I like this piece, and the intentionality behind and through it. Clearly, one wants everyone to do well, and we must concerned if any group is struggling. And your awareness of the problem of men has a breadth of concern one does not always find. Many are struggling today, for different reasons. I suppose in the larger sense, humans always will struggle, but each time has its issues.
I love the discussion of The Odyssey here for many reasons, and either have read completely or some of all the translations you have listed here. I have not found anything better than Lattimore for my personal taste, even if it is a trifle heavy. One of my very favourites in recent times, though of the Iliad, is the truly fine translation by Caroline Alexander. She has the vision, the poetry, and the accuracy (from what I have read), to create a Homer in English that is magnificent. Sometimes a book can succeed due to having the right flaws at the right time, but Alexander is wonderful.
But I am slightly off point. As to your more contemporary point, I agree that it is not an easy time for men. We think so little in contemporary culture about a deep "formation" for men, or for women for that matter. With the changing roles for women in society, the men have to figure out how to deal with this, as do the women! We all, men and women, need to think through also how much of our lives we want to give to something called "career," and how much to our family and to our own other interests. There are no easy answers, but it is important to ask the questions. Life is or should be more than work, though often we don't have the choice.
I like the Greek vision of what a good life is, with its own particular Arete, or excellence. That was often the role of Homer in Greek society(s), to inculcate that. Their precise ideals may not be exactly ours, however. Men today have to learn today also that the "ideal" of strength is not necessarily bad, but it can also include the strength to rein in one's ego, or to see one's flaws, or to honour others, or the strength for compassion. Strength as discipline and hard work is still ok too!
A last word. I read a wonderful saying somewhere about Taoism, the the quote goes:
"Those who the God wishes to save, they give compassion."
A subtle point..... ps - I love Tennyson's Ulysses also..... I hope to see more work from you on this...
Thank you so much for the reply. In my head I wrote you a long and complete response, but in reality I guess I never sent it LOL. Such is my brain. But you mention so many good things here I have to belatedly write this up. First, I love that Taoist quote. That is so true no matter that faith. And Ulysses is my favorite Tennyson poem!
What it means to be a good man or a good woman is a matter of defining virtue, and this is something I am definitely going to come back to very soon. I have been drafting something in my head for about a week in response to some of my male friends and their writings about fatherhood and finding their paths in this world, in midlife.
The Great Books often speak to issues of being a good person, but I wonder if there are any contemporary stories that do this. There seem to be a lot of fallenness. I recently reread To Kill a Mockingbird, and I was struck at how Atticus Finch is so expertly drawn as an incredible man. He is definitely human, but that just makes his goodness more believable -- and thus attainable in the eyes of the reader. I would love to see more truly heroic characters in newly released fiction. I would love to have someone that I can point to my kids and go, "Be like this guy."
I really enjoyed this post. And brilliant to use Telemachus as the OG boy bereft of a father. I have two adult sons, 33 and 30, and I was lucky enough to be around for them and continue to be around for then as we are all in NYC.
One of my favorite poems is Tennyson's Ulysses, which is probably one of the favorite poems of many. I thought about how in that poem, Odysseus gets bored at home and decides to once again go wandering.
"There goes Dad again," I can hear Telemachus saying!
Thank you so much. I was thinking of refining this essay a bit more and expanding it. There is something to be said about looking at how people of the past have used stories in order to help shape the roles of men and women in society. Having sons and daughters of certain ages makes me keen on understanding what is shaping them as members of society. It is not a matter of just instilling our values in them, but also what complimentary or counter values are being offered by the world at large. I find myself in the place of Penelope watching her son. That worry is there whether Odysseus is there or not.
It is wonderful that you are there for your sons. It seems rare that families stay geographically close to each other, especially in metropolitan areas that have grown unaffordable for our young people (and not so young people).
I love Tennyson's Ulysses. I was thinking of recording it in January for the podcast version of my Substack. I love the podcast option on this platform. They are just short little episodes that don't monopolize people's time (I am sensitive to that). But I do love a good poetry reading!
i am very confused by an apparent media based crisis about "men" in modern, technological society. in the midst of extraordinary advances in technology for the past 100 years, the role of men and women are changing dramatically. if one only thinks "male" values are in flux, one misses how "female" values are also in flux and just as stressful to the individual. so the solution is education and let the individual find among the classics of the humanities and the physics of technology a way to be a "good" person (male or female or other) in this world.
Yes, and I think that the issue is that finding the classics is not enough. There is no modeling or instruction on how to apply what we can learn from stories. The statistics in anxiety, depression, failed relationships, etc. point to a systemic break down in helping people--men and women--deal with hardship particular to a chosen role (such as being a father). Like I said about Telemachus, he was left to find out on his own how to try to defend himself from predation. And he could not. He had Athena come down in the form of Mentor. We all need mentors. The role of being a good father should have defined expectations, such as being present, modeling justice towards all living beings, being a helpmate in home settings, etc. Without models, human beings make their own rules which can be very dangerous.
I love the image of the "complicated man." Last night I went to two different holiday parties. At the first, an old friend of mine dove straight into a deep intellectual argument with a stranger, both of them arguing with passion for different points of view in what to me seemed an unresolvable case of "both are true," or "it depends." I found the conversation not all that interesting, sort of an argument for argument's sake.
Afterwards we went to a dinner hosted by a younger friend who invited the group of strangers that she'd assembled to share an alternative life direction that they'd like to explore, a dream that might or might not ever be lived. The ensuing conversation was less predictable, more personal, more wide-ranging, more dynamic—and more interesting. One person kept trying to change the subject to "AI," one person didn't talk at all, one person just wanted to go to "Monaco" (the Vegas of old Europe, ugh), another wants to be a sex therapist but can't figure out how to get out of her career in sales.
The reason that I bring this up is that as much as I often feel like I 'should' be more of the former, the reality is that I'm (hopefully) more of the latter—less entirely comprehensible Man with a clear logical argument than a personality with a range of voices and stories, some that make sense, some that don't.
I'm glad you enjoyed the series on fatherhood. We have another series coming in a couple of weeks!
Thank you for writing so eloquently about this subject that deserves so much more coverage than it gets. I loved every bit of your article. But the very last line... *chef's kiss.* So, so powerful. <3
Interestingly, I just bought Emily Wilson's translation of The Odyssey for my daughter, who is obsessed with Greek mythology. Though I don't think she ponders the crisis of manhood as she reads! Instead, she has been steeped in empowering narratives like the Rebel Girls series. And she loves Disney films like "Brave," which erect the straw opponent of distant patriarchy only to demolish it with the easy plot of girl power. That's all mostly good for my daughter. I want her to grow up with all doors open to her. But it is not necessarily good for my son, who may someday see himself -- unfairly -- in the role of the oppressor that so many feminist narratives reinforce.
I'd like to hear more stories about men like Marty Ginsberg. How did he navigate the shift from conventional expectations to the more supportive role that he played in his marriage to RGB? Latham is right -- we need guides for those pivots. It's not automatic or obvious.
Every young man is Telemachus, indeed. But many of us who lacked guides in our youth, or who were taught things about masculinity that we try to unlearn, never stop being Telemachus. As a man in the midst of divorce, I feel this keenly. Thanks for keeping the conversation going.
The crisis in modern manhood is getting more and more attention and rightfully so. However, the crisis of the modern woman is far less covered. In fact, what we have is an attack on the traditional family which effects todays men and women in both the same and in completely different ways.
One of the primary aims of the Marxist cultural revolution was to destabilize the family. It has been very successful in this aim. No fault divorce, the promotion of "non-traditional" families, compelled licentiousness, nonstop promotion of gender rivalry, gender confusion, pornography, as well as the destruction of positive institutions, the aversion to positive stories as you have said, role models, and traditional character building exercises, etc... are all components of this disastrous goal.
Boys with no role models other than online influencers and pornography enter puberty with no idea how to control their urges and see girls as merely a risky means to an end, as merely sex objects unworthy of the marriage contract that unfairly advantages women. Girls with no role models other than modern media, Sex in the City style entertainment, and equally lost peer groups become the very sex objects the boys thought they were and therefore drive away the very"high value men" they dreamed about, resulting in empty, bitter, and unfulfilled lives.
I have 6 daughters and 4 sons. I do not see the battle of the sexes as one against another, but as an equal opportunity oppressor.
I'm certainly biased (after all he is my husband - ha ha!) - but I would definitely recommend Joel Bowman's writings for beautiful fiction that depicts manhood in a honest and refreshing way. One book is a coming of age/journey story and the second is well... complicated to explain! (you can find them here: https://joelbowman.substack.com/) But I think it's important celebrate all that men contribute (even though that's not so popular these days) - especially in their roles as fathers, husbands and sons.
Just subscribed. His Substack writing is great! Thank you. I think you are right that we should celebrate the wonderful things men do. I believe the narrative of manhood is written by over by a small percentage of cruel assholes whose bad behavior had gone unchecked. With an aversion to speaking about virtue in popular culture young men (and women) go out into the world with no protection from their own desires and the desires of others. When the suitors descend on the home ... no one knows how to drive them out.
Anyway, I look forward to reading Joel’s books! There are so many thoughtful men out there.
So beautifully said! I think also the culture of vilifying men all men because of a few horrid ones is a horrible lesson to teach the next generation. I don't have a son, but I certainly know what sort of men I'd like my daughter to know in the future!
If you cannot be honest about the sex, what can you be honest about?
When Arnold Schnitzel-wagger got caught impregnating his voluptuous maid, the tsunami of faux moral outrage swept across television and computer screens from people who have the slenderest claim to any semblance of fidelity or ethics of any kind.
Arnold couldn't admit he likes fat girls and Maria couldn't admit she was too anemic to get the job done anymore . . . After all, marrying into the Katholic Kennedy Klan should come with special social privileges, should it not?
Whatever happened to 'make love not war' or 'free love, baby'?
Did Arnie just miss the flight of the Lolita Express that weekend, or did Bill Clinton and Bill Gates have the flights booked that month?
We can't afford healthcare for American children because we need to keep bombing everybody else's for the love of Jesus and Israel . . .
We must outlaw abortion because Jesus needs more babies for his war machine.
The older pagan sexual mores were much more conducive to the health of Nordic-Scandinavian societies, and much more supportive of women than those of the Jewish god Yahweh, the locust master, the one who drowned the world and demanded a witch be burned alive, or an adulteress be stoned to death . . .
Like the song says, 'Heaven is Just a Sin Away'.
Monogamy is a hackneyed tenet of religion . . . an unnatural order created by Zionist churchmen to attach vicarious liabilities in the secular law, to control monarchial successions, as well as to establish ecclesiastic control over white female procreativity and individual white male posterity . . . All men are born of a woman, married or not.
You might find this essay of interest in this context: https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/the-less-desired It is about the less lucky-in-love of both sexes - not just men - but much of it is about a ' crisis of modern manhood'. Here is a snippet: "....a theme that gets very little attention in journalism about romantic and sexual pair bonding – the huge difference between the fortunes of what one might term the More and the Less Desired of each sex. Opinion pieces, sometimes serious and sometimes coy, on the subject of unfair sex are to be found in abundance. What always strikes me when I read this kind of journalism is how it is always framed in terms of a generic species called ‘Women’ and a generic species called ‘Men’; as if the perceived ‘unfair’ asymmetries under discussion are entirely ones between the sexes......"
If you cannot be honest about the sex, what can you be honest about?
When Arnold Schnitzel-wagger got caught impregnating his voluptuous maid, the tsunami of faux moral outrage swept across television and computer screens from people who have the slenderest claim to any semblance of fidelity or ethics of any kind.
Arnold couldn't admit he likes fat girls and Maria couldn't admit she was too anemic to get the job done anymore . . . After all, marrying into the Katholic Kennedy Klan should come with special social privileges, should it not?
Whatever happened to 'make love not war' or 'free love, baby'?
Did Arnie just miss the flight of the Lolita Express that weekend, or did Bill Clinton and Bill Gates have the flights booked that month?
We can't afford healthcare for American children because we need to keep bombing everybody else's for the love of Jesus and Israel . . .
We must outlaw abortion because Jesus needs more babies for his war machine.
The older pagan sexual mores were much more conducive to the health of Nordic-Scandinavian societies, and much more supportive of women than those of the Jewish god Yahweh, the locust master, the one who drowned the world and demanded a witch be burned alive, or an adulteress be stoned to death . . .
Like the song says, 'Heaven is Just a Sin Away'.
Monogamy is a hackneyed tenet of religion . . . an unnatural order created by Zionist churchmen to attach vicarious liabilities in the secular law, to control monarchial successions, as well as to establish ecclesiastic control over white female procreativity and individual white male posterity . . . All men are born of a woman, married or not.
This was an excellent title for this post. I recognized it immediately. I finished Wilson’s translation in September and now I’m enjoying her Iliad. I think there’s so much in the first 4 books of the Odyssey for us to learn from. Thanks!
Glad you’ve been reading these Homeric epics! Wilson’s ability to render all that verse into iambic pentameter is astounding. As a poet I appreciate that skill immensely. And of course, it makes the text incredibly readable. There have been criticisms that Wilson strips away much of the unique beautiful devices that are hallmarks of Homeric writing, but I appreciate all the translations for what they offer. Try out Stanley Lombardo’s translations too if you get a chance. He narrates his own Iliad translation on Audible.
I like this piece, and the intentionality behind and through it. Clearly, one wants everyone to do well, and we must concerned if any group is struggling. And your awareness of the problem of men has a breadth of concern one does not always find. Many are struggling today, for different reasons. I suppose in the larger sense, humans always will struggle, but each time has its issues.
I love the discussion of The Odyssey here for many reasons, and either have read completely or some of all the translations you have listed here. I have not found anything better than Lattimore for my personal taste, even if it is a trifle heavy. One of my very favourites in recent times, though of the Iliad, is the truly fine translation by Caroline Alexander. She has the vision, the poetry, and the accuracy (from what I have read), to create a Homer in English that is magnificent. Sometimes a book can succeed due to having the right flaws at the right time, but Alexander is wonderful.
But I am slightly off point. As to your more contemporary point, I agree that it is not an easy time for men. We think so little in contemporary culture about a deep "formation" for men, or for women for that matter. With the changing roles for women in society, the men have to figure out how to deal with this, as do the women! We all, men and women, need to think through also how much of our lives we want to give to something called "career," and how much to our family and to our own other interests. There are no easy answers, but it is important to ask the questions. Life is or should be more than work, though often we don't have the choice.
I like the Greek vision of what a good life is, with its own particular Arete, or excellence. That was often the role of Homer in Greek society(s), to inculcate that. Their precise ideals may not be exactly ours, however. Men today have to learn today also that the "ideal" of strength is not necessarily bad, but it can also include the strength to rein in one's ego, or to see one's flaws, or to honour others, or the strength for compassion. Strength as discipline and hard work is still ok too!
A last word. I read a wonderful saying somewhere about Taoism, the the quote goes:
"Those who the God wishes to save, they give compassion."
A subtle point..... ps - I love Tennyson's Ulysses also..... I hope to see more work from you on this...
Thank you so much for the reply. In my head I wrote you a long and complete response, but in reality I guess I never sent it LOL. Such is my brain. But you mention so many good things here I have to belatedly write this up. First, I love that Taoist quote. That is so true no matter that faith. And Ulysses is my favorite Tennyson poem!
What it means to be a good man or a good woman is a matter of defining virtue, and this is something I am definitely going to come back to very soon. I have been drafting something in my head for about a week in response to some of my male friends and their writings about fatherhood and finding their paths in this world, in midlife.
The Great Books often speak to issues of being a good person, but I wonder if there are any contemporary stories that do this. There seem to be a lot of fallenness. I recently reread To Kill a Mockingbird, and I was struck at how Atticus Finch is so expertly drawn as an incredible man. He is definitely human, but that just makes his goodness more believable -- and thus attainable in the eyes of the reader. I would love to see more truly heroic characters in newly released fiction. I would love to have someone that I can point to my kids and go, "Be like this guy."
I really enjoyed this post. And brilliant to use Telemachus as the OG boy bereft of a father. I have two adult sons, 33 and 30, and I was lucky enough to be around for them and continue to be around for then as we are all in NYC.
One of my favorite poems is Tennyson's Ulysses, which is probably one of the favorite poems of many. I thought about how in that poem, Odysseus gets bored at home and decides to once again go wandering.
"There goes Dad again," I can hear Telemachus saying!
Thank you so much. I was thinking of refining this essay a bit more and expanding it. There is something to be said about looking at how people of the past have used stories in order to help shape the roles of men and women in society. Having sons and daughters of certain ages makes me keen on understanding what is shaping them as members of society. It is not a matter of just instilling our values in them, but also what complimentary or counter values are being offered by the world at large. I find myself in the place of Penelope watching her son. That worry is there whether Odysseus is there or not.
It is wonderful that you are there for your sons. It seems rare that families stay geographically close to each other, especially in metropolitan areas that have grown unaffordable for our young people (and not so young people).
I love Tennyson's Ulysses. I was thinking of recording it in January for the podcast version of my Substack. I love the podcast option on this platform. They are just short little episodes that don't monopolize people's time (I am sensitive to that). But I do love a good poetry reading!
i am very confused by an apparent media based crisis about "men" in modern, technological society. in the midst of extraordinary advances in technology for the past 100 years, the role of men and women are changing dramatically. if one only thinks "male" values are in flux, one misses how "female" values are also in flux and just as stressful to the individual. so the solution is education and let the individual find among the classics of the humanities and the physics of technology a way to be a "good" person (male or female or other) in this world.
Yes, and I think that the issue is that finding the classics is not enough. There is no modeling or instruction on how to apply what we can learn from stories. The statistics in anxiety, depression, failed relationships, etc. point to a systemic break down in helping people--men and women--deal with hardship particular to a chosen role (such as being a father). Like I said about Telemachus, he was left to find out on his own how to try to defend himself from predation. And he could not. He had Athena come down in the form of Mentor. We all need mentors. The role of being a good father should have defined expectations, such as being present, modeling justice towards all living beings, being a helpmate in home settings, etc. Without models, human beings make their own rules which can be very dangerous.
I love the image of the "complicated man." Last night I went to two different holiday parties. At the first, an old friend of mine dove straight into a deep intellectual argument with a stranger, both of them arguing with passion for different points of view in what to me seemed an unresolvable case of "both are true," or "it depends." I found the conversation not all that interesting, sort of an argument for argument's sake.
Afterwards we went to a dinner hosted by a younger friend who invited the group of strangers that she'd assembled to share an alternative life direction that they'd like to explore, a dream that might or might not ever be lived. The ensuing conversation was less predictable, more personal, more wide-ranging, more dynamic—and more interesting. One person kept trying to change the subject to "AI," one person didn't talk at all, one person just wanted to go to "Monaco" (the Vegas of old Europe, ugh), another wants to be a sex therapist but can't figure out how to get out of her career in sales.
The reason that I bring this up is that as much as I often feel like I 'should' be more of the former, the reality is that I'm (hopefully) more of the latter—less entirely comprehensible Man with a clear logical argument than a personality with a range of voices and stories, some that make sense, some that don't.
I'm glad you enjoyed the series on fatherhood. We have another series coming in a couple of weeks!
Thank you for writing so eloquently about this subject that deserves so much more coverage than it gets. I loved every bit of your article. But the very last line... *chef's kiss.* So, so powerful. <3
Thank you! And your piece that you wrote dovetails so nicely with this. How providential!
Thank you so much for reading! When I read your piece a few hours after publishing mine I thought the same thing. Very cool how that worked out 💕💕
Interestingly, I just bought Emily Wilson's translation of The Odyssey for my daughter, who is obsessed with Greek mythology. Though I don't think she ponders the crisis of manhood as she reads! Instead, she has been steeped in empowering narratives like the Rebel Girls series. And she loves Disney films like "Brave," which erect the straw opponent of distant patriarchy only to demolish it with the easy plot of girl power. That's all mostly good for my daughter. I want her to grow up with all doors open to her. But it is not necessarily good for my son, who may someday see himself -- unfairly -- in the role of the oppressor that so many feminist narratives reinforce.
I'd like to hear more stories about men like Marty Ginsberg. How did he navigate the shift from conventional expectations to the more supportive role that he played in his marriage to RGB? Latham is right -- we need guides for those pivots. It's not automatic or obvious.
Every young man is Telemachus, indeed. But many of us who lacked guides in our youth, or who were taught things about masculinity that we try to unlearn, never stop being Telemachus. As a man in the midst of divorce, I feel this keenly. Thanks for keeping the conversation going.
The crisis in modern manhood is getting more and more attention and rightfully so. However, the crisis of the modern woman is far less covered. In fact, what we have is an attack on the traditional family which effects todays men and women in both the same and in completely different ways.
One of the primary aims of the Marxist cultural revolution was to destabilize the family. It has been very successful in this aim. No fault divorce, the promotion of "non-traditional" families, compelled licentiousness, nonstop promotion of gender rivalry, gender confusion, pornography, as well as the destruction of positive institutions, the aversion to positive stories as you have said, role models, and traditional character building exercises, etc... are all components of this disastrous goal.
Boys with no role models other than online influencers and pornography enter puberty with no idea how to control their urges and see girls as merely a risky means to an end, as merely sex objects unworthy of the marriage contract that unfairly advantages women. Girls with no role models other than modern media, Sex in the City style entertainment, and equally lost peer groups become the very sex objects the boys thought they were and therefore drive away the very"high value men" they dreamed about, resulting in empty, bitter, and unfulfilled lives.
I have 6 daughters and 4 sons. I do not see the battle of the sexes as one against another, but as an equal opportunity oppressor.
You may like this post that Rebecca Day put up today: https://open.substack.com/pub/classicallycultured/p/love-is-not-transactional-essay?r=fjyz7&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
I'll check it out.
I'm certainly biased (after all he is my husband - ha ha!) - but I would definitely recommend Joel Bowman's writings for beautiful fiction that depicts manhood in a honest and refreshing way. One book is a coming of age/journey story and the second is well... complicated to explain! (you can find them here: https://joelbowman.substack.com/) But I think it's important celebrate all that men contribute (even though that's not so popular these days) - especially in their roles as fathers, husbands and sons.
Just subscribed. His Substack writing is great! Thank you. I think you are right that we should celebrate the wonderful things men do. I believe the narrative of manhood is written by over by a small percentage of cruel assholes whose bad behavior had gone unchecked. With an aversion to speaking about virtue in popular culture young men (and women) go out into the world with no protection from their own desires and the desires of others. When the suitors descend on the home ... no one knows how to drive them out.
Anyway, I look forward to reading Joel’s books! There are so many thoughtful men out there.
So beautifully said! I think also the culture of vilifying men all men because of a few horrid ones is a horrible lesson to teach the next generation. I don't have a son, but I certainly know what sort of men I'd like my daughter to know in the future!
If you cannot be honest about the sex, what can you be honest about?
When Arnold Schnitzel-wagger got caught impregnating his voluptuous maid, the tsunami of faux moral outrage swept across television and computer screens from people who have the slenderest claim to any semblance of fidelity or ethics of any kind.
Arnold couldn't admit he likes fat girls and Maria couldn't admit she was too anemic to get the job done anymore . . . After all, marrying into the Katholic Kennedy Klan should come with special social privileges, should it not?
Whatever happened to 'make love not war' or 'free love, baby'?
Did Arnie just miss the flight of the Lolita Express that weekend, or did Bill Clinton and Bill Gates have the flights booked that month?
We can't afford healthcare for American children because we need to keep bombing everybody else's for the love of Jesus and Israel . . .
We must outlaw abortion because Jesus needs more babies for his war machine.
The older pagan sexual mores were much more conducive to the health of Nordic-Scandinavian societies, and much more supportive of women than those of the Jewish god Yahweh, the locust master, the one who drowned the world and demanded a witch be burned alive, or an adulteress be stoned to death . . .
Like the song says, 'Heaven is Just a Sin Away'.
Monogamy is a hackneyed tenet of religion . . . an unnatural order created by Zionist churchmen to attach vicarious liabilities in the secular law, to control monarchial successions, as well as to establish ecclesiastic control over white female procreativity and individual white male posterity . . . All men are born of a woman, married or not.
https://cwspangle.substack.com/i/138320669/heinrich-himmler-on-how-bolshevik-christianity-spreads-homosexuality-and-hatred-of-women
You might find this essay of interest in this context: https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/the-less-desired It is about the less lucky-in-love of both sexes - not just men - but much of it is about a ' crisis of modern manhood'. Here is a snippet: "....a theme that gets very little attention in journalism about romantic and sexual pair bonding – the huge difference between the fortunes of what one might term the More and the Less Desired of each sex. Opinion pieces, sometimes serious and sometimes coy, on the subject of unfair sex are to be found in abundance. What always strikes me when I read this kind of journalism is how it is always framed in terms of a generic species called ‘Women’ and a generic species called ‘Men’; as if the perceived ‘unfair’ asymmetries under discussion are entirely ones between the sexes......"
If you cannot be honest about the sex, what can you be honest about?
When Arnold Schnitzel-wagger got caught impregnating his voluptuous maid, the tsunami of faux moral outrage swept across television and computer screens from people who have the slenderest claim to any semblance of fidelity or ethics of any kind.
Arnold couldn't admit he likes fat girls and Maria couldn't admit she was too anemic to get the job done anymore . . . After all, marrying into the Katholic Kennedy Klan should come with special social privileges, should it not?
Whatever happened to 'make love not war' or 'free love, baby'?
Did Arnie just miss the flight of the Lolita Express that weekend, or did Bill Clinton and Bill Gates have the flights booked that month?
We can't afford healthcare for American children because we need to keep bombing everybody else's for the love of Jesus and Israel . . .
We must outlaw abortion because Jesus needs more babies for his war machine.
The older pagan sexual mores were much more conducive to the health of Nordic-Scandinavian societies, and much more supportive of women than those of the Jewish god Yahweh, the locust master, the one who drowned the world and demanded a witch be burned alive, or an adulteress be stoned to death . . .
Like the song says, 'Heaven is Just a Sin Away'.
Monogamy is a hackneyed tenet of religion . . . an unnatural order created by Zionist churchmen to attach vicarious liabilities in the secular law, to control monarchial successions, as well as to establish ecclesiastic control over white female procreativity and individual white male posterity . . . All men are born of a woman, married or not.
https://cwspangle.substack.com/i/138320669/heinrich-himmler-on-how-bolshevik-christianity-spreads-homosexuality-and-hatred-of-women
You hit the nail on its head, Zina. This topic of reflection is so needed.
You may like this one that came out the same time as mine from Rebecca Day:
https://open.substack.com/pub/classicallycultured/p/love-is-not-transactional-essay?r=fjyz7&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
Love is a twenty-to-thirty-minute problem . . .
FREAK INJECTION - Sex Voodoo & Rock'N'Roll (Lyric Video) | darkTunes Music Group . . . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kEVfZhNY2Y
This was an excellent title for this post. I recognized it immediately. I finished Wilson’s translation in September and now I’m enjoying her Iliad. I think there’s so much in the first 4 books of the Odyssey for us to learn from. Thanks!
Glad you’ve been reading these Homeric epics! Wilson’s ability to render all that verse into iambic pentameter is astounding. As a poet I appreciate that skill immensely. And of course, it makes the text incredibly readable. There have been criticisms that Wilson strips away much of the unique beautiful devices that are hallmarks of Homeric writing, but I appreciate all the translations for what they offer. Try out Stanley Lombardo’s translations too if you get a chance. He narrates his own Iliad translation on Audible.