cameron111
FWIW, it's difficult to analyze this through today's society because I think the cancer of individualism rampant in our society bleeds into everyone regardless of their faith. For example, many Christians pray and act in order to be saved; totally individualistic. I believe this is a byproduct of our age, and with a more collectivist societal mindset we could address things like this.
For now, in a world of scarcity and competition, if we continue to perish without replacement, we are risking everything.
I made the wrong use of terms; by "agrarian" I meant non-nomadic; static; people living in one place working on things sometimes multiple economic edges from subsistence. Since we progressed away from nomadicism, we have determined these social structures that work for ensuring our survival, and indeed, maximizing our potential.
> a world of individuals pursuing their own interests can only fail
Capitalism doesn't require individualism. You could argue that it tends to individualism, but I believe that with a strong societal philosophy (and perhaps a bit of oversight) it can be kept in check.
Capitalism is a bit like web development: it works, and makes sense, so long as you're not talking about it. As soon as you're talking about it, you're probably doing it wrong.
The article, as all mainstream media on the topic too often does, has an evident bias toward the working woman in contrary to the mother. When you realize this bias in our media, you see it everywhere. This article has language like: "motherhood drags female earnings down", "they could face positive discrimination, if employers promote them on the assumption that they will not have children", "it could be that in same-sex couples women do not feel obliged to do as much childcare or housework, giving them more freedom to fulfil their potential in the workplace".
The message is clear (and again; it's the message delivered by our entire media): being a mother is bad, girls. Devote your life to your career -- that will give you purpose and legacy.
> I think you're pushing some kind of fertility agenda
The word "agenda" implies you feel a need to discredit my ideas that we as a society should have an above-replacement fertility rate. Why?
For what it's worth, I believe our dying population is a result of a much wider cultural shift; sub-replacement fertility rates are just a symptom. My 'agenda' -- I'm happy to call it that because I believe it is the defining issue of our age, and everything humanity has worked for hangs on us getting this right -- is on much baser elements.
> the women only being good enough to raise kids
Psychological and sociological research over the past 50 years has managed to confirm what humans universally knew for millennia: women have a predilection towards caring, and men have a predilection towards providing. I agree that we should avoid pigeonholing people, but you would have to have quite the cognitive dissonance to avoid recognizing this pattern among the two sexes.
With such strong predilections, it makes sense then to encourage boys and girls to aspire to different things based on their tendencies and abilities to contribute the most back to their society. Men work on the world as it is and push it forward a bit, and women ensure there is a better generation to follow -- in general. Note that recognizing and celebrating tendencies among the sexes does not require that we dictate someone's path: if a girl becomes a successful author then her husband could become the predominant carer. Whatever!
My point is that we need to ensure there are capable generations to follow. If we don't, we lose everything.
If you would like to make the case for why equality is inherently good, is worth striving for, and is achievable, I'm all ears. I'm also curious to see you support your claim that our birth rates are not problematic (or are you agreeing with me here that there are deeper issues at play?).
Right, my post was complaining about how few children people are having. For the sake of contrast, I supposed an idealized situation where our fertility rates are comfortably above mere replacement, say 3 to 4 per woman. In such case, a woman with 4 children, each having 4 children, each having 4 children, will indeed have >100 descendants.
> The way forward is not to lean on women to do huge amounts of uncompensated labour, the return of which flows to someone else.
Over the past 10,000 years, we've determined a set of social constructs that solve this problem really well in the context of agrarian society: marriage (monogamous, enduring partnership between provider and carer), and religion (commitment to a purpose higher than yourself, because a world of individuals pursuing their own interests can only fail).
Anyway, note my quotes on "equality": try as we might, women are not men, and nobody wins by getting women to be more like men. The ideal of equality is like communism: inspiring, misleading, and impossible. No one is equal, nor should they be.
These critiques (and more) are prominent in the neoreactionary literature on liberalism/libertarianism (but nowadays they have more important things to talk about). An interesting hypothesis of neoreaction is that liberal ideals, or even a libertarian world, will invariably lead to democratic socialism -- due to the power of the mob.
Personally, the foundation of my disillusionment with liberalism/libertarianism is the fact that people are so much more than economic units, and that collectivism trumps individualism. What's important is preservation of heritage, culture, tradition, creation of art in all its beautiful forms, and the maximization of humanity's potential.
I can't see liberalism/libertarianism getting us much further than working on advertising systems to push junk food, while NASA spends half its time making reports to get a few more handouts, and cultures worldwide are systemically destroyed in the name of economic growth.
I'm confident that the cause of this discrimination is companies' very rational fear of sex discrimination lawsuits (which only women can successfully wage), and the resulting public-relations shitstorm that results from that (but only when a woman has something to complain about). Anyone following the tech industry's news cycle over the past five years is familiar with this threat.
However, I object to your unease here at newspapers suggesting that there are differences between genders. There are obviously differences between genders -- biological and psychological.
The problem is that we have a culture that requires companies to take precautions (e.g. hiring less-abled women over better-abled men to meet lawyer-recommended quotas) to protect their interests; a culture that suppresses meaningful exploration of the differences between men and women (e.g. you're only allowed to mention possible advantages that women have) and how to handle that.
Our culture is mandating equality in all regards, at all costs, and its enforcers will stop at nothing until that's achieved. The reality is that, on average, certain demographics have innate advantages over others in a capitalist system. Gender can't go away, so the only way to achieve equality in the face of gender differences is to wage cultural-level discrimination against the advantaged.
Our culture needs to change; it's standing in the way of humanity reaching its greatest potential. I'm not sure how much further we can go while slitting our wrists at the altar of equality.
(new account because I would like to remain employed)
(new account because I would like to remain employed)