patrick.net

Zero make up

The Times’ Editorial Brigades are attempting a cultural counterattack, but its troops are disorganized, underfed, and rudderless. A telling example appeared in this week’s issue, under the exasperated headline, “Why the Right Is Obsessed With Thinness.”

The piece is a transcript of a podcast interview between two female Times op-ed editors, Meher Ahmad and Jessica Grose. It opens with a comically self-defeating premise: “Conservative Christian influencers are reshaping beauty standards and promoting diet culture — and their messages are resonating with women.”

Cue the alarm bells. These two editors were deeply concerned that women, in shocking numbers, appear to want to be less obese. This ancient, cross-cultural preference stunned them. They readily admitted the phenomenon predates capitalism, predates patriarchy, and spans cultures and civilizations—“the desire to be thin is ubiquitous, across time, across millennia and across the political spectrum.”

But they were still pretty sure it’s all the Right’s fault. ...

All of this political blame-shifting was unsurprising, if not redundant, predictable, and boring. But what did surprise us was a single, wistful, throwaway comment from Jessica that instantly reframed the whole conversation: “Sometimes I’m envious; I wish I believed in something that just told me how to live my life.”

And there it was: modern progressivism’s fatal flaw. After jettisoning every traditional value system in favor of total subjective flexibility, at last the left believes in nothing. Live your truth! (Whatever that means to you.) It has completely outsourced self-definition solely to the individual.

The problem with that flexible worldview is that most of us can’t even figure out how to get affordable insurance. It’s appallingly ridiculous to think we can dream up a unique sense of existential self-meaning and an internally consistent life philosophy that works— on the first try.

All progressives have left to offer is medication and a single commandment: do what thou wilt is the whole of the law.

And while that unbounded message is tempting whenever we want to do something we know we probably shouldn’t, it offers nothing for the bigger picture. Jessica described the traditional, conservative vision for a happy life: white picket fence, mom and dad, kids, church. Then she reluctantly admitted, “having a clear idea of that conservative vision is appealing. Because if the left feels like it doesn’t even know what that life vision looks like, it’s harder for people to grab on to.” ...

For the sake of argument, I will argue that we are watching those biological imperatives playing out in real time in the human species, whose population is under dire pressure. For young men, we see a reassertion of dominance: the rise of strong, hierarchical movements (rising church attendance, beards, prepping, rejection of wokeness, MAGA, redpill masculinity, tribalism). For young women, we see growing emphasis on mating strategies (fitness/health, Trad Wives, early marriage, anti-feminism, dresses over pantsuits, desire for kids and family).

In other words, the Left doomed itself by adopting a radical philosophy that is completely contrary to human biology. People can think themselves around biology, for a while, but eventually nature smacks them in the face with a two-by-four.

Men find fertility attractive. The most beautiful women are the most fertile-looking.