The modern push for equality has implied that there is one standard of what it means to be a virtuous individual. This ideal specimen has no sex or gender. Anyone or anything should be capable of embodying the traits of the modern ideal individual.
What is this ideal specimen really? Some kind of amalgamation of masculine and feminine traits. And really, it's not about what is extolled, but what is discarded. What is deemed toxic, harmful, and destructive. The chief traits I see shamed are physical force/violence and nurturing.
With only one standard and two sexes it is obvious that one sex will be a better natural fit to the ideal. Women are better equipped to meet this ideal because they achieve the ideal through action. Women actively sacrifice their nurturing capability to better fit the mood of the independent modern individual. Men passively sacrifice violence in the same way. Or rather, they are not given the choice.
Choice is empowerment. If you have a personal stake in the decisions you make you feel a larger ownership of the success and failure of a decision. Violence is a non option. There is empowerment in controlling a violent response true. But only if the one withholding is actually capable of violence. Otherwise it means nothing. Not an exceptional act of strength, but a routine passivity. An act of cowardice or habitual close to involuntary suppression.
Modern attitudes towards violence have completely bankrupted the meaning and true virtue in violence. Strength decoupled from physical force is insufficient. The world is not truly ruled by ideas alone; there is a base animal element modern idealists try to ignore. To dispense with an entire mode of being is disastrous.
The problem with empathy holding a higher virtuous position than violence is that empathy is a short term solution. Choosing the empathetic response every time creates an environment violence is never permissible. Without violence the safe space created by empathy breeds weakness. Like a child raised in a bubble for fear of terms who has a weak immune system. That child is now extremely limited in their effectiveness because germs are everywhere. Similarly weak empathetic children are limited in their virtue because they can only embody virtuous modes of being given an ideal environment. I'm sure that within a "safespace" the kiddos are very loving and friendly. Then they leave the safe space and turn into screaming hellions when confronted by a natural environment.
The solution? Stop shaming male violence and female nurturing. These are deep desires operating below the foundation of the Monolith Reason. There will always be earthquakes. The severity of the damage can be mitigated through attention not ignorance.
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