We live in a strange, peculiar world. As a man, it is very hard for me to understand this world. Words and phrases don’t connote any real meaning anymore, and the meaning is arbitrary depending on the individual. Roland Barthes, a post-modern philosopher, wanted to achieve that end with his deconstructionist view on meaning, which aimed at deracinating objective meaning in a story from the author’s point of view and shifting the interpretive view to the individual reader. And I see this in our culture, as phrases like “speak your truth” are ubiquitous. Thus, I see that we are living in a post-modern world that has stripped away meaning from not only the words we use but in the actions we pursue, and the values and principles we believe in.
Take for example the phrase, “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” What exactly does this mean? Since the words don’t have a very clear, objective meaning, most of the time it defaults to something related to one’s emotions. To love one’s neighbor is to make one’s neighbor feel good about themselves. To say things they want to hear, rather than what they need to hear. To enable them. To indulge them. I strongly suspect that the broken family structure in the West is a big part of why these things are present in our culture.
Single motherhood is now very common in the West. One can definitely see that when both parents aren’t actively present in their child’s life, it is very hard for the child to be a responsible, sensible adult. In most family structures, the mother is very protective of the child and indulges the child. The mother does things for the child not wanting to make the child feel bad or displease them. But the father is the force that pushes the child to be responsible and take calculated risks in the world. The father breaks the child and in breaking them turns the child into an adult. So the mother’s love is an indulgent love and the father’s love is a molding love.
It is very clear to me that the love that dominates in our culture is indulgent love. And it makes sense when you consider the family structure where the father is not actively present or is flat out not there. Society is indulging the population. Politicians want to cancel student loan debt without consideration. Politicians want to forgive business loans without consideration. Our society is not promoting responsibility and hard work anymore, and I believe it is because the objective meaning of words and values has been replaced with emotion and indulgent love that is present in the mother. But the indulgent love becomes self-destructive the older a child gets.
Among other things, one of the reasons for the broken family is post-modern philosophy. The most important unit in society is the family. The family is the microcosm of society. If the family is strong, then society will be strong. If the family is weak, society will be weak. We live in a world where the family structure is weak. With the emergence of feminism, the roles of each parent have become confused. Feminism should have defined a woman’s role clearly so as not to be injurious to the family structure, but it only caused problems. Women have obtained more power, but in doing so, women and men are at odds with each other. Both genders are competing to be society’s leader and it is destroying the family structure, among other things. In a post-modern world, such a conflict is warranted because objective reality is a signal that an authoritative power wants to control others, and the need to fight that power structure is necessary. But in making this fight, society suffers. Instead of society pitting men and women against one another, society should honor how each relationship functions according to each person’s characteristics. Some women can lead while others don’t. It depends on the particular woman. But the post-modern age we live in won’t allow it, and it has instigated the war against men and women.
Society is like a petulant child that has no parent to tell it no. Society is spoiled because the father is not there to give wise instruction and to discipline it. To provide the molding love only a wise and good father can provide. Society is falling apart because the duality of indulgent love and molding love is gone, and post-modern philosophy won’t allow this objective structure of the family to be the dominant feature of society.
As a man, I struggle greatly in trying to comprehend this strange world. I believe in hard work, living with strong values, and being useful and practical in the world. I believe one’s work shouldn’t be merely to make money for a living but to do work that contributes to society and the world around us. This is why I think practical pursuits like medicine, law, accounting, engineering, and others are a great way for someone to go into the world and be of use. But today, I see that the pursuit of money is the general aim. I don’t understand this, and I struggle trying to tolerate it. I can see the meaninglessness of it, and know that it leads nowhere. But in a post-modern world where objective meaning is abolished, it doesn’t matter. How strange a world we live in.
I hope one day we can move away from post-modernism. There has to be objective structures. Society has to have meaning beyond the individual. In this strange, peculiar world, I believe a lot of men find it hard to live when rules and values are so vague. It is time to return back to objective structures and move away from post-modernism to salvage Western society.
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