Civility vs. Domesticity

Anthony Esolen has just given a talk at one of the two remaining all-male colleges (Hampden-Sydney in Virginia) and ponders his experience there.

Here's what I saw at Sydney, and what I see from students who graduate from all-male schools.  They're young men, not boys, though they're often boyish enough in their enthusiasms.  They don't duck and slouch and mumble.  They shake your hand, call you "Doctor" or "Professor" or "Sir" as an honorific, and look you in the eye.  They are eager to engage in intellectual dueling.  They're like teenage boys in ages past who gave themselves to a hobby -- una passione, as they say more expressively in Italian; so they'll learn everything they can about old steamer cars, or chess, or German techno-rock.  They're clean cut and comfortable with themselves.

Well, obviously, the other distracting "call to passion" is missing and it's good to see the energy otherwise dissipated spent in constructive ways.

What do you get when you leave them to their own devices?  I don't know why it should be a surprise, but they develop polities of various sorts: teams and clubs, certainly, but also timocracies, societies defined by a code of honor.  The fledgling organization that invited me to campus is run by a young man of keen intellect and great energy, who scrambled together the money for a splendid dinner, and who called people personally to attend the dinner and the lecture.  No professor was in on the organization of the event; it was all handled by the students themselves, professionally you might say, but more properly with a sense of honor; and my nine or ten dinner companions were impeccably dressed fellows who were sharp enough to ask all kinds of questions about culture and the intellect, and yet young enough to tease one another before the visitor.

And we thought the showering and primping was due to surrounding women whom they wanted to impress. How nice to see them present themselves well for the sake of, well, good presentation itself. Having elaborated more on the nature of the "brotherhood" such an institution instills and fortifies, here is where Tony makes his most surprising remarks:

It's a far cry from "college" as commodity.  It also gives the lie to what some Biblical complementarians say, I think incautiously and without any real historical awareness.  They say that women civilize men.  If that's the case, I don't understand why the college where I teach -- a very fine college, I'll affirm -- is a walk down Skid Row by comparison with the civility and order at Hampden-Sydney.  I don't understand why the all-male high schools up here produce gentlemen, and the other schools, public and private -- well, it's a real crapshoot.  Now I know perfectly well that boys will sometimes form timocracies of wickedness: gangs, for instance.  But even in that case you have a polity; gangs wouldn't be near the problem they are if they did not operate by pretty clear rules and lines of authority.  Women do not in fact civilize men; they domesticate men, as I've said before.  Men civilize men.  There's a difference.

This requires much thought and carefully drawn distinctions, which he makes thusly:

What is that difference?  A soldier in a cavalry unit who spends most of his time in barracks or under the skies,may well be more civilized, more trained to think of and to act for the common good, to command other men or to obey, than many a high-priced lawyer or even college professor.  He's not domesticated, though, and his new bride at first might find him pretty hard to live with.  On the other hand, men who live comfortable lives apart from other men, taking no initiative for the common good, considering only their wives and children and not the welfare of anybody else's children, never to be relied upon in time of public need, may be domesticated but not civilized.  You might find plenty of men of the former sort at the inception of a great nation.  You will find plenty of men of the latter sort at its decline.

He carefully qualifies his remarks with "might" and "may," so it is left for us to turn over in our minds various scenarios and whether they bring out the best or worst in men. Obviously men in love with war and "body counts" are not fighting to protect hearth and home, and yet war is a pursuit in which men engage that highlights brotherhood and honour.

Dale's theory of "circles and teams" can be revisited in light of these thoughts, and so can an important essay on "the warrior cult," which made a lasting impression on me years ago. Our take-away on this as women has to be based on the good of the family and society, rather than simply what makes our lives simpler. Sometimes calm and quiet, cleanliness and sobriety make for better house-keeping, but rather than domesticating men it virtually castrates them. Rough-housing, creative activities and boisterous interactions often have the effect of "steel sharpening steel," and the derivitive messiness has to be borne for the essential formation therein. Ponder it, and what our end-game is.

The world of men should be different from our own, and there may be a very good distinction between civility and domesticity. Another corollary is the freedom girls/women find in all-female school settings. It's a shame that the trend has been away from such environments for so long, but perhaps we can reverse it. All in all, good food for thought.

Comments

[Donna Marie Lewis]

One thing: what if a woman is undomestic herself ? My own experience of all-female gatherings is that they bored me nearly to tears. (Sometimes I found myself biting my tongue to keep from saying out loud, "Could we please talk about something other than your kids ? " or " I hate to cook, so I'm really not interested in the recipes you've been blathering on about for 10 minutes. " )

[gsk]

That is why "domesticity" is not on the short list of criteria for "authentic femininity." Ideas like that are unfair straightjackets. We operate in the realm of bride and bridegroom, understanding full-well that there are wild differences in the way that men and women are called to embody those truths.

Donna, if I could be so bold, perhaps you could meditate on how you receive the human person (those entrusted to you in various ways) the way you encourage them and foster growth, and how you point to the merciful Father-God with your words and actions. If you do it in jeans, on horseback, while fishing, or under water -- so what? Just so you're a source of life and growth in your sphere of influence, it matters not the style.

(Btw, the women in that circle are supposed to be open to you as a human person as well, and if they are on target, they should sense that your soul needs something else to draw it in. It's a two-way street.)

[Margaret Banford]

Talking about war, and loving it, my friend is a new member of MGTOW (Men Going Their Own Way) and he is always talking about how it is unfair that men go to war, that women are voting to make them go to war. This doesn't make sense to me, because men have the right to vote as well, but maybe I'm thinking too literally. Anyway, what if I told him that being a soldier civilizes men? Do you think he would see my point?