It Suddenly Occurred to Me…

(Why Won’t Marxism Go Away?)

“As soon as it’s said that the purpose of government is to make our lives better, envy is weaponized. And historically, the effects of this have been catastrophic.”

By Carl Nelson

            After posting a previous piece, “Why is the Truth too Incendiary to be Spoken?”, and then reading a bit more of the blow-back to rapidly evolving current events – it suddenly occurred to me… There were good reasons for the tradition of past times for men and women to meet socially over dinner, and then, once dessert had been appreciated, for the men to retire to the study for brandy and cigars and to discuss worldly matters, while the woman remained behind to socialize among themselves about domestic matters. And the reason was that whereas the purview of the women was to watch over matters of the home and to guard the domestic tranquility, the purview of the men was to argue and discuss matters outside of the home in order that the civic justice, order, and tranquility were also insured. And that tradition had judged each sex best genetically designed to accomplish each task respectively. That the rules which govern these two areas of human endeavor are quite different, and are in some respects antagonistic, supported this separation of the sexes following the convivial hour. And that this is what traditional society had understood, until it became another fence modernity tore down gleefully. …Until, now, when a fuller view and reconsideration of the reasons for the fence having been there are everywhere exploding like land mines.

We can readily see the reasons for this segregation of the sexes, when we observe how matters have evolved our current society where the sexes are mixed and mingled in near every social grouping. Especially the women would be angered if it was thought they were being eliminated from any discussion by the males. (Although the reverse, does not occur much. I am relieved to be excluded from near all women’s events.) Women have been very militant about this. They must be allowed everywhere. (Even sports player’s locker rooms.)

As a sidebar:

For a takedown of women’s march through Western Institutions, Mollie Hemmingway does a magnificent job in her recent essay about the final takeover of the Boy Scouts: “Girling the Boy Scouts”

When I speak of women and men, I am referring to the governing majority of the sex who determine the social codes establishing behavior for their sex. It’s common to hear, “Well, I know women who are not like that” or, “I am not like that”. And perhaps, indeed you are not. However, most of the woman I know who “are not like that”, still adhere to the behavioral tenets of the majority who are (and in a scrap will rally to their side) – just as we all must labor under their dictates. And these outliers all know the penalties for violating said tenets will be meted out on them, too.

Near everything which is upturning and has upturned Western Civilization at this moment in our history reeks of the unleashed feminine psyche fiercely fighting for governmental dictates to “make our lives better”: e.g. DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) which is cutting a swath through the effectiveness of all our instituitions, the Woke agenda, victim politics, borderless nations, earth mother spirituality and the “climate crisis”, euthanasia, abortion, safe spaces, affirmative action, welfare rights, inflationary spending, foreign aid, and an explosion in governmental services, and governmental programs for making our lives better, safer, fairer… Mix with hysteria, safe spaces, trigger phrases and a list as long and mysterious at times as the curious contents of a woman’s purse. “Oh, did I have that still in there?” (My goodness, is that governmental program still running? What do you know?” And as she pulls it out, spinning little bureaucrats fall away.)

Once it was established that the role of government was not just to establish order, safety and justice, but to make the citizens’ lives better, (nowadays this is even including a “happiness index”), all hell has broken loose. I wish I could carve this following into the headboard of every Democrat out there:

“As I noted this week, government has no constitutional role to make the life of anyone “better,” largely because government has no resources of its own. Anything a government has must first be taken from someone – for it to make the life of one person better requires it to make the life of someone else less so.” – Michael Smith

So what was it that “Suddenly Occurred to Me…”?

That our Constitution with its Bill of Rights were government constructs designed entirely by men had escaped my purview… until recent considerations. But these are important considerations. Because what male organization has ever been able to endure the inundation and assimilation of women?

Likewise, what form of government can bend to accede to the requests of Feminists for freedoms and rights long denied – and once granted, live among these same Feminists who support political factions (the CCP, Islam) wholly the enemy of these liberties? How does a civilization survive the emancipation of such a chimerical creature? The institution of marriage has struggled with this question since its inception. And ceding your wife everything she desires has been found to be either the surest avenue towards divorce, disaster, complete emasculation – or all three. A man must tell his wife and hold to things she will not like. Our country is currently finding itself in a like situation. Some sort of segregation was traditionally held to be the cure. But culturally we have since dispensed with all of that; torn down those fences.

Within the home, a woman’s chimerical behavior can be enabling of the nurtured youth. After all, it is extremely flexible. And the growing child is nurtured by a flexible environment, even a hypocritical one. Near everything can be explored for these nurtured children, but their value is never questioned. They do wrong; they do right. Tears, laughter… In the end there’s a hug; a participation trophy.

But the outside world cannot operate on these terms, that all is forgiven. Out there, choices have consequences. And without consequences all order collapses. This is the hard, male truth which the father judiciously applies as the child matures.

So let’s examine some of the differences between home and field:

Freedom of expression is allowed among women, but first the expression must be vetted to assure that the expression supports unity, that is, whatever is of the majority feminine opinion and mood. For example, my wife did not want to allow me to express my anger at a family gathering that same evening of the assassination. Even though she was of much the like opinion, and had no trouble watching endless reams of news churning the event and following vociferous opinion on the news. I intuit that this is because on the news there are no outliers. Anything that is on the news, or has been on the news is okay to repeat, no matter how outrageous, I would surmise because on the news, they are of the same mind about the proscribed deviance. If they aren’t, they don’t appear. Their audience demands conformity and consistency, and so do they. She was enforcing this same conformity with myself and the relations present.

The same follows for violence. Women are very much against all forms of violence – unless they are all for it. Anything that violates the sanctity of the household is a capital offence. Squeamishness over violence ends right at the home’s threshold. All the while within, women who will wring hands at the killing of a mouse, will watch The Vikings slaughter each other, – to no apparent purpose, other than to triumph – enthralled in multiyear TV series. Like ghouls, salt the conflict with fighting over a woman, and all principal of civilized behavior goes out the window. Men love their war movies. But for watching a stud muffin’s mindless, gleeful slaughter of opponents, woman take the prize. They also hover over media tragedy like vampires as the TV turns. They obsess over interminable, untreatable, medical conditions, where all are in (sometimes enforced) sympathy. The point is to never upset the equanimity – wherever that set point happens to be.

(There is a caveat, that if you upset the equanimity, only to have that same equanimity resettle about you in this new paradigm – then you’re golden, once again.)

The tranquility of the home is paramount in the domestic mind. Each family member needs a “safe space”, a peaceful harbor from the storms of outside life. And for this reason, acrimony and dissension and quashed through a masterful practice of a woman’s social skill set. “Not at the table,” might be a warning. Or, “not in front of the children” another. Or, “if you can’t behave civilly you need to go elsewhere, (Outside? Siberia?) until you can.”

Whereas in the outside world free expression, emotional expression, and competition for leadership are necessary for events to proceed most successfully – challenges need to be met, differences resolved.

Within the home, resources flow to those most needing them, that is from those with the most to those with the least. The father and mother work hard mostly for the benefit of their children, who contribute very little. A nurturing home environment is a breeding ground of Marxism. Its tenets are instilled there.

But out in the world, Marxism performs very poorly and is creator of untold human misery. So, a person has to ask, “Why doesn’t it die? Why doesn’t Marxism as a practice vanish? Why won’t Marxism go away?”

Well, it hasn’t gone away – in my (somewhat ghosted) opinion – because women haven’t gone away.

Marxism is the general womanly reaction to inequity. It doesn’t matter that it doesn’t produce the utopia it describes. It doesn’t matter that it has been shown over and over again to produce misery… for both sexes. Women, in this respect, are very much in league with the scorpion, in the parable of the frog and the scorpion joining forces in order to ford a rising stream, the scorpion seeks ‘unity’.

Halfway through the scorpion bites the frog, so they both drown.

“Why did you do that?” The frog asks horrified, as he is going down. “Now we will both die.”

“Because that’s the way I am,” the scorpion replies.

When within their natural habitat women are generally sweet and enabling. Outside, however, that same womanish nature when duped by power-seeking agencies can behave within the culture as a scorpion., enabling and fostering the most foolish policy and behavior.

“Thus did Western Man decide to abolish himself, creating his own boredom out of his own affluence, his own vulnerability out of his own strength, his own impotence out of his own erotomania…”  So sayeth Malcolm Muggeridge

“Au contraire,” sayeth I. It was Western women who decided to abolish Western man. Our entire wreckage reeks of perfume and patchouli oil. It hangs in the air “like the smell of napalm in the morning.”

And this is why we can’t cleanse our political life of Marxism.

Marxism doesn’t go away because women won’t step away.

And since I can’t foresee any future paradigm in which they do – that is, in which they return to the drawing room to limit their rule to domestic events – I don’t ever foresee getting this modern Pandora back in her box.

So what kind of government can accommodate women’s participation? What kind of governing authority can sustain their presence? The answer, to my thinking, might be to establish a form of governing based in subsidiarity, in which group power is enormously limited and individual agency empowered. (But that’s another essay.) So that men and women can negotiate with one another as free individuals. That’s what we want, isn’t it?

Because as fighting, factional, political interest groups, we suck.

Note: In an upcoming follow up essay, “on Crowds” I conceptualize this third path… subsidiarity, wherein we recognize the toxicity of crowds, and limit their influence.

God recognizing this, tossing up His hands with the Old Testament and sent his son to instill a more workable New Covenant, based solely on two dictums and individual choice.