House of Eratosthenes

I was thinking back to twenty years ago, when my soon-to-be-ex-wife came by to pick up all her stuff which she decided included the washing machine and dryer. She had decided, when she couldn’t shut off the water outlet after unhooking the washing machine, that this was my problem. It’s difficult for me to dredge up any details from that time, since my brain was in shutdown mode, and the few memories that were being made were not ones I cared to keep. Work sucked and home life sucked. I do, however, recall this theme that was permeating through: Day and night, I was being threatened, because the people with whom I associated at work and at home figured men were beasts of burden, and the way you motivate a beast of burden is to threaten it.

Since then, my life has been in a more-or-less continual state of improvement, and that is undoubtedly because I was determined to apply what I had learned. But because I don’t really have any firm recollections from that time, this is mostly acting on ghostly shadows of what I learned, rather than on actual memories. This has always bothered me. I’m most comfortable acting on hard fact, especially when my efforts have to do with trying to keep my life from sucking. This has been mostly a “gut feel” operation. It’s been a much better success than a gut-feel operation could be expected to be, and for this reason, today I couldn’t be an atheist even if I wanted to be one.

But this leitmotif of motivating men through threats, remains. Tell the man to jump and he’s supposed to ask, “how high?” I was given cause to think on this, again, with that silly Microsoft PowerPoint commercial I put up. Which I saw in my hotel room, while I was picking up my son. Who lives with his Mother. Away from me. Hmmmmm…and lately I got in that argument with the feminists about movie posters, and I was struck by the behavior of one of them who I think might actually be in need of psychiatric help. She made a big show of how she, and the other feminists, did not need my approval and could have any opinions they wanted to have, whether I liked it or not. Oh, okay…as if I had said otherwise. And then, almost in the same breath, walked me through that yellow-light-red-light thing, where I was given so many chances to recant my contraband statements, and having failed at this I would be excoriated or excommunicated or some equivalent thing. What an amazing hairpin turn. You need to meet with our approval; we do not need to meet with your approval. A single paragraph of silliness that pretty much distills the entire feminist message.

As well as — why it just isn’t working. And won’t ever.

Somewhere, I read that when Darth Vader flung the Emperor Palpatine down the Death Star shaft at the end of Return of the Jedi, and became mortally wounded because the Emperor was shooting that fingertip-lightning at him, the certainty of his impending demise had nothing at all to do with the lightning. The idea was that, since Anakin Skywalker had given himself to the Dark Side, and subsequently became dependent on this life support suit for his breathing, lymph functions, kidney functions and so forth — essentially, for the twenty years previous, every breath and heartbeat he had were gifts from the Emperor. So the suit was emblematic of this absolute dependency relationship between Vader’s loyalty and Vader’s life. Vader, therefore, not only served the Empire at the Emperor’s pleasure, he continued to draw breath at the Emperor’s pleasure as well. Must have been a sucky existence. But I think that captures the situation. The dream of feminists, the nightmare of men.

When archeologists dig up the remnants of our civilization and try to figure out where it all went wrong, I think they’ll find that’s it. By then, perhaps, they’ll have some word to describe this practical capability of doing things whether someone likes it, or not. “Authority” doesn’t capture it, “autonomy” doesn’t capture it and “independence” doesn’t capture it. “Freedom” and “liberty” come closest to describing what I have in mind, but they don’t quite get there either. What I have in mind, is what we try to grant “whistleblowers” when we’re afraid they may face reprisal, and battered women who are afraid their abusers may seek them out for revenge; the liberty to act, or not act, completely free of fear of any retaliation.

There must be two strains of this. The assurance that the rules are going to come down on your side, and the assurance that if someone goes outside the rules, they won’t be able to bring harm to your life or property. You have to have both of these, and then you get some kind of power. Passive power, but power real enough to significantly alter your behavior.

The archeologists will discover our civilization was doomed, when it became determined that women should have all of what this word describes, and men should have none of it.

A man doesn’t perform right in his job, you threaten him with the loss of his livelihood.

A man doesn’t perform right at home, you threaten him with the loss of his possessions and family.

Threaten, threaten, threaten-threaten-threaten.

Feminists tune out at this point, since the complaint seems to make men into sympathetic figures, and they’ll tolerate absolutely none of this. But the concern isn’t about men, the concern is about masculinity, and our modern feminists cannot be expected to appreciate the difference between those two things. They think it’s all a bunch of “ick.” The arrangement violates Stein’s Law, which says whatever cannot last forever, won’t. And it trashes masculinity, since it is inherently un-masculine to be put in the Darth Vader situation, acting out of fear and utter dependence. Please don’t do — whatever — to me. Please don’t shut off my — whatever.

A man who wants to live a life of true masculinity, therefore, must become dedicated to two things: Love nobody except those who truly love you back, and make some serious money. Go for what’s called the “fuck you money” — defined as, enough of a stash that you’re never painted into a corner, having to accept arrangements you otherwise wouldn’t because of concerns about your own solvency.

Feminists do a lot of bitching about what our society tells women and girls. But what does society have to say to men and boys who want to love those who would love them back, or are trying to make fuck-you money? Has it offered them any words of encouragement there? I must have missed it.

The irony is that men are most helpful to others when they are most masculine. The masculine man continues to put others before himself. But he internalizes the decision about priorities. Who needs my help? What really needs to be done, here? This is what we’ve been trashing. A man cannot behave that way when he’s teetering on the brink of the oblivion of disapproval, or dismissal, or loss of paychecks or loss of coital privileges. It’s all up to the external authority to make decisions about priorities. Vader does what Palpatine tells him to do. That’s when men have to act like pussies. That’s when the cell phones come out in the grocery aisles. Honey? I think they’re out of white rice, will brown rice do? What’s a “coriander”?

Another irony: Women don’t find that attractive. Stepford Wives, hardcore brittle feminists, every single woman (just about) in between those two extremes. Women hate this not-quite-complete-male behavior. They recoil from it. And yet look how hard we work at bringing it out, in men, by removing all their other options. So, no, the men are not sympathetic figures in this complaint because they do not have to be. This thing we do hurts many more people than just the men.

Someday, we should invent a word to describe this situation where you can act, or not act, without fear of losing these things that are staples in the life you are trying to live. Interestingly, I notice conservative and progressive agendas, alike, are powered by the human drive to acquire the thing this word would describe. The agendas become different when they represent different constituencies, use different tactics, and form different visions about where society is supposed to go. But they’re driven by a common human desire. Meanwhile, the answer upon which we appear to have settled is that all of this thing should go to the women, and none of it should go to the men, since we need the men to do things and there is no other way to motivate a beast of burden.

Stein rule. Things cannot go on this way, indefinitely, and that means they won’t.

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Memo For File CXLVIIFriday, November 25th, 2011

Memo For File CXLVII
Friday, November 25th, 2011