Columnist mourns the death of gallantry

Rita Pahani has defended chivalry in today's Herald Sun, in response to news that men are no longer standing up for pregnant women on public transport.

I winced at her opening argument:

The lack of manners those women experienced made me think of Blanche and a line in the last season of The Golden Girls where she explains to a suitor: “I don’t want to be treated like your equal. No! I want to be treated much better than you.”

That should be the ideal all women strive for in life. It’s not only pregnant woman who deserve to be treated with all due deference.

The requirement for equal pay and opportunity shouldn’t spell the death of gallantry.

I don't like her definition of chivalry as women being treated better than men or as men deferring to women. And I'm not sure that you can run with a levelling philosophy in terms of social outcomes and then run with a differentiated philosophy when it comes to manners and mores. It's not easy, in other words, to drill constantly into the minds of men that women are just the same in social function and then expect the idea to flourish that women are different in personal interaction. The first ethos tends to depress the second one.

Nor does this argument help much:

AS a woman I am as capable, independent and empowered as any man, but that doesn’t mean I want to be treated like one.

I get that opening a door for a woman doesn't mean she can't do it herself, but if women bang on about how independent, capable and empowered they are, they are not exactly pushing the right buttons in switching on the male instinct toward gallantry.

However, Rita Pahani's argument does pick up later on. Most of the following I would not take issue with:

Being equals doesn’t mean we are the same. Do women truly want to be equal in every way? The simplistic equality-by-numbers approach fails to acknowledge that women, not all women but most, often have vastly different priorities from men.

Being truly equal means fighting in the front lines and being treated as an abnormal, ambitionless layabout for choosing to stay at home to raise children. As Facebook’s chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg wrote in her best-selling book, Lean In: “A truly equal world would be one where women ran half our countries and companies and men ran half our homes.” Is that really what most women want?

...I don’t consider a man opening the door, offering me his jacket if I’m cold or helping me with a heavy bag to be condescending or subjugating. It isn’t an admission that I’m inferior or superior; it’s merely an acknowledgment that we are inherently different.

...Chivalrous men are not only thoughtful but they are naturally protective; I recall Terri Irwin talking about her late husband, Steve, and how he would always walk ahead of her down a narrow spiral staircase so if she tripped, he would be there to cushion the fall.

That’s chivalry and there aren’t too many sensible women who don’t appreciate it.

Chivalry was once a matter of small gestures that signalled a man's protective instincts towards women and women's gracious acceptance of the man's gesture. It helped to create a good feeling between the sexes, and was an expression of a refined heterosexuality (which might be part of the reason why feminists disliked it so much).

At its worst, though, chivalry descended into a "defer to women as a matter of principle" attitude, which then meant that too many men were spineless in standing up to the demands of feminist women (it possibly encouraged, too, the idea that women were by nature morally superior to men, which then compromised the ability to men to lead in upholding moral standards in society).

Chivalry has to be properly focused if it is to be a positive good in society. If it makes men at all wimpy then it's going wrong and needs to be reset; if it is a happy part of the heterosexual interplay between the men and women of a society, then all strength to it.

An earlier outlook

Looking back on Western history it's possible to trace the rise of what might be called "modernism" in politics and thought - a set of ideas that would come to dominate philosophy and politics and which has led the West into its current set of difficulties.

But it's also possible to recognise the survival in the West of certain pre-modern ideals; these originated in the Middle Ages and lasted until at least the 1920s. I suspect that some of the previous dynamism of the West can be attributed to these ideals.

So what were they? Well, what we are talking about is a fusion between the aristocratic virtues of the European nobility and Christianity. In Christianity there is an emphasis on service to one's fellow man, including those who are poor or defenceless. And so the strength of the Christian nobleman was aimed at defending the weak (widows, children, the elderly) and also at carrying out the duties and obligations we have in our relationships (fidelity), which included being a protector of church and nation. Faith, loyalty and courage were considered key virtues.

I will reluctantly describe this ethos of the Middle Ages as "chivalry." It's not the best term to use as it is now mostly understood to mean men supplicating to women, which was the least attractive aspect of medieval chivalry.

Chivalry as I have described it remained part of the mix of Western culture over the centuries. For instance, consider the criteria set out by Cecil Rhodes for his Oxford scholarships in 1902:

Founder Cecil Rhodes' criteria were all-encompassing: literary and scholastic attainments; energy to use one's talents to the fullest, as exemplified by fondness for and success in sports; truth, courage, devotion to duty, sympathy for and protection of the weak; kindliness, unselfishness and fellowship; moral force of character and instincts to lead and to take an interest in one's fellow beings.

Men raised along these lines were not going to be passive, individualistic, liberal weaklings; they were brought up to be strong, dutiful and loyal - and to lead. If the ruling element in society was made up of such men, then it is likely that such a society would flourish.

It is my belief that getting back to this longstanding part of the Western tradition is one of our challenges. However, this has to be done carefully, taking into consideration:

i) what aspects of the tradition were unworthy
ii) why chivalry in its positive form declined
iii) how it can give rise to negative consequences

I don't want to make this post too long, so I'll leave a discussion of these points to a future post.

The BBC Debate 2

In my last post I discussed a debate on immigration that was held on BBC radio. John Derbyshire has a report on the debate at Vdare and has also provided a transcript.

If you read through the debate you understand why things are going wrong in the West. Both the secular and the Christian participants held views which made open borders the "moral" position to take. They did so by following what you might call the "intellectual disease" which is to reduce life to a single intellectual principle and then try to derive moral positions from this single principle.

The Christian view was represented primarily by Giles Fraser, an Anglican cleric. Fraser is unusual in that he has very clearly rejected liberalism as a philosophy, but he has done so in the name of socialism (which goes to show that rejecting liberalism is only the first step, what comes next is equally important).

Fraser justifies open borders, and the massive transformation of Europe that necessarily follows, on the basis of certain passages of scripture:

The bit that comes to mind in the Scriptures for me is that very moving bit in Matthew 25 where Jesus goes, you know, "You saw me in prison, you didn't do anything, you, you didn't give me any food, I was a stranger and you didn't welcome me," and they go, "When was that?" and they say, "Inasmuch as you didn't do it to the least of these, my brothers and sisters, you did it to me." I mean, there's a whole implication there that if you're not welcoming the stranger, you're not welcoming Christ.

...you know, constantly in Jesus' teaching there's stuff about the stranger, there's stuff about the other, there's stuff about the Good Samaritan, and our moral responsibility is always to this person who is more other than us, rather than same as us.

The last line is the critical one. Fraser believes, from his reading of scripture, that our responsibility is always to those who are more "other" to us. If you believe this, then of course you're going to identify with the Muslim Africans seeking entry to Europe rather than with your fellow Europeans. Fraser, despite his repudiation of liberalism as a philosophy, has ended up with a very similar view of solidarity to liberals, namely that true solidarity is with those most other to us, rather than those we are most closely related to.

It should be said that you can see why Fraser might derive this idea from the New Testament. Jesus does emphasise in his teachings that benevolence is to be selfless (in the sense that we do not expect anything in return) and that it extends to strangers. Jesus says things like this:

But if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.

In context, Jesus is clearly emphasising that we are not to be benevolent to get something for ourselves - that is the intended message. But you can see how it might be taken to mean that the love we have for those we are related to, and who have reason to love us, is insignificant.

I don't think such a reading makes much sense. Jesus elsewhere says that in order to be saved we must honour our father and mother - why would that be so important if all that matters is our relationship to the stranger?

In practice, too, it is no small thing to love those who love us. To truly love our spouse over a lifetime, through all the stresses and hardships of life, and still to cherish them, to admire them and to find delight in our relationship with them is no small thing. To truly love our children, to have a continuing pride in our paternal relationship with our sons and to seek out an active companionship with them, to feel a loving protectiveness toward our daughters, and to be driven to provide the best start in life for our children, that is no small thing. And to love those we are related to as part of our ethny, to sense the life that we share with them and to seek to uphold the good within our common tradition - that is no small thing either.

It used to be the case that Western civilisation continued to respect these loves, but also took seriously the injunction to be benevolent to "the least among you." That gave rise to traditions of Christian charity, of noblesse oblige and of codes of chivalry.

The codes of chivalry are particularly interesting. They combined Christian benevolence (mercy, protection of the weak and the poor) with duties to countrymen and faithfulness to the church. This is a much more viable basis for a Christian civilisation than Giles Fraser's dissolving formulation that "our moral responsibility is always to this person who is more other than us, rather than same as us" - a formulation which would deliver Europe to an Islamic and African future rather than a Christian European one.

Liz, you can't have contradictory things

Liz Jones is a particularly clueless specimen of the New Woman. She wants things to fall in place just as she'd like them to, without thinking through how that might happen.

Take a recent incident in her life in which her BMW broke down. She was stranded and upset. None of the young men who passed by stopped to help her and a few even abused her. And so she is upset that young men are no longer chivalrous and lack the masculine code of their forefathers:

Let me tell you, dear ladies: the age of chivalry is dead...

It is young men — up to the age of 40 — who behave like louts.

I had thought it was just my ex-husband who used to allow me to put petrol in the car while he sat warm in the passenger seat, but if my ­experience yesterday ­morning is anything to go by, it’s a generational phenomenon.

As Top Gear’s James May said this week, young men have lost their masculinity, in that they can no longer fix things. And this loss of manners is far worse.

Young working British men: you should be ashamed.

Did this sort of foul-mouthed male really win us the war? We don’t need more aircraft ­carriers, we need men who are not rude, ignorant pigs

Liz Jones never stops to consider why this transformation might have occurred. Why would an older generation of men have behaved with concern and courtesy toward women whilst the younger one doesn't?

Could it be because of the behaviour of women like Liz Jones herself? Here, for instance, is how Liz Jones describes her treatment of men who do try to take care of her BMW:

I still, to this day, whenever I am told my BMW needs a new tyre, say, yell at the hapless man serving me: 'You wouldn't dare treat me this way if I were a man!'

As for her husband, she expected him to be a new man, in touch with his feelings, who would take a back seat to her as an independent woman:

New men, metrosexual men, men who are in touch with their feelings, who are willing to take a back seat, supporting and nurturing you, don't exist.

They might pretend to be able to cope with you but they are, instead, storing up anger and will hate you for being fabulous, for being independent, for not needing them in your life but just wanting them to be there.

No wonder hubby sat in the car while Liz got the petrol. He was, after all, expected to "take a back seat" in the marriage.

Liz Jones can't have it both ways. She can't behave like a harpy toward men and then expect that men will be inspired to treat women with chivalry and courtesy. Nor can she proclaim that women don't need men and that men should learn to live with this and become nurturing metrosexuals, whilst at the same time collapsing in tears when her car breaks down and no traditionally masculine man stops to help her.

A wrong way to praise women

There's some discussion at Laura Wood's excellent site about a comment sent in by one of her readers. The reader wished to praise women but did it in a way that I consider wrong. The reader wrote:

... women have the much harder row to hoe. Women are 95 percent of the equation responsible for the continuation of our species. There is not a man on the face of the planet that could handle the pain I witnessed from my wife during two of our three children ... Women are historically responsible for holding a household together, and in the unfortunate situation where the husband is unemployed and the wife has to work ... the man still does not help out. In my case my wife is the primary educator. My kids have attended a church school since middle school, so they have loads of homework. I have tried to help in the tutelage, but seem to either be unable because of patience or attention span, while my wife charges ahead when my head would explode ...

I personally believe the disparity in maturity between women and men is between 10-15 years at the age of 18, and with any luck starts to normalize somewhere in the 40’s ... This is the single most important difference between men and women. If it were not for this disparity there is nothing that would provide the patience required to tolerate, and in many cases train a man to be worthy of the marriage a woman so gracefully entered into ... To you ladies I tip my hat, not once, but every day in gratitude for all you do. You are the foundation upon which we all build our futures, and for that we (men & children) love and respect you.

Women might be from Venus, but men are from Uranus, and that’s a long way from Mars.

This is extraordinarily self-deprecating. We are supposed to accept that men are only 5% responsible for the continuation of the species. That no man could handle the pain of childbirth. That it is women who hold together the household. That men are too stupid and impatient to help with homework. That men aren't as mature as women until some time in our 40s. That we should consider women "graceful" for patiently training men to be worthy of them in marriage.

This pushes things in exactly the wrong direction. We need men who are conscious of their civilising role. We need men who are confident in their own abilities and strengths. We need men who will take up a leadership role in their families and communities, rather than abdicating their responsibilities in favour of a "superior" womanhood.

Why would a man speak about women in such a self-subordinating way? My own theory is that it has to do with a shift in the culture of relationships that occurred during the nineteenth century.

Up until the 1800s, the primary consideration in relationships was marriage. Of course, people still had sexual and romantic feelings. However, these were disciplined to the end of family formation.

However, during the 1800s the balance shifted. What mattered increasingly were romantic feelings. And, as I've written previously,

Men who grow up in a culture of romantic love will tend to idealise women and be focused on feminine beauty and goodness.

An example here might help. I've been reading The Moon Seems Upside Down, a collection of letters from an Australian soldier, Arthur Alan Mitchell, to his girlfriend Eileen during WWII. There's a lot to like about Mitchell. He was not at all your modern, alienated type. He had a love of nature, he appreciated literature, he loved his family, his country and his mates and, as you might expect of a young man of the time, he had a well-developed romantic nature. The letters are full of declarations of romantic love for his girlfriend at home:

One thing has not altered, Darling. That is my love for you ... You are outstandingly beautiful, Eileen, but it was not only because of your beauty that I fell madly in love with you, it was your character, your nature, your sweetness, kindness & consideration to me ... even now, away from the captivating spell of your eyes & hair & voice and laughter, I can, for those reasons, say 'I love you'.

Note the emphasis on feminine beauty and goodness. That is the ideal that inspired feelings of romantic love in Arthur Mitchell. It is the ideal that inspired a lot of Western art. It is a normal expression of "connectedness" in men. But it has a potential downside: women can become idealised to the point that men, in an intensely romantic culture, begin to defer morally to women (because the women are idealised into being morally good and pure). From another letter to Eileen:

Eileen, my Life, where my heart beats within yours, you are my guiding star. My inner soul has set you firmly on that high pedestal and forever looking up to you for guidance you have steered me from thousands of miles away, never letting me do an act for which I would be ashamed or regret later. If I possess any character, any manliness, my thoughts of chivalry for the weaker sex then I owe it to you, for you have carried on my spiritual guidance along the same path as my dear Mother led me.

As the sun burns eternally in the sky, so burns my love for you ... To walk upon the same earth, to breathe the same air, to look at the same sun & moon & stars, to exist during the same era as you live in is a joy & a privilege for which I am grateful.

It is the women in Arthur Mitchell's life who became his moral and spiritual guides. I can understand how this works: a man who recognises the feminine ideal in women can be inspired by it to pursue his own masculine ideal. But there's a catch: the more that men hand over the baton of moral guidance to women, the less likely it is that women will act in a way that inspires moral admiration.

Men need to keep a hold of that baton. We need to re-emphasise what men do to establish moral standards in society. Men should not morally defer, no matter how much we are inspired by a romantic ideal of feminine goodness. It was an historical error of the Victorians to defer and this created a vulnerability in Western culture.

When men do self-deprecate, when we do defer, it is a sign that the culture of relationships has become unbalanced, that the romantic instincts are not balanced by an awareness of what is required from men to maintain a successful system of marriage and family life.

Is chivalry to blame?

One of the emerging ideas in the men's rights movement is that chivalry is to blame for the problems men face in modern society.

Pierce Harlan, for instance, recently wrote an article about feminist reactions to the sinking of the Titanic. Back in 1912 the men on the Titanic accepted certain death by giving up their places on the lifeboats to women and children. Many women were impressed by this act of chivalry, with one group of American women erecting a memorial to the men who had sacrificed their lives.

But there were feminists in 1912 who did not wish to accept that the men had made any remarkable sacrifice for women. Some feminists argued that the women had it just as hard as the men as they had to watch from the lifeboats as the ship went down. Others argued that it was a part of natural law for women to be saved as they were more necessary to the survival of the race.

In other words, the feminists denied the existence of a chivalry which accorded them certain privileges in the way they were treated.

Pierce Harlan's take on all this is that society in 1912 accepted the existence of a chivalry which privileged women in certain ways, but that our society, just like the feminists of 1912, denies its existence:

Now, almost 100 years later, chivalry is still a potent force in our society affording special treatment to women in countless ways, but we've done a 180 from where we were in 1912: we've adopted the attitudes the suffragettes held in 1912 of denying that chivalry exists. Their denial -- so marginalized and disparaged in 1912 -- has become the norm in 2010. Denial that chivalry exists is necessary in order to pretend we embrace gender equality. It's a charade. We were more honest about gender in 1912.

Harlan believes that feminists were right to aim at gender equality, but that we don't have true gender equality because women are still privileged by the "potent force" of chivalry.

He supports the views of one of the feminists of the Titanic era who recognised the chivalry but who thought it misguided:

The memorial was not without its detractors. "Some feminists criticized the memorial, saying it was inappropriate to not only commemorate but perpetuate the notion of chivalry. Margaret [Molly Brown] responded that she thought it was very brave that some men had chosen to step aside and let women and children live -- but the gesture should never have been required by law or custom."

Molly Brown, of course, "got it." If only her kind of rational thinking had prevailed.

Now, almost 100 years after Titanic, in important ways, we are less honest about gender than we were when the mighty ship sank. In 1912, women did not have the same rights as men, but society freely acknowledged the chivalry at work on Titanic.

Today, we claim to embrace gender equality, yet chivalry is alive and well and manifests itself in countless ways -- and we pretend it doesn't exist. Like the elephant in the room, it leaves its imprint on virtually every institution, but it's entirely too politically incorrect to acknowledge.

The argument is straightforward enough: modern society promises us gender equality, but men don't get to enjoy equal treatment because of an influential chivalry which can't be openly acknowledged.

Despite its virtues of being simple and clear, I think the argument is wrong.

Chivalry is not the main driver of modern society. It is not a "potent force". There may be a residue of it left in the lighter sentences handed to women in the legal system and in the reluctance to commit women to combat roles or to the military draft.

In general, though, women have been given preferential treatment for an entirely different reason. They have been given preferential treatment because of the way that "gender equality" is understood in liberal societies. Therefore, men's rights activists ought to be wary of accepting the aim of "gender equality" as it is understood today.

The problem is this. Liberals believe that the key good that defines us as human is autonomy. We are autonomous when we are independent, when we have the power to enact our will, when we can choose our own life path etc.

This idea put women at a disadvantage. It made the lives that women traditionally led seem inferior. After all, women were tied biologically to motherhood rather than choosing amongst a range of career options; they were financially dependent on men; and they did not have the same political power that (some) men had to determine social outcomes.

So the early feminists declared that women, as a matter of equality and justice, ought to be free to live the same lives that men did. They rejected the idea that women lived different lives to men because of natural differences between the sexes. Instead, they explained historical differences as a product of socialisation that could be overturned.

The more radical feminists went further and claimed that one class of people ("men") had enjoyed an unearned privilege by oppressing another class of people ("women"). The oppression was systemic throughout society, and was embedded in the culture and institutions of society, including marriage, romance and chivalry. Domestic violence and rape were used by powerful men to maintain their patriarchal privileges.

This is the set of ideas that has been accepted by the Western political classes. The assumption is that women have been historically oppressed and that it is therefore serving the aim of "gender equality" if they are given special treatment in order to lift their status.

In theory, it ought to be enough to give women equal opportunity. After all, if men and women really are the same, and sex distinctions are just social constructs, then men and women with equal opportunities ought to end up having equal outcomes.

But this hasn't happened. Men have continued to earn more, to dominate boardrooms and so on. Liberals don't respond to this by accepting the fact of gender difference. Instead, they assume that historic oppression is still at work and stubbornly resisting women's liberation. They then enact various forms of affirmative action until they get the outcome they want.

This will go on no matter how much men's rights activists argue against chivalry. Let's say that men's rights activists argue that women should serve in combat roles just as men have to do and that this would mean that women are not being given preferential treatment because of chivalry.

What would happen? First, the liberal establishment would be more than happy to take on board the suggestion. Most Western countries are moving in that direction anyway. Nor would most feminists object. Most of the feminists I've debated think it's their right to fight in combat.

But would this stop women getting preferential treatment? The answer is no. When the next round of earnings statistics appeared, and they showed women not earning as much as men, there would still be the same outcry about inequality, and there would be further attempts to rejig the system to favour female earnings. The same with superannuation. Or boardrooms. Or number of MPs. Or women in engineering.

So, again, I would ask men's rights activists to question the assumptions behind liberal notions of "gender equality". Once you accept the liberal version of gender equality you are committing yourself to the view that:

• sex distinctions are just social constructs
• personal autonomy is the overriding good in life, and not relationships, the good of society, love, feelings of connectedness, the welfare of children and families and so on.
• women are not being treated as fully human until society creates the conditions in which they can live as men do
• preferential treatment for women is justified to overcome historic oppression  

One final point. I don't believe that chivalry fits well with modern social conditions. So I'm neither expecting nor advocating for it to make a resurgence.

However, I do remember the culture of chivalry from my youth in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It was a matter of everyday culture back then, at least in middle-class Melbourne, for men to offer up seats for women, to hold open doors, to change tyres, to offer to carry bags and so on.

My memory is that it was largely a positive thing. You would make such a gesture for a woman and she would accept graciously. It was something that marked gender differences in a positive way and which helped to create a good feeling between the sexes.

The feminists of the time were not amused. When I first arrived at campus in the mid-80s there were meetings being held in which such practices of courtesy were strongly criticised. A small number of feminists began to attack men who held open doors, word got around and by the late 80s men had mostly given it up.

My point is that it would be wrong to see chivalry as something that feminists have used against men. There may have been instances of this, but to a considerable degree chivalry was something that expressed a positive feeling of mutuality between men and women.