When I hear "Black Lives Matter" I see A World Without Fathers: women (specifically the three founders) unprotected by men (Yes, women and children need protection by men from men who are since the fall lustful, dominating, violating!); women shrill, hysterical, suspicious of men, vulnerable, indignant; women raising boys to be themselves insecure in their virility, hysterical, paranoid of police, agitated and unrestrained; gangs of thugs, without mentoring, imitating a false machismo of violence and cruelty; other men, insecure and indecisive, alienated from their own virility and paternity, deferential to a feminism that is unfeminine; police who are far from perfect themselves but accept the fatherly role of protection, engage the violence of the black/white male underclass and then are themselves slandered as racist and evil; and a pervasive "woke" culture that despises virility and genuine paternity. On Father's Day I recall the prison chaplain who discovered that on Mother's Day all the prisoners (many black) wanted to write to Mom or mother-surrogate (often Grandma) but on Father's Day no one wanted to write. That is a "World without Fathers!"
Violence and Masculinity
"There are always idiots around, guys who just want to throw down; who want to fight; who want to beat someone up. It has nothing to do with skin color. We have all seen that." The three of us nodded in agreement. My namesake nephew was talking about the "systemic white racism" allegation. He is a tender husband and father, but also a man's man: an outstanding athlete, he could pass for a navy seal and is comfortable and confident in a man's world. My other two nephews are much like him. They all grew up in comfortable suburbs, but have mixed well with other ethnic groups over the years. He was affirming what I have been saying nonstop: police work attracts violent, even sadistic and psychopathic, men in a way that has nothing to do with race. But the way he said it illuminated something else. Men are familiar, especially in adolescence and early adulthood, with aggression, violence and combat. We have all seen fist fights and sundry forms of violence, very little of it related to race. Therefore, when we see violence, we see classic male-on-male combat, like the black-on-black kind that kills hundreds every day. Women do not have that experience: physical violence is strange, horrific and unintelligible to them. They do not see the same thing as us. I have a woman friend who likes to say "all wars are fought over food." She has not the slightest understanding of the male world of aggression, violence, and combat.
The Gender War over Black Lives Matter
In my little world...(Aside: it is true that each of us lives in our own little world. However, we vocation and destiny is to expand and transcend such through study, travel, a broad range of friendships, an open heart and an inquisitive mind.)...there is a huge gender gap on this allegation of "systematic white racism." Perhaps 85% of my masculine family and friends reject the idea as false and toxic. Of the remaining, half would attend a protest or mount a BLM sign in their lawns; the other half try to straddle, valuing both blue and black lives, seeing truth on both sides, avoiding a hard, binary true/false decision. Of my women (mostly my family), only about 15% would agree with me. Of the remaining 85%, about half stand with BLM and the other half straddle, remaining open to the allegation without coming down clearly on either side.
Why this gender gap? It appears to me that the 15% of women are largely influenced by their husbands and their leaning into traditional values; while the 15% of men are affected by their wives as well as a pervasive "woke" feminism. It may be helpful to distinguish three dimensions to this gap: the contrasting masculine/feminine psyche; the suspicion of masculinity; and the diminished self-confidence of masculinity.
1. The woman's psyche has more empathy, sensitivity and the impulse to comfort and nurture. It is more inclusive and welcoming. The man by contrast is able to detach and consider dispassionately. He has far more physical aggressiveness. He values distinctions, boundaries, rules, authority, tradition, accountability, strength, and competition. To simplify: the woman loves instinctively, the man seeks truth. Love without truth becomes sentimentality; truth without love is oppressive. Men like to argue intellectually: they value precision and clarity and enjoy the agonistic intensity of debate. And so, it is understandable that my women-folk, impulsively compassionate, welcoming and inclusive will sympathize with the suffering of the blacks and maintain an intellectual openness; but my men-folk will more soberly study the complexity of the tragedy.
2. The suspicion of masculinity is the scourge of our society. It is understandable: we lack strong, gentle father figures. The critical mass of our men are thugs or wimps. Suspicion of men is the heart and soul of Black Lives Matter. In my circle, this takes a softer form: our women love their husbands/sons/brothers as they favor the gentle side of virility and distrust the military, businessmen, and evangelical preachers. They hate Republicans. They despise the harder aspects of masculinity such as combat, authority, accountability.
3. Our men have lost confidence in their own virility as paternity and so we have a culture bereft of fatherhood. There are many causes for this. The contraceptive-sexual revolution freed sex from paternity and opened the door to lust without consequences. The birth control pill might be called the "anti-father pill;" and abortion as back-up contraception is the fall-back position of the Anti-Father who kills his child to protect his promiscuity. A hard feminism has attacked the very idea of "masculinity" and "paternity" and redefined "patriarchy" as the oppressive power of the male over the female. This blending into androgyny has entirely deconstructed virility and eliminated the necessary itinerary of formation for men and left our 30-year-olds as perpetual teenagers.
The Moderate, Neutral, Reconciling Position?
As mentioned, many women and a few men in my circles neither accept nor reject the "systemic white racism" allegation. They are agnostic: I don't really know! This is a wholesome position in several ways:
- It is humble: I don't see it in my world but I can't rule it out in other areas and across the culture.
- It is open to a variety of viewpoints: on the one hand....; but on the other hand....
- It looks to reconcile: to affirm the feelings and views of those who are oppressed as well as the police and those on the other side: blue and black lives both matter.
I myself may have positioned myself there when I was in my 20s, 30s, even 40s. But at this point, at the age of 72, having searched for "systemic racism" for my entire life and not found it, I must say it is not there. But it is more than that. What I see is that the allegation is not just false, but viciously destructive: it slanders the police with catastrophic consequences; it emasculates the young black, identifying him as an impotent victim of the system, vulnerable at all times to an overwhelming white racism.
If I am pulled over by a trooper for doing 80 in a 65 I know I broke the law; I brace myself to be meek, respectful, cooperative and contrite, hoping he will at least reduce my ticket to a $200 no-seat-belt or broken-signal-light rather than a fine with points on my insurance. If a black youth is pulled over in the "Black Lives Matter" world, he may blank on the fact that he was speeding; he will think he is being picked on because he is black; he may get testy, indignant, resistant; worst case scenario, especially if he is high or drunk, he may resist, initiate a struggle, reach for gun or tazer and provoke a life-or-death struggle. What caused this: the deliberate intention of the trooper to harass blacks? Unlikely! The "BLM" narrative drummed into his head by 20 viewings of the horrific George Floyd video? Very likely!
And so, the moderating, neutral position is valid as a temporary, learning pattern. But it is a binary reality that calls out for a Yes/No answers. Most moral, life questions are thus: Will you marry me? Is he dead? Am I pregnant? Can women become priests? Is abortion or contraception or co-habitation or homo-sex ok? Should we go declare war? Is he guilty? Do we arrest him? In real war, there is no neutrality. When Pearl Harbor was bombed, we had two choices: go to war or cede Asia and the Pacific to Japan and Europe to Hitler. A pacifist position is not neutral: it favors Japan and Hitler. Eventually, a living, thinking, engaged heart and intellect has to decide: BLM: good idea or bad idea?
A Non-Violent, Feminized World?
When I walked the Camino to Santiago I took very little reading material but decided to read those parts of the Bible we "systemically" ignore: most of Numbers, Deuteronomy, Leviticus in particular. What I found was blood, violence and sacrifice. At the same time, I observed ancient statues and art work full of blood, battle and violence: Old Testament scenes, memorials of the 'Reconquista" and remembrance of the horrific civil war of the 1930s. I realized that our culture had been largely scrubbed of violence. But then I wondered: was it really cleaned away or just hidden? The holocaust of the unborn is an unspeakable genocide but entirely hidden from sight. We have sequestered the bleeding and violated away: into nursing homes, prisons, boarding homes, group homes. The real violence, of the underclass both white and black, is engaged by our police. I don't have to protect my home because I can call the cops. We have placards like "War is Not Working" as if we could sit down, talk things over, and do away with the military. We blame the police and military for violence when they are the ones who protect us from it. I confess: I took malicious delectation in the explosion of the Middle East into violence during the Obama years. He took office, brimming with "hope and change" and confident that his philo-Islamic, reasonable, calm and reconciling approach would bring peace to that turbulent part of the world. The opposite happened: in his time, the place went red with blood and violence. It is not that he caused it; but it is blatantly obvious that his soft, reasoned approach is impotent in the face of virulent, irrepressible violence. The liberal myth that violence there is caused by the oil-lust and aggressiveness of Bush-Cheny-and-crowd was proven false. If the USA disappeared from the earth tomorrow, the Sunnis, Shia, Jews, Jihadists, and corrupt Saudis would keep killing each other until the Lord returns in glory.
In the Church this emasculated, scrubbed-of-blood-and-violence approach is evident in the liturgical theology since Vatican II. We no longer have the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, with graphic awareness of Calvary, the blood flowing, the body broken and tortured. We no longer have kneeling in reverence and silence; the confession of sin and reparation. We have happiness, friendship, hugs, gaiety. The catechetical literature compares it to a birthday party. Underlies it is a spirituality bereft of masculine combat, violence, sacrifice, suffering, and heroism. No wonder men don't want to go to Church!
Sam Harris on Police Violence
A leading atheist, Sam Harris is not one I would normally look to for guidance. But in an outstanding podcast on police violence (https://samharris.org/can-pull-back-brink/) he draws from his martial arts experience to give a realistic picture of police violence. He stresses that our violence is transferred to the police who absorb and engage it, if not always perfectly. He summarizes the data that show that, given crime statistics, police are favorable to black criminals; and that black and Hispanic cops are worse to black youths. Most significantly, he sees that any resistance to arrest, given that a gun is involved, becomes immediately a life-or-death struggle. Should the resister get the gun, the life of the police and others are endangered. The same goes for the tazer which can incapacitate and allow the cop to be beat to death. A real life-or-death struggle places one in a zone of violence; adrenaline flows; rational deliberation is disallowed; and the only concern is survival through triumph. It is similar to temporary insanity due to psychosis, rage, profound anxiety or depression. Most women that I know have not been in a life-or-death struggle. If they have been attacked or raped it is probable that it was not a struggle as they were vastly overwhelmed and understandably paralyzed by hysteria. This is certainly not to argue that an 8+minute knee on the neck or a shooting-in-the-back is justifiable. It is not! But, to understand an act we need to put it into context. Resistance to arrest leads to life-or-death struggle leads to a different place, a place unintelligible to women but intuitively obvious to anyone who grew up in a man's (violent) world.
The Obligatory Trump Rant
I was distracted in the Harris explication by his Trump Rant. I agree fully that our President has made things worse; that he is an idiocy, a dysfunction, an immorality, and a catastrophe. I cannot vote for him for a litany of reasons. But the problem with Trump Derangement Syndrome is:
- It distracts from the problem. Black Lives Matter is about "systemic white racism" not about Trump.
- It plays into his agenda: as a narcissist he craves all the attention; if he can't be adored, he wants to be despised.
- It implies that he is worse than the alternative: very problematic assertion!
- It is itself a symptom of diminished virility. In no way does this vile man detract from my own paternity, my virility, my protection of and provision for those I love, my purity-humility-courage, my heroism and self-sacrifice, and my reflection of the strong-but-gentle love of our heavenly Father. The compulsive whining about Trump is another symptom of a world lacking in fatherly strength, sobriety and calm.
For Father's Day
I intend
- to commend myself to serenity, sobriety, confidence, quiet, restrain.
- to speak clearly and calmly, including in this blog, the Truth as it has presented itself to me.
- to detach from the mania, insanity, rage and hysteria that is sweeping our culture, on left and right.
- to draw close to our heavenly Father, Jesus his Son, in the Holy Spirit, in prayer.
- to keep myself under our Lady's mantle of holiness, purity, beauty and love.
- to support and be supported by my community of faith, friendship and love.
- to open my heart to others: those who suffer; those who disagree with me; those who don't like me.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment