The real cause of societal decline is …

Various types of conservatives and right-wingers blame the decline of our civilization on a variety of factors: liberalism, leftism, anti-Americanism, political correctness, alienation, unlimited personal freedom, sexual liberation, homosexual liberation, abortion, excessive affluence, consumerism, statism, the Living Constitution, the leviathan provider state, welfare, illegitimacy, high taxes, the trade deficit, outsourcing of jobs, neoconservatism, democratism, imperialism, debased left-wing education, debased mass entertainment, multiculturalism, bilingualism, racial preferences, illegal immigration, legal immigration, black dysfunction, anti-white racism, the culture of self-esteem, the decline of standards, feminism, Islam. That’s quite a list, and it’s just a start. But here’s an argument I’ve never heard before, and I don’t quite know what to make of it. The writer blames the precipitous decline of our society on … women.

Lawrence,

Peggy Noonan is getting depressed that the US is going downhill?

I consider the fact that this woman has a public voice with which to speak one of the foundations for our decline and ultimate fall.

I suscribe to what the apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians, “Women should not speak in the assembly.” That is not a cultural issue for Paul goes on to say that this is a commandment from the Lord.

The fact that we have deviated from this standard will kill our society. It is no accident that the base of our society is being destroyed through immigration AT THE SAME TIME that we have aborted over 30 million babies. Who clamours for abortion if not women? In the final analysis, it is the American woman who is responsible for the tragic fact of abortion. Instead of 30 million newly born citizens, we fill that void in with immigrants that don’t belong in our culture.

Women in the final analysis are responsible for abortion. Not the male who impregnated the woman. Not the doctor who performed the abortion. But the woman who allowed herself to be impregnated and then went to the doctor to remove the efects of that impregnation. The woman could have said, “No sex”, or carried on through with the conception. So consider the women of this country as responsible for the decline in out western-Christian heritage. Including those that could have children (like Angerlina Joli) but instead adopt foreign kids.

Also if women did not compete with men for jobs, we would have less unemployment. But women don’t really compete with men because I have not run into many women who can compete with men for positions based on talent alone. I have witnessed too many women who have risen through corporate ranks based purely on “minority” promotion. Our corporations are getting the stuffing kicked out of them by Oriental companies who are run exclusively by males! While we babysit females in our industries who are more concerned with “lifestyles” rather than products.

Quite frankly I don’t see that the conservative movement gains anything from “conservative” women such as Noonan or Ann Coulter. Frankly I haven’t read one conservative, female columnist who offers anything in the way of fundamental truth. Coulter is a conservative pastiche. These women writers merely echo what conservative males have written or thought out. Nothing original from women themselves.

Noonan was a speech-writer for Reagan. She wrote what was in another man’s head. I don’t see that since then she has had anything deep or origianl to say herself. But we give her a pulpit from which to spew out here inaniities. As I said before, she herself is a symbol of our decline. From Peggy Noonan to Laura Bush—they should be told to just shut up (as one of your correspondents wrote) instead of wimpifying the American male.

Another reader responds:

Your correspondent writes: “we have aborted over 30 million babies”

I am against abortion, but there are case studies which show that abortion alone is not responsible for a net drop in births: Communist central Europe, Poland in particular. In 1945 (after WWII), Poland had about 23 million people, growing to 38 million at its peak in 1989. That’s with zero immigration, and huge emigration. Abortion was legal and practiced under the Communist regime. Abortion was outlawed shortly after 1989, and the population started dropping, like all of Europe’s.

He also writes: “Who clamours for abortion if not women?” The answer is MEN. Leftist men. Men who want the sex but not the shotgun weddings.

But I join him in condemning that which Angelina Jolie represents. Here is a fertile, beautiful multimillionaire woman with a smitten multimillionaire husband, a woman who can afford to quit working and give an aristocratic upbringing of 10 of her own kids, but instead, she adopts.

Most American women, especially poor and lower middle class white women, WANT children, but fear that they lack the means to give them a normal childhood.

I also agree with his “bigger picture” points, but I don’t blame women, who typically bear the heaviest burdens of liberalism. I blame the men.

It is unbecoming of a man to blame women for his troubles.

A third reader writes:

I disagree with your correspondent that women getting abortions is the cause of our societal decline. Our declining birthrate is a real problem, but unless we are also willing to prohibit contraception then we are not going to significantly affect the birthrate—the number of pregnancies prevented by contraception dwarfs the number aborted. And frankly I think it would be immoral to prohibit contraception. I don’t want to go back to the days when women were unable to avoid having a dozen or more children because they had no means to prevent it. If our only means of maintaining population is to force our women to conceive against their wills, we’re in trouble.

But I do agree that women are at least partly a cause of the decline of our society. But not for a reason that your correspondent mentioned. I think the problem with including women in the decision-making process is that they are natural-born collectivists who think primarily in terms of family dynamics that simply don’t work well when applied on a society-wide basis.

Women, I think, are genetically predisposed to see society as one large family that should be ruled by a beneficent provider who doles out gentle, loving guidance while providing the necessities of life. This has led to the unsustainable, victim-promoting nanny-state mentality gripping the country. Women tend to be big-hearted and compassionate, which is wonderful in a family but a disaster for a society that has to protect itself from outside forces. They tend to lack the conquering, competitive instincts which men have and which are crucial for sustaining a society in the face of competition from or invasion by other groups. Perhaps there is something to the idea that our national problems really became rooted around and after 1920 when women got the vote. The country has become steadily more feminized since then, reducing our ability to resist outsiders and “conquer” (physically or economically) others.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 01, 2005 12:14 AM | Send