Dear Fred,
Thanks for "Frog Hospital" - and for sending Bill's email address at the Vatican Library.
It is true that Laura provides a useful service by pointing out the shortcomings of knee-jerk feminism.
But other than the choir, who is listening?
As my "relationship" with Laura demonstrated, she has little-to-no interest in thought processes not rooted in Catholic Traditionalism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditionalist_Catholic
Everything "outside" the "flock" is an existential threat.
"Extra ecclesiam nulla salus."
The byzantine intrigue that informs Traditionalist Catholicism begins with the bizarre story of Cardinal Siri's supposed "deposition" at the 1958 conclave.
To participate in this lunacy, it is probably necessary to be hermetically sealed, within "the tribe" of True Believers.
Here are a few informative links about the '58 conclave:
My a.m. post about Bobby Jindal discusses the sine qua non need for deliberate self-deception in people whose belief system can only survive by reflexive willingness to contradict any inconvenient scientific (or knowledgeable) finding.
"Bobby Jindal And The Suicidal Myth Of "No New Taxes""
Here is Aquinas' outlook on the contradiction of rational truth the revelations of faith: "Arguing against those who said that natural philosophy was contrary to the Christian faith, (Aquinas) writes in his treatise "Faith, Reason and Theology that "even though the natural light of the human mind is inadequate to make known what is revealed by faith, nevertheless what is divinely taught to us by faith cannot be contrary to what we are endowed with by nature. One or the other would have to be false, and since we have both of them from God, he would be the cause of our error, which is impossible."" "Aladdin's Lamp: How Greek Science Came to Europe Through the Islamic World" by John Freely)
As calm and measured as Laura can be when dealing with themes in her "comfort zone" I was, from the start, struck by how testy she got (and gets) when dealing with (infrequent) opposition to her socially, politically and morally "orthodox" views, dissing intellectual opponents with unbecoming manifestations of puerile remonstrance.
I am reminded of Chesterton's observation that women -- at least in the home -- are by nature fascist.
Whether this comment is statistically valid, it has been my frequent experience that women bind together in cooing, caddy klatches where their close relationship with one another serves as foundation for criticizing other relationships outside their circle, and in that critical (often ad hominem) process, they tend to undervalue "the discussion of issues," instead focusing on the "discussion of personalities."
"Telephone Hour" from "Bye Bye Birdie" is a useful metaphor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sPU3ymk2ms
Despite the service Laura provides as a "brake" on over-the-top feminism, I look at the overall psycho-social integrity of the American "right" and am appalled.
They cling to "too pure principles" with the ferocity of cornered animals, believing that absolute fidelity to The Past is their only "salvation."
And thus obsessed with one-or-another "Golden Age," there is no truly creative work they can do.
Indeed, stuck in the past, they are frightened by the changes that creative work always manifests.
Compendium Of Best Pax Posts: Plutocracy, Economic Inequality & Collapse Of Conservatism
Focused on The Past, they become "apologists" for The Past.
Early Christian apologists were famous for writing books whose title began with the word "Against." The next word in the title was the name of a heterodox individual or heterodox school of thought.
"Against."
The modality of opposition remains conservatism's daily bread.
It is probable that more stay-at-home-Moms (than workplace Moms) are politically conservative "by nature."
However, from my ringside seat as adjunct home-school teacher for a conservative Christian group in North Carolina, I see that these families are rabidly and "libelously" anti-liberal and that their conservatism is so reflexive that I easily imagine every home-school Mom cheer-leading the Iraq War just as they did the Vietnam War.
I am now removed from the homeschooling "scene" but I suspect the conservative Christian Moms who belong to that culture would -- with virtual unanimity -- love to see Bibi invade Iran. (Hoping some one else will do Uncle Sam's dirty work has become the obligatory outcome of being forced to realize that America's stupid, destructive, counter-productive swashbuckling in Iraq and Afghanistan crippled the National Treasury so that any near-term gringo "boots on the ground" is out of the question.
"Bush's Toxic Legacy In Iraq"
Although these mothers do not come across as overtly racist, they are VERY white and share that telltale hatred of Obama which is, to a significant extent, a combination of racism and slightly submerged fury at the loss of white privilege.
Notably, conservative Christians are unusually eager to claim that "white privilege" does not exist, instead seeing themselves as socio-economic victims of liberal political favoritism bestowed on people of color.
Whites Think Discrimination Against Them Is A Bigger Problem Than Bias Against Blacks
Republican Party Is "Full Of Racists," Colin Powell's Chief Of Staff
http://paxonbothhouses.
"Bad Black People." Why Bill O'Reilly Is Wrong Even When He's Right
"Bad Black People." Why Bill O'Reilly Is Wrong Even When He's Right
Laura's brand of stay-at-home femininity seems consistent with the soccer Mom impulse (on both sides of the aisle) to cheerlead whichever "masculinists" thump their political chests with the greatest measure of political zeal.
On balance -- and although I admire stay-at-home-Moms who have a gift for the Christian equivalent of "harem-enclosure" -- I think that conservative mothers do considerable harm by raising their children with an undue measure of caution/fear while looking over their shoulders to see what "the Joneses think."
I am also stymied by post-partum depression which afflicts 20% of new mothers. http://www.webmd.com/
Then there's garden variety depression and other psychological disorders which beset women at almost twice the frequency of men... perhaps because they are "confined" to the home?
Both psychological downsides make me think that men should play more of a role in child-rearing and that "tag-teaming" child-rearing so that first one parent - and then the other - "stay at home" would be healthier for children and healthier for Mom and Dad.
The brand of "masculinism" that Laura supports -- where men are entrusted with political decisions -- has always impressed as thoroughly bogus. Ever since I was a young boy, zoologically mandated machismo struck me as little more than testosterone on parade.
And so, generation after generation of young bucks are seduced by graying elders in The Military-Industrial Complex to wage an endless series of wars, few of which can be viewed ex post facto with anything other than head-scratching befuddlement.
93 year old Air Force general friend, AWC says "we haven't fought a good war since World War II."
What we have fought -- directly or through surrogates -- are The Spanish-American War, The Vietnam War, The Nicaraguan Contra War, The Bay of Pigs Invasion, The Salvador War, The Granada War, The Iraq War, The Afghan War, The "Liberation" of Libya.
Timeline Of U.S. Military Operations
And now, in a twinkle, we've gone from the brink of an Iranian War to fighting alongside Iran in Iraq where The Whimsy War - stupidly launched by Smirk and Snarl - was a war Iran won!?!
I do not want my boy participating in this kind of twisted masculinity, a crude zoological enterprise that creates far more problems than it solves.
It would be more accurate to say that these ostentatious displays of simian masculinity never solve problems but only delay an even bleaker "day of reckoning." (The Treaty of Versailles which ended World War I became the cause of World War II: the establishment of Zionist Israel at the end of World War II is odds-on favorite to start World War III...)
The fact that conservative stay-at-home Moms perform this never-ending Death Dance with their testy-testosterone husbands will, one day, be regarded as The Essential Horror undergirding all pre-Revelation history.
It would not surprise me if The Horror embodied by this chest-thumping heterosexual dance is revealed as humankind's cornerstone delusion... with young bucks eager to kill, and adulatory women cheering them on.
Pax tecum
Alan
On Tue, Mar 3, 2015 at 2:20 PM, Fred Owens <froghospital911@gmail.com> wrote:
&()*&Y@vatlib.it ---- Bill's address. He is retired now, but he surely has contacts at the Vatican...... he worked for decades on the ancient manuscripts. I'm sure he knows a lot and equally sure he is not likely to share too much.....I am still reading Laura Wood. She is the only source I have for a consistent opposition to feminism. That is her value to me. Her concept of the papacy is weird and her forays into race baiting are unwelcome..... but she does hit hard and well against feminism and I can find that kind of criticism nowhere else.Also she is a talented writer, but You are right in stating her absolutism as a negative quality.She has been posting a few memoir-style writings about the old neighborhood in Philadelphia --- there is a a promise there of better things, an indication that her blog is limiting.
--
My writing blog is Frog Hospital
send mail to:
Fred Owens
35 West Main St Suite B #391
Ventura CA 93001
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