THOMAS BERTONNEAU, in an excellent essay at The Orthosphere, defines scientism for his university students. Scientism, he explains, is a captivating narrative, viewed as absolute, unquestionable truth by its adherents. Though it sees itself as an enemy of superstition, scientism is beset with superstitions of its own. Bertonneau writes:

Like any ideology, scientism always perceives itself as threatened by its enemy, “superstition.” It can never rest on its laurels but always sees devils popping up in the garden of its utopia. (more…)

AT The Orthosphere, Bonald briefly considers the liberal belief that to identify with one’s own ethnic group or race is to hate others. He writes: (more…)

ENACTED 40 years ago, Title IX has institutionalized sex discrimination in college sports, requiring colleges to kill male athletic teams in the pursuit of equality. The federal government has done everything possible to make women into gladiators and men into couch potatoes. But there is one thing Title IX can’t do. It can’t force fans to like women’s sports.

Megan Greenwell, a character in an Evelyn Waugh novel, oops, I mean, a blogger at Good News, says fans are not doing their share:

Supporting Title IX’s ideals requires supporting women’s sports at all levels. Too many soccer fans were content to celebrate Brandi Chastain’s and Hope Solo’s accomplishments on the international stage but not at home. Too many basketball fans condemn the women’s game as “boring” without ever having attended a game. [emphasis added]

People who have never been to a women’s soccer game should be sent to labor camps.

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IN THE latest post on immodesty, a college professor agrees with my position that feminism and a hypersexualized environment have robbed many well-intentioned women of basic common sense.

J.N. writes:

I don’t doubt that some women dress immodestly out of aggressiveness, but I agree that most women probably do so out of lack of awareness.  This happens because feminist social opprobrium and sexual harassment law have prevented the natural male response to immodest dress from occurring. Young women think they are merely being “pretty” because they are no longer exposed to what really goes on in a man’s mind. (more…)

JESSE POWELL writes:

What has been the most enduring hallmark of the rise of women in the public sphere and the attendant deterioration of the private sphere? It is the greater propensity of women to work for monetary compensation. Ever since 1870, when data collection on this subject began, women have worked for money more and more with each passing decade.

Things changed, however, in the year 2000, more precisely in April 2000; that month marked the high water mark of women’s workforce participation. Among all women, 25 to 54 years old, 77.3 percent were in the Labor Force in April 2000; the equivalent ratio for men for that month was 91.7 percent. (These data come from the Current Population Survey; Current Population Survey data on labor force participation tends to be a bit higher than data given by the Census.)

The first available data on women’s labor force participation comes from the 1870 Census. In 1870, 13.1 percent of all females over the age of 10 worked; that proportion rose to 14.7 percent in 1880 and 17.0 percent in 1890. Looking at females aged 16 and over 16.0 percent worked in 1880, 18.6 percent (estimated) worked in 1890, and 20.6 percent worked in 1900. (more…)

I WAS MONTY’S DOUBLE, a British movie made in 1958 and directed by John Guillermin, is the story of a mostly unsuccessful military actor commissioned to impersonate General Bernard Montgomery during World War II. Meyrick Clifton James, the actor, plays himself in the movie and he is outstanding. It’s a truly remarkable performance. From a 2010 piece in The Australian:

IN 1944 a washed-up Australian actor named Meyrick Clifton James experienced one of the oddest career revivals in history.

James was not a great actor. He could neither sing nor dance, and he had lost a finger in the trenches during World War I. When war broke out again he volunteered to entertain the troops, winding up in Leicester, in the Army Pay Corps Variety Troupe. With his thin face and grey moustache he could do a remarkable impersonation of the top British soldier, Bernard Montgomery.

On the eve of D-Day the failed actor was plucked from obscurity to play the starring role in one of the war’s most melodramatic deception: as Monty’s double.

Here is a clip at Turner Classic Movies. The movie also stars one of the most hardworking British movie actors of all time, John Mills.

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DIANA writes:

Would that I had read James Bowman’s perceptive review of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. I would have saved myself and a friend $6 a piece, and spent the morning in the beauties of nature rather than the tedium of a witless British “comedy.”

Mr. Bowman nails the movie’s disrespect towards both its British and Indian characters. I will write more to you about this film when my temper has cooled. For now, I feel cheated. A waste of a stellar cast.

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APRIL writes:

I’ve been following the conversations on your site about women dressing immodestly, (here, here, here, and here) and something you’ve repeated throughout these posts gives me pause every time I come across it. In regards to the power women have over men in the way they dress, you insist that women “are ignorant of their own aggressive instincts” and that “most women are clueless about this. They are not consciously aggressive.” (more…)

MUCH HAS been made in history books of the contributions of “Rosie the Riveter,” the female armaments worker who kept the factories going during World War II. Feminists often suggest that women so loved working in factories that they never wanted to return home. Rosie the Riveter is a symbol of female liberation. Anything, even welding sheets of metal, is of course preferable to running a home.

However, look at this charming picture of a female drill operator in 1942. There is nothing masculine about her. She feels no need to dress like a man or — even to hold a drill like a man. (Good grief, I hope she survived the war with two hands.) She looks serious and dedicated — and utterly out of place. Most of all, she is not puffed up with some imaginary inflation of her job. When the war was over, I bet she never picked up a drill again.

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HERE’S a previous thread at VFR on the subject, discussed here many times, of the near-nakedness of women’s fashions. Lawrence Auster wrote in 2008:

The way many women dress today, with half their breasts exposed, is an expression of total disrespect for men. Men are left with three possible responses. To grab the woman, which is illegal; to ogle the woman, which is socially unacceptable; or to affect not to notice the woman at all, which is emasculating. A culture that normalizes such female behavior—i.e. not only not noticing or objecting to it, but prohibiting any objection to it—is extremely sick. (more…)

A READER from Northern Ireland writes:

How much time do you give your readers who wish to comment on your articles, as the comment line seems to close very quickly? (more…)

DIANA writes:

Oscar Wilde was a horrible man, and I always feel bad quoting him.

But as regards fashion, he was dead on target: “Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable we must alter it every six months.”

I totally agree that tart fashion is a form of aggression, however unconscious on the part of women – some women. (There are women who are completely aware of this.) A normal guy, being exposed to this provocation, has to ignore the provocation. This is a form of emasculation. The process starts at adolescence. No wonder we have so many messed up young guys. (more…)

JOSEPH S. writes:

Thank you for all the good work you are doing on your blog.

My own Mother stayed at home to raise me and my five siblings. She is highly intelligent and, if she had been so inclined, I am sure that she could have had a career and even achieved what the world considers success. (more…)

BUCK writes:

We  need tart reform.

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