Nice guys finish last?

I've written before about how men sometimes categorised as 'jerks' seem to have more success with the opposite sex than those described, often in a patronising tone of voice, as 'nice'. Two recent articles have been grist to my mill.

First is a review of When Men Behave Badly: The Hidden Roots of Sexual Deception, Harassment, and Assault by David M. Buss, Little, Brown Spark, 336 pages (April 2021), by Rob Henderson

Henderson ends his review with a particularly interesting observation:

A popular idea is that men who are desperate or deprived of chances for sex will be more likely to use coercion. This is known as the “mate deprivation hypothesis.” However, studies suggest the opposite is the case. Men who have more partners report higher levels of sexual aggression compared to men with fewer partners. Furthermore, men who predict that their future earnings will be high also report greater levels of sexual aggression relative to men who predict that their future earnings will be low.

One contributing factor may be an empathy deficit—the book reports that high status is linked to lower levels of empathy. Men high on Dark Triad traits are viewed as more attractive by women, are more likely to have consensual sexual partners, and are more likely to engage in sexual coercion.

Were it susceptible to logical argument, and not merely the product of ideology, the idea that the Church's championing of chastity leads to sex abuse would receive yet another blow from this.

Shaming men into virtue: a text-book case from Matt Walsh

Matt Walsh writes:

How can we expect our children to be righteous, to be generous and disciplined and faithful and godly, if their own father has not provided a demonstration of those traits? How can we demand virtue in others that we can hardly locate within ourselves? How can a real man rely on his wife to carry this burden alone or primarily? We, as men, are called to be the spiritual light to our family. When we engage in weak, shameful, selfish and childish behaviour, we dim the light. After a while, the light goes out altogether and our family is left to stumble around in the darkness. This is one of the many reasons why we need to reject porn and other vices, all which serve to lessen us, emasculate us and extinguish the light.

Well it is true, of course, but is this really the best way to inspire men to take up their role, as Walsh puts it, of 'leadership'? And what kind of 'leadership' does this, in fact, suggest? So far, it is just one of example. An example of suffering. Sounds a bit like a doormat, doesn't it?

Patriarchy, weediness, and neo-conservatism

Thinking about the ongoing debate on marriage, I thought I'd repost this, from Februrary 2016.

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Feed my sheep.

Something I have mentioned a few times I can now make more explicit: what neo-conservatives have done to marriage.

Patriarchy involves rights and duties for both parties. Over the millennia, Christian and non-Christian versions of Patriarchy have given men the incentive necessary to get them to commit to spouse and family, that is, to provide their families with support and protection. Christian Patriarchy, taking inspiration from the mystical relationship between Christ and the Church, raises Patriarchy to a higher level, as grace builds upon nature, but the point of it, the incentive to men and the support and protection to women, remains. Grace builds on nature, it does not abolish nature. By connecting the traditional prerogative of authority to the authority of Christ, Christian Patriarchy tells us more about what that authority is for (the benefit of the family as a community), but emphasises even more that this authority is to be taken seriously.

Feminists and radical liberals are hostile to the very concept of the family, because the family passes on values without reference to the state, and totalitarians cannot tolerate this. But the conservatives of today have done something very strange as well. In response to the claim that Patriarchy is oppressive, their response has been: well ok, let's stress the duties of the husband to the wife, and the prerogatives of the wife over the husband, and ignore or even deny the duties of the wife to the husband, and the prerogatives of the husband over the wife.

'War on boys': people are starting to notice

Policy-makers have actually been worrying about 'failing boys' for a while. Pope St John Paul II noted the absence of men from church back in 1988 (Christifideles laici 52). But the debate and the facts are now becoming mainstream.

As I have noted before, the connection between what I've called the 'secular' man-crisis and the Church's 'man crisis' must be taken into account. It can hardly be a coincidence that boys and men are falling short in school, university, and marriage, and also in vocations and in church attendance.

This little video is about boys in school. It is welcome, and the remedies are welcome too. The more fundamental issue, however, is not addressed. What used to motivate young men and, by their influence, boys down the age-range, to put in the hard work at university and school was the prospect of being a bread-winner, and being respected for it. The very term 'bread-winner' is regarded as tantamount to a profanity today, but the incentive must be restored or replaced if men are going to pull their weight in society.



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Does the Church want Catholic men to be weeds?

This blog post purportedly about the 'traditional Catholic wife' quickly degenerates into 'man up' man bashing, and now I've started noticing this phenomenon I think I ought to attack it, especially since it creeps into traddy blogs and FB feeds.

My challenge to people who write like this is simple. Are you man enough to say what the Church actually teaches about the role of the father in the family? If you aren't, I suggest you stop writing on the subject.

Here's a post from my recent series of posts on the subject, in February this year. Click on the labels 'masculinity' and 'patriarchy' to see more.

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In some of the earlier posts of the series, I referred rather vaguely to things being said by Catholics about these matters which I thought unhelpful, so it behoves me to give some detail.

All kinds of things can be found in the more marginal sources (in which category I place this blog, for example). Looking at the more mainstream sources - blogs, bishops' statements, magisterial documents and the like - we find, in the more conservative ones, a pattern.

First, there is here and there a recognition that there is a problem of manhood. The Tablet had a minor breakdown when Cardinal Burke made his statement about the loss of men to the Church, and the underlying social causes, but the observation has been made before. The bare fact of male absence is lamented in Pope St John Paul II's 1988 Christifideles laici. In 2014 Mgr Charles Pope, in a much-linked to blog post, explicitly links the problem with feminism.

Is Patrarchy a punishment for sin?

Chaucer's Wife of Bath. What is it
all women desire?

In my last post I considered the claim that all the many Scriptural texts saying that wives should be subordinate to their husbands should be read in light of Ephesians 5:21's reference to the 'mutual submission' of Christians. Here I want to address another argument, based on Genesis 3:16, or rather the second half of it. It is part of the curse of God on Eve after the Fall (King James Version):

your desire shall be to your husband, and he shall rule over you.

The curse implies that the harmonious relationship between husband and wife, which was Adam and Eve's in Eden, will be disrupted by sin.

Pope St John Paul II suggests, or perhaps 'hints' would be a better word, that the ruling of the husband over the wife which this verse speaks of, can be seen as a part of the consequences of the Fall which can be seen as reversed in the Christian dispensation. Mulieres dignitatem 11:

Mary means, in a sense, a going beyond the limit spoken of in the Book of Genesis (3: 16) and a return to that "beginning" in which one finds the "woman" as she was intended to be in creation, and therefore in the eternal mind of God: in the bosom of the Most Holy Trinity. Mary is "the new beginning" of the dignity and vocation of women, of each and every woman.

Mutual submission of spouses: coherent, Pauline, true?

Among other issues raised by Pope Francis' Exhortation Amoris laetitia is the question of family life and the complementarity of the sexes. As I have pointed out on this blog, Pope Francis seems to have a relatively robust notion of the specialisation of gender roles, a subject Pope St John Paul II was less willing to broach. I have noted on this blog the strange position of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which brings up complementarity when discussing homosexual relationships. These lack 'genuine complementarity', the Catechism tells us, and therefore lack something essential to marriage. Something so essential, in fact, that its own discussion of marriage doesn't even mention it. D'oh.

Pope Francis nevertheless pays lip-service to feminism, and says that 'patriarchy', whatever he means by that, is wrong. More substantially, in section 154 he repeats in summary form the argument made by Pope St John Paul II in his 1988 Apostolic Letter Mulieres dignitatem 24, that St Paul in Ephesians wants each spouse to submit to the other (Pope Francis refers in fact to a 'Catechesis' John Paul II gave in 1982, but the argument is the same). This is something, on the face of it, which is problematic in Amoris laetitia, not because it contradicts Pope St John Paul II, but because it agrees with him.

Social conservatism and social Darwinism: r/K selection theory

Among the various weird and wonderful things on the internet I've been directed this idea: r/K selection theory. Some people think it explains everything in the universe. Most people haven't heard of it. The second group are onto something. But at the risk of giving some rather strange ideas unwarrented publicity, I'm going to use this post to warn my readers about it. Because although presenting itself as a defence of the family, it is not just wrong-headed, but actually dangerous.

The theory, in a nutshell, goes like this. It is a truism that if you are a poppy, an insect, an antelope or a human being, you can have fewer offspring, and devote more resources to each one, or more offspring, and devote fewer resources to each one. Certain conditions favour one strategy over the other. The theory claims that the 'more offspring' strategy ('r') is favoured by conditions where the constraint on population is not resources, but predation, and the 'fewer but better offspring' strategy ('K') is favoured when the constraint on population is resources (or the 'carrying capacity of the environment'). So prey animals tend to be r, predators K.

The contrast is not an absolute but a matter of degree, so a species can move in one direction or another as conditions change, and different groups within a species can adopt somewhat distinct strategies.

Theorists then pile up a list of characteristics correlated to r and K respectively. 'r' organisms are smaller, have shorter life-spans, are less competitive and less cooperative, don't plan for the future (resources are plentiful), are less complex and sophisticated, than K. Because K want to invest more in each offspring, who are dependent on them for longer, they tend to mate for life and have more complex and enduring family structures.

Patriarchy and symmetry

Hierarchy. (In this case, a temporary, liturgical one.)

I noted in the last post in this series that neo-cons frequently prefer silence about the authority of the husband to outright denial of the teaching. The few brave neo-cons who address the question twist themselves into the most extraordinary knots about it, like this one.

To love IS TO SUBMIT. To love is to make oneself SUBJECT TO ANOTHER. To love is to freely choose to put another above yourself, to literally live for another. Within the context of marriage this dynamic of total self-gift obviously meant to flow in BOTH DIRECTIONS (as the love between God the Father and God the Son, and between Christ and the Church) and is equally expected of men vis-a-vis their wives.

So now Christ submits to the Church? Anyone who can write that, read it again, and not say 'Oh, no, that obviously doesn't work, I'll have to think of another argument'  has crossed some kind of Rubicon of cognitive dissonance.

Is Patriarchy oppressive?

This series now has its own label: to access the full set, click here.

In this post I am going to address three questions.

What is Patriarchy?
Is is taught by the Church?
Is it oppressive?

I am going to define Patriarchy narrowly, as the view that within marriage the husband has authority over the wife, with certain limitations, and the wife the right of the support of the husband (ie he cannot chuck her out to starve in the snow). I want to use this narrow definition because it relates to references in Scripture, and also because in the Christian tradition it can legitimately take a wide range of specific forms in different social, economic, and cultural circumstances.

It fits in with a conception of marriage which is founded on the free consent of both parties, is indissoluble, and gives both parties the right to a common life - 'of bed and table' - and a duty of openness to life.

Although compatible with a range of cultural expressions, this definition is specifically Christian: it excludes some of the practices and attitudes found in Classical paganism and Islam, for example. I suppose I need to point out also that it is compatible with female ownership of property, participation in the workforce, and education. Indeed, these three things are normal in Christian societies, even if what married women have and do is not typically the same as what married men have and do. But I'm not going to write a blog post about married women's property or the history of female education; if you doubt me on this just think about Chaucer's Wife of Bath, Margery Kempe, Portia in The Merchant of Venice, etc. etc.. As for married women doing paid work, this was a victim of the Industrial Revolution, not of grim-faced Christian misogynists.

How Feminism made men into jerks

Continuing this series, I am going to try another way of approaching the central problem, to see if this is helpful.

Once upon a time, there was a certain masculine ideal, which had strength of character in a central position. The ideal man might be intellectual or practical, he might be introverted or extroverted, he might be dark or fair, he might have limitations and even serious faults, but he was not a weed. Let's leave reality for a moment, and think about perceptions, expectations, and fantasies: what we can see in fiction.

So what I have in mind are men like John Bold in Trollope (The Warden), Gabriel Oake in Thomas Hardy (Far From the Madding Crowd) - the names rather give the game away - Mr Darcy in Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice), Shakespeare's Othello, and Duke Theseus (Midsummer Night's Dream) - you get the idea, there are masses of examples.

Should Catholic men be losers or jerks? A response to comments

Latin Mass Society Walking pilgrims enter Walsingham

My series of posts on chastity and chivalry (the most recent one is here) have been something of an experiment, in topics I have not previously tackled. The response in the comments box has been very interesting, with a lot of very positive feedback, but also a persistent tendency to misunderstand the issue in a particular way. In essence, when I say that it would really be quite a good idea for Catholic men (no less than for men in general) to avoid behaviour that brands them, without their realising it, as losers, a significant number of people respond by saying: oh, so you want them to be jerks?

I have avoided saying 'Catholics should be Alpha men' because the association between 'Alpha' and 'jerk' is so close. But the point of my most recent post was to argue that you don't have to adopt the morally bad behaviour of the jerk in order to stop being a loser. Let me make the point more explicitly.

The classic 'Alpha jerk' or 'Alpha bad boy' is someone successful with the ladies, while treating them badly. Promiscuity is part of the background to the discussion, but it possible for men to treat women badly in societies where promiscuity is not the norm (though the damage they inflict will be infinitely less). A century ago, in very different social conditions, these men were called 'cads', and two centuries ago it was all about 'leading on' women, and not (usually) going to bed with them, but the phenomenon was in essentials the same. It is a human universal, even if in some eras it is vigorously repressed. The question is: Why do women find these ghastly men attractive?

Chastity, chivalry, and avoiding ridicule

Noli me tangere: Do not touch me.

One serious problem for young people attempting to live a chaste life, and therefore bucking the hugely powerful trend of modern western culture, is that they can too easily be seen as losers. A good deal of prestige goes along with sex and relationships, and those who miss out on these tend to lack prestige. I've been talking about women in the last couple of posts, in response to one article I quoted, but here I'm going to focus on men, and I am partly inspired by this article here.

The author, John Mallon argues that part at least of the reason some women don't get asked on 'dates' is because they are giving off some rather hostile vibes, quite probably without meaning to. He says that men prefer women who are 'kind', and these can be hard to find; a lot of women seem to make a point of negativity and cynicism in dealing with men. This is true. But his description of men and of their needs presents an image of the 'Beta' man. A man who can't really deal with women, who lacks the characteristics which women admire and find attractive. But this is a problem, and the ladies are not to blame for not giving off warm vibes to men they don't find attractive.

Towards better arguments against promiscuity

Via dolorosa. From the Rosary Walk at Aylesford Priory.

In my last post I disuscussed the argument made by 'Jennifer Joyner' against promiscuity. Her article takes the form of a personal testimony, not relying on moral or religious arguments. Instead, it focuses on the the risk of pregancy, and the lack of pleasure.

I think such testimonies are helpful to see, and her essential point is true enough. One might add to it the risk of (let's use the proper term) venereal disease. Like pregnancy, people living the promiscuous lifestyle which our society regards as normal for the young and unmarried (at least) have a far greater chance of this than most of them imagine.

Such arguments from the perspective of the young person and what he or she wants for him or herself are related to the approach to apologetics which has taken hold in Catholic circles in the last half-century. The focus is not on the objective existence and provability of God, for example, so much as the lack one feels without God: instead of looking at the reality outside us, it looks at the feelings within us.

Not enough fun in the sack: a poor argument against promiscuity

The repentant Mary Magdalen

A lady calling herself 'Jennifer Joyner' has written an interesting critique of sexual promiscuity, without reference to religion. She makes many good points about the unsatisfactory nature of 'hookup culture', writing as a woman, and addressing women primarily. There's something I want to disagree with, however, which is encapsulated in the following paragraph.

In a culture claiming to promote gender equality, I believe hooking up has taken a dramatic step in the wrong direction. Whether we like it or not, sex is intrinsically biased against the woman: biological reality dictates that she carries the brunt of sexual risks while he wields the majority of the of sexual power. Make their coital relations mutually selfish—that is, primarily about fleeting pleasures and not about caring for the person—and she always loses. She plays a rigged game.

She goes on to specify that women bear the risk of pregnancy, and also of the experience not being a pleasurable one: in her phrase, it may not be that much fun in the sack.

She makes the common mistake, in assessing the costs and benefits involved in the 'sexual economy', of ignoring the cost to men of rejection. Men invest—or gamble, in you prefer—in advance of the actual 'hookup', and whether we are talking about honourable courtship or the utterly sordid way of life the unfortunate writer experienced, and then repented, they bear a significant risk of rejection. If they are rejected the investment—or gambling stake—is completely down the drain: the time and often money spent cultivating the woman. This is a very important factor in considering the incentives involved. However, I want to draw attention to a distinct, though related point.

From the article is seems almost incomprehensible that women behave as, sadly, they too often do. But if we don't understand why they do, we stand no chance of persuading them to stop. So at the risk of making a life of sin sound more attractive than Joyner does, I want to be a little more realistic.