REX WRITES:

One thing that puzzles me about your commitment to so-called ‘traditionalist roles’ is that the basis of your commitment seems to be unrelated to certain principles which govern human societies. 

By and large, societal roles — including those having to do with gender relations — are conditioned by the pressures which arise as a result of competition with other societies. Read More »

FEW RECENT STORIES in the mainstream news are less compelling to me than the uproar over Yale Law School Professor Amy Chua’s article in the Wall Street Journal “Why Chinese Mothers are Superior.” The article is based on Chua’s book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, which is about raising her two daughters to be the sort of hyper-engineered students who are worthy of an Ivy League degree.

Chua, who seems to have done well by American educational institutions, criticizes American culture for being too lax with children. Having benefited from American largesse, she now turns on her hosts. This sort of criticism from an Asian reduces parents to a state of quivering, jello-like fear.

Americans are already in the grip of manufactured hysteria about whether their children can compete internationally. From the earliest moments of parenthood, they lie awake wondering whether their offspring will get into good colleges and if they will have the enormous treasures to pay for it. They read articles about how their children are dumber than the rest of the world, articles which are skewed by the failure to mention the demographic realities of American educational statistics, which include a large underclass that will never compete globally. They then welcome the heaps of homework their children receive. They give their sons and daughters over to assembly-line education all in the mistaken belief that training is all that matters.

Then Amy Chua comes along and tells them all this is not enough. Their children are still stupid, destined to sink to the nether levels of the global economy. I haven’t read all of the enormous commentary about Chua’s points, but I wonder if it has occurred to American parents that their children might not have to compete so hard if our colleges did not admit the best and brightest from the four corners of the globe and if our nation did not often fail to protect its own economic interests. In the grip of their irrational fears and great eagerness to please, they perhaps do not have the clarity of mind to see this. Read More »

Sidney Webb the socialist dined here to meet the Booths. A remarkable little man with a huge head on a very tiny body … somewhat unkempt, spectacles and a bourgeois black coat shiny with wear; somewhat between a London card and a German professor. His pronunciation is cockney, his H’s are shaky, his attitudes by no means elegant — with his thumbs fixed pugnaciously in a far from immaculate waistcoat, with is bulky head thrown back and his little body forward, he struts even when he stands, delivering himself with an extraordinary rapidity of thought and utterance and with an expression of inexhaustible self-complacency.

BEATRICE POTTER wrote these words in her diary the day of her first extended meeting with Sidney Webb in February, 1890 over dinner with others at the Devonshire House Hotel in London. The wealthy heiress, already considered a spinster at 32, was not entirely repulsed by this déclassé figure, the son of a Leicester hairdresser. She added to the above: “But I like the man. There is a directness of speech – an open-mindedness and imaginative warm-heartedness – which should carry him far.”

Two years later, after her repeated refusals and an almost constant exchange of letters, they married. 

This unlikely pair became an influential force in British politics and culture. Founders of the London School of Economics and the weekly journal The New Statesman, they were the foremost proponents of Fabianism, the idealistic strain of socialism which shaped the modern Nanny state. 

They were “two second-rate minds,” as Beatrice put it, a judgment that has been amply confirmed by posterity, especially in light of their later enthusiasm for Stalinism and their support for eugenics. Nevertheless, these architects of modern collectivism, with its bureaucratic governance by experts and gradual permeation of all institutions, were intelligent and enterprising. Their romance and marriage was a strange melding of Victorian refinement and quasi-religious political fervor. Read More »

IN THIS 2002 piece about Pope John Paul II, Lawrence Auster describes the Pope’s use of conservative rhetoric to expound liberal ideas that deny the essential connection between culture and human dignity. He writes of the Pope’s speech to UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, delivered in Paris in 1980:

Throughout the speech, John Paul II keeps evoking the larger wholes of culture and nation, but only in light of their subordinate function in fulfilling the spiritual strivings and psychological needs of the individual person. The larger whole has no existence or transcendent value in itself. Read More »

LARRY B. writes: 

The right to vote is treated as an inseparable part of the American person today, as if it is the one and only guarantee of the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness that so many Americans hold dear. Never mind that well below fifty percent of the population votes in any presidential or congressional election. Equality is the most important thing. Today, young Americans are trusted with the vote, that hallowed right, before they’re trusted with alcohol or rental cars.

We recognize that persons have an inherent dignity, and that the unique manifestation of the divine in each person, the soul, entitles them to certain inviolable rights. These ideals were essential to the founding of the American nation and the derivative voting power apportioned to persons within the framework of the American republican system. However, the undeniable dignity of persons did not entitle all to equal representation in the government. Read More »

THOUSANDS of state marriage licenses have been issued to homosexual couples in Iowa since April, 2009, when the state Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s decision legalizing same-sex marriage despite majority opposition by voters. In last November’s elections, three of the judges who made the controversial ruling were removed from office. 

Freshmen legislators have vowed to introduce impeachment proceedings against the remaining four justices this year as a purely punitive measure. Republican Gov. Terry Branstad does not support the impeachment drive and it  appears to be a long shot with voters.  Impeachment would not restore traditional marriage. GOP legislators intend to propose a constitutional marriage amendment this year that would bar homosexual unions. The earliest the amendment could become law would be 2013. By then, same-sex unions will have been a reality for almost four years. Voters face the extra burden of denying “marriages” that already exist.

The situation is bleak in Iowa. Yet freshman state senator Kent Sorenson has called the fight against same-sex unions “my generation’s defining moment.”

What magic is there in the rule of six that compels the snowflake to conform so rigidly to its laws? Here is a gem bestrewn realm of nature possessing the charm of mystery, of the unknown, sure richly to reward the investigator. 

These are the words of Wilson A. Bentley, a self-taught Vermont farmer who from early childhood was fascinated by the crystalline structure of snow and was the first person to photograph the snowflake. Born in 1865 and educated by his mother, he taught himself the craft of microphotography so that he could document the snow crystals that fell outside his home in the rural town of Jericho, which typically received about 120 inches of snowfall a year.

Bentley would gather snow on a black wooden tray, removing the excess with a feather duster. He then separated the crystals with the filament of a broom. Having attached a microscope, his only serious piece of scientific equipment, to a bellows camera, he glued the snowflakes to microscopic slides and photographed them inside in an unheated room, with light from a window for illumination. He washed his negatives in a nearby brook. He eventually amassed more than 5,000 microphotographs, starting with his first, made in 1885 when he was 20 years old. They appeared along with his explanatory articles in journals and in a book, Snow Crystals, published the year of his death in 1931. Read More »

THE situation of the woman who is forced to abandon her children, her duties to her husband and her home under pressure from a husband who wants the income she can earn is sad and all too common. This occurs routinely. It is understandable if a family is faced with absolute destitution with no food or roof over their heads. But typically that is not the case. A husband may out-and-out demand that a woman work even though the family can get by with less or he may place constant subtle  pressure on a wife by denying the value of her job at home and never praising or recognizing her work. He may invisibly destroy her morale.

What can a woman do in this situation? Lydia Sherman has excellent advice. She writes: Read More »

READER N. writes:

There are a number of things in the modern church that are appalling, and one of them is applause. I first encountered this back in the 1990s at a friend’s wedding in a Protestant “Bible-church.” Upon completion of the ceremony, the pastor turned to the rest of us and said, “May I present, Mr. and Mrs. R. J.,” which seemed a bit odd, but the burst of applause that greeted this was stunning.

Why is applause in any Christian church heresy? Because applause is a sound that people make in order to send the following message:

“I am pleased with your performance for me.”                     Read More »

KILROY M. writes:

 A commenter at VFR had this to say about the behaviour of people at a solemn ceremony: 

FITZGERALD writes:

I also cringe when I hear the term “headship” used to describe what is natural male leadership in the family and society. To me, this word represents a perversion of the proper role of men which is husbandry.

The natural role of men isn’t dictatorship, but a careful and loving interplay with family and community. The man leads and tends a garden, whether it be wife and children, a congregation, or an entire people. Headship seems to be a misappropriation of terms with far too much emphasis on the wielding of power, and not enough on the cultivation and interplay between the parties. Men are called to be leaders, but “headship” smells of tyranny not leadership. Sadly, when I hear the term headship used it is almost always in the context of some thug of a guy who is pushing his wife and children around in an incoherent and selfish manner. Read More »

THOMAS F. BERTONNEAU writes:

Nick, reviewing the characteristics of women who advertise for mates through Internet matchmaking enterprises, amusingly observes that, “The supreme goal of women my age appears to be to start an NGO in a Third World country.” Read More »

JAMES H. writes:

Every time I hear the term “headship” I cringe. Not that I disagree with the idea (I wouldn’t be at your site were that the case), but that so unartful and clumsy an expression is employed to capture the essence of what you are saying. 

I have an ex-brother-in-law who used to employ “headship” as a battering ram to oppress my wife’s sister. He convinced her to place her entire net worth at his disposal and ultimately in his name in the name of “headship.” He insisted on her disconnecting from her family in the name of “headship.” He objected to her developing friendships outside of those he specifically approved in the name of “headship.” He insisted on building, with her money, an extravagant home including an infinity edge pool in the name of “headship.”  Read More »

NICK writes, in response to this entry:

And so was born The Thinking Housewife Matchmaker Service! I am most grateful, but do not pass the “Christian” requirement. (Which doesn’t mean I wouldn’t still be interested, of course….)

Since I wrote you last, I have decided to sign up for a few online dating sites, mostly out of curiosity. I could not imagine finding a serious mate on, say, OKCupid, but anything is possible. In poring over many hundreds of profiles in the past few days, a few things stand out to me. Read More »

A 1904 artist's impression of Charles Dickens in the shoe polish factory

DRINA writes:

I just wanted to say I enjoyed your post on Oliver Twist. I read the book for the first time when I was substitute teaching sophomore literature a few years ago. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t read it before then, and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. Since then, especially over the last year, I just can’t seem to get enough of Charles Dickens! My favorite so far is David Copperfield. The subplot concerning the old professor and his young wife was just as good as the main plot of Copperfield himself. I’m taking a brief hiatus to read some other things, but one of my goals is to read all of Dickens’ works. Read More »

EXPATRIOT writes:

I’ve long thought that coeducation is one of the major factors behind the dysfunction of the modern world. Just as important as the academic problems it causes are the socio-sexual ones. Read More »

THE TRULY interesting thing about Oliver Twist is that no matter how much brutality and common vulgarity he encounters, his exquisite sensitiveness remains unchanged. This unfortunate bastard is raised under the most heartless of conditions in a parochial poorhouse, sold as an apprentice to an undertaker and then waylaid by a band of thieves, living in London’s “foul and frowsy dens, where vice is closely packed.” Yet through it all, he radiates a persuasive charm, sweetness and innocence. He possesses unshakable innocence. This is why Mr. Brownlow loves him and Mrs. Sowerberry hates him. His vengeful half-brother Monks senses his goodness, which makes Monks all the more determined.

That is the compelling theme of Charles Dickens’ immortal tale: a sensitive creature in a coarse world. A bureacratic world. A thieving world. A world where Mr. Bumble and Noah Claypole feel at home. Oliver’s youthfulness and sensitiveness are such that he cannot assert himself. He can only be good. Who can save him? Will it be great public projects of reform? Will it be new political parties or social movements? In the end, the thing that saves Oliver is other sensitive individuals. Who but Oliver would motivate the martyrdom of a shabby whore?

Nancy has no real reason to give her life for Oliver other than his goodness, which calls to mind her own lost innocence. Though she has been mistreated all her life, though she has lived “in the midst of cold and hunger, and riot and drunkenness,” Nancy is conscious of her own complicity. She is sensitive in a way that is both exalted and doomed, disappointed by her own sins and retaining love for a violent man because it is the only love she has experienced:

“Whether it is God’s wrath for the wrong I have done, I do not know; but I am drawn back to him [Sykes] through every suffering and ill usage; and should be, I believe, if I knew that I was about to die at his hand at last.”

She does die. Much would have been easier if Oliver had been a regular “jolter-headed” juvenile. Who then would have cared to save him from Fagin? Sensitiveness is a misfortune and a gift. Regardless, it is not something chosen. Oliver was born into a whirlwind. Unable to assert himself, he could only follow his own innocence through the shelterless streets of London.

 NICK writes:

I am donating to thank you for your very important work at The Thinking Housewife.

I’m a young, unmarried man (31), so I am beginning to feel the effects of the malaise you so meticulously describe. Meeting a family-oriented woman in the world of “young professionals” (where I find myself) is nigh impossible. Why don’t women want families anymore? What’s so great about that which they would have instead? Read More »