I am acquainted with mostly talk about men the way women always have. When they are young they are focused on finding male partners and starting families, and they mostly do act like they expect to find husbands who are worthy to be fathers. At least most single people seem to be on dating apps a lot. I would imagine that if women treat their spouses or potential spouses with contempt those relationships would not last.
You're right - and it is only a minority, as loud and shrill as they are. I'm just so tired of hearing women extolling their victimhood, and demanding more and more power without ever considering the responsibility that comes with it. My tolerance for narcissism has reached an all-time low!
Thank you Sandra, it's so refreshing to enjoy civil discourse with someone who disagrees!
"My tolerance for narcissism has reached an all-time low!" Likewise! We are really seeing now what kinds of parenting and teaching lead to the development of narcissism in children. It is incredibly provoking! It wouldn't be so frustrating if we were also observing university professors, corporate CEO's, and city governments stand up to them.
Thank you as well, for the opportunity to dialogue with you!
I don't know how old you are but I am old enough to have watched the Brady Bunch as a kid! I've lived outside or inside medium to large cities for 30 years. I'm in a business dominated by 25-40 year olds and live adjacent to an urbanite paradise (gritty East Coast city with lots of urban renewal like breweries, distilleries, restaurants ad nauseum, climbing gym, etc). My experience with women in the age group I mention, particularly ones who have chosen to live in the city is mostly negative. I am awestruck at the level of anxiety, simmering anger and what seem like assumptions of my motivations built into most interactions. I often feel like I am being dared to say something they don't like. I'm not alone in this observation; my male work acquaintances who are willing to share, often have no idea how to deal with their urbanite sisters, so they remain sort of quiet for their own social safety.
The woke guys in these groups all have plighted their troth not to women in their friend groups who they almost never actually date, but rather to the idea of big 'W' woman. These are men who at the drop of a hat argue for transgenderism, feminism, deposing white patriarchy, curtailing speech which triggers oppressed people, etc, etc. My nephew is 40 and has a huge group of friends, all city dwellers with at least bachelor's degrees and mostly white collar and almost entirely woke, though he himself believes based on research and reflection that the premise of wokeness is false. He began a men's group during Covid because he saw a lot of pain and loneliness in his male friends. This was done in an effort to draw men out and discuss their anxieties and frustrations in a directed format with other men. The uniform reaction to the idea from everyone he knew not in the group (and even a couple of guys within it) was one of fear. It's too dangerous he was told; men shouldn't be alone together in a group because they can't be trusted. This was told to him by both women AND men. That's completely insane.
Among my nephew's friends, there are 2 married couples...out of around 40 people. That is not normal, it is crazy. And from speaking with my sons in high school and college, I hear the crazy spreading to their lives. My 17 year old avoids any big discussions with his peers (mostly STEM types) because he hears the language of oppression and systemic racism spoken around him. So he stays silent. What's sad is that his friends should even be worrying about these topics. My eldest is studying physics in DC and nearly every class in his major has had classes, some weekly, dedicated to unpacking misogyny and racism in science. Imagine the stultifying effect of shoving ideology into a class on quantum mechanics. It's depressing.
In my own case, except for some quite loud progressive women who exist in my group of parent acquaintances in the suburbs where I live, most of the ladies I know are very pleasant and don't feel the need to bring politics into every conversation. It's only the pushy ones who insert bits of wokeness into every discussion. But while the parents are easy going, a growing number of suburban kids, particularly girls, are very woke.
I am 75, was in grad school during the Brady Bunch era. I never saw a single episode of the Brady Bunch because I didn't watch TV from the time I started college until I was finally out of school for good.
I hear from some single guys I know that they feel sometimes like "All women hate men." Others who are trying to date struggle to find a woman who is stable and reasonably self-sustaining. I assume that these issues increase as people get older and try to re-enter the dating pool, because people who can successfully navigate close relationships stay in them, and the people who can't are increasingly overrepresented in the single population.
The women under 35 that I relate to are much more into the CSJ craziness, and they feel compelled to "call out" everyone around them for "participating in rape culture," saying "harmful things," and all the usual woke nonsense. The statistics on them indicate they are indeed having difficulty coupling up and starting families. It's no wonder, considering that most of their interactions are electronically mediated.
So much of this consists of dehumanizing other people, treating them like things, punching bags, projection screens and need-gratifiers.
I’d appreciate your historical and professional perspectives:
Bessel van der Kolk, MD wrote a book about healing from trauma, called The Body Keeps The Score. 2014.
Page 1:
“One does not have to be a combat soldier, or visit a refugee camp in Syria or the Congo to encounter trauma. Trauma happens to us, our friends, our families, and our neighbors. Research by the CDC & Prevention has shown that one in five Americans was sexually molested as a child, one in four was beaten by a parent to the point of a mark being left on their body; and one in three couples engages in physical violence. A quarter of us grow up with alcoholic relatives, and one out of eight witnessed their mother being beaten or hit.”
I’m sure the numbers are low.
I’m guessing that if one is lucky enough (with those odds) to make it to college, or be employed at one, that in order to expand one’s intellectual curiosity of contributing to society at large (economically notwithstanding) why would one not want to utilize a portion of their time there continuing to put trauma behind them through some courses and sharing?
Sure the simple answer is “ do it in therapy”, not at college/work.
But aren’t most of them there to move forward in life?
Can that be accomplished by ignoring the past?
Or does the pendulum have to eventually shift towards “feminism” in order to, as Christopher states, meet in the middle?
After umpteen centuries of overly masculated patriarchy, how does “balance” occur?
Are the institutions of higher learning grounds to achieve that ultimate goal, or are colleges “hands off” to that curriculum?
I wish I had time to write further, but I truly believe that the CDC and other public health organizations and universities have plighted their troth with groups promoting poorly constructed and un-reproduceable soft science studies. I no sooner believe that one in four children are "beaten" by a parent or that one in three couples engage in violence than I do that the Earth is shaped like a disk. Hyperbole, and specifically hyperbole for a political point is most definitely the order of the day in the soft sciences. And rational actors like John Ioannidis have long been debunking their radically unscientific studies. Remember the study that supposedly showed that gay and lesbian couple supposedly produce happies/more successful/mentally stable children? Of course the two studies coming to those findings were carried out by...a gay prof and a lesbian one and the participants were told what the study was about. The background of it is readily available on the internet for those interested in digging. The modern world seems to need a boogeyman to encapsulate all of its ills; it is simply not enough that life is difficult in some measure to all of humanity, that we are made lazy by our wealth, that we inhabit our vices too readily and that we don't easily remediate mental and emotional privation. I don't WANT CNN telling me that the CDC says I'm probably ADHD, that it's natural and that I don't have control over it...poor me! The CDC also went through an entire pandemic criminally cheerleading an experimental "vaccine" and not once suggested that the easiest way to not die of Covid was to avoid foods causing obesity, hypertension, heart disease and diabetes. Nor did it say to exercise because apparently that would entail fat shaming. No, I have no belief whatsoever in the platforms the CDC and our other public health agencies now inhabit. They are as scientifically rigorous as Brown's Gas theory.
So, quickly, yes I believe every adult carries with him/her a past which has emotional and mental trauma within it; it is real and it is mostly more subtle than the simplistic idea that everyone has the equivalent of an alcoholic parent or has been beaten as a child, even though those things have ever existed. And it seems obvious to me that most of us don't really unpack our traumas and it actively hinders us in our daily lives in unseeing ways. If affects our significant others, our children, our friends, etc. But we avoid the long and arduous journey to enlightenment because that takes a huge amount of time and effort. And it's painful.
I hope my answer is at all useful. I know it stopped short of your query. I just want to get to foundational ideas before agreeing to assumptions that I think are flawed. I'm a fan of Occam.
Thank you for your thoughtful post. You raise some excellent questions, and I can't do them justice here. Generally, I am in favor of not including a lot of personal growth programming in academic classes. I have been focusing recently on what is going on in K-12 curricula in my state. At those levels, the Social Emotional Learning concept is being totally abused by critical social justice radicals. The CASEL package that is being imported into most schools reads like a blend of CSJ indoctrination and trauma therapy. It is not appropriate for teachers who aren't licensed in counseling, psychology, or any mental health profession to become so involved in students' mental health issues. In addition, the teachers are being encouraged to engage in a lot of mental health interventions without parents' knowledge or permission, and that is also completely inappropriate.
I have in the past been in favor of teaching K-12 students simple communication strategies for resolving conflicts without violence, but at this point I would not trust that this kind of learning could be offered without destructive indoctrination included.
I am in favor of having a mental health professional available to teachers and students for consultation when significant mental health issues are suspected. With regard to universities, I am also in favor of well-staffed university counseling centers. I worked in a university counseling center for six years. This was a major department at the university, with about 45 psychologists and half a dozen vocational counselors able to provide full scale vocational counseling for students who were uncertain what to chose for a major. We saw thousands of students yearly, many of whom had significant mental illnesses, including major depressions and psychoses as well as unwanted pregnancies, academic struggles and simple homesickness their first year. Counseling centers of this quality no longer exist, having been cut for economic reasons.
I would support reversing that trend, and restoring at least in part some of the services that have been cut. Unfortunately, my profession and all of the other mental health professions have been captured by the critical social justice radicals, and I am not confident that students would receive competent, ethically delivered assistance on campus. That would be a lot more possible in a system like Gov. DeSantis appears to be aiming for in Florida. In that situation, mental health professionals could be held to the ethical standards that the competent members of our field still honor and abide by. In that case, yes, I would support inclusion of a range of counseling services, including psychoeducation groups and evaluation and/or treatment of students with mental health issues.
Capture by pharma and the industrial medical complex adds another layer of challenge in my opinion, where there’s a pill/drug for every ailment/issue. Most only numb or block one’s ability to actually address the source(s).
Your comments of what once was, and now is no longer available to students/staff is only kicking the can down the road. Makes one wonder what is the end goal? Slow death of a once functioning educational system?
True patriarchal cultures show how disastrous we are when unfettered and balanced by women. Ouch that is completely true. And if I'm honest, on movies my favorite sets were usually run by women. No egos to wade through and no ridiculous demands. They shepherded crews towards the finish without being caught up in craziness.
I always had a very positive view of other women, and related well to them, until I got into graduate school. I was in training to be a psychologist, so the women I knew in my program were either training for the same field or were faculty psychologists. I did have the support of a few female faculty members, but mostly I got a new education in how vicious women can be towards other women. We are talking here about mental health professionals, mind you.
Psychology was extremely male dominated up until the year I was admitted to grad school (1969), when the department faculty decided to start an affirmative action program. They admitted half women that year, and half students of color, mostly black men, the next year. As of now, the field of clinical psychology is very female dominated, which was inevitable. The only reason it wasn't that way all along was that women were discriminated against in graduate admissions to psych programs.
I will never forget the time that one of the foremost narcissists in my class asked me how it felt to be "a woman in a male dominated field." This was not spoken with friendly curiosity, of course, being as how he was and is a narcissist. He was smug, condescending, and was obviously trying to marginalize me. I immediately replied that I did not consider clinical psychology to be a man's field, as it is so obviously "women's work." My classmate intensified his sneer and repeated that, "It is a male dominated profession."
There is a significant number of men who are sexist towards women, but also a significant number of women who are sexist towards women, and who cannot tolerate seeing another woman succeed. There is also a significant number of women who are simply mean, and who play mean games with a subtlety that most men cannot compete with.
Competition between women is painful to witness since it exists in verbal and nonverbal assaults cloaked in something else entirely.
I think there are many men who really don't know when they're being sexist. I don't mean this as an excuse. They don't really understand women very well and apply rules used between men in their dealings with women. And there will always be men who are sexist to women.
"In conclusion, I’d like to say also, to be very clear: this is not a problem of women per se."
No, it's a problem of women in leadership. This is probably too third-rail even for you to touch, but I'm more and more convinced that the biblical pattern of men in leadership is there for a reason and conforms to reality. Not that women shouldn't have any influence at all of course, but when the balance is tipped toward women being in charge, things don't seem to go well.
It's taken me many years to come to a place of agreement with your statement because it sounds problematic. But in truth, it is not; agreeableness is not where good leadership comes from in most cases. Women who replicate those masculine traits while still maintaining checks against vituperation make excellent leaders...but these women are being left at the curb.
Same here. I grew up in an environment which abused this concept to turn men into nasty, abusive mini-tyrants to their wives and children. But I have to come to terms with the fact that my like or dislike of something or the fact that some people have twisted it doesn't change its truth. These are concepts that I think are baked into the universe and we have to recognize them and employ them correctly. But our culture has moved so far beyond this that it's not really taught even in the church anymore.
Love this. Something I realized along the way is that the differences between the sexes need not be a value judgement. The difficulties we endure and triumphs we enjoy are unique and equally important. Men just have what looks like the better deal. But I say that as someone who grew up in a time when I understood we are at fault for everything. It took me decades to stop accepting being a punching bag for women who wanted all of the good stuff I have but none of the bad. I am no worse than any woman nor am I better. But I am most definitely different.
Queen Bee syndrome is something most females that work for female bosses can intuit even if they all can't verbalize it. We see it clearly front the ex-staffers of Kamala Harris, Amy Klobachar, HRC.
Can happen for sure. One of my worst bosses was female. But on the other hand the other two were men, although one I would say was harassed by mostly-feminine woke underlings. And some of the best bosses I ever had were female. On the whole though I do prefer working for men.
I use to work for Fortune 500 company where the manager and supervisors were all women. Confidentiality was not their strong point. A female applicant was hired because she came to interview carrying a Dooney Bourke bag. A male applicant was not hired because he came to interview wearing cargo pants. They were an interesting bunch
Yep. God created woman to be a partner to the man, which does not mean the woman cannot lead, nor in any way demotes the wome to that of a lesser being, but that the woman is intended to be a responder to the man.
Not at all. Read the section in the video where I talk about the experience at Claremont McKenna College and the absolute failure of the men in power over the past 50 years.
I was a student of Harry Jaffa (and other teachers) at Claremont in the 80's. He, Dr. Harry Neumann and Fr. Francis Canavan, S.J. taught a Friday late-afternoon seminar on Plato's dialogues during which this problem was discussed and elaborated upon in-relation to the problem of the universities in Germany in the 1930's.
You are in the midst of this very fundamental problem, and have the opportunity to - if nothing else - conduct yourself honorably, and memorably. In the 1930's in Germany, that usually meant leaving the country and taking very humble employment abroad, as many did. In your case, you have the opportunity to repair evil. Serve with distinction!
I'm sorry Mr. Rufo, I posted a comment to you by accident. I get a bit confused when there are so many threads going on simultaneously. Thanks for responding, even so!
Have you considered that the core problem has nothing to do with women gaining more public visibility? I think it is far more likely that we are living through the collapse of our civilization. It happens to all of them, but we never want to think it is happening to us. At times like this in previous empires, people often looked for someone to blame, some way to get a sense of control by grasping for rigid certainties. The scapegoating is getting very intense currently and is dangerous.
I think the claims made by feminism at large are emblematic of a central societal problem pointing towards the collapse of western values from the inside out. While the problem isn't women per se, they are willing participants in the destruction. Women gaining stature in the public marketplace of ideas was/is a good and necessary thing to the functioning of society. However, they have gained outsize power since the 1960's because a clear bastardization of the founding principles of suffragettes morphed the goal. Activism by its nature is a never ending battleground; even if the goal of a given movement is achieved, activists simply move the bar ever further from the starting position, distorting reality in the process, otherwise they lose their perceived value. What good is an activist when there isn't an effigy to burn. This is not only forseeable, but expected, resulting in demands for inequality and authoritarianism in the name of faux righteousness. Of course supporters of said activism slam anyone honest enough to point out this hypocrisy as tools of oppression. But any intellectually honest person, can for example see that Jesse Jackson "mourning" MLK's death by immediately after jumping in his car and driving from Memphis to Chicago to be on television holding court the morning after the murder while still wearing a bloody turtleneck was an opportunistic and dishonest reaction to a national tragedy. And that same bad actor has pushed a false and destructive narrative for HIS own benefit for 50 years since. Jackson's is a world view dominating black politics and it refuses to acknowledge that the success of black activists over the decades has led inexorably to the destruction of their place in America. I posit that this should have been expected. Assholes hijack movements for their own benefit. Thus we had a completely fallacious demand by US women's soccer to dismantle a contract that they FORCED onto US Soccer because reality got in the way of their wishes. An enraged Megan Rapinoe bloviated about unfairness and sexism because things aren't the way she wants them to be, and voila the result is that men's soccer players had to agree to forced wealth redistribution. This same pattern is apparent in green activism, race activism, feminist activism, farm activism and on and on. What surprise then that although it is demonstrable that both African Americans and women have benefited from government intervention at the direct expense of white guys and often innovation in the marketplace, conservatives have become ever more angry and impotent in the face of a new reality.
While the core problem in western culture in the modern era is certainly that new liberals have an unquenchable thirst for power and a refusal to acknowledge reality, along with that comes an activist lack of honesty that what they seek is to dismantle core constitutional values because they don't specifically advantage them or their cause. This is done for "equity" undermining "patriarchy" and all manner of other totally ridiculous and stupid fake problems. A large percentage of women have been central to that new reality. Disregarding obvious strides our country and institutions have made in creating equality among the sexes, races and cultures within the system, and lying about reality puts us all in a place where men increasingly understand from a young age that they are at fault for everything that happens. They should not trust their eyes, ears and brains in all matters of race, culture, sex and sexuality because any person who looks different from them (particularly if they are white or asian) knows better. Men who understand their proper role simply lose their masculinity and believe the lies.
Incidentally, I see womansplaining and blacksplaining as a real and horrible reality as opposed to mansplaining. What man in his right mind wants to try to explain anything to a modern, self-actualized woman? It is a study in masochism.
I should added my view of the context of my own belief. There are lots of women who are enlightened and understand the reality in which we live. But the pressures on women by feminism to only accept a revolutionary stance is pretty hard to ignore.
Incidentally, if the shoe were on the other foot and we were perceived to be under the boot of men, we (males) would be doing the intellectually dishonest dance for our own purposes. It seems like human nature is not to enjoy the fruits of successful action against being wronged but to continue to use activism towards distorted goals. I apologize for putting women at the center of the circle. We all suffer from larceny where are own politics are concerned.
Honestly it's not that men are de fact great leaders, but the central role of leadership is moving a group of people forward towards a set of goals. Men are good at that but often really bad at the secondary role of understanding the diverse emotional needs of individuals which is where women excel. Great women leaders subjugate their empathy to the role of moving their organization towards the goal while still supporting their group.
Yes, there is a need for everyone to remember they are participating in the organization to help achieve goals that are separate from the pathological needs for attention and control by certain individuals.
My take on the current situation in the U.S. is that men in positions of power are abdicating responsibility for using it to stop the extremists in their organizations from reversing roles and taking over. Meanwhile, a cadre of mostly white female activist teachers, their unions, and mostly white female activist bureaucrats and HR types have very quickly gained power and are enjoying it considerably. The teachers do have women in senior executive positions, but the DEI racket is typically under the authority of the C Suite in corporate settings.
I am self-employed and I contract with other companies which have DEI officers. One in particular has been harassing me for the past year because I do not respond to her demands that I check the boxes on their "questionnaire," so that this company can post my "personal information" on their website. In one of her recent letters, the DEI officer (Don't you love that they are called officers?) stated that her company has "a rich track record of advancing social justice in the community." At this point I felt the need to look up their executive team, and saw five white guys and a sixth with what might be a Southeast Asian name. By the woke cult's rules, this by definition means that their company is participating in structural racism.
Rather than address the obvious lack of "racial equity" at the top, the executive team hired a DEI officer to harass their employees and contract companies with diversity paperwork. The DEI officer is performing a typical HR function, which has historically been a "women's job" in corporations. She has more power and money and a higher box on the org chart than most women have had at the company, but she is still basically occupying a pink collar ghetto. She does not have the power held by senior execs in the operational branch of the company, and we are starting to see how quickly they are jettisoned when layoffs become necessary.
So, I do not think that women are now dominating power in the U.S. It looks to me more like the kinds of jobs women have been filling for a long time are now very fashionable. The critical social justice movement has elevated those jobs into prominence. I don't know to what extent the prime movers of the critical social justice movement are female (some of them don't even know how to answer that). I agree that there is a considerable percentage of women who are getting off on making unreasonable rules, forcing them on other people, and punishing anyone who is accused on non-compliance.
I also believe that white men are being discriminated against. The primary difficulty for men is the loss of so many manufacturing jobs, but that combined with the discrimination has resulted in record levels of mental illness in men. The epidemic of mental illness in young women is important, but white men, especially those who are unemployed, are turning to drug addiction and suicide in record numbers. White men whose jobs have gone away are currently suffering from severe depression to a greater extent than any other demographic, so by the rules of the woke, white men must be experiencing the effects of more discrimination than any other group.
Meanwhile, the white men occupying the most senior leadership positions in private industry continue to build their power, and to use the mean girl woke bureaucracy to bully their employees, while at the same time covering their legal liability from lawsuits and complaints to public regulatory agencies and earning free woke publicity. When this starts costing them more than it is benefiting them, I expect that the white male and female ruling class will move on to other preoccupations.
I would conclude with the opinion that the toxic femininity within the woke movement has become increasingly powerful and obvious. I have not observed, however, that women stepping into positions of leadership responsibility previous to the woke takeover were consistently predisposed to engage in the same kinds of relational aggression. I think that the current social crisis we are in is the outcome of a number of cultural changes that came together in a perfectly poisonous combination.
That was a nicely thought out piece of writing. Thanks for engaging on a difficult topic rather than castigating my position. I'm in a mixed mind where the leadership of companies is concerned. What is clear is that a percentage of men have built into their DNA an insatiable desire to build, to create, to lead; they will do whatever it takes for however long to make that happen. It doesn't mean they make great leaders but the drive is the single biggest force of innovation of the species.
So what do we do about the ever growing population of men who feel emasculated by society, and women specifically? Their view that the world has passed them by is evidenced all over the news media by fools who proclaim traditional, rural, white guys should just get over their selfishness and ge with the program; then there is the message that they somehow still maintain corrosive power over other races and women. It's madness. We are up to 7+ million men between 25 and 50 who aren't working or looking for work. If ever there was a statistic that should be a blaring alarm to the very political among the citizenry it's that one. Dissolute, rudderless men do not make good decisions nor do they seek positive romantic relationships. As you point out, drug use, depression and suicide follow.
Back when I was still watching CNN one of the things that infuriated me most was when Don Lemon would accuse Trump's followers of being primarily motivated by anger over their "loss of white privilege." Don Lemon, who was making millions of dollars annually, with one snotty comment dismissed and erased the pain of all those millions of families who were working slowly towards the American dream, only to have it ripped away. Beyond that, those families are the ones who know what has actually been happening to our country since the collapse of the steel industry, the associated coal industry, and the prosperous family farms. Rather than listen to their "lived experience," the truly privileged prefer to silence the voices of unemployed blue collar workers, whose pain is the clearest evidence of our shared national crisis. How much more pleasant, to continue on in the delusion that "everything is fine where I am," while the entire foundation of our country's success collapses.
The plight of the unemployed men is close to my heart because I was raised in a Rust Belt blue collar home in western Pennsylvania. When the steel industry began to disintegrate my father lost his job, then became re-employed in the auto industry, so we moved to Macomb County, Michigan. (Which later acquired notoriety among liberals as pro-Trump territory). I remember my Dad at the dinner table in tears, telling me that the steel mill at Johnstown had been closed and thousands of men were out of work.
My father also told me, during the Seventies, that our country was headed down a path where more and more people were not really working. "Pencil pushers" were not making anything or providing any services, all they were doing were regulating other peoples' jobs.
I don't know what we are going to do. The "owners of the means of production," as Marxists say, have removed their plants to China. The unemployed Americans are the canaries in the mine.
You and I would get along. I spent part of my adolescence in down east Maine, which was not wealthy in the least. Then I moved to central PA and surrounded by blue collar workers and Mennonite farms. They aren't noble savages, but they are people actively disdained by both liberals and conservatives.
Thank you Christopher for promoting care and reason as well as Heather's well written article.
I work in Mental Heath/ Substance use disorder education and have been in this field for decades now watching the "soft" sciences be reduced to little more than witchcraft and neurosis peddling through all inputs and outputs. It seems that this trend is not one that comes from lack of good or reasonable scholarship but through the advancemment of a small group that claim to speak for the discipline as a whole and the disenfranchisement and negation of those who question the " victim/ trauma" approach.
A clear issue is the "soft" science university pathway for many students as a less difficult more theory driven major. Many young women are exposed to the facile pop psych stuff online as they develop and then follow through in the university. Rigor in many of these departments has been removed in the service of ideology and the outcomes of more mental health problems are not acknowledged, but, having more dependent mental health clients produced through the ideological capture will keep these graduates employed for the foreseeable future.
The convention of care to those experiencing behavioral disturbance should be the practioner working as responsibly and carefully with the individual to assist in their independence from treatment. Putting ourselves out of a job with each person we work with should be paramount. Instead, there are growing numbers that feed the continuous care model at the peril of individual functioning. It's truly disturbing and gives me little hope that this ship will ever right itself.
The analogy - in a full and not merely metaphorical sense- with ongoing medicalization/medical dependency of children is striking, and disturbing.
In the 70's (or perhaps even the 60's) an idea of intervention came to light as a cultural trend, when having an "analyst" was a kind of indispensable hobby for certain rich men's wives. If I recall correctly, the "self-esteem" movement in the 80's proposed that children become subjects of psychotherapeutic intervention, generally, as a means of "realizing untapped potential" that was being wasted. All of this went well-beyond "screening" for social pathologies which were conducted by police department academies, nursing schools, etc. which was still typical of the 1950's (my mother was a Positivist who worked for the California Dept. of Public Health in the 60's).
Rufo almost goes far enough but not quite. Good, masculine leadership creates novel approaches, values creativity and structural evolution, places scientific method over empathetic pleas, demands competence over niceness. Masculine leadership is good when balanced against feminine demands for kindness and recognition of the worth of everyone. The Claremont McKenna example is obviously a dereliction of masculine leadership by men in exactly the same way as the UCF situation he cites. Competent female university leadership must recognize and make as its primary function creative essentialism that male leaders demand. Empathy though important to the central mission of incubating the fulsome greatness of developing young minds can only exist in support of that function, otherwise the university will cease to exist as the primary source of scientific innovation and learning and further devolve into a waste of time and resources.
Naval gazing has rarely advanced societies throughout history. Rigorous, academic searching has.
There are a lot of different theories about what caused the Woke Tsunami and the waves leading up to it. More generally there are efforts to explain America's left/right split and to identify the causes of political ideology in general. There are theories from the left/center like George Lakoff, who explain by pointing to a cognitive level of constraint, to metaphors of thought. Or Haidt, who explains more in terms of moral sentiments. You can also try to take a more long-term ethological approach that looks at deeply-entrenched patterns of male and female behavior. These kinds of explanatory efforts are very interesting. Personally I'm interested in the history of structuralism and why it made such a surprising comeback in the form of "structures of oppression", etc. But understanding the proximate and ultimate causes of the critical social justice movement will not substantially help diminish the growing power of this movement. If you think that the principles and policies of this movement are wrong and/or harmful, I think the best course of action is to find a place where you can assume leadership in your local context and then implement better principles and policies. That is what is being tried at this university. But the only way to make substantial progress will be if this type of effort becomes more and more general.
There is something very pouty about the left that invites everyone to contemplate the paternal order Rufo broaches here. When Amy Schumer and Wanda Sykes were saying "gay gay gay gay.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exa_ux5kQAs
they come across as defiant children. That is also unsurprisingly part of their comedy. "We are going to use all the naughty words Daddy told us not to".
It is seen as empowering to the left to defy all paternal order. This may be one reason why so many woke moms are bringing their children to be baptized by drag queens. The whole genre is defined by trying to make a regular dad pay attention. The men are just completely absent or neutered when it comes to woke child rearing. Like Rufo said in the video: we need a balance. It is no coincidence people like Matt Walsh bring a very masculine quality of reason to the gender mania. Many Americans crave that groundedness. When it is absent.. mania and depression skyrocket. For all the reasons Rufo outlined. I can't help but think the broad demonization of "toxic masculinity" is part of the larger zeitgeist.
We could use language as bait so the left goes crazy, as they did with "Don't say Gay Bill".
The term "Paternal Order" is going to trigger them to no end, and if you just use that as a descriptor in legislation it could make the conversation go superviral. The gynocentric media will end up with egg on their face once again as laypeople debunk their hysteria. If you really want to get wonky and bring in Peterson to connect it to the expression of the big 5 personality traits five broad personality traits: extroversion, agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism. I think the nation welcomes the chance to partake in a conversation about how female dominated institutions are faring for everyone.
I gave many more examples than that. You are just cropdusting asinine comments without reading or listening to the video. It was the hyperfragile left, not Conservatives, who coined safe spaces, trigger warnings, microaggressions and cancel culture. Yeah. They are effeminate children who never had a man tell them to grow up and develop thicker skin.
Clearly while White Women fomented many of this, as expected (by everyone but them) they are next on the chopping block and are now being pushed out of these sinecure positions at universities and government agencies. That is one reason why you see an increase in WW pretending to be Latina or Black or whatever. That likely has been going on a while. Also, expect many many more whites to start claiming Hispanic heritage (particularly because the legal/fed requirements are very wide and not clearly defined...anyone with a SINGLE ancestor from Spain ["Spanish culture or origin"] can claim it.)
It was amazing how it was treated like no big deal. She literally lied to get hired and it worked! (which unfortunately would prove the point if anyone admitted it).
That's facially ridiculous. Obviously it played a very central role. Warren didn't exactly have legendary status as either a grad student or mover of worlds after.
It's dismaying to see that the more females who congregate in large numbers in institutions of higher learning, the more anxious they become.Having managed several teams with all-male, all-female and mixed sexes, the most stable and cooperative are the mixed. Men and women behave better in each other's company. I'm a woman so hold up on accusations of misogyny, please.
I agree in part, but in terms of innovation, there is no doubt that a team composed mostly if not entirely of males will innovate and overcome obstacles better than an evenly mixed or all female team every day and twice on Sunday. They are not agreeable but work harder, think more proactively, compete for who has the best idea and demonstrate deductive reasoning without pulling back due to empathy every time. When conflict arises they get past it and continue unless there is a cancerous man in the mix in which case the thing collapses. I've seen it time and again on student robotics teams at a very high level. That said, checks against the male ego are necessary.
Critically positioned with facts, insightfulness and persuasion to at least Move thinking and authentic minds closer to reality and achievement type Leadership for successful living. Thank you.
Remember when your kid would go into dramatics over a slight fall? Imagine that instead of of giving them a quick kiss and telling her to go play again, you pick her up, put her in a blanket, give her a sweet snack, and tell how terrible it was that that little fall happened to her. She would turn into a neurotic monster within a month.
This is what these college counselors are doing at a mass scale.
It's disgraceful what's happening.
When I was a preschool teacher I learned not to pay immediate attention to a child who fell, because if they weren't severely hurt they would pick themselves up and go back to play. If I showed immediate concern they would start wailing --- hurt or not. Waiting until the child clearly needed help, led to much less wailing and much more resilience. I think reactivity is the issue. If the kid is bleeding or in great pain you give them necessary attention, but you let them deal with the ordinary. And you also give a lot of positive attention for the good stuff so a kid doesn't need to have something bad happening for attention.
That’s exactly how they were raised
My grandsons had a different approach. Whenever they fell, ran into something or were hit by something; they would immediately demonstrably declare, “I’m okay, I’m okay.”
It's also happening at the high school level in woke schools.
Very insightful. Of course making things even more difficult is the risk of being called sexist for merely suggesting systems could be gendered. We have a continuation and acceleration of Blank Slate censorship. From the purging of Harvard's Lawrence Summers for even commenting on gendered disparities in STEM to today's gynocentric victimology. This is what happens when intersectional feminism is subsidized by the state. Rufo actually understands the problems
at a very granular level.
I'm amazed at the number of otherwise intelligent people who don't seem to grasp basic statistics. Just because a majority of women have agreeable personalities doesn't mean that all women do. It is not sexist (or racist, or whatever-else-ist) to point out statistical realities.
If we are discussing Harvard.. and more broadly any pushback against blaming sexism for disparities in STEM, I'm of the opinion that the vast majority do understand the basics. What they want are loyalty oaths declaring "sexism, racism" are the main problems. It's entirely ideological/religious. The activists rule by terror, so everyone is afraid to speak up when the mob comes for someone like Summers.
You're probably right, as I tend to be a little too charitable.
Appreciate the comment.
—“In reality, it was fake empathy utilized as a left-wing power strategy.”
This. All the talk about “being kind” is really just a way to manipulate people and use them to get more power and control.
I find this post of particular interest because I remember after the Floyd riots, some of my very well-off educated left leaning female ex-friends (apparently I was not “empathetic” enough about Covid or the BLM movement, meaning I was skeptical and asked questions they didn’t like, so summarily ejected from the friend circle) made hysterical posts on social media about feeling marginalized. I found it incredible that these people, who had more advantages (as did their children) than the vast majority of people in this country, were saying things like this. Then I realized after some reflection that they knew deep down they were *not* disadvantaged, so they had to identify themselves with a group that was, presumably in order to assuage their guilt at being successful and having it so good, or perhaps also to make it seem as if they weren’t quite as advantaged as it appeared. This really seems to fit well with what you’ve written in today's post.
Thank you for this thought provoking and well written piece!
The George Floyd moment revealed many deeper trends.
It was my wake-up call. I watched and listened and didn’t recognize this country. I saw that i needed to educate myself and that’s what I did.
I have a friend who grew up w wealth and became a sjw in grad school. In talking to her about all this woke stuff of late, I have found she really doesn’t know a lot of the theory and roots of what she advocates for. I read an analysis of cult levels lately that lines up well w the left, the outer ring buying the tag lines but not knowing the depths of the belief set. My friend fits w this exactly. I was gobsmacked that she actually knows so little! Like, how do you not recognize that Paolo Freire is absolutely Marxist?! (We’re both in education.) Or that there are ppl who detransition?! The desire to belong to the “right” group is strong.
Right after the Floyd riots a group of Black graduate students at Stanford University penned a letter to the president claiming that Stanford was a racist institution and demanding funding for various pro-black benefits. These people are some of the most privileged people on the planet.
The letter was appalling in its simplicity and complete lack of reasoning; they provided no evidence or even anecdotes for the claim of rampant racism on campus. As an alumni I was embarrassed as hell.
Doesn't this "language of the therapeutic" come directly from the big pharma business model?
More grist for the mill can be found on Jon Haidt's substack. Specifically the data on why liberal teenage girls depression has exploded since 2012.
https://jonathanhaidt.substack.com/p/mental-health-liberal-girls
One thing I'm studying today is what is referred to as FDIA or Factitious Disorder Imposed on Another which is the DSM-5 definition of what used to be referred to as Munchausen syndrome. If you explore further upstream into the home, it is mothers needing attention who are causing this current hysteria that is altering education in the USA.
Yes, there needs to be more research about the intersection of SSRIs/mood drugs and the social movements that promote these ideologies.
> Doesn't this "language of the therapeutic" come directly from the big pharma business model?
100%
Tried group counseling to try to get a hold on my panic attacks. Some of the most deranged "therapy" I have ever seen in my life. It was basically several hours of self-pitying ruminations followed by an instructor led exercise that had nothing to do with anything. For example, we spent one afternoon talking about "privilege" It was clear the sessions were just window dressing to get to the prescribed zombie pills that was their main business.
The solution that worked for me? Less time online, cold Showers, punching bag, breathing exercises. Total cost? About 100 dollars. Getting help outside big pharma's tentacles? Priceless.
Your mileage may vary.
After Covid, some people are getting wind of jus how corrupt the entire industry is.
In defense or some therapists mine recommended mostly exercise for depression and anxiety. She was super based.
I had to laugh about your solution to your panic attacks (a laugh of acknowledgement). Of course it was brilliant and effective. Why did I laugh? My 19 year old daughter was very socially timid--she was afraid to speak to someone in a store, restaurant, etc. about a problem, need, etc. Then one day I find out she and a male friend (also very timid) of hers had been engaging in their own "rejection therapy." THey would spend the evenings going into stores, restaurants, hotels, fire stations and other things and simply asked them for something in the place (a T-shirt, a hat, a coke, etc.) -- just so they could get rejected, recover and move to the next place. You know what happened? They were almost never rejected and they would come home with bags full of free stuff they've been given! No more anxiety for them!! I was so proud of her discovering this and actually doing it!
Modern Western women (the only kind I'm at all familiar with) live under constant pressures to meet a set of ever increasing expectations. It used to be that she "only" had to be the perfect women, the perfect wife, and the perfect mother. Now she is expected to be all of that and to work outside of the home to help pay the bills. And if the woman is unfortunate enough not be a POC, she is told that she has "White Privilege and Fragility". It's hardly surprising that many struggle to live up to such fickle demands; the weight must be incredible.
I may be labelled sexist and get flamed for this for this, but I think the Rolling Stones figured some of this out back in 1966 and as a result penned "Mother's Little Helper". Based what I have heard from my wife and friends, things are even more different today - now they have marginalized identities and have to be "woke" as well . No wonder so many women are mad and aggressive, Its enough to drive anyone over the edge. The majority of women I know ages 25-50 have regular counseling sessions, many women over 30 have regular prescriptions. It is a perfect environment for the modern university to become a “therapeutic institution".
And is a heyday for Big Pharma!
Agreed! I just wrote a post about how I think sleep studies are simply a front for selling CPAP machines. I'm determined to avoid conventional medicine as much as possible unless absolutely necessary. Like you i have had far too many negative experiences, and far too much experience of figuring out cheap or free and far more effective solutions on my own.
Very interesting. There is an entire book in this comment on the lives of modern families and how they have ceased to function in a meaningful way towards the benefit of the unit itself and individuals within it. Well done.
Yet again you have a perfect score here. Having worked in Higher Education for 40 years I have seen the very careful and insidious rise of this whole thing. The only jobs that government produces are those that spring up to support whatever absurd rules and regulations they have created.
Currently the largest field in the academic and corporate world is DEI. There are almost as many DEI administrators as there are students. That needs to change immediately if academia intends to stay alive. Universities are more concerned with policies and rules than they are about educating indecently thinking adults.
In fairness we can't lump all female administrators into the Mean Girl Club because I have worked with very brilliant and talented administrators that are female. Rather this whole mindset seems linked to the Marxist idea that everyone is oppressed and those individuals will right all the wrongs etc. when they get into power. Once in power they have been given unfettered control without any oversight or accountability. It's a very adversarial relationship to say the least. Now add the whole mental health aspect to this recipe and you have the current state of affairs.
As for the Provost that had the stones to try and bully you with safety, I surely hope that they are enjoying the private sector, namely Walmart greeter. These people have no respect or empathy for anyone that isn't in their special club.
Chris, keep grinding and fighting. Once unmasked they wither, so we must keep fighting for our children's futures and our national sanity.
As a woman, I wrote this several years ago. It has become orders of magnitude worse since then. Men need to take the reins back: http://thinkingbing.blogspot.com/2015/07/girl-power.html
Another example of how we're set up for men to lose no matter what they do: http://thinkingbing.blogspot.com/2013/01/fairs-fair-after-all.html
I must admit, I have been missing the energy of alpha male leaders, and welcome their appearance on the increasingly rare occasions when they emerge. On the other hand, I have absolutely no intention of allowing men "to take the reins back." Maybe you are not old enough to remember what that was like, but I am. I suggest you take a look at some of the cultures where men truly hold the reins, such as Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, much of Latin America, and actually, the majority of countries on the planet.
The key is balance between male and female.
I'm in my 60s, and would respectfully disagree with your premise that those societies are terrible because they are male dominated. They are terrible because they lack the tempering influence of Christianity. Indeed, as that influence diminishes here at home we find men increasingly resembling their Saudi and Afghan brethren.
On your inference that things are better for women today: pull the data on titanic survivors. They were overwhelmingly female because the men prioritized the lives of women and children over their own. Historically women were never allowed in combat, not because men were mysogenistic but because our "male dominated" society deemed women precious and indispensable. Like you, I remember a different time. A time when men leapt up to offer their seats to women on the bus. When they curbed their language out of respect for the women in the room. When they referred to us as the "fairer sex". When they opened doors and invited us to enter a room first. When they stepped forward time and time again to do the hardest, dirtiest, most dangerous jobs so we wouldn't have to.
Now that the tables have turned, what equivalent respect and deference do women afford men? All I see is ingratitude and open contempt. It's no wonder they no longer find us worthy of their chivalry.
Well, you definitely have a perspective that differs from mine, as I would no more welcome or agree with a nicer version of the Saudi culture than I do with the current barbaric one. I do share with you an admiration for gentlemen, and more generally, I very much miss the civility that used to be the norm in my youth. It created a feeling of friendly community out of casual encounters with strangers.
Where you say that all you see is "ingratitude and open contempt" on the part of women towards men, that is very different from my experience. I do see that attitude out there, but mostly from the woke minority. A lot of woke women appear to genuinely view most heterosexual men as oppressive, at least if they are white. The ones who strongly see themselves as disempowered, traumatized victims might be more likely to do that. It's part of the dynamic, like Mr. Rufo suggested, that you basically can't be a victim without an abuser and vice versa.
The women I am acquainted with mostly talk about men the way women always have. When they are young they are focused on finding male partners and starting families, and they mostly do act like they expect to find husbands who are worthy to be fathers. At least most single people seem to be on dating apps a lot. I would imagine that if women treat their spouses or potential spouses with contempt those relationships would not last.
You're right - and it is only a minority, as loud and shrill as they are. I'm just so tired of hearing women extolling their victimhood, and demanding more and more power without ever considering the responsibility that comes with it. My tolerance for narcissism has reached an all-time low!
Thank you Sandra, it's so refreshing to enjoy civil discourse with someone who disagrees!
Robin and Sandra. It is refreshing to read two respectful, articulate people conversing about something and allowing differences of opinion
"My tolerance for narcissism has reached an all-time low!" Likewise! We are really seeing now what kinds of parenting and teaching lead to the development of narcissism in children. It is incredibly provoking! It wouldn't be so frustrating if we were also observing university professors, corporate CEO's, and city governments stand up to them.
Thank you as well, for the opportunity to dialogue with you!
I don't know how old you are but I am old enough to have watched the Brady Bunch as a kid! I've lived outside or inside medium to large cities for 30 years. I'm in a business dominated by 25-40 year olds and live adjacent to an urbanite paradise (gritty East Coast city with lots of urban renewal like breweries, distilleries, restaurants ad nauseum, climbing gym, etc). My experience with women in the age group I mention, particularly ones who have chosen to live in the city is mostly negative. I am awestruck at the level of anxiety, simmering anger and what seem like assumptions of my motivations built into most interactions. I often feel like I am being dared to say something they don't like. I'm not alone in this observation; my male work acquaintances who are willing to share, often have no idea how to deal with their urbanite sisters, so they remain sort of quiet for their own social safety.
The woke guys in these groups all have plighted their troth not to women in their friend groups who they almost never actually date, but rather to the idea of big 'W' woman. These are men who at the drop of a hat argue for transgenderism, feminism, deposing white patriarchy, curtailing speech which triggers oppressed people, etc, etc. My nephew is 40 and has a huge group of friends, all city dwellers with at least bachelor's degrees and mostly white collar and almost entirely woke, though he himself believes based on research and reflection that the premise of wokeness is false. He began a men's group during Covid because he saw a lot of pain and loneliness in his male friends. This was done in an effort to draw men out and discuss their anxieties and frustrations in a directed format with other men. The uniform reaction to the idea from everyone he knew not in the group (and even a couple of guys within it) was one of fear. It's too dangerous he was told; men shouldn't be alone together in a group because they can't be trusted. This was told to him by both women AND men. That's completely insane.
Among my nephew's friends, there are 2 married couples...out of around 40 people. That is not normal, it is crazy. And from speaking with my sons in high school and college, I hear the crazy spreading to their lives. My 17 year old avoids any big discussions with his peers (mostly STEM types) because he hears the language of oppression and systemic racism spoken around him. So he stays silent. What's sad is that his friends should even be worrying about these topics. My eldest is studying physics in DC and nearly every class in his major has had classes, some weekly, dedicated to unpacking misogyny and racism in science. Imagine the stultifying effect of shoving ideology into a class on quantum mechanics. It's depressing.
In my own case, except for some quite loud progressive women who exist in my group of parent acquaintances in the suburbs where I live, most of the ladies I know are very pleasant and don't feel the need to bring politics into every conversation. It's only the pushy ones who insert bits of wokeness into every discussion. But while the parents are easy going, a growing number of suburban kids, particularly girls, are very woke.
I am 75, was in grad school during the Brady Bunch era. I never saw a single episode of the Brady Bunch because I didn't watch TV from the time I started college until I was finally out of school for good.
I hear from some single guys I know that they feel sometimes like "All women hate men." Others who are trying to date struggle to find a woman who is stable and reasonably self-sustaining. I assume that these issues increase as people get older and try to re-enter the dating pool, because people who can successfully navigate close relationships stay in them, and the people who can't are increasingly overrepresented in the single population.
The women under 35 that I relate to are much more into the CSJ craziness, and they feel compelled to "call out" everyone around them for "participating in rape culture," saying "harmful things," and all the usual woke nonsense. The statistics on them indicate they are indeed having difficulty coupling up and starting families. It's no wonder, considering that most of their interactions are electronically mediated.
So much of this consists of dehumanizing other people, treating them like things, punching bags, projection screens and need-gratifiers.
Christopher, Robin & Sandra, et al,
I’d appreciate your historical and professional perspectives:
Bessel van der Kolk, MD wrote a book about healing from trauma, called The Body Keeps The Score. 2014.
Page 1:
“One does not have to be a combat soldier, or visit a refugee camp in Syria or the Congo to encounter trauma. Trauma happens to us, our friends, our families, and our neighbors. Research by the CDC & Prevention has shown that one in five Americans was sexually molested as a child, one in four was beaten by a parent to the point of a mark being left on their body; and one in three couples engages in physical violence. A quarter of us grow up with alcoholic relatives, and one out of eight witnessed their mother being beaten or hit.”
I’m sure the numbers are low.
I’m guessing that if one is lucky enough (with those odds) to make it to college, or be employed at one, that in order to expand one’s intellectual curiosity of contributing to society at large (economically notwithstanding) why would one not want to utilize a portion of their time there continuing to put trauma behind them through some courses and sharing?
Sure the simple answer is “ do it in therapy”, not at college/work.
But aren’t most of them there to move forward in life?
Can that be accomplished by ignoring the past?
Or does the pendulum have to eventually shift towards “feminism” in order to, as Christopher states, meet in the middle?
After umpteen centuries of overly masculated patriarchy, how does “balance” occur?
Are the institutions of higher learning grounds to achieve that ultimate goal, or are colleges “hands off” to that curriculum?
I’m curious and hope you’ll offer perspectives.
Thank you.
I wish I had time to write further, but I truly believe that the CDC and other public health organizations and universities have plighted their troth with groups promoting poorly constructed and un-reproduceable soft science studies. I no sooner believe that one in four children are "beaten" by a parent or that one in three couples engage in violence than I do that the Earth is shaped like a disk. Hyperbole, and specifically hyperbole for a political point is most definitely the order of the day in the soft sciences. And rational actors like John Ioannidis have long been debunking their radically unscientific studies. Remember the study that supposedly showed that gay and lesbian couple supposedly produce happies/more successful/mentally stable children? Of course the two studies coming to those findings were carried out by...a gay prof and a lesbian one and the participants were told what the study was about. The background of it is readily available on the internet for those interested in digging. The modern world seems to need a boogeyman to encapsulate all of its ills; it is simply not enough that life is difficult in some measure to all of humanity, that we are made lazy by our wealth, that we inhabit our vices too readily and that we don't easily remediate mental and emotional privation. I don't WANT CNN telling me that the CDC says I'm probably ADHD, that it's natural and that I don't have control over it...poor me! The CDC also went through an entire pandemic criminally cheerleading an experimental "vaccine" and not once suggested that the easiest way to not die of Covid was to avoid foods causing obesity, hypertension, heart disease and diabetes. Nor did it say to exercise because apparently that would entail fat shaming. No, I have no belief whatsoever in the platforms the CDC and our other public health agencies now inhabit. They are as scientifically rigorous as Brown's Gas theory.
So, quickly, yes I believe every adult carries with him/her a past which has emotional and mental trauma within it; it is real and it is mostly more subtle than the simplistic idea that everyone has the equivalent of an alcoholic parent or has been beaten as a child, even though those things have ever existed. And it seems obvious to me that most of us don't really unpack our traumas and it actively hinders us in our daily lives in unseeing ways. If affects our significant others, our children, our friends, etc. But we avoid the long and arduous journey to enlightenment because that takes a huge amount of time and effort. And it's painful.
I hope my answer is at all useful. I know it stopped short of your query. I just want to get to foundational ideas before agreeing to assumptions that I think are flawed. I'm a fan of Occam.
Thank you for your thoughtful post. You raise some excellent questions, and I can't do them justice here. Generally, I am in favor of not including a lot of personal growth programming in academic classes. I have been focusing recently on what is going on in K-12 curricula in my state. At those levels, the Social Emotional Learning concept is being totally abused by critical social justice radicals. The CASEL package that is being imported into most schools reads like a blend of CSJ indoctrination and trauma therapy. It is not appropriate for teachers who aren't licensed in counseling, psychology, or any mental health profession to become so involved in students' mental health issues. In addition, the teachers are being encouraged to engage in a lot of mental health interventions without parents' knowledge or permission, and that is also completely inappropriate.
I have in the past been in favor of teaching K-12 students simple communication strategies for resolving conflicts without violence, but at this point I would not trust that this kind of learning could be offered without destructive indoctrination included.
I am in favor of having a mental health professional available to teachers and students for consultation when significant mental health issues are suspected. With regard to universities, I am also in favor of well-staffed university counseling centers. I worked in a university counseling center for six years. This was a major department at the university, with about 45 psychologists and half a dozen vocational counselors able to provide full scale vocational counseling for students who were uncertain what to chose for a major. We saw thousands of students yearly, many of whom had significant mental illnesses, including major depressions and psychoses as well as unwanted pregnancies, academic struggles and simple homesickness their first year. Counseling centers of this quality no longer exist, having been cut for economic reasons.
I would support reversing that trend, and restoring at least in part some of the services that have been cut. Unfortunately, my profession and all of the other mental health professions have been captured by the critical social justice radicals, and I am not confident that students would receive competent, ethically delivered assistance on campus. That would be a lot more possible in a system like Gov. DeSantis appears to be aiming for in Florida. In that situation, mental health professionals could be held to the ethical standards that the competent members of our field still honor and abide by. In that case, yes, I would support inclusion of a range of counseling services, including psychoeducation groups and evaluation and/or treatment of students with mental health issues.
Capture by pharma and the industrial medical complex adds another layer of challenge in my opinion, where there’s a pill/drug for every ailment/issue. Most only numb or block one’s ability to actually address the source(s).
Your comments of what once was, and now is no longer available to students/staff is only kicking the can down the road. Makes one wonder what is the end goal? Slow death of a once functioning educational system?
Thx as well for your thoughts and response.
True patriarchal cultures show how disastrous we are when unfettered and balanced by women. Ouch that is completely true. And if I'm honest, on movies my favorite sets were usually run by women. No egos to wade through and no ridiculous demands. They shepherded crews towards the finish without being caught up in craziness.
I always had a very positive view of other women, and related well to them, until I got into graduate school. I was in training to be a psychologist, so the women I knew in my program were either training for the same field or were faculty psychologists. I did have the support of a few female faculty members, but mostly I got a new education in how vicious women can be towards other women. We are talking here about mental health professionals, mind you.
Psychology was extremely male dominated up until the year I was admitted to grad school (1969), when the department faculty decided to start an affirmative action program. They admitted half women that year, and half students of color, mostly black men, the next year. As of now, the field of clinical psychology is very female dominated, which was inevitable. The only reason it wasn't that way all along was that women were discriminated against in graduate admissions to psych programs.
I will never forget the time that one of the foremost narcissists in my class asked me how it felt to be "a woman in a male dominated field." This was not spoken with friendly curiosity, of course, being as how he was and is a narcissist. He was smug, condescending, and was obviously trying to marginalize me. I immediately replied that I did not consider clinical psychology to be a man's field, as it is so obviously "women's work." My classmate intensified his sneer and repeated that, "It is a male dominated profession."
There is a significant number of men who are sexist towards women, but also a significant number of women who are sexist towards women, and who cannot tolerate seeing another woman succeed. There is also a significant number of women who are simply mean, and who play mean games with a subtlety that most men cannot compete with.
Competition between women is painful to witness since it exists in verbal and nonverbal assaults cloaked in something else entirely.
I think there are many men who really don't know when they're being sexist. I don't mean this as an excuse. They don't really understand women very well and apply rules used between men in their dealings with women. And there will always be men who are sexist to women.
Love these blog posts! I think you’re onto something!
"In conclusion, I’d like to say also, to be very clear: this is not a problem of women per se."
No, it's a problem of women in leadership. This is probably too third-rail even for you to touch, but I'm more and more convinced that the biblical pattern of men in leadership is there for a reason and conforms to reality. Not that women shouldn't have any influence at all of course, but when the balance is tipped toward women being in charge, things don't seem to go well.
It's taken me many years to come to a place of agreement with your statement because it sounds problematic. But in truth, it is not; agreeableness is not where good leadership comes from in most cases. Women who replicate those masculine traits while still maintaining checks against vituperation make excellent leaders...but these women are being left at the curb.
Same here. I grew up in an environment which abused this concept to turn men into nasty, abusive mini-tyrants to their wives and children. But I have to come to terms with the fact that my like or dislike of something or the fact that some people have twisted it doesn't change its truth. These are concepts that I think are baked into the universe and we have to recognize them and employ them correctly. But our culture has moved so far beyond this that it's not really taught even in the church anymore.
Love this. Something I realized along the way is that the differences between the sexes need not be a value judgement. The difficulties we endure and triumphs we enjoy are unique and equally important. Men just have what looks like the better deal. But I say that as someone who grew up in a time when I understood we are at fault for everything. It took me decades to stop accepting being a punching bag for women who wanted all of the good stuff I have but none of the bad. I am no worse than any woman nor am I better. But I am most definitely different.
Queen Bee syndrome is something most females that work for female bosses can intuit even if they all can't verbalize it. We see it clearly front the ex-staffers of Kamala Harris, Amy Klobachar, HRC.
Can happen for sure. One of my worst bosses was female. But on the other hand the other two were men, although one I would say was harassed by mostly-feminine woke underlings. And some of the best bosses I ever had were female. On the whole though I do prefer working for men.
I use to work for Fortune 500 company where the manager and supervisors were all women. Confidentiality was not their strong point. A female applicant was hired because she came to interview carrying a Dooney Bourke bag. A male applicant was not hired because he came to interview wearing cargo pants. They were an interesting bunch
The polls on this subject show females overwhelmingly prefer male bosses. We all have anecdotes. Eventually the patterns crystallize into tropes
Yep. God created woman to be a partner to the man, which does not mean the woman cannot lead, nor in any way demotes the wome to that of a lesser being, but that the woman is intended to be a responder to the man.
Are you saying that when men were in charge that things did go well?
Not at all. Read the section in the video where I talk about the experience at Claremont McKenna College and the absolute failure of the men in power over the past 50 years.
I was a student of Harry Jaffa (and other teachers) at Claremont in the 80's. He, Dr. Harry Neumann and Fr. Francis Canavan, S.J. taught a Friday late-afternoon seminar on Plato's dialogues during which this problem was discussed and elaborated upon in-relation to the problem of the universities in Germany in the 1930's.
You are in the midst of this very fundamental problem, and have the opportunity to - if nothing else - conduct yourself honorably, and memorably. In the 1930's in Germany, that usually meant leaving the country and taking very humble employment abroad, as many did. In your case, you have the opportunity to repair evil. Serve with distinction!
The seminar sounds wonderful!
It was, Sandra. And it was very memorable. Socrates ruined my life - and remade me.
I'm sorry Mr. Rufo, I posted a comment to you by accident. I get a bit confused when there are so many threads going on simultaneously. Thanks for responding, even so!
Have you considered that the core problem has nothing to do with women gaining more public visibility? I think it is far more likely that we are living through the collapse of our civilization. It happens to all of them, but we never want to think it is happening to us. At times like this in previous empires, people often looked for someone to blame, some way to get a sense of control by grasping for rigid certainties. The scapegoating is getting very intense currently and is dangerous.
I think the claims made by feminism at large are emblematic of a central societal problem pointing towards the collapse of western values from the inside out. While the problem isn't women per se, they are willing participants in the destruction. Women gaining stature in the public marketplace of ideas was/is a good and necessary thing to the functioning of society. However, they have gained outsize power since the 1960's because a clear bastardization of the founding principles of suffragettes morphed the goal. Activism by its nature is a never ending battleground; even if the goal of a given movement is achieved, activists simply move the bar ever further from the starting position, distorting reality in the process, otherwise they lose their perceived value. What good is an activist when there isn't an effigy to burn. This is not only forseeable, but expected, resulting in demands for inequality and authoritarianism in the name of faux righteousness. Of course supporters of said activism slam anyone honest enough to point out this hypocrisy as tools of oppression. But any intellectually honest person, can for example see that Jesse Jackson "mourning" MLK's death by immediately after jumping in his car and driving from Memphis to Chicago to be on television holding court the morning after the murder while still wearing a bloody turtleneck was an opportunistic and dishonest reaction to a national tragedy. And that same bad actor has pushed a false and destructive narrative for HIS own benefit for 50 years since. Jackson's is a world view dominating black politics and it refuses to acknowledge that the success of black activists over the decades has led inexorably to the destruction of their place in America. I posit that this should have been expected. Assholes hijack movements for their own benefit. Thus we had a completely fallacious demand by US women's soccer to dismantle a contract that they FORCED onto US Soccer because reality got in the way of their wishes. An enraged Megan Rapinoe bloviated about unfairness and sexism because things aren't the way she wants them to be, and voila the result is that men's soccer players had to agree to forced wealth redistribution. This same pattern is apparent in green activism, race activism, feminist activism, farm activism and on and on. What surprise then that although it is demonstrable that both African Americans and women have benefited from government intervention at the direct expense of white guys and often innovation in the marketplace, conservatives have become ever more angry and impotent in the face of a new reality.
While the core problem in western culture in the modern era is certainly that new liberals have an unquenchable thirst for power and a refusal to acknowledge reality, along with that comes an activist lack of honesty that what they seek is to dismantle core constitutional values because they don't specifically advantage them or their cause. This is done for "equity" undermining "patriarchy" and all manner of other totally ridiculous and stupid fake problems. A large percentage of women have been central to that new reality. Disregarding obvious strides our country and institutions have made in creating equality among the sexes, races and cultures within the system, and lying about reality puts us all in a place where men increasingly understand from a young age that they are at fault for everything that happens. They should not trust their eyes, ears and brains in all matters of race, culture, sex and sexuality because any person who looks different from them (particularly if they are white or asian) knows better. Men who understand their proper role simply lose their masculinity and believe the lies.
Incidentally, I see womansplaining and blacksplaining as a real and horrible reality as opposed to mansplaining. What man in his right mind wants to try to explain anything to a modern, self-actualized woman? It is a study in masochism.
I should added my view of the context of my own belief. There are lots of women who are enlightened and understand the reality in which we live. But the pressures on women by feminism to only accept a revolutionary stance is pretty hard to ignore.
Incidentally, if the shoe were on the other foot and we were perceived to be under the boot of men, we (males) would be doing the intellectually dishonest dance for our own purposes. It seems like human nature is not to enjoy the fruits of successful action against being wronged but to continue to use activism towards distorted goals. I apologize for putting women at the center of the circle. We all suffer from larceny where are own politics are concerned.
Honestly it's not that men are de fact great leaders, but the central role of leadership is moving a group of people forward towards a set of goals. Men are good at that but often really bad at the secondary role of understanding the diverse emotional needs of individuals which is where women excel. Great women leaders subjugate their empathy to the role of moving their organization towards the goal while still supporting their group.
Yes, there is a need for everyone to remember they are participating in the organization to help achieve goals that are separate from the pathological needs for attention and control by certain individuals.
My take on the current situation in the U.S. is that men in positions of power are abdicating responsibility for using it to stop the extremists in their organizations from reversing roles and taking over. Meanwhile, a cadre of mostly white female activist teachers, their unions, and mostly white female activist bureaucrats and HR types have very quickly gained power and are enjoying it considerably. The teachers do have women in senior executive positions, but the DEI racket is typically under the authority of the C Suite in corporate settings.
I am self-employed and I contract with other companies which have DEI officers. One in particular has been harassing me for the past year because I do not respond to her demands that I check the boxes on their "questionnaire," so that this company can post my "personal information" on their website. In one of her recent letters, the DEI officer (Don't you love that they are called officers?) stated that her company has "a rich track record of advancing social justice in the community." At this point I felt the need to look up their executive team, and saw five white guys and a sixth with what might be a Southeast Asian name. By the woke cult's rules, this by definition means that their company is participating in structural racism.
Rather than address the obvious lack of "racial equity" at the top, the executive team hired a DEI officer to harass their employees and contract companies with diversity paperwork. The DEI officer is performing a typical HR function, which has historically been a "women's job" in corporations. She has more power and money and a higher box on the org chart than most women have had at the company, but she is still basically occupying a pink collar ghetto. She does not have the power held by senior execs in the operational branch of the company, and we are starting to see how quickly they are jettisoned when layoffs become necessary.
So, I do not think that women are now dominating power in the U.S. It looks to me more like the kinds of jobs women have been filling for a long time are now very fashionable. The critical social justice movement has elevated those jobs into prominence. I don't know to what extent the prime movers of the critical social justice movement are female (some of them don't even know how to answer that). I agree that there is a considerable percentage of women who are getting off on making unreasonable rules, forcing them on other people, and punishing anyone who is accused on non-compliance.
I also believe that white men are being discriminated against. The primary difficulty for men is the loss of so many manufacturing jobs, but that combined with the discrimination has resulted in record levels of mental illness in men. The epidemic of mental illness in young women is important, but white men, especially those who are unemployed, are turning to drug addiction and suicide in record numbers. White men whose jobs have gone away are currently suffering from severe depression to a greater extent than any other demographic, so by the rules of the woke, white men must be experiencing the effects of more discrimination than any other group.
Meanwhile, the white men occupying the most senior leadership positions in private industry continue to build their power, and to use the mean girl woke bureaucracy to bully their employees, while at the same time covering their legal liability from lawsuits and complaints to public regulatory agencies and earning free woke publicity. When this starts costing them more than it is benefiting them, I expect that the white male and female ruling class will move on to other preoccupations.
I would conclude with the opinion that the toxic femininity within the woke movement has become increasingly powerful and obvious. I have not observed, however, that women stepping into positions of leadership responsibility previous to the woke takeover were consistently predisposed to engage in the same kinds of relational aggression. I think that the current social crisis we are in is the outcome of a number of cultural changes that came together in a perfectly poisonous combination.
That was a nicely thought out piece of writing. Thanks for engaging on a difficult topic rather than castigating my position. I'm in a mixed mind where the leadership of companies is concerned. What is clear is that a percentage of men have built into their DNA an insatiable desire to build, to create, to lead; they will do whatever it takes for however long to make that happen. It doesn't mean they make great leaders but the drive is the single biggest force of innovation of the species.
So what do we do about the ever growing population of men who feel emasculated by society, and women specifically? Their view that the world has passed them by is evidenced all over the news media by fools who proclaim traditional, rural, white guys should just get over their selfishness and ge with the program; then there is the message that they somehow still maintain corrosive power over other races and women. It's madness. We are up to 7+ million men between 25 and 50 who aren't working or looking for work. If ever there was a statistic that should be a blaring alarm to the very political among the citizenry it's that one. Dissolute, rudderless men do not make good decisions nor do they seek positive romantic relationships. As you point out, drug use, depression and suicide follow.
Back when I was still watching CNN one of the things that infuriated me most was when Don Lemon would accuse Trump's followers of being primarily motivated by anger over their "loss of white privilege." Don Lemon, who was making millions of dollars annually, with one snotty comment dismissed and erased the pain of all those millions of families who were working slowly towards the American dream, only to have it ripped away. Beyond that, those families are the ones who know what has actually been happening to our country since the collapse of the steel industry, the associated coal industry, and the prosperous family farms. Rather than listen to their "lived experience," the truly privileged prefer to silence the voices of unemployed blue collar workers, whose pain is the clearest evidence of our shared national crisis. How much more pleasant, to continue on in the delusion that "everything is fine where I am," while the entire foundation of our country's success collapses.
The plight of the unemployed men is close to my heart because I was raised in a Rust Belt blue collar home in western Pennsylvania. When the steel industry began to disintegrate my father lost his job, then became re-employed in the auto industry, so we moved to Macomb County, Michigan. (Which later acquired notoriety among liberals as pro-Trump territory). I remember my Dad at the dinner table in tears, telling me that the steel mill at Johnstown had been closed and thousands of men were out of work.
My father also told me, during the Seventies, that our country was headed down a path where more and more people were not really working. "Pencil pushers" were not making anything or providing any services, all they were doing were regulating other peoples' jobs.
I don't know what we are going to do. The "owners of the means of production," as Marxists say, have removed their plants to China. The unemployed Americans are the canaries in the mine.
You and I would get along. I spent part of my adolescence in down east Maine, which was not wealthy in the least. Then I moved to central PA and surrounded by blue collar workers and Mennonite farms. They aren't noble savages, but they are people actively disdained by both liberals and conservatives.
Bingo. But yes very third rail.
Thank you Christopher for promoting care and reason as well as Heather's well written article.
I work in Mental Heath/ Substance use disorder education and have been in this field for decades now watching the "soft" sciences be reduced to little more than witchcraft and neurosis peddling through all inputs and outputs. It seems that this trend is not one that comes from lack of good or reasonable scholarship but through the advancemment of a small group that claim to speak for the discipline as a whole and the disenfranchisement and negation of those who question the " victim/ trauma" approach.
A clear issue is the "soft" science university pathway for many students as a less difficult more theory driven major. Many young women are exposed to the facile pop psych stuff online as they develop and then follow through in the university. Rigor in many of these departments has been removed in the service of ideology and the outcomes of more mental health problems are not acknowledged, but, having more dependent mental health clients produced through the ideological capture will keep these graduates employed for the foreseeable future.
The convention of care to those experiencing behavioral disturbance should be the practioner working as responsibly and carefully with the individual to assist in their independence from treatment. Putting ourselves out of a job with each person we work with should be paramount. Instead, there are growing numbers that feed the continuous care model at the peril of individual functioning. It's truly disturbing and gives me little hope that this ship will ever right itself.
Thanks for sharing your perspective!
John Ioannidis has spent many years pointing out the essence of what you speak of in the university system.
The analogy - in a full and not merely metaphorical sense- with ongoing medicalization/medical dependency of children is striking, and disturbing.
In the 70's (or perhaps even the 60's) an idea of intervention came to light as a cultural trend, when having an "analyst" was a kind of indispensable hobby for certain rich men's wives. If I recall correctly, the "self-esteem" movement in the 80's proposed that children become subjects of psychotherapeutic intervention, generally, as a means of "realizing untapped potential" that was being wasted. All of this went well-beyond "screening" for social pathologies which were conducted by police department academies, nursing schools, etc. which was still typical of the 1950's (my mother was a Positivist who worked for the California Dept. of Public Health in the 60's).
Rufo almost goes far enough but not quite. Good, masculine leadership creates novel approaches, values creativity and structural evolution, places scientific method over empathetic pleas, demands competence over niceness. Masculine leadership is good when balanced against feminine demands for kindness and recognition of the worth of everyone. The Claremont McKenna example is obviously a dereliction of masculine leadership by men in exactly the same way as the UCF situation he cites. Competent female university leadership must recognize and make as its primary function creative essentialism that male leaders demand. Empathy though important to the central mission of incubating the fulsome greatness of developing young minds can only exist in support of that function, otherwise the university will cease to exist as the primary source of scientific innovation and learning and further devolve into a waste of time and resources.
Naval gazing has rarely advanced societies throughout history. Rigorous, academic searching has.
There are a lot of different theories about what caused the Woke Tsunami and the waves leading up to it. More generally there are efforts to explain America's left/right split and to identify the causes of political ideology in general. There are theories from the left/center like George Lakoff, who explain by pointing to a cognitive level of constraint, to metaphors of thought. Or Haidt, who explains more in terms of moral sentiments. You can also try to take a more long-term ethological approach that looks at deeply-entrenched patterns of male and female behavior. These kinds of explanatory efforts are very interesting. Personally I'm interested in the history of structuralism and why it made such a surprising comeback in the form of "structures of oppression", etc. But understanding the proximate and ultimate causes of the critical social justice movement will not substantially help diminish the growing power of this movement. If you think that the principles and policies of this movement are wrong and/or harmful, I think the best course of action is to find a place where you can assume leadership in your local context and then implement better principles and policies. That is what is being tried at this university. But the only way to make substantial progress will be if this type of effort becomes more and more general.
Karentocracy: government by the neurotic, for the neurotic. https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/how-to-coin-a-term
And of the neurotic!
I said in 2020 that the most anxiety ridden and neurotic people were the ones driving all of the rules. We were all catering to them.
No.
There is something very pouty about the left that invites everyone to contemplate the paternal order Rufo broaches here. When Amy Schumer and Wanda Sykes were saying "gay gay gay gay.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exa_ux5kQAs
they come across as defiant children. That is also unsurprisingly part of their comedy. "We are going to use all the naughty words Daddy told us not to".
It is seen as empowering to the left to defy all paternal order. This may be one reason why so many woke moms are bringing their children to be baptized by drag queens. The whole genre is defined by trying to make a regular dad pay attention. The men are just completely absent or neutered when it comes to woke child rearing. Like Rufo said in the video: we need a balance. It is no coincidence people like Matt Walsh bring a very masculine quality of reason to the gender mania. Many Americans crave that groundedness. When it is absent.. mania and depression skyrocket. For all the reasons Rufo outlined. I can't help but think the broad demonization of "toxic masculinity" is part of the larger zeitgeist.
We could use language as bait so the left goes crazy, as they did with "Don't say Gay Bill".
The term "Paternal Order" is going to trigger them to no end, and if you just use that as a descriptor in legislation it could make the conversation go superviral. The gynocentric media will end up with egg on their face once again as laypeople debunk their hysteria. If you really want to get wonky and bring in Peterson to connect it to the expression of the big 5 personality traits five broad personality traits: extroversion, agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism. I think the nation welcomes the chance to partake in a conversation about how female dominated institutions are faring for everyone.
"Defiant children" is exactly right. That's the archetype at play.
Very much aligns w the far left’s desire to do away with the family unit- state is family ultimately.
Also makes sense when all these gen z on their TikTok’s present as arrested development.
Lot's of elements come together on this.
I gave many more examples than that. You are just cropdusting asinine comments without reading or listening to the video. It was the hyperfragile left, not Conservatives, who coined safe spaces, trigger warnings, microaggressions and cancel culture. Yeah. They are effeminate children who never had a man tell them to grow up and develop thicker skin.
Clearly while White Women fomented many of this, as expected (by everyone but them) they are next on the chopping block and are now being pushed out of these sinecure positions at universities and government agencies. That is one reason why you see an increase in WW pretending to be Latina or Black or whatever. That likely has been going on a while. Also, expect many many more whites to start claiming Hispanic heritage (particularly because the legal/fed requirements are very wide and not clearly defined...anyone with a SINGLE ancestor from Spain ["Spanish culture or origin"] can claim it.)
Yeah. Warren used the Native American claim on all college and job applications. So it's over 5 decades old.
It was amazing how it was treated like no big deal. She literally lied to get hired and it worked! (which unfortunately would prove the point if anyone admitted it).
She and her employers claim the Native American ancestry claim played no role. I don't believe them
That's facially ridiculous. Obviously it played a very central role. Warren didn't exactly have legendary status as either a grad student or mover of worlds after.
Elizabeth Warren taught them how
It's dismaying to see that the more females who congregate in large numbers in institutions of higher learning, the more anxious they become.Having managed several teams with all-male, all-female and mixed sexes, the most stable and cooperative are the mixed. Men and women behave better in each other's company. I'm a woman so hold up on accusations of misogyny, please.
I agree in part, but in terms of innovation, there is no doubt that a team composed mostly if not entirely of males will innovate and overcome obstacles better than an evenly mixed or all female team every day and twice on Sunday. They are not agreeable but work harder, think more proactively, compete for who has the best idea and demonstrate deductive reasoning without pulling back due to empathy every time. When conflict arises they get past it and continue unless there is a cancerous man in the mix in which case the thing collapses. I've seen it time and again on student robotics teams at a very high level. That said, checks against the male ego are necessary.
No doubt. If you have examples that undermine my position I welcome them.
Critically positioned with facts, insightfulness and persuasion to at least Move thinking and authentic minds closer to reality and achievement type Leadership for successful living. Thank you.
Whatever "gender" they are they're all wealthy privileged ivy league brats. They run the world. I'm marginalized, exploited and oppressed by them.