Cossacks and Prairie Muffins

If you believe that every human being has the right to self determination, then how do you cope with people who claim not to want that right?

The BBC's Steven Eke had a fascinating report last week on Russia's Cossacks. The radio broadcast version of this story, ended with the man pictured at that link, Ataman Viktor Vasilyevich, explaining his ideal of the future of Russia:

We need a tsar, one annointed by God. Then there'll be complete order in Russia. That's how it always was. Democracy doesn't suit us. We need a firm hand.

Eke asked him if he had anyone in mind, and Vasilyevich suggested Vladimir Putin, adding, "May God grant him health, and may he rule over us."

So what do we make of this? How do we accommodate people who say, "Democracy doesn't suit us" and insist that they want an autocrat to "rule over" them rather than an elected leader to serve them?

I suppose one answer would be to send Bush and Cheney over to southern Russia -- the Cossacks would have the autocrats they always wanted, Cheney would have the complete lack of accountability he's always wanted, and American citizens might get their democracy back. Sounds like a win-win-win scenario.

I'm mostly kidding there. America is heading towards a constitutional crisis provoked by the Bush administration's insistence that executive privilege trumps the rule of law. As a small-d democrat and small-r republican, I think that's a Bad Thing, but not everyone agrees. It's not only the Cossacks who don't think democracy suits them and who long to be ruled by a "firm hand."

Viktor Vasilyevich's attitude isn't all that different from that of our old friends the Prairie Muffins or of Concerned Women for America (run by Mrs. Tim LaHaye).

The problem with all such groups is that their embrace of hierarchy is unable to tolerate freedom for others. In order for the world to be the way they want it to be, the firm hand they desire has to hold sway over everyone. I suppose, from their point of view, the same could be said of those of us who favor freedom, rights and democracy.

What right do we have, they ask, to impose liberty and dignity on them when that's not what they want? That's how they'd like to frame the question, although I'm not sure any sense can be made of it. It's a bit like the "You don't tolerate my intolerance" nonsense -- an ouroboros swallowing its own tail. And it's not a harmless bit of nonsense, since the freedom from freedom they insist on requires others to join them in servitude.

When I encounter people like this -- whether Cossacks or Concerned Women -- I always have a hard time accepting that they're for real. I tend to think of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as an expression of universal human desires. I realize, of course, that there are always going to be some people who behave inhumanly -- seeking to dominate others and deny them their rights. But it's always jarring to be reminded that some of their victims embrace this. I expect to see would-be autocrats and patriarchs reciting Orwell's dystopian mantra, "Freedom is slavery," but it always surprises me to see their would-be subjects chanting along and claiming that slavery is freedom. The Cossack villagers and the thousands who have joined Concerned Women or the Prairie Muffins claim to desire submissive servitude. I think they are deceived or deluded or, at best, codependent. (Like any expression of pity, that may come across as condescending, but it would be inconsistent of them to complain that it does.)

There does seem to be another category, though, where we find people like Viktor Vasilyevich and Bev LaHaye. They seem to be trying to carve out a niche for themselves as the middle managers of autocracy, already staking out a position as collaborators with a future authoritarian regime. The Cossack ataman rules his family and village with unchallenged, unchecked authority. A tsar would likely permit him to continue to do so, while the spread of democracy and freedom could undermine his local authority. LaHaye has become a powerful woman, the executive of a large organization and a D.C. mover and shaker. The source of that power is the thousands of women she has helped to convince to embrace powerlessness. Convince them otherwise and she'd be out of a job. Vasilyevich and LaHaye are probably also deceived or deluded at some level, but I can't seem to muster the pity for them that I feel for their followers.

Comments

[the opoponax]

I can't speak for the Cossacks (Neo-cossacks?), but in terms of our American version, the Prairie Muffins, I think the bottom line is that as individuals, they're able to pretend that an autocratic system would work for them, because they see themselves as having the equivalent of the "good master". Being subservient to your husband doesn't seem like such a bad deal when your husband isn't too out of line, and his requirements of you seem rational.

Under the system they envision, they're going to do all right, because from where they see it, they're set. The Cossacks are not picturing themselves at odds with their beloved tsar, they're picturing themselves in the historical role of Cossacks -- enforcers who get to go around dominating everyone else and raining pogroms on anyone who pisses them off. I'd put money on the fact that there are probably no conservative Jewish groups in Russia who want the tsar back.

[Craig]

I suppose one answer would be to send Bush and Cheney over to southern Russia...Sounds like a win-win-win scenario.

Sure, until they invade the US for resources and/or because they hate our freedoms.

[hf]

See the research at http://theauthoritarians.com on two dangerous personality types. I don't know if the existence of a small group that combines both attitudes can explain the people you mention, but it does explain a lot.

[J]

Countdown until someone brings up sadomasochistic sex in 10, 9, 8, 7 . . .

[hapax]

Sorry, J, no sadomasochism, but I was reminded of the traditional vows of the monk: poverty (sacrifice of private ownership/personal property), celibacy (sacrifice of private sexuality/personal posterity), stability (sacrifice of freedom to move/leave) and obedience (sacrifice of private will/personal choice).

I always thought I could manage the first three, if called to that life, but not the last. I've read several monks praising the sacrifice of the will, though; apparently they find great comfort and freedom in surrendering their will to the will of God, as expressed through the will of the heirarchy (esp. the abbot.)

I couldn't do it. It still gives me the same horrendous shivers that the abolition of the self does in Buddhism.

This is why I will never achieve Nirvana/mystical union/Kingdom of Heaven/beer volcanos.

[J]

They seem to be trying to carve out a niche for themselves as the middle managers of autocracy, already staking out a position as collaborators with a future authoritarian regime.

That's one possibility. The other is a charming/deluded sense of the "romance" of autocracy, or at least of monarchy (which is autocracy with better architecture and music). Much as I like Voltaire, he suffered from this problem. Of democracy, he said something like, "I'd rather be eaten by one lion than nibbled to death by a thousand rats". The Cossacks in question are probably fairly standard-issue Russian peasants who've watched Alexander Nevsky one too many times. Too, the Prairie Muffins (ROFL) are probably just a little addled by one too many watchings of Little House and have gotten it into their heads that Things Would Be Much Nicer if only We Women Knew Our Place.

[Geds]

I'm pretty sure I originally found this site here in one of the comment threads:

http://christiandomesticdiscipline.com/Home.html

It's a site devoted to the practice of husbands disciplining their wives by spanking them (as if they were children, not in the kinky sense, although they don't seem to have problems with that, either, as long as it's less important than that discipline spanking). The weird thing is that the site seems to be run by women. Who are in these relationships. And think they're a good thing.

The woman who seems to run the show has a blog in which she keeps track of her housework report card. In one entry she wasn't doing so well and felt relieved that her husband stepped in and upped the discipline. The reason she wasn't keeping up with everything was because her mother was in the hospital.

It's beyond disturbing.

Oh, and if I remember correctly our very own opo makes a cameo somewhere in the blog's comments.

[patter]

Another case in point: Mrs Laura Doyle.

[patter]

Note to Russia -- Karl Rove's available.

[J]

Forgot to add this: Fundies in general have developed a masturbatory death-cult around Lord of the Rings, which, for some reason, they feel to be emblematic of Christianity (but no, NOT Frodo's paschal suffering under the weight of evil, but rather Aragorn's rough, tough kingship).

Since I like neither religion nor Lord of the Rings, it irks me to constantly hear about it.

[J]

http://christiandomesticdiscipline.com/Home.html

"Domestic discipline", huh?

I CAN'T be the only one here thinking of the cover of a dirty paperback with a woman wearing high heels, an apron, and nothing else with a coquettish expression as a 1950's-ish man spanks her.

[Vermic]

I'm reminded of a bit from Monty Python's Life of Brian, where Brian is trying to convince a Roman centurion not to take him away to be crucified:

BRIAN: You don't have to do this, you know. You don't have to follow orders!
CENTURION: I like orders!

At the end of the day, for whatever reason, I think some people just like orders.

[the opoponax]

probably just a little addled by one too many watchings of Little House and have gotten it into their heads that Things Would Be Much Nicer if only We Women Knew Our Place.

Which is especially fucked up because the Little House series of books is actually vaguely proto-feminist. Laura, especially, is always shown as someone who can handle herself and who doesn't need a man to take care of her. Especially as she gets older in later books -- we're shown how fucked up certain aspects of frontier society are from women's perspective, and what a rough life it is all around (all our stereotypes about the Victorian "angel of the house" stuff are turned on their heads). Wilder was always careful not to rock the boat too much, and she stays pretty safely within the confines of traditional female roles, but all in all, it's a weird choice for instilling anything but the most superficial and stupid "womanly virtues of servility". Laura Ingalls Wilder would have punched those women in the face. And not been sorry about it.

The Prairie Muffin approach seems far more like something taken from the Anne of Green Gables books, which have as their basic theme the idea that Anne needs to be trained up for her future role as domestic goddess.

[the opoponax]

Oh, and if I remember correctly our very own opo makes a cameo somewhere in the blog's comments.

Do I? I'll own up to occasionally trolling over at the Prairie Muffin site (they are no fun to argue with!), but I have no recollection of doing it over there... I'll have to go see what I said...

[PurpleGirl]

Re: the Cossacks and a Tsar: I remember reading somewhere (maybe in "Nicholas and Alexandra") that one reason he was seen as a poor ruler was that he wasn't the strong, dominanting person that many (autocratic/aristocratic) Russians seemed to want as Tsar. Nicholas might have made a good English monarch but he wasn't stern and severe enough to be a Russian Tsar. On the other hand, Stalin filled the role to a "t".

[Raka]

What right do we have, they ask, to impose liberty and dignity on them when that's not what they want? That's how they'd like to frame the question...

Er, no. I've spent a good bit of time with such people (well, not so many Cossacks), and that's not at all how they'd like to frame the question. Most of this entire post, in fact, begs the question by starting from the presumption that Prairie Muffins et al don't like freedom, and then wondering why. That's insulting and inaccurate. For the most part (limited to my experience, YMMV), they love freedom and dignity, but define the nature and limits of those terms differently. Most of us invite limits on our freedom to prevent harm to ourselves and others; I accept that I can't produce plutonium because that would be harmful or potentially harmful to those around me. Less extreme: I accept that I cannot rewire my own house, since the restrictions are in place to protect me and others from the potential harm of rampant unlicensed work.

The difference is not in a love or an abhorrence of freedom. The difference is in what is considered harmful, or harmful enough to justify intervention. There's no clear, objective delineation there. Even capitalism and democracy, which we tend to treat as synonymous with "freedom", often result in a very minor difference in our daily lives. Unless we are power players ourselves, we have very little influence on who the people in power are or how they behave. Unlimited freedom to succeed is often accompanied by freedom to starve, not to mention the market pressures that help America to have relatively poor health coverage and lousy employee time-off protections. There is plenty of room for reasonable and honest people to disagree about exactly what forms of government best ensure "freedom and dignity".

You want to understand them or persuade them, analyze their arguments based on the significance of the harm they fear, the secondary consequences of the remedy they desire, and the likelihood of their remedy in question having any positive effect on their hypothetical harms. "Why do they hate freedom?" and such are questions better suited to Fox News than Slacktivist.

[Raka]

Clarification: yes, I also think the Prairie Muffins are mentally deficient fruitcakes whose desires are dangerous to the world I want (and work) to live in. But thinking that this stems from some qualitative difference in basic human desires for freedom and dignity misses the point in a thoroughly unproductive way.

[Scott]

The problem with all such groups is that their embrace of hierarchy is unable to tolerate freedom for others.

Ah, like your desire for "social justice" for 'all' makes you unable to tolerate the economic freedom of any fiscal conservative who disagrees with you? After all, 'solidarity' (the highest moral goal) requires those who disagree w/ you about working for Walmart being exploitation to be 'freed' from that exploitation despite themselves.

We need a Strong Economic Hand, like Fred Clark, Evangelical Journalist to protect us.

[Raka]

One more: From our perspective, it seems fair and applicable to look at Cossacks and Conservatives and ask: "If you believe that every human being has the right to self determination, then how do you cope with people who claim not to want that right?"

From Scott's perspective, it seems fair and applicable to look at us and ask the same thing.

[Raka]

HA! I posted that before I saw Scott's post. Man, I'm totally in Scott's head, channeling... his... um, wait. Crap. That's no good.

[Geds]

Ha ha. You're Scott-like in your thought processes!

[Nick Lamb]

I'm surprised that Fred doesn't follow his usual practice in today's post and look at relevant theology.

Maybe I'm too rusty but I thought the ideal was that you would love God, and because you loved God, you would obey him without question. This would turn out OK because God's orders for you were also in your best interest.

I am content with this idea of obeying someone you love, and of accepting the possible consequences of that, though not the "without question" part, following the same logic that is drilled into the military. Just because someone is giving you orders, does not automatically mean that they possess all the relevant knowledge that you have, therefore it is appropriate to volunteer such knowledge rather than mindlessly obey the order. If an ordinary cavalryman of the 13th Light Dragoons had pointed out the possible conflicting interpretation of his orders, the charge of the Light Brigade might have been avoided (of course in reality the cavalarymen couldn't see the broad overview of the battle and so this scenario is more than unlikely).

In the wider political sense, obeying the guy in charge because he's got your best interests at heart is a benevolent dictatorship. Benevolent dictators are great. If you can find one he's a much cheaper form of government than any representative democracy, and he can provide unity where political parties sow division. A leader needs advisors? Without political parties the best minds in the country can be called before the dictator to offer their opinions instead of sniping at each other. A country with a really good dictator could expect to find itself in a much better position than a representative democracy with a mediocre leader. It would be nice to say that direct democracy was a success and the high cost is more than worthwhile for the sense of participation, but that would be a lie. It would be nice to say that at least a representative democracy prevents these mediocre leaders from seizing the same degree of power as the dictator, but that statement has been proved untrue many times. It would then be nice to say that at least our modern representative democracies aspire to prevent such things, but can the American people be said to aspire to any such goal when they sit silent, despite being urged by their country's own history to rise up against tyranny ?

Alas it seems that finding even one benevolent dictator is too hard in a world of six billion people, yet the proponents of democracy hope to find hundreds or thousands of such excellent souls only for them to have to compete with each other for election. They should be congratulated for their sense of irony.

[G.W.Bush]

As long as I get to be the dictator...

[Raka]

I can't tell what Nick's point was supposed to be, but I'm certain I don't agree.

[hapax]

Well, as Plato pointed out (very greatly paraphrases), any person who WANTS the role of benevolent dictator, is automatically disqualified for it.

I think the idea of representational democracy is to pit a number of half-benevolent/half-self-interested would-be dictators against each other in a constant jockeying for power, in the hope that something not-too-harmful will emerge from all those competing interests.

A crappy system, it is true. But less worse than the (realistic) alternatives.

So it is with the dictatorship model of a relationship. If the Head Of The Family truly channelled the Will of God, and had the best interests of everybody at heart, yah, it would be pretty ideal. However, in a more realistic world, we have two (or more) people, both of who love and care about the other (we hope), but also are flawed, and stupid, and sometimes selfish, and sometimes just TIRED, and through the messy business of negotiation and compromise, we sort of kind of hope that things will work out for the best.

Which, in *my* reading of the Scriptures, is why God's relationship with humanity is beautifully expressed throught the metaphor of marriage. Not a Prairie Muffin marriage, but a real one, in which both parties try hard but screw up and miscommunicate and lose their temper and forget to take out the garbage and sometimes flirt with others, but generally manage to muddle through to something better than either would have going it alone.

[Joe Smith]

I find this sort of thing far less surprising than you do.

Ive frequently submitted to authoritarian culture throught the study of martial arts. Most especially Aikido, which although practiced by American hippies, is cut wholecloth from Japanese Militarism (read: Eastern Fascism). There is great pleasure to be found in such surrender, there is a feeling of pure effectiveness, of sterness of purpose, surrender of ego. (Zen Buddhism flourished in an Authoritarian culture).

I'd urge you to be kinder to the Prarie Muffins than you have been. Your attitude seems to be "what a stupid bunch of women, unable to accept that they would be much happier as free women pursuing career goals and rejecting their traditional roles. Frequently traditional women feel oppressed by the dominant feminist culture. Commonreader frequently blogs about people who thinks that she is bizarre because she has chosen to be a stay-at-home mom. She feels that this is an honorable profession that has become marginalized and despised by the modern world. The muffin/vagina gag was also a cheap shot.

Both of these groups have an agenda besides submission to authority: they want to preserve their traditional culture. In tradional societies, everbody knows exactly who they are, and what is expected of them. In modern society, man is set adrift to choose his own course, which can result in confusion, panic and existential angst.

This is one of the big paradoxes of liberalism: We would like to preserve traditional culture, but traditional culture is frequently at odds with liberalism. To spread democracy and freedom is to destroy traditional cultures: period. The islamicists are right; traditional Islamic society is at odds with modernity. With modernity comes short skirts, capitalism, and pornography.

For some fairly smart discussion of these issues from the "bad guys'" perspective, google:

Alain De Benoist
Nouvelle Droit
Neo-Folk
The scorpion

[Toby]

The liberal ideal of freedom can mean freedom for the people I care about to live life in their own way and according to their own ideals, which could create distance between us. So it can also be the freedom for communities to fall apart. It can also mean freedom for the people I care about to fail to find any ideals worth living for at all, and the freedom for the them to make terrible choices for themselves. As for myself, it means I'm utterly free to choose my own way in life--but maybe I don't much enjoy having this responsibility, maybe this is a cause for anxiety, maybe I yearn for an authority to set some standards for what I should do with my life... particularly if I think the right authority would be better at directing my life than I would be.

I'm a liberal through and through, but I think this other point of view is perfectly intelligible. Codependence needn't come into it at all.

[the opoponax]

look at Cossacks and Conservatives

Raka, this is my basic problem with your line of thought, in a nutshell. We're not talking about "conservatives" here, or even "Conservatives". The nature of the debate is not how, specifically, to dole out the rights and freedoms our liberal modern world reveals to us. This is not "I think it should be perfectly acceptable to burn the flag," vs. "No, the constitution does not give us the right to desecrate national symbols, even to make a political point!"

The Prairie Muffins are not really Conservatives -- they're beyond conservatism. They don't believe that the rights conservatives and liberals are divvying up really exist at all. They don't believe in freedom, they believe in responsibility, authority, and status. And I don't say that in a jingoistic way. What Prairie Muffins want is a return to the domestic hierarchies of the ancient world, where all rule is handed down from king to noble to patriarch, with the patriarch a "lower management" of sorts, and everyone else (women, children, slaves) below them. The only "right" one can really talk of in a system like this is a general right to bodily autonomy for members of the "management". And even that can be determined forfeit in a broad range of situations. Freedom does not exist in a system like this, at all.

This is a system we have moved beyond. Way beyond. To suggest a return to it is equivalent to suggesting a return to a belief in the 5 elements, or heliocentrism. It's morally erroneous in the way the "glass onion" model of the cosmos is scientifically erroneous.

[Errol Flynn]

Um ... I'm not so sure that "Christian Discipline" site isn't meant to be kinky. Check out the store: they offer "erotic spanking fiction." Oh, and crotchless pantaloons(!!).

[J]

Raka, Nick Lamb, Joe Smith: HUH???

Ive frequently submitted to authoritarian culture throught the study of martial arts. Most especially Aikido, which although practiced by American hippies, is cut wholecloth from Japanese Militarism...

Uh huh. Well as an Angoleiro myself, I don't follow Bushido, I follow Malicia and so am quite free to trick and mock others.

I'd urge you to be kinder to the Prarie Muffins than you have been. Your attitude seems to be "what a stupid bunch of women, unable to accept that they would be much happier as free women pursuing career goals and rejecting their traditional roles. Frequently traditional women feel oppressed by the dominant feminist culture.

I know a lot of women who stay at home with children, many of whom would gasp and recoil as though burnt by an iron at the suggestion that they have anything in common with the Muffinfolk.

This is one of the big paradoxes of liberalism: We would like to preserve traditional culture, but traditional culture is frequently at odds with liberalism.

I don't want to preserve traditional culture.

To spread democracy and freedom is to destroy traditional cultures: period.

Fine.

The islamicists are right; traditional Islamic society is at odds with modernity. With modernity comes short skirts, capitalism, and pornography.

Up with miniskirts!

I like pornography and capitalism. I'll take them over honor killings, sati, genital mutiliation, and mikvah baths six times a day and a round dozen on Sundays.

[the opoponax]

but maybe I don't much enjoy having this responsibility, maybe this is a cause for anxiety, maybe I yearn for an authority to set some standards for what I should do with my life... particularly if I think the right authority would be better at directing my life than I would be.

This point of view can only be valid if it respects the rights of others to enjoy the freedoms that particular individual is giving up. But that's not what any of these groups are doing. They're not saying "we're going to set up our own little counterculture, or our own little type of tribal government at the local level, and everyone else can do whatever they like" -- they demand that the rest of the world hew to their choices, that we all give up our freedoms so that they can feel morally justified in tossing theirs overboard.

Imagine everyone in the whole world has a million dollars. And we are all free to do exactly as we please with the money. We can invest it, spend it, donate it, shit, we can turn it into origami if we want to or use it to stuff pillows. Now imagine that a small minority of people have decided that they just don't want the burden of figuring out what to do with the money. They don't want to give it away -- that would be a form of figuring out what to do with it. So instead they decide that all of this money has to be confiscated and burned in a gigantic bonfire, by some autocrat to be appointed through a completely random and arcane process. But they can't "choose" to surrender it to the autocrat, so it has to be universal -- they want everyone on the planet to give up their million dollars, simply so that they won't have to face the burden of deciding what to do with theirs.

[the opoponax]

Ive frequently submitted to authoritarian culture throught the study of martial arts... There is great pleasure to be found in such surrender

Yeah, this is what I was talking about above, the romanticized "good master" theory of authoritarian systems. It's all well and good when you can put down your kitana and call it a day. It sounds like a great way of life when you get to be the samurai. But from the standpoint of a peasant who is stuck in Feudal Japan forever, and at the very bottom of the totem pole, suddenly it doesn't look like much fun, does it?

Why is it that nobody in the SCA decides to play the role of a serf?

[the opoponax]

Your attitude seems to be "what a stupid bunch of women, unable to accept that they would be much happier as free women pursuing career goals and rejecting their traditional roles. Frequently traditional women feel oppressed by the dominant feminist culture.

You have no idea what you're talking about. Please go away.

[Geds]

Errol Flynn: Um ... I'm not so sure that "Christian Discipline" site isn't meant to be kinky. Check out the store: they offer "erotic spanking fiction." Oh, and crotchless pantaloons(!!).

The funny thing is, they're totally aware of the kink. Somewhere on the site is a little nub asking people to avoid using the kinky aspects when discussing CDD on the site.

That's actually part of the reason it took me so long to decide it's probably real. And I'm still not entirely sure now, but the preponderance of evidence indicates that it is. They just seem to be more aware of what they're saying than most and that there is something inherently fun about a bit of a spanking.

But on the other end of that spectrum you've got the leather clad BDSM folks (and, for the record, I've found Christian BDSM out there too. My mind was boggled). It seems to me that no matter how you take it, if you allow your life to be dominated by some random sexual kink, whether it's spanking your wife for discipline or not being about to get off without a ball gag and a whip, it's a bit creepy and, ultimately, boring.

I mean, there's nothing about a lot of the subcultures the internet has brought to light that says, "These are well-rounded people who I would like to sit down and discuss literature or politics or sports with." I suppose they could be, and we're just getting a snapshot of this one slightly bizarre aspect of their lives, but from my interactions with other subcultures and my own awareness of my own subcultures, I'm sure it comes up a lot.

And that's probably not healthy. Nor will it help my sanity.

[Common Reader]

Yeah, you guys totally have conservative women pegged. That desire for an authoritarian hierarchal social order is why evangelical Christians are all lobbying to create a Singapore-style Ministy of Manpower so they can all have Mexicans scrubbing their wives' floors. Did you know that the Duggars encourage their boys to go out at night and rape the helots?

[J]

Did you know that the Duggars encourage their boys to go out at night and rape the helots?

Parle englais?

[Common Reader]

Can you use wikipedia?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duggars

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helot

[Jesurgislac]

the opo; The Prairie Muffin approach seems far more like something taken from the Anne of Green Gables books, which have as their basic theme the idea that Anne needs to be trained up for her future role as domestic goddess.

Um, well, except that in the first two or three Anne books, she isn't so much a domestic goddess as a fiercely independent child/teenager. (She does do a lot of housework/cookery, but then women did, then.) She gets more domestic-goddessy as the books go on: I think L.M.Montgomery started diverting her rebellious characterisations into other novels.

Agree with you about the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. One of the things I cheered about (when I was a teenage feminist, younger than Laura when she married) was that when Laura marries Alonzo, she tells him she will not say "obey" as part of her marriage vows, because she will not obey her husband against her conscience, and therefore she doesn't think it right to promise blanket obedience. The exact reverse of the Prairie Muffin philosophy, in fact.

I think the difference is that Laura Wilder was writing these books about her childhood, fictionalised, but real biography: whereas L.M.Montgomery was a worldfamous writer and minister's wife, writing novels about an increasingly-famous Heroine for Girls. Louisa M. Alcott, I think, had similiar problems when writing Jo as she grew up.

[Geds]

Common Reader:

It wasn't the Duggars and helots references that made no sense. It was, um, everything in that post...

[the opoponax]

That desire for an authoritarian hierarchal social order is why evangelical Christians are all lobbying to create

No wonder your screen name is "common reader" -- you really must not have heard much about these particular fringe groups we're talking about.

Go out and rent the film Jesus Camp. I dare you to come back and say that evangelical Christians aren't trying to recast the US government in the image of their warped theocratic ideals.

I'd love to think this won't happen or can't happen, that the Prairie Muffins are really just women who'd rather bake cookies than schmooze clients and the Concerned Women For America really are what their name says. But unfortunately it's not the Clinton administration anymore, and we can't just tell ourselves none of it is real, or they're just extremist wackjobs with no political clout.

[the opoponax]

she isn't so much a domestic goddess as a fiercely independent child/teenager

Well that's true, but if you go back and look at it, the basic conflict of the book was Anne's need to "grow up", to become a proper wife and mother, and accept her "Angel In The House" role. It takes the first couple of books to really happen, true. But when she settles down, it's not depicted as a sad end for a brilliant and spirited woman, it's depicted as a happy resolution of all Marilla's goals.

[Vendor Xeno]

Raka, among the problems with your argument is the idea of 'defining freedom and dignity differently'. When we speak of freedom, it's not an arbitrary term. Rather, it's a defined right that is, most importantly, universal. We all have it, regardless of race or creed or gender and we all have it in the exact same 'amounts'. People like the Muffins don't see freedom 'differently', they quite clearly don't apply it at all, because they're not speaking of the right to freedom as a human quality. To them, different classes of people enjoy different levels of freedom, which means that it is by definition not a valued human right in their eyes. There are people who are free and there are people they control. So no, this can't be seen as two different levels of the same idea.

I remember listening to an episode of To The Point on NPR not too long ago. One of the guest speakers was Phyllis Schlafly, and the topic was upgrading the constitution to specifically grant women equal rights (which it actually fails to spell out accurately.) Schlafly's final word on the statement was that the biological differences between men and women were 'too great' for Americans to want them to have equal consideration under the law. And yet no constitutional law is designed to take gender into account, since it by definition is supposed to treat us all as equal in our rights to law, protection, freedom, etc. Schlafly doesn't see it that way. And she's not simply expressing a different application of the idea of the human right to freedom. She's intentionally dividing us into free and not-free categories, and pretending to be speaking for the whole of the nation in her efforts.

Worse, such people are not content to let those who aren't interested in giving up their freedom alone. There are plenty of us on the democratic side of things who don't feel a democracy can be forced, nor should it be. We don't make them vote or make them find husbands who will treat them as equals. I liked the exploration of monasteries. If some people are that eager to be under an authority then by all means let them bow to a husband or a monastic leader. In some cases, this works for people. I can even, in the case on monasteries. see the appeal of being able to devote less thought to self direction and more thought to spiritual or intellectual pursuits.

Since we on the freedom side of things do, in fact, allow the choice, the situation is not a two way vector. Democracy allows people to forswear it. Tyranny does not. So really, we have two distinct situations. In the first, we have two classes, those with equal freedom and those without, where both parties were given the choice of which notion they wanted to embrace. In the second, we have only people without true freedom, and many of them had no say in the matter. So no, I don't consider the opening position arrogant or insulting. I consider it accurate and essential.

[hapax]

opo: "But when she settles down, it's not depicted as a sad end for a brilliant and spirited woman, it's depicted as a happy resolution of all Marilla's goals."

It IS? You mean that I wasn't SUPPOSED to think that Gilbert Blythe was an utter prat?

(And am I the only one who gets a weird Anne/Gilbert vibe from the creepy Elizabeth/Anthony romance in the comic strip For Better or For Worse? Is this a Canadian thing?)

[Common Reader]

You guys realize you're comparing a bunch of housewives with Cossacks?

[cjmr's husband]

@Common Reader:

Yes, we are aware that we are comparing a bunch of freedom-hating regressive theocratic housewives with Cossacks.

[cjmr]

I'll take them over honor killings, sati, genital mutiliation, and mikvah baths six times a day and a round dozen on Sundays.

One of these things is not like the others.

Did you know that the Duggars encourage their boys to go out at night and rape the helots?

I'm hoping you forgot a [/sarcasm] tag there...

[the opoponax]

I wasn't SUPPOSED to think that Gilbert Blythe was an utter prat?

Personally, I hated what became of the Anne/Gilbert relationship. I was willing to explore the idea that they were two obnoxious kids (who were probably too alike for their own good) who grew up to understand and have affection for each other, and even end up together.

But then by book 3 or 4, they basically become wooden stock caricatures of "Mom" and "Dad", and it's just so, so wrong.

I think I would have a better opinion of the Anne series had I stopped reading after the first, or maybe the second, book. I liked Anne too much to watch her turn into a bore.

[J]

ou guys realize you're comparing a bunch of housewives with Cossacks?

We've now endured about 4 1/2 years of conservative insistence that American liberals are welded at the hip to Islamic radicals. So, Common Reader, I feel you guys have blazed a pretty wide path for anyone to rhetorically associate anyone with anyone else.

[Bugmaster]

I don't know about Cossacks, but many people in Russia do indeed want a Tzar. They want a firm, well-defined chain of command, with a wise person at the top who cares about them and assumes the burden of solving difficult problems for them -- thus letting them go on with their daily lives. To these people, democracy is not freedom; democracy is chaos, maintained by shrewd criminals/politicians (the two terms are nearly synonymous) who care about nothing except their personal power. When disaster strikes, there's no one to turn to in a democratic society, because no one cares, and you don't know who's in power anyway, or whether they'll be here tomorrow.

Some people go even further, and claim that democracy is unworkable because it requires the average citizen to know everything about politics, and to think about politics all the time, even when they're doing more important things, like feeding their children or earning a living. One Russian babushka put it like this on national TV (paraphrased): "things were better in the old days, when TV just told us how things are. Now, we need to think about everything !".

You can argue that such a viewpoint is detrimental to progress, or inefficient, or downright dangerous (I certainly would argue thus), but you can't simply dismiss it as ignorant or downright stupid. Authoritarian rule is certainly a lot simpler, and a lot more stable, than democracy; thus, it is very appealing to people who desire stability. And, in fact, the Russian view of democracy (total chaos resulting from squabbles between criminals) is pretty much correct (at least, it is as far as Russian democracy is concerned).