https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=D166LN0QGNY
It is the case, in fact, that to engage in the integration of sexuality with your individual life is a series of sacrifices. So, for example, if you get married, that’s a sacrifice, because it’s a sacrifice of all other people. And so it’s a sacrifice of that possibility. And then to have a child is the sacrifice of all the things that you could have done otherwise than having that child. And to, as you pointed out, to make that part of a broader tradition, to say that, well, that is a sacrifice, and there is a loss that goes along with that. But what you gain as a consequence is of immeasurable significance in contrast to the loss. And one of the things that’s really struck me in this lecture tour that I’ve been doing, so I’ve been in about a hundred cities, and one of the things that I’ve been talking to people about is meaning. And I suppose it’s meaning in relationship to the transcendent and the necessity of meaning as an antidote to suffering and to malevolence. And the hypothesis is something like, well, meaning is to be found in responsibility. And this is a revelation to people, because they haven’t conceptualized it that way before. It’s like meaning isn’t happiness, and it isn’t self-esteem, and it isn’t momentary pleasure. It isn’t any of that. It’s the bearing of a sacrificial burden. And that actually works to enrich and ennoble your life in ways that make the tragic element of it tolerable, and to keep you from bitterness. And so these things that are put forward as subjugation, like the subjugation of women to the catastrophe of birth, let’s say, or even the indignity of patriarchal union, is all of a sudden something that you can take on as an aspirational goal, rather than something that’s a mere imposition on your moment-to-moment freedom. And so relief to people to hear that and to know it. Of course. I agree with that. But there is also the sense that in the world in which we live, where obviously people have been detached to a great extent from any continuous religious tradition, there still is a sense of loss, isn’t there? People, they know that they’re missing something, but don’t know quite how to identify it. And that’s one reason for them thinking that it’s been taken away, something’s been stolen from them. And they look around at the people who are at ease in the world and successful and seem to be on good terms with themselves, and think of them as the ones who’ve done the stealing. And that is a dangerous attitude. And I think surely that is part of what erupts in all these strange academic disciplines like gender studies, which simply have as their goal the undermining of the existing order without anything positive to put in its place. And I don’t know, those academic studies recruit people all the time from this fund of isolation, this sense of loss without an ability to identify the thing that’s been lost. That’s the cult-like element of them, because they do, I would say, to some degree prey on people whose interpersonal relationships have been irreparably damaged. So I have a hypothesis about the feminist end of the postmodern radical leftist movement. And this isn’t something I’ve talked about much in public, but well, but here goes. This should get me in lots of trouble. So there’s a variety of things that are tangled together here. So we don’t know how female biology would manifest itself politically. Male biology does, female biology is going to. And that’s because female political activity on the largest possible scale is a relatively new phenomenon. And it isn’t obviously the case that men and women’s views of the world are going to dovetail precisely. So here’s a hypothesis, you tell me what you think about this. So one thing that a woman really wants to know about a man, or perhaps you might say one thing that femininity wants to know about masculinity, is that it’s not a predatory tyrant. Okay, so and here’s why. I mean, first of all, there’s fragility in feminine sexuality to a greater degree than there is in male sexuality, because women bear a higher price for sexual misadventure, let’s say, and are perhaps more prone to exploitation by force. But more than that, part of being a woman is having the possibility of bringing something extraordinarily fragile and vulnerable and valuable into the world. And the first concern might be, are you a predator? Fundamentally, are you a predator? And so what I see happening in the feminist disciplines like gender studies is the politicization of that accusation. And the accusation is, prove to me that you’re not a predator. Like in the fundamental element of your masculinity, not only historically, but now, because the cost of you being a predator is too high. Now, I feel that that’s an inappropriate, I think that’s what’s driving the demolition of the idea of presumption of innocence, for example. We’ll start with presumption of guilt and prove to you, you’ll be proved to me that you’re innocent. And I think the problem with that isn’t that there are no predatory men, because there are plenty of predatory men. The problem is that the courageous way to deal with the problem of the predator is to offer a hand in courageous trust and to invite forward a partner from the monster. That’s the mythological manner in which this is supposed to be undertaken. The courageous, a courageous part of the woman’s journey, let’s say, is to face the monstrosity of a man and to invite out of that something more noble to emerge. And there’s courage in that and genuine risk. And I think that that’s foregone in the accusation process. And then the other element of that seems to me to be that, well, if you are a predator and you’re irredeemable in your predatory nature, then the best thing to do is to render you harmless. And if we’re going to obscure the relationship between competence and power and assume that all of your striving upward is merely a manifestation of power, then what we’ll do is weaken you as much as possible so that harmlessness can replace virtue. And I see all of that driving these resentful disciplines and their ideology. So the aim is the emasculation of the man. Yeah, that’s the evil queen. Yeah. Yeah, because we have the evil king, right? That’s the tyrannical patriarchy. Well, the evil queen is lurking somewhere. Yes. So. The problem is, a lot of this is true, but our society does not seem to have the capacity to put that to one side and celebrates the normal. The fact that most men and most women are not like that. And that there is a natural desire and need of the sexes to love each other, to be united, and to create children and so on. And that the old stability that was built upon this has gone. So I mean, nobody in the intellectual world wants to celebrate that. So I had this interview a month ago or so with a woman from GQ, and she was fully on board the predatory male train, let’s say. And you know, when people like that interview me, they start talking about the patriarchy, and I say, well, I don’t believe in the patriarchy. I don’t buy that conceptual structure. What’s so interesting, and this has happened more and more over the years as they’ve developed this, first of all, the person that I would be talking to had some idea that it was hypothetically possible to reject the idea of the patriarchy. But now, when I say I don’t believe in it, that idea is meant with stunned disbelief. It’s like, what do you mean you don’t believe in the tyrannical patriarchy? Everyone knows that’s true. And I think, well, so here’s your hypothesis. So this is the hypothesis, is that throughout history, the fundamental relationship between man and woman is one of parasitism and exploitation. That’s it. And that’s the case, I guess, until 1960, in the publication of the Feminine Mystique or something like that. But that’s the entire course of human history. And when it seems to me that the appropriate story is that men and women labored mightily under their terrible constraints for uncounted centuries, cooperating together by and large to build some modicum of security and freedom and stability so that they could raise children and have a somewhat harmonious and productive life. And all of a sudden, it’s become not only questionable to put forth that as a proposition, but somehow tyrannical, in essence, just for positing it as a reality.