THOMAS F. BERTONNEAU writes: I have not seen Eat Pray Love and have no plans to see it. (I’m pretty sure I’d rather be water-boarded.) I am simply commenting on the “still” from the movie posted in the recent entry. “Narcissism” is technically the right word for designating the psychological state that generates this image – of how people who think of themselves as “cool,” “sophisticated,” and “deeply spiritual” want to be seen – but by itself it is too clinical to do justice to the jejuneness of the mise-en-scène. Notice how Roberts and her actor-partner Javier Bardem are central to the tableau. The tableau itself is non-Western; it looks vaguely Indian or Ceylonese, but in a thoroughly scrubbed-up way. It is, in other words, nothing but a decorative scrim whose purpose is to set the mutual fixation of the two “stars” in an exotic (really, a faux exotic) context. Now consider the fixation, as such. Neither party is smiling, which one would expect if they were contemplating one another in a pitch of romantic emotion. So what exactly does the mutual absorption signify? I borrow a few ideas from René Girard, the world’s leading theoretician of narcissism, coquetry, self-involvement, and resentment. Roberts is looking at Bardem looking at her, and vice versa. Both are therefore looking at themselves, each using the other as a mirror. (This is the etymological narcissism: Narcissus glimpsed his reflection in a lily-pond and…

  IN A SURVEY of 3,000 employees in Britain, 63 percent of the women and 75 percent of the men agreed that men make the better workplace bosses. Given the climate of liberal indoctrination, and how much women ostensibly have to lose from admitting they prefer male bosses, these numbers are striking. Other surveys have come up with similar results, as is mentioned in Steve Moxon's book The Woman Racket. There are good women bosses, of course, but overall women take office politics more personally; they are less straight-forward than men and more emotional. They tend to find decision making and authoritative action stressful, which is why some become raging shrews in positions of command. This is natural. Women are pacifists, not warriors. The interpersonal approach of women generally does not lend itself to leadership. Women are made to nurture, not command.

IN THE DISCUSSIONS this week about a man who said it was difficult to find a woman who didn’t already have a child by another man, I answered that I thought it might be possible for him to find a decent wife who was a single mother. However, in the heat of the conversation I failed to clarify one aspect of my position. I don’t think a woman who has refused to marry the father of her child, as Bristol Palin has done, or who has divorced the father of her child fits into the category of suitable prospects.

In years past, men who did not want to marry the women they impregnated were compelled to, largely by other men. That is no longer the case. Naturally, I don’t view marriage to single mothers as an answer to the cultural dilemma of men. There is no answer to their cultural dilemma that falls short of the restoration of patriarchal values, the return to traditional sex roles, and the end of the sexual revolution. 

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    LOU LUMENICK writes in The New York Post about the new movie based on Elizabeth Gilbert's paean to female narcissism: A year-long, around-the-world quest for self-fulfillment that basically goes nowhere, Eat Pray Love is a very shallow, very glossy 2½-hour travelogue starring a miscast Julia Roberts as a spoiled, self-centered divorcée who decides to get away from it all. Though it’s based on a hugely popular, Oprah-endorsed memoir by Elizabeth Gilbert, there’s little in the script or in Roberts’ wrongheaded Big Movie Star Performance to explain why, in the space of six months, Elizabeth dumps both her husband of a decade (Billy Crudup) and a younger actor/yogi (James Franco), both of whom adore her. Most likely she’s bored, a sentiment that will likely be felt most acutely by guys dragged to see this overproduced, self-congratulatory collage of New Age-y clichés.  

  HERE'S a video of the Victory over Japan celebration in Honolulu on August 14, 1945. There's no burning cars or looting, just joy and sailors cruising through the beautiful streets of downtown Waikiki before they were transformed by high-rise towers and designer boutiques.

READER N. writes:

The discussion of unmarried women and their children has been interesting. But in the real world, yet another powerful woman, Jennifer Aniston, has yet again declared fathers to be totally unnecessary. I’ve heard this notion for so many years, that I no longer notice it, so when this interview was given I just ignored it, until someone brought it to my attention. You may or may not find it useful.

Excerpt:

“”Women are realizing it more and more knowing that they don’t have to settle with a man just to have that child,” Aniston, 41, said. “Times have changed and that is also what is amazing is that we do have so many options these days, as opposed to our parents’ days when you can’t have children because you have waited too long.” (more…)

  IN THIS entry, Alan Roebuck writes: We need conservative evangelism, which delivers the bad news that people are lost and society is crumbling because of the false and destructive system of liberalism, along with the good news that liberalism is false, that human life does make sense, and that there is a better system in which the individual can participate. We are calling people like Asher to repent. This does not mean "instantaneously stop thinking and acting like a lost liberal." As the Greek word of which the New Testament word "repent" is a translation ("metanoia"), repenting of liberalism means to acknowledge that one has oriented his mind and soul toward a false and evil system and to turn one's inner orientation away from liberalism and toward conservative truths. And by calling on him to repent we are not superciliously condemning him. We are calling on him to get saved.

AS I HAVE SAID before, pizza is the Fix-a-Flat of foodstuffs and the gastrointestinal equivalent of fiberglass insulation blown into crawlspaces. People shove it in to fill the void. Here is a great idea for a pizza utensil. It’s a personal rotating saw for cutting through glutenous board and rubber cheese.

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THE discussion about whether a bachelor should marry a single mother continues in several of the foregoing entries. In this entry, I write something which I have stated before and that is important to keep in mind regarding illegitimacy.  Unwed mothers in a healthy society do not receive any financial support from the government, and that is the way it should be in our world. No woman who has had a child without marrying should be supported by the government, and her children should not be supported by the government.  Unwed mothers also should not be entitled to government-mandated child support from men to whom they are not married.

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IN THIS entry, Ilion Troas wrote:

Further, consider fairytales — the “evil stepmother” is a stock character, but there is no “evil stepfather” stock character. I think the reason for that is that men are self-sacrificing, and that they tend to love their stepchildren as fully as they love the children of their body. That is, when a man chooses to love and marry a woman, when he chooses to live the life of giving his life for that woman — in contrast to choosing to use women as masturbation machines, as ‘Asher’ clearly has chosen to do — then he also chooses to love and give his life for her children. 

Now, I will admit that, all things being equal, I’d prefer to marry a woman without children than one with. But, how often are all things equal? (more…)

LAWRENCE AUSTER makes disrespectful remarks about the recent wedding of Rush Limbaugh and his third, I mean, fourth wife. The photos have finally been released (Congrats, Rush!!! Congrats, Kathryn!!!!) and they depict the sort of soulful and triumphal celebration of conjugal love one might expect from someone who likes marriage so much he tries it four times. (Congrats, Rush!!! Congrats, Kathryn!!!!)  Only a grump would deny this lovely couple their day. I particularly liked the modest floral arrangements, reminiscent of Rome at its height of decay, and was moved by the solemnity of the guests and the preacher, which bodes well for this sacred match and the perpetuation of family values in America. (more…)

MICHELLE BELL writes:

I think Charles and Kristor have touched upon this idea with regards to Asher’s statements in “Disillusionment and Marriage“, but I wanted to expand upon it from a woman’s point of view.  I had an opportunity to chat with my grandmother earlier today about some family history to make sure I had gotten it right, and it seems to have pertinence to this discussion.

During the war (World War II), my grandmother and her sister were married.  My grandmother had just gotten married to her high school sweetheart before he shipped off and had gotten pregnant the week following her wedding with my eldest aunt.  Her sister had several children with her high school sweetheart.  (We’re an Irish Catholic family and her parents and the in-laws had all come from Ireland to settle in the land of opportunity, so babies were in abundance).  My grandmother’s husband came back, her sister’s husband didn’t.  (more…)

YOUNGFOGEY writes:

The incoherence of Asher’s original comment has already been pointed out by others, so I will forego that.

When I read his comments, I couldn’t help but think of a guy who had a crush on some girl as a teenager and found her pregnant by some other dude. What clearer sign of rejection can there be than undeniable evidence that this girl wasn’t against the idea of having sex, she was just against the idea of having sex with him. I don’t deny that such an experience would be very painful. It would be. Indeed, it might be painful enough to cause a man to engage in casual sex with multiple women as revenge and to adopt a worldview that allows him to dismiss women he perceives as similar to those who rejected him. This is what Charles and Kristor are picking up on and labeling “whining.”

The worst part of the men’s rights movement is that much of it promotes this kind of whining. It also promotes the idea that we’ve seen here again and again that men have a natural inclination against raising a child they did not sire that is so strong they cannot overcome it. This is just flat stupid. I wouldn’t deny that indeed there will be problems in that scenario that have to be addressed, but that is what a man does. He addresses problems. The truth is that any child I live with and provide for, whose trust and devotion I earn, who respects and obeys me is “mine.”

By encouraging men to shirk responsibility in the ways it does, the men’s movement keeps many men immature. This will not work in the long run. If men want to see a return to patriarchy, they have to act like patriarchs.

Laura writes:

This reminds me of the previous entries here about fatherless children gravitating toward men who are strangers and lapping up any attention they can find from men. Children adore their fathers. And, their fathers, in the most meaningful sense, are the men who care for them.

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NEWT GINGRICH, who is scoring well in early polls on 2012 Presidential contenders, says this in an interesting interview with John H. Richardson of Esquire:

There’s a large part of me that’s four years old. I wake up in the morning and I know that somewhere there’s a cookie. I don’t know where it is but I know it’s mine and I have to go find it. That’s how I live my life. My life is amazingly filled with fun.

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ASHER writes, in regard to the recent entry on the culture war:

After becoming disillusioned with the feeling that the three of us, me, you and Alan Roebuck, were talking past each other I decided to take a step back and personalize this conversation. The reason this is necessary is that the traditionalists, such as you, are presenting nothing to men like myself that addresses our own personal circumstances. In personalizing this conversation I would submit my formative political experience, which occurred over a period of two to three years around the age of twenty. (more…)

THE READER David K. attended the same college as Rachel Held Evans, author of Evolving in Monkey Town and a recent guest columnist for the religion section (so they call it) of The Washington Post. David sent a letter to Mrs. Held Evans in response to her piece.

He wrote:

Dear Ms. Rachel Held Evans,

Wow. You know you’re doing the right things when you grace the pages of The Washington Post religion section.

It certainly took a lot of guts to expose the underbelly of evangelicalism and to take on such names as William Jennings Bryan and his ilk. Also taking the opposite view of your parents and church and broadcasting that to the world? Well, you certainly deserve all the social approbation and results that such a maneuver warrants. (more…)

NATASSIA writes:

Although it has a catchy tune (I’m 26, so please excuse my poor taste), the fact that this song with these lyrics was Number One on the Billboard charts is depressing:
 
Love The Way You Lie by Rihanna and Eminem (I’ve highlighted the most atrocious parts):
 
Just gonna stand there
And watch me burn
But that’s all right
Because I like
The way it hurts
Just gonna stand there
And hear me cry
But that’s alright
Because I love
The way you lie
I Love the way you lie (more…)