Before the euphoric rainbow jizz of affirmation was liberally spaffed everywhere in our society, we had feminism. There have been many (mostly men, I suspect) who have claimed that, actually, feminism has been the root cause of much of today’s madness. They see the current struggles of women to preserve their
There are two main psychological differences between men and women in groups and as groups, in how we create social consensus reality (or social consensus about reality perhaps, I'm translating on the fly):
Women being in all way much more group-oriented than men create social consensus by telling stories about reality. How grounded in facts or observations of factual matters/states these stories are can vary from 100% to total make-believe. A perfect example is the outbursts of "Witch-hysteria" of olden times. Women were the primary drivers in all cases, all over Europe, as women in villages started gossip about which undesirable woman was a "witch", and with the laws being in part based on Mosaic-Abrahamic ones when it pertained to religion, church and secular authorities had to investigate. Remember that I'm talking about a time when people believed Hell was a physical place under ground (the Greco-Roman and Nordic influence shining through yet again), Earth was ca 6 000 years and the clergy for real debated if a rat nibbling on communion wafers would receive part of the divine. In Sweden, it took a concerted effort by church authorities to put an end to the hysteria, all of which is available through records from that day.
But the feminist version is the evil wicked men of the cloth tried to root out "wise women" because patriarchy. A story with no basis in facts.
Which brings me to how men create group consensus about reality: facts. Pointing to and out provable facts trumps story-telling every day, for men. Remember: group level. That Andy Capp tells his missus a whopper every night doesn't change this. For men, the danger isn't the group weaving a story trumping reality, but that an individual man may dominate the group via force of personality and charisma to such an extent the other men defer to the leader's stories. If he does it by being a smarmer or a charmer or by sheer force of will matters less.
When it came to witch trials, the facts were that far more men than women were accused, tired and executed and subsequently burned. Burning being done to ensure the dead could not be properly resurrected on the Last Day, and was thus condemned for eternity.
What happens when a woman who make her way with the machete of facts on the jungle of stories is, other women start to shun, belittle and bully her, while men admire her. And what happens when too many women who advanced in part thanks to being female get control of an organisation initially founded to deal with a factual matter (pumping out sewage wells f.e.) is their shared story-perception of reality starts overwriting reality, and since this all ties into personalities and so on, the story comes to be something which must be defended and defending it makes it feels truer and truer for every iteration.
For men, this process normally means one man or a small coterie of men starts abusing an organisation for personal profiteering - but none of them believe their own stories in the slightest. Remember Eugyppius recent post about a ferry in Schleswig-Holstein? Perfect example. I could provide others from Sweden, but i'm running long enough as it is.
Thank you - you set a seat at your table, it'd be rude to not at least say something about the conversation piece of the day, if that metaphor works.
Unrelatedly, "metaphor" in Swedish is spelled "metafor", which sounds as if you're saying "fly-fishing for sheep". Får is sheep you see, and is pronounce identical to -phor, fore and four in English, and meta (long 'eh', short 'ah') means fly-fishing. And a joke:
I get a lot of warm and fuzzy feelings about feminism whenever I travel to certain parts of this world that could use an injection. Wearing pants is simply fabulous (though admittedly less convenient when there is no indoor plumbing). Living on my own for a few years before marriage, supporting myself, owning property, not requiring a chaperone to leave the house without scandal— what can I say? I’m a freedom-loving American gal. And that includes enjoying my freedom to have babies and stay at home with them. Just as with the lgbt whatever plus plus plus movement, I see the contemporary western academic feminists as having bigger fish to fry — but they are far too cowardly and have zero moral courage.
Walter Kirn, work partner to Matt Taibbi, commented the other day following the US VP debates that the surprising amount of fellow-feeling and cordiality evidenced between Vance and Walz seemed to stem from their both being verbally assaulted by the two 'gun-toting', narrative-fostering, female 'moderators' of the debate. The enemy of my enemy and all that. Links to a video record of the running commentary of Taibbi-Kirn during the debate can be found here: https://substack.com/inbox/post/149670418. Kirn is anomalously insightful in general.
Interesting! They were real harpies and honestly sounded just like me at my worst when I’m annoyed with my husband. (The referring-to-Haitian-migrants bizarre mic-mute “thank you for explaining that” dripping with sarcasm being a key moment of personal introspection for me.)
As a fairly emotionless woman (I have been called a Vulcan in the past, lol) I recognise those “I don’t care” phrases as I use them a lot - usually when my more excitable OCD husband is telling me off for being messy or not washing up. Doesn’t make me any less of a woman or him any less of a man (he possesses two of the three sixes)…
Warning: lengthy. Better get a cuppa.
There are two main psychological differences between men and women in groups and as groups, in how we create social consensus reality (or social consensus about reality perhaps, I'm translating on the fly):
Women being in all way much more group-oriented than men create social consensus by telling stories about reality. How grounded in facts or observations of factual matters/states these stories are can vary from 100% to total make-believe. A perfect example is the outbursts of "Witch-hysteria" of olden times. Women were the primary drivers in all cases, all over Europe, as women in villages started gossip about which undesirable woman was a "witch", and with the laws being in part based on Mosaic-Abrahamic ones when it pertained to religion, church and secular authorities had to investigate. Remember that I'm talking about a time when people believed Hell was a physical place under ground (the Greco-Roman and Nordic influence shining through yet again), Earth was ca 6 000 years and the clergy for real debated if a rat nibbling on communion wafers would receive part of the divine. In Sweden, it took a concerted effort by church authorities to put an end to the hysteria, all of which is available through records from that day.
But the feminist version is the evil wicked men of the cloth tried to root out "wise women" because patriarchy. A story with no basis in facts.
Which brings me to how men create group consensus about reality: facts. Pointing to and out provable facts trumps story-telling every day, for men. Remember: group level. That Andy Capp tells his missus a whopper every night doesn't change this. For men, the danger isn't the group weaving a story trumping reality, but that an individual man may dominate the group via force of personality and charisma to such an extent the other men defer to the leader's stories. If he does it by being a smarmer or a charmer or by sheer force of will matters less.
When it came to witch trials, the facts were that far more men than women were accused, tired and executed and subsequently burned. Burning being done to ensure the dead could not be properly resurrected on the Last Day, and was thus condemned for eternity.
What happens when a woman who make her way with the machete of facts on the jungle of stories is, other women start to shun, belittle and bully her, while men admire her. And what happens when too many women who advanced in part thanks to being female get control of an organisation initially founded to deal with a factual matter (pumping out sewage wells f.e.) is their shared story-perception of reality starts overwriting reality, and since this all ties into personalities and so on, the story comes to be something which must be defended and defending it makes it feels truer and truer for every iteration.
For men, this process normally means one man or a small coterie of men starts abusing an organisation for personal profiteering - but none of them believe their own stories in the slightest. Remember Eugyppius recent post about a ferry in Schleswig-Holstein? Perfect example. I could provide others from Sweden, but i'm running long enough as it is.
Thanks Rikard.
I don't thank you nearly as much as I should for these great comments. I learn something new almost every time.
Thank you - you set a seat at your table, it'd be rude to not at least say something about the conversation piece of the day, if that metaphor works.
Unrelatedly, "metaphor" in Swedish is spelled "metafor", which sounds as if you're saying "fly-fishing for sheep". Får is sheep you see, and is pronounce identical to -phor, fore and four in English, and meta (long 'eh', short 'ah') means fly-fishing. And a joke:
"Far, får får får?"
"Nej, får får inte får, får får lamm"
(Translation to follow)
I get a lot of warm and fuzzy feelings about feminism whenever I travel to certain parts of this world that could use an injection. Wearing pants is simply fabulous (though admittedly less convenient when there is no indoor plumbing). Living on my own for a few years before marriage, supporting myself, owning property, not requiring a chaperone to leave the house without scandal— what can I say? I’m a freedom-loving American gal. And that includes enjoying my freedom to have babies and stay at home with them. Just as with the lgbt whatever plus plus plus movement, I see the contemporary western academic feminists as having bigger fish to fry — but they are far too cowardly and have zero moral courage.
Walter Kirn, work partner to Matt Taibbi, commented the other day following the US VP debates that the surprising amount of fellow-feeling and cordiality evidenced between Vance and Walz seemed to stem from their both being verbally assaulted by the two 'gun-toting', narrative-fostering, female 'moderators' of the debate. The enemy of my enemy and all that. Links to a video record of the running commentary of Taibbi-Kirn during the debate can be found here: https://substack.com/inbox/post/149670418. Kirn is anomalously insightful in general.
Interesting! They were real harpies and honestly sounded just like me at my worst when I’m annoyed with my husband. (The referring-to-Haitian-migrants bizarre mic-mute “thank you for explaining that” dripping with sarcasm being a key moment of personal introspection for me.)
As a fairly emotionless woman (I have been called a Vulcan in the past, lol) I recognise those “I don’t care” phrases as I use them a lot - usually when my more excitable OCD husband is telling me off for being messy or not washing up. Doesn’t make me any less of a woman or him any less of a man (he possesses two of the three sixes)…