Deeper into the Wild

The next installment in a continuing saga...shorter too, I think.

I think one of the biggest…not problems, but questions that I had about this book is why this whole idea about adventure and fairy tales and rescues should be what determines our standards for men and women. Where do these ideals come from? I don’t think of fairy tales as the archetypes of humanity, but rather the inventions of a time very close to ours that romanticizes the way that things used to be. I don’t know that there was ever a time when gallant men rode around on horses rescuing beautiful women. We romanticize old battles, the idea of chivalry, but we don’t have any idea of what these things actually used to be like. So I would agree that these stories have a powerful influence in our culture (after all, I am a writing major, and far be it from me to belittle the power of narrative) but I feel that these stories are not based in any kind of historical truth, that there’s no way we can return to this kind of lifestyle because there is no “there” to return to.

I would agree that in the past men had a more clearly defined role, perhaps even a more active role in some sense, but I don’t think it was a more adventurous role by any means. I think for the greater part of history, the mass of men and women have lived very mundane lives, caught up in mundane tasks of day to day labor, family and finances. So why should we pursue these kind of ideals when they are not based in or really functional in our actual lives? Why do we have these desires in the first place? I don’t think their burnished on every man and woman’s heart, spanning time and place. I think they have far more to do with Western culture than with God or our original design, so perhaps E. is right when speaking to how we ought to deal with them, but I really have to question his assessment of their source. But this is also part of a more general, nitpicky kind of problem that I had with E’s language throughout the book. He speaks so generally and so certainly about how this is always true for every man and woman, and after a while, this overbearing confidence gets really obnoxious, like “Hey buddy, have you asked every single man or woman whether this is the case?” But maybe that’s just me…

The other thing that I found really…interesting is E’s out of hand dismissal of how much gender roles are shaped by society and how much they are biological. To quote his book: “Permit me to bypass the entire nature vs. nurture ‘is gender really built in?’ debate with one simple observation: Men and women are made in the image of God as men or as women…Gender simply must be at the level of the soul, in the deep and everlasting places within us.” Is it just me, or are there about four million unexamined presuppositions in that “one simple observation?” It seems as though Eldredge would deny that there is any difference in genders that is derived sociologically rather than spiritually. I really have a problem with that. I think in recent years there has been so much debate about all of these and so many pushes towards thinking that a lot of gender is sociological that it is in a way popular or cool to declare that one thinks that there are really no integral differences between the genders beyond the physical. And because of that popularity, I would feel a lot more comfortable saying that I think that gender is basically a construction, but I don’t want to do that just to be in conformity to popular notions.

On the other hand, I am really not comfortable with making an assertion like “women tend to be nurturing, while men tend to be aggressive.” (this just as an example of the other camp, not exactly of what E. is saying). So I am really not sure where I fall in the whole nature vs. nurture debate, but I feel like it’s pretty evasive and unfair to just avoid the entire thing, to dismiss it even, particularly if you then go on to make lots of statements about the way that every man or every woman is or what they want, just seems to set you square on some very shaky ideological ground. I think that there are definitely patterns in gender roles, that men tend to be one way or women tend to be one way, but I just don’t think it ever makes demographical sense to start talking about the way that all people are. I also think that there are differences between men and woman that are deeper than merely physical, but I don’t know that I would be comfortable to start pointing out exactly what differences those are, even among my own social group, let alone for all men and women. I think that E. needs to avail himself of what my A.P. American History teacher called “the merits of ‘many’.”

I also have trouble saying that men ought to acquiesce to, or even actively pursue living the way that their natural, “God-given” inclinations would lead them. I have lots of natural inclinations that I am pretty sure that I should just leave alone. For example, I am naturally inclined to be greedy, I am naturally inclined to put other people down so I can get ahead, I am naturally inclined to be neurotic. I don’t think that being naturally inclined towards something necessarily disqualifies something as a guidepost towards how we were meant to live, but I certainly don’t think that that alone would merit some inclination to be declared God-given and noble.

Are you'ns tired of this already? Because believe it or not, I think I have enough thoughts for one more post. So children, which would you rather have, a great lapse in posting or vacuous posts or an inundation of legnthy and semi-thoughtful work? You buttered your bread...

S.