The Night Before Christmas Eve (Part 3)
SteveNoHo: The Eyes Have It: Time Magazine paying homage to the global protester of 2011 as the person of the year is a double-edged sword. On the o...
And, then read 25 Facts about Females by Kylene on Occupy Los Angeles.
Now, I want to take you back to where we were just five short years ago.
Women Rule, Men Drool
Currently in the United States the stratification of the social structure is based on gender specific socioeconomic status lines. According to the current marketing model of Madison Avenue, our nation is built to produce goods and services, which include ideas, concepts, and philosophies, geared toward the consumption by middle class women. Pay close attention to the run of advertisements during prime-time television on any night. Even drugs like Viagra®, Levitra®, and Cialis® are sold with the idea of the enhancing the woman’s intimate relationships with her mature partner. They cure him so she can experience pleasures again.
She, not her male counterpart, is the primary barometer of what is socially acceptable within the social contract. When the woman feels threatened, then the threat is addressed with righteous indignation and vigor. When the corporations are perceived as the providers of livelihoods then they will receive her loyalty and acceptance. When, however, the corporations fail to provide her with acceptable means to tend to her needs then the corporation will be perceived to be the blight on her existence. Everything hinges on her understanding of her rightful place within the social contract. She is a loyal and caring friend, and a fearless enemy.
To keep the middle class woman content there must be reasonable assurances that follow a prescribed set of social rules that will produce a given positive result. When the activities of a corporation diminish her capacity to maintain or achieve status and/or maintain or achieve the security of her home it becomes a moral imperative to rein in the activities of the corporation. It does not matter how she defines the home within her individual perception, or how it is defined within her community. It is her home and she will protect it.
This may be dubious to many of the more aggressive feminists, but the majority of middle class homes, with or without a male presence, are defined by the woman in residence. She cares for the physical home by acquiring the goods and services needed to keep it in operation. Many women in today’s society feel that a male counterpart is superfluous in the equation. Men are nice to have around, but no longer necessary; the economic necessity of the dual income notwithstanding. This is revealed in current census data showing that for the first time in U.S. history there are more single people than married couples living in the United States. This is a 180 degree position from where society was prior to World War Two.
Even when the man is present in the home, more often than not, the woman’s morality view is deemed the correct view for the family. A successful marriage is one where male view is closely aligned to the female view.
Women’s studies indicate that women do not need a collective leader, but rather work for a more congenial harmony of the group as a whole. In the selection of a male counterpart, the woman seeks a man who closely reflects her own values and world view, and who has proven himself trustworthy enough to uphold that worldview in all core activities of life. The decline in marriages is an indication that there is a fixation on safety issues as defined by Maslow’s pyramid, and coincides with Elliot’s Currie’s observations on the dark effects of capitalism.
John Gray, Ph.D. the author of Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, points out in Men, Women and Relationships: Making peace with the Opposite Sex:
“ … we do not fully acknowledge that people differ from us. Instead we are bent upon changing one another. We resent, resist, and reject each other’s differences. We demand that the people in our lives feel, think, and behave as we would. And when the react differently we make them wrong or invalidate them; we try to fix them when they really need understanding and nurturing; we try to improve them when instead they need acceptance, appreciation, and trust.”[1]
What is detailed on this micro-level exists within the culture as a whole, fueled by mass marketing, and consumerism. It was called “keeping up with the Jones” in the 1960s, and it is still prevalent today. If you do not have “A,” “B,” and “C,” then you are broken and need to be fixed. If your mate is not such and so, then he is inadequate, or she is not sexy. Since the obsession of the corporations is to bring in wealth, it is a necessity of the market. They need to find a way to make you want to buy their product; that is their job. However, it does not, by it divisive nature, breed “acceptance, appreciation, and trust.”
The outcry against globalization is growing. As this is being written, Reuters released as story on Wednesday, June 06, 2007 at approximately 10:00 AM CDST, that an estimated 10,000 and 16,000 G-8 protesters had effectively closed the three main roads leading to Heiligendamm, the coastal city on the Baltic Sea, founded in 1793, in Germany. The story refers to these protesters as being “anti-capitalist protestors.” It goes onto report that “A German man and a Spaniard were found guilty of attempted grievous bodily harm and disturbing the peace and sentenced to nine months in prison without parole …” and “A Pole was given a 6-month suspended sentence while another Spaniard was given a 10-month jail sentence.”[2] Men are protesting in the streets because the women are seeing diminished resources, and declining standards of living at home. This social-sexual aspect of the dynamic is often overlooked for the sake of political correctness, but it does exist.
It really does not matter if a given culture’s women have full social equity with the men. This reaction is more primal than social or cultural. As long as women feel they are secure then there will be no open rebellion against the status quo. When they feel threatened then they will rise to redress grievances. Why? The threat causes social bonds to decay and dictate that the threat be eliminated. If the woman is unhappy, there is not enough to make ends meet, she is not likely to be amorous and affectionate. The man feels as if he failed her through no fault of his own, he feels misunderstood, disrespected and he is cut off from the pleasure of an intimate relationship. It is not that men and women are shallow; it is a primal drive mechanism. This reinforces Doug Callaway’s observation, “All politics is personal.”[3]
If there is no male counterpart, the woman will take whatever action is acceptable within the frame work of the social contract to correct the unacceptable situation. If there is a male counterpart, he will be engaged to act on behalf of the woman and the family. While the dynamic may, if the situation is perceived correctly, lead to civil action (or unrest), it also, unfortunately leads to domestic violence, and other assorted crimes.
This was illustrated in George Orwell’s essay Inside the Whale written in 1940:
For the ordinary man is passive. Within a narrow circle (home life, and perhaps the trade unions or local politics) he feels himself master of his fate, but against major events he is as helpless as against the elements. So far from endeavouring to influence the future, he simply lies down and lets things happen to him.[4]
No soul is as ordinary as the dysfunctional one who occupies the lowest end of the economic spectrum. As to lying down and letting things happen to him, the science of crime would indicate that is not quite the case. However, being limited in scope and afflicted with myopic tunnel vision is a trait recognized in the criminal individual. The criminal is so absorbed in the “here and now” that he or she, is unaware of the largest view of what is occurring. Even the healthy rational person is often limited in the scope of what they can, or want, to see. For the criminal, the need is felt, but the means to fulfillment is outside the scope of his or her personal collection of solutions. For the ordinary and rational person, the need is not felt, and there is no drive to take corrective action, even if they have solutions for the situation.
Women tend to act with a focus on relationships, with empathy, sympathy, and better verbal skills. Men, on the other hand, are expected to be ruthless, aggressive, cunning, somewhat reckless, and to disregard consequences except in regard to fulfilling a given role on the “team.” We send men into combat, to kill and destroy, and tell them they have done a “fine job.” According to Rob Becker from his nationally acclaimed Defending the Caveman, this distinction is anthropologically driven.[5] Many years before the pyramids rose above the dessert in Egypt, men hunted, women gathered.
Within the dialogue concerning gender differences there is a running joke about men never asking for directions. Men are not supposed to ask for help. They either do it on their own, or it does not need to be done. Men are not allowed to seek help; it is a sign of weakness. In today’s U.S.A. the mythos of A Country Boy Can Survive has become manic to the point of being obsessive-compulsive.[6]
When a woman walks into a service station and asks for directions the attendant, usually male, is more than willing to help the “little lady.” When a man asks for directions, the first thing which will occurs is that he receives the “What’s wrong with you?” look of disgust. The next thing that will occur is that the directions will be mumbled to him at minimal volume. These directions may or may not be accurate. The attendant, seeing the competitive advantage of increasing their status over another man, may deliberately give the man the wrong directions. To the attendant, it is funny. He will further amuse his friends with the tale of inflicting misfortune on another man through many retellings during the day.
Men, in the capitalist culture, are in a constant state of chronic competition to improve their status. This is the “hunt” in modern society. It is also the basic reason for exploitation of women, and spousal infidelity. Notice that those who condemn such behavior the loudest are most often the ones who extol the virtues to enhance their own status. Many are conservative in their social orientation and politics. The exploitation of women, even within this sub-culture, is acceptable so long as it does not include an overt sexual or erotic context. If a man “loses” at “the game” he is expected to “suck it up” and the status shifts from the loser to the winner. The loss is to be accepted because the man is expected to “take care” of himself. Men in today’s culture are expected to derive solace from being able to do so.
Many books have been written on the complex difference between men and women. John Gray’s Men are From Mars, Women are from Venus, and Men, and Women and Relationship: Making peace with the Opposite Sex, are but two of the current popular ones. Women on the other hand are still protected in society, and society still defers to her need whether real or perceived.
There is sufficient fuel in the records of history to prove that the woman’s view, and activity in opposing a social wrong, is the view which will become prominent.
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published in 1852. It depicted the long suffering slave Uncle Tom, and all those around him. The work details the cruelty and deprivation of Southern slavery. This one book became the second best selling book of the 1800s. Abraham Lincoln, upon meeting Ms. Stowe shortly after the beginning of the Civil War, is said to have quipped, "So this is the little lady who made this big war."[7]
Rosa Parks mobilized the nation against the apartheid-like conditions which prevailed in the South up to 1964. She was honored by the U.S. Congress who dubbed her the “Mother of the Modern-day Civil Rights Movement.” On December 1, 1955, Ms. Parks was charged with civil disobedience for refusing to give up her seat to an Anglo-Saxon American man. The resulting trial triggered the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the subsequent civil right struggle of the 1960s. Martin Luther King, Jr. became a prominent figure in the early days of this movement.
It is interesting to note the hypocrisy of the apartheid-like segregation and the southern culture. In any other circumstances, a man would have been considered a cad had he demanded that a seat be vacated for him. It would be a source of severe cultural embarrassment, and a cause to shun him. It illustrates one of many ways the prominent culture displays its duplicity, and demanded within the order of things the clear observation of the social superiority of one culture over another.
While both Civil Rights struggles, the end of slavery and the end of segregation, were championed by men, both were ignited by the outrage over the wrongs by women. It cannot be a coincidence that both women came out of the so-called liberal Christian expression. If history is a guide, in spite of conservative opposition, slavery did end, and so did segregation. For that matter, women won the right to vote and express their voice in the body politic over the opposition of the conservative factions of the 1920s. Too, the U.S. won its independence from Britain over the opposition of conservatives. Opposition to the conservative agenda is not the exception, but a general rule of thumb. A living dynamic society must, and will, grow.
When the few global winners do not invest in the local community they are seen as the pariahs in society. When they do not make allowances for the local family to participate in the local production and delivery of good and services, and reap just compensation for their labor, then the corporation is seen as the enemy of the community. Some form of public action will occur. One can conclude that 10,000 protestors shutting down a city in Germany is public action.
As shown in the news about Heiligendamm, the action can range from civil disturbance, down to the solitary individual committing an aggressive act of vandalism or violence, to attempted legislative action to correct the gross wrongs within the society. The variable seems to be the level of danger perceived by the individuals involved. The action also depends on the individual’s understanding of the level of risk he, or she, will experience in carrying out the act of reprisal, and the level of suffering the individual is willing to take on in order to eliminate the threat to the family. This is relative to the standards of the person’s community. If Morris Berman is correct and the corporations have destroyed any sense of community in the United States today, the ability to predict an individual’s response is only controlled by what is noted in behavioral science. For this reason a spike in crime in some form including murder is entirely reasonable; it is not an idle threat. If life is cheap, and the individual lives in isolation, then the predisposition towards brutality goes up. This is true for the protestor and the corporation which is targeted. If the person thinks he will be punished no matter what (again referencing the coercion studies) then again the likelihood of belligerence increases. This is the effect of coercion.
The perceived good or harm of the corporation is based upon the standards of the community in which it exists. The loose nature of the communities in the United States gives the corporations a great deal of leeway. After all, under the current rules of life, corporations basically have no social responsibility and exist only to make money for their executives and eventually their owners. The same corporations have a harder time operating with such liberty in the European Union and the Islamic countries. Where the wearing of the Burka is seen as a symbol of oppression in the West, it is seen as a symbol of protection and liberation by Islamic women. If the corporation services the needs of the local community, and by extension the security of the local female population, then it will enjoy a hero status. On the other hand, failure to respect the local needs will become an economic and political disaster.
The primary method of taking care of the local population is to make sure that someone in the family can earn an income which allows the family to retain or better its socioeconomic status within the prescribed underpinnings of the social contract.
There is little doubt that these assertions do not bode well with the feminist approach to describe the current social dynamic. However, feminists have a stated political objective of wanting to replace the male dominated social structure.[8] What they fail so often to do is engage their “sisters” in the real dialogue in the era. Most women appreciate their male counterparts even if they are sure that the female is more intelligent, better at adapting, more articulate, and better at surviving than their male counterparts. While they feel a union with the male is not obligatory, and somewhat unessential, women like to have men around; it is like having a pet. More often than not, women are reluctant to wield the significant power they hold in the civilized sector of society. They feel that doing so will violate their position as defined within the social contract. That violation will, in their minds, diminish their status in society. They bring a man in the picture, cultivate the bond, and then put him in the forefront, while whispering subtle instructions in his ear to achieve the woman’s goals. And sometimes the instructions are neither whispered nor subtle, but they are always communications of her needs which he is to acquire for her. The best place to observe this dynamic in action is in the more socially conservative religious institutions (including both Christianity and Islam). Men run the institution at the behest of their women as defined within the given culture’s rules of life. Even in the highly criticized fundamentalist Christian sub-culture, the commandment remains “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it…”.[9] What the feminists need to do is to address the issue from a reconstruction of the social contract and accept that men are part of the equation, too.
The male in society is equally complex and equally mysterious. His behavioral patterns, however, include criminal activity within his cognitive landscape of what is allowed in the competitive arena. This is the essence of James W. Messerschmidt’s 1993 work Masculinities and Crime: Critique and Reconceptualization of Theory, men “doing gender” or “being male.”[10] This is echoed in Bunger’s observation that criminal behavior is “widespread in the working class.” It is also inclusive of the idea that “honest business practices of value only so far as honesty does not interfere with market advantage.”[11] Men resort to criminal activity and taking of the tangible personal property of another with the intent to deprive him or her of it permanently [Wikipedia] – vandalism, assault, murder) because, President Bill Clinton put it “he can.”[12]
While it is of little value to emasculate men, within the framework of what men conceive as permissible responses to a given challenge does include crime. While equally as emotionally vulnerable as his female counterpart, he is more concerned about the long term physical ramifications of actions taken. Why? This is due less to the importance placed on society’s edicts, and on relationships, and due more to a focus on his ability to “win” in a given situation. This is true even when the solutions in the situation include criminal activity. He decision is based on risk assessment and his probability of “winning.” More than one criminologist has observed that criminals are a rather intelligent breed with a higher than average predilection towards optimism. When you take into account that any individual crime, taken as a single event, has a 97% success rate, this optimism is well founded.
It is only through repetitive criminal activity that the chances of success lessen. This is the essence of Stafford and Warr’s work on Specific Deterrence (learning to improve the skills necessary to achieve the criminal ends)[13] and Cohen and Felson’s work on Routine Activity (carefully observing the environment to find optimum opportunity to commit criminal activity)[14]. Both discussions boil down to risk assessment.
Since the man tends to be more aggressive, he knows that he can eliminate the risk posed by the corporation by taking direct action. There is little doubt in his mind that he, and/or others within his tribe or community, can inflict a punitive cost on the members of the corporation. His concerns are not can he, but should he, can he do so effectively, and can he survive the encounter to carry out further reprisals as needed until the situation is alleviated. In some cultures the latter is not a high concern; this is especially true where daily life has become so onerous that death is preferable, or where the individual is assured of a place in the afterlife if he falls in combat (i.e. Christian’s self-sacrifice for the love of God, the Vikings dying with sword in hand to gain entry to Valhalla, Islamism’s jihad, a Kamikaze’s death for the Emperor).
Suicide for a cause is nothing new. Moreover, if one considers it with care, suicide for a cause with the promise of a glorious afterlife is also well within the capitalist ideological framework: the individual makes a deal with the “ultimate authority” to give up his life for a better one in the spiritual realm. In Christianity this idea is contained in the parable in Matthew, Chapter 25. The servant is rewarded for his faithfulness:
His lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.[15]
And, too in the Gospel of John:
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.[16]
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.[17]
While the West has the idea that self-sacrifice in a holy cause is an Islamic ideal, it is contained well within the prevailing Christian expression. Even if we would rather not address it, suicide for a cause is what is addressed in the passages from the Gospel of John. This is also part of the cognitive landscape of the western male in society. If a person is not willing to make such a sacrifice, he is considered less than spiritual or, in the worse case, in rebellion against God. The distinction is made within Christian circles that one is to “give up his – gender specific – life for God” not “kill for God.” The concept, however, is neither exclusive to Christianity nor unique to Christianity.
To answer the question of “should he take direct action?” It really depends on how well he can apply what Gersham M Sykes and David Matz defined as Techniques of Neutralization in 1957. These techniques are Denial of Responsibility, Denial of Injury, Denial of Victim, Condemnation of the Condemners, and finally Appealing to Higher Loyalties.[18]
In Denial of Responsibility, the criminal shifts blame to outside forces. This is usually the environment itself or the environmental conditions (poverty being one of the causalities given).
In Denial of Injury, the person is oblivious to the injury he causes others. This is the main argument concerning drug abuse, prostitution, and vandalism. The idea that the purchase of illicit and contraband goods is funneling monies to violent criminal elements is beyond the scope of their recognition. The counter-argument becomes “if drugs were legal, then the money would not be going to criminals.” This is a detachment of the basic cause and effect of the drug trade; drugs are illegal and the money does go to criminals who are destabilizing societies.
In the case of prostitution where poverty is a contribution factor to the sale of sexual favors, the exploitation of women is denied. Men will argue that prostitution in its various forms is “a great way for woman to make money.”[19] Degrading women to the status of sex objects is disregarded.
In the case of vandalism the target is an inanimate object, and the connection between the object and its owner, and the cost of replacing the object is dismissed out of hand.
Not to leave the corporations out of this discussion, it is worth noting that Denial of Injury is the essence of the phrase, “Nothing personal, just business.” Tell that to someone who has been underemployed for a number of years.
In Denial of Victim, the criminal sees the injured party as less than human, or the injured party was corrupt and “had it coming.” This is the essence of unethical discriminatory practices of any sort. The idea of the person “having it coming” is codified in the comic-book hero The Punisher and the 1999 movie, The Boondock Saints. While both are entertaining, the message is clear, some people, due to corruption at the individual and sociological level, are untouchable through legal means, and as such need to be “punished” through extralegal means.
Timothy McVeigh definitely applied this neutralization technique to the innocent people (including six children) in and near the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995 on Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. So too did the hijackers on September 11, 2001.
Is it stretching the point too far to admit that governments or corporations in business engage in denial of victim when they justify their actions as political or economic necessity?
Condemnation of the Condemners is witnessed most often when a terrorist is brought to trial. Not only was this seen in McVeigh’s trial, but it also was a factor in Richard Colvin Reid’s trial.
Glaring at the flight crew, Reid tried to justify his actions as part of a broad war against the United States. "With regards to what you said about killing innocent people, I want to say one thing: Your government has killed two million children in Iraq," he said, referring to the US-backed sanctions there.[20]
The person feels that he is justified in his actions because the nature of the crime committed against him, or his community, is far more heinous than his retaliatory action.
Finally, as we often see when it comes to terrorist acts, there is the Appeal to Higher Loyalties. This is the God Card in the current discussion. The acts against the corporation were demanded by God’s call to justice. This is the justification which Eric Rudolph gave for his Olympic Park bombing on July 27, 1996, his abortion clinic bombing on January 16, 1997, the bombing of the Outside Lounge on February 21, 1997, and the Birmingham, Alabama abortion clinic in on January 29, 1998. Rudolph even found the use of John Lennon’s Imagine, the theme song of the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, reprehensible and an offense to God.
On March 10, 1993, Michael Griffin shot and killed Dr. David Gunn during an anti-abortion protest. On June 24, 1994, Dr. John Britton and James Barrett were shot and killed by Rev. Paul Jennings Hill. On December 30, 1994, John Salvi murdered Shannon Lowney and Lee Ann Nichols. On January 29, 1998, Robert Sanderson was murdered in one of the Rudolph bombings. On October 23, 1998, Dr. Barnett Slepian was shot dead at his home by James Kopp. John Silva, Paul Jennings Hill, and others are still considered heroes in the anti-abortion struggle according to Rev. Donald Spitz of ArmyOfGod.com. Moreover, when the smiling Rev. Paul Jennings Hill was being ledto his execution, by lethal injection, on September 3, 2003, he shouted to reporters, “I’ll be in paradise today.” It is interesting to note that Rev. Hill is considered a martyr by Neal Horsley of the Creator's Rights Party and Troy Newman of Operation Rescue. Many of these men were given a folk hero status among the general population via media coverage. It would seem that someone forgot to tell them that their God told them, “Thou shalt not kill.”[21]
As to effectiveness, the question really depends on the tools available and/or what can be acquired. As we saw in Oklahoma City, sophisticated weapons can be delivered in a variety of ways. The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, which contained the Federal Assault Weapons Ban, (in effect from September 13, 1994 and expired in September 13, 2004) did nothing to stop McVeigh or the terrorists on September 11, 2001.
When addressing the survivability of the encounter, deterrence is of little concern. Once all other factors are in place, the injured citizen who decided to take illegal action often is no longer concerned about his survival. The Middle East differs only slightly.
As noted, some factions of Islam consider it a holy act to die fighting the community’s enemies. This tactic, however, is extremely wasteful and a poor management of resources. No matter how noble they may see the act, they lose the bravest operatives when striking a soft target. It is ineffective as well. Not only do they lose a capable operative, but they only manage to enrage the general population without achieving any real end to the situation which instigated the action in the first place.
Violence, though arguably a natural response to aggressive stimuli, does not work. When people function at a “safety” level creativity is usually impeded.
There are ways around using violence as a primary response to corporate violations, and ways around using violence in protection of the corporate interest. Corporations are built on “the art of the deal” and their ability to “cut the deal.” As such, it is in the corporations’ best interest to “deal” honestly with the people who can make life impossible if they do not work as good corporate citizens.
While a woman will come to expect her mate to address the wrongs done (or do it herself, to his chagrin) the man does not expect his mate to engage in direct opposition. Where there is a disconnection in continuity towards addressing the wrong, he may simply find another mate who will be more supportive of his view. This has as much to do with the difference in how men and women address situations as the situation itself. Men fixate on the single issue until they can find a resolution to the problem. Women look at the larger complete matrix and address it from the aspect of the decay within the whole picture.
When sufficiently stressed, compensation for the differences in perspective becomes a less and less cordial process. Atop this, men focus on their large gifts to the family (paying bills, making sure the car runs, fixing the home as needed) and women focus on the little acts of kindness and consideration. Where he is no longer able to be the primary source of income, he feels he has failed her, and resents her for the way he feels about the situation. Feeling that he can no longer uphold her in her status, he may simply find a mating partner who he feels is more supportive of his lowered status, his opinion of the corporations, or his loss of status in society. While she does not hold him responsible for the actions of the corporation, his own anger at his loss in the competition becomes transferred to her. The dreams of prosperity which he had for her and his inability to achieve those goals taunt him as a failure, and he becomes angry with her as if her presence is a constant reminder of what he can no longer do for her. The family is stressed and may eventually dissolve into poverty for both parties and the children which they produced.
Human behavior gets somewhat fuzzy within the close relationship. However, looking at Maslow’s work for some clarity, and Gray’s work for some understanding of the differences between men and women: when safety does not exist all other social factors become moot.
Maslow’s study, as bears repeating, was a specific of the economic sub-culture we would now call middle class, and as such it remains an important indicator to what we can expect from this segment of society. Keep in mind that McVeigh, Reid, Hill, Kopp, Rudolph, Horsley, and Newman are all within the middle class. Some would consider the specific criminals within this context may be mixing apples and oranges. It isn’t. It specifically shows that middle class men can turn to violence when opposing corruption. In McVeigh’s case there were no overt religious overtones. With Reid, Hill, Kopp, and Rudolph, the religious overtones were overt but from different religious traditions. Horsley and Newman are listed as they keep the goal of righting the perceived wrong alive in the hopes that others will join their cause and commit violent acts against the opposition.
A man’s response is directly proportionate to his ability to find acceptance at his current cultural level. He will find his place on the team which best allows him to achieve his individual aims within the context of the community. He realizes that his cherished individuality is at stake outside the greater good of the community.
The mechanics of status loss within the middleclass interpersonal relationships can be summed up in the following manner: The husband loses his “good paying” corporate job through no fault of his own, “Nothing personal, it is just business,” he is told. He is further humiliated as his desk is cleared and he is escorted out of the building by the staff security officers. This represents a loss of status on two levels. The loss of income, and the humiliation in front of his peers as he is treated like a common trespasser by men who, in his opinion, barely managed to graduate from high school, are both very public indications of the loss of status. One is tangible. The other is psychological. He has gone from “hero to zero” in the corporation.
Eventually, as unemployment compensation runs out, he is forced to take a survival job. This solidifies him in a lowered status state. This in conjunction with loss of the home, hounding bill collectors, “friends” who will no longer return phone calls, drives him deeper and deeper into despair and fixation on the economic problem. Added to this, there is in today’s society a general harassment of anyone who is a “loser” in the corporate game. The man looks for help in society and is ignored. This is where he experiences the effect of the subtlest coercion of official indifference. At one time he could take care of himself, and his family; now he needs help, but he is seen as a pariah, and at best he is told to “suck it up.” Slowly he slips into economic deprivation and social isolation. It is indeed very personal. He is fixated on this issue and this issue alone.
If the wife blames her husband for becoming emotionally absent then the causality is shifted from the “system” to her mate. Society is filled with wonderful alternative causes to explain economic loss. Some of them are valid, some of them are not. Addiction is high on the list, yet our business culture still thrives on social lubrications. Beyond that there is a slough of personal biochemical causes to explain away economic disparity. One has bi-polar disorder. One has adult attention deficit disorder. One is socially challenged. There is an overabundance of possible individual aliments, and all of them have some little pill from the pharmaceutical labs for not being competitive in the global environment. When none of these apply, it is simply that the person is “not good enough.” Mind you, a few months, or years prior, he was “good enough.” So what changed?
In the broadest view, there is no individual fault. The reason for the loss of status and the economic resources is that one is a human being living in a culture which has fully embraced the capitalistic system; there are winners and there are losers, and that is the nature of the system. In the long view of this reality, today’s winners may become tomorrow’s losers. To which we can shout, “The King is dead, long live the King.” This is the lesson being learned by so many at Ford, GM, Radio Shack, MCI, Arthur Andersen, and Enron. That is the essence of capitalism, and an essential truth in life. All living things come to an end.
Within today’s social norms, the man who has lost status is hung with the label of being lazy, stupid, uneducated, ungodly, sinful, etc. This was once the socially unacceptable practice of victimizing the victim. In the current culture of hyper-capitalism and the conservative application of the Neutralization Techniques, it is perfectly acceptable to kick someone who is already down. This is acceptable because it further limits the competition for resources in the community. It has to be said that a major goal in the competitive market is not being competitive against others, but eliminating other competitors as often and as fast as possible. In essence, Roller Ball Murder by William Harrison, which inspired the 1975 movie Roller Ball, about the world under corporate domination in 2018, is coming to pass. Within that view, destroying the competition is not just the social norm, it is expected. Whatever is the social norm, it appears within the closest relationship even if we would prefer not to admit it. Many conversations revolve specifically on how to compete within the framework of the capitalist system even in the best of circumstances. Winning is everything, or so we are told.
The tension generated by loss in a society obsessed with the equation of winning is surviving eventually leads to the dissolution of the family in one form or another. According to Gray, we have a hard time communicating and understanding the gender based differences in the best of times. This gets more intensified in a time of loss and crisis. The destruction, or the crippling, of the family again shows the hypocrisy, if not dysfunction, of the current system. Politician’s pay lip service to the sanctity of the family, but do little in the way of policy and policing to make sure the family remains functional and solvent. Economic dislocation due to underemployment caused by management (or mismanagement) of the workforce is a primary contributor to many social ills attacking the family.
The social welfare programs still in place reward the family where no man is present, and punish the family where the man is present; the punishment is in the of fewer benefits. The political solutions to bolster the classical male/female family have met with heavy opposition from liberals and feminists. This again is due to the predisposition within the social contract to conclude that the man in the family is unnecessary, and that essentially the female-led family is by default married to the system. Every social program in the U.S. is one which mates the individual female to her place the corporation.
Capitalism, for better or worse, is amoral; it is neither good nor bad. What we do within that system is what gives it its moral flavor. Furthermore, capitalism is neither natural nor unnatural. It is a system which evolved over time. As noted, prior to the “Black Death” sweeping Europe the “natural” system was feudalism where the individual worker was tied to the land and under the “ownership” of whoever had the land grant. The human being was equally a part of the landscape as was a tree, hill, river, or glade. This was considered the natural order of things for thousands of years, and went on unquestioned. That is no different than the assumptions made concerning capitalism today. Capitalism is e an artificial construct which we have collectively decided works in the best interest for the majority of the people.
If the woman perceives that the system is at fault, and the cause of economic loss, then she will attempt, even reluctantly, to replace the lost income through her own efforts. This has created a situation which allows the corporations to read the social situation and further reduce wages to coupled individuals, and it has created a situation where coupled individuals now require dual incomes in order to maintain their socioeconomic class.
With the exception of the lowest class workers, dual incomes were unnecessary in previous generations to sustain both status and survival. Yet the criticism is often heard in social institutions as they continue to bolster the agenda of the corporations at the expense of their members, that the agenda no longer serves. This is exemplified in the late Rev. Falwell remarks concerning labor organization. Falwell stated, "Labor unions should study and read the Bible instead of asking for more money. When people get right with God, they are better workers."[22]
This utterly ignores land grants under the Torah, the Hebrew body of law and scripture. Those land grants guaranteed a family’s ability to sustain their own status outside dependence of a group. It also ignores the economic reality of today which contradicts Saint Paul’s assertion that working with one’s hands guarantees sustainable income.
Mr. Falwell’s remarks were made in support of the status quo which helped him sustain his church of 24,000 members, and facilities which were purchased for $20 Million dollars, until his death on May 15, 2007. Whatever else one can say about Rev. Falwell, he was a great capitalist; he understood how to make the system work for himself.
Today, the view of the church being a charitable organization to service the full range of needs to the individual over the needs of the church’s facilities and status is considered absurd. However, to paraphrase what Lenny Bruce pointed out late in his career, the opulence of the church is accepted because most people live in squalor. This is a more cutting variation of Marx’s observation that “Religion [was] the opiate of the people.”[23]
When Marx struggled against religion he was, in the Christian mind, struggling against Jesus Christ personally. This emotional argument especially effected women who had come to find “love” in the personage of Jesus Christ. Hence Marx, within the Christian context of what is good, and moral, is not a hero when he argues:
The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.[24]
In the woman’s mind, he is arguing the abolition of the Christ. Still if one separates religion as an extension of the corporation, and faith in Christ, one might find a way to again listen to Marx’s critique. This, of course, is the lesson which the corporations, who manipulate capitalism in their favor, do not want anyone to learn. Having said this, however, the Communist approach did not work in the Soviet Union. It has worked in Communist China with help from the West. And the rise of Communist China has been at the expense of the Western world.
If the woman fails to sustain or gain economic status, then her perception will change. She will see that there is a flaw in the distribution and control of economic resources. She will align with community based groups which will raise a social movement to restore her opportunity and status. She will engage in the righteous struggle for what she perceives is hers by right under the middle class social contract. She is not looking to become a celebrity, she is looking for what she was promised when she was playing with her dolls; she wants the proverbial house in the suburbs and the white picket fence – even though today’s picture may vary.
The idea that there is not enough economic sustenance to go around is lost at this point. She knows what she should be able to earn, and what she is earning, and is well aware of the differences. The corporations which can fulfill the contract will survive.
Right now, we are somewhere in the middle of this process. We are already seeing articles written telling people to lower their expectations. We are already seeing women authors coming out with highly detailed warnings about the dual income “trap.” The business community is responding to the cost of super-sized monthly mortgage payments by proposing 50 year mortgages. This sounds good in the short term but clouds the reality of lowered incomes against the higher cost of housing. The standard measure for income status was at one time that the cost of housing was one quarter of one’s monthly income. Today it can be fifty percent or more of one’s monthly income. While these mortgages look good on paper with an “affordable” monthly payment, it is only to secure the bank’s ownership of the property for a longer period of time. This of course allows the corporations to resell the property after the mortgagee’s loss of it.
Women in the United States are opting, with or without a mate, to take on the role of acquiring the primary economic resources. Thus far, in spite of the warnings, they have been relatively successful. Additionally, those who are on the upward climb hold the belief that through a little more effort they will be successful. They have lowered their expectations, they are willing to work within the framework of a 50 year mortgage, they will tolerate prejudice in the workplace, so long as they can keep within the rules of the current society. They are willing to take on short term losses for perceived long term gains. As long as she can chase the illusionary reward, the woman will not directly confront the mismanagement of the corporation. Moreover, she will not endorse anyone else directly confronting the corporations, either.
The concept that the corporation is responsible for providing sustainable income within a community has been successfully hushed. This has been accomplished primarily by the hue and cry of “individual responsibility.” This has been aided with neo-Calvinist rhetoric emitting from various religious institutions within the United States. The message is that faith and loyalty to Jesus, hard work, and thrift will deliver the socioeconomic status sought in conjunction with the expectations of the current era. The definition of status is constantly being driven home by the media telling us all what we need in life to be happy. Happiness, as defined by the corporate media, is the ultimate goal in life. What one has is never sufficient, one must consume more.
The mandate of individual responsibility, work, thrift, and consumption can carry a society only so far. It doesn’t take long for the opposing goals to be come apparent. Work is only available at the whim or need of the corporation. Thrift and consumption are polar opposites of the economic spectrum. Individual responsibility is only as valid as the visible responsible actions of those who control the corporation. The predatory activities of corporations are vast.[25]
The current situation will probably hold until the next presidential term recession cycle. At that time the liberated women will alter their perception of the current capitalistic system. They will concede that no amount of effort on their part, or their sidelined mates – if the men are still in the picture, will bring about the economic security needed to survive in the capitalistic system.
Capitalism is amoral. While it has a dark side, it also holds the promise of success. It will not be dumped. It will be altered. Even with a lowering of expectations, and an awakened sense of savvy concerning the aims of the corporations, what defines middle class individualism will be a migration towards some form of collective civilization within the framework of capitalism. Social change will be demanded.
Women political leaders are defined as socially acceptable within the construct of the middle class social contract. John Gray, Ph.D. in Men, Women and Relationships explains it thusly:
As her awareness expands out into the future, a woman is naturally concerned for what potentially could happen. She is motivated to prepare for the future. On the other hand, focused awareness makes men more concerned with efficiently achieving their goals. While the men are worried about getting to their destinations, the women are more concerned about what will happen when they get there.[26]
In preparing … however, the [women] tend to be late in arriving, or the may feel the journey is too risky and let their fears hold them back. It is much easier to be courageous when you are unaware of the possible consequences of an action.[27]
Men drool for the opportunity to use socially acceptable means, legal or not, to make the right things happen for themselves and their mates. Based on what is available on the web, in the bookstores, and in the underground press, men are ready for a change, they are just waiting on the go ahead from the women.
To define the typical U.S. approach, the words of General George S. Patton come to mind. "No bastard,” he said, “ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country."[28]
Adjusting the capitalist system to be humane and responsive to the citizens within it may not be equal to war, but the General’s principle is still applicable. The corporations will become responsive to the people, or they will cease to exist.
[1] Gray, J. (1993). Men, Women and Relationships: Making Peace with the Opposite Sex. New York: HarperCollins, p. 1.
[2] Kirschbaum, E. (2007, June 6). Police clash with protesters at G8. Reuters Limited.
[3] Callaway, D. (2006, November). Callaway’s Quotes. Retrieved June 18, 2008, from http://www.bettertransportation.org/docs/callaway_quotes.pdf
[4] George Orwell (1903–1950), British author. “Inside the Whale,” Inside the Whale and Other Essays (1940).
[5] Story aired on NPR in Dallas/Fort Worth
[6] Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a psychiatric disorder most commonly characterized by a subject's obsessive, distressing, intrusive thoughts and related compulsions (tasks or "rituals") which attempt to neutralize the obsessions. Thus it is an anxiety disorder. It is listed by the World Health Organization as one of the top ten most disabling illnesses in terms of lost income and diminished quality of life. (Obsessive-compulsive disorder. [2007, June 5]. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 19:40, June 6, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Obsessive-compulsive_disorder&oldid=136030440).
[7] Charles Edward Stowe, Harriet Beecher Stowe: The Story of Her Life (1911) p. 203
[8] Observation and experience over 30 years of adult life.
[9] Colossians 3:19
[10] Messerschmidt, J. W. (2003). Masculinities and Crime. In Criminological Theory: Past to Present (2nd ed.). Los Angeles: Roxbury Publishing Company. p. 430
[11] Cullen, F. T., & Agnew, R. (Eds.). (2003). Critical Criminology: Power, Peace, and Crime. In Criminological Theory: Past to Present (2nd ed., ). Los Angeles: Roxbury Publishing Company. p.336
[12] "because, as President Bill Clinton put it “he can.” " Again, it is some information I picked up in auditory form from some interview done on NPR.
[13] Stafford, M. C., & Warr, M. (2003). A Reconceptualization of General and Specific Deterrence. In Criminological Theory: Past to Present (2nd ed.). Los Angeles: Roxbury Publishing Company.
[14] Cohen, L. E., & Felson, M. (2003). Routine Activity Theory. In Criminological Theory: Past to Present (2nd ed.). Los Angeles: Roxbury Publishing Company.
[15] Matthew 25:23 AV
[16] John 3:16-17 AV
[17] John 15:13 AV
[18] Cullen, F. T., & Agnew, R. (Eds.). (2003). Criminological Theory: Past to Present (2nd ed.). Los Angeles: Roxbury Publishing Company, p. 135.
[19] Common argument for a “victimless crime.”
[20] Thanassis Cambanis, The Boston Globe, Sentenced to life, Reid denounces US, June 16, 2005
[21] Exodus 20:13 AV
[22] Ricca, J. (2002, August). The Right Wing Attack on the American Labor Movement. Retrieved June 18, 2008, from http://www.wisaflcio.org/political_action/rightwing.htm
[23] Opium of the People. (2008, May 18). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 16:41, June 18, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Opium_of_the_People&oldid=213301658
[24] Marx, K. (1844, February). Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right. Retrieved June 18, 2008, from http://www3.baylor.edu/~Scott_Moore/texts/Marx_Contr_Crit.html
[25] Mokhiber , Russell . Top 100 Corporate Criminals of the Decade. Ed. Russell Mokhiber . 22 Jan. 2008
[26] Gray, J. (1993). Men, Women and Relationships: Making Peace with the Opposite Sex. New York: HarperCollins, p. 84.
[27] Gray, J. (1993). Men, Women and Relationships: Making Peace with the Opposite Sex. New York: HarperCollins, p. 85.
[28] General George S. Patton Quotes (2008). Retrieved June 18, 2008, from http://www.military-quotes.com/Patton.htm
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