tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post1385008802045858139..comments2024-03-27T03:19:11.216-04:00Comments on Assistant Village Idiot: Zealous FaithAssistant Village Idiothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01978011985085795099noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-38737627853540598912018-01-09T17:57:26.964-05:002018-01-09T17:57:26.964-05:00When else in history have the rich had so few chil...When else in history have the rich had so few children? Obviously not often, but do we have any way--baptismal records, for example--for measuring this?jameshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01792036361407527304noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-42967955453205213592018-01-08T19:34:03.051-05:002018-01-08T19:34:03.051-05:00"Both sexes are significantly driven by ego&q..."Both sexes are significantly driven by ego". <br /><br />I think that should be the first phrase uttered in any discussion on gender differences and sex. You can argue that how we fulfill that ego is different, but it's good to remember we're all working on fulfilling the same core drives: passing on our genes, and trying to feed our ego. All our better qualities in this area (love, commitment and loyalty, kindness, community) take some work. <br /><br />As for the rest of it, I continue to think we should add "paternity testing" in to any list of what changed. The ability of men to deny (or legitimately not be sure) if they fathered a child was almost certainly a factor in women pushing for marriage. The 18 year old you mentioned would be in a much different situation if she knew she couldn't prove fatherhood in any other way. Not advocating that we change that, but it is a factor.<br />bs kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02871717971078952304noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-91488615649840317952018-01-05T15:30:29.406-05:002018-01-05T15:30:29.406-05:00For example, in Jane Austen's 'Pride and P...For example, in Jane Austen's 'Pride and Prejudice', Charlotte Lucas does not marry the repellent Mr Collins (and presumably, have sex with him) out of love, it is for security and a measure of status. Lydia Bennet runs off with George Wickham because he looks handsome in a uniform (and, I imagine, sexual attraction, had she been real) rather than anything that couple be called love of a deep and spiritual kind.<br /><br />Parenthetically, there is an interesting book by Michael Chevalier, a Frenchman who visited the US in the early 1830s. Although as an engineer on a government-sponsored trip he was particularly interested in canals, railroads, etc, he was also an astute social observer and a likeable and entertaining writer.<br /><br />After observing that Americans are the most money-obsessed people he has ever met, Chevalier goes on to say:<br /><br />“I ought to do the Americans justice on another point. I have said that with them everything was an affair of money; yet there is one thing which among us, a people of lively affections, prone to love and generous by nature, takes the mercantile character very decidedly and which among them has nothing of this character; I mean marriage. We buy a woman with our fortune or we sell ourselves to her for her dowry. The American chooses her, or rather offers himself to her, for her beauty, her intelligence, or her amiable qualities and asks no other portion. Thus, while we make a traffic of what is most sacred, these shopkeepers exhibit a delicacy and loftiness of feeling which would have done honor to the most perfect models of chivalry.”David Fosterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15464681514800720063noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-72525482354424314092018-01-05T11:38:00.304-05:002018-01-05T11:38:00.304-05:00Re: cars: Many years ago I knew a Korean professo...Re: cars: Many years ago I knew a Korean professor who had migrated to America following the Korean War. He had fought in the Korean war himself, in fact, as a soldier. He was a profound anti-Communist, so you might have assumed he had joined the army explicitly to resist the rise of Communists. <br /><br />Not at all, he would tell you. It was because soldiers had access to Jeeps, and you couldn't get a girl without a car. Grimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07543082562999855432noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-68991469963570590472018-01-04T22:38:31.684-05:002018-01-04T22:38:31.684-05:00There is a similar generalisation from the Bible: ...There is a similar generalisation from the Bible: Husbands love your wives; wives respect your husbands. Both want both, of course, and not everyone of either sex fits the generalisation entirely. Yet it is true in the main. Men finder it easier to bestow respect and desire it more; women find it easier to show love than respect, and that is the currency they prefer. Each has to recognise the needs of the other and work hard at what comes less easily.Assistant Village Idiothttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01978011985085795099noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-16308975883214580112018-01-04T22:06:17.480-05:002018-01-04T22:06:17.480-05:00"Men use love to get sex, women use sex to ge..."Men use love to get sex, women use sex to get love"<br /><br />Often said, but oversimplified. Most men do care about love, and most women do care about sex. Both sexes are significantly driven by ego. Women are perhaps more driven than men by that positive status hit that comes from being with a highly-regarded partner. And women in many cases use sex to get resources and protection.<br /><br />David Fosterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15464681514800720063noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-86459481559784059132018-01-04T20:57:56.606-05:002018-01-04T20:57:56.606-05:00Two thoughts (I'll apologize in advance if any...Two thoughts (I'll apologize in advance if anybody finds them offensive).<br /><br />Gender/sexual identity issues are a combination of the gateway into the victim Olympics for UMC white kids, and a means of dealing with the oversexualization of personal identity that she's describing. If you are uncomfortable with peer pressure to engage in heterosexual coupling, declaring yourself to be trans is now an acceptable way to deflect it. Sort of reversing the old joke that being bi doubles your chance of getting a date.<br /><br />Men use love to get sex, women use sex to get love. We would all be a lot happier if we recognized that both sexes have different (not better or worse) agendas and strategies.Christopher Bhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00396671757183163171noreply@blogger.com