Thoughts and Questions

The reason for this weblog is a huge writing project that I have ahead of me, a book dealing with vast and contentious issues. That kind of project becomes a way of life, and I want a place where I can say things that don't have to be so serious and responsible and impersonal. I've been a blogger for years, but my other blog has been a place for stuff like what's going into my book. Putting more stuff there hardly seems like a break. I hope this can be a bit more expressive and fun!

It's a New Gender Gap: more and more it's girls who populate educational institutions. As the man says in the article, "Girls are better able to deliver in terms of what modern society requires of people -- paying attention, abiding by rules, being verbally competent, and dealing with interpersonal relationships in offices." To put it another way, men make things work, women make nice within a system someone else has set up. If the world is mostly organized and administered top-down, girls will do better, at least among lower-level drudges. I doubt it'll have much effect on the famous "glass ceiling" though.

Last night I went to a new artisanal pizzeria here in our hip upwardly-mobile big-city neighborhood. The food was very good, the service helpful and friendly, the people attractive, vivacious and 30-something, and every table had a bottle of red wine brought in by the patron from the classy new wine store across the street.

On the face of it these were people with talent and perception who did things with a certain spirit and discipline. So how come they were most likely left-wing degenerate commies, at least in theory, with a view of things radically at odds with those qualities?

There seems to be an enormous confusion today. We have ruling elites who claim not to exist exercising power that claims not to be power for comprehensive goals that claim to be neutral. Talented people on the way up sign on in theory to the established view of things, it would be too much effort not to, and then make various exceptions and variations on an individual level. The exercise is called "having your own view of things."

In the end that has to be destructive. Does all the talent, energy, effort and (relative) good will we have today come to anything? We don't seem to live in a great age of much of anything. I have to think things would go better if there were more consistency in life, so we could mean what we do and think more thoroughly.

The problem with sex outside marriage is that you keep all your cards.

The experience tells you you're giving yourself. The fact is you're not, because it's up to you what it means and if you change your mind later there's nothing to tell you you're wrong. So you're separating yourself from what your own body and feelings are telling you.

That's not good when it's something that has a grip on us like sex does. It's especially not good for women, since they have such a hard time separating things anyway. The result is that they hate the situation and hold themselves in contempt, because they know they're not being true to their feelings or anything esle. That spills over to contempt and hatred for the man, who they nonetheless love and depend on. The upshot is fickleness, perversity and bitchiness. Is that what anybody needs?