John C. Wright and gender relationships

[Grogsmash]

I am a bit confused on how someone can advocate libertarianism and at the same time advocate taking away women's rights. It seems quite a large contradiction.

[Zoë Sumra]

Oh, he's no longer a libertarian. :rolleyes:

[Yagathai]

Oh, he's no longer a libertarian. :rolleyes:

Praise Jeebus!

Seriously, he seems to have decided to double-down on the crazy. I guess there's a certain kind of quixotic nobility in being so honest? In any case, witnessing his devolution into a fringe clown would be sad if I weren't so cruel.

[Nerdanel]

After he converted into Catholicism, he became a hardcore social conservative. However, he still retains his libertarian economic views and thinks socialism and socialists are evil and destroying the society. If I told him what it's really like living in a country with socialized healthcare he'd probably claim I was lying or deluded.

[Nerdanel]

Well, you might be interested in knowing that John C. Wright is still at it, at least if you like watching trainwrecks. By the way, he has recently started a parallel blog with mostly-but-not-quite the same content for maximum confusion.

Here he is commenting on sexual liberation on the new blog. It ridicules itself, really.

There may be some drawbacks to having women pressured into living up to the standard of civilized moral norms, including repressive norms such as chastity, being a good wife and mother, loving, supportive, and absolute mistress and queen in her own household, and all those antiquated notions from the 1950’s and from A.D. 50. But the promise of having women not under pressure has proven false. The only other real option is to have women pressured into living down to the nonstandard of uncivilized moral abnorms, including acting like a playboy bunny, rock starlet, power-tie-wearing she-Capitalist, unborn-baby-killing Lamia, temple prostitute, angry narcissist, hag, termagant, and harridan.

Here he is commenting a reader comment to the above new blog comment on the old blog.

I will gladly clarify: I am not a libertarian any more. I think the state has a right and a duty and a sacred obligation to enforce marriage laws, and put men in jail for adultery, for fornication, as well as to punish the johns and patrons of prostitutes with severe penalties; and, as part of this, to punish and deter pornography, prostitution, white slavery, and other things that encourage a moral atmosphere of lustful permissiveness.

(Emphasis mine.) Adding the qualifier "white" to "slavery" like that makes me wonder if he's for or against non-white slavery... It's not the first time he's used the term "white slavery" on his blog this month either. The rest of it is standard medieval theocrat stuff. My country actually used to have sex outside of marriage a crime (although only punishable by a fine) but it's VERY LONG gone now and good riddance. It's the same kind of enforced morality that also made missing the church too much a crime (punishable by some time in stocks), and yes, that was a real law too.

[sargraf]

Well, you might be interested in knowing that John C. Wright is still at it, at least if you like watching trainwrecks. By the way, he has recently started a parallel blog with mostly-but-not-quite the same content for maximum confusion.

Here he is commenting on sexual liberation on the new blog. It ridicules itself, really.

Here he is commenting a reader comment to the above new blog comment on the old blog.

(Emphasis mine.) Adding the qualifier "white" to "slavery" like that makes me wonder if he's for or against non-white slavery... It's not the first time he's used the term "white slavery" on his blog this month either. The rest of it is standard medieval theocrat stuff. My country actually used to have sex outside of marriage a crime (although only punishable by a fine) but it's VERY LONG gone now and good riddance. It's the same kind of enforced morality that also made missing the church too much a crime (punishable by some time in stocks), and yes, that was a real law too.

I have no words... Wow. Just wow...

[Ormond]

(Emphasis mine.) Adding the qualifier "white" to "slavery" like that makes me wonder if he's for or against non-white slavery... It's not the first time he's used the term "white slavery" on his blog this month either. The rest of it is standard medieval theocrat stuff. My country actually used to have sex outside of marriage a crime (although only punishable by a fine) but it's VERY LONG gone now and good riddance. It's the same kind of enforced morality that also made missing the church too much a crime (punishable by some time in stocks), and yes, that was a real law too.

"White slavery" is an old term for forcing women into prostitution. It certainly is a politically incorrect term today, and I think he's really stupid to use it, but I really doubt if it should be taken to mean that he's in favor of any form of slavery based on race. What it does is simply reinforce that idea that he is very, very proudly a man of the 19th century, not the 21st.

[Swordfish]

I'll never understand why an extremely obscure, relatively new science fiction writer thinks that the best way of getting people to read his books is to slag off the majority of his readers. When you hit the bestseller lists you can start being an obnoxious twat, but doing it before then is ill-advised.

There is no such thing as bad publicity.

[Seventh Pup]

How this suffers the metamorphosis into a desire to teach all young girls about masturbation and condom use in the fourth grade, and to rob them of any socially acceptable excuse to deflect an unwanted suitor, is something I cannot explain, but perhaps a historian, a student of abnormal psychiatry, or a student of the diabolical could -- since I suspect a psychopathological if not hellish origin for the mental link between equality and harlotry.

You are obviously very mad at your mother for not having an abortion.

God I both hope to never meet this guy, and wish that I could flip him the bird.

[Datepalm]

I will gladly clarify: I am not a libertarian any more. I think the state has a right and a duty and a sacred obligation to enforce marriage laws, and put men in jail for adultery, for fornication, as well as to punish the johns and patrons of prostitutes with severe penalties; and, as part of this, to punish and deter pornography, prostitution, white slavery, and other things that encourage a moral atmosphere of lustful permissiveness.

Interesting, I don't think i've ever really encountered this brand of nuttery where someone goes from libertarianism to the "sacred obligations" of the state. Basically he'll agree to anything, on any end of the political spectrum, that will keep those women in their place. I think its an amusing progression from believing that man alone can do the trick under libertarianism to somehow loosing that faith and needing the entire bueracracy of state to pull it off. Its an odd loss of self esteem.

[Zap Rowsdower]

The only way to disagree unbanned on that blog in the long term is to disagree from a right-wing perspective.

So, what if like, a mullah or a Gorean showed up and told him his views were not regressive enough and chided him for advocating feminism?

Wow, this guy rivals Lovecraft. And at least H.P. was born in the tail end of the 19th century when pretty much everyone was a bigot and bigotry wasn't that unusual. What's this gentleman's excuse?

But I must admit, his lunacy is pretty entertaining. Take this line for instance:

The practical attitude is that women are dickless men, easy to beat up, fun to ravish, emotionally vulnerable and easy to manipulate. This is the attitude of the cads, including everyone from Bill Clinton to Hugh Hefner to Solomon the Wise, and every man who gave in to the werewolflike hunger.

LOL. The "Werewolflike hunger," line needs to be an internet meme or something.

Better yet- an experiment!

Everyone with a significant other needs to go home tonight and say something to the effect of "My werewolf hunger can longer be contained!"

While saying this the speaker need to quickly waggle their eyebrows, wink at and nudge their S.O. while wearing a shiteating doofus grin.

My hypothesis is that the S.O. will gave you a blank, unamused stare, and you will get nothing for your efforts.

[Werthead]

There is no such thing as bad publicity.

Of course there is. His comments are well-known now amongst British genre publishers (Wright's work has not been published in the UK) and no doubt influencing those publishers' decision on whether to take him on or not. When your comments are stopping your work reaching the world's second-biggest English-speaking fiction market, you are damaging your own career and public image. That is bad publicity.

[a2t]

I'm somewhat confused. So you can view women in two ways: One in which they're inferior, so you rape them and one in which they're inferior, so you coddle them and don't let them leave the home? What if you just stop being such a massive asshole and pretending that they're incapable of deciding what they want for themselves?

I don't see evidence for this interpretation in the source. One of Mr. Wright's common talking points is that, women being different than men, how should we view relationships between men and women, and what attitudes, rules, etc enforce correct behaviors between the sexes (and also what those correct behaviors are).

So he says:

The mystical attitude is that women, because they are weak, and precious, and fair, the mother of your children and the hearth and heart of your soul, must be served with the devotion of supine priests in ancient rites their pagan goddesses, or knights who pray and fast before an icon of the Virgin. When the Titanic is sinking, you give up your seat on the lifeboat for a women, and die.

and you interpret "coddle them and don't let them leave the home." This is about proper attitudes of men toward women, not whether women should be left at home. He's saying don't take advantage of women, treat them with respect, etc because they are the mothers of your children. What is here to deny? I can see some confusion over what he means by weak, but in this context of this post (and having read Mr. Wright's other posts) I interpret this as physical weakness relative to men.(in general, with exceptions))

But lets stay logical and define our terms. What is meant by "respect?" He says:

In sum, in the sane society, your young men do not get to engage in sexual reproduction until and unless they vow eternal fidelity to their mates, and provide support for the offspring resulting from sexual reproduction. This encourages a romantic attitude toward marriage rather than a merely pragmatic one. If you are going to be chained for life to your mate, it were better far for you if you love her, and if your love is not merely fair-weather infatuation.

Wow this is some really controversial stuff! Look I don't agree with a lot of Mr. Wright's conclusions, but a lot of what he says makes sense as well.

I do see where a lot of people are going to disagree (including myself!):

My grandmother was married at 16 to an 18 year old, who built his own house with his own hands, worked like a dog without rest, kept his family fed throughout the Great Depression, and never even rolled an eye toward another woman. He was the paterfamilias, the absolute master of his house, but she was something greater and more terrible than him, because she was his soul and the power behind his throne, and she ruled with an iron rolling pin. I never heard their voices raised in anger one against the other. A woman less a victim I cannot picture. And yet it is women like my grandmother, marriages like theirs, that the modern age has by and large abolished.

The implication here is that there are specific roles men and women tend to be designed for, and in performing those roles men and women achieve a kind of equality, although this is a kinda of equality quite distinct from what Mr. Wright would call the modern view (I think ...) in which we affirm that our roles are independent of our sex (e.g. Female partner is bread winner while male partner stays home with children). Take note, "because she was his soul and the power behind his throne, and she ruled with an iron rolling pin" hardly implies coddling, although it does imply the leave at home part. However, I just don't see how you could possibly end up with "they're incapable of deciding what they want for themselves" from anything Mr. Wright wrote here.

My key point is that his view of an ideal marriage is not a required assumption in many of his arguments, hence arguing against his ideal marriage as a way to refute such other arguments is fallacy. For example:

If female promiscuity is the norm, however, natural marketplace forces (the desire of young men to gratify themselves with minimal cost for maximal gain) prevents the monopoly. A woman cannot demand a man come virgin to her marriage bower, and cannot demand a vow of eternal fidelity before she bestows upon him that most precious jewel in her possession. If her Magdalene sisters are willing to give it up on the first date, in return for a dinner and a show, then her potential candidates for lifelong mate shrink dramatically.

Assumptions in play here: a typical woman is in fact looking for a lifelong monogamous relationship, and that the benefits of abstinence before marriage are greater than the cons. As for the former, who will deny it? As for the latter, I must leave the issue for those with greater minds than my own, such Mr. Wright. (whom I often disagree with regardless) The issue is not nearly as obvious as it seems many here believe.

[Datepalm]

Assumptions in play here: a typical woman is in fact looking for a lifelong monogamous relationship, and that the benefits of abstinence before marriage are greater than the cons. As for the former, who will deny it?

Women, men, people, humans.

Its not like Wrights view of men is any less bizzare, contricting, psudo-historical nostalgia for a neverexistent fantasy where men were real men, women were real women, and John C. Wright could really be John C. Wright.

The problem is that hes making sweeping generalized statements about everyone, and giving his opinion that those statements should be held as gospel and even upheld by law for everyone. And hes wrong. It really is pretty simple.

[The Evil Hat]

However, I just don't see how you could possibly end up with "they're incapable of deciding what they want for themselves" from anything Mr. Wright wrote here.

Quite easily. He never even alludes to a woman having a choice in these matters (in fact, he claims that she scientifically is incapable of making one). It is all a difference of the man's decision; even his example of a woman rejecting a suitor is defined based on how men view it (IE, it's unacceptable for a "whore" to reject a man). His example of an ideal marriage is one in which the female didn't even have the slightest choice in the matter. He is not saying that women need be miserable, nor that they should be powerless, but their happiness and ability stems entirely from their adaption to the man's decisions and or view of them. His grandmother was happy because she adapted to the role her husband set out for her; modern women are not happy because their partners are not in love with them and just want sex.

[Stalker]

Its not like Wrights view of men is any less bizzare,

He does have some bizarre delusions to justify his pedestrian Patriarchal views. One wonders if he truly believes in them. I suspect he may well be emotional enough about the issue that he does in fact believe them, at least when writing.

I also noticed he has picked up Orson Scott Card's habit of referring to Conservatism as the civilized view, seeing as barbarian tribes are so well known for their respect of individual freedom.

[MinDonner]

Ah, fuck it, I was crafting a lengthy and considered reply, but it's just too much effort. a2t, consider this a lucky escape.

[Galactus]

I wonder how familiar he actually is with catholic social teaching?

Just as the unity of human society cannot be founded on an opposition of classes, so also the right ordering of economic life cannot be left to a free competition of forces. For from this source, as from a poisoned spring, have originated and spread all the errors of individualist economic teaching. Destroying through forgetfulness or ignorance the social and moral character of economic life, it held that economic life must be considered and treated as altogether free from and independent of public authority, because in the market, i.e., in the free struggle of competitors, it would have a principle of self direction which governs it much more perfectly than would the intervention of any created intellect. But free competition, while justified and certainly useful provided it is kept within certain limits, clearly cannot direct economic life...[7]

[Werthead]

John C. Wight < Terry Goodkind + Orson Scott Card. Combined.

Agree/Disagree?

[The Evil Hat]

I'd agree if the sign went the other way :P