Fred’s talking about the American character here, but I think this trend applies even more to other western countries, and especially Canada:
Not too long ago, Americans were a hardy breed—foolhardy at times, but the one comes with the other. Now we see attempts to eliminate all risk everywhere. Cities fill in the deep ends of swimming pools and remove diving boards. We require that bicyclists wear helmets, fear second-hand smoke and the violence that is dodge ball. Warnings abound against going outside without sun block. To anyone who grew up in the Sixties or before, the new fearfulness is incomprehensible.
The explanation I think is the feminization of society, which seems to be inseparable from modernity. The nature of masculinity is to prize freedom over security; of femininity, security over freedom. Add that the American character of today powerfully favors regulation by the group in preference to individual choice. Note that we do not require that cars be equipped with seat belts and then let individuals decide whether to use them; we enforce their use. The result is compulsory Mommyism, very much a part of today’s America.
And what is your point here? That a predominently masculine based society is ‘better’ then a feminine based society which is ‘weaker’ – is that your point here – that reckless, devil may care behaviour trumps a desire to perserve life and limb???
What’s the point of this post?
Ah, the freedom of ignorance is so much better: The freedom to drive around pissed and not go to jail; the freedom to smoke two packs a day and die a slow, wheezing death at taxpayers expense; the freedom kids used to have to smash their little faces into the dashboard because they don’t need to wear seat belts…that’s the freedom I miss.
I don’t think that I agree with the view that the loss of freedom – which I do agree is a valid point- is due to the feminization of culture. I agree that the male and female perspective is different; there’s no getting away from the reality that women bear the children and therefore, require a stable and safe environment. And men take the risks in ensuring that stability of the environment. That’s valid in every society since our species began. But, is the loss of independent responsibility simply due to the rejection of the male role?
I certainly am strongly opposed to feminism, a perverted distortion of reality in my view. Their ignorance of why a gender took a dominant role in a particular society is – a profound ignorance. Most feminists focus only on the superficial cultural aspects of a society and are deeply ignorant of the economic infrastructure.
I think that the loss of risk activities – which are vital in any growth-society, in any society that requires innovation and independent thought – are due to the increasing domination of the socialist mindset. This mindset is totalitarian, insisting on the submersion of the individual within the homogeneity of the group. Quite a joke, when you hear the rhetoric of the left, which is all about ‘tolerance, diversity’ etc – when in fact, it’s the opposite.
The question then becomes – why does a society move into groupism? Why and when does it reject individualism and individual responsibility? The US, for instance, would not be the economic power that it is, with its massive scientific innovation record, without its having been almost the only country in the world to champion individualism. Compare with other countries that reject individual responsibility – and you can see the economic and scientific difference.
The ‘rise of the West’ is due entirely to the transformation from a group-based society in the medieval period (and non-feminist) to a society focused around individual responsibility.
But why it has happened again? Why has Europe retreated into groupism? Canada, frankly, has never been an individualist country (which explains its low rate of inventions and innovation and rejection of risk). I hope the US doesn’t fall too far into this morass of groupism.
grannyism, it’s a granny state. guvment control cradle to grave, y’know do as I say not as I do stuff.
“The nature of masculinity is to prize freedom over security; of femininity, security over freedom”
Really?
So it is the feminist who care more about fighting terrorism and bolstering our security and trading off our freedoms to do so?
And it is the men who are fighting the security certificates and anti-terror legislation restrictions on our freedoms?
The problem with using overgeneralizations to try to support your argument is that they tend to come crashing up against reality.
meant to finish that by saying:
The problem with using overgeneralizations to try to support your argument is that they tend to come crashing up against reality which undermines your underlying point. i.e. bad examples/overgeneralizations undermine your argument, no matter how valid or invalid.
ET:
“The US, for instance, would not be the economic power that it is, with its massive scientific innovation record, without its having been almost the only country in the world to champion individualism.”
I think that’s only part of the equation. How do you reconcile that with, for example, the Germans? They have been in the forefront of music, art, science and engineering for hundreds of years…but the common caricature of the German is that of an automaton, not an individualist.
You can’t stop me from taking risks with my life. All you can hope for is for me to not take risks with your life. That’s life. As John Stuart Mill said:
“Neither one person, nor any number of persons, is warranted in saying to another human creature of ripe years that he shall not do with his life for his own benefit what he chooses to do with it. All errors he is likely to commit against advice and warning are far outweighed by the evil of allowing others to constrain him to do what they deem his good.”
Even Thomas Jefferson agreed, when he noted:
“Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law,’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual.”
I’m much more of a Mill type liberal, but I recognize that you have something different happening in places that have been historically more authoritarian more group-thinking place like Germany and I’d add Japan to the list.
I think you’re overgeneralizing, Ted.
Interestingly, continental Europe has less rules in many areas than the US/Canada.
Part of the explanation has to do with litigiousness within US and, less so, Canada. In my visits to Holland, I’ve seen things on skating ovals (yeah, gave them long skates a try!) and public swimming pools that you would never see in Canada. Hundreds of people skating on one oval, kids, etc – you would not believe how packed it is at high speeds. And at the pool, running teenagers everywhere on the deck — not a word said to them.
And what’s with booze in Canada? I can’t believe we spend all our time talking about freedom, rights, etc and we can’t even buy a beer or a bottle of wine at the grocery store like any other civilized society. I need to get it from nanny gov. Embarrassing.
I can’t say I agree with the feminism theory either. Women have always been a strong influence; even when they couldn’t vote, they still held quite a bit of sway in the household. Regardless, our protectionism does seem to be ever increasing. In many cases, it’s a no brainer regarding safety. Seatbelts save lives, drinking and driving don’t mix, smoking dramatically increases your risk of cancer, and you’re a fool to ignore the statistics. However, I will agree that many of our mandatory protections seem over the top. No ‘whatever’ in school because 1 in ten million kids are killed yearly playing it! That’s when it gets ridiculous. I think the whole ‘fear of anything that might kill you’ is partly to do with the waning influence of religion (greater fear of death), and partly to do with the fact that the lawyers have made liability extremely costly.
Maybe you have to be over 50 to understand what Fred means even though he is over generalizing the reason for the change. Every once in a while the changes in our society grab a fellow by the lapels. Our parents gave us lawn darts and chemistry sets, BB guns and air rifles to play with. We used to make our own bows and arrows for back up.
The part that Fred doesn’t mention is my over genralization that mom was more often than not running the family show and we became used to being mommied. Now mommy is busy so we look to the state.
Feminization? Come on, it’s really only what Mrs Thatcher used to call the nanny state up to its usual bull: attempting to control through regulation more and more aspects of human life in the name of that old sanctimonious bully, the common good. With all due respect, you’ve imposed a far to general (and vague) conceptual scheme over what is a common phenomena in human affairs (somebody always wanting to tell you what’s good for you). It’s not a feminine thing, it’s a twit-with-an-agenda-derived-from-(usually)
ideological-hooey thing. It’s about control, not gender
I’m with you doug; I think there is a place for feminism in this argument. It always seemed to me that the feminists were the first to howl for regulating people. First or near first to ignore the science on second hand smoke and to commandeer a scientific opinion to ban it. (Just as with Global warming, where IPCC scientific opinion was reversed overnight.) We each spend 4 to 5 hours a day with our snouts half way up a 3 inch exhaust pipe but it’s the whiff of a bit of burning leaf 30 feet away that is going to do us in. (Not arguing that a 3 pack a day habit isn’t healthy.)
9/11 was the American’s own fault. I first heard that from a feminist radical. (I wondered aloud if it could have been that humanitarian aid delivered to Somalia at the cost of 18 US soldier’s lives that triggered it.)
Radical gun control was what we needed to control men who were all out to kill women. No one could be trusted with a gun; no one! We’ve had 7 shootings here in the last 4 days; but it’s all OK, they knew each other. And the guns; smuggled in from China or Eastern Europe, but it’s that American gun culture that’s at fault. Not to worry, replica guns are banned as well.
The foundation of all these arguments are that they are always for our own good.
You’ll have to permit me a disagreement here. Some of you might consider removing safety features that we currently enjoy in our products as a sort of neo-darwinism, weeding out the stupid or incompetent. I personally think that the use of helmets prevents children from dying when they get hit by cars while the ride their bicycles. I think that seat-belts save the lives of those hit by drunk drivers, or those who hit patches of black ice on the road. I think we are encouraged to use sunscreen because it prevents us from suffering the debilitating effects of skin cancer. I think we have child-proof caps because we want to protect our youngsters from ingesting 60 or 70 pills of aspirin. In short, I don’t think that being concerned with safety is a result of the ‘feminization’ of America, or whatever that means. I think it has to do with a desire to not, you know, get killed every time we step outside. Or inside. Whatever. The loss of life is so preventable.
After all, no one is forcing you to wear a helmet, or go diving in city swimming pools, or to not breathe in second hand smoke. Hell, go ahead an dive in quarries, go helmet-free, leave off that seat-belt! After all, I see morons in the paper every day who take that path. Their brains usually end up on the dashboard or asphalt.
If we choose not to to play it safe simply out of some “masculine bravado”, then what are we proving? That we were too cool to live? How dumb is that?
I’ll take my helmet and seat-belt thank you.
As you can tell from the posts, the Liberal or Progressive elements in our society see the justification for the government’s intrusion into all aspects of the population’s various endeavors, and the Conservative viewpoint is to let natural selection take it’s path.
From debating the forced use of helmets for kids on toboggans to removing the game of tag from schoolgrounds, the progressives will not rest until they have the ability to micro-manage every aspect of your existence.
Would love to ship the works of you off to Sweden where you belong.
It’s more than the feminization of society, this phobia of children taking risks, as we used to do, though the feminization of society goes hand-in-hand with the problem.
The culprit is lack of parenting, in particular, lack of mothering, a subject that is just about taboo in North American society, because we don’t want moms who work outside the home to feel guilty. By mothering, I mean hands-on, 24/7 mothering, not the mothering that most kids experience these days of a few hours with mom every morning, usually rushed as everyone gets off to work and school, and a few hours at night, equally rushed and stressed.
I centre on “mothering” because, by and large, it IS mothers who “mother” their children. It’s no accident that mothers have breasts with which to feed their babies, and “shelves” (aka hips) on which to perch their kids while carrying them. Nine times out of ten, it’s moms who worry about their children’s not being warm enough, not having enough lunch at school, not being safe when they’re out playing. These are not, on the whole, male preoccupations. I know, I know, there are exceptions, but they’re exceptions. Common sense says it’s time to admit that there are “norms” and “exceptions” to certain truths about human nature, something for the past 40 years that North Americans, especially feminists, have been loath to do.
My intention in citing lack of mothering is not to make any mother feel guilty. But the truth is, that because many moms spend only a few hours a day with their kids and, therefore, can’t supervise their activities (if even from the kitchen window, as I used to do, when my daughters were playing outside), they become obsessed with their children’s safety when they can’t be with them and think that helmets and prohibiting certain activities are the answers. The answer is for society to find a way to help and encourage moms to be home with their kids. In a survey by Homemakers back in the early 1990s, a full 70% of moms working outside the home said that they would much prefer to stay home with their children IF THEY COULD ONLY AFFORD TO.
When you’re able to be with your kids full-time–and my family made incredible monetary and other sacrifices for me to be home with my husband’s and my children–you’re able to supervise their activities because you’re on-site, all the time. When the norm was for moms to stay home with their children–which, BTW, doesn’t mean smoking cigs, drinking coffee with your hair in curlers as you watch the Soaps, the supposition of a CBC producer I once talked to: Jeesh–there was far more freedom for kids to just be kids.
Now that so many parents/moms are with their children only a few hours a day, they worry a great deal and look for substitutes for and instant solutions to their children’s safety.
Until our society begins to come to terms with the devastation being caused to our children by absentee parents/moms, including neglect on a massive scale, even if benign, our kids are going to increasingly continue to demonstrate anti-social behaviour and parents are going to continue to be phobic about real and imagined dangers to their kids. Kids these days often take inordinate risks because there’s no one around to say, as Mom would, “Johnny, stop that! You’re going to get hurt!” and because many of them are extremely angry that there’s no one home to supervise them. Psychologists have been saying for years that we have an epidemic in North America of angry kids—and helmets and emptying the deep end of swimming pools are not the answers.
Mommyism is not as prevalent as one may first suppose.
Even with the mandatory helmet, one is still able to flutter about the pearly gates with a little logging road motocross.
And with a little spurt down the Upper Island freeway in Honda *R* series, no helmet is required, so far. = TG
Don’t you know you’re only allowed to use over generalizations when arguing from a left point of view?
P.S.
Don*t forget a little gentle 4X4ing in the Jeep. eh? = TG
What crap. Virtually all of the major historical figures responsible for the inception and growth of collectivist thinking/big government solutions have been men. Men, men, men.
And I don’t think their wives made them do it.
iberia – the stereotype of the German is just that, a generalized stereotype. But, the philosophical arguments of such as Kant – were about individualism; the science, the math etc, were all honed by individuals. They had a strong work ethic but it was the mind of the individual that was dominant (Lutherism?).
if the ‘freedom lovers’ would only then choose to ‘freely’ PAY for ALL the consequences inflicted on themselves AND everyone else of their recklessness, and then still more in punative and then MORE in general compensation, health care providers etc etc of the victims, THEN, ‘maybe’ you have a point.
but they just want to have all the fun and then turn over the care and treatment of those that suffer the consequences to the so-called ‘nanny’ state.
maybe we can arrange their estates goes exclusively into a fund to finance the care and treatment of any and all victims of the ‘freedom lovers’ actions and let the darwin effect take hold.
and I wasnt aware the patriot act came out of a feminist agenda.
this posting is pure crap.
RB,
Bet you were not all sober common sense when you were younger.
Well maybe for para-jumpers and snowmobilers, then = TG
RB,
Bet you were not all sober common sense when you were younger.
Well maybe for para-jumpers and snowmobilers and ROCK CLIMBERS then = TG
Males, females, mean nothing when come the lawyers! The lawyers are the parasites that now rule the western civilization. They are the organized united force that sucks all juices from entire pyramid of society – individuals, corporations and government. That’s why all hockey rinks disappeared, that’s why ‘walk dont run’ rule is enforced at all our schools, that’s why hunters get a cavity search from a SWAT team (http://www.cdnshootingsports.org/JonathanLogan200603.html)
That is why teachers ban any mention of weapons during studying medieval times with 4th graders… You name it – for the fear of a lawsuit, that cruses everyone in our society.
I wish I could find a link to this study that a British researcher had done on the current generation of youth having lost it’s ability to assess risk, and thus, make descisions because of their parents “bubble wrapping” them.
I think this is one of the greatest threats to our society. 5 kids in 7 years die in tobagganing accidents in all of Canada and now we’re talking about bringing in mandatory helmets for children tobagganing. More kids drown in the bathtub every year. Should we make life jackets mandatory for all children under 18 in the tub?
Parents don’t let their kids play in the dirt anymore. Now we have a generation of sickly people. We know that getting sick makes your immunity system stronger for the future, yet we use anti-bacterial everything.
We learned lessons from falling out of trees, skinning our knees, jumping off cliffs into lakes that the generation behind us aren’t learning. I can’t tell you how many putzs I work with who are completely unable to make a desision or take risk. Hell, I work with engineers who refuse to stamp and take responsibility for their own work.
“After all, no one is forcing you to wear a helmet”
Nobody except the coercive force of the law. Seriously, I think it is WISE to wear a helmet when biking on a tough trail or in heavy traffic and I did so long before it was mandatory. It think it is stupid to have to wear a helmet to peddle a few blocks down a quiet suburban street – but the law makes no such distinctions.
As long as people see police as some magic warriors, perfect inside and outside (remember – only police should have guns…), the freedom will be taken away step by step. Police are no different than people themselves. They are even called ‘Police services’ and are a corporation, however government owned. Just another business, that seeks to ever increase itself and its customer base.
So wear your helmet and STFU, or we’ll fine you. Fine, fine, fine, fine, fine! $$$$$$$$$$$$ And if we won’t fine you, it’s only because today is a pay day.
robertbollocks — you hit on an exact scenario that shows how the government keeps creeping up on you. And universal health care is the worst culprit.
We have universal health care (which the government will not let me opt out of — I am forced to pay for it and I am not allowed to buy my own). Now you and I are getting barred from certain risks because the government (i.e. our taxes) might have to pay for it.
Will you pay for a man’s healthcare if he sleeps with another man without a condom (not that they are fool-proof either) and contracts AIDS? Or would you ban that activity by law? As stupid and foolhardy as it is, I would not ban that activity but you must to be consistent.
It costs a helluva lot more to everyone to allow that than to allow wearing bike helmets.
Been around the block expalins it better than I could. One of our biggest mistakes has been to create a society where both parents have to work to make ends meet or buy all of the crap that we are brainwashed into thinking we need to bring us happiness. I’m not saying it has to be mom staying home because I know some dads that are doing a good job of raising their children while mom works. I raised my three on my own and they tell me I did all right by them.
But Doug, it has to be the fault of the feminists or the socialists, or ….
Personal responsibility of accepting the risk and consequences for the decisions you make should include raising kids. That is a huge job. Deciding to not give kids the attention they need has harmed our society. It is our fault. It is our responsibility to stop being victims and to own up for what we need to do.
John M Reynolds
well peter jay, there is a 3rd alternative which I gave in my response: the culprit pays out of their own pocket.
the billboard emphasis on ‘use a condom’ is CRAP.
as you say, condoms are NOT 100% effective contraception; the punch line is …. (drum roll) the AIDS virus is a lot smaller than a sperm cell so its gonna tag along thru the breach just fine.
‘wear a condom’ to decrease [but NOT eliminate] the chance of aids is the populist propaganda line.
no mention of hepatitis @ 2000 times the propensity to infect (according to the hepatitis foundation or some such outfit). that nasty little accompaniment pretty much happens with just a single exposure but AIDS requires on average multiple exposures to establish itself.
do the math.
I did ONE static line parachute jump to see what it was like and find out what to do if I ever needed to later.
I dont rock climb, parasail, extreme sport, or tolerate risky pranks or easily avoidable hazards on the job. result is I do not have a chronic infection and never have, do not have crippling injuries, have very good eyesight and clean lungs etc et friggin cetera.
my GP says Im healthier that most men my age and have embarked on an effort to set an astonishing personal record for lifting on the leg exercise machine @ the local gym.
God gave me health and the brains to protect it.
screw the nanny state and screw machismo foolhardiness.
there is a 3rd option.
My hat’s off to single parents like doug newton, and to any and all parents, male or female, who put their kids’ well-being first, whatever their circumstances. There are wonderfully dedicated parents of both sexes, some who stay home and some who have to work outside the home.
But, since the general trend in the past 40 years has been women leaving the home en masse–and the care of their children to others–to join the paid workforce, the general trend has also been too many kids feeling abandoned and lots of parents worrying constantly about their kids–and relying on government regulations to “fix” the problem.
At some point, as jmr and others have pointed out, we have to take personal responsibility for the choices we make. All choices have consequences, and we seem to be living in a time when too many want nothing to do with the consequences of their own choices–and choose, instead, to blame others or expect others, e.g., the government, to provide solutions.
Government as nanny, nurse, or fixer is the worst solution to any problem, especially when it comes to parenting. Government needs to empower individuals and individual families to make their own choices and to find their own solutions to problems which, inevitably, will come up.
The trend for women leaving the home to work is thanks (to a large degree) to the implementation of right wing economic policies like free trade, globalization and forcing cuts to social programs. I find it ironic that the same people who complain about parents not staying home to look after their children also support economic policies that require two incomes to raise a family.
what we need is an approach via tax policies, workplace regulations, etc, that encourages younger marrieds to have kids quickly when they too are young. a host of benefits kick in; smaller generation gap, careers are delayed, BUT not interrupted later, kids are not born from the 40 year old eggs in the woman leading to measurable increases in birth defects like downs syndrome.
also the children get to live in a better house once the parents’ careers kick in; as an infant they are unawares of that aspect of their surroundings and frankly dont need a huge amount of facilities or room to explore. the 5 to 10 year old set however love it and thrive in it.
but not if mummsie and daddsie are in hock to the hilt paying day care, juggling parenting and work, too much spending too soon stymieing the whole thing about long term security and success.
*&^% the nanny state.
its a cultural, social and economic thing.
we’re too imbued with materialism for it to work on a meaningful scale. instant gratification, its why casinos are so successful, instant gratification.
by the way, THIS approach worked brilliantly for me; I stayed home the first 2 yrs of our daughter’s life when my wife had just graduated and made 3 times my pay scale. then I got promoted and started full time in another city and she took over the home front, then when the little one was of age, the wife started to work where they had day care on site. etc etc. this was 30 years ago, anything gotten better out there?
oh, same old same old, materialism, rat race, bla bla bla, way to go fast food purveyors and all you cell phone addicts.
hint: ya gotta learn to CHERRY PICK about everything.
“They have been in the forefront of music, art, science and engineering for hundreds of years”
Have been? Not for at least sixty years. And though I am no happier about our turning into a nation of little panty-waists who want to be protected because we’re too weak to protect ourselves, there’s a lot less of it here than most other places.
Thank God.
Iberia says: “I find it ironic that the same people who complain about parents not staying home to look after their children also support economic policies that require two incomes to raise a family.”
We do? And how would you know?
My husband and I most emphatically DO NOT “support economic policies that require two incomes to raise a family” and never have. Why do you think I stayed home with our kids? Not because we “could afford to.”
We lived on a very limited income (and quite seriously talk about “Freedom 85”), our furniture was/still is second-hand, our kids’ clothes were second-hand, we had a second-hand car, and we holidayed where a kind relative or friend would lend us a house or cottage–so we definitely have never supported any policy–government or private enterprise–that demanded two incomes.
We also didn’t–and still don’t–support the kinds of lifestyles that too many double-income couples require: their own a house, two cars, latest toys and gadgets, matching furniture in one’s home and garden, latest fashions for mom, dad, and kids, best after-school programs, summer camps, high-end vacations, etc., etc.
And let’s not take the lazy lefty route of solely blaming “economic policies” of private enterprise (which are better than socialist ones, which ensure that everyone, except the initiators of said socialist policies, gets bad service and few resources). There were lots of l/Liberal policies floating around when my kids were small to punish parents who wanted to stay home with their child(ren)–and that were encouraging of women joining the paid workforce: more tax revenue for the government.
Your generalizations, Iberia, are unsubstantiated–and, I might add, condescending.
“We do? And how would you know?”
Judging by the comments posted by right wingers, here and elsewhere.
45 years ago, a factory worker could afford to buy a modest home (in Toronto) and a modest new car, while his wife and kids stayed at home. No amount of scrimping and saving would make that possible today. Thanks largely to the globalization promoted by right wingers, wages have not kept up to inflation, and good paying manufacturing jobs have moved overseas. Thanks to budget cutbacks promoted by right wingers, the kind of school and community programs available 20 years ago now have to be paid for by fees. People who are middle class and below and who support right wing economic policies are merely useful idiots.
Look around and you will probibly see real dumb warning lebels and some wackos from the phonie CSPI was dumb warning labels on salt and the egghead idiots at PCRM tried to get stupid warning lebels on milk we need warning lebals on these liberal junk science fakers