Sick, Perverted Bastards

Now this is a long read. But I want to make a point about it...and you have to read it before it will make any sense:

Subject: FROM DON KATES -- THE VAST IMPORTANCE OF CULTURE

Now and again I have expressed my disgust at and loathing of "multiculturalism," a political/social movement disguised as a philosophy of history and social science. The real objective of "multiculturalism" is to preach social and/or political change in the guise of teaching about other cultures. For instance trying to promote tolerance of homosexuality by referring to it as a part of classical Greek society while suppressing the fact that in that society it went hand-in-hand with a degradation and contempt for women which barred them from any participation in public life or intellectual pursuits. (Compare classical Rome where homosexuality and bisexuality abounded but women were much better treated.)

But my disgust at the fraud of "multiculturalism" should not be misunderstood as denigrating the vast importance of culture in shaping human values and actions. A few days ago I posted an article by a Canadian writer who made reference in passing to an incident some years ago in which a man entered a Canadian college classroom with a rifle, forced all the men to leave and then slaughtered the women. The Canadian writer accurately described the perpetrator as "Marc Lepine (born Gamil Gharbi, the son of an Algerian Muslim wife-beater, though you’d never know that from the press coverage)."

I received the following reply from an old friend, a highly intelligent, well-educated and articulate professor of religion (and women’s studies) for whom I have the highest respect -- except for her support of "multiculturalism." She wrote:

regarding the passage you cite from the "Canadian observer:" That Lepine may have been the son of an "Algerian Muslim" is beside the point. That he was the son of a wife-beater (of whatever nationality) is not: domestic violence occurs in all cultures, and abusive fathers frequently produce equally abusive sons. Lepine may well have learned his deep-rooted misogyny from his father, but in this case nationality is beside the point.

This comment is a paradigm of multiculturalism – false and misleading in general and especially its refusal to deal w/ the cultural context which "multiculturalism" pretends to honor as its central rationale.

"[D]omestic violence occurs in all cultures..." A paradigm example of the subspecies of fraud which the law condemns as a half-truth calculated to deceive. Domestic violence does occur in all cultures, but in some cultures it is highly aberrant behavior engaged in by men whose emotions or urges overcome their social training. In other societies it is normal behavior, the result of that very social training. (Note: I am not necessarily asserting that domestic violence occurs more frequently per capita in, for instance, Arab cultures than the U.S. Arab women after all learn that the way to avoid or minimize beatings is to adopt the abject and violence-induced servility to which Arab culture condemns them.)

Two extreme examples show the difference of Western culture from all others:

The first I take from a story an American woman told on Dateline or 60 Minutes a few years ago. She and her husband were on an overloaded Indonesian ferry that suddenly sank. A number of lifeboats were launched which picked up the men. From those operating the lifeboats, and the men they had rescued, the cry went up "no women in the life boats," "no women in the life boats," "no women in the life boats." Some of the women just drowned. Others managed to cling to the sides of lifeboats until the men took the oars and smashed their hands, arms and heads, and the women’s heavy clothing dragged them to the bottom.

The American woman and her husband made no attempt to get on the lifeboats. They survived by treading water for 15 hours and keeping each other afloat until they were eventually rescued.

Having seen the fate of the Islamic women who tried to get on the lifeboats, the American woman did not even try. But why didn’t her husband assure his safety (the area was infested w/ sharks) by abandoning her and getting on a lifeboat? That question epitomizes the vast difference that culture makes. Because this essay is addressed to a Western audience, largely an American one, that question is a rhetorical one. Everyone raised in our culture knows that, in addition to loving and valuing his wife, her husband was instilled with the idea that it was necessary to save his wife and shameful to abandon her. Had he done so he would have spent his life imagining that others looking at him were asking themselves why he survived and his wife did not.

It bears emphasis that my question would not be rhetorical to any Arab reading this. He would probably consider the husband’s behavior aberrant and an example of the absurd over-valuation of women by western culture.

Indicative also of the difference culture makes is that, though I am much better than most acquainted with American and English history, I cannot think of even one instance where dozens of men on life boats shouted "no women in the life boats" and beat on women to keep them out. Which leads me to my second example:

In February 1852 HMS Birkenhead, loaded primarily with soldiers, struck a hidden rock and went down in shark-infested waters off South Africa. For various reasons only a few of the lifeboats could be lowered. Hundreds of men stood at attention on deck while the women were led by them to the life boats which were manned with only enough men to row to shore. Then the men left on the ship died excepting a few who managed to get by the sharks and swim the mile and a half to shore. (If this be dismissed as just an example of military discipline it should be noted that there were similar examples of men – one of them a multi-millionaire – giving up their life boat seats to women when the Titanic went down.)

Culture matters. And, though it is very un-PC to say so, there are superior cultures and inferior ones.

Now to my point. Is there any instance in nature where the males in a social group sacrifice the females for their own survival?

Whether lions or horses or gorillas, the males are the protectors of the herd/group. Often there is but one male for many females. And his primary jobs are 1) to impregnate as many females as possible to insure the continuation, increase and survival of the group; and 2) to protect and defend those females.

The fact is, in order to create a generation, many females are required...and few males. In strictly a numerical sense, males are much more expendable.

The writer, Don Kates, makes the valid point that this demonstrates the difference in values between cultures. But I think it is more fundamental than that.

The fact that a culture could so corrupt the most fundamental and universal laws of nature is a hideous and sick perversion. It is not only wildly different, morally bankrupt and inferior, as Mr. Kates makes clear; it is also profoundly unnatural.

The Gunslinger