This post may just turn into a discussion with myself...
One thing that always strikes me, is that just about every state has some kind of relationship with religion, though that relationship varies greatly. In some states, they use religion as a means of control (say, the religious theocracies of the middle-east), in other cases, the state tries to become the religion (the West)... trying to block out religious institutions as much as possible, and to take over their roles in controlling family and community issues.
The thing that is on my mind is... why the divide? Is it simply that people in the ME are more religious, so it's a more effective means of control? I mean, that can't have always been the case... but religious influence in the West has greatly diminished in recent decades... perhaps because of the intervention of the state.
Why has the West taken this route? More control being the religion, than relying on religion? If that's the case... why haven't the (primarily) Muslim states also taken this route? They just weren't as successful? Or was the Muslim religion more sufficient for control than the Christain ones? Do Christain theocracies still exist? Maybe in Africa, I guess.
Any thoughts on this?
I differentiate between indigenous/folk religion and imperialistic/proselytic religion. The former are generally tied to geographic locations and/or ethnic groups. The latter may have a base of operations but extend their influence into any territory and any ethnic group they can penetrate.
The "power" of religion lies in its folk origins. Religion is just a part of culture, nothing more or less. In different cultures it serves more or less roles but there is a small set of roles that religion plays in every culture: instruction by the elders and regulation of family functions (coming-of-age, courting/marriage, etc.) The imperialistic religions are invariably in a symbiotic relationship with the "secular powers" - that is, the taxing authorities - and assist them in hijacking and disrupting the social roles of religion in providing instruction by elders and regulation of family functions. This assists the State in weakening the subject populace and making them easier to rule; divide et impera.
This formula is the same in the West, the East and the ME. The distinctions often made in terms of the relative overt influence of religion and the State are merely cosmetic. In every region where the influence of imperialistic religion is felt and folk religion has been suppressed and the religious community subjugated, the power of the State is enlarged.
This is why it is my view that step 1 in overthrowing the State is religious originalism. We need to rebuild our families and our religious communities from the ashes. These communities were the "ideological castle walls" that defended us from the expropriatory parasitism of the imperial religion-State complex. By allowing them to be taken down whether by "secularism" or by "ecumenism", we allowed the monoculture to sanitize our communities of their unique identities, their unique aptitudes and geniuses. Instead, we became just another fiefdom, just another numbered entry in the ledger of tribute-payers to the imperial religionists/Statists. The pyramid grew another step taller.
As for why Christianity and Islam look different in these particular ways, I think it goes back to a basic difference in the imperial strategy utilized by each. Islam in the modern era is using the strategy of female oppression and the West in the modern era is using the strategy of male oppression. By copiously favoring one particular sex at the expense of the other, the State builds a rock-solid 50% base of support for itself which can be extended at the margins (certain women, in the ME - or certain men, in the West) to ensure it has a solid majority of support in the populace.
You can also think about how this creates a highly predictable demand for migration from one region to another as women seek to move to male-oppressed regions and men seek to move to female-oppressed regions. Ask yourself who controls the flow of individuals from one region to another.
Clayton -
Wait, how are men more opressed under Christianity than under Islam?
No polygyny, doh.
Seriously, I'm curious myself.
Men are oppressed under modern Christian culture. Ever heard of feminism? I will grant that a single male who has never been entangled in a relationship can pretty much be a free variable and not be particularly oppressed. But the moment you entangle yourself in a relationship with a woman, you are subject to a mind-bending set of rules that you've never even heard of, unless you are a domestic relations lawyer. And if you should be foolish enough to actually produce children with a woman, then they've got you by the balls and you will conform to the cultural expectations of the standard, emasculated suburbanite male (the female fantasy of the ideal man) or you will be emotionally, financially and legally destroyed in ways you cannot even begin to imagine.
Note that women weren't particularly oppressed under Islam in its golden age, either. In fact, by comparison to Christian women who were liable in many parts of Europe to superstitious and unsubstantiated accusations of "witchery", and other garbage, women in Islam were treated very well.
Religion plays a critical role in culture, and therefore it is important for the state to snake their way into it to win the support of the people in that particular religion. A brilliant example of how government can corrupt even the most peace-promoting religion is portrayed in the book "Zen at War."
EDIT
As far as Islam goes, well I think that for the most part all of those laws were implemented in the Middle East because of Western interference. Just look at Iran. Tehran used to be known as the place where you could find a skirt shorter than in Paris. But it was Western intervention that allowed the promotion of ultra-reactionary fundamentals to take place.
@Clayton
Is modern feminism really the byproduct of modern Christianity though?
Have you been to a church?
The less varied a religion is the more power it can have. All the pre-Christian Roman interaction did not change the Northern Europeans worldview or customs much greatly, might switch out a god here and there, the functions remained the same, the tribes were very independent from one another as far as legislation goes. Once Christianity made it's way up north everything changed, especially when the lawmakers took on the new religion, it then became the state religion and the native religion was to be dismissed or integrated into the new one.
I also do believe that there would have been different relations between Europeans and Native Americans if the Europeans retained their native religion instead of Christianity.
@ Clayton
I have. And let me tell you - I think the only reason they make us all stand up when they say "let us pray" is to keep everyone from falling asleep.
I recall reading an article a while back discussing the "alliance" between secular and religious feminists, each taking a different route to the same goal. Can't find it now (sorry!). I think that the most feministic Christian churches are the Pentecostals (pre-millenialists, generally) and some of the more liberal denominations of the mainline Protestant churches (Anglican, Lutheran, etc.) The Catholic Church itself is surprisingly anti-feminist but only "deeply Catholic" families are immune to the effects of feminism in the wider culture. IOW, attending Easter mass won't turn your butch wife into a believer in patriarchy.
The Progressive movement itself originated in the Christian churches with the "temperance movement" and it was a powerfully emasculating influence. Wives were empowered by God to "teach" their husbands sobriety by refusing to give them physical affection ("Lips that touch this [bottle] won't touch ours") and by publicly denouncing them as drunkards, and so on. The logic of religious feminism spread from here into all areas of life. This is when the narrative of men as less faithful than women and more fundamentally promiscuous than women came into the fore. Traditionally, it was women who were regarded as the sneaks in a marriage relationship, requiring careful watch to prevent infidelity. Modern Christianity was crucial in turning this on its head.
That sounds a lot like Bree from Desperate Housewives. Using a frosty mask to keep men under her thumb.
Freedom of markets is positively correlated with the degree of evolution in any society...
god forbid wives only have consentual sex, those evil progressives getting in womens heads telling them they don't have to be raped by drunk husbands
Well put cab21. If it weren't for you, someone might have gotten the idea that the NAP permitted drunk husbands to rape their wives.
clayton seemed to say nap was emasculating
Where the hell did you read that in his comments?
I'm a Catholic. I was unaware the Protestants had it so bad. You sure you don't all want to rejoin the Catholic church?
I can see the point about athiesm and more liberal protestantism being coorelated with the rise of modern (versus traditional) feminism. It really seems as if the entire family unit has been under attack in the past few decades. It is becoming the norm to come from a single parent household or, if you are lucky, from a mixed family. It doesn't seem as if this is the best method of bringing up children.
The Progressive movement itself originated in the Christian churches with the "temperance movement" and it was a powerfully emasculating influence. Wives were empowered by God to "teach" their husbands sobriety by refusing to give them physical affection ("Lips that touch this [bottle] won't touch ours") and by publicly denouncing them as drunkards, and so on.
he says it was emasculating
he said wives were empowered to refuse their husbands physical affection when the wives did not want physical touch from the husband.
Married or not its still rape if sexual activity is involuntary.
“Since people are concerned that ‘X’ will not be provided, ‘X’ will naturally be provided by those who are concerned by its absence.""The sweetest of minds can harbor the harshest of men.”
http://voluntaryistreader.wordpress.org
OMG, are you people retarded? READ what I wrote. They were taught that they were empowered by God to withhold affection in retaliation for consuming alcohol in order to teach him sobriety. Now, if a woman doesn't want to have sex with her husband for whatever reason, of course that's her decision. (Why am I having to explain this???) But if a woman is being taught by what she believes is God's spokesman (the Pastor) that she ought to do so in order to "teach" her husband sobriety, that's an entirely separate matter altogether. Is she her husband's mother? Is it her job to punish him for disobeying God? And since when did God give the Pastor the authority to invade the homes of his congregation through encouraging people within the home to emotionally manipulate one another??
Anyway, I'm sure you guys won't understand a word of that last paragraph if what I wrote earlier so completely escaped your comprehension as to think I was approving marital rape. Good god.
Don't get too upset by cab21. He's just trolling you. No one is that stupid.
well god does not exist so god does not tell anyone anything.
both church as state encourage emotional manipulation. how different is church marraige than state marraige. the state has lots of laws because pasters tell their congregations that god wants that law, or god wants that custom in the church.
this gary north guy that posts articles here, he has all sorts of stuff about gods heiarchy of man over women over child and all sorts of prescriptions for family life. his stuff seems to call for a big church state.
so these preachers said to do this for god, but not for the women? how does that empower women if it is not even done for the sake of the women? i figured the preachers were trying to get women to protect themselves and their children, rather than something just for the sake of god.
how does that empower women
Did I say it empowered women? I stated that it oppresses males. This resource may be helpful for you.
"Wives were empowered"
you said that
is your conclusion that withholding sex from drunks oppreses males.
Wives were empowered by God to "teach" their husbands sobriety by refusing to give them physical affection ("Lips that touch this [bottle] won't touch ours") and by publicly denouncing them as drunkards, and so on.
God is dead, and we have killed him.
@ Samuel Smith
This topic is of great interest to me athough my thoughts on it aren't really developed.
Those that rule understand the power of the myth. This is well exemplified in the inability of many people to realize the criminality of taxation. Fear itself is not sufficient to have rulership over a people, otherwise they will eventually conspire against you or try to secede. Rulership requires among the ruled a mixture of fear and love, often referred to as awe in the bible.
The West was able to ride the wave of a rising tide of anti-religious intellectualism, replacing the Abrahamic God with the Fabian one, which, after all, is said to be no less giving, protecting, loving, but also strict, fair and just. In rejecting one falsehood adamantly, it gained a new group of followers, pleased to see the enemy of their own cultural considerations toppled. It's purely for considerations of cultural trends: rejecting the Old God gains the New God, replete with the labels of reason, logic and other badges of Academia which were destined to win out.
This is actually something that bothers me about AnCap: there is no vessel for the God which people crave so much whether it be in omnipotent beings, or groups of quasi-potent beings. There is in it a vacuum; the god-hole is left wide open, and to be filled with what? The material pleasures of a wealthy society?
The destruction of man need not come from violence, he can degenerate into decadence, stupidity and baseness. It has often been the work of powerful or genius individuals to counter these degradations, state-wise or not.
The rituals, focus and ethics of religion are an important fabric to society but the individual contents of each are not necessarily. I see in the future, a combination of libertarianism with nationalism, for better or for worse.
I really enjoy your thoughts on secular religion. On the other hand, all judgments aside, don't you see 'the Nation' as a much more powerful center for that kind of effort? After all, it 'exists' and need not be made up like a secular religion, whose contents would almost certainly be appreciated much more by intellectuals than by 'the people'. The Nation is 'right there' in front of them and has a historical backing for them to refer to? What are your thoughts on the relation/conflict between these different Mythoses: God, State, Nation, and your Secular Religion?
The Anarch is to the Anarchist what the Monarch is to the Monarchist. -Ernst Jünger
"Wives were empowered" you said that
Yes, I meant that the Pastors - as spokesmen of God - "gave permission" to the women in their congregations to "teach" their husbands sobriety through emotional manipulation... "if you drink, don't try getting physical tonight". As I said, if a woman isn't in the mood for whatever reason, that's her prerogative. But the whole gist of such initiatives in the temperance campaign is that a wife who might otherwise be game should withhold sex to "teach" her husband to stop drinking. This is, of course, offensive, condescending and ultimately destructive of the family unit.
Yes, that is my conclusion and it clearly follows from what I said above. (insert rolling-eyes emoticon here) Dude, please visit the link for free English reading classes online, you need serious help.
church teaches that neither husband or wife get drunk. each church does have it's moral teachings.
social interaction itself is emotional manipulation.
getting drunk is offensive, condescending and ultimately destructive of the family unit.
churches have condemed many consentual activities.
i don't think drunk sex helps out the family unit.
Jargon:@ Clayton I really enjoy your thoughts on secular religion. On the other hand, all judgments aside, don't you see 'the Nation' as a much more powerful center for that kind of effort? After all, it 'exists' and need not be made up like a secular religion, whose contents would almost certainly be appreciated much more by intellectuals than by 'the people'. The Nation is 'right there' in front of them and has a historical backing for them to refer to? What are your thoughts on the relation/conflict between these different Mythoses: God, State, Nation, and your Secular Religion?
No, because the nation is inherently expropriatory and coercive, which pollutes any possibility of moral legitimacy. This is what is wrong with the Vatican. They make a pretense of being a wholly voluntary organization but they really are not, they are entangled with mafia and political corruption and intrigue over the entire globe and whatever moral legitimacy they might otherwise be able to command is thus completely null and void.
There are only two kinds of leaders - natural leaders and rulers (coerced, imposed leaders). A natural leader is someone that people gravitate to of their own, free will. Think of any celebrity, talk show host, advice author, etc. These are natural leaders. Their revenues are evidence that people believe what they have to say is valuable (worth paying for). Before the State inserted itself into the religion business, moral leaders were men who taught things that people thought were worth listening to. Maybe they might bring gifts or donations or whatever. The moral leader commanded respect on the basis not only of the quality of his teachings but on the basis of his exemplary character.
Today, we have hordes of fake moral leaders, coerced leaders in the guise of voluntary, moral leaders. Think of all the big preacher scandals, the priest child abuse, and so on. This corruption is a symptom of the fact that the market in moral instruction is highly cartelized... the Catholic church is still around despite the child abuse revelations, something that would not be possible in a world where competition for "followers" was wide open. Such a revelation would instantly annihilate any organization that traffics in moral instruction in a world where anyone could enter the market. The State's subsidies of religious organizations thins the market.
The State is a mortal enemy of natural moral leadership because even the most elementary moral instruction leads instantaneously to the conclusion that the State is wholly immoral. Without the cooperation of the priestly class, taxation is doomed to be an amoral business... you don't refuse to pay taxes for the same reason you don't walk in a dark alley at night... it's dangerous to your well-being. But there is no moral or patriotic dimension to it whatsoever. Only with the assent of the priestly class can the State succeeded in duping the masses into believing such a ridiculous idea as that the State has a moral prerogative to collect taxes. This illustrates the animosity between the church and the State as well as why they share power.
In the modern era, however, I believe that the Church (yes, I primarily mean the Vatican) is playing a gambit against the State. Basically, the modern Statist order rests on this insane idea of "fiat legitimacy"... the State is legitimate because, well, it just is. In the old days, the King could point to the Church and say "ask them why my power is legitimate" and it was up to the Church to give the run-around in terms of theological justifications for temporal authority, and so on. In other words, the Church is a specialist in moral authority and its primary mechanism for claiming moral legitimacy was its "character", that is, its pretense of righteousness. The Church does not deal in the dirty affairs of the secular powers. It does not sully itself with wars and territory and wealth and power. Nevertheless, it acknowledges that God has chosen to administer the affairs of men through the auspices of government, that is, Kings and nobles. This acknowledgement is pure gold because - while people may not believe in the moral purity of the King - people generally do believe in the moral purity of the Church on the basis of its non-involvement in secular affairs.
But all that has gone away with secularism and modern secular government. Now we just have governments parading around and pretending to the moral high ground on the basis of literally nothing. While the conventional wisdom is that this will continue to work indefinitely because, well, people are just that stupid, I'm not so sure. To me, I think that the only reason that this continues to work is that the Church has not yet called the bluff of the secular powers. If the Church were to launch a concerted campaign undermining the moral legitimacy of the modern State, I think that the collapse in confidence in the State would be nothing short of apocalyptic. So, the conventional wisdom here is that the State has the complete upper hand but I don't think so... I think there's an uneasy balance-of-power between the Church and the secular powers and, furthermore, I think that the Church is engaging in a conscious strategy of "withdrawal" from the public sphere in order to lure the secular powers into overconfidence in their fiat moral legitimacy. At a time of their choosing, the Church can launch a campaign attacking the moral legitimacy of the State with such extreme consequences as to nearly or completely collapse the State in very short order.
The State is an illusion based on false moral legitimacy and corrupted morality. Without the assistance of the priestly class, the State has to rely on its own trumped-up, fiat legitimacy. By withdrawing completely from the political sphere, the priestly class can lay a trap for the State and lure it into overconfidence in its own fiat legitimacy. By "calling the State's bluff" at some point, the priestly class can instigate a collapse in confidence in the State, deflating the illusion of moral legitimacy. This is all still secular power plays, of course, so none of this is based on any real moral legitimacy of the priestly class. I just don't accept the conventional wisdom that the Church is a bygone force. It's as relevant as ever.
I didn't mean Nation as in Nation-State, but as a group of people with a shared heritage. German people would still be germans without the state due to a shared history of music, language, food just as more specifically bavarians would still be bavarians without a German state for the same reasons. That is the sense in which I mean Nation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
this turns to
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, no government.
Well, I think that the Nation is just one stage along the State's imperial aggrandizement from the tribe to global government. As you pointed out, Bavarians would still be Bavarians... their German identity is dispensable at that level of locality. This is why I say "all power is ultimately private" - in other words, natural power starts with private ownership, with family. This is already how the ruling Elites are structured. What is evil about them is that they actively disrupt those below them from utilizing the same social technologies (e.g. male primogeniture, matrilineal family structure (the boundaries of "family socialism" delineated by matrilineal descent), untaxed inheritance, patriarchy with the power of disinheritance, and so on). This disruption needs to stop and people generally need to be encouraged to utilize the best-in-class social technologies to rationalize their family structures and privatize their power where it cannot be preyed upon by the ruling Elites who drain their productive energies to support the hordes of the parasitic class.
once we again have male primogeniture, humanity will be saved. that and drunken sex. the power of masculine drunks will prevail.
Is there a reason you like to troll people on these forums?
it's because i am not a firstborn.
The state comes from religion, so any relationship should come as no surprise.
LOL, Mises actually discusses this!
The Anti-Capitalist Mentality, Sec. 1.8:
However, there are families in which the eminent capacities required for entrepreneurial success are propagated through several generations. One or two of the sons or grandsons or even great-grandsons equal or excel their forebear. The ancestor’s wealth is not dissipated, but grows more and more.
These cases are, of course, not frequent. They attract attention not only on account of their rarity, but also on account of the fact that men who know how to enlarge an inherited business enjoy a double prestige, the esteem shown to their fathers and that shown to themselves. Such “patricians,” as they are sometimes called by people who ignore the difference between a status society and the capitalistic society, for the most part combine in their persons breeding, fineness of taste and gracious manners with the skill and industriousness of a hard-working businessman. And some of them belong to the country’s or even the world’s richest entrepreneurs.
It is the conditions of these few richest among these so-called “patrician” families which we must scrutinize in order to explain a phenomenon that plays an important role in modern anticapitalistic propaganda and machinations.
Even in these lucky families, the qualities required for the successful conduct of big business are not inherited by all sons and grandsons. As a rule only one, or at best two, of each generation are endowed with them. Then it is essential for the survival of the family’s wealth and business that the conduct of affairs be entrusted to this one or to these two and that the other members be relegated to the position of mere recipients of a quota of the proceeds. The methods chosen for such arrangements vary from country to country, according to the special provisions of the national and local laws. Their effect, however, is always the same. They divide the family into two categories—those who direct the conduct of affairs and those who do not.
The second category consists as a rule of people closely related to those of the first category whom we propose to call the bosses. They are brothers, cousins, nephews of the bosses, more often their sisters, widowed sisters-in-law, female cousins, nieces and so on. We propose to call the members of this second category the cousins.
The cousins derive their revenues from the firm or corporation. But they are foreign to business life and know nothing about the problems an entrepreneur has to face. They have been brought up in fashionable boarding schools and colleges, whose atmosphere was filled by a haughty contempt for banausic money-making. Some of them pass their time in night clubs and other places of amusement, bet and gamble, feast and revel, and indulge in expensive debauchery. Others amateurishly busy themselves with painting, writing, or other arts. Thus, most of them are idle and useless people.
It is true that there have been and are exceptions, and that the achievements of these exceptional members of the group of cousins by far outweigh the scandals raised by the provoking behavior of the playboys and spendthrifts. Many of the most eminent authors, scholars and statesmen were such “gentlemen of no occupation.” Free from the necessity of earning a livelihood by a gainful occupation and independent of the favor of those addicted to bigotry, they became pioneers of new ideas. Others, themselves lacking the inspiration, became the Maecenas of artists who, without the financial aid and the applause received, would not have been in a position to accomplish their creative work. The role that moneyed men played in Great Britain’s intellectual and political evolution has been stressed by many historians. The milieu in which the authors and artists of nineteenth-century France lived and found encouragement was le monde, “society”.
However, we deal here neither with the sins of the playboys nor with the excellence of other groups of wealthy people. Our theme is the part which a special group of cousins took in the dissemination of doctrines aiming at the destruction of the market economy.
Many cousins believe that they have been wronged by the arrangements regulating their financial relation to the bosses and the family’s firm. Whether these arrangements were made by the will of their father or grandfather, or by an agreement which they themselves have signed, they think that they are receiving too little and the bosses too much. Unfamiliar with the nature of business and the market, they are—with Marx—convinced that capital automatically “begets profits.” They do not see any reason why those members of the family who are in charge of the conduct of affairs should earn more than they. Too dull to appraise correctly the meaning of balance sheets and profit and loss accounts, they suspect in every act of the bosses a sinister attempt to cheat them and to deprive them of their birthright. They quarrel with them continually.
It is not astonishing that the bosses lose their temper. They are proud of their success in overcoming all the obstacles which governments and labor unions place in the way of big business. They are fully aware of the fact that, but for their efficiency and zeal, the firm would either have long since gone astray or the family would have been forced to sell out. They believe that the cousins should do justice to their merits, and they find their complaints simply impudent and outrageous.
The family feud between the bosses and the cousins concerns only the members of the clan. But it attains general importance when the cousins, in order to annoy the bosses, join the anticapitalistic camp and provide the funds for all kinds of “progressive” ventures. The cousins are enthusiastic in supporting strikes, even strikes in the factories from which their own revenues originate.* It is a well-known fact that most of the “progressive” magazines and many “progressive” newspapers entirely depend on the subsidies lavishly granted by them. These cousins endow progressive universities and colleges and institutes for “social research” and sponsor all sorts of communist party activities. As “parlor socialists” and “penthouse Bolsheviks,” they play an important role in the “proletarian army” fighting against the “dismal system of capitalism.”
Troll on, cousin...
the article does not talk about a firstborn male being a capitalist and all others being cousins. that women are all communists with no business sense. even if there had been the case, it's simply a matter of societys training and nurture rather than nature.
that article paints a picture where the firstborns( or the most successfull of a family) would not be drunks, so the priests would not being using the name of god to opress the males by having the wives emotionaly manipulate them.
the drunk firstborn would/could/should lose his enheritence and it would go to the next in line who could be responsible, so that can be emotional and material manipulation as well,
http://books.google.com/books?id=PP-5o-WLFVsC&pg=PA164&lpg=PA164&dq=are+first+borns+more+entrepreneur&source=bl&ots=eAMU-pN-gx&sig=pvPb7X-rtsrzi_0u2AlYIRoYbBI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=MNaxUPyFEMGRiAL11ICgBA&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=are%20first%20borns%20more%20entrepreneur&f=false
this has more firstborns as entreprenours, but more nonfirstborns as executives. someone taking over a estate would be more of a executive than someone starting his/her own venture.
other quotes from the article you posted
In a society based on caste and status, the individual can ascribe adverse fate to conditions beyond his own control. He is a slave because the superhuman powers that determine all becoming had assigned him this rank.
It is quite another thing under capitalism. Here everybody’s station in life depends on his own doing.
your primogeniture stuff is not capitalism, it's a system based on caste and status.
cab21, you are getting tiring. Is English your second language? It's either that or you are purposefully trolling Clayton hardcore. No one could misunderstand what he is saying unless they had trouble with English.
well what did he say?
it seemed he said the elite use a caste system such as primogeniture, and that every family ought to use primogenture as a best practice.
so sure i can have trouble with english
cab21: the article does not talk about a firstborn male being a capitalist and all others being cousins. that women are all communists with no business sense. even if there had been the case, it's simply a matter of societys training and nurture rather than nature. that article paints a picture where the firstborns( or the most successfull of a family) would not be drunks, so the priests would not being using the name of god to opress the males by having the wives emotionaly manipulate them. the drunk firstborn would/could/should lose his enheritence and it would go to the next in line who could be responsible, so that can be emotional and material manipulation as well,
I can tell you that your above comments have nothing to do with the actual words Clayton typed. Separately, do you understande what a caste system is? Do you understand the difference between caste and clan?