It is interesting to see that several Blogs have been debating the Anglobitch Thesis. As well as being intellectually flattering, this demonstrates the importance of our values and concepts. I truly believe the Anglobitch Thesis explains most of the problems in Pan-Anglosphere gender relations as no other theoretical model – but then, I am somewhat biased. Someone called ‘Roissy in DC’ keeps a Blog ‘where pretty lies perish’ and a discussion about the recently deceased Michael Jackson somehow transformed into a fascinating debate on the problem of Anglo-American women, which incorporated much discussion of the Anglobitch Thesis. I include some of the best posts for your interest and edification, with commentary from myself. More of this material will be forthcoming.1.on June 28, 2009 at 3:58 pm Joe T.
novaseeker -
The brand of feminism prevalent in Sweden is completely different than that which exists in the USA. It is a much less pernicious kind. What we have in America is an asexualizing society built on appying hypermasculine values to everyone — male and female. This results in hyperambitious females obsessed with competing with men. But what are they competing at? They are competing at selling themselves out — being perfect elements of the soulless, competitive capitalist machine.
In Sweden, you have a society built on essentially female values, which I actually think is far superior to the US model. Sweden may be very feminist in orientation, but it is very beta-friendly. While in the US, what you have is the tactical alliance of feminists and alpha males, which freezes out and marginalizes beta males.
Being essentially a beta (like about 80 of males), I don’t think I should have to tell you which society I would prefer.
Also, a point which is actually not much cited on this blog, but which is significant, is that the USA has *by far* the highest divorce rate in the world — about 4.95 per thousand. The second highest is the UK, still significantly less than America’s, at about 3.8 per 1000. Sweden ranks around 3rd, but only half of the US rate, at about 2.5/1000.You actually have to look at the statistical groupings of the list of countries, and their divorce rates, to appreciate how the US ranks in a classy by itself.
I am *not* equating a low divorce rate necessarily with policies and society that favors males, but it so happens that the countries with the *lowest* divorce rates are considered by social scientists to be the most patriarchal. I know Roissy rails against marriage, and he would probably say the men in countries with low divorce rates — Italy, Portugal, Brazil, etc. are “suckers” for staying married, or for being married in the first place. But what Roissy misses there is that those patriarchal countries with low divorce rates also acknowledge the value of the “pressure valve” of extramarital sex, affairs, mistresses, etc. in creating social stability and family stability. And those pressure release mechanisms are things that our prudish Anglo-Saxon society stubbornly will not acknowledge.
So, America presents the absolute worst of all possible worlds for the beta male (80-85 percent of males, according to even Roissy’s numbers). American Turbo Capitalism endorses all of the following simultaneously:
1) Militant feminism and the “empowered”, male-suspicious female
2) Asexualism and the obliteration of traditional gender roles, passed off as “progress”
3) Promotion of broadly pro-Alpha Male values, as an overall societal value system (which includes libertarian capitalism as the preferred method of economic organization)
4) The marginalization, devaluation, and debasement of what are essentilly the broad masses of the male sex
5) Female sexual “empowerment” and the pressure to form “female-led” relationships, either out of economic necessity, by default, or because of pressure from the prevailing propaganda line promulgated by the corporate media
Rookh Kshatriya writes: Marriage in Anglo culture is overloaded with significance because of the puritan temper of Anglosphere societies. Anglo Marriage is a pycho-social lifestyle adjunct, not a realistic relationship-contract. Because it is so charged with insoluble psychic baggage (the usual Freudian issues and complexes), Anglo-American Marriage is an enormously stressful Institution for both partners - a psychic pressure cooker. However, Marriage originated merely as a functional institution to produce children in a patriarchal culture. In such cultures, the religious/spiritual/philosophical/sexual features of life were dealt with by relevant institutions, such as organized religions or Temple-prostitutes. Anglo marriages are those most likely to fail because the Anglosphere now has an unrealistic understanding of that institution, asking it to bear responsibilities it was never designed for.
As an aside, it is odd that the author considers feminism to be partly fostered by Alpha males, since Alpha Males are those most likely to be fleeced in misandrist divorce settlements. The sociobiological arguments of the British author Moxon often seem to be invoked in these debates, but many of his assumptions are riddled with errors. For example, criminal underclass males have the highest fertility rates in modern society, not upper-middle class alphas. It is much more likely that Anglo culture fosters feminism and misandry as a function of its puritanical obsessions than its sociobiological imperatives.
1.on June 28, 2009 at 4:43 pm doug1
Joe T.
But what Roissy misses there is that those patriarchal countries with low divorce rates also acknowledge the value of the “pressure valve” of extramarital sex, affairs, mistresses, etc. in creating social stability and family stability. And those pressure release mechanisms are things that our prudish Anglo-Saxon society stubbornly will not acknowledge.
Although you’re of course right about the sharply different attitudes towards extramarital sex particularly for men in Anglosphere versus other Euro societies, you’re wrong about the reasons. It is not primarily greater prudishness. For instance, in Victorian England it was widely assumed that many married men would need the release valve of extra marital relations, particularly with prostitutes where it was mostly winked about, but sometimes with others.
Early feminism was all about two things most of all. First was getting women the vote, which they felt (rightly) would end up being of key importance it getting a lot of other rights for women. Second was greater rights in divorce, and social acceptance of the idea that male infidelity was absolutely grounds enough for not only a divorce, and one in which the woman made out handsomely if the man had any bucks. Feminism was lead by women whose men did by and large. American women in particular have always been militantly against male extra marital affairs as a women’s rights and dignity issue. This united women of a wide variety of political persuasions.
Rookh Kshatriya writes: We cannot assume that the original feminists thought exactly as modern Anglo feminists do. In the late Victorian era, patrician women believed in religion literally and implicitly. Also, they harbored right-wing ideas that would broadly be seen as unacceptable today. Actually, most early Anglo feminists were upper-class Nazis. Most of them were avowed racists and eugenicists (Woolf, Stopes) and some of their preoccupations (contraception for instance) were motivated by eugenic concerns and a desire to eliminate troublesome sections of the working class. Early Anglo feminists were also Puritanical Christian Protestants with an obsessive desire to impose moral continence on the masses – partly intrinsic, partly motivated by eugenics and lastly by a yearning to ‘ration’ sex, thereby rendering men of their own class easier to control. While Victorian gents were having sex with whores (and each other) the puritan ‘standard’ was still there, even if no one held to it. In other countries, the ‘standard’ just wasn’t present. For example, the Germans made extensive use of official field brothels in WWI, something the Anglo combatants never adopted. So there clearly were differences between Anglo countries and their Continental counterparts at a deep, cultural level. Maintaining that Anglo-Saxon cultures are not puritanical and repressed is the height of folly; though, to be charitable, this viewpoint often characterises those who have not lived outside the Anglosphere.
Posts
"We cannot assume that the original feminists thought exactly as modern Anglo feminists do."
ReplyDeleteI pretty well do, I think there's sufficient evidence to think so. Feminism is a continuum.
"In the late Victorian era, patrician women believed in religion literally and implicitly."
Like feminists protesting to be about "equality", I believe alot of this religious stuff was for show. It just suited the particular time. Feminists are chameleons, but their core nature does not change.
"Most of them were avowed racists and eugenicists (Woolf, Stopes) and some of their preoccupations (contraception for instance) were motivated by eugenic concerns and a desire to eliminate troublesome sections of the working class."
I would say many disguised their feminist goals as "Nazi" or "right-wing" ones.
"Early Anglo feminists were also Puritanical Christian Protestants with an obsessive desire to impose moral continence on the masses – partly intrinsic, partly motivated by eugenics and lastly by a yearning to ‘ration’ sex, thereby rendering men of their own class easier to control."
Personally I don't believe that feminists are or ever were "Puritan". Mary Wollstonecraft, a very prominent 18th Century feminist and author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman is a good example of your stereotypical feminist who transcends generations. She is impartial to morality, especially in sexual matters.
Another reason why Wollstonecraft is a good example and proof that even in its earliest days, feminism was skeptical of morality and (incumbent) religion, is that she was a Paine-esque rationalist.
She welcomed the atheistic, secular French Revolution, and indeed her Vindication of the Rights of Men is very much in the vain of Enlightenment, secular, anti-religious contemporaries.
Anglo-Saxon feminists are a very specific breed of feminist. Personally, I do not understand how people can quibble with the argument that Anglo-American feminists are not puritanical. Almost all celebrated feminists have a self-proclaimed mission to outlaw pornography and prostitution. Indeed, opposition to Anglo-Saxon feminism usually charges it (quite rightly) with puritanical repression and counter-libertarian values. Catherine MacKinnen, Andrea Dworkin and Harriet Harman - three leading lights of Anglo feminism - are all fanatically opposed to porn and prostitution. In England, the odious Harman has gone so far as to legally stigmatize men who pay for sex and ban sex-service advertisements from the regional press. And in the States, we have VAWA and IMBRA in place to prevent American men snapping up foreign brides using international dating agencies.
ReplyDeleteIt is therefore obvious that contemporary Anglo feminists are repressed, puritanical fanatics who will go to any length to limit the availability of sex. Most patriarchal cultures/nations/epochs have insisted on the ready availability of sex, because this limits women's manipulative power over men. If men can readily get sex from a concubine or slave girl, women have little power of sexual manipulation. However, if men have no opportunity for sexual outlet they are instantly prey to female manipulation and exploitation - which is of course why Anglo feminists are so obsessed with the regulation (and limitation) of sex. In a sociobiological sense, the value of sex raises when the supply is low; and, since sex is women's main source of power and privilege, it is in their interest to limit its supply. Men, however, must do everything in their power to make sex more available - for that weakens the matriarchy.
Think about it. Why are Anglo-American females so snotty and insufferable? Simple - because they have grown up in repressed countries where sex is a relatively scarce commodity (and proper sociobiological studies invariably show the sexual obsession in the woman-orientated mass media to be entirely spurious - basically a myth). Because it is scarce, they feel the world owes them something - because they 'own' society's most elusive commodity. By contrast, oriental girls are sweet and submissive because the orient has no Christian taboos against sex - and thus their defining commodity has much less value.
Also, beware considering the puritan Anglo-Saxon spirit as an entirely 'religious' phenomenon. It exists more as a fossil reflex than a true spiritual entity. Hence, although the Anglosphere is in real terms largely secular, it retains a distinctly puritanical cast in its culture and institutions (Disney, for instance). Indeed, secular left-liberalism is the most puritanical entity in the Anglosphere.