The Patriarchy Strikes Back
...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
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I think it's a load of horseshit, quite frankly. He doesn't provide any citations for his statistics, the one demographic study he includes in his references studies a handful of people in seven western European and Scandinavian countries and acknowledges its own limitations (and by the way, it's a study of correlation between attitude and family structure, and we all know that correlation is not causation, right?), and pretty much all of his specific examples are ancient Greece and ancient Rome...for which, by the way, population data has to be unreliable or nonexistent ( ... )
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I noticed the great gaping hole where his discussion of immigration should've been, which perhaps affected my reception of his argument. International borders are arguably more fluid now than they've ever been, the U.S.'s plan to wall off Mexico notwithstanding. One of the few things Bush has done that I approve of is attempt to open the door to legal status for people who are already here illegally.
I think one pretty strong argument against conservatism winning out is urbanization. Now, I don't have current data on demographic trends, and I can't look them up right now because I have to go to yet another meeting (third one today!), but I keep reading stories about places like Wyoming emptying out, and people yanking roots and making for the cities. Which tend to be more liberal, politically, than rural areas, and people get exposed ( ... )
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Not necessarily obvious. People who immigrate tend to be looking for something new. Muslim ex-pat communities in particular tend to be more liberal than the folks at home. And while Europeans are "liberal" in the U.S. personal liberal values sense of the world, they can also be incredibly insular, racist, etc. In all parts of the world, traditionally the most conservative communities are also the most insular; cities are more liberal in part because they have a greater mix of people from all over.
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Seriously, though, I only glanced at a few lines in the article and I'd agree that's it's built on some pretty shaky assumptions. One I didn't see mentioned is: Why would children of conservatives all be conservative? (For example, both my parents and my in-laws are significantly more conservative than most of their children on many issues.)
Also, there is a long tradition of female leadership in Christian and Jewish religious practice as well (besides the obvious Mary examples, there were female prophets such as Deborah, lay leaders like Rhoda, etc.). The exception is the priesthood which was required by law to be only male descendants of Aaron the brother of Moses. This is one reason the modern Christians that have "priests" (Catholic, Episcopal, Orthodox) rather than "pastors", which are modern version of prophets, have more trouble with female leadership. ([bias]Despite St. Paul's "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, ( ... )
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Exactly, and that's one of the things I was getting at when I talked about other influences. For better or for worse, for younger people (say, into one's early to mid-twenties, as far as I've observed and have read), the primary shapers of their opinions are their peers.
This is one reason the modern Christians that have "priests" (Catholic, Episcopal, Orthodox) rather than "pastors", which are modern version of prophets, have more trouble with female leadership. Hey, I always wondered about that. Huh ( ... )
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