Not too long ago I heard a commentator online bluntly declare that any young woman who states that their “dream job” is to be a stay at home mother is simply lazy and devoid of any genuine ambition. They went on to argue that the underlying activity in question is not actually a job but a role. Raising one’s own children is a role that most human beings perform at some point in their lives as a consequence of conceiving them. Therefore all that this young woman is actually saying is that she wishes to live a life in which she does not have to exert herself at an actual job.

Now the necessary assumption here is that child rearing is more or less a token chore that is indifferent to the way that it is performed. This critique is similar to the famous quote by the influential 1970’s Feminist author Germaine Greer in which she states that “bringing up children is not a real occupation, because children come up just the same brought up or not.” Greer is literally saying: they will reach adulthood no matter what we do, we have more important things to tend to. And what are those more important things? They are whatever endeavors serve to satisfy and to affirm us as individuals.

The objective of both Greer and the commentator I have mentioned is to deny the trade off that takes place when both parents must work in order to financially sustain the family. And the purpose of that denial is to justify the decision to have both parents work when no such trade off is even necessary, in order to satisfy themselves as individuals. To acknowledge that the stay at home mother is doing something deeply important is to recognize that one is allowing one’s own children to go without that thing, in a situation in which one has the option to do otherwise. For this reason the calling of the homemaker must become superfluous.

Before we proceed there are some distinctions that we need to draw; we will work backwards toward the most general concept in this discussion. The term homemaker (just mentioned above) refers to a calling. It is a person who has decided to invest all of their imagination, energy and resourcefulness as a human being into optimizing the development of their own children (instead of into defending Pizza Hut’s trademark rights).

The homemaker is committed to creating the ideal home environment for those children. I know of homemakers who are well educated, and who even use that education in the cultivation of their children’s potential (some formally educated, a few informally). Others may instead be rich in moral or practical wisdom which they devotedly impart into their children. But every serious homemaker is an individual who has decided to wholeheartedly commit all of her gifts and talents to producing the best version of her children that she can during the most critical and formative period of their lives.

Now while the term “homemaker” refers to a calling, the phrase “stay at home mother”merely refers to a physical reality. The commentator that I mentioned at the opening is not entirely incorrect. There are some women who simply have no drive to invest themselves heavily into anything (i.e. women who are “lazy”). Such women may indeed seek status as stay at home mothers as nothing more than an opportunity to be shiftless and indifferent, but this does not define the state. Every stay at home mother is not a homemaker, but every homemaker is a stay at home mother.

Finally, we come to the most general concept here, that of a parent. A parent is one who conceives and/or assumes primary responsibility for a child. It is a role. Most parenting in this day and age is performed with as much sincere attentiveness as can be fit into spare time away from a full time occupation in the marketplace. And of course there will always be in any time period the [abusively] negligent parent who performs the role with indifference.

Therefore the opportunity to grow up in the household of a loving and devoted homemaker is a precious one, and we should be happy for children who enjoy that privilege. It should also be mentioned that it is not merely a privilege limited to families who are extremely well off money wise. One can find households with a solitary blue collar bread winner alongside a financially thrifty wife and mother, in areas of the country with a lower cost of living.

For them the commitment is worth it; the intangible things that they are able to provide for their children in that environment are more valuable in their minds than any additional material item they could offer them. And somewhere in the world I suspect there is some deeply troubled and neglected child of some wealthy household who senses inwardly that this is the case as well.

Instead of celebrating this office however, certain ideologues are compelled to belittle it. But the one thing that cannot be said of the calling of a genuinely devoted homemaker is that it is devoid of aspiration. What feat can any person accomplish that is greater than the cultivation of other human souls? And is this not itself the final objective of every other truly worthwhile job or calling?

We cannot accept the idea that children only require passive supervision to flourish once we understand the truth that children are constantly learning, (whether that learning is good or bad). And a parent can elicit things from a child in a way that no other person can. This is why the calling in question is uniquely identified with the role of the parent. No nanny or professional childcare provider can carry it out. It is far from superfluous.

Contemporary American Feminism, with its firm roots in the radical counterculture of the 1960s and 70s, is one of the most polarizing ideologies in our politics today. Its advocates insist that it should be an essential and uncontroversial aspect of our thinking as an enlightened modern society. But despite all of their assurances, large swaths of the general public (including millions of women) appear to have a strong distaste for the ideology. In this article we will examine the major features that make this body of ideas as controversial as it is, and in the process we will eventually come to consider whether modern Feminism is also in fact one of the most materialistic of ideologies.

The Feminist movement of the late 20th century is traditionally associated by the American political Left with the Civil Rights movement of that same era. In fact the former is essentially depicted as a gender themed version of the latter. But if this is truly the case, why is the rhetoric of a Dr Martin Luther King jr. almost universally embraced by Americans today, while the rhetoric of the most prominent Feminist authors of that era still seems inflammatory to so many modern ears? Well, let us begin with this simple observation.

One cannot find the same tone of reconciliation and mutual understanding that one finds in the language of King anywhere in the writings of these Feminist authors. You will not find it in Gloria Steinem, Kate Millet, Germaine Greer or Betty Friedan. Instead what you find is a language which militantly sows division and hostility between the sexes. “But how can an oppressed group seek mutual understanding with the group that oppresses it?” the Feminist will ask us. My answer is that I suppose we should ask Dr. King this question.

We cannot pretend to be mystified by the difference in the public response to these two movements when this kind of stark contrast exists between the tenor and the approach of the movements. Now what this contrast ultimately points to is a difference in where these movements originate philosophically and psychologically. The mainstream of the 1960’s Civil Rights movement as lead by King revolved around the founding philosophical principles and documents of the United States.

Any suspicions about King’s personal political leanings are besides the point. The only thing that is relevant is the substance of the public appeal that was made, and the people’s understanding of it. This appeal resonated with the American public because the principles were familiar to them. And they are embodied in the very name of the movement: Civil Rights— a universal individual liberty grounded in a common humanity. It was to that common humanity that King famously made his appeal. Feminism on the other hand had a very different philosophical origin.

You may have noticed that the political Left is extremely defensive of the use of the term Feminism itself. In fact they are so defensive of it that they have artificially redrawn the lines of history for its sake. Women who never embraced the label of “Feminism” such as the suffragettes are retroactively labeled by them as feminists. Now the reason that the suffragettes did not embrace this label was not because it did not exist, nor was it because they were unaware of its existence, but because they had no interest in doing so.

Even the modern Feminist scholar concedes that in the time of the suffragettes the term “Feminist” was associated with a political extremism that these women wanted nothing to do with. More specifically it was associated with certain strains of radical French Socialism. The term was originally coined by the early 19th century political author Charles Fourier, who is also known to history as the father of Socialism (its very first theoretician).

Fourier saw the monogamous nuclear family as the great adversary of women, and conceived of a society in which monogamy was eliminated, sex was free and promiscuous, and responsibility for all children produced was maintained by a social collective. We will see this same targeting of the nuclear family years later in the political writings of Marx and Engels (especially in Engels). In Fourier’s ideal Socialist community men and women become sexually indistinguishable units of a social collective.

Feminism was thus originally an ancillary doctrine of Socialism. And it does not become a part of mainstream American political conversation until more than a hundred years after the women’s suffrage movement emerged, during the 1960’s and 70’s. The reason for that is quite simple. It was not until the emergence of the 1960s counterculture that the kind of radical ideals which first gave birth to that term were able to make their way into American mainstream public conversation. Discussions of the evils of free market capitalism, and the entire Western way of life were the wider intellectual setting for its adoption.

So Feminism was not a moderate ideology whose image was unfairly marred by radical elements that did not genuinely represent the movement. It was itself a radical movement which worked its way into American politics during extraordinarily tumultuous times, and subsequently retained its influence by depicting itself as nothing more than a continuation of earlier more moderate women’s rights efforts. This misleading depiction was why it was so important for its proponents to go back in time and to recast all of modern history within a scheme of Feminist waves.

And so under the cover of this reassuring public facade Feminists today continue to radically push the ideological boundaries behind the walls of academia, and elsewhere within society. Now to be certain, there were still legitimate women’s rights concerns during the 1960’s and 70’s. The question is what species of ideology was it that rushed in to address those concerns? There is also a lesson here for Conservatives. If we choose to ignore legitimate injustices within society, some more destructive system of ideas may come along and exploit those very wrongs as an inroad.

Furthermore the answers that will be advanced to correct those wrongs will be distorted to serve the ideological goals of that new set of ideas. For example, one of the central themes of modern Feminism is something called female independence. But what precisely does this phrase mean? The use of the word “independence” here is not in fact a reference to independence per se.

The parties in question are perfectly fine with a woman being dependent upon the state or upon the government just as long as she does not depend upon “a man” (i.e. her own husband). It is therefore not actually dependence in general that is a problem for them, but it is this particular human bond that they are preoccupied with.

Now where there is dependence there is likely trust and loyalty. Therefore to say that it is acceptable for a woman to be dependent upon the government but that she should never depend upon her husband is to say that she should have greater trust in, and loyalty to the state than to her spouse [which is her family].

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The phrase “Social Justice” in its modern sense is the most radical ideological term that has ever been invented. It is to be distinguished from the traditional concept of justice, which is to say, legal justice: the idea of equal treatment under the law. Social Justice by contrast (as the phrase implies) is the power to modify every minute detail of social behavior and social thought to conform to its proponents’ notion of the good society. How does this doctrine justify this extreme intrusion into the personal sphere of human life?

It claims that power dynamics created by the natural social behavior of private individuals are no different in any meaningful way from the political power that is wielded by a state. To the extent that the former is deemed to be unfair and oppressive, it is referred to as systemic injustice. This systemic injustice is supposedly just as significant as legal injustice (if not more so). Furthermore, it is described as all-pervasive. It is everywhere and suffuses everything. It seeps into every corner and crevice of human social life. And this brings us already to the central point of this piece.

For an all pervasive problem can only be rectified by the near unlimited power necessary to provide for an all pervasive solution. What we are dealing with here is the most comprehensive blueprint of authoritarianism ever conceived. It scrutinizes every aspect of our lives, down to the very language we use. But the crucial move here is the erasure of the line between the political and private. Once that is obscured everything that was once protected and personal becomes a matter of public interest, and the political power that it was once inappropriate to introduce into private spaces becomes a viable solution to every question.

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“My views on charity are very simple. I do not consider it a major virtue….” -Ayn Rand

The proper method of judging when or whether one should help another person is by reference to one’s own rational self-interest

-Ayn Rand

Within certain strains of Libertarian political thought there is a complete disregard for the virtues of individual benevolence, compassion and charity. Within those precincts these virtues are seen as the kind of things which certain people may choose to pointlessly indulge for emotional reasons, but not as ideals that are of any crucial importance to the character or the well being of a free society. In fact, it has even been contended by some parties within these camps that selfishness itself is a virtue—the defining “virtue” of a free market society.

It is an opinion which stands in stark contrast to traditional American social values according to which the individual human being ultimately lives for the good and the betterment of his fellow man. The statesman and Founding father Benjamin Franklin declared “I would rather have it said, ‘He lived usefully,’ than, ‘He died rich”. Author of the American Declaration of Independence Thomas Jefferson argued “To ourselves, in strict language, we can owe no duties, obligation requiring also two parties. Self-love, therefore, is no part of morality, Indeed, it is exactly its counterpart.”

Finally, founding father and second president John Adams urged “You will ever remember that all the end of study is to make you a good man and useful citizen.” Note the term “useful”, in the first and third quotes, referring to the good that we provide to the people around us, and the description of this as not only a good in itself, but the highest moral good. This refers both to the carrying out of a beneficial and honorable vocation in life, as well as to doing charitable good.

The French Aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville visiting the United States nearly 200 years ago and observing the country’s tendency toward social compassion stated “I have seen Americans making great and sincere sacrifices for the key common good and a hundred times I have noticed that, when needs be, they almost always gave each other faithful support.” Tocqueville does not here refer to government action but to a natural organic instinct within the American citizen as an individual.

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We can see from the harsh treatment of the children’s author J.K. Rowling who has talked about having to endure death, rape and torture threats (in addition to cancellation) over a single political stance, that contemporary Left-wing political persecution is not limited to Conservatives. The idea that Conservatives are especially egregious as a group, and that this is what accounts for the uniquely militant attitude of the political Left right now is refuted by the Left’s treatment of its own compatriots who dare to deviate from even a single item of its official ideological dogma. Rowling has been villified and denounced with the exact same degree of venom as any political Conservative. There has been no mercy, and no consideration of her status as a loyal fellow Leftist (who also detests Conservatives).

In the case of the author Germaine Greer we saw that even status as an iconic founding mother of “Second Wave” Feminism cannot save one from this savage treatment for daring to disagree. Greer was blacklisted, stripped of honorary degrees, excoriated by the Liberal press, and personally targeted with violent threats just as Rowling was. This trademark political malice of the modern Left is directed toward all non trivial ideological dissent (regardless of who offers it) and it is absolutely unforgiving.

Now no sensible person believes that two counterculture Leftists like Rowling and Greer genuinely harbor hatred in their hearts for individuals with gender dysphoria. Yet what certain players in today’s political conversation are endeavoring to do is to redefine the word “hate”. “Hate” now no longer refers to a kind of attitude or motivation, it refers to an outcome: the outcome of offending certain groups. It does not matter whether the person has some other purpose for saying what they say, if it happens to offend the right parties and they are aware of the potential for that offense, they are guilty of “hate".

At the very least we should be able to agree on the following rule. If it is possible in theory for a person to adopt a particular stance without an awareness of the general existence of the group that is to be offended, the stance in question cannot be fundamentally grounded in a “hatred” toward that group. Now it is obviously possible to adopt the position that identity as a man or a woman is inborn and unalterable, without an awareness of the existence of individuals with gender dysphoria (as billions of human beings have in the past ). Therefore the adoption of such a stance cannot be inherently based in a hatred of that group. Contrast this logically with, for example, the truly hateful idea of white supremacy which is impossible in principle without the concept of non-white members of the human race.

The fact that I hate an idea is no evidence of the fact that an idea is hateful. Mere offense in itself does not identify hatred. And the consequences of intentionally misapplying the label “hate" are quite serious. Whenever you label a person as hateful you are making that individual into an appropriate object of hatred from a practical standpoint. In other words, the human race typically perceives truly hateful things as justifiable objects of hatred themselves ( e.g. the Third Reich, The Klu Klux Klan etc.). Therefore to illegitimately label some party as hateful on the basis of disagreement or offense over a belief is to incite hatred against ideological dissenters. We cannot behave in this way and then wonder why the state of political discourse is as dreadful as it is.

And again, I have temporarily eliminated political Conservatives from the equation: this is the way that the modern Left deals with its own who dare to differ. This unique problem with dissent on the Left cannot be glossed over, including by pretending that both sides act in this way; they do not. Moderates on the Left must stand up to this militant attitude within their own ranks if open and honest political conversation is to reconvene within this country. And if they do not they may eventually see this uncompromising ideological regimentation come for them.

In light of the backlash against public celebrations of the assassination of Charlie Kirk, a discussion of Cancel Culture has begun once again, and so I wish to clarify a few things on the subject.

A little while ago I ran into a brief clip of an interview in which a prominent Hollywood actor was promoting his latest movie project. The moment captured in the clip was a question posed by the interviewer on this very topic. “Aren’t you afraid you might get cancelled for this?” the interviewer asks the actor. The actor responds with a question of his own, “What do you mean by—cancelled?” “It means to lose public support” the interviewer replied. Now the definition of Cancel Culture that is given here is one which certain parties would love for us to accept, but it is not what Cancel Culture is.

Cancel Culture is a mechanism by which certain parties in elite positions of power and influence endeavor to normalize particular ideological patterns of thinking by regulating the flow of public speech, and disenfranchising any individual person whose speech conflicts with the thinking they are working to advance. Cancel Culture is not about long and firmly established public convictions, for public opinion has always existed. Yet this particular conversation has not always existed.

Let us take a look at one of the best examples of Cancel Culture in action. According to Pew Research 60% of the American public believes that a person’s status as a man or a woman is determined solely by their biological sex, while only 38% say otherwise. Despite this reality, celebrities and public figures today are cancelled for expressing that very belief—the majority belief. Others are forced to repent under threat of cancellation.

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Depression and psychological despair can have various causes. But when I see the number of people in our society who are willing to go to the very dark place of celebrating the death of another human being, I cannot help but believe that a certain amount of the unprecedented unhappiness and psychological turmoil that we see in statistics today are a direct result of harboring this kind of deeply bitter and resentful mentality.

It is the same mentality that has lead certain young people to entirely cut off members of their own close family due to political differences. It is a complete self absorption and lack of human investment in those around them. A heart without a capacity for genuine committed love and affection will necessarily be miserable. This mentality is the most extreme outcome of a general culture that is grounded in narcissism. Everything revolves around my own personal comfort and everything rises and falls on my own feelings of personal validation. Even the value of human life is in the end beholden to it.

Instead of committed love, those of whom we speak have relationships that consist of a mere mutual accomodation. This is a self serving pact in which you agree to act in a manner that accommodates my self validation, and in exchange, I agree to act in a manner that accommodates yours (I “affirm" you). Anyone who refuses to affirm us in any way is a mortal enemy; they are “dead” to us (and so if they actually die it is just as well).

Merely denouncing the reactions we have seen as evil as many are doing does not provide us with a practical way forward. We need to understand where this mentality originates in order to defeat it. That which becomes evil does not begin as evil, but as an unsound foundation for life which increasingly corrupts the heart over time. Our present cultural narcissism is such a foundation..

I think one problem with foreign policy discussions in the United States is that we use domestic politics as a blueprint for the way that we think and talk about this other quite distinct sphere of issues. There is a sense of certainty and purity that is appropriate when talking about domestic issues like abortion, free speech or gun rights, that it is unwise to adopt in discussions of foreign policy. In so many foreign policy situations, what we are actually faced with is a choice between two or more bad options each with its own undesirable consequences. The temptation however is to choose to embrace one side in an ideological fashion (the right stance) and then to merely dismiss every single concern associated with the other side (the wrong stance).

Thus on one side of the current debate over the Middle East we had certain parties speaking as though a full scale American war in Iran for the purpose of regime change would be a cinch, entirely devoid of any truly harmful consequences for the U.S. , and on the other side people who had convinced themselves that Iran acquiring nuclear weapons is really no big deal. After all the French have nukes and everything is fine. We can see the m/o here. If you are faced with a binary choice between X and Y, and your greatest fear or concern is X, you simply pretend that Y is an insignificant concern.

That is a big mistake. We need to be able to appreciate the full gravity of each of two opposing scenarios. Now I was personally never for either of the two options mentioned above, I supported limited action of the type that was recently taken to try to eliminate Iran's nuclear facilities. But I have no illusions; this was also a bad option because even limited action can lead to a broader conflict. This was however in my mind the best of the bad options.

I want to encourage every reader to shun oversimplification, false self assurance, and rigid ideologically binary thinking in our discussions of foreign policy. We will think clearer as a consequence, regardless of what conclusions we ultimately reach.

24 week old preemie

The most shocking lines of argument used by defenders of abortion are those which literally liken the unborn child to an invasive parasite. Now putting the technical inaccuracy of the comparison aside, this has some pretty significant implications for the way that we see the maternal relationship.

How can the same entity go from being potentially the most precious and beloved thing in the life of the mother to the equivalent of a case of lice or ringworm? We are indeed discussing the same entity, and we can demonstrate that by looking at the case of the maternal miscarriage.

A mother has a miscarriage 24 weeks into her pregnancy (see the premie photo above) and it is seen by herself and everyone around her as a profound and tragic loss. Another mother has an abortion at 24 weeks but she is somehow simply involved in the act of extracting a “parasite”. These are the kinds of contradictory contortions of the human heart that are involved in rationalizing the denial of the right to life

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It is the natural tendency of Left-wing ideologies to consider only their intentions in attempting to radically alter human society and never the unintended consequences of their actions. For example, Leftists during the 1960’s aggressively promoted a general culture of individual hedonism which, according to their own stated intentions, was to be observed in all but one area of human life. It was never to apply to the abundant ownership of material wealth and goods, which it saw as the unique and sinister preoccupation of the “exploitative” Western Capitalist system (“Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can”, John Lennon famously sang in the song “Imagine” which hit #3 on the U.S. charts).

The folly of this thinking is found both in the naive assumption that the desire to enjoy and even amass material goods is unique to a capitalist system (as opposed to being an inherent aspect of human nature, as history itself demonstrates) and second, in the belief that you can create a general mentality within a society but safely cordon it off so that it doesn’t enter into certain other areas of life. This of course did not work, and eventually a general culture of individual hedonism emerged from this ideology. Today what we find is a society whose dealings with material goods has also been entirely shaped and defined for the worse by the ideal first introduced during this influential era.

More specifically, American society has made the transition from being a culture of ownership to being a culture of indulgence. The culture of ownership was embodied in the traditional ideal of the American Dream. That ideal had to do with the ultimate attainment, of a certain high standard of living, but is distinguished by its focus upon the concept of objective achievement. It is not defined merely as the enjoyment of material goods but just as much by the sense of having earned those things; of becoming a full owner. In other words, the [responsible] attainment of them is just as important as the enjoyment. Thus the concept of the American Dream naturally leads to a society of owners.

The culture of indulgence however is about the immediate gratification of the individual by nothing more than the enjoyment of the material good. Only gratification matters and therefore objective ownership becomes unimportant since through credit and debt these things can be enjoyed without ownership. Enormous debt is the mark of a society of indulgence (both personal debt and government debt). It involves more and more people spending beyond their means in order to acquire more and more material things for the purpose of immediate personal gratification. The spending of disposable income, and well beyond it, on unessentials has been on the rise decade after decade, while the practice of saving has continually fallen.

This course ultimately leads to a society of “serfs” rather than of owners. And so it has come to pass that the Left, in its attempt to thwart the so called materialism of the American Free Enterprise system, has itself engineered the most virulent and irresponsible strain of materialism yet seen.

In the present political moment accusations of “extremism” fly back and forth between the American Right and the American Left. Each side is utterly convinced that the other side has departed in some stark and dramatic way from what it has been in the past. Conservatives speak of a new “Woke” far Left politics which stands in contrast to the more sensible Liberalism of the old Democratic party, while Democrats warn of a uniquely militant right wing politics which differs completely from Reaganism and the mainstream Conservatism of recent times. But what is the truth here? Which of the two sides has truly moved to the extreme?

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To declare that tolerance toward an individual with gender dysphoria requires every person to view him in the way that he views himself is as sensible as stating that tolerance toward the Orthodox Jewish community requires everyone to see them as a divinely chosen people (in the way that they view themselves) or that tolerance toward a Platonist requires one to subscribe to the ideas of Plato. Does tolerance towards a Buddhist require everyone to believe that he has found ultimate spiritual enlightenment?

No, Tolerance is defined precisely by the fact that you allow people who think in a radically different way than you do about both the world and themselves to live their own lives freely without having to to agree with them. To insist that everyone must agree in order to live together peacefully is the very definition of intolerance.

You do not harm someone by disagreeing with the way that they see things, and any ideology that argues otherwise is preparing the stage for the suppression of all significant dissent by force. This is real intolerance. The contemporary political Left has nullified the traditional role of the word by redefining it. They have defined “tolerance” as its logical opposite. To be tolerant today means: to embrace the assigned checklist of enlightened social stances issued for everyone to adopt. It is to submit to an established political dogma.

All of this is the opposite of the traditional Enlightenment era understanding of tolerance popularized in the writings of the English Philosopher John Locke. True tolerance is not believing what one ought to believe, it is to abide and to put up with those who (in your estimation) believe that which they should not. It is the recognition of the right of dissent.

Here is a rule of thumb. Any ideological movement that attempts to redefine the most basic words that are used within a language is up to no good.

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How do you “spoil” a child?

A parent does not spoil a child by merely giving him nice things. A parent spoils a child by giving him nice things on his own terms. If a child is able to dictate when and how they receive whatever they desire from their parents, they will eventually come to expect the wider world to also conform to their slightest whim in that same way.

This is when a child is “spoiled”.  He begins to perceive other human beings as primarily instruments for the gratification of his own desires (because that is what his parents have made themselves into). People become a means to an end— they are in a certain sense dehumanized for him.

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