I think Marx said that history does not repeat, but it does rhyme. And the proverb that those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it is generally attributed to Satanayna. But I’d add that those who do not see the variation in society and learn from the errors of others are doomed to imitate Sisyphus. Instead of pushing a boulder up a hill, they are continually reinventing, never learning.
So we can learn from our enemies — that armor does not work in the Hindu Kush, that blood feuds and kidnapping and mistrust destroy a society, and that when times are hard those who defend make the rules, and those who have the duty to learn have the privilege. Life stops being democratic: each individual has to fulfil their role in the clan so that the clan will survive. Women and infants are the future, so they are protected. Men go out, do the shopping (Bombs in Bazaars) earn the living, and at times die defending home and hearth. Feminism stops being a foolish and luxury good that can be afforded in the West and becomes unthinkable. It makes things inefficient. The stakes are too high for such foolishness.
For the Afghan is in a society that is reverting. To a time before the Raj, to a time of tribal raiding. They (sensibly) have a high birth rate, because they have a high mortality rate. And we can learn from them, remembering the rule of Spengler Do not be like the Zombie society
This is an introduction to Karen S. (Girl writes what) defends the Afghan situation — with women not being allowed to work as adaptive to the circumstances.
Privileges are entitlements. What men have had through history wasn’t entitlement, because it was a necessary element of their obligations–a tool handed to men because it was needed by men in order to fulfil their legally, economically and socially enforced obligations to women and children, not because penis.
There are duties and there are rights. To have a duty necessarily entails having a right. The rights granted generally facilitate one’s ability to perform one’s duties. If one has no such duties, the rights required to fulfil them are not only unnecessary, they may actually be detrimental to the ability of others to fulfil their duties to you.
If you have a duty to be productive economically and utilize that productivity to economically provide for yourself and others, you must have a right to engage in activities that result in economic productivity. If you have a duty to make sure you and others have the material necessities of life such as clothing, shelter, and food, then you must have the right to determine that the money is spent on clothing, shelter and food. If you have a duty to protect yourself and others, you must have a right to make decisions for yourself and those you protect, and a right to place yourself in danger.
If you don’t have those duties, you do not need the rights attached to them. In fact, you having those rights may actually interfere with the duties of others to provide the entitlements you enjoy through their obligation.
And when everyone’s living on the bottom tier of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, you’re probably not going to be given those rights, because you having them would interfere with the ability of those who do to perform them, for you or for someone else who is entitled to them.
A husband cannot fulfil his duty provide for a wife if someone else’s wife displaces him from the workforce. A husband cannot fulfil his duty to ensure his family has the things they need if he doesn’t manage the family purse. A husband cannot fulfil his duty to protect a wife if she is not required to duck when he tells her to duck.
Historically, all of these things–provisioning, protection and support–were FEMALE entitlements. This is female privilege. And, though I hate to borrow a phrase from feminism, what happened in Afghanistan around barring women from work and girls from education, is essentially female privilege backfiring on women and girls. When jobs are scarce, you don’t give them to people who have an entitlement to benefit from the obligation of others to work. When education is scarce, you don’t give that to people who have an entitlement to benefit from the obligation of others that is facilitated by education. You give those things to the people who have a duty to share the benefits of them with others, not the people who are legally allowed to hog all those benefits for themselves.
Ray Steadman will hate me doing this, but Paul would agree with Karen. From his sermons on Timothy — and I would gloss that Roman men may have married rapidly, but they got divorced just as fast, and by the time of the Church there was a fashion of bachelorhood (or in modern terms MGTOW) that led to punitive taxes on those who did not marry.
in those days almost everybody got married. This was one reason why the Roman Empire was so strong and stable. Though it was pagan, and though there were many forces that disintegrated it from within, the Roman Empire nevertheless survived for many centuries because it emphasized a strong family unit. When a woman found herself without a husband in those days she needed care. Sometimes she was provided for, but not always so, so Paul gives Timothy admonitions as to how to deal with this matter. Here are his words:
Honor widows who are real widows. If a widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn their religious duty to their own family and make some return to their parents; for this is acceptable in the sight of God. She who is a real widow, and is left all alone, has set her hope on God and continues in supplications and prayers night and day; whereas she who is self-indulgent is dead even while she lives. Command this, so that they may be without reproach. If any one does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his own family, he has disowned the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. (1 Timothy 5:3-8 RSV)
Those strong words indicate how important this matter was in the early church, and, in principle, how important it ought to be to us today. In the early church, apparently, a special pension fund was maintained from which widows were supported; and those who were placed upon this roll pledged themselves to keep busy in a ministry of help and prayer, and not to marry again.
So certain limitations and qualifications had to be fulfilled. Some widows could be included in this; some were not qualified. Paul treats both of these categories in this passage. To be included, women must fulfill at least five qualifications which the apostle gives here.
First, they were to be real widows, i.e., they had no family to help them. If they had children or grandchildren, they had the responsibility to take care of the older members of the family, especially the widows who had no other means of support. This establishes the principle that it is really up to the family to take care of all of its members, as far as this is possible; and we can carry that principle over into our own times.
Today, however, with insurance often available to widows, independent income, the availability of jobs, etc., women oftentimes end up with more money than men. As a matter of fact, in this country more money is controlled by women than by men. Many widows are left richer than they have ever been in marriage. As far as the necessities of life are concerned such women are not to be the responsibility of the church in any way. But they are to be honored, as Paul points out in Verse 3. They are to be paid reverence and respect; they are to be shown love, compassion and concern to meet their emotional needs. This is what the church is responsible to do. These women were not to be put on the pension fund, though, if they had families.
Second, the apostle says,
She who is a real widow, and is left all alone, has set her hope on God and continues in supplications and prayers night and day; whereas she who is self-indulgent is dead even while she lives. Command this [i.e., announce this], so that they may be without reproach. (1 Timothy 5:5-7 RSV)
This indicates that widows who were to be supported by the church were to give themselves to a spiritual ministry. They were to keep busy during these declining years of their life. They were not to utilize the time to entertain themselves, but they were to have a spiritual ministry.
I could continue on here. But what we need to remember is that rights have responsibilities. If you want to be protected, your legal rights are held by your defender.
So, young woman, choose a defender wisely. Consider a man, consider his family, consider his prospects. And consider if he loves you, sufficient to stand between you and the wolves outdoors (on four feet and two). Don’t think that the state can protect you: for as we move to the end game our functional libertarian and anarchistic state will move back towards fascism, and you will be accounted as a tool, or an asset to be discarded.
And if we go down that path, the Afghan peasants will, rightly, pity us.
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