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Doris Lessing, changer — 19 Comments

  1. “We have many wonderful, clever, powerful women everywhere, but what is happening to men? Why did this have to be at the cost of men?”

    Not to be flip, but it’s because the whole damned project was to make women manly, and this sort of domination thing is what men do quite naturally. Not always, mind — not against their womenfolk when protecting their womenfolk say — but certainly when demanding recognition amidst other dominating men. This is, again, not the sole characteristic of manliness, but it’s an inescapable one. Wanna be a man? Then you’re going to get a lot of crappy effects along with the good effects.

  2. One of her finest books is entitled The Sweetest Dream, a brilliant literary evisceration of the delusions of the radicals of the 1960s and of the impossibility of making real the utopian dream of perfect egalitarianism. Unsurprisingly, it was dismissed in The Guardian (completely predictable in all its political and aesthetic pronouncements) as “reactionary.”

  3. IMO feminism has long ago ended up where all movements of the left inevitability lead: dogmatic, totalitarian, and far away from understanding human nature and a stupid belief in the arc of history. Leftists keep doing deja vu all over again as they create the new dystopia.

  4. Lessing reminds me of Camile Paglia.

    “IMO feminism has long ago ended up where all movements of the left inevitability lead: dogmatic, totalitarian, and far away from understanding human nature and a stupid belief in the arc of history.” parker

    All isms of the left end up there because all isms of the left reject basic aspects of human nature and key operative principles that govern the external reality within which we all exist.

    At base, they are at war with God and his creation.

    No ideology in fundamental opposition to reality is sustainable. They are dogmatic because they cannot withstand factual contradiction, thus the first sacrifice upon the left’s ideological altar is… factual truth.

    They end up totalitarian because an unsustainable ideology can only continue through coercion. The more evident the failure, the greater the coercion. See Venezuela, Cuba and N. Korea…

  5. The Good Terrorist is a very good novel, which when it came out was seen as the sign of her defection from the hardcore Left. It was met by puzzled or hostile reviews, but enough others who said, “Wow, this is really something” that I was moved to pick it up.

  6. “At base, they are at war with God and his creation.”

    I’ve not seen it phrased that way, but it says it all.

  7. Today, she would most likely be skewered. Raked over the coals. Drawn and quartered. (Alas this is what “we” have come to—I would prefer to blame social media for this sorry—make that disgusting—state of affairs…well, you have to blame somebody/something…don’t you?)

    FWIW I couldn’t make heads or tails of “The Four-Gated City” one of a quadrilogy, if I’m not mistake. (This probably means that I read it at the wrong time…)

    OTOH, “The Golden Notebook” I found astounding…the both times I read it.

    Towards the middle-end of her career, she veered off into science fiction (which I never read). Perhaps her political transfiguration—which I hadn’t known about and was quite surprised that it occurred, given her previously vehement views “from the other side”—had something to do with that…

  8. If you want to understand what happened with her and communism read Martha Quest, the first in the Children of Violence series.

  9. “At base, they are at war with God and his creation.” Spot on.

    Denial of God manifests as nihilism or Utopianism, but strangely they are the two sides of the same coin “Listen here God, I don’t need you!” You can hear the disillusionment with the world and it’s creator.

    And from popular culture:
    Tyler Durden: Shut up! Our fathers were our models for God. If our fathers bailed, what does that tell you about God?
    Narrator: No, no, I… don’t…
    Tyler Durden: Listen to me! You have to consider the possibility that God does not like you. He never wanted you. In all probability, he hates you. This is not the worst thing that can happen.
    Narrator: It isn’t?

  10. sdferr on February 1, 2020 at 4:36 pm said:

    Not to be flip, but it’s because the whole damned project was to make women manly, and this sort of domination thing is what men do quite naturally.
    Not entirely. But the movement has always been not about equality, but about power.

  11. “An unsustainable ideology can only continue through coercion.” That is a keeper. Thank you Geoffrey. Wide wisdom captured in a tiny cage of words.

  12. And now it feeds terrorism [I don’t think shes talking about Islamic terrorism here]. IRA, ETA, Brigate Rosse, Red Army

  13. ‘I was taken around and shown things as a “useful idiot” […] that’s what my role was […] I can’t understand why I was so gullible.’

    A brief anecdote by Lessing about her 1952 trip to the USSR. BBC “Useful Idiots” at about 2:30. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p008vd41

    This and other related quotes, including a few about political correctness, at her wikiquote page.

  14. Religious/moral philosophy for people capable of self-moderation. Competing interests to mitigate progress of others running amuck.

    Capitalism, or, more correctly, private capital and market economies, is a dynamic, optimal system and organization to determine price and distribution of finitely available, accessible resources.

    Liberalism is divergent. Libertarianism is emergent. Progressivism is monotonic. Conservativism is moderating. #PrinciplesMatter

    Men and women are equal in rights and complementary in Nature and nature. We’re not children anymore. Reconcile.

    Individual dignity. Intrinsic value. Inordinate worth. Natural imperatives.

  15. Right now i am waiting to be homeless as my existence ruins diversity and as we all know, people like me are born women hating nazis… too bad i married my wife, and she has to suffer for being with me…

    Incidence of male–female suicide ratio by WHO region
    Europe (13%) 4.0 : 1
    Americas (13.5%) 3.6 : 1

    American Foundation for Suicide Prevention
    https://afsp.org/about-suicide/suicide-statistics/
    White males accounted for 69.67% of suicide deaths in 2017.
    The rate of suicide is highest in middle-age white men in particular.
    On average, there are 129 suicides per day.

    Do remember my Ex took my son and two other children with her to rob a bank
    I never got to see him grow up, as a man i had no rights, even after that
    Only got to play catch with him once..
    Never taught him anything

    My wife and i now have no children, we could not afford it given the economic hit in my past from the system favoring a person who faked their murder, and ended up in federal prison… I on the other hand have a clean record, lifetime of hard work, etc..

    personally, i cant wait till its over as there is nothing left to wait for but more pain
    and its hard to watch my wife suffer because of it, despite her being from indonesia

    A wonderful woman that deserved better, but we didn’t believe what most don’t

    [I wanted to be a researcher scientist, but alas, no money for white males (despite what people think)… out of Bronx science, there was nothing, as the cash went to make the numbers unequal (they were equal when i was born according to the governments tables)… sister has many degrees, children, and a great home… i on the other hand, have no real family, my family believes that everything went to men, so i must be a screw up, and so, i have no family]

    In the UK
    In 2018, 4,903 men took their own lives, 12pc more than in 2017 and an average of 13 per day. In comparison, 1,604 women died by suicide in the same time frame: about four per day.

    Men are 14pc more likely to get cancer than women and they’re 37pc more likely to die from the disease.

    https://www.cancer.org/research/currently-funded-cancer-research/grants-by-cancer-type.html
    Breast Cancer – $93,777,500 – 162 Grants
    The largest of them, Dallas-based Susan G. Komen for the Cure, grossed $420 million last year alone. All told, an estimated $6 billion is raised every year in the name of breast cancer.

    Prostate Cancer – 35,599,002 – 48 Grants
    Among the big cancers, breast cancer receives the most funding per new case, $2,596 — and by far the most money relative to each death, $13,452. Notably, prostate cancer, the most common cancer, receives the least funding per new case at just $1,318. But on a per-death basis it ranks second

    Why Men Are the New College Minority
    Males are enrolling in higher education at alarmingly low rates, and some colleges are working hard to reverse the trend.
    https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/08/why-men-are-the-new-college-minority/536103/

    The Disappearing College Male
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/ccap/2015/05/04/the-disappearing-college-male/

    Men saying “no thanks” to college
    The proportion of men on college campuses is dropping
    https://www.denverpost.com/2017/06/04/men-women-college-proportion/

    Girls Have Always Been Better at School. Now It Matters More.
    The higher-education gender gap has become a major factor in American political and economic life, and it yawns even wider in other rich countries.
    https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-03-06/young-women-widen-the-higher-education-gap

    70 percent
    The homeless population is largely male. Among individual adults, 70 percent are men.

  16. Tons more..
    but when you have to agree with a professor and others about a political truth to earn a degree, and more… why bother… not like america needs men any more… not like we are ever going to have a conflict… or need to risk inventing… do note that a lot of the numbers on benefits are juggled, its not only what they compute, its how they compute it, and they throw out a lot of data if its ‘inconvenient’.

    I’ve been beating this drum for decades… its not bad enough to warrant much discussion over that period… look how bad the schools had to get before Neo did a thread on it, but still, the people who warned early are unheard for either their divulging things, or for how they changed

    I’ve given up now…
    there is no chance for anything..
    all the funding for those without connections go to the protected classes
    (another drum i mentioned only to be called names)

    the SBA wont help… its only for women – 8A program eats all funds – and gives very asymmetric help, which means if your not one of them, your not able to get any help
    This was explained to me by a banker… They are clever about the language they use, and so, good people do not really know what goes on there. Certainly Neo didnt when i tried to explain it over 10 years ago.

    The 8(a) Mentor-Protégé program is designed to encourage mentor businesses to provide development assistance to protégé businesses.
    A protégé can get valuable assistance from a mentor in several areas, including:
    Technical and/or management assistance
    Financing in the form of equity investments and/or loans
    Trade education
    Government contracting

    Businesses that have an SBA-approved mentor-protégé agreement can form a joint venture, and compete together for contracts that have been set aside for small businesses

    The 7(j) program provides assistance such as training, executive education, and one-on-one consulting in a wide range of business activities, including marketing, accounting, opportunity development and capture, contract management, compliance, and financial analysis. [you have to be an 8A to get 7J]

    Lots more stuff if you dig… like free or discounted office equipment, abatements, a separate database for contract bidding… etc.

    None of the above is available if your not a protected class designated as disadvantaged

    Why would anyone risk any others? this is why women businesses are growing, not because they are out-competing, but because they have super advantages that keep on coming…

    As i said, i have given up now…
    there is no way to compete and the men know it
    they know their tax dollars go to fund their negative outcome

  17. re: terrorism

    There were thousands of Lefty terrorist bombings in the US in the early part of the 70s. The Red Guards and other lefty groups continued that type of terrorism in Europe for decades.

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