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Susanne C.'s avatar

Excellent piece, and I passionately hope you are correct about the end of this insanity. There is no question that the current propaganda driven state most closely resembles late stage Soviet Russia in its denial of reality. I would defend your use of the word “traditional” especially in terms of the family and gender roles because while they have evolved similarly in all cultures for practical reasons they are also traditional to those cultures and the word evolved has different connotations to many people.

The essay is full of excellent points but the word “transmaggeddon” is priceless.

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Rikard's avatar

I would argue that the word "traditional" in this text (and others like it) should be avoided, for a number of reasons.

Firstly, because of how it's been tinged in the public consciousness as "bad" when it comes to everything outside of non-white peoples' cultures, cuisine, and such.

Secondly, and more importantly, because autonomous, natural, spontaneous and evolved all are more correct when it comes to family structure, systems of ethics and laws, notions of justice and fairness as such, and so on with the anthropological descriptors.

Why men were forced to become soldiers in the armies of nobles and kings will depend on where and when we look. The vikings weren't press-ganged nor were they serfs serving a feudal lord as a way of paying taxes, something many of their opponents were during the establishment of the Danelaw (and the again, many Englishmen were not beholden but were instead yeomen): this simple and in scope limited example serves to show how difficult it immediately becomes to claim "men this" or "women that". Or 1960s Tunisia could be compared to present-day Iran. Or 17th century rural Sweden with 17th century Swedish cities.

Basically, what one can claim is that when left to solve their own problems in their own ways, most if not all peoples no matter race or culture or whatever, will develop good methods - especially if failure means starving, freezing, or dehydrating due to implementing moronic ideas dreamed up by a priesthood (any priesthood).

Hence, evolved and autonomous and natural and spontaneous: not traditional. Tradition simply means doing something a certain way because that's the way it's always been done, good or bad, inefficient or "bene-efficient".

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