Sunday, March 21, 2010

Traditionalism and Conservatism: Old vs Right.

I've been engaged in a bit of a debate over at Oz Conservative. As I have mentioned previously, I feel that the traditional views of female sexuality are wrong and the evo-bio approach to the subject is closer to the truth( I say this with caveats, because I thing the evo-bio crowd aren't completely right either). I think a variety of forces have combined to "beta-ize" the modern male; the law, the economic structure of society, feminism, etc. But one of the other forces has been cultural, and one of the major influences on culture is tradition. Now it's true that modern Western society is profoundly different now than say one hundred years ago, but we still are the products of a lot of traditional cultural baggage. And one of those factors is the traditional view of female sexuality.

Commentator Expatriot made the following comment:

Growing up I was never exposed to the core truths of female psychology elucidated by Devlin and Roissy. I didn’t get them from family, I didn’t get them from school, I didn’t get them from the media and I certainly didn’t get them from the church. I learned the truth about women not from reading Roissy or anybody else, but in the school of hard knocks—very hard knocks.

I think a lot of men have had a similar experience, and a lot of the sympathy for the Roissy/Devlin view comes not from a misogynous nature but practical experience. Frequently it's not the knockbacks, but the success with women that re-enforce this view.

The Traditionalists find this view of female nature disturbing and deny its existence in the much the same way liberals thought-filter away inconvenient truths. Although two mortal enemies; the traditionalist and the liberals share the same intellectual pathology:They are closed to facts which they find disagreeable. These are not the thought processes of Conservatism.

Conservatism, first and foremost is about living in the truth and about being open to the truth, closed minds are not conservative. Now the liberals may argue that they too have open minds, but difference between Liberals and Conservatives are:

1) Liberals are only open to facts which they find agreeable.
2) By rejecting pertinent yet--ideologically repulsive facts--their policy and responses are ineffective and bear no relation to reality.

Take for example a favourite liberal cause: Condoms in the battle against AIDS.

Uganda is one of the few African countries to have recorded a decline in the rate of AIDS. It's program ABC-Abstinence, Being faithful, Condoms-- but with a big emphasis on the first and second points seems to have been remarkably successful despite the rest of Africa recording higher rates. Of course, to the liberal mind these results are "confusing" and "more research" needs to be done into the matter since this policy goes against the liberal shibboleth of sexual promiscuity. It's only confusing to a man who doesn't want to see. Screwing around with less people means less risk of infection. That's logic, not ideology. But in the presence of overriding ideology: Logic be damned.

Traditionalists likewise share a similar thought process. The old ways were the best the new ways are simply wrong, end of story. Facts which were inconvenient with the Traditionalist vision were simply ignored. It's this attitude which probably explains the inability to defeat liberalism culturally. Traditionalists prefer to live in the past rather than the real world: Life is lived in the real world. Traditionalistc share some of the views of Conservatives but do so with the thought processes of Liberals.

I'm not saying the Traditionalists are completely wrong. A lot of traditionalism is worth supporting because it's right, but what Traditionalists need to recognise is that our forefathers did not have all the answers and based the order of their societies on the information available, changing their minds according to changed facts; at the same time incorporating the knowledge of the past where it didn't contradict : They had intellectual flexibility and open minds, something traditionalists in general aren't known for.

It's my opinion that the conservative movement needs to treat Game as a serious phenomena. Game does not need to be anti-family or anti-Christian. Athol Key's site gives us a glimpse into how such a synthesis could be made.(He is not Christian and I don't agree with all his points, but hey, at least He's thinking).

It's my belief that Game and its insights will eventually be part of a Conservative revival, despite the opposition to the Traditionalists. Why? Because it remasculates men and provides a antidote to the poison of Feminism. Game is not the answer to all of Liberalism's ills, only part. Liberalism is a hydra and Game affective against only one of its heads.