Men who are natural "alphas" will naturally form a "tribe" around themselves. They become a focal point for a social circle, and they are usually the one who is responsible for determining who is "inside" or "outside" said circle.
Newcomers seeking to gain entry in the group must pass the criteria set by the one who defines that social group's policies.
The problem with this is that most people have been brought up on the idea that exclusivity is evil, that segregation is inherently wrong, and so any group that someone wishes to belong to should not ever reject them, or make their participation difficult, for any reason at all. As such, most people do not understand how their behavior will be regulated by the leader of their group. What they are allowed to do or not to is not unlimited.
Groups where there is no definition struggle with coherency, because if there is nothing that defines the group, how does one know it even exists, let alone demonstrate membership of it?
Given that, there is a difference then between disliking someone because they perform that role at all, and disliking the traits of the specific social circle that they shepherd.
Owen Benjamin is a popular fellow, famous or infamous depending on who you talk to, and in large part it's because he's forming a "tribe" through the internet, and what he's doing is so foreign to so many people, they don't even know how to frame their reactions.
For him, it's natural, because his personality is more "alpha", so while it's possible he's applying conscious thought to the process, a lot of it will be instinctual as well, and because of how naturally he looks after "his own", outsiders think that the problem they have with him is that. In his care for and protection of those who he cares most about.
The reality is that they probably just don't like the particulars of his "tribe", because they don't and shouldn't belong to "his", and so instead of trying to change Owen to suit them, they need to go find someone they are already suited for better in the first place.
They need to go elsewhere to find their "tribe", instead of trying to get Owen to change his to accommodate.
What complicates this is ease of access, so natural laziness will prevent people from putting in the work that they should to find "their people", and they'll instead try to project themselves out into the internet and complain when people don't live up to their expectations.
I was listening to a somewhat older Darkstream and the nature of the complains fielded were that people were attracted to Owen, but then repulsed by some of his behaviors. They were attracted to the role that Owen was playing, because of how natural and synthetic male alphas have been denigrated and undermined in Western Civilization, but they were put out by the particulars of the "tribe" that he presided over not being "theirs".
The problem isn't Owen, it's them. They are the ones who tried to latch onto the first person resembling a leader that came along, instead of doing their own part to make sure that said leader was someone they could or should even be following in the first place.
Owen is establishing his own terms, and if you don't like them, that doesn't mean you don't like him, just that he's not the correct fit. Move on. He's not the only fish in the sea.
Appreciate and respect that he cares enough about the social circle that he is cultivating to define it, to give it an identity, to ensure that it is kept safe from predators and manipulators who would seek to do harm to those under his digital care.
You don't need to agree with him on anything to understand that the role he is fulfilling, and the consequences of fulfilling that role, are natural and essential to the proper functioning of society.
Instead of getting Owen to change, we should instead be encouraging more men to stand up for their own "tribe", to stop being ashamed of having preferences, to stop pretending that people and cultures which are different and incompatible are anything else than that.
Leave Owen, and Owen's "tribe", alone. They owe you nothing, and acting like they do only reinforces why you are still "outside".
Showing posts with label Father. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Father. Show all posts
22.2.19
21.2.19
Such a child
I think I'll unofficially ban myself from Vox's comment section for a good number of months, because I rather boldly crapped on the floor and made a fool of myself, so at the minimum, even if I am deluded into thinking I can contribute there, I just won't. I have demonstrated that, as of right now, I don't contribute anything of value, so instead of cluttering up the comments section on his blog, I'll just ruminate on stuff I want to respond to over here.
There is a movie coming out called Captain Marvel, which panders ideologically to the kinds of people who don't turn out in large numbers for movies like that. The philosophy comes from the venture capitalism/start-up world where folks are constantly trying to find and tap a market where nobody else is at, and so there are a lot of things tried and few of them really succeed, because it's hard to tell where there is an actual gap because nobody wants something, or because nobody has tried to fill the gap.
There was a comment in response to this movie which, while I can understand what they are trying to say, is somewhat revisionist and ignorant, lacking any necessary subtlety.
You can read the whole comment here, but the part I want to highlight is this section right here:
The earliest "job" I can remember desiring was to be a monster truck driver.
When I was that young, guns and cars and tales of heroism were of interest to me.
My children, even young, already show an interest in very similar things.
There are careers that are aligned with their interests, if I know how to steer them correctly into developing the skills to support them.
The thing is that, under healthy and normal circumstances, young boys wish to be grown men doing grown men things, shouldering responsibilities and saving the day. Playing with cool technology, slaying dragons, all sorts of things that, as a boy, they can dream about, but lack the maturity, strength, and experience to actually participate in.
The wish-fulfillment for six-year-old boys used to be about things that were laudable, but now that those things wished for are not, some folks will to pretend that the problem is the wish-fulfillment itself.
To resolve this issue, however, we can't just throw out wish-fulfillment. I've used the phrase "mothers plant, fathers prune" to demonstrate a balance that is necessary in raising children, and this would be an example of a father figure going "too far".
Fathers "prune" in the sense that many plants will not produce good fruit when they are investing resources in growing the branches and so forth. Fruit are, in general, how the plant ensures its survival, but if its survival isn't threatened, it won't produce as much fruit.
A specific example of this is with wine grapes. I learned from my mother, who as an empty-nester looked into winemaking, that when soil is rather fertile, that the grapes produced are quite bland and lackluster. It's when soil is more barren, when the plants are stressed, that the fruit they produce has the most sugars, intending to attract the most creatures to consume the fruit and then spread the seeds afar to ensure the survival of the plant species.
Now, prune too much of a plant, and it simply dies out completely. Further, if there is nothing ever planted, there won't be anything to prune to begin with.
Squashing the dreams and creativity of children, whether boys or girls, is not going to "fix" the problem of those children never growing up. What we have in that case is a failure to prune, to eliminate the growth which will not eventually produce good fruit, and so the plants grow wildly out of control.
Mothers need to plant, to inspire new opportunities, to explore new avenues, but that needs to be balanced by fathers pruning back when the direction is harmful or out of control. Both are necessary, both father and mother have very distinctive roles, and both need to be specialized in that role to do the best they can at it.
The wish-fulfillment of six-year-old boys is what inspires them to strive harder, to reach towards something they don't already have. I drive a somewhat ostentatious vehicle, and I often get reactions from young boys who think I drive a "cool car". I worked hard to get a career and while I was single had bought a sporty coupe which was fun to drive, and even married with kids I still daily drive that to and from work every day. It gets decent gas mileage for what it is, it's the most powerful car I've ever owned, and it even played a role in getting the attention of a lady who would become my wife, and the mother of my children.
And while it's no monster truck, I do have a truck up on jack stands awaiting my rebuilding of the transmission.
There was a time when the wish-fulfillment of the youths was associated with things that were obtainable, activities which were beneficial, and in becoming the best at what one already was or could be.
The perversion of that was in turning the dreams to be the best at what you are into something that you aren't. That's the problem, not that children have dreams, or that those dreams should be abandoned or crushed, but that culture plays a role in what those dreams are, and the knee-jerk reaction, the pendulum swing that overshoots, simply does not account for this subtlety.
We want boys to wish to be good fathers, honorable soldiers, devoted disciples of God. We want girls to wish to be good mothers, wise nurturers, and also devoted disciples of God.
We want the dreams and wishes for them to strive to reach for to be good things, and for them to achieve them, not quash the whole thing entirely because some people had nightmares instead.
The path forward to a stable future is not found in the wobbling and waving to try and regain a balance, a perpetual swinging from one extreme to another. We only delay the inevitable fall, expend great energy to deny the obvious, creating all the more embarrassment when all such efforts prove futile.
It's not found in extremes of planting anything and everything and leaving it to chance, or in pruning back anything and everything that doesn't already bear fruit.
There is a movie coming out called Captain Marvel, which panders ideologically to the kinds of people who don't turn out in large numbers for movies like that. The philosophy comes from the venture capitalism/start-up world where folks are constantly trying to find and tap a market where nobody else is at, and so there are a lot of things tried and few of them really succeed, because it's hard to tell where there is an actual gap because nobody wants something, or because nobody has tried to fill the gap.
There was a comment in response to this movie which, while I can understand what they are trying to say, is somewhat revisionist and ignorant, lacking any necessary subtlety.
You can read the whole comment here, but the part I want to highlight is this section right here:
Remember - just 20 years ago, normal people would've thought there was something wrong with grown men spending so much time and money on wish-fulfilment fantasies for six-year-old boys.Wish-fulfillment is not the problem. What is being wished for is, and if you miss out on this and what happened to cause the change, then you'll blame the wrong things and prescribe the wrong cure.
The earliest "job" I can remember desiring was to be a monster truck driver.
When I was that young, guns and cars and tales of heroism were of interest to me.
My children, even young, already show an interest in very similar things.
There are careers that are aligned with their interests, if I know how to steer them correctly into developing the skills to support them.
The thing is that, under healthy and normal circumstances, young boys wish to be grown men doing grown men things, shouldering responsibilities and saving the day. Playing with cool technology, slaying dragons, all sorts of things that, as a boy, they can dream about, but lack the maturity, strength, and experience to actually participate in.
The wish-fulfillment for six-year-old boys used to be about things that were laudable, but now that those things wished for are not, some folks will to pretend that the problem is the wish-fulfillment itself.
To resolve this issue, however, we can't just throw out wish-fulfillment. I've used the phrase "mothers plant, fathers prune" to demonstrate a balance that is necessary in raising children, and this would be an example of a father figure going "too far".
Fathers "prune" in the sense that many plants will not produce good fruit when they are investing resources in growing the branches and so forth. Fruit are, in general, how the plant ensures its survival, but if its survival isn't threatened, it won't produce as much fruit.
A specific example of this is with wine grapes. I learned from my mother, who as an empty-nester looked into winemaking, that when soil is rather fertile, that the grapes produced are quite bland and lackluster. It's when soil is more barren, when the plants are stressed, that the fruit they produce has the most sugars, intending to attract the most creatures to consume the fruit and then spread the seeds afar to ensure the survival of the plant species.
Now, prune too much of a plant, and it simply dies out completely. Further, if there is nothing ever planted, there won't be anything to prune to begin with.
Squashing the dreams and creativity of children, whether boys or girls, is not going to "fix" the problem of those children never growing up. What we have in that case is a failure to prune, to eliminate the growth which will not eventually produce good fruit, and so the plants grow wildly out of control.
Mothers need to plant, to inspire new opportunities, to explore new avenues, but that needs to be balanced by fathers pruning back when the direction is harmful or out of control. Both are necessary, both father and mother have very distinctive roles, and both need to be specialized in that role to do the best they can at it.
The wish-fulfillment of six-year-old boys is what inspires them to strive harder, to reach towards something they don't already have. I drive a somewhat ostentatious vehicle, and I often get reactions from young boys who think I drive a "cool car". I worked hard to get a career and while I was single had bought a sporty coupe which was fun to drive, and even married with kids I still daily drive that to and from work every day. It gets decent gas mileage for what it is, it's the most powerful car I've ever owned, and it even played a role in getting the attention of a lady who would become my wife, and the mother of my children.
And while it's no monster truck, I do have a truck up on jack stands awaiting my rebuilding of the transmission.
There was a time when the wish-fulfillment of the youths was associated with things that were obtainable, activities which were beneficial, and in becoming the best at what one already was or could be.
The perversion of that was in turning the dreams to be the best at what you are into something that you aren't. That's the problem, not that children have dreams, or that those dreams should be abandoned or crushed, but that culture plays a role in what those dreams are, and the knee-jerk reaction, the pendulum swing that overshoots, simply does not account for this subtlety.
We want boys to wish to be good fathers, honorable soldiers, devoted disciples of God. We want girls to wish to be good mothers, wise nurturers, and also devoted disciples of God.
We want the dreams and wishes for them to strive to reach for to be good things, and for them to achieve them, not quash the whole thing entirely because some people had nightmares instead.
The path forward to a stable future is not found in the wobbling and waving to try and regain a balance, a perpetual swinging from one extreme to another. We only delay the inevitable fall, expend great energy to deny the obvious, creating all the more embarrassment when all such efforts prove futile.
It's not found in extremes of planting anything and everything and leaving it to chance, or in pruning back anything and everything that doesn't already bear fruit.
25.4.18
Daily Bible Study: Proverbs 10:1
The proverbs of Solomon:
A wise son makes a glad father,
But a foolish son is the grief of his mother.
Proverbs 10:1 (NKJV).
We've gotten past the relatively more extensive narratives in Proverbs and enter into the portion of the book where there are much shorter little tidbits.
This passage speaks to the same dynamic as to why mothers want to hear from their kids, to know how their lives are going and so forth, while fathers are stereotypically less interested in such trivial affairs.
In movies and such, this has been a bit of a joke, a subtle jab at the "clueless" or father who is just minding his own business, whether the kids were little or all grown up. The father figure is detached not for a lack of caring, in capacity or capability, but by the nature of the relationships of the father in contrast with the mother and their children.
At childbirth, there is a literal chemical release inside the mother's body which creates a psychological bond with their child. The father never experiences this same type of bond, there is no obvious trigger to tell the male body to release the same chemical and form the same social bond.
For this reason, the bonding with men and their sons tends to come later in life, when shared activities are participated in. This performance-based bonding is still emotionally detached though, and so while the mother starts and never stops feeling the presence and strength of the bond between her and her children, the relationship with the father has just isn't ever the same, it isn't ever quite as "close".
The father is not tasked with the detailed care of children, though he still plays an important role, because his primary task is to bring home the resources that the mother needs to rely on in the raising of the children and the caring for the home.
These resources are essential to the dynamic of the family, and so the father has to detach himself from distractions and pondering the "what if" in order to focus on "what is" and do that as efficiently and effectively as possible. Men are, by nature and nurture, conditioned and prepared for dealing with terrible circumstances and being able to just shake it off. This comes at the price of being able to shake it all off, both the good and the bad, as is necessary in order to achieve a goal or complete a task.
Further, it's not that a mother is not happy about her son being wise, or that the father is not disappointed in a foolish son, but because the reactions of the father and mother at the different "ends of the wisdom spectrum" are the strongest at that respective end.
A wise son makes his father glad more than his mother. A foolish son pains his mother more than his father.
Fathers and mothers and their children have different relationships with each other and between one another, even if everyone is in harmony and living in the same household, the experiences are different, and so how people respond to your highs and lows will be different.
Keep that in mind when you next interact with your own parents, in how the distinct nature of your relationship with your father and your mother is unique. Appreciate the distinctions.
A wise son makes a glad father,
But a foolish son is the grief of his mother.
Proverbs 10:1 (NKJV).
We've gotten past the relatively more extensive narratives in Proverbs and enter into the portion of the book where there are much shorter little tidbits.
This passage speaks to the same dynamic as to why mothers want to hear from their kids, to know how their lives are going and so forth, while fathers are stereotypically less interested in such trivial affairs.
In movies and such, this has been a bit of a joke, a subtle jab at the "clueless" or father who is just minding his own business, whether the kids were little or all grown up. The father figure is detached not for a lack of caring, in capacity or capability, but by the nature of the relationships of the father in contrast with the mother and their children.
At childbirth, there is a literal chemical release inside the mother's body which creates a psychological bond with their child. The father never experiences this same type of bond, there is no obvious trigger to tell the male body to release the same chemical and form the same social bond.
For this reason, the bonding with men and their sons tends to come later in life, when shared activities are participated in. This performance-based bonding is still emotionally detached though, and so while the mother starts and never stops feeling the presence and strength of the bond between her and her children, the relationship with the father has just isn't ever the same, it isn't ever quite as "close".
The father is not tasked with the detailed care of children, though he still plays an important role, because his primary task is to bring home the resources that the mother needs to rely on in the raising of the children and the caring for the home.
These resources are essential to the dynamic of the family, and so the father has to detach himself from distractions and pondering the "what if" in order to focus on "what is" and do that as efficiently and effectively as possible. Men are, by nature and nurture, conditioned and prepared for dealing with terrible circumstances and being able to just shake it off. This comes at the price of being able to shake it all off, both the good and the bad, as is necessary in order to achieve a goal or complete a task.
Further, it's not that a mother is not happy about her son being wise, or that the father is not disappointed in a foolish son, but because the reactions of the father and mother at the different "ends of the wisdom spectrum" are the strongest at that respective end.
A wise son makes his father glad more than his mother. A foolish son pains his mother more than his father.
Fathers and mothers and their children have different relationships with each other and between one another, even if everyone is in harmony and living in the same household, the experiences are different, and so how people respond to your highs and lows will be different.
Keep that in mind when you next interact with your own parents, in how the distinct nature of your relationship with your father and your mother is unique. Appreciate the distinctions.
30.3.18
Daily Bible Study: Proverbs 4:1-4
Hear, my children, the instruction of a father,
And give attention to know understanding;
For I give you good doctrine:
Do not forsake my law.
When I was my father’s son,
Tender and the only one in the sight of my mother,
He also taught me, and said to me:
“Let your heart retain my words;
Keep my commands, and live.
Proverbs 4:1-4 (NKJV).
Fathers are important.
This seems simple, yet in our current era of rebellion, where good is called evil, and evil called good, it is a controversial thing to say. The implications it carries, the weight of the realization that things are very wrong and that, in some ways, cannot ever be made right.
Some may immediately, in an egalitarian spirit, try to quip, even if only to themselves, that "mothers are important too." While that is true, this instinctual response is not a healthy one. It's the same response that gave us a generation with "participation trophies", because for the same reason that men and women must be equalized, so too must the winners and losers of an activity, lest the loss of self-esteem and the bursting of the solipsism bubble prove to be too painful for those involved.
Comparisons, distinctions, anything that creates a disparity is inherently evil.
And so even the truth that Fathers are important was sacrificed to these false gods.
We can see the impact of fatherlessness all around us, from broken relationships to drug use to addictions, all of these being unrefined expressions of what could have been healthy. Each is instead an untamed overgrowth of emotion, of volatility, of uncouth behavior which has never been properly disciplined.
An analogy I've used to contrast the role of the father and mother is this:
Mothers nurture, Fathers prune.
You see, it's not just enough to plant a garden and then just sit back and see what happens. Despite what your best attempts are, the different seeds you chose and the arrangement you placed them in, there is always competition in fertile soil and only that which sets down roots first or deepest can survive. Weeds can soon crowd, and even if not, when a plant does grow, the growth is not based on who planted, but the nature of the circumstance the plant experiences.
This is why the importance of a mother or a father can be discussed separately without needing to bolster the other at the same time, in large part because they're not doing the same thing, so when discussing only a particular set of behaviors or attributes, you will often only end up talking about one or the other anyway.
Another way of saying the same thing is that mothers set a course, determine a direction, and fathers ensure it's being followed and make necessary corrections. The skills required to do both are different, the awareness, the actions taken, they are different, and it's extremely difficult to do both at the same time, impossible if you deny that there even are a "both" that need to occur in the first place.
Specifically, in my youth there was a "theme" in parenting where the reduction of restriction was supposed to usher in a new era of enlightened children who were not hindered by limitations, who would explore and not be held back by any struggles. The lofty idea was that struggles prevented growth, so in order to really be expressed, growth could not be hindered in any way.
The reality is that the struggles refine us to who we really are, they provide the motivation and opportunity to grow, and they give us constructive feedback.
A plant can grow wild, but when pruned or trimmed correctly, the plant will change its behavior. Think about wine grapes on the hills of Italy. Some of those plants are very very old, yet in order to get them to produce the best fruit, you must counter-intuitively stress them. When on the border between life and death, when pruned of new growth, the plants will invest heavily in producing fruit that would be desirable to the wild animals who would eat the grapes and then spread the seed of the plant, helping ensure its survival, even if the specific plant itself dies.
Placed in fertile soil without any trimming, provided all the nutrients the plant could ever want?
The resulting fruit is bland, sparse, as instead of producing fruit the plant will instead just keep focusing on new growth, new vines, expansion of the plant.
This is the model of a child who grows up without a father. It's not that the mother does not try to direct, to correct, to put forth a law for their child to follow, but they are not equipped with the necessary skills to enforce that law, and the father is.
For the same reason that men are better suited to physically demanding work, that the mental resilience of man that allows them to face both the mundane and the terrifying and still retain their sanity to provide for their families, men are simply better suited to provide the corrective action in the lives of their children, and can make the sacrifices in the relationship between them and their children as are necessary for the better of the child's growth, maturity, and future outlook.
Solomon understands this, and will emphasize time and again in Proverbs that the lessons taught by a father are to be kept and cherished even when fathers are no longer around, that it's not just enough to heed the advice, but that actually living it out will show honor to your father and also lead toward life instead of destruction as well.
Bad fathers are not going to change overnight, nor can the damage they cause be fixed easily, but even worse then that is when good fathers are prevented from ever being good fathers at all. When our culture seeks "equality", it does not push bad fathers towards being good, but instead only seeks to make bad fathers out of them all, so as not to give any child the advantage of stability, of health. All are to be equally broken, miserable, and dependent.
Encourage fathers to be good ones, to embrace the difficulty in their task of guiding growth, of correcting the path that their children walk, of the value in them investing into the lives of their children. Because fathers are important, and those investments can pay dividends on into eternity.
And give attention to know understanding;
For I give you good doctrine:
Do not forsake my law.
When I was my father’s son,
Tender and the only one in the sight of my mother,
He also taught me, and said to me:
“Let your heart retain my words;
Keep my commands, and live.
Proverbs 4:1-4 (NKJV).
Fathers are important.
This seems simple, yet in our current era of rebellion, where good is called evil, and evil called good, it is a controversial thing to say. The implications it carries, the weight of the realization that things are very wrong and that, in some ways, cannot ever be made right.
Some may immediately, in an egalitarian spirit, try to quip, even if only to themselves, that "mothers are important too." While that is true, this instinctual response is not a healthy one. It's the same response that gave us a generation with "participation trophies", because for the same reason that men and women must be equalized, so too must the winners and losers of an activity, lest the loss of self-esteem and the bursting of the solipsism bubble prove to be too painful for those involved.
Comparisons, distinctions, anything that creates a disparity is inherently evil.
And so even the truth that Fathers are important was sacrificed to these false gods.
We can see the impact of fatherlessness all around us, from broken relationships to drug use to addictions, all of these being unrefined expressions of what could have been healthy. Each is instead an untamed overgrowth of emotion, of volatility, of uncouth behavior which has never been properly disciplined.
An analogy I've used to contrast the role of the father and mother is this:
Mothers nurture, Fathers prune.
You see, it's not just enough to plant a garden and then just sit back and see what happens. Despite what your best attempts are, the different seeds you chose and the arrangement you placed them in, there is always competition in fertile soil and only that which sets down roots first or deepest can survive. Weeds can soon crowd, and even if not, when a plant does grow, the growth is not based on who planted, but the nature of the circumstance the plant experiences.
This is why the importance of a mother or a father can be discussed separately without needing to bolster the other at the same time, in large part because they're not doing the same thing, so when discussing only a particular set of behaviors or attributes, you will often only end up talking about one or the other anyway.
Another way of saying the same thing is that mothers set a course, determine a direction, and fathers ensure it's being followed and make necessary corrections. The skills required to do both are different, the awareness, the actions taken, they are different, and it's extremely difficult to do both at the same time, impossible if you deny that there even are a "both" that need to occur in the first place.
Specifically, in my youth there was a "theme" in parenting where the reduction of restriction was supposed to usher in a new era of enlightened children who were not hindered by limitations, who would explore and not be held back by any struggles. The lofty idea was that struggles prevented growth, so in order to really be expressed, growth could not be hindered in any way.
The reality is that the struggles refine us to who we really are, they provide the motivation and opportunity to grow, and they give us constructive feedback.
A plant can grow wild, but when pruned or trimmed correctly, the plant will change its behavior. Think about wine grapes on the hills of Italy. Some of those plants are very very old, yet in order to get them to produce the best fruit, you must counter-intuitively stress them. When on the border between life and death, when pruned of new growth, the plants will invest heavily in producing fruit that would be desirable to the wild animals who would eat the grapes and then spread the seed of the plant, helping ensure its survival, even if the specific plant itself dies.
Placed in fertile soil without any trimming, provided all the nutrients the plant could ever want?
The resulting fruit is bland, sparse, as instead of producing fruit the plant will instead just keep focusing on new growth, new vines, expansion of the plant.
This is the model of a child who grows up without a father. It's not that the mother does not try to direct, to correct, to put forth a law for their child to follow, but they are not equipped with the necessary skills to enforce that law, and the father is.
For the same reason that men are better suited to physically demanding work, that the mental resilience of man that allows them to face both the mundane and the terrifying and still retain their sanity to provide for their families, men are simply better suited to provide the corrective action in the lives of their children, and can make the sacrifices in the relationship between them and their children as are necessary for the better of the child's growth, maturity, and future outlook.
Solomon understands this, and will emphasize time and again in Proverbs that the lessons taught by a father are to be kept and cherished even when fathers are no longer around, that it's not just enough to heed the advice, but that actually living it out will show honor to your father and also lead toward life instead of destruction as well.
Bad fathers are not going to change overnight, nor can the damage they cause be fixed easily, but even worse then that is when good fathers are prevented from ever being good fathers at all. When our culture seeks "equality", it does not push bad fathers towards being good, but instead only seeks to make bad fathers out of them all, so as not to give any child the advantage of stability, of health. All are to be equally broken, miserable, and dependent.
Encourage fathers to be good ones, to embrace the difficulty in their task of guiding growth, of correcting the path that their children walk, of the value in them investing into the lives of their children. Because fathers are important, and those investments can pay dividends on into eternity.
15.3.18
Daily Bible Study: Proverbs 1:8-9
My son, hear the instruction of your father,
And do not forsake the law of your mother;
For they will be a graceful ornament on your head,
And chains about your neck.
Proverbs 1:8-9 (NKJV)
There are at least three controversial concepts in just this very short passage that show up regularly in the Bible, some in obvious ways, some more overtly. They are:
1) A father and mother do different things.
2) Your father and mother both do important things.
3) Constraints make you better, not worse.
The reason these are controversial is that the postmodern philosophies embraced by popular culture in at least the United States rejects all three of these things, and for a litany of reasons, all of which boil down to rebellion against God's order. Let's take them one by one.
1) A father and mother do different things.
In this passage, the father instructs. The word used in the original language is "musar", which is associated with "discipline, chastening, correction". For those who don't know, while the English language has a very large vocabulary, ancient languages often did not, and so the same word would have multiple meanings along a theme. You can see how those three concepts are reflected in "instruction", and yet there is a little something missing. To help explain, let's look at what the mother does.
For the mother, the word in the original language is "torah", which is associated with "direction, instruction, law". Can you see how these two different words are very close, but hold a different connotation? The father's role is active, where the mother's role is passive.
The one who prescribes the law does not necessarily enforce it, or provide the corrective action when it has been broken. When you look at the results of sexual dimorphism in physiology, or even in the stereotypes of the past found behind phrases like "just you wait till your father gets home", you can see how the dynamic of similar but distinct roles comes into play.
2) Your father and mother both do important things.
That leads us into the next part, where scripture is very clear that both dad and mom have different roles to play in a healthy family. Both are necessary. You can't have a healthy family without one or the other, and we've plenty of both anecdotal and verified data to show what happens when you try to raise children without one or the other.
This is where the idea of "equality" comes into play, in that people have a hard time understanding that disparate roles can have equal value. We often view the outcome as the criteria for determining "equality", or the difficulty in achieving a task, and so if the inputs or outputs are subtle or hard to see, it "feels" like there is an inequality in value because there is an inequality in those inputs and outputs.
Having worked in manufacturing environments for over a decade, I can explain in great detail that when your responsibility is to avert possible problems in the future, it becomes very tough to explain how the specific steps you've taken prevented an issue from manifesting. In the same manner, if a mother provides instruction to her children and they listen and obey, it can be deflating and anti-climactic, but this should not diminish the importance of her role in shaping that outcome.
This is why, much later on in the New Testament, Paul would emphasize that husbands bestow honor on their wives in understanding. While a father may get a lot of visibility in his more active role, and it will be more physically challenging, that does not make the role of the wife less important, and so husbands are to recognize this and adjust their behavior towards their wife to reflect this.
3) Constraints make you better, not worse.
This is one of the common and presumably paradoxical claims made throughout the Bible, and yet it speaks to a truth we can understand and see in everyday circumstances. A garden which is not tended to will become overgrown and filled with weeds. A building which is not mended will crumble and fall. A company with an unlimited budget will still somehow bankrupt itself and collapse.
If you do not guide a process intentionally, the results are based entirely on chance. So often we hear people discuss "freedom", as if it is an inherently desirable concept, that lacking constraints people would make better decisions and not be "held back" by restrictions on their behavior.
Yet the reality is that those restrictions produce refinement. The garden which is tended to will produce good fruits and aesthetic beauty. A building which is tended to will stand for generations. A company that learns to live with little resources will become efficient instead of wasteful.
A child whose behavior is directed will mature, and the restrictions which chafed them as a child will instead become the very mechanism by which their true value can manifest. When you meet someone who displays discipline, you don't see the restrictions, what you see is the resulting refinement that discipline brought about in that person.
This is why Solomon describes the teaching and correction of your father and mother in such favorable terms, because the result of that understanding and obedience will bring results that will be plainly obvious to those that are around you, in the same manner that there is an obvious difference between one who is finely ornamented and one who is not.
Embrace the constraints on your behavior that your father and mother put in place and held you to and do not be tempted to presume that they did so out of cruelty, but out of genuine love in order to help refine you into something better.
And do not forsake the law of your mother;
For they will be a graceful ornament on your head,
And chains about your neck.
Proverbs 1:8-9 (NKJV)
There are at least three controversial concepts in just this very short passage that show up regularly in the Bible, some in obvious ways, some more overtly. They are:
1) A father and mother do different things.
2) Your father and mother both do important things.
3) Constraints make you better, not worse.
The reason these are controversial is that the postmodern philosophies embraced by popular culture in at least the United States rejects all three of these things, and for a litany of reasons, all of which boil down to rebellion against God's order. Let's take them one by one.
1) A father and mother do different things.
In this passage, the father instructs. The word used in the original language is "musar", which is associated with "discipline, chastening, correction". For those who don't know, while the English language has a very large vocabulary, ancient languages often did not, and so the same word would have multiple meanings along a theme. You can see how those three concepts are reflected in "instruction", and yet there is a little something missing. To help explain, let's look at what the mother does.
For the mother, the word in the original language is "torah", which is associated with "direction, instruction, law". Can you see how these two different words are very close, but hold a different connotation? The father's role is active, where the mother's role is passive.
The one who prescribes the law does not necessarily enforce it, or provide the corrective action when it has been broken. When you look at the results of sexual dimorphism in physiology, or even in the stereotypes of the past found behind phrases like "just you wait till your father gets home", you can see how the dynamic of similar but distinct roles comes into play.
2) Your father and mother both do important things.
That leads us into the next part, where scripture is very clear that both dad and mom have different roles to play in a healthy family. Both are necessary. You can't have a healthy family without one or the other, and we've plenty of both anecdotal and verified data to show what happens when you try to raise children without one or the other.
This is where the idea of "equality" comes into play, in that people have a hard time understanding that disparate roles can have equal value. We often view the outcome as the criteria for determining "equality", or the difficulty in achieving a task, and so if the inputs or outputs are subtle or hard to see, it "feels" like there is an inequality in value because there is an inequality in those inputs and outputs.
Having worked in manufacturing environments for over a decade, I can explain in great detail that when your responsibility is to avert possible problems in the future, it becomes very tough to explain how the specific steps you've taken prevented an issue from manifesting. In the same manner, if a mother provides instruction to her children and they listen and obey, it can be deflating and anti-climactic, but this should not diminish the importance of her role in shaping that outcome.
This is why, much later on in the New Testament, Paul would emphasize that husbands bestow honor on their wives in understanding. While a father may get a lot of visibility in his more active role, and it will be more physically challenging, that does not make the role of the wife less important, and so husbands are to recognize this and adjust their behavior towards their wife to reflect this.
3) Constraints make you better, not worse.
This is one of the common and presumably paradoxical claims made throughout the Bible, and yet it speaks to a truth we can understand and see in everyday circumstances. A garden which is not tended to will become overgrown and filled with weeds. A building which is not mended will crumble and fall. A company with an unlimited budget will still somehow bankrupt itself and collapse.
If you do not guide a process intentionally, the results are based entirely on chance. So often we hear people discuss "freedom", as if it is an inherently desirable concept, that lacking constraints people would make better decisions and not be "held back" by restrictions on their behavior.
Yet the reality is that those restrictions produce refinement. The garden which is tended to will produce good fruits and aesthetic beauty. A building which is tended to will stand for generations. A company that learns to live with little resources will become efficient instead of wasteful.
A child whose behavior is directed will mature, and the restrictions which chafed them as a child will instead become the very mechanism by which their true value can manifest. When you meet someone who displays discipline, you don't see the restrictions, what you see is the resulting refinement that discipline brought about in that person.
This is why Solomon describes the teaching and correction of your father and mother in such favorable terms, because the result of that understanding and obedience will bring results that will be plainly obvious to those that are around you, in the same manner that there is an obvious difference between one who is finely ornamented and one who is not.
Embrace the constraints on your behavior that your father and mother put in place and held you to and do not be tempted to presume that they did so out of cruelty, but out of genuine love in order to help refine you into something better.
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