The Nature vs. Nurture debate goes on and on and don’t you just love it?
Some people just can’t let it go when faced with recent advances in the scientific community that appear to contradict their entire life’s work.
For far too long, one notion of how the world worked held sway. We were taught to believe that if you succeeded it was because of your environment and if you failed it was because of your environment… your ‘genes’ had nothing to do with it. Science is giving us a much clearer explanation, today.
We’re having to unlearn what we were taught and that is becoming most disturbing — even frightening — to those who have invested their career and their political life in one point of view. The resulting conflict between current dogma and the influences of new research in genetics shows up in the darndest places with often the most surprising of advocates.
A recent article by Shaunti Feldhahn and Diane Glass took opposing points of view in the discussion: CHIVALRY TODAY: SHOULD MEN BE EXPECTED TO PROTECT WOMEN. I leave the full reading to you in the attached link above, but allow me to offer this brief and rather incomplete & brutal summary: Shaunti says that it is in men’s nature to protect and Diane takes the position that women shouldn’t want male protection and — besides — it is a learned behavior. The truth is somewhat different from both.
There is plenty of research on the concept of ‘altruism’. This is a kinship phenomenon. As it applies to men, males will protect and defend women in their family… or whatever extension of ‘family’ they visualize. So, Shaunti is more correct by concluding that men will ( or we expect them to) protect women within their group.. and Diane is less correct in assuming that men will not protect women… with the exception that men are less likely to protect women outside their family group.
Unfortunately, folks like Diane appear to view these types of discussions with fear. They apparently worry that agreement in ‘hereditary’ issues and discussions might throw society back to the age in which women were relatively dependent and economically and sexually powerless and fret that the unintended concequences of her actions would be to find herself and all womenkind stuck in slavery once again. This is a case of fear driving politics and politics erasing science.
There is a chance that Diane only knows weenie men and cats, lots of them. I do seldom see women like Diane with anything like a man… more like a eunuch. I wrote about ‘Weenie men and the Women who love them”… I just hope you — Diane — aren’t one of them. Weenie men seldom make women happy in the long run.
Here are a few fans of Shaunti:
KLOPBLOG
I’d Rather Laugh than Cry
Spunky Chick’s book Club
Elizabeth
Respect or Love
Modesty Matters
DIRO
Patrick o’Connell
My Blog today reminds me of two things:
1) The world of science is opening doors we never dreamed… and all for the better… however, let’s hope we are wise enough to understand what we see…. ethics seems to travel slower than science.
2) Diane, to protect our culture and your world, you may need a few real men… and real women…… or we all may be viewing that horrific world yuo envision through the slits of a burka.
It’s never too late to see the world for what it is and change your point of view.
Roger Freberg
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