If you have been paying any attention to the culture in the last decade you will have noticed something that I like to call “the flattening of meaning.” This occurs when the culture decides that everything is society is exactly as valuable, meaningful and important as absolutely everything else in society, and everything is given the exact same amount of social status because nothing is more valuable, excellent praiseworthy, worthwhile, beautiful, or important then any other thing.
I feel this emptiness every day. The plumb lines are fading but for my own orientation with God. I have such sadness for the children coming up who have never lived in the analog world. Generation X, of which I am a part, will be the last that remembers a world straddling analog and digital. If we can find a way to have life matter more in the analog than digital, perhaps we can cement that meaning, community, drive to excel, appreciate.
How can we do this given the clear preference by Millennials and Gen Z for online/curbside life. The reaction to the virus only hastened the virtual, blurred the lines between real and pretend, gamified interactions & motivations. We traded it all to be safe and numb; traded life IRL to star as NPCs.
You're not free of propagandizing here yourself; you leave no room for women who don't feel the desire for a life partner or children. Certainly it's the biological imperative of our species to mate and reproduce; certainly most people desire stable and loving intimacy; certainly many people desire children and find parenthood their most meaningful experience.
Women who don't aren't also-rans in the game of life, and I think you're conflating truly empty and immature people with those who might perplex you by their self-sufficiency.
Where did he ignore it? The point of the piece is not any individuals choice but rather the zeitgeist the develops when we let bad ideas flourish.
A self sufficient, single woman can be entirely content and happy, but she will not be participating in many fundamental human experiences. Asserting that this is just as good and desirable an outcome produces bad outcomes. It might hurt feelings but humans have a biological reality that cannot be overcome. The progression of individual freedoms has been overall good, it is the best time ever to be a woman (would you agree?) but when we lose sight of what is truly desirable it hurts us all. The thought that there can't be anything objectively good feels wrong to many of today's left wing but it's just wrong
What's desirable in general shouldn't be taken as meaning those who don't follow--for any reason--the biological imperative are missing out on experiences they *ought* to have.
Many of our biological realities are quite bad ones. That's why human beings developed social rules to contain and thwart some of those basic biological imperatives.
Biological Imperatives are procreation, not murder, slavery or any of the other actions mankind has engaged in over time. You are attributing selfish desires which are emotions with biological imperatives.
I agree that not all follow the path of getting married and having kids and that within that group some do live a happy life. The problem is this is not being promoted as the course women should take in life and that's bad. Thanks to wokeness we have some in the gay community calling out heterosexuality as being bad and claiming men are also women. How long before they start calling what is the societal norm (ie getting married and having kids) as bad, the wrong thing to do?
At no point in the piece has WokalDistance claimed women who don't seek to create a family are "also-rans". Your confessing via projection. Your response reads like as if its you that you are trying to convince of having made the right choice to not seek to start a family. You are correct about one thing, you are fighting your biology.
Forget it. SCA's goal is to prove that homosexuality is just another choice and not something vastly different from the majority. This comes from the need to believe that homosexuality is not that different from heterosexuality. Gays comfortable in their sexuality have no need to PROVE to anyone that there choice of sexual lifestyle is no different than anyone else; they just don't care what others think. It's those not fully comfortable in their homosexuality who must push the belief that homosexuality is no different that heterosexuality; that it's just another norm.
Everything in society is a tradeoff between freedom and orderliness and it's not a permanently-settled issue. Every generation must re-examine it.
We are pack animals at the most basic level, biologically impelled to order ourselves hierarchically and to be led by the most fit-to-lead pair. Society always outgrows the capacity to run the pack efficiently and people always break away to form new societies which then outgrow their capacities.
"Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things." Phil 4:8
I believe the more important question is WHY. WHY is this being pushed onto teh public against the over all publics desire to embrace it? This post modern nihilism sounds like a great way to cause a society to implode making it ripe to reset
There is a through line or commonality in what we call Leftism—from say the Soviet revolution (if not earlier) to Critical Theory to the postmodern deconstructionists: Western liberal democracy is evil and must be put to death. (I know this may sound extreme or overheated, but I think is accurate.)
The crimes it is guilty of include colonialism, racism, sexism, pollution, exploitation of workers (aka capitalism) etc. These are all interchangeable and emphasized more or less depending upon time and place. And the fact that other cultures are just as guilty of these and other crimes carries no weight.
So the death sentence has been passed, the aspiring executioner is our Leftist clerisy of academia who dream of ushering in an age of "socialist liberation" where they will be crowned philosopher-kings in charge of arranging our lives and our society, and all these tactics, from the destruction of meaning, standards, history, civics etc, are just the Leftist attempt to carry out their death sentence.
Capitalism is an economic theory, it has no way to cause exploitation of workers. That exploitations is the act of those who bend or even break teh rules of Capitalism in order to exploit workers. By itself Capitalism is the best economic system mankind has devised. Unfortunately it never last long because those with power pervert and twist it into crony Capitalism.
re: the illustration and by the same token, the flattening of meaning includes giving equal value to undereducated people and professional journalists.
re: the illustration and by the same token, the flattening of meaning includes giving equal value to undereducated people and professional journalists.
How does "Being married" trump being faithful? Most married ppl cheat, the piece of paper counts for nothing. Most parents are shit at that job, if they weren't, we wouldn't be in this current predicament. Your measures of what makes a good person are faulty, well meaning maybe, but flawed. (@SCA in the thread below says it better than I).
I agree that the idea that there's no such thing as objective truth and that all preferences should be equal ends up being self-referentially incoherent.
I feel this emptiness every day. The plumb lines are fading but for my own orientation with God. I have such sadness for the children coming up who have never lived in the analog world. Generation X, of which I am a part, will be the last that remembers a world straddling analog and digital. If we can find a way to have life matter more in the analog than digital, perhaps we can cement that meaning, community, drive to excel, appreciate.
How can we do this given the clear preference by Millennials and Gen Z for online/curbside life. The reaction to the virus only hastened the virtual, blurred the lines between real and pretend, gamified interactions & motivations. We traded it all to be safe and numb; traded life IRL to star as NPCs.
Dear God, how do we get back?
You're not free of propagandizing here yourself; you leave no room for women who don't feel the desire for a life partner or children. Certainly it's the biological imperative of our species to mate and reproduce; certainly most people desire stable and loving intimacy; certainly many people desire children and find parenthood their most meaningful experience.
Women who don't aren't also-rans in the game of life, and I think you're conflating truly empty and immature people with those who might perplex you by their self-sufficiency.
Do you see a difference between the greater value of marriage and family for society over non-marriage and singleness?
Or, perhaps singleness for the value and purpose of a greater virtue like a monk?
Perhaps, the lesser value is seeing that we do not need to sacrifice ourselves to that higher purpose and virtue?
Perhaps, there’s a deception that our own desires and wants reign supreme?
Perhaps an ethos that says all desires and wants are equal is merely a sophisticated way of elevating selfish lust as the highest virtue?
I see you ignoring my point.
Where did he ignore it? The point of the piece is not any individuals choice but rather the zeitgeist the develops when we let bad ideas flourish.
A self sufficient, single woman can be entirely content and happy, but she will not be participating in many fundamental human experiences. Asserting that this is just as good and desirable an outcome produces bad outcomes. It might hurt feelings but humans have a biological reality that cannot be overcome. The progression of individual freedoms has been overall good, it is the best time ever to be a woman (would you agree?) but when we lose sight of what is truly desirable it hurts us all. The thought that there can't be anything objectively good feels wrong to many of today's left wing but it's just wrong
What's desirable in general shouldn't be taken as meaning those who don't follow--for any reason--the biological imperative are missing out on experiences they *ought* to have.
Many of our biological realities are quite bad ones. That's why human beings developed social rules to contain and thwart some of those basic biological imperatives.
Biological Imperatives are procreation, not murder, slavery or any of the other actions mankind has engaged in over time. You are attributing selfish desires which are emotions with biological imperatives.
I agree that not all follow the path of getting married and having kids and that within that group some do live a happy life. The problem is this is not being promoted as the course women should take in life and that's bad. Thanks to wokeness we have some in the gay community calling out heterosexuality as being bad and claiming men are also women. How long before they start calling what is the societal norm (ie getting married and having kids) as bad, the wrong thing to do?
Seriously? All creatures struggle to dominate their environments, including the killing of those weaker than themselves.
Even ants enslave other insects.
Women should choose whatever course in life feels inherently right to them as individuals and not general examples of the species.
At no point in the piece has WokalDistance claimed women who don't seek to create a family are "also-rans". Your confessing via projection. Your response reads like as if its you that you are trying to convince of having made the right choice to not seek to start a family. You are correct about one thing, you are fighting your biology.
Your presumption is entirely incorrect.
I think part of what is at question here is whether individual desires are the best basis for choosing the sort of lives we lead.
Forget it. SCA's goal is to prove that homosexuality is just another choice and not something vastly different from the majority. This comes from the need to believe that homosexuality is not that different from heterosexuality. Gays comfortable in their sexuality have no need to PROVE to anyone that there choice of sexual lifestyle is no different than anyone else; they just don't care what others think. It's those not fully comfortable in their homosexuality who must push the belief that homosexuality is no different that heterosexuality; that it's just another norm.
Who has the right to say they're not?
Everything in society is a tradeoff between freedom and orderliness and it's not a permanently-settled issue. Every generation must re-examine it.
We are pack animals at the most basic level, biologically impelled to order ourselves hierarchically and to be led by the most fit-to-lead pair. Society always outgrows the capacity to run the pack efficiently and people always break away to form new societies which then outgrow their capacities.
"Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things." Phil 4:8
Perfect 👍🏻🤩
I believe the more important question is WHY. WHY is this being pushed onto teh public against the over all publics desire to embrace it? This post modern nihilism sounds like a great way to cause a society to implode making it ripe to reset
There is a through line or commonality in what we call Leftism—from say the Soviet revolution (if not earlier) to Critical Theory to the postmodern deconstructionists: Western liberal democracy is evil and must be put to death. (I know this may sound extreme or overheated, but I think is accurate.)
The crimes it is guilty of include colonialism, racism, sexism, pollution, exploitation of workers (aka capitalism) etc. These are all interchangeable and emphasized more or less depending upon time and place. And the fact that other cultures are just as guilty of these and other crimes carries no weight.
So the death sentence has been passed, the aspiring executioner is our Leftist clerisy of academia who dream of ushering in an age of "socialist liberation" where they will be crowned philosopher-kings in charge of arranging our lives and our society, and all these tactics, from the destruction of meaning, standards, history, civics etc, are just the Leftist attempt to carry out their death sentence.
Capitalism is an economic theory, it has no way to cause exploitation of workers. That exploitations is the act of those who bend or even break teh rules of Capitalism in order to exploit workers. By itself Capitalism is the best economic system mankind has devised. Unfortunately it never last long because those with power pervert and twist it into crony Capitalism.
Excellent essay. I’m sharing it.
re: the illustration and by the same token, the flattening of meaning includes giving equal value to undereducated people and professional journalists.
re: the illustration and by the same token, the flattening of meaning includes giving equal value to undereducated people and professional journalists.
The notion of "flattening of meaning" dates back to at least the 1980s, with Jameson; it is not a novel emergence of the 2010s.
While I sympathize with your desire for meaning, I would ask why your critique of modernity's depthlessness appears to focus exclusively on women.
The author doesn’t, but used an image featuring women created by a female artist and riffed on her point to make a generalisable one…
How does "Being married" trump being faithful? Most married ppl cheat, the piece of paper counts for nothing. Most parents are shit at that job, if they weren't, we wouldn't be in this current predicament. Your measures of what makes a good person are faulty, well meaning maybe, but flawed. (@SCA in the thread below says it better than I).
Awesome! Thanks for being so clear!
I agree that the idea that there's no such thing as objective truth and that all preferences should be equal ends up being self-referentially incoherent.