A decline in courage may be the most striking feature that an outside observer notices in the West today. The Western world has lost its civic courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, in each government, in each political party, and, of course, in the United Nations. Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling and intellectual elites, causing an impression of a loss of courage by the entire society. There are many courageous individuals, but they have no determining influence on public life.Alexander Solzhenitsyn at Harvard.
Political and intellectual functionaries exhibit this depression, passivity, and perplexity in their actions and in their statements, and even more so in their self-serving rationales as to how realistic, reasonable, and intellectually and even morally justified it is to base state policies on weakness and cowardice. And the decline in courage, at times attaining what could be termed a lack of manhood[Ed}, is ironically emphasized by occasional outbursts and inflexibility on the part of those same functionaries when dealing with weak governments and with countries that lack support, or with doomed currents which clearly cannot offer resistance. But they get tongue-tied and paralyzed when they deal with powerful governments and threatening forces, with aggressors and international terrorists.
Friday, November 01, 2013
A Failure of Manhood.
Time to revisit this important speech:
Why we should hit them where they scream, not where they laugh. (James Mason)
ReplyDeleteThis is just a quick thought, but it may not be as much a lack of manhood as it is the introduction of womanhood to government and politics. Solzhenitsyn's "lack of manhood" may simply be due to dilution rather than absence.
ReplyDeleteTDOM got it right!
ReplyDelete@TDOM
ReplyDeleteThis is just a quick thought, but it may not be as much a lack of manhood as it is the introduction of womanhood to government and politics.
Disagree.
Margaret Thatcher had more balls that most of the British establishment. I'd venture to say she was more manly than rest of her cabinet. You can add Catherine the Great, Elizabeth I, Queen Victoria, Isabella of Spain, Golda Meir. There are others.
In Mimi Alford's reminiscences of JFK during the Cuban Missile Crisis she remembers him saying to her, "I'd rather my child be Red rather than dead." Castro, on the other had, was prepared to die for his cause and urged Khrushchev to nuke the U.S. He had the bigger cojones.
Female lawyers and corporate types are not known for their soft ways. In fact, their ruthlessness is legendary. So the notion that women bring a degree of "softness" to government is a conservative fallacy. Feminists might be stupid but they're not cowardly.
The dominance of women needs to be seen as a relative phenomenon. Women are dominant because the men have become weak.
Women are dominant because the men have become weak. Absolutely! Taking a position of strength and responsibility is not something most people want to do. Several women may rise because they perceive competing men to be weaker or that men are totally absent in taking charge.
Delete"Female lawyers and corporate types are not known for their soft ways. In fact, their ruthlessness is legendary. So the notion that women bring a degree of "softness" to government is a conservative fallacy. Feminists might be stupid but they're not cowardly."
ReplyDeleteI wasn't looking at it as a lack of courage or being cowardly. I was seeing it more as a wilingness to compromise to avoid conflict. Just look at the recent government shutdown. The female representatives claimed that if women ran congress they could have worked it all out without resorting to a shutdown. That would indicate compromise, not cowardice. The "ruthlessness" of many women that make it to the top is a major feminist complaint that in order to "make it" women believe they have to be more ruthless than men. It is often used as an excuse as to why more women don't succeed at climbing the corporate ladder and something that needs to be changed in order toencourage more women to enter those careers.
"So the notion that women bring a degree of "softness" to government is a conservative fallacy."
Although I was not referring to "softness" don't mistake me for a conservative. I do believe that on average, men and women see things differently and act and react differently. The more women in government, the more likely it will act differently than in the past.
The female representatives claimed that if women ran congress they could have worked it all out without resorting to a shutdown. That would indicate compromise, not cowardice.
ReplyDeleteWhat they say would have happened is open to conjecture. I imagine that it would have turned into a squabble over what one person said to the other.
Btw this is from the same group of people who tell us that women want nice guys and then act otherwise. Women, in my experience, have notoriously poor insight into their own behavior.
Although I was not referring to "softness" don't mistake me for a conservative
My Mistake.
The more women in government, the more likely it will act differently than in the past.
It's more likely to be ferocious and pettily vindictive.
Thanks for the reminder. There's a definite lack of what C S Lewis called "thymos," talking of "men without chests." I have not always been the most courageous of men, but I have always valued courage in the men I knew above all. They were men with chests.
ReplyDelete"Elizabeth I..."
I'd have to dispute on Elizabeth I (Elizabeth II, yes.) She did nothing to avoid the Star Chamber or to counteract the machinations of the men who controlled her. The others, well, they were women with chests.