“I am not aware of that tradition, Mac. In fact, I think that you and your parents were just stealing from that home.” – It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
I had Mennonite Flu last week, first a little horse, then a little buggy.
As I ended Friday’s post (LINK), I tossed out the idea – what if traditions were essentially just solutions to problems we forgot we even had?
They are. But modern life has eroded those traditions in many ways.
If I asked the question, “What is American culture?” how many people would answer with questions that described companies and brands? McDonalds™. The NFL©. Nike®. I could keep going on, but these aspects of American culture are all new – McDonalds® is everywhere now, but it wasn’t until the 1960s that it started expanding everywhere . . . like your mom.
Along with something else . . . what ever could that be?
In fact, the idea that most people are employees of someone else is fairly new, too. In 1880, almost 70% of Americans were in agriculture. Sure some didn’t own the farms and worked on farms for a wage, but farming has generally been an occupation run by families, owning and working the land.
Farmers, especially back then, were not a group of people who were dependent, it was a group of people who lived based on their own work. The “employment” model was used, certainly. Sailing ships and railroads and industry required it. But it was not the predominant model.
Neither was rent. Neither was the subscription model – about the only subscription many folks would have would be the newspaper and maybe a magazine or two. Neither was contact with the Federal government. In 1880, more than likely the only contact a citizen had with the Federal government was when the mail showed up. If you asked what the culture of America was then, the answers would have been fairly easy to guess: Freedom. Independence. The Constitution. Open skies, far horizons, amber waves of grain, and cooperation.
Cooperation? Certainly. The cities and towns that grew every ten miles or so were founded on people wanting to get together to create places of gathering. Places for churches. Places for schools. And, places for commerce and the optimistic growth of a nation.
Funny, the 2020 Chinese plans look like the 1880 American plans . . . .
Was there corruption? Yes, there were people and money, so certainly there was corruption.
But then, largely driven by technology (but also driven by changes from incorporating the large numbers of people emigrating from Europe) that culture changed. Farmers no longer had to feed the horses that moved so much of American commodities – now those were moved by a rail network and internal combustion engines. Also, those same engines allowed farmers to farm much more with lower input from individuals. Sons left farms for jobs at factories, or to go to universities to learn skills to get jobs.
Renting and mortgage became the norm. Companies (because of a Supreme Court decision) became forever, and became larger. Entire new industries were born that required employees.
The culture of America changed, too. Immediately after World War II, the culture moved to one of suburban living matched with jobs working for big corporations, sometimes in places far from family. In general, an attractive package was set up. Work 9 to 5, come home to a freshly made meal by the wife and have a round of catch in the front yard with the boy. Church on Sunday. Then repeat.
The Vatican won’t accept Visa® or Mastercard™. It’s a Paypal© State.
For some reason, this was sold as soulless, and resisted by the “spirituality” of the Lefties in the 1960s. Most of the rebellion was about weed, LSD, and sex, but at least part of it was about something where they actually had a point: the core of the nation was moving from businesses supporting people, to people supporting business.
How so?
Monthly phone bills, power bills, subscriptions to TV Guide®, rent or mortgage, insurance, and car payments became the norm. What was happening was that people were being incorporated as economic farms for banks and companies to harvest every month. Go, work, and be harvested. When you’re used up, you can rest until discarded as the world moved around you.
This was bad enough, because it took people out of the reason for the system, and made people into components of the system. But even more changes were soon to show up which would add to this and create our world today.
First, the birth control pill. The relationships between men and women had always been governed by one basic concept – one man can make many babies at a time, but one woman can only make one at a time. As such, even though men might have been the keymasters, women had to be the gatekeepers to sex. Women had to be choosey.
See, choosey.
Society had solved that problem through a pretty strict system of monogamy tied through both religious and social rules. If a girl got pregnant, there was an expectation that the boy would marry her, even if a shotgun was necessary to induce him to do the honorable thing.
Once married, the couple were strongly encouraged everywhere to keep the marriage going. There were real difficulties in breaking up a marriage – for instance, unless someone was at fault and the other party could prove it in court, a divorce could be contested and not granted. And what would the woman do, anyway? Who would want a woman with kids as a wife? And how would that woman support the kids if the man chose to not give them resources?
Those are powerful inducements to working out a fight rather than calling it all off, if you’re the woman. And women today file 80% of the divorces. Why? Fun and prizes!
And some say we should ignore the old values . . . .
Fault is no longer a requirement. So, for any or no reason a woman can opt out. Johnny, show her what she’s won! Child support, alimony, and, welfare!
Heck, with welfare, there’s no real reason to get married anymore. One of my high school teachers noted that she had a 16 year old student who wanted to get pregnant as soon as she could so she could, “get her own welfare check every month.”
This has led to significant consequences in the dating market in 2022. Many women spend their 20s having relatively anonymous sex with large numbers of men. Tinder® has been devastating for the dating market – see the graph below based on OK Cupid™ data – the “average” man rates the “average” woman as a 3 out of 5 stars.
Perfect! Good job, guys! You did it!
The way the “average” woman rates that “average” guy, however, means that only one guy out of six is rated as “above average”.
Houston, we have a problem. And it’s a doozy. Monogamy works when people sort each other out and your 4 marries a 4. Et cetera. What’s set up here, is that all the 5 star guys have it easy. Will a 5 star guy sleep with an average 2.5 star girl? Sure. Once, probably. When (if!) he gets married he’ll pick a 4 or higher, though.
Ohhh, my precious!
Thus, the average 2.5 star girl in her 20s has the experience of being acceptable to Chad 5 star. So, she expects to marry Chad 5 star, when in reality Chad 5 star has no intention of even remembering the average girl. So, until she’s 30, she holds out, and then reality catches up to her and she’s ready to settle for the 2.5 star guy, Settle Stan.
Wow – inspiring if you’re the 2.5 star guy. And, she’ll be much more likely to divorce Settle Stan, too. She’s really a widow to the fun times with Chad, and Stan will never, ever be good enough. Hopefully Stan makes money?
Well, you can see that James dodged a bullet . . .
But what about all of the Stans who never have a chance even at an awful relationship? The modern world has created a series of drugs to lull them gently onto that goodnight.
It takes a thick umbrella to keep out the light . . .
This is just one aspect of the sexual marketplace that has been devastating for the country. I’ll leave the rest consequences of the sexual revolution as a class exercise.
There are, of course, other consequences of the modern world and the ignoring of tradition on life, but I think this is certainly the most profound. Thankfully there won’t be any more consequences of a sexual revolution gone amok.
“what if traditions were essentially just solutions to problems we forgot we even had?” – I think there’s some truth to this idea. But I think there’s also value in reevaluating if the tradition is still solving that problem and/or if the tradition is introducing new problems. I think there is value to tradition, but I also don’t think it should be followed blindly out of tradition.
Marc MacYoung has written on the role of traditions, and the perils of ignoring them. To him, traditions often grew up to solve problems or serve as protections from some danger. Over time and change we may forget the reason for the tradition and seek to remove or ignore it. Then we get bit in the ass by the danger that is still there. IIRC check “Beyond The Picket Fence: Life Outside the Middle-Class Bubble” for more on this.
I appreciate the book recommendation. I do appreciate the value of tradition. As my blogger name suggests, I practice a pretty tradition-oriented religion. And I do think that ceasing to follow tradition can have unintended consequences. But I also think that a) not all traditions necessarily have the same value here and not all should necessarily be preserved and b) traditions can also introduce their own problems, so it’s worthwhile to reexamine if our traditions are solving the problems they are intended to solve and also if they’re not introducing new ones.
To be clear, the book talks about traditions but isn’t about that. Be sure to read the back cover material.
“Tradition is a set of solutions for which we have forgotten the problems. Throw away the solution and you get the problem back.”
–Donald Kingsbury, “Courtship Rite” (an interesting sci-fi novel)
Appreciate the book recommendation!
A rule was once an innovative idea that has been fossilized by tradition. – mom
Tradition – peer pressure from dead people.
If you don’t know what it solved, you don’t know what you’re destroying. Tinder destroys a solution that made society stable for thousands of years. Now . . . evaporating. It will not go well.
Sarah has a similar but very interesting take on traditions as it were in this post. I see the similarity as solutions to problems. Dire warnings in her example.
https://accordingtohoyt.com/2022/03/15/living-in-the-evil-fairytales/
“Houston, we have a problem.” No kidding. A little over 3 yrs. ago, left the mountains for a coasal city where everyone wishes they could live, renting until the house sold up there. Went online to a 50+ dating site. Scads of educated, attractive females. Asked one out, and six days later I moved into her place, we’ve since bought a house. About 3 weeks into living together, she showed me what was available for her…It was the GEEK SQUAD. On a typical Friday night, it’s at least 2 or 3 females to one man in lounges/bars we frequent.
Yup, the ratio changes with age . . . big time.
I had never really thought about it (because I haven’t had to in thirty years), but one could argue the online dating services have brought a subscription model to obtaining sex the same way you noted that subscription models have been imposed on all other financial aspects of American life. Pay a fee, get a different partner as often as you want. In the end, not only do you never really own your house, you never really “own” your partner, either.
Exactly, with all the fragility that implies. And it tears the fabric of people apart.
I’ve been married almost 50 years. If I had been single for just a few years longer, I might well have fallen into that trap of desperately seeking a 5. Instead, I got a solid 4.5, with just enough flaws that I sometimes think I deserve him. And, we have had a life, instead of a meaningless search for perfection in an imperfect world.
Linda, you sound kind of like me, other than being on opposite sides of the deal. Married 47 years this time around the calendar. I was a few months shy of my 21st birthday when we got married (to an older woman — she was several months past her 21st). Objectively, probably a bit young; at least, that’s what my parents told me, with much emphasis. But I’ll have to say that it’s worked out pretty well. At this point, the raging fires of lust have burned down to a bed of embers. But I sure have a good friend there.
Wonderful, Linda!!! Congrats on the (near) anniversary!!
All of those are constructs of the white male capitalist patriarchy, comrade.
In the United States of BlackRock Big McBug vs Whoppod is the choice.
Cut a Zephyr Window in your face mask for best results to finesse the debris.
President Fink and VP Emhoff are working out the UBI plan so that all comrades of the collective can finally achieve the glorious indispensable egalitarian equality of results for all.
Forward! Yes we can!
We will live in the pod, we will eat the bugs.
We will live in the pod, we will eat the bugs.
We will live in the pod, we will eat the bugs.
We will live in the pod, we will eat the bugs.
“I’ll leave the rest consequences of the sexual revolution as a class exercise.”
Uhhhh … John, if it’s all the same to you, I’ll skip that exercise in favor of a couple more sets of kettlebell swings, some more deadlifts, some cardio on the spin bike — heck, I’ll even hold some planks, which I kind of hate. Whatever … a shower washes off the sweat & stink. Anything but the consequences of the sexual revolution!
Huzzah. I’m with you. Because both require a shower . . . 🙂
While their model has lots and lots of faults, it is interesting to see the old style of dating in our Amish community. You don’t generally date a girl unless you both are interested in marrying the other. Younger girls work at jobs but only until they get married. The entire culture is centered around marriage, children and traditional gender roles. The men go to work, the women take care of the house and the kids. Again it isn’t perfect but most Amish women are far happier and more content than the “professional” women I used to work with. When your culture as marriage as the default and divorce is nearly unheard of, it changes your perspective. Sure it is not uncommon at all for girls to get knocked up but the boys understand that if you get her pregnant, you are getting married and that has to impact your dating decision. If a girl is crazy but puts out you don’t bang her anyway because if she gets pregnant, you get to live with that the rest of your life.
Also you should do a post fleshing out this line “What was happening was that people were being incorporated as economic farms for banks and companies to harvest every month.: That deserves a post of its own.
I (sort of) did that for Wednesday . . . I was going to use similar ideas, but you gave me the theme. Thanks, Arthur.
A few things I’m very glad I’m not, today – teacher, cop, single.
The first two are self-explanatory, but the third requires a little edification.
Marriage to a ‘modern’ woman who doesn’t have any clue what she wants, but expects you to provide it (or else) is simply not worth the trouble. Hence, the notion of MGTOW. It’s easy to regard men who steer clear of the dating debacle and content themselves with pot and video games as immature little boys, but just maybe they have seen the devastation wrought among their unfortunate peers and don’t wish to fall prey to it, themselves.
Elder son’s ex recently married husband/sucker #3 and she is currently smashing headlong into The Wall. There are already serious fissures in her newest union, and I clearly detect the unmistakable stench of kitty litter and boxed wine about her person. She is chasing after something she doesn’t deserve and can’t have, as she is one of those 2.5’s who somehow believes that she rates a 4.5 or better. Such creatures leave a trail of bodies in their miserable wake through their glorious 20s, but thankfully Nature knows enough to even the score when they hit their 30s and beyond.
Beloved wife and I made a pact years ago, one that we honor to this day. We take our union very seriously and work as hard as necessary at staying together through thick and thin. It is frankly a lot of work, but ultimately worth it. Today’s young people don’t know much about sacrifice and it shows.
It is hard work. But, worth it. Perfectly said.
As Terence Popp, Better Bachelor and a hundred other sites with millions of followers have noted, women hold all the cards from age 20 to 30.
For 30 to death, it’s all men, all the time.
And when women hit The Wall by 35 or 40, after slinging it around for free for 20+ years, there’s nothing for them to look forward to but box wine and 27 cats.
Meanwhile, the “below-average” geeks who invested in themselves and their careers, with no wifestitutes in tow collecting alimony, can have their pick of above-average 20-something hot chicks from Asia and Eastern Europe, who aren’t stupid, haven’t bought into the stupidity of feminism, don’t feel unfulfilled without two divorces and seven abortions, and think a house, 2.5 kids, and a white picket fence isn’t a bad gig in return for dinner and the occasional fun time in the bedroom.
This is when ruined Western wamyn dye their hair pink, get a buzz cut and a bone in their nose, and go cruising for girlfriends.
Marriage? Overwhelmingly, men have figured out there’s no point in playing a rigged game that you can’t win, on the off chance you’ll find that one woman out of ten who wants to stay married. Exactly like roulette and slot machine gambling, only fools enter into it.
I give it ten years before legal prostitution signals the end of marriage entirely, and women are reduced to their basic commodity value.
Personally, it is to laugh at.
Culturally, it’s a suicidal death spiral.
Eventually, and inevitably, there will come a reckoning, and probably one where being able to fight off saber-tooth tigers, bring home a slab of wooly mammoth, and dragging a woman back to the cave by the hair are going to come back into vogue.
Alternatively, the cure for no-fault divorce is to tie it to no-payday either. Get divorced without cause, walk away with nothing. First one to file without due reason forfeits everything but their freedom.
Want out, because you’re bored? DLTDHYITAOYWO.
The divorce rate would drop to what it was in the 1950s.
Pile on by making welfare something that was reduced by 50% for each child after 0, and cut it by 75% if you were a single parent, and you’d reverse 50 years of societal decline.
But people are stupid, so I’m betting on wooden clubs and fur togas in the long run.
Agreed. Society is built on strong relationships, and we’ve made it far too easy to abandon them. But, yeah, I think it’ll crash before it reverts. And it will revert, because you can ignore tradition, but you can’t ignore the conseqences of the society it produces.
Marriage is supposed to be a serious commitment. In the past, it meant procreating, more help to keep food on the table, and the continuation of the species. All are serious business, and failing to do so guaranteed the weaker members of the gene pool didn’t have their chance to contribute.
In Texas, the laws dictate it’s a 50/50 partnership. That includes liabilities, and my experience shows few are aware of how absolving the marriage ends in financial ruin for one, or both. A recent social media post from someone my wife knows shows how this might surprise some. The woman’s divorce was final, and she was required to compensate ex 50 grand. How this came about will probably never be known, but a few years ago, the woman was bragging about the new house they purchased. I’m thinking she owes half the equity, and is now the proud sole owner of a home.
So, modern society dictates the sanctity of marriage really doesn’t have any sanctity. It’s all business, with those that plan, perform, advise, and dissolve marriages as the true winners.
You close by mentioning drugs as an alternative to sex for 2.5 star Stans. That is so 20th Century. From today’s Drudge…
https://futurism.com/ai-girlfriend-wife
This story goes,, er, deeper…
https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/8620362/creepy-virtual-mare-girlfriends-on-sale/
That’s rare enough – but I’m for punitive marriage. You burn it down? You walk with nothing. Not a thing.
Too bad you can’t add a chart of women rated by women. It would be the biggest bitch fest in history. OTOH, guys rated by guys would put every guy on earth right in the middle, aside from a handful of Chads at one end and the creepsters at the other … because noticing other guys is gay. But such graphs would be very insightful, as females have figured out their attractiveness pecking order by 4th grade. Guys don’t even think in this regard, although later on may assume some social strata from career path or family money. Or being the one guy in school all the girls tore each other’s eyes out to have sex with, while the other 850 guys never got a second glance.
Hey, let’s teach all our children to value education, life skills, and career success over fleeting things like attractiveness and popularity. Emphasize honesty, morality, and loyalty while you’re at it. Mwaahahahahahaa … yeah right, as if, never.
Another way to level things out would be to ban all beauty products and elective plastic surgery. Throw all those hot girls in the shower and send them out in public in a natural state in plain clothes; guys would be deafened by the “whoosh” of hot air leaving the inflated egos. Watch the 9s go back to the 4s they really are. Until very very recently, straight guys didn’t wear makeup or use “product” or any of the artificial enhancements women thrive on. Which is men’s fault, naturally.
Or, allow all the hot immigrant females to jump the line: “9 or 10, come on in” . . . you’d see a 10 mile high fence in an afternoon.
You know – it’s not really ‘in line’ with the current article’s content, but… I think you may be on to something with the ‘9 or 10, come on in’. If nothing else, it’d get the women folk to reconsider their acceptance of ‘open borders’ – when it’ll bring serious competition. Of course, the same goes for us guys, but because much of what we do is not based on our ‘looks’, it’d probably affect us somewhat less. Or not. 😉
Well, we already let the billionaires in . . .
On the third hand, let’s examine how online skin and influencer models have created an even worse image of attractiveness than did the evil Barbie dolls of the 50s. Doesn’t matter if it’s porn or Instagram, TikTok or Tinder. Everyone normal looks lame and under-endowed in comparison, resulting in plastic surgery, depression, incels, and a near tyranny of the pretty but vapid who get rich yet have no skills or intellect.
The Kardashians have downvoted your post.
Yeah, they do wizard work. I think they cast spells.
Quit, Clown Jo Jo
Quit, Clown Jo Jo
Hear our or plea our payday gone to gas
Quit Clown Jo Jo!
Ay not I, O not Ow
Pudding pudding in your brain
Ay not I, O not Ow
Don’t say Ukraine, say Cookie Jar
The cash rain in Ukraine stays mainly in the coke nose drain
The cash rain in Ukraine stays mainly in the coke nose drain
Again
The cash rain in Ukaine stays mainly in the coke nose drain
I think Hunter’s got it!
I think Hunter’s got it!
The cash rain in Ukraine stays mainly the coke nose drain
By Zelensky, he’s got it
By Zelensky, he’s got it
On ze plane!
On ze plain!
And where’s the soggy brain
On a DC Train
On a DC Train
And we will live in the pod, and eat the bugs . . .
Have you accepted Zelensky as your lord and savior?
Let’s not Putin the cart before the horse.