Caring Vs. Rationality

Humans are funny. They take it as a given that caring about other people - or, at least, pretending to care about them - is hugely important in a leadership role.

Why?

A lot of that goes back to tribal considerations. In small societies (tribes), where the bonds that hold people together are largely kinship ones, it is important to openly speak and demonstrate through actions that you care about your kin's well-being.

Women do this well, for the most part. Only when they see an edge to be gained in status position, will women engage in the openly hostile 'mean girl' activities. Generally, those actions will take place in a wholly female environment. When men are around, those same women will display completely fake, psuedo-loving demeanor towards their victims.

The victim, naturally, takes this personally. That person often spends large amounts of time trying to analyze the situation, dissecting the interactions, and attempting to find a REASON for that hostility, and the 'fake-nice' in public vs. the maliciously hateful in private.

There is no personal reason. That bully has just determined that the victim can be destroyed, and that it would be to the bully's advantage to do so.

For that reason, the vics are often seemingly no different than the perps. They are in the same range of looks, intelligence, and personal charm. In short, a competitor, not an ally, and, therefore, needing to be taken down to solidify the perp's position.

This is the way that humans have functioned from the earliest days on this planet. And, despite the growth of what has been called civilization (the clumping of often unrelated people within a geographically limited space, a process that only commenced after agriculture was firmly established), that's the primarily the way it continued to function.

Even in the era of consolidated kingdoms, and the early days of empires, affiliation by kinship, including the extended kinship of connections by marriage, was the primary method for organizing the rule of the many by the few.

The Greeks were one of the first to try a different method. They established rule by citizens - all the property-owning men within the confines of the city-state. All had equal say in the government, all had equal responsibilities for defense, contribution to the public treasury, and administration of the city-state, either personally, or through their delegated representatives.

In effect, they extended the concept of 'related' to include those men living in close proximity, who had a property stake in the outcome of the city's well-being. The tight bonds of DNA-related kin were loosed, and citizens were expected to put the good of the larger group ahead of the smaller kinship group.

Naturally, given human nature, it was a not-always-successful experiment. Despite the ideal that rational decision-making should overrule the desire to see one's own family prosper, well, genetic connection is a powerful force.

The Romans extended that experiment to include a larger territory, and, eventually, an empire. Again, they experienced mixed success in defeating the natural desire of men to benefit their closest relations - particularly when it came to the elite (not too different from today).

That ideal waxed and waned over centuries. It was ascendant during the so-called Enlightenment years, and that's when the ideal crossed the Atlantic, and found a home in America.

America was made for the Greek-Roman method of ordering society. As only a small part of any family from the European continent even made the ocean voyage, and the frontier was luring them to travel even further, Americans tended to substitute a sort of "kinship of small towns" for the closeness of an extended family. Places in the Eastern seaboard still wanted to know "who is your family?", but those living along places west of there were more likely to have a more sturdy identification with their fellow citizens of the town, and, more distantly, the state or region.

Only the Mountain dwellers - those who lived in a more isolated environment - still retained the strong kinship groupings, the clans with their suspicion of outsiders.

How does this affect public life?

It meant that men, for the most part, interacted with other men who had no family connection to them. They were forced by circumstances to appeal to more impartial law and rational argument to sway others to go along with their desires. It meant that - ideally - they worked to set the law, and not personal connections, as the main means of interaction in the public sphere.

So, what about women?

Their affiliations, and connections, were based on emotional ties:

• Family was first. No matter whether or not they liked you, or agreed with you, a woman would preferentially defend those who were kin.
• Neighbors were next - these were people you knew, and often had some emotional connection with. Your children played with them; later, they might marry and form connected families.
• Church connections - most women were fervent believers. They were the backbone of their church, and whose work depended on managing the interpersonal relationships with well-established norms of behavior. How other women felt about you would determine whether your cause was backed, or rejected.
• School connections - women in America are, and have been for some time, MORE likely to have completed a higher educational level than their husbands. Women often make friends in schools (public or private, secondary or college) that last the duration of their lives. Such friends often serve as quasi-sisters (in colleges, sorority members refer to each other as sisters).

Well, those women, after a LOT of nagging, got the vote. They first used it to elect Harding; later choices were no less disastrous. Candidates promising to replace a perceived not-adequate husband-protector were generally the favored choice. Little by little, women replaced impartial rule of law with promises to 'take care' of people. More laws, more restrictions on freedom, and more heavy-handed promises of perfect safety.

In today's world, the tightest connections for Elite women are among the Wine-Moms, who band together against an often faithless world of men. These are emotionally entangled groups, who are no less likely to take on quixotic quests against The Patriarchy. Or Ex-boyfriends or Ex-husbands. They have the same reckless disregard for loss of life or reputation that those who ordered The Charge of the Light Brigade had. When women take on other quests, they bring the same sensibility to those efforts. Anything goes, winner-take-all, and use the club of "Caring" to beat your opponents.

Fairness, rationality, and rule of law are unimportant to such women. Their only concern might be - will I get caught? Upholding 'The Sisterhood's Goal' is paramount, no matter what the risk.

Their philosophy has oozed into other facets of life - at work, in politics, and, most damagingly, in the development of their children's moral values. In the absence of men in the home, Mom's ethos rules. That ethos is personal, petty, and highly partisan.

And, there you see the distorted underpinnings of the emotionally-driven approach to public life. It's time to dismantle the Deep State, sharply reduce the size of government - at ALL levels, and to Starve the State.