In a Parallel Universe Somewhere...

...a Vancouver police officer, speaking to college students about a recent crime wave, has suggested that, to avoid mugging, people shouldn't go walking through bad neighborhoods at night, flashing around large wads of cash. This has caused quite a stir, and many people are now accusing the officer of perpetuating a "blame the victim" mentality. In Europe and a few American cities, people have organized protests, called "cash flashes", where they stuff their pockets with large denomination bills, and walk through high-crime areas. Some have been seen carrying signs that say things like "Don't tell me not to flash my cash. Tell thieves not to steal."

* * *

I wonder how much of the controversy has been caused because society has lost the concept of temptation. John C. Wright once wrote about how difficult he found it to adjust to the Christian lifestyle because, prior to his conversion from atheism, his code of ethics was basically defined such that anything he wanted to do was morally allowable. Once he realized that certain things he really, really wanted to do were not OK, he struggled with keeping his passions in check. (I may be mis-quoting him. I don't have time to find the story.)

In today's society, where "anything goes", I suppose that many people simply are unaware that it can be difficult to order your appetites and passions to your intellect. The prevailing attitude is "I can do what I want, and it's your job to not let that affect you." Much of this attitude might simply be due to ignorance of human nature.

Of course, it could also be because the police officer violated the 1st commandment of the Post-Christian West: "Thou shalt not tell me what to do."

* * *

The interesting thing about the "Slut Walks" that have been going on, and the attitude "I can dress however I want" is that, in a perfect, unfallen world, that would be true. If there were no original sin, then there would be no sexual predation, and no need to protect yourself from it. Of course, in this fallen, sinful world we live in, prudence (and charity) demands that we take measures to protect ourselves from the weak-willed, as well as take reasonable measures not to tempt them.

Like all philosophies that deny God and original sin (Marxism and Nietzsche-ism come to mind), these ideas fall apart in their belief that man can be perfected in this life.

Preach it, John, Preach it!

This:

Only a modern thinker, by which I mean ‘only a morally retarded one-dimensional thinker’ could regard both the Eve by whose proud disobedience all mankind was condemned, and the New Eve by whose humble obedience all mankind was saved as ‘weak.’ Heroines and villainesses on whose decisions turn the fates of worlds can be called a lot of things, but the Marxist and feminist interpretation of life only has two words for life in all its complexity: strong and weak. Whatever is strong is an oppressor, an exploiter, and guilty, and whatever is weak is oppressed, exploited, and innocent.

Being feminine does not mean being weak. That is a Marxist lie, produced by the morally retarded one-dimensional and therefore stupid idea that all human relationships are mutually hostile power struggles about power. Being feminine means being not masculine. 

Male pride is brittle. I am sorry, fellow guys, but we have weaknesses particular to our sex, and a woman can shatter us with word, if it is the right woman and the right word. Women, at least old fashioned & old school women, seem to have more endurance and more stick-to-itiveness and more Christian charity than men, by and large. 

They go through pregnancy, and THEN look forward to doing it again. Sheesh! Who says feminine girls are weak? 

It is the masculine girls who are weak, the Buffy Vampireslayers. They have the brittleness and pride of touchy male pride — feminists are as sensitive to any trifling slights against their honor as a Spanish Grandee — but they do not have the corresponding masculine virtues of chivalry, generosity, and honor for the fallen foe that Christianity introduced to ameliorate the savage pagan attitude that glorifies strength and despises the weak.

...is the point I was trying to make in clunky fashion here.

Also, this:

Of course, I also agree with St. Paul that men should love their wives as Christ loves his bride the Church, which is to say, men should regard marriage as crucifixion. It is not fun and games, loverboy. You think joining the army demands total commitment from you? Marriage, you do not get R&R, do not get leave, and you are never off duty. You are husband and father forever and aye, till death do you part, amen. 

You might come to marriage for the sake of Eros, romantic love, or for the sake of Philos, because you seek the companionship and friendship of the beloved, because you like her as well as love her. But marriage is Agape, self-emptying, self-denying, self-sacrificing love. So do not rejoice if St. Paul crowns you with the crown of marriage, husbands, and asks your wives to submit to your leadership and rule, because the crown is a crown of thorns, and the rulership is like that Christ refused of the devil when offered the kingdoms of this world. Your task, husbands, is to take second place in your wife’s affections once children arrive. You live for them, not they for you.

...is probably the best exegeses of Saint Paul's letter to the Ephesians that I've read.

The Power of the Feminine

So babby's aunt/godmother is staying with us this weekend, which provided the Murloc and meself with free babbysitting. We took the opportunity to go out to the movies (the first time since we saw Half-Blood Prince!) and went to see the non-Imax, non-3D Alice in Wonderland.

The movie was entertaining and visually splendid, but suffered from the same thing every Tim Burton movie I've ever seen; that is, it's formulaic and the characters didn't engage me. With the possibility of Victor Van Dort, I can't think of a single Tim Burton character that I cared for enough that I would have been emotionally moved by the character's death. I think part of it stems from an unclear character dramatic need and motivation. (So what's Alice's dramatic goal, upon reaching Wonderland? How does Charlie's deep-seated want influence his actions once he's in the chocolate factory?) Also, within ten minutes of the start of Alice, I predicted how it was going to end and even what her final speech was going to be, with a great degree of accuracy (and I'm talking more than just general "the good guys win" prediction).

About the time Alice donned the silver armor and rode into battle with the Vorpal sword to slay the Jabberwocky (that's really not that big of a spoiler; see: predictability), I realized why my co-worker liked the movie so much, and why she urged me to see it, to the point of offering to babysit. Alice is definitely the strong female character, but as I watched, I began to wonder whether she was in fact a strong female character, or a strong character, who just happened to be female. When I thought about it, I realized that she didn't have a single pronounced feminine trait, and had the movie been Bob in Wonderland, it would not have been significantly different or fundamentally changed.

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QFT.

"Here is the paradox: The modern attitude toward guns is that they are scary and dangerous and no one should use them. The modern attitude toward the fairer sex is that it is a bigotry akin to racism to suggest that women tend to be smaller and weaker than men physically, and that, psychologically, men are far more likely to be violent toward women than women toward men .To suggest that men should protect their womenfolk from other men is "sexist" (whatever that newspeak nonword is supposed to mean). And at the same time, it is modern dogma that all difference of power between men and women in society is due to rape or the threat of rape, and that all members of the phallusocracy are rapists, or whatnot. And at the same time, the modern attitude is against hanging rapists, or sending them to the electric chair. (By modern here, I mean 'Leftist')

"Now, if I am not mistaken, each one of these dogmas is a direct or indirect contradiction of the next. 

"A woman who claimed equality with men, and armed herself, and served a term in the military, would be acting in a self-consistent fashion. A woman who claimed to be old-fashioned, and wanted her brothers or her husband to protect her in time of combat, who was afraid of guns and relied on the men around her to avenge insults against her, again, would be acting in a self-consistent fashion. But a women who, in the name of equality, thought it was condescending for men to protect her, but who also thought protecting herself with a firearm was too violent, scary or immoral to countenance, she is merely setting herself up to be an easy victim."

From, of course, the ever-brilliant John C. Wright. He also, in the same article, states in his usual eloquent fashion what I have been trying to put into words for a while.

"The whole sexual revolution promised the fairer sex that as a matter of equality, of equal stature with men, they should act like harlots, have sex out of marriage, approve of pornography, and kill any of their own children in the womb whose life might prove inconvenient to them. This strips away the normal protections society evolved to shield women from male sexual predation, or even unwanted attentions, it put women in situations where it was easier to rape them -- getting a college girl into your dorm room, where there is no witness to say whether she actually said 'no' or not is much easier these days. You would be scorned as a prude, or as something more sinister, for even suggesting that nubile young women should be chaperoned, or dormitories have curfews, or colleges not be co-ed. 

"In the name of freedom and free speech, we are drenched with pornography, hammered with it, and no message of chastity is ever uttered anywhere a young man's ear might lightly brush against it. At the same time, young ladies are told that true freedom, true liberation, not to mention being cool, consist of dressing like a streetwalker and having several lovers at once. I can point to a number of music videos carrying that message. So men are much more willing and able to exploit, abuse, and abandon women than ever before in history, and women, paradoxically, are meant to regard their newfound defenselessness as a type of freedom. Ushering back in old standards of reserve and chastity under the color of laws against sexual "harassment" in the workplace make, for obvious reasons, a poor substitute.

"Female equality has somehow been redefined from giving women the vote and the right to own property, to urging women to be as licentious and sexually-aggressive as men, without pointing out that the cost-benefit ratio should something go wrong (such as a pregnancy) simply cannot be made the same between men and women. Don Juan as a deadbeat dad can walk away from the mothers of his bastard children with relatively little emotional scarring. A single mother cannot walk away from the child in her womb. She can commit the crime of Medea, and murder the babe, perhaps, but that carries scars of its own which Don Juan need not bear."

And let the claim that there is no emotional scar that accompanies abortion, or that the guilt of it is something artificial, created by men who scare and guilt-trip women into regretting abortion be forever exposed for the bald-faced lie that it is.

Also, the story that the esteemed Mr. Wright, Esq. links is a good read. Makes me wonder why I haven't gone out and bought a gun, if that poor girl was able to buck up the courage!

When PC Language Goes Too Far.

From the BBC:

"More than 90% of weapons used by the cartels originate in the US and there is evidence US citizens are joining the gangs to act as hitmen and women."

I like how they take special care to avoid discrimination against the female hit-persons. Score one for the feminist revolution! They have removed the glass ceiling from the previously man-dominated career path of professional assassin. You go girls!