Welmer

To start with, I’d like to go back to the origin of the term “alpha male.” It is a biological designation given to the members of mammalian social communities with the highest reproductive success. It is perhaps most relevant when applied to canines and apes, highly social animals that have hierarchical social rankings that determine reproductive success. The alpha designation reaches its zenith of relevance in wolf packs, which are dominated by an alpha pair. In animals such as gorillas where one male has a harem, it is not as important because other males do not take on beta status so much as they go solo for a while. The most important characteristic of the alpha male is that other males are subservient to him. It is, in fact, his dominance over other males that ensures his reproductive success. [Read more →]

For centuries the people of Beijing have dwelt in neighborhoods defined above all by the hutongs, clusters of small, brick houses built around a communal courtyard, surrounded and connected to each other by a labyrinthine network of narrow alleys. Hutongs are usually enclosed by brick walls, upon which broken glass is set in a thin layer of concrete to deter intruders. For outsiders - and particularly those who have never been in a hutong before - moving around through the enclosed neighborhoods requires a guide. It is very easy to get lost in an unfamiliar hutong, and the high walls make navigation by landmark nearly impossible. One must instead rely on small signs and clues that are easily missed by the unfamiliar visitor. [Read more →]

The last decade of real-estate hysteria has been more than just an economic catastrophe — it has dragged the American lifestyle in the wrong direction at the worst possible time. Just as energy shortages were on the horizon, we pumped up suburbs and exurbs, building prefab communities far away from the centers of economic production. In cities, boxy condo highrises for empty-nesters or the young-and-single set were slapped together on the premise of fantastic returns. As those dreams of easy money evaporate in a sudden credit drought, we find ourselves with a lot of worthless housing coupled with a persistent shortage of the kind of housing people - particularly young families - actually need. [Read more →]

Or so says a May 18 Guardian Observer article I came across today. Written by John Carlin, the piece extols the virtues of divorce, illegitimacy and the “patchwork families” that Carlin claims characterize Icelandic society. He goes so far as to write “Iceland could not be less like Africa on the surface,” and describes the tiny island nation as a “melting pot” without hangups that is “open to the world in all its diversity.” [Read more →]

Introduction

On Christmas Day last year I was reading an article about cattle breeding, recalled the novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, and suddenly an explanation for human homosexuality came to mind. As a fairly new parent, this issue, along with others concerning how people grow and what they ultimately become, has been on my mind. There are many theories, both religious and scientific, that have been proposed as explanations for the occurrence of homosexuality, but none seemed all that compelling to me. Some of the scientific theories are rather far-fetched and go through all sorts of convoluted reasoning to explain how something that renders people less fertile could be selected for by evolution. The most popular religious explanation of today is that it is a choice, which, being a man and knowing how little control I have over my own sexual desires, I cannot accept. [Read more →]

According to statistics, adultery is on the rise in America. Much is made of the fact that wives are cheating nearly as much as husbands these days. Since the statistics come from polls, and women are less likely to admit to adultery than men for both cultural and practical reasons, it is likely that men and women cheat at roughly equal rates.

Adultery has always existed, but it does seem to be a growing problem. Birth control mitigates the consequences, and electronic communication widens the potential pool of affair partners. Society’s attitude toward infidelity has become so blasé that commercial services procuring affair partners are making substantial profits. Many people see affairs as a justifiable escape from the frustrations of a long-term relationship. They are, however, just as destructive to the institution of the family as ever, and it is the children, as always, who pay the heaviest price for marital dissolutions. [Read more →]

Since I first discovered my desire for women, I have always taken this attraction for granted and held it to be an inseparable part of my straight, male identity. It has been just over twenty years since I began to lay awake in bed, imagining the female form and feeling a need for its presence. Although I knew that my need for women would eventually lessen, I expected it to last for the rest of my life. I saw it in my grandfather in his old age, after all, and expected it would be the same for me. I thought of it as an essential element of my masculinity — a part of my being that I’d both exult in and suffer for throughout my life. [Read more →]

The new realities of an energy-deficient world will inevitably create an economic shift away from our current service-oriented economy to the production of commodities. Unlike any other time in history, the production of food has been a relatively small part of our economic output for decades, with only a small fraction of our population actively engaged in agriculture. Huge advances in transportation and mechanization brought on by the Industrial Revolution and the use of cheap, abundant fossil fuels have enabled this transformation, but the availability of this energy is clearly not what it used to be.

Not only is the cost of transportation rising, but the cost of sowing, harvesting, fertilizing, irrigation and pest control have seen commensurate increases as well. It is not only biofuels that are spurring the recent rise in food prices; virtually every single agriculture-related cost has risen along with energy costs. The literate, urban class of writers, intellectuals and professionals has been focusing on the changing urban paradigm, promoting car-free spaces in cities, urban density and a transition away from the suburban lifestyle that characterized the latter half of the 20th century, but these concerns, in the long run, will turn out to be relatively minor compared to the vast changes that will accompany the looming, new reality.

What we are looking at is not a shift toward a more sustainable model of today’s society based on technological innovation and efficient design, but rather a return to more traditional modes of production. As the cost of food rises and transportation become increasingly expensive, agriculture will look like a more promising occupation than it has in a long while. Fertile land near population centers will become increasingly valued for its food production potential rather than housing development, and those who own it can realistically expect to see a rise in its relative value. Technology will doubtless soften the blow, but electric power from renewable resources will not be able to replace gas and liquid fuel and "organic" farming will become more of a necessity than a fad as fossil fuel derived fertilizers and pesticides see dramatic price increases. Huge factory farms will no longer have their current advantage, as the machines needed to run them will become prohibitively expensive to run, so the productive, family farm will gradually return as a vital part of our economy.

It will be the suburbs, where most Americans currently live, that take the biggest hit as the basis for their existence - the personal automobile - slowly becomes prohibitively expensive. The approaching irrelevance of the suburban lifestyle will be a devastating blow to many Americans, and will likely cause a rather abrupt increase in economic hardship amongst a previously affluent demographic. In fact, the trend has already begun, with poverty rising faster in suburbs than anywhere else.

Many of the people currently dwelling in suburbs, and some in cities, will be compelled to look for work in a revitalized agricultural sector. Some suburban lots and developments will probably be transformed to productive land, but the shift may be too rapid for an easy adjustment, and a significant proportion of those who must find work in food production rather than service jobs will be ill-prepared for their new occupation and will see a decline in status and lifestyle.

Historically, this would not be the first time a society has become more rather than less rural. Wars and epidemics have emptied cities many times in the past, and even deliberate policies, such as China’s Cultural Revolution, have resulted in population transfers from urban centers to rural areas. However, this time it will merely be a response to a new economic situation, and hopefully the result will not be as painful, but doubtless it will be profoundly unsettling to many, many Americans.

The concept of what a father’s role should be in the family is changing rapidly, and although this is deeply unsettling to many men, it may provide us with an opportunity to rediscover what being a father is all about. The provider/homemaker paradigm has been shattered by mechanization and the diminishing value of male labor. Men, particularly young ones, are no longer better financial providers than women. In a growing number of metropolitan areas, young women earn more than young men. Young men are not as well-educated as young women in general, and most don’t have what it takes to make good money in the specialized fields that remain largely male.

However, despite the trend in artificial insemination, most children are still conceived the natural way, and therefore have real, present, biological fathers. So for the many, many young men who are fathers, but could not be considered "head of household," what role is there to fulfill? Can we find anything besides the role of "provider?" Yes, there is something much better; something that comes naturally to us and can’t be replaced.

When the current situation first began to present itself in the late 20th century, one of the main arguments was that men should simply take on more feminine roles while women took on more traditionally masculine roles. But that idea was based on the contemporary view of "feminine" and "masculine," and the ideals of the mid-20th century were no more natural or less distorted than what we’re faced with today. Idealizing the 1950s, with its American suburban uniformity, made possible only because we were enjoying the fruits of global power and victory, is self-indulgent fantasy. And many forget the darker side of that time: the countless men who squelched their hopes and dreams to settle down and submit to its cultural dictates.

Another distorted perception that grew out of the changes brought on by the 20th century is that work was the realm of men, and the domestic sphere properly belonged only to women. Prior to mass transportation most men worked within shouting distance of where they slept. Tradesmen worked out of their own homes, and farmers in the fields surrounding their homes. Women also worked, keeping books, selling produce at the market, milking cows, etc. While in China, I saw illiterate peasant women selling food at farmers’ markets and, for keeping track of sales, using an abacus with great skill and efficiency. In pre-modern societies, including the West, women were essential economic contributors to the family just like men.

In times past, education of children fell mainly to fathers, who were more likely to be literate than their wives until fairly recently. Most men were involved in their children’s lives from morning to night; only infants relied almost entirely on women for care and nurturing. But this all changed with the Industrial Revolution, which took men away from their homes and put them to work far afield. To compensate for their absence, state-sponsored services sprouted like weeds throughout communities in the West to do the jobs fathers had previously handled. Inevitably, society’s view of a father’s role and responsibilities shifted from viewing him as an equally-responsible partner in child-rearing to a mere provider of goods and labor, and men became little more than draft animals. Is it any wonder that the law came to reflect this new reality and gave parental rights primarily to mothers?

The cruel irony of these developments is that the mechanization that originally removed men from their traditional family role has drastically lowered the relative value of their labor even as alternative social services have become substitutes for them at home, so many men find themselves neither economically nor socially relevant as parents.

As I mentioned before, the popularly offered solution is for men to take on more "feminine" roles. But that is a misinterpretation of the situation; actually, men now have an opportunity to regain some of the grievous losses we have suffered over the years. Many men bemoan their lower status as a result of not being able to be "good providers," but they don’t realize that this role is what lowered their status in the first place. When a farmer wants to raise a male calf as a working draft animal - a good provider of labor - what does he do? He castrates the young bull. In the course of the recasting of the American male as a reliable, subservient economic provider rather than a free man, he has been stripped of his essential, spiritual elements of masculinity. Being a father, in every sense of the word, is as masculine a role as one can have; it is the inverse of femininity, and it has been marginalized to the detriment of both men and their children. One need only think of the deep sorrow fatherless children, whether well-fed and clothed or not, experience to know how important it is for boys and girls to have the creative, energetic and liberating spirit of masculinity in their lives.

So rather than submerging ourselves in bitterness over the loss of a role that put us in this unfortunate position to begin with, we fathers should breathe a sigh of relief and give thanks for our renewed opportunity to be more than a mere gravy train. Now we can love and teach our children like fathers always have, and we can once again take on our fair share of involvement in their lives. In addition to sharing the fruits of our labor with them, we can offer ourselves as their companions and protectors.

What little boy would give up learning to ride a bike or fly a kite so his daddy could work all weekend to put more money into mutual funds? What daughter would give up the irreplaceable special attention of a loving, approving dad? Yes, as fathers we have a far, far richer and more important role than "provider."

It is well-known that commerce is deeply rooted in Chinese culture — so much so that it seems at times to be an immutable genetic trait among Chinese. However, there are important differences between Chinese and Western cultural views on trade and business. After coming into contact with overseas Chinese and gaining first-hand experience with Chinese commercial success, Americans often come to the conclusion that Capitalism is the natural state of affairs in China, and that Communism was a mere interlude that was inevitably rejected by the entrepreneurial Chinese spirit. There is some truth to this, but there are elements of Communism that allowed a continuance of ancient Chinese administrative traditions. Government monopolies on commodities, for example, were traditional sources of state revenue in imperial China. Salt was particularly important, and rice, of course, was indispensable. Importantly, the state also maintained a monopoly on mass labor through corvée conscription taxes.

Although petty traders and small-scale commercial ventures operated relatively freely and thrived for many centuries in China, big business has traditionally been under strict supervision. International trade was also tightly regulated, leading inevitably to clashes with Western powers in the 19th century. Westerners were not the only ones who chafed over such commercial inflexibility; many Chinese merchants sought ways to circumvent the system. They did this in a number of ways, some of which are familiar to the many different peoples of the world who have come into contact with Chinese. The coastal south developed a commercial culture based on trade beyond the shores of China, sailing in their junks throughout the archipelagos of Southeast Asia, establishing Chinese trading colonies in Taiwan, the Philippines, Indochina, Indonesia and Malaysia. Farther north and inland, smugglers set up salt trading routes to break the government monopoly, cutting into state revenue while enriching themselves.

China’s ruling philosophy, Confucianism, relegates business and trade to a lesser status than farming the land, but there are aspects of Confucianism that encourage the kind of trust and bonding - particularly in patriarchal clans - that confers great advantages in business and trade. Being a natural human activity, trade was necessarily carried on in and between clans. Loans, inside connections and special knowledge became immensely valuable assets to members of powerful merchant clans, especially in the south. The ideals of compassion, mutual responsibility and filial piety were the glue that held these extended families together. Thus, Chinese success in trade is based on in-group moral principles that, applied over many generations, reinforced loyalty and encouraged benevolence on the part of clan leaders.

Because Confucian principles chastise trade even as they create conditions for the successful practice thereof, China itself has long had an ambivalent, often suspicious attitude toward business, even before Communism became the ruling ideology. So in order to maintain a dominant role over trade, the state, which in China has always placed more value on the sanctity of the human hierarchy than the rule of law, practices patronage over traders and businessmen. It is permissible to get rich and to do business, but the dues must always be paid to officials, who pay their dues to higher officials, and so on up to the top. When everyone is reasonable this can work out fairly well, but human nature being what it is, abuses have always been common. There is always a motive to cheat, and retaliation takes on personal overtones. Abuse of state power is another common problem, and it can result in the suppression of profitable trade as venal officials collect profits for their own personal enrichment. So although China is blessed with rich land and plenty of human capital, its cultural and administrative structure, which are deeply intertwined, retards the development of business and trade.

When freed from the restrictions of the Chinese administrative system, however, Chinese cultural strengths can shine brilliantly. This can be seen in the spectacular success of peripheral and overseas Chinese colonies and states, such as Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan, freed from central control and influenced by Western governments. The unique characteristics of Chinese culture confer a great advantage in economically permissive environments while the Anglo-Saxon concept of law places a strong check on the runaway patronage that could easily ruin such shining outposts of Capitalism.

Many Westerners marvel at the economic miracles wrought in Chinese communities throughout Asia and the world, but they often fail to understand that two contradictory philosophies have intersected to create the conditions for economic success. This is far from unprecedented, but it is a precarious situation, and exists only in exceptional rather than typical circumstances. This must be kept in mind when considering China’s economic future. In time, one philosophy will have to give way to the other, and I am skeptical as to whether China could adopt Western ideals in lieu of its 2,000 year-old governing culture. Even if it did, then China’s unique advantages in business would eventually disappear as collective bonds give way to individualism.