PG notes that the next two blog posts (if you are reading in reverse chronological order) are, for him, two sides of the same coin.
He is of the opinion that men need (or at least are better off with) women and women need (or at least are better off with) men. This does not automatically mean everyone needs to be married to fulfill this need. or that men can’t have meaningful platonic relations with women and vice-versa.
There are a great many similarities between the two genders, but, in PG’s experience, there are some important differences between most men and most women. (He’s not rejecting the existence of outliers, just observing generalities.)
PG understands that he is being old-fashioned with his two-gender view of the world, but he thinks that this understanding has a long track record of success. It’s not perfect, but PG thinks it has worked better than any of the alternatives that have been proposed and, in some cases tried.
PG has always enjoyed the company of both women and men and, prior to his marriage with Mrs. PG, had a great many female friends who were definitely in the friend zone, some by their choice and others by PG’s choice.
PG would not know a great deal about the world had he not had extensive interaction with both men and women. Limiting himself to only one gender or primarily one gender would leave him even more stupid than he is about a great many important things.
PG – it’s been well over a year since I’ve come to your blog (only because of competing priorities, mind you – nothing to do with you and your great content).
And when I return, I see this brilliant post and realise what I have been missing!
Blessings to you for your wise, funny, apt words. Mrs PG is a lucky woman.
You’re an absolute legend PG!
Thank you for your kind remarks, K.
I may have to contact you when I next get in trouble with Mrs. PG.
My rejoinder to the whole circumstance is sadly, close-captioned. And heavily influenced by the fact that while I recognize gonads, I don’t think with them (and stopped doing so in high school, if I ever had), so this whole idea of “building an entire personality around gonads and their interaction” just seems stupid to me. Because I’m an individual, and (perhaps overconfidently?) expect everyone else to be so, too. And because I actually have some knowledge about the history of Samar, and find that the distance from the concept of a “good German” to outright bigotry is not nearly so great as those who never measure it can comprehend, but that’s for another time entirely.
sniff Tribes are for primitive, pre-civilized peoples — no matter how they’re defined.
Good points, C.
I will not turn this board less family-friendly by using all of the flightline aircraft-maintenance vocabulary I mastered in the 1980s to describe all aspects of the foolishness of “assigning the entire worth of an individual to a single characteristic.” The closest I’ll come is noting that lacking a Y chromosome is no impediment to being a d*ckhead.
And even when, in Spanish Inquisition style, there are more than one — no, more than two — no, as many as five — critical characteristics for admission to/identification of the tribe (including an almost-fanatical devotion to some theocrat, notwithstanding the faith/doctrinal label applied to that theocrat), tribalism as a substitute for listening is still primitive. But then, I’m a hard-core intellectual… so I would say that, even on Super Bowl weekend. (In the 1980s, I attended football matches between Ipswich and Millwall, Celtic and Rangers, Schalke FC and Fortuna Köln, and Roma and Lazio — so I’ve seen some really ugly tribalism at sporting events. Far uglier than anything US residents can even imagine past the 1960s.).
You assume our genetics are significantly diferent from our cave dwelling forbears. 😉
Other than some tribes’ lactose tolerance they aren’t.
Fact is most people are just a major hurricane, blackout, or earthquake from LORD OF THE FLIES.
Or a political screed.
The 574 Summer “events” 2020 are a good example.
Just wait on the next Carrington event.
In the Hobbes vs Locke debate, I side with…both. 😀
Ten years after William Golding released Lord of the Flies, six teenage boys found themselves stranded on a real desert island. Like in the book, there were no adults and it was up to them to survive.
https://medium.com/illumination-curated/real-life-lord-of-the-flies-what-happened-when-six-boys-were-marooned-for-15-months-4f4ccad32d5a
It’s not old-fashioned to recognize biology exists. -_-
Try this latest “outrage”:
https://www.bignewsnetwork.com/news/272286034/how-is-it-problematic-for-adele-to-be-proud-of-being-a-woman
I wonder what things would be like in the event of a major war that the west lost. How the activists would like living under the CCP, Russia, or Taliban-style islamists. I expect they would not live long enough to regret undercutting the societies that bred them.h
Perhaps something like this?
https://www.baen.com/caliphate.html
Pretty good technothriller with a bite if you have a the tolerance for a dark dystopia and a mind open enough to reach the second half of Chapter 9.
Many have argued that open tolerant societies are unsustainable and incompatible with human tribal nature.
Thanks for your comment, F.
Agreed, M.