Food killing you, says US Catholic rancher

From the Western Confucian:

Food killing you, says US Catholic rancher

He also brought this article to my attention; it is written by Richard Heinberg.
Fifty Million Farmers

I've already commented on the Western Confucian's website on how many of those concerned with the environment tend to be radical egalitarians--it is not clear to me where they picked this up, though one possible source is the Marxism associated with the wayward left, another, as the Western Rousseau points out, could be Rousseau.

Could we actually regain much of what we have lost? Yes, perhaps by going back, at least in large part, to horticulture. Recall that the shift from horticulture to agriculture was, as best we can tell, a fateful turning point in cultural history. It represented the beginning of full-time division of labor, hierarchy, and patriarchy.

This correlation between the three is often made by anarcho-primitivists as well; however it does not seem to me that hunting-gathering tribes were as egalitarian as they would like--there was still some division of labor, especially between males and females and there was a social hierarchy, even if it was based on age and perceived wisdom. I would like to read more about such groups, especially those that espoused a form of monotheism, before saying more. But first I have to find something 'readable' and not some anthropological or sociological work or history book saturated with some sort of ideology.

As a social regime, horticulture did not represent a decisive break with hunting and gathering. Just as women had previously participated in essential productive activities by foraging for plants and hunting small animals, they now played a prominent role in planting, tending, and harvesting the garden—activities that were all compatible with the care of infants and small children. Thus women’s status remained relatively high in most horticultural societies. Seasonal surpluses were relatively small and there was no full-time division of labor.

But as agriculture developed—with field crops, plows, and draft animals—societies inevitably mutated in response. Plowing fields was men’s work; women were forced to stay at home and lost social power.

Women were forced to say at home? So the men coerced them to stay indoors, and beat them if they didn't? Mr. Heinberg does not establish what sort of social power women had in hunting gathering societies, so to say they "lost" social power is a rather unproven assertion, however much others with a similar mindset may be sympathetic to the claim. It smacks of a PC/Marxist mindwarp. Eivdently the home became some sort of prison and women's freedom of movement was severely curtailed.

Either the sexes have different strengths or they don't. If they do, then it is reasonable and practical that there be some sort of specialization/division of labor following those lines. Such a division of labor does not necessarily imply anything about inequality or equality of husband and wife, unless one proceeds to make a claim about the value of the work and corresponding merit. (Which would be a rather stupid mistake, since all of the work being done is in some way necessary for the home and by extension the community.)

On the other hand, the question of who is to be the ultimate decision-maker in the home, if there is to be one, rather than it being equally shared, needs to be addressed with other considerations. While men and women are equal with respect to sharing the same nature and corresponding dignity, and the same ultimate end (union with God), this does not preclude the possibility that the exercise of authority is naturally suited to the strengths of one rather than the other, or that the exercise of authority fall under the division of labor. Such a distribution of authority be unjust if it is based on merit (broadly understood as refering to capacities and not just past accomplishments) and proportional equality.

Obviously those who do not have the sort of character needed for marriage and would become a sort of tyrant in the home should not be getting married.

[As someone else pointed out, if decision-making is split equally, how is a 50-50 tie decided? Dr. Laura advocates a form of veto power to both--if there is a major change being considered, and one party does not support it, then it cannot be made. On the other hand, she seems to adhere to a more traditional understanding of leadership, so it is not clear to me if she is being consistent. Might not there be good reasons to overrule a veto? And if persuasion does not succeed, can obedience then be brought into play? Obviously there are those who wish to throw out St. Paul's injunctions.]

Lynette Burrows on G.K. Chesterton:

He thought the natural despotism of women manifested itself chiefly in the home — where the woman was invariably the boss, whatever the social position of the man of the house. It also manifested itself in the control and education of children — which had been managed throughout time without benefit of laws or regulations saying how it should be done. They had kept the family going, along recognizably similar lines, fulfilling the needs of husband and family, come hell or high water; in war, pestilence, and famine. They had been the rock and guide of what was arguably the most important, and certainly the oldest, institution on earth and they had protected its autonomy and their right to rule it, by instinct, common sense, and strength of character.

Beyond the home, women also controlled social behaviour and had not needed the blundering interference of "sexual harassment" laws to ensure that men treated them with positively exaggerated deference, nor took liberties with them in public.

This they did by possessing an authority that they cultivated, and which was all the stronger for being real rather than the feeble fiction of power that the vote gave them. It was, quintessentially their means of getting what they wanted.

It goes without saying, at this juncture, ladies and gentlemen, that I reject as a foolish insult, the idea that women were oppressed by the men they bore, reared, and married, until the second half of the 20 ^th Century. If that were indeed true, then there is no way that anyone could argue for equality between the sexes. At the very best, women would be late starters! The truth, however, is that men and women with power have always oppressed men and women without power.

Women were the biggest employers of labour until the First World War, because they employed servants, and they showed themselves, throughout time, to be just as capable as the meanest man of oppressing their workers. Indeed, domestic service still carries a seemingly ineradicable aura of servitude and humiliation, as a monument to the many women who treated their servants — both men and women, abysmally.

Now Chesterton thought that this natural authority of women would be exercised quite differently if it were translated into political power. The instinctive despotism would translate itself into two effects of which — I think we have ample evidence today. One was that they would treat everybody as if they were children — and create a "nanny state." "They would turn society itself into a great nursery," Chesterton actually said.

The second effect would be that essentially tyrannical laws would be enacted to uphold this re-creation of "mother knows best"! Hence, despite the vision of restraint and gentleness conjured up by devotees of female power in the early days, the chief effect of women's influence on social policy are laws that oppress parental authority. Parents no longer have the right to discipline children as they think fit, nor to require other people such as teachers and policemen, to give them the discipline they need to reach adult life without a criminal record.

Moral education is undertaken by the State and children can be introduced to gross sexual provocation in the classroom and then supplied with the means to be promiscuous without their parents even being told. The results of this have been howlingly counter-productive in terms of achieving the expressed goals; lower illegitimacy, fewer abortions, less disease. But, never mind, "mother is always right" if she works for the Family Planning Association or Brooks Clinics, and nothing will deflect them from their purpose.

Nor is it coincidence that bullying authoritarianism has made social workers almost uniquely feared and loathed amongst the common people.

Chesterton thought that the big battalions of government, commerce, and bureaucracies would welcome this natural prescriptive tendency of women in public policy, the better to further their own manipulative ends, whilst seeming to be impeccably "pro-women." And, indeed, it is remarkable how many "dirty jobs" are given to women in making public policy; the latest being Lady Gavron's plans to turn us into a "community of communities" rather than a nation. The "cover" is that women are being "empowered" by such jobs. The truth, I suspect, is that they are the fall guys.

Finally, an effect that Chesterton foresaw but not to its full extent, the rest of society would lose its bottle at the same time as women outside the closed ranks of the sisterhood lost their confidence. Men and women are in an inseparable union because they both come from families and go on to make families themselves. But the translocation of a feminine way of doing things outside the family and community has narrowed, and therefore concentrated their effect into more tyrannical government and a diminution of liberty for everyone.

As Dr. Laura likes to point out, who holds the real power in the home? The woman.