12 January 2021

An Age of Prigs?

 Not long ago, a Samantha Price, head mistress of Benenden School, caused a rumpus. 

Addressing her girls on the way languages change, she took as an example the word 'Negro'. "Senior Girls", silly little ... , were much Hurt. Price "unreservedly apologised". 

Silly little prigs. Silly weak woman. Were I  Chair of Governors, I would give her the choice: withdraw your "unreserved apology"; or resign.

When I was in the Teaching Industry, a 'crisis' arose concening a woman student. Her father, who ... as we say ... was not short of a quid or two, had given her an expensive coat made up of the furs of a considerable variety of highly interesting animals. The other girls raised such a hullaballoo that she was told not to wear the coat any more.

And, just before the Age of the Virulent Virus, we had the Age of Greta Thunberg, the Silly Swede, under whose influence it became morally praiseworthy to miss 20% of one's education in order to hang around in city centres being Holier than Thou. I was interested in her rabid self-referentiality when she screamed at a gathering of politicians "You have robbed me of my childhood  and stolen my dreams ... how dare you ...", her face contorted with ugly rage.

Oops ... my examples of priggery seem so far to be female. 

As ever, I have a theory.

Adolescent boys are a very nasty lot. Egged on by hormones, poor things, and the uncontrolled urge to be Alpha Males, they behave aggressively. They are pitiful to behold.

And how are adolescent girls any different? They have, indeed, quite a liking for doing very much the same sort of thing; a colleague of mine who had once taught younger girls informed us that "They're nastiest at 14". But girls generally consider it more stylish to be nasty from the lofty position of The Moral High Ground rather than to indulge themselves the unsophisticated male pleasures of sadistic physical violence. 

Am I on to something here?


2 comments:

Genji said...

Known in the trade as the Red Pill. Welcome to the party! :)

The Red Pill Meme originates with the Matrix series of movies. Won't type out the premise here, but suffice it to say that a character is given a choice or taking a Red Pill -> Gnostic Enlightenment or Blue Pill -> back to pleasant waking dreams.

Very broadly stated, the Red Pill Meme states that (hold onto your hats Ladies and Gentlemen) that Men and Women are Different. This is somewhat at odds with current social theory that Men and Women are Identical except that Women are Better. Small step from Red Pill Enlightenment to becoming aware that Males and Females are dysfunctional and just plain evil in different ways. We, today, are strangely blind to female dysfunction and evil.

Solutions? No idea. But hanging Margaret Attwood would be a start.

AM said...

Nah. The essence of the Red Pill is "my dick controls my entire life and it's women's fault for being visible".

Men and women are indeed both awful in their own fashion (with overlap - catty men and straightforwardly violent women certainly exist). But only one sex has a near universal tendency to make the other into chattel. To remove their social and economic autonomy in order to guarantee themselves sex and unpaid domestic and reproductive services. To use the broader threat of male violence to keep "their" women under control and dependent, even if they aren't violent towards women themselves.

Males are bigger, stronger and can mate by force. Women are smaller and made vulnerable by pregnancy. The Handmaid's Tale is not a denial of biological sex differences but a depiction of this sexual subjugation process in action, and doesn't depict anything males have not done to women extensively (although it's a copout to focus on Christianity when another religion is currently leading the field here.)

Atwood has written many other novels on topics other than gender; The Handmaid's Tale is far from her best work. Calling for her to be hanged doesn't seem like much of a commitment to free speech. Her novel Cat's Eye is a wonderful depiction of the kind of female bullying described in the post; she doesn't depict women as saints. But I doubt you've read much she's written.