Is it too late? That is a question I ponder often. After that, I keep wondering how these attitudes became so pervasive. I suppose they have always been there, but it has finally all come to a head with this plandemic. I resisted the idea of a plandemic for awhile, but it seems increasingly plausible at this point.
I was a student in a French university for a year in 1973-74. I became fascinated with what I observed in the French society at that time, and I was only 24, fresh from a California university in which the women's lib movement was gathering steam. As a woman, I was already unable to connect with any of the women's movement claims and found the whole thing disingenuous and annoying, and none of the wailing oppressions these rather obnoxious, strident women constantly yelled about were true in my own life so I've always viewed "feminism" through a pretty negative lens. I saw less of that new "feminist" movement in France in 1973, but I did notice a number of curiosities that I've never forgotten. One example was when a French person explained the pricing system in local cafés: the cheapest price for coffee was for a local French person. It cost more for a non-local French person. Next higher price was for foreign tourists. But the most expensive coffee was for the Algerians, who were numerous in the south of France at that time, the low wage workers. As it turns out, the French were (are?) quite racist even though they and many other Europeans at the time kept claiming "You Americans are so racist!" (with the pointed implication that "we French are not like that".) Another oddity was what I noticed with the numerous Chinese students at the university, more specifically with the Chinese women. This was the era of Mao, and everyone male or female wore a gray uniform, the same almost military style outfit, same gray color. But the women apparently had a desire for something decorative and unique to them that they wanted to express: each Chinese woman wore a neck scarf, each one had a different very bright color against all that gray. When I visited China in 1980, I didn't see this "individuality", so it was likely unique to being in a country outside of China and having for the first time an opportunity to stand out a tiny bit as an individual, that desire had not entirely been driven out of them. Another worrisome thing I noticed was in one of my classes. I came to a particular class (which as I remember was some sort of political science type class) with my typical Western orientation of education: I chose a topic and then supported my thesis through various other scholars' statements or discoveries. To my great surprise, the teacher did not want to read or consider such a paper. Rather, she ONLY wanted to read what the "experts" said, and I should keep my own ideas entirely out of it. Just take a topic and regurgitate what others had said about it. Period. This was very eye opening, and although I was still very young and inexperienced, I was shocked by the attitude, which I considered stifling as well as puzzling. For the first time, I was seeing a major contrast in the thoughts and freedoms allowed in France vs. in the U.S. France was a free country of course, but it certainly seemed far less so than the U.S., which I suddenly saw as happily open to new ideas.
In 1973, the French were very polarized politically as Valéry Giscard d'Estaing was running for President against the socialist François Mitterand (Giscard d'Estaing barely squeaked by with a vote of just 50.8%), but as I look back on things, there were some similarities with what I saw politically back then with what I am seeing now in the U.S. It wasn't pleasant.
Culture develops in a "place" and it the practices become so common that the practicing population soon loses the self-awareness that they are actually culturally unique. And so their words convey a great hypocrisy compared to their actions.
Ironically the fundamental design of the US Great Experiment derives from French progressive thinking. France and Italy, for example, are of course older cultures... and they seem to have mostly accepted a certain level of bias as normal and natural. I hope that is our trajectory too... that we flail about with this whitecoated "The Giver" plot attempt until enough of use wake up and mature to adopt those older and wiser cultural norms that accepts that not all cultures are created equal, and that individuals should be free to associate with whomever they want to... and that the ONLY state-sponsored power play against bias should be focused only on that which results in true material harm.
I was in San Diego at a famous golf course. The green fee for locals is $41. It is $260 for everyone else. The owners of the golf course are biased against non San Diegans.
I lock my house doors at night after allowing only my family and my pets inside. I am biased against people and animals not of my family.
My (80% liberal) community members keep blocking new housing development. They are biased against outsiders moving to their community.
Popular universities and colleges reject many more than they accept. They are biased against those they reject.
Hypocrisy is rampant for the matriarchal egalitarian cohort claiming an agenda to stamp out bias and to make everyone exactly equal. The patriarchal view is more in-line with natural human behavior that is always competitive, self-centered, tribal and prone to pursue a comfort of known cultural rules and practice.
Yes, we can most assuredly find our roots in French progressive thinking. I find it sad that so few people, and particularly the younger generations of students, apparently do not learn much of history in general, or other cultures, to say nothing of being woefully ignorant of our own history and its roots and lessons learned. Superficial thinkers today are hyper focused on skin color and race, but ignore culture. I spent over 15 years living, working and traveling in various countries including some very primitive ones. I came out of my experiences realizing that it's the culture both historically and current, the religions, and the political structures that created the person. That Masai herdsman I saw in Kenya standing by the side of the road wearing very minimal clothing and holding a spear was a product of his immediate environment, and I used to marvel at the realization that had he been removed from his Masai tribe at a very young age and transported to an adoptive home in the U.S. for example, he would have been raised with a normal American life and been educated as much as he desired, and potentially could have ended up a university professor, a CEO, a banker, or anything else but an ignorant, uneducated Masai herder in the wilds of Kenya. Cultures and societal practices are incredibly diverse, and some cultures (and perhaps some religious beliefs/superstitions) can be unbelievably destructive and are not deserving of being honored, to be frank, yet they can drive the beliefs and actions of massive numbers of people to their collective detriment. I've certainly never bought into the idea that all cultures are equal. They're not. Some cultures are pretty rotten and sick.
I know of few (if any) successful matriarchal societies, and I would agree with your point that the patriarchal view is more suited to natural human behavior. With that in mind, I've actually been wondering lately about the violence and crisis within the black communities of various American cities, and how much that is related to the absence of black fathers with the result that the inner city black culture has become more strongly matriarchal in nature, with the destructive results that we are witnessing.
Is it too late? That is a question I ponder often. After that, I keep wondering how these attitudes became so pervasive. I suppose they have always been there, but it has finally all come to a head with this plandemic. I resisted the idea of a plandemic for awhile, but it seems increasingly plausible at this point.
I was a student in a French university for a year in 1973-74. I became fascinated with what I observed in the French society at that time, and I was only 24, fresh from a California university in which the women's lib movement was gathering steam. As a woman, I was already unable to connect with any of the women's movement claims and found the whole thing disingenuous and annoying, and none of the wailing oppressions these rather obnoxious, strident women constantly yelled about were true in my own life so I've always viewed "feminism" through a pretty negative lens. I saw less of that new "feminist" movement in France in 1973, but I did notice a number of curiosities that I've never forgotten. One example was when a French person explained the pricing system in local cafés: the cheapest price for coffee was for a local French person. It cost more for a non-local French person. Next higher price was for foreign tourists. But the most expensive coffee was for the Algerians, who were numerous in the south of France at that time, the low wage workers. As it turns out, the French were (are?) quite racist even though they and many other Europeans at the time kept claiming "You Americans are so racist!" (with the pointed implication that "we French are not like that".) Another oddity was what I noticed with the numerous Chinese students at the university, more specifically with the Chinese women. This was the era of Mao, and everyone male or female wore a gray uniform, the same almost military style outfit, same gray color. But the women apparently had a desire for something decorative and unique to them that they wanted to express: each Chinese woman wore a neck scarf, each one had a different very bright color against all that gray. When I visited China in 1980, I didn't see this "individuality", so it was likely unique to being in a country outside of China and having for the first time an opportunity to stand out a tiny bit as an individual, that desire had not entirely been driven out of them. Another worrisome thing I noticed was in one of my classes. I came to a particular class (which as I remember was some sort of political science type class) with my typical Western orientation of education: I chose a topic and then supported my thesis through various other scholars' statements or discoveries. To my great surprise, the teacher did not want to read or consider such a paper. Rather, she ONLY wanted to read what the "experts" said, and I should keep my own ideas entirely out of it. Just take a topic and regurgitate what others had said about it. Period. This was very eye opening, and although I was still very young and inexperienced, I was shocked by the attitude, which I considered stifling as well as puzzling. For the first time, I was seeing a major contrast in the thoughts and freedoms allowed in France vs. in the U.S. France was a free country of course, but it certainly seemed far less so than the U.S., which I suddenly saw as happily open to new ideas.
In 1973, the French were very polarized politically as Valéry Giscard d'Estaing was running for President against the socialist François Mitterand (Giscard d'Estaing barely squeaked by with a vote of just 50.8%), but as I look back on things, there were some similarities with what I saw politically back then with what I am seeing now in the U.S. It wasn't pleasant.
Thanks for your thoughts.
Culture develops in a "place" and it the practices become so common that the practicing population soon loses the self-awareness that they are actually culturally unique. And so their words convey a great hypocrisy compared to their actions.
Ironically the fundamental design of the US Great Experiment derives from French progressive thinking. France and Italy, for example, are of course older cultures... and they seem to have mostly accepted a certain level of bias as normal and natural. I hope that is our trajectory too... that we flail about with this whitecoated "The Giver" plot attempt until enough of use wake up and mature to adopt those older and wiser cultural norms that accepts that not all cultures are created equal, and that individuals should be free to associate with whomever they want to... and that the ONLY state-sponsored power play against bias should be focused only on that which results in true material harm.
I was in San Diego at a famous golf course. The green fee for locals is $41. It is $260 for everyone else. The owners of the golf course are biased against non San Diegans.
I lock my house doors at night after allowing only my family and my pets inside. I am biased against people and animals not of my family.
My (80% liberal) community members keep blocking new housing development. They are biased against outsiders moving to their community.
Popular universities and colleges reject many more than they accept. They are biased against those they reject.
Hypocrisy is rampant for the matriarchal egalitarian cohort claiming an agenda to stamp out bias and to make everyone exactly equal. The patriarchal view is more in-line with natural human behavior that is always competitive, self-centered, tribal and prone to pursue a comfort of known cultural rules and practice.
Yes, we can most assuredly find our roots in French progressive thinking. I find it sad that so few people, and particularly the younger generations of students, apparently do not learn much of history in general, or other cultures, to say nothing of being woefully ignorant of our own history and its roots and lessons learned. Superficial thinkers today are hyper focused on skin color and race, but ignore culture. I spent over 15 years living, working and traveling in various countries including some very primitive ones. I came out of my experiences realizing that it's the culture both historically and current, the religions, and the political structures that created the person. That Masai herdsman I saw in Kenya standing by the side of the road wearing very minimal clothing and holding a spear was a product of his immediate environment, and I used to marvel at the realization that had he been removed from his Masai tribe at a very young age and transported to an adoptive home in the U.S. for example, he would have been raised with a normal American life and been educated as much as he desired, and potentially could have ended up a university professor, a CEO, a banker, or anything else but an ignorant, uneducated Masai herder in the wilds of Kenya. Cultures and societal practices are incredibly diverse, and some cultures (and perhaps some religious beliefs/superstitions) can be unbelievably destructive and are not deserving of being honored, to be frank, yet they can drive the beliefs and actions of massive numbers of people to their collective detriment. I've certainly never bought into the idea that all cultures are equal. They're not. Some cultures are pretty rotten and sick.
I know of few (if any) successful matriarchal societies, and I would agree with your point that the patriarchal view is more suited to natural human behavior. With that in mind, I've actually been wondering lately about the violence and crisis within the black communities of various American cities, and how much that is related to the absence of black fathers with the result that the inner city black culture has become more strongly matriarchal in nature, with the destructive results that we are witnessing.