MARTIANUS CAPELLA writes:

And eternal be their memory–the liberal arts colleges died long ago. Within most of those colleges which dub themselves “liberal arts colleges,” not a single administrator or professor knows what the liberal arts are nor why they ever were. The liberal arts curriculum was designed by theologians of the Middle Ages to train the “free” (liberal) man in the pursuit of knowledge in grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. When I attended a “small, prestigious liberal arts college” at the start of the 1980’s, none of my classmates received a liberal arts education, rather, each learned a trade–in fact, each received an illiberal arts education, one pursued for economic purposes. I, too, learned a trade: physics. I studied no history except The History of Science.  (more…)

  KEVIN FRY, of Scenic America, laments the eye-blistering ugliness of America in this video, which is three years old but as fresh as when it was first made: "There's not a single chance to interact with another human being when coming to this environment," he says, referring to a large box store. "There's a difference ... between building a place for cars and a place for people." But perhaps H.L. Mencken was right when he said Americans have a lust for ugliness. Maybe they actually like it. I only know that being a housewife in America means consigning oneself to retail purgatory, to hours in sterile and soulless aisles and parking lots that are as charmless as the surface of the moon. My favorite line of Fry's is: "There's no serendipity anymore."    

  THE AUTHOR of Throne and Altar writes in response to recent posts here about Catholicism and feminism: [T]he true Catholic social doctrine, as expressed clearly from Pope Leo XIII to Pope Piux XII, has exactly one principle, and it is simple and clear. That principle is patriarchy. More precisely, the guiding principle of Catholic social thought is this, that a man should be the sole provider for his family. In a follow-up post, he considers cases in which he believes this ideal does not apply: extreme economic necessity, families that run farms and joint businesses, and women who have a unique calling.

  CAMILLE PAGLIA writes that middle class values are killing eroticism and romance. Writing in The New York Times, Paglia says middle class propriety is behind the stifling regime of postmodern androgyny. Although she makes some excellent points, I don't agree with her thesis. It's true that androgyny is a natural sex suppressant, in the same way cages suppress desire in animals, but it's not middle class values that have encouraged confusion in sex roles unless one considers "middle class values" to be inherently immoral and materialistic. To the contrary, middle class women have followed the lead of their higher ranking counterparts, the Gloria Steinems and Katie Courics of the world, into a life that makes them masters of their men and asexual careerists. It's not middle class values that are the problem but the intoxicating drug of ideology. To Paglia, it's "Down with the bourgeoisie! They never knew how to enjoy sex anyway."

AT HIS site, Gary North offers an intriguing thesis for why American neighborhoods are less close-knit than they once were. He writes:

 What ever happened to the social phenomenon known as “neighbor”? It moved out of the neighborhood sometime around 1960.

If I were to blame a single factor, it would be government-subsidized mortgages. When the Federal government created insurance for depositors in savings & loans, it subsidized the destruction of community. When people could afford to move up, for 20% down, they did. They moved out in order to move up.

The ultimate carry trade — borrowed short and lent long — has undermined modern society. The subprime mortgage crisis is the latest installment of the housing market’s carry trade. The undermining of community is still going on.

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  HERE is an interesting list of ten college majors that are gradually being phased out at colleges and universities. They include philosophy, foreign language study, the classics and humanities programs. The problem isn't that no one wants to study these things anymore, or at least that's not the only problem. The truth is, they have become too expensive to study and employers don't place a premium on these areas except with Ivy League graduates.  Furthermore, with advances in technology, it is possible to learn these subjects at a much lower price from some of the greatest scholars in the world. Is the traditional liberal arts college doomed? Perhaps not entirely, but it will be a rarer and more exclusive phenomenon. Today, it seems only irreplaceable for one thing and that is, to bring together people of similar interests and intelligence so that they can get married. The liberal arts college is now the most expensive marriage brokerage in the world.

THE AIM of public education is an impersonal society. That’s why, in a hundred obvious and hidden ways, mass education stands in the way of childhood friendship. It shifts children around purposefully, so that they never spend time with the same people for long, so that both friendship and feuds are thwarted. It breaks up the school years into unnatural divisions, in elementary schools, middle schools and high schools, to keep people from settling into deep and longstanding bonds, whether of enmity or love. Casual and superficial good will to all is the desired social objective.

To this end, there are now programs explicitly devoted to keeping children from having best friends. According to The New York Times:

[I]ncreasingly, some educators and other professionals who work with children are asking a question that might surprise their parents: Should a child really have a best friend?

Most children naturally seek close friends. In a survey of nearly 3,000 Americans ages 8 to 24 conducted last year by Harris Interactive, 94 percent said they had at least one close friend. But the classic best-friend bond — the two special pals who share secrets and exploits, who gravitate to each other on the playground and who head out the door together every day after school — signals potential trouble for school officials intent on discouraging anything that hints of exclusivity, in part because of concerns about cliques and bullying. (more…)

KIT WRITES:

I was browsing your blog and wow, let me say, I am really blown away by some of your methods of arguing. Is it really fair to attempt to statistically criticize anything that fails to support your worldview (more…)

ON THE FACE of it, maternal desire seems a wholly good thing. The powerful drive to bear and nurture children is basic to our collective survival and elevates the individual above common self-interest. How much good has been accomplished by the loving mother? The sum is incalculable.

But, on closer scrutiny, especially in light of recent developments, maternal desire is like other human desires, such as the drive for sex or money or love. It can be good but it can also be greedy and promiscuous. A woman who wants a child no matter what – even if that child will never know his father and even if she is not married – takes maternal desire to an unreasonable extreme. She may be a nurturing mother for the children she bears. She may sacrifice herself for years to raise them well and her children may praise her for what she has done, but the egotism and maternal lust remain and this negatively affects them, indeed altering their entire existence.

This is hard news because maternal desire can be an overwhelming psychological reality, as intense and ever present as the desire for sex. It can crush a woman. It can rear its head in the dark hours of the night, like a masked phantom tearing at her soul. If she is approaching the end of her fertile years, if she has had no success with men or if she has entered the close-knit subculture of lesbianism, perhaps before she knew what this awful desire was, it may induce irrational panic and desperation. It takes strength of character for a woman to overcome the unrequited yearning for children. (more…)

A READER WRITES:

Going out and finding a boyfriend, getting married, having children are all things that are looked down upon by corporate America. It’s disheartening. I worked in an accounting department for a Fortune 500 company when I became pregnant with my second child and was indirectly told that I should get an abortion if I wanted to keep my job. My manager asked how far along I was and when I told her I was 9 weeks along SHE (yes, SHE) told me that I had some decisions to make. (more…)

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AS GOVERNMENT budgets grow tighter in Europe, and as numerous countries adopt austerity plans, expect to see more angry demonstrations like this recent one in Italy. Women make up as much as two-thirds of the public sector workforce in many countries. 

The figures for female government employment are 54 percent in Italy, 64 percent in Ireland, 60 percent in Australia and 64 percent in Germany.

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IN RESPONSE to a recent Wall Street Journal article, which looks at the psychological difficulties of children of anonymous sperm donors, a woman wrote this letter to the editor: 

Regarding W. Bradford Wilcox’s “Daddy Was Only a Donor” (Taste, June 18): Although I agree that “old-fashioned” parenthood is still the best choice if possible, for many of us that isn’t an option. As a woman who has never found the “perfect mate,” I had the choice of no kids or donor kids, and I chose the donor route. It was the best decision of my life, and I think my boys would agree that they’re happy to be here.  (more…)

  THE PORTLAND woman who says Al Gore violently groped her in a hotel room in 2006 also states that she found it unpleasant to tell her friends about the incident. When she told them what had happened, these friends, who had voted for Gore, "didn't necessarily support her." In all likelihood, this story will never be confirmed. But it seems the woman involved had little to gain from coming forward with her account. [Note: This is not true. The New York Daily news reports that she asked the National Enquirer for $1 million to tell her story.]

JOHN E. writes:

In the previous entry, your commenter John wrote: 

The “new feminism” of JPII is destructive of marriages, families, and souls, not so much because of what he said, but of what he didn’t say.

I agree with John, and add that what seems to be lacking in the two documents you referred to by JPII is an even-handed perspective on human relationships. I don’t think there is anything asserted in Mulieris Dignitatem that is blatantly false (it is even difficult to make that assertion of the Letter to Women), but, as John said, the things that are not said hinder one’s perspective in understanding the truth of the good and evil of which all humans, men and women, are capable. (more…)

KATIE COURIC interviews Gloria Steinem on CBS on The Atlantic Monthly’s recent piece “The End of Men.” The women agree that the title of this piece is misleading. Men are still men and women have a long way to go to overcome the evils of patriarchy.

“We’ve been much too nice,” said Steinem.

This is a mind-numbingly boring interview that recounts 50 years of feminist doctrine and grievances. Steinem, who travels around the country still spreading her message and apparently lives in a buried time capsule, found the title of the article offensive and “stupid” because the point of feminism is equality and not female domination. Therefore women should not talk about or celebrate the demise of masculinity. That’s tasteless. Nevertheless, women should work to bring about an end to masculinity. “Men raising children is crucial in every area because it shapes our idea that men can be nurturing and women can be knowledgeable and in authority,” she said. Men “are doing more than their fathers but they’re not doing anywhere near enough.” (more…)