Madonna reveals the essence of liberalism

What can you say? In order to express solidarity with Malala Yousafzai, the 14-year-old Pakistani girl who was shot in the head by the Taliban for writing about the importance of having an education, the 54-year-old Madonna did a sleazy strip tease at the Los Angeles Staples Center. You see, from the point of view of liberalism, it’s all the same thing. Liberalism is the belief that we all must have equal freedom to express and fulfill our desires, whatever they may be. Seeking to have an education is an expression of a desire, and doing a strip tease in front of thousands of people is an expression of a desire.

Thus, from the liberal perspective, the essence of what the Pakistani girl was doing was not that she was pursuing an education for herself and promoting education for other girls, but that she was trying to fulfill her desires. And in terms of fulfilling one’s desires, the respective activities of going to school and doing a strip tease are of equal value. Under the liberal order, the substantive content of one’s choices as compared with the substantive content of other people’s choices is irrelevant. All that matters is that they are choices made by the self; and, as choices made by the self, they are equal.

And this is why liberalism, which once upon a time was about the nobility of human progress and human uplift and the spread of civilized ideals to all mankind, has gone into the toilet. Liberal equality once meant that all people should have the equal right and the equal opportunity to better themselves, to pursue worthy aims. But then it turned out that the idea of worthy aims violates the ruling principle of liberalism, which is equality. According to true liberalism,—liberalism stripped down, as it were, to its nihilist essence—all aims are equally worthy. And so we end up with an icon of the liberal culture paying homage to a girl threatened with death for wanting an education, by acting like a skanky whore.

- end of initial entry -

Terry Morris writes:

I just had an epiphany while reading this entry:

The oft-repeated liberal refrain that all children are entitled to a public education does not come from a genuine belief that all children are entitled to a quality education, but from the belief that all children are entitled to a liberal education, which is designed to prepare them fulfill their desires, no matter how deviant or anti-social those desires turn out to be.

October 15

Patrick H. writes:

So, ironically, Madonna and the Taliban are in full agreement about the purpose and meaning of female education.

LA replies:

Son of a gun! You’re right.

Carol Iannone writes:

Brilliant, both your commentary and the reader’s comment.

Jim Kalb writes:

Isn’t it just straightforward feminism? Denying girls an education suppresses the intellectual and social power of women, while modesty and sexual restraint suppress the sexual power of women. So it’s the same issue, the suppression of women, and Madonna and Malala Yousafzai are carrying on the same struggle against it.

LA replies:

If Muslim women protested that they can’t go in public without being covered up, would that be feminism, or just a demand for humanly decent treatment?

Jim Kalb replies:

Denying the right for a girl to go to school is suppression of women, so from a feminist standpoint opposing it is feminism. And I don’t think there is a good feminist reason to distinguish among conventions that tell women they have to cover up. They all suppress women by erasing women’s bodies, so fighting one (e.g., Madonna) is fighting all.

LA replies:

Ok. But do you consider it feminism?

To use another example, when the British banned suttee, was that feminism, or just basic law and order, in this case the prohibition of murder?

Jim Kalb replies:

I thought the issue was why Madonna treated public stripping as a show of support for the girl in Pakistan. My response was that like a great many people she thinks the same principle is at stake, and I said what that principle is (the liberation of women).

As to your specific questions: feminism and natural law say the same thing as to banning suttee and not having to cover up totally. They’re opposed on the right to strip for an audience and the need for women to accept social standards of modesty and sexual restraint. As to women’s education, they agree on some points, like the general right to learn, while disagreeing on others, like the right of women to attend military academies or Yale College.


Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 14, 2012 09:52 PM | Send
    

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