Outcast9428 wrote: ↑September 20th, 2022, 2:02 am
A lot of people don’t seem to understand why all the rules of a traditional society are necessary. Why are traditionalists so aggressive about trying to enforce all their rules? Why don’t you just live and let live? Well, I’m here to explain all that now in as clear a manner as I can. The truth is, these rules benefit the overwhelming majority of the population if diligently followed.
First off though, the way I see it, there are mainly three competing ideologies in our modern world. Every ideology has one foundation to it. This foundational idea builds a society/civilization into what it is. The rules of this society will revolve around this foundational idea. There are other things which will be considered important, but nothing is superior or is considered more important then the foundational idea. These foundational ideas all come with different rights and entitlements given to its citizens. The three competing ideologies of our modern world are leftism, liberalism, and traditionalism. There are of course, many ways that people mix these ideologies or take them to extremes. Communism for example, is the extreme version of leftism. Liberalism, meanwhile, has a left-leaning version. Pure liberalism is what you’ve often heard me call “right-leaning liberalism.” Liberalism actually has a conservative variant as well called “liberal conservatism.” Which I sometimes call “center-right conservatism” to separate it from true traditionalism. Obviously traditionalism is the last of the three ideologies.
Hey
@Outcast9428, I’ve been meaning to respond to this thread for a while now, but haven’t had the time or the motivation to do so. I am interested in having this conversation though, so let’s go through what you said and I’ll give you my honest feedback.
The foundational idea of leftism is equality... Equality between the races, equality between men and women, equality between gays and straights. The most extreme leftists will even attempt to create complete wealth equality. Essentially eliminating the categories of rich and poor. This is “marxism” or “communism.” However, leftists always seem to define “equality” as “treat people exactly the same regardless of how they are biologically or socially different from other people.” So for this reason, equality by the leftist definition pretty much just means sameness. While I do strongly believe in “fairness” I do not believe in equality because treating people the same way is a foolish idea.
I agree with you about leftism. Equality, as presented today, is an unobtainable goal as the far left are trying to enforce something which simply does not exist. True equality is a complete lie and it undermines people who have talents and skills in specific areas. I even mentioned this in my Aesthetics thread to a degree with how post modern art elevates itself to the same level as masterful pieces of art from the Renaissance like the Mona Lisa for example. The ideology takes degenerate talentless hacks who shit in a jar and elevates them to the status of artists when they are no such thing!
The same can be said about feminism. Men and women are not equal at all. We are different beings of the same species. I think Jordan Peterson argued this point very well in a debate with a feminist who was talking about women being oppressed and not having any equality to men because very few women are in positions of power. Jordan Peterson asked her why women only care about equality when it comes to positions of power. Why don’t women fight to become brick layers? Or work on the bins? Why does equality only matter when it comes to political power? That highlights the hypocrisy of feminism and why it is a toxic ideology. Jordan Peterson also points out that most suicides are men, men are conscripted to fight, most homeless people are men. The list goes on and on.
I think women should get free sanitary products, I think it’s disgusting that they don’t. But things like this and other talking points they use are not indicative of a patriarchal society. A lot of men suffer in this society as well, and this is only exacerbated through the majority of western women adopting the ideology of feminism and using it to usurp any power from men and therefore have dominion over them. Is it truly equality they fight for? Or are they just another group of ideologues who are competing in the ideological battleground of society to have their own values imposed on everyone else?
As for the equality of wealth, I don’t agree with trickle down economics. I am not a communist but I despise capitalism and see it as a way for rich assholes to keep their power when the ideology is obviously obsolete. We could automate most if not all menial labour and emancipate the entire human race from their clandestine slavery. They know this is the next logical step, but they cling to their power and refuse to let it go. So do I believe in the equality of wealth? I don’t even think wealth in a financial sense should even exist anymore. Or at the very least we should be attempting to transition away from it. I’m writing out a draft for a thread on capitalism which highlights all the reasons I hate it so much, so I won’t derail the topic of traditionalism too much with a divergent rant about capitalist systems.
The foundational idea of liberalism is individual freedom. This is why I cringe whenever I see mainstream conservatives saying that “individualism is the basis of right-wing ideology.” No it is not. Individualism is literally the foundational idea of liberalism. Liberalism actually does have a lot of variants because of this. Left-leaning liberals prioritize individual freedom above everything else, but care a lot about equality too. Pure liberals care about individual freedom most of all, nothing interferes with individual freedom. Liberal conservatives prioritize individual freedom first, but care a lot about traditional values too. Liberal conservatives want a certain level of order in a liberal society and are willing to violate “individual freedom” when they consider it to be very unnecessary and extreme... Abortion being a prime example of such. Liberal conservatives don’t go so far as to believes a baby deserves to die for individual freedom, but liberal conservatives will never truly attack the core of feminism and the women’s independence movement for example, because deep down they do believe women should be independent.
I think individual freedom is important. Fundamental freedom is one of my core values. I’ve always been of the frame of mind that people should be able to live as they desire, to carve their own path through life without impediment. So long as their chosen path does not jeopardise the freedom of another.
Obviously I think there should be laws in place that stop people from doing things harmful to others such as murder, theft, rape and paedophilia. These should remain criminal activities. But victimless crimes like smoking weed or taking shrooms should be scrapped.
I don’t know where I stand on abortion as a moral issue if I am honest with you. If the foetus is barely even developed when it is aborted is it wrong to have it aborted? If the reason is because you’re a liberal who wants to get rid of the baby because it would impede on your personal freedom then yeah that is pretty selfish. But what about those who have abortions because they cannot provide a reasonable standard of living for their child, or they’re too young and immature to raise a child? Should rape victims be made to give birth to a child that was conceived through rape? The world is a cruel place and some people wouldn’t want to bring a child into this life of endentured servitude. These are not my personal thoughts. But some arguments I’ve heard from people who I know who are liberals. Mostly women. As a man I don’t know how I feel about it. It’s something I haven’t quite figured out yet as I think the topic of abortion has many factors to consider both in favour and against.
The foundational idea of traditionalism on the other hand, is love and family. Everything in a traditional society revolves around that. This is why traditionalists consider it offensive when a woman pursues a full time career instead of staying at home, taking care of her family. Plenty of traditional societies have women who work part time, but pursuing a full time career is stigmatized because the most important thing to both men and women, is supposed to be their spouse and their kids. Ideally the woman should be devoting 100% of her energy to that but in most economies around the world, this isn’t feasible for the majority of families so part time work is the compromise. Although people don’t think it does, the same thing applies to men. A man who is in the office all the time and never sees his wife and kids is violating the principle of traditionalism because he is prioritizing money and achievement over love and family.
I think the idea of traditionalism is nice. As a father, one of my biggest regrets is not being able to be there for my daughter 24/7 it’s one of my biggest sources of pain as I miss her and I fear for her future and I feel guilty that there are so many important moments of her life I will miss out on as I live hundreds of miles away. However, I was so thankful to get away from her mother. The two of us together would have been much worse for my daughter’s wellbeing than us separating. She’s still got both her parents there for her, it’s just not in the traditional family setting.
Unfortunately I don’t think the family dynamic is possible to sustain in this context, particularly in a capitalist society which keeps putting increasing financial demand upon both men and women (thanks feminism!). In the past it used to be that the husband could go out and earn a paycheck to sustain the family whilst the woman stayed at home and focused on tending to the home and raising the children etc. But nowadays both the man and the woman have to work full time to make ends meet and a stranger ends up bringing up the child. The cost of living, especially recently, has become unrealistic and ridiculous.
Feminism has tricked women into joining the workforce and becoming endentured servants the same as men. They wanted equality! They got it! Now they’re expected to go out and work full time the same as men. Since then traditional family values have eroded and people rarely stay together these days.
This means under leftism, you are entitled to, largely the same outcome in life as everybody else. Under liberalism, you are entitled to do whatever you want so long as your behavior doesn’t violate the law. Laws in liberal societies are usually written to be as unrestrictive as possible. Only prohibiting behaviors that society cannot afford to tolerate (like murder). Liberals will advocate for increased liberalism in their society by telling people that certain laws are unnecessary to preserve the functionality of society and that its more important to give people freedom then ensure order/stability. Under traditionalism, you are entitled to love and a family. As a kid, you are entitled to being raised by your mother and father. You are entitled to have them be present in your life, to take care of you, and do everything they ethically can do to ensure your success. You are entitled, upon reaching adulthood, to a loving and loyal spouse, and to have kids of your own.
So keep in mind that because the foundational idea of traditionalism is that love and family is the most important thing in life, any behaviors which conflict with that goal are going to be prohibited. This is because equality and individual freedom are, quite frankly, not as important to us as assisting people in finding, as well as maintaining long term love and to make sure the biological parents of kids remain their parents. Marriage is sacred to us, so if you have sex with a married woman, it doesn’t matter if you say “but she chose to do it!” If you have sex with someone other then your wife, it doesn’t matter if you say “but she’s okay with it!” Remember that we do not prioritize individual freedom above everything else the way that liberals do. This is why traditionalists and liberals feel like they’re speaking different languages to one another. Under traditional morality, You get individual freedom when it doesn’t interfere with your ability to maintain a lasting relationship with your wife and keep your family together. If something could potentially harm that, even if you are unable to see how it could do so, then you will not be allowed to do it. So that’s why traditionalists typically let people have economic freedom and a certain degree of political freedom but are strict about sexual/social behavior.
You also will not be allowed to engage in conduct that interferes with other people’s ability to find love and maintain their marriage and family. It doesn’t matter if you like having “sexual variety” because hooking up and having casual sex makes it significantly more difficult for single people who are doing the right thing to find long term relationships and get married because hookups are like a weed. It has to suffocate love and long term relationships in order to exist. If too many people decide to just sleep around until they are 30 years old, then it harms everybody’s ability to find love and get married because casual sex becomes the norm instead of sex in serious, exclusive relationships. In a traditional society, marriage and family is the #1 goal of life that you are supposed to be pursuing starting in your adolescent years, not when you are 25 or 30 years old. It also potentially threatens the long term stability of their marriage because the woman became too used to the idea of sleeping with men she did not consider to be father/husband material. This makes adultery and divorce easier to commit in the future.
I don’t think we really live in a liberal society in the west. I think it’s a dystopian authoritarian society which masquerades as something which values freedom. Being honest, how much freedom do we really have in society today? We are free. Free to do what they tell us!
I have never been one who values marriage. I do value love and family, but marriage just seems like something unnecessary. The wedding itself costs thousands, if we are talking about a traditional church wedding. The ceremony, the dress, catering, photographers, florists etc. I think you are looking at a minimum of 10k for a wedding. Then there is the possibility it won’t work out. Your contract with your wife and the state entitles your wife to half of everything you own.
A joining of the hands ceremony is a lot simpler and a lot more authentic in my opinion than the rigid church ceremony and a contract with the state. People drinking mead in the woods and the young couple going off to consumate their marriage in the woods just seems a lot more light hearted and fun and it probably costs much less
Then what about those who don’t want the commitment and obligations of married life? How would they be treated? There are a few good people on this forum, myself included, who enjoy personal freedom and don’t want to be tied down with a woman. This is for various reasons, ranging from disillusionment in love to not enough free time to invest in long term relationships etc. I don’t think forced marriages across the board would resolve all the problems with Western society.
I don’t think that casual sex hinders the desires of others to live married lives. It depends on the individual, their values and life circumstances. Plus, there isn’t an equal number of men and women so how would a traditional society account for this? What happens to those individuals who can’t be paired up?
Sadomasochism is prohibited because it is destructive to the soul of the person who gets hooked on such fetishes. Dating a sadomasochistic woman is like dating a heroin addict. They will do whatever it takes to satisfy their disgusting fetish. It doesn’t matter how good of a husband or father you are. If anything being a good husband or father is probably making her angry with you. It doesn’t matter if, by the standards of any normal woman, you are fantastic in the bedroom. A sadomasochist will destroy everything around her in order to pursue her fetish. I question whether anybody thinks it would be okay for our television channels to be flooded with advertisements for heroin? That’s how I feel about violent/extreme pornography being legal. Why do we allow the internet to be teeming with such destructive content that is even accessible to teenagers and even children?
I agree with this part. I’ve said before that this is a matter of degree, rather than being a black and white issue. For example some playful spanking isn’t really that big a deal if that’s what the woman is into. But when I watch porn I think nothing is more of a turn off than some guy slapping a girls face during sex. It isn’t arousing to see at all and it isn’t my cup of tea personally.
So this is why all the rules are in place. You cannot do anything that will impede other people’s ability to find a spouse and you cannot do anything that threatens the long term stability of your own, or other people’s marriage and families. Leftists hate us because we don’t believe men and women should be treated the same. Liberals dislike us because we do not believe in male or female independence. Refusing to marry is equivalent to depriving a member of the opposite sex of love because you wanted to pursue sexual variety (or other reasons).
So what is our justification for doing all this? How do we justify violating gender equality and individual freedom in order to guarantee as many people the opportunity to find love, form families, and keep the whole project together as we can? Well, it is our strong belief that not only is marriage and family the most important ingredient to human happiness, but that it is impossible or borderline impossible to find true happiness without it. Life long love is a much stronger generator of human happiness then the freedom to sexual variety or a fulfilling career is. Almost everybody who does live as lifelong bachelors, pursuing sexual variety, money, or achievement over love/family eventually regrets it. Roosh V regrets it and so did Wilt Chamberlain. Most Hollywood celebrities who pursue selfish lifestyles are depressed, struggle with substance abuse problems, some even commit suicide. Substance abuse and suicide are huge problems in every single liberal and leftist society out there. These problems are almost non-existent in traditional societies. The Philippines and Indonesia for example have a suicide rate of 2.4 per 100,000 and only 1 per 100,000 when it comes to fatal drug overdoses compared to suicide rates of between 10-15 in the US and Europe as well as drug overdose rates of 10 to as much as 30 per 100,000 in the United States and Iceland. People who get married and have their marriages fall apart may regret getting married. But this really just reflects that they accidentally married the wrong person. Their suffering comes from having failed to achieve life long love. It is not a judgment on the value of life long love itself, nobody who successfully finds life long love regrets having pursued it. Not a single story exists of somebody who says “I found the love of my life but I really wish I had spent it sleeping with hundreds of different men/women instead” or “I found the love of my life but I really wish I had spent more time in the office working instead of being with my family.” The vast majority of people who successfully find sexual variety in their life, on the other hand, do end up regretting it.
Refusing to marry is the equivalent of depriving someone of love? I fail to see the correlation. There are plenty of people who love each other and see no need for marriage. Isn’t marriage just a piece of paper anyway? I understand that some people might want to show commitment to one another and marriage might be their way of doing that, but some people (like me) see it as a waste of time. I’ve never desired marriage.
There are plenty of examples of people trapped in unhappy marriages. A man and woman trapped together in unhappiness and discontentment because of the house they paid for or because of the kids or some other reason. In your ideal traditionalist society what would become of such marriages? Would they be forced to stay together? Even if their relationship has reached such a level of toxicity it has become toxic for the children?
I think suicide rates are higher in western societies because people are colder and more solipsistic in general. This is due to cut throat toxic individualism instilled in children to “get ahead” etc. People only value money and not other people because they reflect the values instilled upon them by the society they live in. This isn’t exclusive to marriage and love, but also friendship and even family. For example most of my family are like strangers to me. There is family of mine in the next town who I never ever see. They don’t care about me, or anyone else.
People whose marriages collapse simply chose the wrong person? I don’t think it’s as simple as that. Two people can be perfectly matched, love each other in every way and be driven apart by circumstances of their lives. Not everyone and everything falls into these neat little boxes where everything can be explained or chalked up to people not adhering to arbitrary traditional values
I don’t think everyone regrets being a bachelor. I think most people are dissatisfied with their lives, whether they are single bachelors or married. The problem is our way of life is unnatural and alien to our souls. We are not physically or mentally designed to be autonomous machines and work such long and relentless hours. Look at tribal culture in the amazon and places like that where marriage and traditionalism aren’t really valued, but mental health issues are minimal and pretty much unheard of. That highlights economic systems and arbitrary laws as the cause of most people’s discontentment and mental illness.
The same thing applies to women’s independence. The vast majority of women who pursue full time careers, shun marriage and children, and just live for themselves their whole lives, also regret it. Male celebrities who are life long bachelors, regret it just as much. Many people fall into deep depressions in their older years because of this. Liberals keep trying to say “oh are you jealous because I can sleep with all these different men/women.” No, we’re not jealous. We know exactly where that path leads and we know it ends in misery. If you seem like a lost soul we’ll try to reform you but if you seem like a stubborn bull who will never understand where the path leads, then our goal is harm/damage reduction. How do we reduce the amount of damage you’ll cause as much as possible? To us, claiming that you are successful because you slept with 100, or 250, or 500 girls is like a heroin addict telling us he’s successful because he managed to find drug dealers and make enough money to finance his addiction. In other words, you are competing for a stupid prize that we know is going to make you miserable at some point, it may not be now, in five years, ten, or twenty, but it will eventually. We’re just trying to make sure your self-destruction doesn’t result in our destruction too. For this reason, I think there is a much stronger case to be made that people are entitled to having their marital/family life protected by the power of the community and government then that people are entitled to do whatever they want so long as it doesn’t violate, often very loose laws that do not adequately cover the broad range of ways people can seriously harm one another. Liberalism is really just the freedom to pursue your preferred method of self-destruction. It does not contribute anything meaningful to human happiness.
Some people change their priorities. For example I never wanted children. I didn’t think someone like me could ever handle the crushing responsibility of raising a child. I probably wouldn’t have ever had children if I could’ve helped it. However, now my daughter is here I love her more than anything. Making time for her and saving money to spend on her will always take precedence over meeting another woman or getting married. Marriage and women don’t make me happy, making my daughter happy makes me happy. The fact that I do it alone and without her mother is only better and more well suited for all our needs. Would we be criminalised or forced to stay together in the traditionalist society you proposed?
People like
@Lucas88 value their own creative projects and self development over marriage and the obligations a long term relationship would bring. Would he be forced to marry someone who would just distract him from the things that make him happy?
Or
@WilliamSmith who said he wanted to sleep with over 100 women. Throughout other threads he has pointed out he respects women and endeavours to make sure they enjoy the encounter as well rather than just concentrating on his own needs. This was evident in his contribution in the Really Good Sex thread. (If I am remembering correctly) my point is that he's a good guy despite not having traditionalist values. He doesn't believe women should be penned up like animals in brothels for the entertainment of young single men, or married men who want variety like what
@Cornfed said.
In conclusion, I do value family and love. But I also value freedom. I do not think the government should be enforcing the values of any ideologues, regardless of whether they are woke alphabet people or those who want a traditionalist society enforced for the "good" of everyone. Because the reality of it is that it would not be good for everyone and good guys would be criminalised under it.
You are free to make any decision you desire, but you are not free from the consequences of those decisions.