TEXANNE writes:

As Mrs. H. points out in your recent post:  “Students have no respect for teachers; teachers have no authority over students, and in fact fear them. “

The same can be said for the feminist dad in your recent post.  He seems to believe that it is somehow manly to allow his child to make the decisions, while his role is simply to support her choices — with force if necessary.

The tragic fact of “feminist fathers” (and teachers as buddies) is that so many of them were raised by fathers who themselves had lost moral authority in their own families — having lost connection with their only source of authority, namely The Father.  It is likely that their parents were loving and dutiful and generous, and as children they were raised “correctly”, according to cultural expectations and with a certain degree of respect for parental authority and elders in general.

However, so many fathers (and mothers, too) had been relying on cultural norms of order in the family and the community, and had essentially forgotten how that order came about in the first place.  Thus they were ignorant about what was necessary to maintain it.  Perhaps they had come to believe that mere bonds of affection hold happy, successful families and generations together.  They had completely forgotten where the expectation of honoring father and mother comes from — that it is part of the larger scheme of authority which imposes on the parents a duty of love and obedience to God, that would make them worthy of the honor that their children would then owe to them.

When the adolescent Boomers rose up and questioned authority, their  parents and teachers (those of the “greatest generation”) in positions of authority, had no answer.  All the grown-ups could fall back on was their inherited  power (“because I said so!”) or appeals to tradition (“It’s always been this way!”), neither of which could withstand the challenge:  “Says who?!”  At that point  the older generation came to recognize that they would have to position themselves “on the right side of history” — so as at least to try to hold on to their children’s affection, if nothing else.

So who has any moral authority today?  Not parents. Parents worry about their children and help them.  They do not lead them — or they train and point them towards some abstract “success”.  Adults use children (as accessories and as human shields) and woo them, and teach them that autonomy and power are the keys to happiness and recognition.

As Mrs. H. points out, teachers and professors have no authority.  Just like the parents, their ability to hold the class together rests tenuously on the consent and affection of the students.  After all, the curriculum reflects and reinforces the culture:  Equality and autonomy are both the medium and message in the relentless pursuit of utopian democracy.

So it goes with all in whom authority at one time resided.  Politicians and entertainers gain power through seduction, the government, through seduction and force.  The so-called Rule of Law?  As Justice Scalia has noted, this authority has been eaten by the idle musings of Justice Kennedy in the infamous “sweet-mystery-of-life” passage — dicta which now serves as basis for arguments before the highest court in the land:

“At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.” (Planned Parenthood v. Casey)

And with that, Justice Kennedy rendered himself and his court meaningless. If each man has (or IS) his own god — then who is Justice Kennedy to judge?  We are now living in the moral vacuum where ideology and sentimentality rush in — the consequences of which Dostoevsky was urging us to see:

“If there is no God, then everything is permitted.”

— Comments —

Tyro writes:

Parents are correct, however, when they teach that “autonomy” is a key to happiness. I myself left my previous job for a new one specifically because the new one offers me more personal autonomy. Thousands enter Ph.D. programs every year for the slim chance at becoming a tenure track professor because of the autonomy it promises. America is covered in what would otherwise be considered penny-ante small businesses of little note simply because the owners value the autonomy it gives them over a job in a large business.

This story was based on a study that was passed around in the media showing that people’s happiness came not from the amount of money they made but because of the autonomy they had. This very blog and other blogs extolling the virtues of Christian patriarchy point specifically how men benefit from having a household where they wield power and autonomy within the family.

It’s certainly valuable to learn how to grapple with a life in which you don’t have as much autonomy as you would like, but it’s just not true that autonomy isn’t something that is part and parcel of living a fulfilling life.

Mrs. H. writes:

I agree with your reader Tyro, except I would distinguish between social autonomy and economic autonomy.  The latter is a very good, masculine virtue (to be redundant)–to own one’s own business, to not be in debt or beholden to another man (which is type of slavery), to be man of integrity (whole, able to perform his craft well).  Often a man’s desire to be economically autonomous is so he can better care for his loved ones, or the poor, or his community in general.

Social autonomy is hating any social duty or biological connections.  It fiercely denies that sexual practices, especially, affect anyone involved. Social autonomy HATES the strong biological FACT of mother, father, child, aunt, uncle, grandparent, etc.  Like it or not, we have duties toward our relatives, our fellow parishioners, our neighbors; and, no surprise, their actions affect us, too.

I have an acquaintance I knew in high school who was raised in a conservative Baptist family.  Her parents are good people–she and her brothers were home schooled and taught to be decent citizens.  I don’t agree with their theology, but they certainly did not abuse their children.  However, she seemed to have turned radically progressive in the last 15 years, rejecting Christianity and embracing atheism, relativism, new age-ism, Obama-ism (a kind of mismatch of the four).  She has no contact with her family (her poor mother!), and believes she grew up in an abusive home!  She doesn’t connect her current psychological issues with unnaturally separating herself from those who love her.  Instead she blames them!

I found out this summer she left her husband, like she left her family, to take up with a lover, with whom she has since “moved in.”  I expect this relationship also to crash and burn.  What a lonely, sad existence, is this “autonomy”!  Meanwhile, she posts “inspirational memes” to affirm her poor choices like “Sometimes you have to be your own hero” and “I am a leaf on the wind; watch how I soar.”

I know probably seven to eight peers who have lived their 20s like my acquaintance; curiously, they are all female.

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