The Carnival of Homeschooling is being hosted at HomeschoolBuzz this week, and it has a lot of good stuff.
My recent post, Update On Our Musical Experiment, is featured.
There are also a couple of posts there that I found particularly interesting. Dana from Principled Discovery writes here about her experiences attempting to raise self-learners, following the rule of thumb that "A child should be self-educating by twelve". I find this post very interesting, in no small part because I touched on the topic of student self-education in this post, and had it kick off quite a discussion in the comments section. Anyway, I'm thankful to Dana for giving a description of how this process looks from her perspective. (And I also think many of the comments are very interesting, too.)
Another interesting post, by Crimson Wife, talks about invented spellings, and asks about how to get kids to spell correctly without killing their love of writing. There's a good discussion going in the comments there, too.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Yesterday, the Part of Me Was Played By...
...Nobody. I wasn't able to post yesterday, because my wife had the computer all evening. And she had priority. For one thing, she is the financial coordinator for our local MOPS chapter, and had to get the finances up-to-date. For another, she hadn't blogged in a while, and I had; so she figured that it was her turn. That's life, when you only have one computer in the household.
She keeps threatening to get a laptop.
Anyway, her post from yesterday is here, if you haven't seen it yet.
She keeps threatening to get a laptop.
Anyway, her post from yesterday is here, if you haven't seen it yet.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Update on our Musical Experiment
Welcome to the 100th post on my humble blog! I started doing this just over three months ago, and I've managed to average about one post a day since the beginning. The lack of sleep is beginning to tell, I'm afraid. ;-)
Four weeks ago I wrote a post entitled Music for My Munchkins, in which I described our plans for teaching piano to our five-year-old. I'd like to update you on the progress we've made since then.
First, when I started teaching the Pillowfight Fairy how to play the piano, the only piano-texts we had were adult-level. They really weren't adequate for teaching a five-year-old, a limitation we fully expected when we started out. For one thing, adult-level texts start by throwing lots of abstract concepts around (like "circle of fifths") right at the very beginning, and five-year-old beginners don't have the background necessary to make any sense of these things whatsoever. Then there are the mechanical issues, stemming from the fact that a five-year-old has really tiny hands, and the fact that if they sit properly on a piano bench, their feet don't reach the pedals and their arms aren't parallel to the floor. (And our girl is a really tall one; we suspect most kids her age would have it much worse.)
So I had to pick and choose things out of the adult-level beginner text to show her, and I had to skip a whole bunch. This led to a very scattershot approach--which, of course, the Fairy began to resist. Of course, some of that resistance came about because of the typical cussedness that comes of being five.
Well, at her fifth birthday, some of her grandparents (at our suggestion) got her a couple of age-appropriate piano texts. They picked out Teaching Little Fingers to Play from the John Thompson series, and Teaching Little Fingers to Play More from the same series. My beloved sister-in-law mentioned that she was taught to play with these methods.
At the beginning of Teaching Little Fingers to Play, there is a "To the teacher" note that explains a little about how to use the book. It gives a sample approach to teaching the first three lessons in the book, and a few pointers for handling the rest. In the first three lessons, they cover all the note names, where they fall on the piano, and where they fall on the treble and bass cleff (within an octave containing Middle C, at any rate); and they introduce the fingering numbers: 1 for the thumb, 2 for the index finger, and 3 for the middle finger, with 4 and 5 left for later lessons. The book also stresses learning the early lessons by rote, since that allows the child to start making music--which is, of course, the enjoyable part--right at the beginning.
With these texts in hand, I started to be a little more systematic: we have now decided that I'm going to give her a little piano time after dinner each evening, four nights a week; these lessons will be very short, no more than ten minutes or so; and we're not making her do any additional practice yet (since she's only five).
In the process of instructing the Pillowfight Fairy on the piano, I've discovered a few things.
First, she resists it. She'd rather just go elsewhere and play with her toys. And she is often neither very attentive nor cooperative. However, this is frequently the case with the Fairy whenever she is learning a new skill, and often her interest in the skill starts to pick up when she begins to get some mastery over it. For instance, she used to hate drawing; she wanted to dictate to Mommy what she wanted drawn, but Mommy insisted that she draw things herself. Then she started to get better at it, a bit at a time. Now, she uses roughly one ream of 8.5" x 11" printer paper, 500 sheets, each month. And I'm seeing evidence that this may well be the case when she starts to figure out the piano. Occasionally, when we're not making her do it, she will want to play by herself (with us out of the room, so presumably we can't tell her that she's doing it wrong), and we'll hear her playing out her lesson--and sounding quite good at it.
Second, the book recommends that the student sings along as she plays. My own observations confirm the wisdom of this advice. The act of singing encourages her to maintain the tempo and rhythms. When she just plays it without singing it, it turns into nothing more than a sequence of arbitrary notes; but when she sings it as she plays, all the rhythms start to fall into place, and the thing becomes a bit smoother--less choppy. (Not to mention the obvious added benefit, that she is learning how to sing and play at the same time, which is a very useful skill to have--and something I've never learned to do with any proficiency. It engages many more parts of the brain simultaneously, requiring--and building--some serious mental stamina.) Furthermore, the book also recommends that the student sing the note names, not only the words of the song, as she plays; this helps her learn the names of the notes.
Third, the book does have a bit of a steep learning curve for the earliest students. Within the first three lessons, the students have to learn the names of all the notes, the positions of one octave's worth of notes on the staves, the difference between the bass and treble clefs, the numberings of the fingers, the rhythmic values of whole notes, half notes, and quarter notes, and the meaning of the upper number in time signatures. So while we've gotten to the point that the Fairy can play the pieces of the first three or four lessons in the book, she can't always tell where on the keyboard the pieces are supposed to start. She can't look at the music, for example, and tell you that this piece begins on the A below middle C, on the third finger of the left hand. If I manually position her fingers and tell her where to start, she does much better.
Incidentally, one of the reviewers at the Amazon link I posted above made a very similar observation about this book, and therefore only gave it three stars out of five. I'm happy with it so far, but I can see where these objections come from. I am strongly considering doing some supplemental exercises. Specifically, I need to get her to the point where she associates that line on the page of printed music with that note on the piano. To be fair, many of the early lessons have a diagram showing the notes of the keyboard, with little arrows pointing to the corresponding notes on the treble and bass clefs; but I think the Fairy would benefit if I just went ahead and had her memorize it. She's very good at memorizing this sort of thing.
Fourth observation: although the Fairy resists her lessons, that resistance has been weakening as the lessons have become more and more part of her routine. Resistance also goes down the better the Fairy does. If she has played a line of music wrong the past three times, she doesn't want to do it again; but when she has done it once or twice, beginning to end, without problems, she doesn't complain as much, and I can direct her to the next one without as many cries of "Can we be done yet?" I see this as a good sign; perhaps, as she gains some proficiency, she'll want to do more and more of it.
For now, we're not making her do additional practice. We don't think she's old enough yet to have the patience for regular practice sessions, although she might be in a year or two.
So, I have a question for my loyal readers who are either still teaching their own kids piano, or have successfully (or unsuccessfully!) taught their kids: Do you have any additional advice for a parent in my position--one who, specifically, doesn't have money to shell out for a piano teacher? Is there anything in our plans mentioned above that you would advise against, or do you think we're on the right track; or do you have any additional suggestions we haven't yet considered? I'm always looking for different ideas on this sort of thing.
Four weeks ago I wrote a post entitled Music for My Munchkins, in which I described our plans for teaching piano to our five-year-old. I'd like to update you on the progress we've made since then.
First, when I started teaching the Pillowfight Fairy how to play the piano, the only piano-texts we had were adult-level. They really weren't adequate for teaching a five-year-old, a limitation we fully expected when we started out. For one thing, adult-level texts start by throwing lots of abstract concepts around (like "circle of fifths") right at the very beginning, and five-year-old beginners don't have the background necessary to make any sense of these things whatsoever. Then there are the mechanical issues, stemming from the fact that a five-year-old has really tiny hands, and the fact that if they sit properly on a piano bench, their feet don't reach the pedals and their arms aren't parallel to the floor. (And our girl is a really tall one; we suspect most kids her age would have it much worse.)
So I had to pick and choose things out of the adult-level beginner text to show her, and I had to skip a whole bunch. This led to a very scattershot approach--which, of course, the Fairy began to resist. Of course, some of that resistance came about because of the typical cussedness that comes of being five.
Well, at her fifth birthday, some of her grandparents (at our suggestion) got her a couple of age-appropriate piano texts. They picked out Teaching Little Fingers to Play from the John Thompson series, and Teaching Little Fingers to Play More from the same series. My beloved sister-in-law mentioned that she was taught to play with these methods.
At the beginning of Teaching Little Fingers to Play, there is a "To the teacher" note that explains a little about how to use the book. It gives a sample approach to teaching the first three lessons in the book, and a few pointers for handling the rest. In the first three lessons, they cover all the note names, where they fall on the piano, and where they fall on the treble and bass cleff (within an octave containing Middle C, at any rate); and they introduce the fingering numbers: 1 for the thumb, 2 for the index finger, and 3 for the middle finger, with 4 and 5 left for later lessons. The book also stresses learning the early lessons by rote, since that allows the child to start making music--which is, of course, the enjoyable part--right at the beginning.
With these texts in hand, I started to be a little more systematic: we have now decided that I'm going to give her a little piano time after dinner each evening, four nights a week; these lessons will be very short, no more than ten minutes or so; and we're not making her do any additional practice yet (since she's only five).
In the process of instructing the Pillowfight Fairy on the piano, I've discovered a few things.
First, she resists it. She'd rather just go elsewhere and play with her toys. And she is often neither very attentive nor cooperative. However, this is frequently the case with the Fairy whenever she is learning a new skill, and often her interest in the skill starts to pick up when she begins to get some mastery over it. For instance, she used to hate drawing; she wanted to dictate to Mommy what she wanted drawn, but Mommy insisted that she draw things herself. Then she started to get better at it, a bit at a time. Now, she uses roughly one ream of 8.5" x 11" printer paper, 500 sheets, each month. And I'm seeing evidence that this may well be the case when she starts to figure out the piano. Occasionally, when we're not making her do it, she will want to play by herself (with us out of the room, so presumably we can't tell her that she's doing it wrong), and we'll hear her playing out her lesson--and sounding quite good at it.
Second, the book recommends that the student sings along as she plays. My own observations confirm the wisdom of this advice. The act of singing encourages her to maintain the tempo and rhythms. When she just plays it without singing it, it turns into nothing more than a sequence of arbitrary notes; but when she sings it as she plays, all the rhythms start to fall into place, and the thing becomes a bit smoother--less choppy. (Not to mention the obvious added benefit, that she is learning how to sing and play at the same time, which is a very useful skill to have--and something I've never learned to do with any proficiency. It engages many more parts of the brain simultaneously, requiring--and building--some serious mental stamina.) Furthermore, the book also recommends that the student sing the note names, not only the words of the song, as she plays; this helps her learn the names of the notes.
Third, the book does have a bit of a steep learning curve for the earliest students. Within the first three lessons, the students have to learn the names of all the notes, the positions of one octave's worth of notes on the staves, the difference between the bass and treble clefs, the numberings of the fingers, the rhythmic values of whole notes, half notes, and quarter notes, and the meaning of the upper number in time signatures. So while we've gotten to the point that the Fairy can play the pieces of the first three or four lessons in the book, she can't always tell where on the keyboard the pieces are supposed to start. She can't look at the music, for example, and tell you that this piece begins on the A below middle C, on the third finger of the left hand. If I manually position her fingers and tell her where to start, she does much better.
Incidentally, one of the reviewers at the Amazon link I posted above made a very similar observation about this book, and therefore only gave it three stars out of five. I'm happy with it so far, but I can see where these objections come from. I am strongly considering doing some supplemental exercises. Specifically, I need to get her to the point where she associates that line on the page of printed music with that note on the piano. To be fair, many of the early lessons have a diagram showing the notes of the keyboard, with little arrows pointing to the corresponding notes on the treble and bass clefs; but I think the Fairy would benefit if I just went ahead and had her memorize it. She's very good at memorizing this sort of thing.
Fourth observation: although the Fairy resists her lessons, that resistance has been weakening as the lessons have become more and more part of her routine. Resistance also goes down the better the Fairy does. If she has played a line of music wrong the past three times, she doesn't want to do it again; but when she has done it once or twice, beginning to end, without problems, she doesn't complain as much, and I can direct her to the next one without as many cries of "Can we be done yet?" I see this as a good sign; perhaps, as she gains some proficiency, she'll want to do more and more of it.
For now, we're not making her do additional practice. We don't think she's old enough yet to have the patience for regular practice sessions, although she might be in a year or two.
So, I have a question for my loyal readers who are either still teaching their own kids piano, or have successfully (or unsuccessfully!) taught their kids: Do you have any additional advice for a parent in my position--one who, specifically, doesn't have money to shell out for a piano teacher? Is there anything in our plans mentioned above that you would advise against, or do you think we're on the right track; or do you have any additional suggestions we haven't yet considered? I'm always looking for different ideas on this sort of thing.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
It's Done.
I finally managed to get the last of the stones in place! The never-ending backyard project might not be never-ending! Behold:
We got that tree about two-and-a-half years ago. There was a blank spot in our skyline, and we wanted something to fill it--preferably, something that would turn lovely colors in the fall. We found this tree at the nursery. It's a Red Maple, Acer Rubrum, of a variety called October Glory. The tree wasn't in very good shape when we bought it; the leaves looked a little bit sick, there was a gash on the trunk, and all the branches on one side of the tree had been broken off. But it was the only October Glory in stock at the nursery, so we decided to take a chance on it.
Well, it really liked being out of that pot and being in a yard where it was watered all the time, so after a few months to get its roots established, it really started growing. The gash in the trunk is healing quite nicely, and its bare side (which we turned to the south when we planted it) has all kinds of young branches growing out of it now, though the tree will still look a little lopsided for the next few years. And we've discovered that despite its name, the tree is more of a November Glory; it tends to turn very late in the season, probably because we don't usually get frosts that early around here.
But look at that picture, and imagine that tree at its full-grown height: forty feet tall, forty feet across, easily reaching over both of the fences visible in the picture (and blessing our neighbors with its autumn leaves). That thing will be a sight to behold.
Compare that picture to the first one one in this post to get a sense of why I'm so proud of myself.
...
When I started work on it earlier today, I was a few bricks short of a full load.
So, the Pillowfight Fairy and I drove up the road to the yard where we had ordered all the stone in the first place. We only needed about fifteen or so of the dark grey ones for the border, but I also picked up some lacquer sealant that we'll use when we're good'n ready. Then after lunch, I managed to put in all the remaining needed stone, which was about the last four feet or so of the patio. This required doing angle cuts on several of the stones to get them to fit.
When I was done, I sprayed down the entire patio (in part to get off all the leaves that were falling on it from our neighbor's Chinese Elm), then went and got the camera.
The following picture shows the patio from the opposite direction (with the Pillowfight Fairy swinging around a cluster of flowers she picked while she was outside):
Now, this shot is from a weird angle. The patio is shaped like a tall, narrow trapezoid: three sides are square to each other, but the fourth is angled to parallel the property line. I took the above picture from the short end of the trapezoid. The far end of the trapezoid is much longer than the near end, but the foreshortening due to perspective tends to obscure this fact.
But check out the angled cuts to all the stones along the right-hand side of the patio in the above picture. See those? I cut every one of them with a hammer and chisel. And no, I don't have a right forearm like Popeye. I'm not entirely sure why that didn't happen, but my right forearm is still normal.
My back, however, is killing me.
So the title of this post refers to the fact that the stones are all in. However, there is still a bunch more stuff to do before the whole project can be considered done. First, I need to rent one of those vibrating tampers to get all the stones as level as possible. Then I need to sweep sand in between all of the stones. This will lock them in place. (And I have already swept sand in between a few of the more loosely-fitting stones, like where I made an uneven cut with hammer and chisel, leaving a gap; the sand really does lock them in place, and makes it look more finished, too.)
After that, the next job will be to apply the sealant. However, this may have to wait until January or so; the problem is that this is fall, and there is a constant precipitation of leaves anywhere near the many deciduous trees that dot the landscape around here. It doesn't take long for the patio or walkways to get covered with the leaves. If I painted all the stones with lacquer-based sealant before the leaf-fall ends, these leaves would become part of the walkway décor for all time. No--I have to wait until all the leaves are down before doing the sealant.
After the sealant, all that remains is the back-fill. All the edges of the walkway and patio have the black plastic edge barrier currently exposed; it all needs to be covered, and the walkway blended into the landscape. Besides, all the back-fill dirt is sitting in what will be our garden for this coming spring, and I need to get rid of it by February or so or my wife will be quite put out. You can see a little bit of it to the right of the Pillowfight Fairy in this picture:
I rather like this picture. It makes it look as if we live in a tropical paradise.
...
One more picture. This has nothing to do with the walkway or patio; I just thought I needed to take a picture of our Red Maple tree:
We got that tree about two-and-a-half years ago. There was a blank spot in our skyline, and we wanted something to fill it--preferably, something that would turn lovely colors in the fall. We found this tree at the nursery. It's a Red Maple, Acer Rubrum, of a variety called October Glory. The tree wasn't in very good shape when we bought it; the leaves looked a little bit sick, there was a gash on the trunk, and all the branches on one side of the tree had been broken off. But it was the only October Glory in stock at the nursery, so we decided to take a chance on it.Well, it really liked being out of that pot and being in a yard where it was watered all the time, so after a few months to get its roots established, it really started growing. The gash in the trunk is healing quite nicely, and its bare side (which we turned to the south when we planted it) has all kinds of young branches growing out of it now, though the tree will still look a little lopsided for the next few years. And we've discovered that despite its name, the tree is more of a November Glory; it tends to turn very late in the season, probably because we don't usually get frosts that early around here.
But look at that picture, and imagine that tree at its full-grown height: forty feet tall, forty feet across, easily reaching over both of the fences visible in the picture (and blessing our neighbors with its autumn leaves). That thing will be a sight to behold.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
A Pair of Quotes
First, from the Pillowfight Fairy (age 5), from last Tuesday: as she was greeted by one of her teachers from church, who said, "Hello, [Fairy], how are you doing today?" she mystically responded:
(Incidentally, the Fairy knows about kiwis because a certain uncle introduced her to this youtube clip, which she and her sister both love. )
...
Second, from the Adrenaline Junkie (age not-quite-three), from earlier today: she was pretending to be a rabbit, as she and her sister have been greatly impressed by the stories in the Beatrix Potter DVD collection (Peter Rabbit, plus several other stories), which I blogged about a few days ago. The Fairy was pretending to be Tom Kitten. Mommy asked the Adrenaline Junkie which rabbit she was playing: Peter? Floppsy? Cousin Benjamin? No. She enthusiastically declared, in her cute little two-year-old voice:
Anyway, this particular teacher loves the odd things that come out of the Fairy's mouth. She liked this one so much she is apparently now using this as her tagline on her Facebook page.I pronounce myself the Kiwi Princess.
(Incidentally, the Fairy knows about kiwis because a certain uncle introduced her to this youtube clip, which she and her sister both love. )
...
Second, from the Adrenaline Junkie (age not-quite-three), from earlier today: she was pretending to be a rabbit, as she and her sister have been greatly impressed by the stories in the Beatrix Potter DVD collection (Peter Rabbit, plus several other stories), which I blogged about a few days ago. The Fairy was pretending to be Tom Kitten. Mommy asked the Adrenaline Junkie which rabbit she was playing: Peter? Floppsy? Cousin Benjamin? No. She enthusiastically declared, in her cute little two-year-old voice:
Who says that homeschoolers' kids are culturally deprived? ;-)I'm Killda Wabbit!
Natural Law and Societal Evolution
I made a point in this post and in this one that I've been meaning to return to. Specifically: it seems to me that the rise and fall, growth and decline of societies across history occurs by mechanisms very similar to those accepted in the theories of biological evolution.
No, I'm serious. Hear me out on this one....
Evolution needs two things to occur. First, it needs a source of variation: some mechanism whereby a system can spawn variations of itself. Second, it needs a source of selection: some mechanism by which variations that are less fit for survival are eliminated.
In the theory of biological evolution, variation is provided through genetic mutation, which introduces random changes into the genome; and selection is provided through the process of natural selection, in which less fit members of a species are just that much less likely to survive to reproductive maturity to pass on their genes. Over time, those mutations that make an organism better adapted to its environment get passed on; and those mutations that make an organism less adapted to its environment eventually get edged out, as the organisms carrying them are out-competed by their rivals. And the standard line is that this process needs no reasoning intelligence to guide it. (Remember that point--it will come up a bit later.)
But notice: similar mechanisms exist in human societies as well. People--individually and collectively (as societies, as states, and as nations)--have worldviews (religions, traditions, institutions, and outlooks) that affect their actions. But the actions of the people strongly affect how likely they are to pass their worldviews on to their progeny. Because of this, some worldviews inherently don't get passed on very well, and some do.
A few examples will illustrate this point. The American religious group known as the Shakers believed in strict celibacy--even between husband and wife--and managed to create a society that successfully upheld this ideal. Because of this, they produced no offspring, and could only grow through conversion. As a result, the success of the movement was highly, highly dependent on conditions in the surrounding society from which they drew converts. While they had little difficulty attracting new converts in the early 1800s, this changed as the social mores and economy of the United States changed during the century. According to Wikipedia, there were only twelve honest-to-goodness Shakers left as of 1920, and only four left as of 2006.
On the other hand, consider the Jewish Kosher Law. This law outlaws many kinds of meat, limiting them to meat from cloven-hoofed cud-chewers (cows, sheep, goats, deer, antelope, bison, water buffalo, and--believe it or not--giraffes), certain kinds of fish, certain kinds of birds, and a smattering of insects (grasshoppers, locusts). Note that this list effectively rules out everything else--including pork, shellfish, rabbit, ostrich, escargot, and eel (no Unagi, I'm afraid). The Kosher Law also gives certain rules as to how the animals should be slaughtered, and how the food should be prepared. Now, I'm not going to claim to know why God chose to limit the foods they were permitted to eat. But we can note, through modern eyes, that these restrictions actually produce a fairly healthful diet. Someone maintaining a Kosher diet is much less likely to wind up getting Trichinosis or liver flukes, because the diet avoids the foods most likely to harbor the parasites.
As a result, ancient Jewish society would tend to be made more healthy by following this diet. And in turn, this would help its population growth, thus bestowing a survival advantage upon the society. Again, I'm not sure that this was part of God's reasoning--it might have been, or God may have had a whole bunch of other reasons. But for the sake of this argument, let's pretend for now that the Kosher laws were given for health reasons.
Now consider this: how much did the ancient Jews understand about microbiology? How much did they understand about germ theory?
In fact, it's highly unlikely they would have made the mental connection between the dietary laws and their improved health. I doubt they even noticed they were healthier than they would have been. After all, the ancient Hebrews wandering in the desert didn't have much of a scientific tradition. I don't read much about double-blind dietary studies in the Bible (although the first chapter of Daniel comes pretty close; but that wasn't until centuries later).
The point to be seen here is that obeying a Natural Law brings benefits--even if the Natural Law is not even recognized or understood. And disobeying a Natural Law brings penalties, regardless of whether people understand what happened. It is the obeying of a Natural Law that brings the benefit, not the understanding of the Law (except insofar as understanding the Law causes people to start complying with it).
So let's go back to the evolutionary model: societies are made up of humans with their own worldviews. And these worldviews change over time, pretty spontaneously. New religions and new philosophies are dreamed up; fads come and go, both in the world of fashion and in intellectual life; societies have collective experiences (wars, famines) that change the ways they think about their existence. All these changes constitute the variation that I mentioned earlier, that was one of the mechanisms required for evolution.
And of course, societies are in competition with each other; states are in competition with each other; religions are in competition with each other; and individuals are in competition with each other. The borders of every nation on earth have moved forward and backward over time. Empires grow for centuries, then fail--often because of their own internal decadence. Entire industries rise and then go bust. Religions start small, then occasionally grow huge, then sometimes (as in the case of the Zoroastrians) begin to dwindle in numbers to the point where everyone else sees them more as a historical curiosity than anything else. This ebb and flow of society, this cultural competition, becomes the engine of selection, which is the other mechanism required for evolution.
So both of the mechanisms required for Darwinian evolution exist among human societies. And what does that mean?
Well, here are some ramifications:
No, I'm serious. Hear me out on this one....
Evolution needs two things to occur. First, it needs a source of variation: some mechanism whereby a system can spawn variations of itself. Second, it needs a source of selection: some mechanism by which variations that are less fit for survival are eliminated.
In the theory of biological evolution, variation is provided through genetic mutation, which introduces random changes into the genome; and selection is provided through the process of natural selection, in which less fit members of a species are just that much less likely to survive to reproductive maturity to pass on their genes. Over time, those mutations that make an organism better adapted to its environment get passed on; and those mutations that make an organism less adapted to its environment eventually get edged out, as the organisms carrying them are out-competed by their rivals. And the standard line is that this process needs no reasoning intelligence to guide it. (Remember that point--it will come up a bit later.)
But notice: similar mechanisms exist in human societies as well. People--individually and collectively (as societies, as states, and as nations)--have worldviews (religions, traditions, institutions, and outlooks) that affect their actions. But the actions of the people strongly affect how likely they are to pass their worldviews on to their progeny. Because of this, some worldviews inherently don't get passed on very well, and some do.
A few examples will illustrate this point. The American religious group known as the Shakers believed in strict celibacy--even between husband and wife--and managed to create a society that successfully upheld this ideal. Because of this, they produced no offspring, and could only grow through conversion. As a result, the success of the movement was highly, highly dependent on conditions in the surrounding society from which they drew converts. While they had little difficulty attracting new converts in the early 1800s, this changed as the social mores and economy of the United States changed during the century. According to Wikipedia, there were only twelve honest-to-goodness Shakers left as of 1920, and only four left as of 2006.
On the other hand, consider the Jewish Kosher Law. This law outlaws many kinds of meat, limiting them to meat from cloven-hoofed cud-chewers (cows, sheep, goats, deer, antelope, bison, water buffalo, and--believe it or not--giraffes), certain kinds of fish, certain kinds of birds, and a smattering of insects (grasshoppers, locusts). Note that this list effectively rules out everything else--including pork, shellfish, rabbit, ostrich, escargot, and eel (no Unagi, I'm afraid). The Kosher Law also gives certain rules as to how the animals should be slaughtered, and how the food should be prepared. Now, I'm not going to claim to know why God chose to limit the foods they were permitted to eat. But we can note, through modern eyes, that these restrictions actually produce a fairly healthful diet. Someone maintaining a Kosher diet is much less likely to wind up getting Trichinosis or liver flukes, because the diet avoids the foods most likely to harbor the parasites.
As a result, ancient Jewish society would tend to be made more healthy by following this diet. And in turn, this would help its population growth, thus bestowing a survival advantage upon the society. Again, I'm not sure that this was part of God's reasoning--it might have been, or God may have had a whole bunch of other reasons. But for the sake of this argument, let's pretend for now that the Kosher laws were given for health reasons.
Now consider this: how much did the ancient Jews understand about microbiology? How much did they understand about germ theory?
In fact, it's highly unlikely they would have made the mental connection between the dietary laws and their improved health. I doubt they even noticed they were healthier than they would have been. After all, the ancient Hebrews wandering in the desert didn't have much of a scientific tradition. I don't read much about double-blind dietary studies in the Bible (although the first chapter of Daniel comes pretty close; but that wasn't until centuries later).
The point to be seen here is that obeying a Natural Law brings benefits--even if the Natural Law is not even recognized or understood. And disobeying a Natural Law brings penalties, regardless of whether people understand what happened. It is the obeying of a Natural Law that brings the benefit, not the understanding of the Law (except insofar as understanding the Law causes people to start complying with it).
So let's go back to the evolutionary model: societies are made up of humans with their own worldviews. And these worldviews change over time, pretty spontaneously. New religions and new philosophies are dreamed up; fads come and go, both in the world of fashion and in intellectual life; societies have collective experiences (wars, famines) that change the ways they think about their existence. All these changes constitute the variation that I mentioned earlier, that was one of the mechanisms required for evolution.
And of course, societies are in competition with each other; states are in competition with each other; religions are in competition with each other; and individuals are in competition with each other. The borders of every nation on earth have moved forward and backward over time. Empires grow for centuries, then fail--often because of their own internal decadence. Entire industries rise and then go bust. Religions start small, then occasionally grow huge, then sometimes (as in the case of the Zoroastrians) begin to dwindle in numbers to the point where everyone else sees them more as a historical curiosity than anything else. This ebb and flow of society, this cultural competition, becomes the engine of selection, which is the other mechanism required for evolution.
So both of the mechanisms required for Darwinian evolution exist among human societies. And what does that mean?
Well, here are some ramifications:
- Societies tend to adapt over time to the niches they inhabit. And societies that don't adapt go extinct.
- A great part of this adaptation is expressed through the worldviews of the society as a whole, and of its inhabitants individually.
- If a society has existed with any degree of stability for many centuries, there's a pretty good chance that its institutions and worldviews are in compliance with Natural Law.
- As I mentioned before, theories of evolution hold that a guiding intelligence is not required--that is, species become adapted to their niches quite nicely purely through selection of beneficial mutations. This would hold true of human society as well. A society may be completely superstitious, constructed of institutions that were assembled haphazardly, embodying traditions that no one understands, and that no one ever did understand, and this society can be quite successful, thank you very much.
- This is because a society doesn't have to understand the Natural Laws in order to obey them. A society may feel a need to educate their children, based on some cockamamie story about frolicking gods and nymphs that happens to show up in their national mythology; nevertheless, they will still enjoy the benefits that accrue to an educated society, even though their reasons for providing this education weren't driven by Reason in the least.
- There's a pretty good chance this means that we don't know what all the Natural Laws are. We're already obeying them, because if we weren't, our society would already have collapsed. But we can really only determine empirically what the Natural Laws are by performing post-mortems on societies that have already collapsed, and figuring out where they went wrong.
And here's the scary one:
- When social reformers decide that their society is corrupt, and start planning to throw out all existing traditions and institutions and rebuild it from the ground up, it's time to emigrate. There's a good likelihood that they don't know what all the Natural Laws are, and their reforms will destroy the very things that keep the society habitable. Textbook examples of this include the French Revolution and the Bolshevik Revolution.
As I said in my post on Neuroticism I linked to above, reason is overrated. Reason certainly has its time and place, but it's very important when using reason to understand what its limits are. We don't know what all the Natural Laws are. We can be pretty sure that our society has been in compliance with all or most of them, by the fact that we still exist as a functioning nation after the last two-and-a-quarter centuries; but we don't necessarily know how our traditions and institutions have gone about complying with these Natural Laws.
To give one example, cited in the other linked post (The one about demographics): Much of Europe right now is set to have steep drops in population. In Russia, the average woman will have 1.1 children in her lifetime, resulting in a natural population decline (not counting immigration and emigration) of nearly 50% with every generation. While the rest of Europe isn't quite that bad, several nations are close--Italy, Spain, and Germany are all set to have significant decreases of their native populations within the next generation. These kinds of population decreases are unprecedented in history, without something like war or plague or famine causing them. What will this do to their societies? We don't know for sure. My own suspicion is that Europe is going to become a fairly unpleasant place to live before the end of this century.
How did this come about? In a very small nutshell, the Twentieth Century was a disaster for Europe. Between World War I, World War II, Communism, the Cold War, and the ends of the great overseas empires possessed by the European nations, much of Europe reached the end of the century in a highly wounded state. These nations had lost faith in, among many other things, their ancestral religion (which hadn't prevented the catastrophes). Europe rejected many of its traditions and ancient institutions, driven by the desire of getting away from the mistakes of the past once and for all. And when they rejected these traditions and institutions, their society began to drift; old values were no longer being passed down. Many of the mechanisms that ordinarily pass on these values--such as family and the Church--were dying off; and the schools were increasingly pushing a new set of values that rejected judgmentalism and moralism. The result of this is that the very thought of having children to bequeath a legacy to the next generation is seen as nativist, nationalist, unsophisticated, and just plain weird. In short, the things that Natural Law requires for a healthy society, are the very things that this new system fights.
There's enough material here to do a book-length treatment, but it's getting way too late. Natural Law is telling me that I have to go to bed. I'll return to this topic some other time....
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
You'd Need a Big Backyard for These Ballistics
Regular readers of this blog know that I'm fascinated by siege engines. I've even threatened to build some and test them out in our backyard. I last blogged about it here. In the comments of that post, my younger brother (probably unwisely) suggested an appropriate use for all those cheap pumpkins left over after Halloween.
Well!
I read the website of the magazine National Review on a fairly regular basis. One of their regular writers--a very colorful character in his understated, eccentric way, named John Derbyshire--started a bit of a conversation on the group blog over there with a post about an observed difference between men and women: men are fascinated by the question of what happens to beer bottles when you put them in a campfire--and will, at the first opportunity, perform experiments to answer the question. Women who observe this behavior think the men are nuts.
As I said, this started a bit of a conversation over there, about all the other things that males do, thinking it's absolutely normal: putting model rocket engines on plastic airplane models; fun with firecrackers; that sort of stuff. Eventually, though, the Derb made his way to the topic that is near and dear to my heart: Giant Pumpkin-Chucking Catapults, some of which have been known to lob a decent-sized gourd more than three thousand feet.
Andy, that's what I'm talkin' about.
Well!
I read the website of the magazine National Review on a fairly regular basis. One of their regular writers--a very colorful character in his understated, eccentric way, named John Derbyshire--started a bit of a conversation on the group blog over there with a post about an observed difference between men and women: men are fascinated by the question of what happens to beer bottles when you put them in a campfire--and will, at the first opportunity, perform experiments to answer the question. Women who observe this behavior think the men are nuts.
As I said, this started a bit of a conversation over there, about all the other things that males do, thinking it's absolutely normal: putting model rocket engines on plastic airplane models; fun with firecrackers; that sort of stuff. Eventually, though, the Derb made his way to the topic that is near and dear to my heart: Giant Pumpkin-Chucking Catapults, some of which have been known to lob a decent-sized gourd more than three thousand feet.
Andy, that's what I'm talkin' about.
Carnival of Homeschooling is up!
The Carnival of Homeschooling is up at Nerd Family. This week, my post On the Seriousness of Children's Literature is featured, as is my wife's post Kids Grow Up and Change. Check it out.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
On the Seriousness of Children's Literature
One of Tonya's relatives recently gave us a two-DVD set of animated Beatrix Potter stories, created by the BBC. It appears to be a very high-quality production: good animation, and purportedly very faithful to the original stories (although I can't actually speak to that, since I admit to my shame that I've never actually read the originals). The girls absolutely love the stories.
However, the Pillowfight Fairy in particular has reacted to watching these stories in a way that her mother and I did not expect. Tonya wrote about it here. She gets really involved in the stories, to the point of wailing and tears when something dangerous is happening, or when something sad happens. I don't know if it's because the Fairy is at an age where kids just don't suspend their disbelief well; or if it has something to do with the fact that we don't have a TV, so she isn't constantly exposed to scary, suspenseful videos; or whether it's just the fact that we have a kid with a very sensitive streak.
(During all this I was outside, working on our never-ending backyard project, and every few minutes I would hear wails of anguish coming from inside. Like most dads, I just assumed that the spouse would take care of it, and I ignored it and blithely went about my work. We dads are just like that, aren't we?) ;-)
But it piqued my curiosity, and made me think a little. The Peter Rabbit stories don't normally stick out in our minds as scary, suspenseful stuff. And yet, imagine what the stories look like to a five-year-old: the main characters are in constant danger for their lives. There's an offhand reference to the fact that Peter Rabbit's father got eaten: something along the lines of "...an accident happened to your father. He was put in a pie by Mrs. McGregor...." In one of the stories, all the Floppsy bunnies are kidnapped by the badger, who has every intention of eating them, until they are rescued by Peter and his cousin; and this rescue was only possible because the badger and the fox got in a fight. There's one story where the duck is rescued from the fox, but her eggs all get destroyed--after which she weeps uncontrollably. And on it goes. Not to sound morbid or anything, but the theme of mortality--the idea that we, or the ones we love, might not be here tomorrow--underlies these stories to an extent that seems very out-of-place in modern children's literature.
Now here's a disclaimer: I'm no expert on children's literature. It could be that these generalizations I'm making are totally wrong, and if you think so, I'd be very happy to hear from you in the comments. But it seems to me that aside from modern writers of children's literature who are intentionally pursuing the macabre and the morbid--for example, Edward Gorey ("A is for Amy who fell down the stairs, B is for Basil assaulted by bears...")--it seems that modern children's literature, especially that written for the younger readers, shies away from topics like pain and death, and shies away from unhappy endings, much more than it used to.
I think it's not hard to establish that there are plenty of classic children's stories out there that are scary, or violent; plenty of stories with cautionary morals about what can go wrong if one doesn't behave correctly. The stories of the Brothers Grimm are, in fact, pretty grim. Many of our fairy tales have some pretty scary bits: kids being put in ovens; witches being put in ovens; giants, monsters, dragons; all the princes that came to rescue the princesses prior to the appearance of Prince Charming, who got eaten by the dragon or smothered in the protective thorn bushes. Think of the giant who fell to his death when Jack cut down the beanstalk. Think of the Little Mermaid, who in the original version, was urged to kill the prince to save her own life: she refused to do it, and so suffered the consequence of losing her life, turning to foam on the waves. Think of the absolutely heartrending story of the Little Match Girl.
And even when you get into the early twentieth century, you still see a fair amount of chopping off of heads, or at least the suggestion of it. The Pillowfight Fairy has just been introduced to Dr. Seuss's prose classic, The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins. At one point, Bartholomew Cubbins is sent off to the Royal Executioner (who actually happens to be a fairly agreeable chap) with orders to have his head chopped off, because he can't get his hats off. But under the rules, the executioner can't chop off anyone's head until he takes his hat off, which Bartholomew can't do, so he heads back up to the throne room....
Let this sink in for a bit: a Dr. Seuss book that talks about beheadings. Well, it was 1938 when he wrote it; but still, doesn't that seem a bit... incongruous? Things like that don't seem to show up in children's literature much any more--at least not until the kids reach Junior High.
And we think that exposure to this older literature is having an effect on the way the Fairy views the world. Tonya talks some about it in the blog post I linked to above. The Fairy is now asking questions about existence (and non-existence), wondering about death, pretending as she plays that Daddy is Mr. McGregor, pretending as she plays that Daddy is the Grinch (who must be shot, lest he steal Christmas), and on and on.
My guess is that many moderns see a five-year-old thinking about these things, and think it's unnatural and even unhealthy--that childhood should be carefree; that by exposing children to these stories and ideas, we're making them grow up too fast; that we're stealing their innocence. But that's clearly not the way people thought at least up through the beginning of the twentieth century, as evidenced by the stories they wrote for and read to their children. Why is this?
I'm not entirely sure, but I think I have the beginnings of an answer. Sometimes it's hard for us moderns to remember just how hard life was in the past. My father- and mother-in-law both remember when they first got electricity and indoor plumbing. There was a time, not too long ago, that every child could expect to have a friend or a sibling die before reaching adulthood. It was only in the last two generations or so that we finally eliminated most infectious diseases--polio, typhus, cholera, diphtheria, scarlet fever--as major killers. And for those of our ancestors who grew up on farms, they saw the realities of life and death on a daily basis: if you wanted to eat chicken, the first step was to chase your chickens around the yard until you caught one; then, you had to get an axe.... And remember too that our nation hasn't suffered military invasion--or even suffered a credible threat of invasion--for quite some time. For most people these days, unless you choose to join the military, you are unlikely ever to see a war first-hand. And we haven't had to face famine in a long time.
I could go on, but I don't want to get too morbid. Suffice it to say that people of previous generations got to see a lot of stuff that we would consider highly unpleasant. It was simply part of life. And since it was part of their lives, it was part of their children's lives as well, and it thus showed up in the children's literature. It was simply too ubiquitous to ignore; it was not that the writers were being excessively morbid.
So what does this mean for how we should educate our kids? Again, I'm not really sure. There are two broad, contradictory approaches: the first is, we expose our kids to the literature of the past, with all the ugliness included, in the hope that it gives us the opportunity to give our children an understanding of some of the tougher issues of life that they will one day face, as a way of preparing them. On the other hand, we could count those stories as part of an older world that we don't inhabit anymore, and look for new stories that are hopefully more appropriate to our new environment.
I tend to lean toward the former of these two approaches. While our environment has changed quite a bit in the last few generations, I don't think that human nature has changed much; and because of that, the relevance of the older literature will remain. I also want my children to understand where we came from. And I see the older stuff as having a seriousness to it that is worth holding on to.
Of course, I think the die is already pretty well cast anyway, since the Fairy is already pretending to shoot the Grinch every time he comes around.
And no, I didn't teach her that. She figured that one out on her own.
However, the Pillowfight Fairy in particular has reacted to watching these stories in a way that her mother and I did not expect. Tonya wrote about it here. She gets really involved in the stories, to the point of wailing and tears when something dangerous is happening, or when something sad happens. I don't know if it's because the Fairy is at an age where kids just don't suspend their disbelief well; or if it has something to do with the fact that we don't have a TV, so she isn't constantly exposed to scary, suspenseful videos; or whether it's just the fact that we have a kid with a very sensitive streak.
(During all this I was outside, working on our never-ending backyard project, and every few minutes I would hear wails of anguish coming from inside. Like most dads, I just assumed that the spouse would take care of it, and I ignored it and blithely went about my work. We dads are just like that, aren't we?) ;-)
But it piqued my curiosity, and made me think a little. The Peter Rabbit stories don't normally stick out in our minds as scary, suspenseful stuff. And yet, imagine what the stories look like to a five-year-old: the main characters are in constant danger for their lives. There's an offhand reference to the fact that Peter Rabbit's father got eaten: something along the lines of "...an accident happened to your father. He was put in a pie by Mrs. McGregor...." In one of the stories, all the Floppsy bunnies are kidnapped by the badger, who has every intention of eating them, until they are rescued by Peter and his cousin; and this rescue was only possible because the badger and the fox got in a fight. There's one story where the duck is rescued from the fox, but her eggs all get destroyed--after which she weeps uncontrollably. And on it goes. Not to sound morbid or anything, but the theme of mortality--the idea that we, or the ones we love, might not be here tomorrow--underlies these stories to an extent that seems very out-of-place in modern children's literature.
Now here's a disclaimer: I'm no expert on children's literature. It could be that these generalizations I'm making are totally wrong, and if you think so, I'd be very happy to hear from you in the comments. But it seems to me that aside from modern writers of children's literature who are intentionally pursuing the macabre and the morbid--for example, Edward Gorey ("A is for Amy who fell down the stairs, B is for Basil assaulted by bears...")--it seems that modern children's literature, especially that written for the younger readers, shies away from topics like pain and death, and shies away from unhappy endings, much more than it used to.
I think it's not hard to establish that there are plenty of classic children's stories out there that are scary, or violent; plenty of stories with cautionary morals about what can go wrong if one doesn't behave correctly. The stories of the Brothers Grimm are, in fact, pretty grim. Many of our fairy tales have some pretty scary bits: kids being put in ovens; witches being put in ovens; giants, monsters, dragons; all the princes that came to rescue the princesses prior to the appearance of Prince Charming, who got eaten by the dragon or smothered in the protective thorn bushes. Think of the giant who fell to his death when Jack cut down the beanstalk. Think of the Little Mermaid, who in the original version, was urged to kill the prince to save her own life: she refused to do it, and so suffered the consequence of losing her life, turning to foam on the waves. Think of the absolutely heartrending story of the Little Match Girl.
And even when you get into the early twentieth century, you still see a fair amount of chopping off of heads, or at least the suggestion of it. The Pillowfight Fairy has just been introduced to Dr. Seuss's prose classic, The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins. At one point, Bartholomew Cubbins is sent off to the Royal Executioner (who actually happens to be a fairly agreeable chap) with orders to have his head chopped off, because he can't get his hats off. But under the rules, the executioner can't chop off anyone's head until he takes his hat off, which Bartholomew can't do, so he heads back up to the throne room....
Let this sink in for a bit: a Dr. Seuss book that talks about beheadings. Well, it was 1938 when he wrote it; but still, doesn't that seem a bit... incongruous? Things like that don't seem to show up in children's literature much any more--at least not until the kids reach Junior High.
And we think that exposure to this older literature is having an effect on the way the Fairy views the world. Tonya talks some about it in the blog post I linked to above. The Fairy is now asking questions about existence (and non-existence), wondering about death, pretending as she plays that Daddy is Mr. McGregor, pretending as she plays that Daddy is the Grinch (who must be shot, lest he steal Christmas), and on and on.
My guess is that many moderns see a five-year-old thinking about these things, and think it's unnatural and even unhealthy--that childhood should be carefree; that by exposing children to these stories and ideas, we're making them grow up too fast; that we're stealing their innocence. But that's clearly not the way people thought at least up through the beginning of the twentieth century, as evidenced by the stories they wrote for and read to their children. Why is this?
I'm not entirely sure, but I think I have the beginnings of an answer. Sometimes it's hard for us moderns to remember just how hard life was in the past. My father- and mother-in-law both remember when they first got electricity and indoor plumbing. There was a time, not too long ago, that every child could expect to have a friend or a sibling die before reaching adulthood. It was only in the last two generations or so that we finally eliminated most infectious diseases--polio, typhus, cholera, diphtheria, scarlet fever--as major killers. And for those of our ancestors who grew up on farms, they saw the realities of life and death on a daily basis: if you wanted to eat chicken, the first step was to chase your chickens around the yard until you caught one; then, you had to get an axe.... And remember too that our nation hasn't suffered military invasion--or even suffered a credible threat of invasion--for quite some time. For most people these days, unless you choose to join the military, you are unlikely ever to see a war first-hand. And we haven't had to face famine in a long time.
I could go on, but I don't want to get too morbid. Suffice it to say that people of previous generations got to see a lot of stuff that we would consider highly unpleasant. It was simply part of life. And since it was part of their lives, it was part of their children's lives as well, and it thus showed up in the children's literature. It was simply too ubiquitous to ignore; it was not that the writers were being excessively morbid.
So what does this mean for how we should educate our kids? Again, I'm not really sure. There are two broad, contradictory approaches: the first is, we expose our kids to the literature of the past, with all the ugliness included, in the hope that it gives us the opportunity to give our children an understanding of some of the tougher issues of life that they will one day face, as a way of preparing them. On the other hand, we could count those stories as part of an older world that we don't inhabit anymore, and look for new stories that are hopefully more appropriate to our new environment.
I tend to lean toward the former of these two approaches. While our environment has changed quite a bit in the last few generations, I don't think that human nature has changed much; and because of that, the relevance of the older literature will remain. I also want my children to understand where we came from. And I see the older stuff as having a seriousness to it that is worth holding on to.
Of course, I think the die is already pretty well cast anyway, since the Fairy is already pretending to shoot the Grinch every time he comes around.
And no, I didn't teach her that. She figured that one out on her own.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Interesting Article on an Impending Demographic Change
Some of you may have noticed that I put "demography" as one of my interests in my profile. And I've been meaning to get around to posting about demography. Specifically, I was going to write about how societies evolve using a very similar mechanism to that of biological evolution.
I was going to say that some societies adopt traditions and mores that strengthen the society; these societies--being thus strengthened--go on to dominate on the world stage, and their successful traditions and mores often find cognates--and often blatant borrownings--in other cultures.
I was further going to mention that other societies adopt traditions, mores, and institutions that are self-destructive; and since these items are destructive to the host societies, these societies usually either drop them sooner or later, or the societies themselves fall apart. So while a student of history may see these things show up time and again throughout history, their appearances will usually be brief, and then they will vanish again, often accompanied by the collapse of the host society. And the student will note--on the principle that "history is written by the winners"--that the great historians of the past all came from societies that rejected these traditions, mores, and institutions, and bias against these things shows up in their writings.
I was going to write about this. But then someone beat me to it. With a hat tip to Mark Steyn, posting in National Review's blog the Corner, I came across this article by Phillip Longman in the magazine Foreign Policy.
The article is entitled "The Return of Patriarchy", and it explains at length how patriarchy--the eternal nemesis of feminism--appears set to make a big comeback in the western world.
The term patriarchy refers to a system of social custom that used to be much more common in the West, and which is still very common in much of the rest of the world. In short, imagine a society in which:
I think we're looking at some big societal changes coming our way--on at least as big a scale as the Sexual Revolution--within the next few decades. Hold on to your hats.
There's lots more to be said on this topic--especially regarding Natural Law and its effect on societies--but that's for another post sometime.
*While there is a some crossover between the Christian conception of family life and the description of patriarchy that I listed above, there are some big differences as well; in fact, patriarchy can be downright cruel and unjust at times. Considering how Jesus treated those who were at the absolute bottom of the society in his day--such as prostitutes, and women who had had multiple divorces and remarriages--I find it difficult as a Christian to cheer the potential return of stigma toward divorcees, single parents, illegitimate children, and the like.
I was going to say that some societies adopt traditions and mores that strengthen the society; these societies--being thus strengthened--go on to dominate on the world stage, and their successful traditions and mores often find cognates--and often blatant borrownings--in other cultures.
I was further going to mention that other societies adopt traditions, mores, and institutions that are self-destructive; and since these items are destructive to the host societies, these societies usually either drop them sooner or later, or the societies themselves fall apart. So while a student of history may see these things show up time and again throughout history, their appearances will usually be brief, and then they will vanish again, often accompanied by the collapse of the host society. And the student will note--on the principle that "history is written by the winners"--that the great historians of the past all came from societies that rejected these traditions, mores, and institutions, and bias against these things shows up in their writings.
I was going to write about this. But then someone beat me to it. With a hat tip to Mark Steyn, posting in National Review's blog the Corner, I came across this article by Phillip Longman in the magazine Foreign Policy.
The article is entitled "The Return of Patriarchy", and it explains at length how patriarchy--the eternal nemesis of feminism--appears set to make a big comeback in the western world.
The term patriarchy refers to a system of social custom that used to be much more common in the West, and which is still very common in much of the rest of the world. In short, imagine a society in which:
- Men are the heads of families, and make the rules. Legitimate children "belong" to the fathers. And a big part of the social status of men derives from this role as head of family.
- The actions of a family's children can either shame or honor the family in general, and the man at the head of the family in particular.
- Sex and childbearing outside of marriage are strongly stigmatized by society. There are strong social disadvantages to being an illegitimate child.
- Women don't have many options for employment outside the home. The best that most women can hope for is to marry well and raise children who will honor the family name.
- Concepts like "heritage" and "legacy" aren't just buzzwords to be manipulated by politicians; they are one of the foremost concerns of any man in good social standing.
- Marriage is not only done for love, and often isn't primarily done for love; it has the primary purpose of strengthening the family--partly through alliance, but primarily to bring the next generation into existence. To this end, it's important not just that a man marry, but that he marry a woman of proper social standing.
That's patriarchy. And one can see immediately why feminists don't like it.
But here's what Longman points out: this particular system causes men to do two things that have been happening less and less frequently starting about halfway through the 20th Century. First, it gives men--even wealthy, well-educated, well-established men--a strong social reason to father lots and lots of kids. Second, it gives these men a strong incentive to be heavily involved in the raising of those children. After all, if a father's children grow up to be rapscallions, it redounds to his discredit. On the other hand, if they grow up to be financially and professionally successful, the father is honored--and this honor carries social benefits.
Now it so happens that patriarchy has been out of fashion in the West for some time now, at least since the Sexual Revolution. But it hasn't been out of fashion among everyone in the West--there are always some hold-outs, some religious throwbacks (so they are seen), some social conservatives.
The trouble is this: patriarchy is a social structure that (among other things) causes people to have lots of children. If a society's dominant social structure doesn't cause people to have lots of children, then eventually these hold-outs, religious throwbacks, and social conservatives simply start out-breeding the rest of society. Within a few generations, a strong plurality of the population--possibly even a majority--is descended from the hold-outs.
And this doesn't take too long to happen. Take a look at some of Longman's reasoning:
The 17.4 percent of baby boomer women who had only one child account for a mere 7.8 percent of children born in the next generation. By contrast, nearly a quarter of the children of baby boomers descend from the mere 11 percent of baby boomer women who had four or more children. These circumstances are leading to the emergence of a new society whose members will disproportionately be descended from parents who rejected the social tendencies that once made childlessness and small families the norm. These values include an adherence to traditional, patriarchal religion, and a strong identification with one's own folk or nation.
...
Now, I don't mean to say this to say I cheer the return of patriarchy with all its trappings.* But if Longman is right, patriarchy may be on the way back, simply as a matter of Natural Law--societies that embrace it tend to thrive, and societies that reject it tend to wither until the patriarchal remnant becomes dominant again.I think we're looking at some big societal changes coming our way--on at least as big a scale as the Sexual Revolution--within the next few decades. Hold on to your hats.
There's lots more to be said on this topic--especially regarding Natural Law and its effect on societies--but that's for another post sometime.
*While there is a some crossover between the Christian conception of family life and the description of patriarchy that I listed above, there are some big differences as well; in fact, patriarchy can be downright cruel and unjust at times. Considering how Jesus treated those who were at the absolute bottom of the society in his day--such as prostitutes, and women who had had multiple divorces and remarriages--I find it difficult as a Christian to cheer the potential return of stigma toward divorcees, single parents, illegitimate children, and the like.
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