I'm at the halfway point but I'll forget this if I don't write it now: You're describing the seating arrangements in the orchestra and I thought of how women in orchestras are visually disruptive and spoil the harmony of appearance. All the men wear a black evening suit and a bow tie, or used to, while the women deck themselves out in all sorts of gaudy, with big hair, bright jewellery, make up, plunging necklines, splits up the thigh and so on. The thought occurred that the men don't need to compete because of the competence hierarchy - anyone who knows and has an ear for music can tell how competent the men are so they are not obviously competing but showing their position in the hierarchy, while the women are competing like mad for attention because women don't have a competence hierarchy. How does that sound? Have I got that completely wrong?
Are women closer in nature to the rest of the animal kingdom than men do you think?
I did not know about the opening argument about achievement and reward. Look around, look at Harvard, where there is no connection between achievement and reward, the latter now based on sex and race. Christopher F. Ruso has noted that, alongside Claudine Gay and her 11 pathetic articles, two of Harvard's main DEI officers have been shown to have plagiarized their research. They cheat to compete. Men compete rather than cheat (manly men, anyway). They give each other a hard time, too--part of the "intense friendly aggression" Walter Ong writes about. We don't measure masculinity based on one thing but on many things--jobs, sports, knowledge of sports, cars. Manly men do not need to be at the top of every field. What brings out competition in women? Let's see--hierarchy based on clothing, jewelry, salary, choice of men. Because women have trashed male hierarchies (with the cooperation of feminist men, let's remember), they have to conceal their own tireless forms of competition that establish their hierarchy. Men around men are definitely different than when they are around women. Women want to get into those men's groups because that makes the groups all about them. How many men want to get into meetings of women, I wonder? Great video and talk. Thanks, Tom. There's a great Seinfeld episode in which Elaine meets a man who says he is a doctor but who cannot pass his board tests. She doesn't really care, so long as she can introduce him to her friends as a doctor.
Thanks Allen. Love the friendly aggression idea. So true. We compete like hell and then go get a beer.
Women's hierarchies. lol Yes, there has been a steady stream of women wanting to get into men's clubs and activities....but very little openness to including men in theirs.....
Do women know that they change a men's group when they join? Is that why they don't want men in their group? That is, they know a man would change a group of women? We certainly cannot have that! A men's group, well that's already a bad thing, so who cares of the ladies change it. The could only improve it. But a group of women, that's sacred and beautiful thing. No men allowed. The old boys' club is always mentioned. What about the old girls?
While I support your overall point, there are so many things wrong in this, I wouldn't know where to begin. What you attribute generally to "Western Civilization" should actually say "the United States;" what you oppose as "feminist narrative" is actually your own conservative perspective in defense of a particular socio-economic arrangement, which is by no means fundamental to Western civilization. Western Civilization had lengthy periods of slavery, serfdom and government by landed aristocracy that is the definition of the very opposite of merit. Civilization is a historiographic concept that has writing as its main requirement. Before writing, it's prehistory. After writing, history. Western civilization, then, begins in Mesopotamia with the invention of writing, proceeds through the periods of Middle Eastern and North African civilizations in Egypt and Mesopotamia, includes the pre-socratic period, but generally, we say that it is the Platonic period with its conceptions of Platonic idealism (idea-lism) that originates most of the best ideas that shape western civilization. Western Civilization, then, has existed for 5500 years, and in that entire period, merit has played even a partial importance, at best, since the late 19th century, if that. Through 99% of that period, it was precisely the absence of merit that governed human affairs - inherited power through family clans and aristocratic lineages, the assertion of divine rights of kings, magical holy men and gods and inflexible legal structures based on sacred scriptures from thousands of years ago that codified the rights of men regardless of their imbecility to rule over others, to inherit wealth and privilege and to deny the vast masses of people even the opportunity to participate in economic life. The very ability to sell your product on the market was a few centuries ago denied to almost everyone but those with permission from the rulers. The right to hunt (!!!) was only the king's.
To suggest that men form competence hierarchies is to implicitly also acknowledge that the most important aspect of human existence is our collective engagement with one another, through the relational systems we form, which demonstrate our interdependence. It's what we call "flexible cooperation" and "inflexible cooperation." Social animals can't cooperate flexibly - only by instinct. Humans can re-engineer our systems of relations - we can overthrow the king and establish a democracy. And we do that through our imaginations.
And if merit is what's desirable, then I don't see how opening it up to women and involving even more people isn't desirable. There is no objective metric that is at play when you're picking who should go to medical school. The broad acceptance and reliance on particular tests is what we call in philosophy "induction." It does not flow from the premise that the best doctor would be the one who has the best grades in math. There are countless factors that would play into who would be the best doctor - and under what circumstances. Someone who has all the privileges of a wealthy family and the access to tutors and extra supports could in reality be a terrible person who, upon getting his credentials, cares so little about his patients, he becomes a terrible doctor. The amount of assumptions of what are human social constructs of relational arrangements presented as if they were the material and objective reality in your general thesis here is a bit surprising. It's simply wrong.
What you're actually defending is capitalism. But what you fail to note is that the impetus in climbing the merit hierarchy is the same as the impetus of the other two hierarchies - dominance and virtue - status, wealth and power. However, the merit hierarchy is among the three the one most motivated by a desire for wealth, prestige and money. What drives men, then, is not competence, but money, with the assumption being that one obtains more money with an increase in competence. But we know that this isn't true. Our society does NOT reward people based on competence. Attractive people get paid more; connected people get paid more; politics plays a huge part. In any case, men are driven by a desire to earn more, and merit is seen as a legitimate process by which to obtain more money, so they're pursuing merit for money, not merit for its own reward. And the obvious ethical problem in such a system is - what happens when the accumulation of money becomes contrary to the merit itself? And if you consider most of the things you're talking about here, they're almost all protectionist cabals of monopolistic hierarchies, not genuine merit hierarchies.
Public school and requirement to graduate is a monopolistic process - perhaps I have obtained the knowledge on my own - why do I need high school diploma? Medical doctors are a licensure monopoly - anyone but an MD is punished by prison sentence for practicing "healing." Medications are regulated by law and only certain people are permitted - while guaranteed payment - to prescribe and issue them.
That's not a system of merit. It's a system of corrupt entitlements.
I'm at the halfway point but I'll forget this if I don't write it now: You're describing the seating arrangements in the orchestra and I thought of how women in orchestras are visually disruptive and spoil the harmony of appearance. All the men wear a black evening suit and a bow tie, or used to, while the women deck themselves out in all sorts of gaudy, with big hair, bright jewellery, make up, plunging necklines, splits up the thigh and so on. The thought occurred that the men don't need to compete because of the competence hierarchy - anyone who knows and has an ear for music can tell how competent the men are so they are not obviously competing but showing their position in the hierarchy, while the women are competing like mad for attention because women don't have a competence hierarchy. How does that sound? Have I got that completely wrong?
Are women closer in nature to the rest of the animal kingdom than men do you think?
LOL! Women's hierarchy is based on attractiveness so that fits with your observations!
I did not know about the opening argument about achievement and reward. Look around, look at Harvard, where there is no connection between achievement and reward, the latter now based on sex and race. Christopher F. Ruso has noted that, alongside Claudine Gay and her 11 pathetic articles, two of Harvard's main DEI officers have been shown to have plagiarized their research. They cheat to compete. Men compete rather than cheat (manly men, anyway). They give each other a hard time, too--part of the "intense friendly aggression" Walter Ong writes about. We don't measure masculinity based on one thing but on many things--jobs, sports, knowledge of sports, cars. Manly men do not need to be at the top of every field. What brings out competition in women? Let's see--hierarchy based on clothing, jewelry, salary, choice of men. Because women have trashed male hierarchies (with the cooperation of feminist men, let's remember), they have to conceal their own tireless forms of competition that establish their hierarchy. Men around men are definitely different than when they are around women. Women want to get into those men's groups because that makes the groups all about them. How many men want to get into meetings of women, I wonder? Great video and talk. Thanks, Tom. There's a great Seinfeld episode in which Elaine meets a man who says he is a doctor but who cannot pass his board tests. She doesn't really care, so long as she can introduce him to her friends as a doctor.
Thanks Allen. Love the friendly aggression idea. So true. We compete like hell and then go get a beer.
Women's hierarchies. lol Yes, there has been a steady stream of women wanting to get into men's clubs and activities....but very little openness to including men in theirs.....
Do women know that they change a men's group when they join? Is that why they don't want men in their group? That is, they know a man would change a group of women? We certainly cannot have that! A men's group, well that's already a bad thing, so who cares of the ladies change it. The could only improve it. But a group of women, that's sacred and beautiful thing. No men allowed. The old boys' club is always mentioned. What about the old girls?
Yup. How could they know the changes their presence might make? They have no way to compare....
Thanks Tom. excellent stuff, an education as always.
'Hierarchies work very very well' until women push their way in.
Theres truth in this.....
While I support your overall point, there are so many things wrong in this, I wouldn't know where to begin. What you attribute generally to "Western Civilization" should actually say "the United States;" what you oppose as "feminist narrative" is actually your own conservative perspective in defense of a particular socio-economic arrangement, which is by no means fundamental to Western civilization. Western Civilization had lengthy periods of slavery, serfdom and government by landed aristocracy that is the definition of the very opposite of merit. Civilization is a historiographic concept that has writing as its main requirement. Before writing, it's prehistory. After writing, history. Western civilization, then, begins in Mesopotamia with the invention of writing, proceeds through the periods of Middle Eastern and North African civilizations in Egypt and Mesopotamia, includes the pre-socratic period, but generally, we say that it is the Platonic period with its conceptions of Platonic idealism (idea-lism) that originates most of the best ideas that shape western civilization. Western Civilization, then, has existed for 5500 years, and in that entire period, merit has played even a partial importance, at best, since the late 19th century, if that. Through 99% of that period, it was precisely the absence of merit that governed human affairs - inherited power through family clans and aristocratic lineages, the assertion of divine rights of kings, magical holy men and gods and inflexible legal structures based on sacred scriptures from thousands of years ago that codified the rights of men regardless of their imbecility to rule over others, to inherit wealth and privilege and to deny the vast masses of people even the opportunity to participate in economic life. The very ability to sell your product on the market was a few centuries ago denied to almost everyone but those with permission from the rulers. The right to hunt (!!!) was only the king's.
To suggest that men form competence hierarchies is to implicitly also acknowledge that the most important aspect of human existence is our collective engagement with one another, through the relational systems we form, which demonstrate our interdependence. It's what we call "flexible cooperation" and "inflexible cooperation." Social animals can't cooperate flexibly - only by instinct. Humans can re-engineer our systems of relations - we can overthrow the king and establish a democracy. And we do that through our imaginations.
And if merit is what's desirable, then I don't see how opening it up to women and involving even more people isn't desirable. There is no objective metric that is at play when you're picking who should go to medical school. The broad acceptance and reliance on particular tests is what we call in philosophy "induction." It does not flow from the premise that the best doctor would be the one who has the best grades in math. There are countless factors that would play into who would be the best doctor - and under what circumstances. Someone who has all the privileges of a wealthy family and the access to tutors and extra supports could in reality be a terrible person who, upon getting his credentials, cares so little about his patients, he becomes a terrible doctor. The amount of assumptions of what are human social constructs of relational arrangements presented as if they were the material and objective reality in your general thesis here is a bit surprising. It's simply wrong.
What you're actually defending is capitalism. But what you fail to note is that the impetus in climbing the merit hierarchy is the same as the impetus of the other two hierarchies - dominance and virtue - status, wealth and power. However, the merit hierarchy is among the three the one most motivated by a desire for wealth, prestige and money. What drives men, then, is not competence, but money, with the assumption being that one obtains more money with an increase in competence. But we know that this isn't true. Our society does NOT reward people based on competence. Attractive people get paid more; connected people get paid more; politics plays a huge part. In any case, men are driven by a desire to earn more, and merit is seen as a legitimate process by which to obtain more money, so they're pursuing merit for money, not merit for its own reward. And the obvious ethical problem in such a system is - what happens when the accumulation of money becomes contrary to the merit itself? And if you consider most of the things you're talking about here, they're almost all protectionist cabals of monopolistic hierarchies, not genuine merit hierarchies.
Public school and requirement to graduate is a monopolistic process - perhaps I have obtained the knowledge on my own - why do I need high school diploma? Medical doctors are a licensure monopoly - anyone but an MD is punished by prison sentence for practicing "healing." Medications are regulated by law and only certain people are permitted - while guaranteed payment - to prescribe and issue them.
That's not a system of merit. It's a system of corrupt entitlements.
Thanks for sharing your way of seeing things.