XLI – Don Quixote Tilting against the Patriarchy

This comment and subsequent thread were extremely interesting and presented a lot of information in the context of Chivalry, Feminism, and Male Privilege.

My aim here is to offer a rebuttal of some of the key points in defense of Chivalry and in opposition to both ‘feminism’ and the satirically styled ‘male privilege’.

First, let us establish the thesis to be rebutted:

Premise 1 – Courtly Love is how people understand Chivalry; both should be condemned.

Premise 2 – Chivalry, as it pertains to women, serves more to reinforce the false ideology of feminism than to detract it.

Premise 3 – Chivalry allows women, at times, to get away with murder, literally.

Thesis – Chivalry may once have had value, but does no more due to the linguistic evolution of the word and it’s use and conflation with related ideas. This new conception of chivalry may once have protected, but now it enables, a class of people who capitalize fully on the advantage.

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Accuracy of Past or Present

The first challenge is to establish which has the most value: Contemporaneous usage of a word, or the original and historical usage of the word. For this we can find plenty of arguments for or against each side of the argument.

The word idiot is derived from the greek idiotes which means ‘Layman’. In essence, the word originally described someone who does not take up their civic responsibility. In a democratic society such as theirs, where they cast lots for lawmakers, one who shirked this duty was a liability to society. The condemnation of the civic class on the private man caused the word to assume it’s implied rhetorical meaning as the one we now know in our dictionaries. idiot is presently known to all as a mentally deficient person. If, based on my recent musing about elections, I described myself as an idiot, all would understand me to be referring to myself as mentally deficient, and none would consider (and fewer would know) that my intent was referring to myself as simply a non-civic layman.

A word more closely resembling the concept of Chivalry is virtue, derived from the latin virtus which retains nearly the same meaning, and some additional meanings, across time: Virtue is the body of values and traits that make the ideal man. The ideal man has changed only slightly over time, but many of the virtues have remained the same.

So this reduces us to two options: Has Chivalry, as a word and idea, retained it’s original meaning and gained additional ones, or has it’s meaning changed entirely from it’s original sense?

Chivalry derives from the latin Caballus (horse) and via french chevalier (knight, or person who rides a horse), to chevalerie (art of horse riding / art of knighthood), and then anglicized in its present form Chivalry (code of martial honor). The contemporary dictionary definition retains both the historical sense (“the medieval knightly system with its religious, moral, and social code.”) and the contemporary sense (“courteous behavior, especially that of a man toward women.”) This leads me to believe that Chivalry has acquired additional meanings, like Virtue; rather than changed entirely, like Idiot.

The Body of Meaning

Now that we know we are not dealing with simply one word and one definition, but rather the historical word and it’s broad collection of meanings, we must parse out what is relevant to our discussion or not. There are two primary concerns here. First: Is ‘Courtly Love’ contained within the body of meaning surrounding Chivalry? Second: Is ‘Courteous behavior (…) toward women’ distinct from other definitions or can it be subsumed into the greater idea?

Regarding Courtly Love: This idea is tangential to Chivalry, but was argued as the ‘cultural definition’ of the word. The dictionary definition reads as follows:

a highly conventionalized medieval tradition of love between a knight and a married noblewoman, first developed by the troubadours of southern France and extensively employed in European literature of the time. The love of the knight for his lady was regarded as an ennobling passion and the relationship was typically unconsummated.

The key idea here is that it is a literary device. After the crusades, Chivalry captured the cultural imagination of Europe, resulting in an astounding volume of work romanticizing Chivalry. These were almost all satirized in Cervantes’ work, Don Quixote, who depicted a man obsessed with books of chivalry and who rode off on a mad adventure typically involving hallucinating events differently than they actually played out.  Courtly Love is also disputed as being an actual historical practice, and is instead regarded as exclusively a literary device. Chivalry then is a historical concept that predates Courtly Love, and it’s contemporary definition bears no resemblance to Courtly Love, other than, arguably, platonic deference to women. Therefore Courtly Love is a distinct idea that is only associated with Chivalry in fiction, and not in fact.

Secondly, what can we say regarding that deferential idea? Chivalry, as noted previously, includes a religious and moral code which includes a set of virtues. Especially since Chivalry is associated with the Crusades, they were considered militant Holy Orders who were religiously obligated to conduct themselves in a way that would esteem the Church. As a celibate holy order (in structure, if not in practice), these Knights were obligated to not just defer to women but to defer to all people except their enemy. Conduct themselves virtuously, in other words. Polite deference to women is included in that idea.

Chivalry versus Feminism

The inception of this discussion was with a blogger somewhere renouncing chivalry. He claimed, in part, that Chivalry enables feminism and encourages poor behavior by women, by virtue of unwarranted deference. Rather than deferring to them, Men and Women should be treated as equals, with all the good and bad that that implies.

There are a number of points here that must be addressed in turn. First: Does Chivalry, in fact, offer dangerous deference to women? Second: Feminism is something that should not just be discouraged, but fought against, and chivalry is not the most effective means thereof. Third: Men and Women should be treated as equals.

Begin at the beginning: Does Chivalry offer dangerous deference to women? I answer: No. Chivalry, properly conceived in both it’s historical and contemporary sense, is centered around this idea of virtue. A chivalrous man is obligated, first and foremost, to treat all people with dignity and respect. If someone does not treat him with respect, he is obligated to love his enemy but not to his own detriment. Considering ad absurdem: Chivalry does not bar a man from defending himself if a woman is holding him at gunpoint, compared to a man holding him in the same situation. Chivalry does not bar a man from chastising a woman who is rude or aggressive towards him. Chivalry does not bar a man from encouraging the practice of virtue in those around him. Women who believe Chivalry requires deference, do not understand Chivalry. Men who believe the same suffer the same misconception.

Secondly, regarding Feminism. ‘Armchair Crusaders’ have a bizarre fascination with feminism, as if it is a force that needs to be fought. The best solution, in my mind, is to ignore it. Feminism, that toxic blend of toxic individuals, men and women alike, who are unable to self soothe when life doesn’t go easily for them, is being cultivated and encouraged by social forces outside of any individuals control. The best thing anyone can do is have lots of kids and raise them in virtue. So Feminism doesn’t merit a response, and Chivalry is not and never was a ‘tool’ for fighting feminism, and it is certainly not additive to the problem, unless someone who misunderstands chivalry waves the flag of chivalry to justify their behavior. Chivalry, properly conceived, is indifferent to the ravings of entitlement.

Thirdly, I will be brief: Men and women are not equals, and so should not be treated equally. The article this conversation was born in was about women being eligible for the draft. Women should not be eligible for the draft, not out of chivalry, but out of a sense of cultural preservation. When the men die in battle, women must heal a broken nation at home. If men and women die in battle, no one will be left. It is a practical matter. Equality is deleterious to social health.

Murder: A Woman’s Crime

There was another, more outlandish claim, that Chivalry literally allows women to get away with murder. In evidence: A stat that women commit about 10% of the murders, but make up less than 3% of the executions. Also, some articles from the early 20th century.

First, Men are evolutionary hardwired to be sympathetic to women. A woman crying has a powerful instinctive effect on men, and that has nothing to do with Chivalry. So some disparity should be allowed for that. Second, I don’t believe ‘committing murders’ and ‘executions’ are congruent statistics, since the death penalty is not universally legal. There are a number of variables between murder and execution that could easily reduce the proportion of women. Finally: Justice is, and should be, blind. Feminism or Chivalry should have no part in it, and I have not seen adequate evidence that the justice system is stacked favorably to women. Yes, men bear a heavy portion of incarcerations and penalties. However: Men also commit a heavy portion of the crimes which deserve it. This is not a hardship to men, this is inherent in our nature. A sufficient number of people will always have a greater portion of men committing crimes than women.

Chivalry is Dead, Long Live Chivalry

The premises on their own do not stand, and the Thesis itself is built on misconceptions about chivalry and feminism and what they mean and the consequences thereof. Chivalry, as a body of virtues, is still a force for good in the world, if it draws people to learn about the virtues it implies. It’s historical and contemporary definitions are not so out of sync as to be totally different from each other, and society would do well to cultivate more chivalry, rather than renounce it and decrease it.

I hope this has served as an effective rebuttal to the discussion about Chivalry.

AMDG

XXXV – Chivalry is Dead, Long Live Chivalry

Originally a comment over at Orthosphere.

Commenter: Has anyone followed Dalrock’s formal declaration of his rejection of chivalry? As far as I can tell it has nothing to do with MRA revenge, but it certainly is a departure from conventional Western thinking, touching on this matter of the draft also, I think, though not explicitly.

To which I replied:

Scoot: @Commenter, I went over to read that because the idea of ‘rejecting’ chivalry seems gravely misinformed. I offer the following response because you mentioned it here, even though i know you don’t claim any of his ideas for your own.

He says the following:
“After due consideration I have decided to adopt the label unchivalrous Christian. The label is more accurate than anti-feminist Christian, or traditional Christian, because antifeminist and traditional Christians almost always stress chivalry as their strategy for fighting against feminism.”

He immediately equates “unchivalry” with “antifeminism” and “traditionalism” which, in turn, equates “Chivalry” with “feminism” and “anti-traditionalism”. It seems to me that this Dalrock fellow has succumbed to the great lie that feminists stand for women, which they do not. Feminists stand for feminists.

The vocation of women is extremely important and extremely unrepresented in discussions about ‘feminism’, and the only virtuous response to a virtuous woman practicing her vocation is virtuous behavior, which is chivalry. Virtuous women deserve unequivocally the deference and defense from and by men. His argument is fallacious from the start.

Chivalry cannot be rejected any more than I can reject “Honesty” or “Charity”. If Dalrock is a virtuous man, he will necessarily be chivalrous to all humans, inclusive of women. If he is not a virtuous man, he cannot be said to have been chivalrous from the start, and so he is merely acknowledging the current state of reality.

As it pertains to the draft, it is misinformed to think that an offense against chivalry is the only thing wrong with drafting women.

One cannot reject virtue and still claim to be virtuous. Those are the tools of the enemy. If Dalrock considers himself a virtuous man, chivalry is inherent in his behavior. If he is not virtuous, his declaration is adding no new information.

Addendum:

Commenter2: Given how Courtly Love is how people know chivalry(as well as the inversion of sex roles)

and how there is already protection for women and in non-chivalric societies as well as pre-chivalric Christian societies. I don’t think that argument holds water.

There is also the factor that Chivalry far from counteracting feminism seem to have reinforced its power through the surrender of such men to this wickedness.

Not withstanding how Chivalry or its offshoots have resulted in women getting away with murder:

Title: “1912: “A Man Is Killed By A Woman Every Day!” – Petticoats Confer Immunity”

To which received the following replies:

JMSmith: It may be useful to separate chivalry from the code of courtly love, since the later tends to corrupt the former. Ideally, chivalry was simply a code of righteous or sanctified violence. The chivalrous knight put his strength in the service of God and the good. The crusades were the clearest expression of this code. Thus rescuing a “damsel in distress” was chivalrous only when rescue didn’t mean seizing her so you could rape her yourself. In the code of courtly love, a knight was inspired by his “lady love,” a married woman woman with whom his relations were supposed to be Platonic, but with whom they very often were not. This is the origin of our idea of “romantic love,” and of the terrible idea that romantic love (i.e. eros) is the foundation of sexual morality.

Chivalry is hacked when “white knights” come to the rescue of the wrong gal. If a modern white knight came upon Rapunzel in her tower, he would think it his duty to help the old witch lock the door. If a modern white knight saw Andromeda chained to her rock, he would think it his duty to help the poor little sea monster. Chivalry detached from a sound understanding of God and the good is a malignant force. Chivalry is also corrupted when the knight expects erotic compensation for his services, since virtue is its own reward in true chivalry.

And from myself:

Scoot: I agree with @JMSmith above: separating chivalry from courtly love is important. History suffers from a misconception due to cartoonish depictions of chivalry. Chivalry is derived from french Ch[e]valier (anglicized, Cavalier), which is in turn derived from Latin for horse, Caballus. Chivalry has it’s roots in the crusades, where holy orders of knights took vows before God and man. This idea captured the cultural imagination, resulting in works such as Ivanhoe, which I consider to be a reasonable depiction of Chivalry, and satirical works such as Don Quixote which is a scathing rebuke of the cartoonish chivalry we are all most familiar with. So first and foremost lets make sure we are working with the same understanding of chivalry.

Second, Chivalry adequately understood has built into the idea an oath to uphold Christian virtues. Indeed a “Gentleman” used to speak to this, but as CS Lewis observes in Mere Christianity, it has been overused and stretched to the point that now it simply refers to a term for a person whom the observer likes. Christian virtues existed before Christ and still exist after Christ; Christ simply exemplified their perfection. These virtues are valuable in the west and outside the west, and are not bound by geography. Chivalry then can be considered an ‘umbrella’ term for the collective virtues with which a man conducts himself.

Given the above, Chivalry is not designed to ‘counteract’ feminism. Chivalry presents an example that does not conform to the feminist worldview. How can there be a patriarchy of pig-men when men behave decently and virtuously to all people, especially women? So feminists choose to ignore Chivalry or choose to use a different conception of chivalry so that it doesn’t challenge their world view so much. Chivalrous men hardly surrender to ‘wickedness’ but are bound by virtue and honor to protest all instances where a person is being treated unjustly, or contrary to the Pax Dominum (not being a latin expert, my intent is to say ‘the Lord’s Peace’, perhaps I ought to have just said that).

So “murder” is, as such, totally contrary to Chivalry nor can I imagine there being genuine ‘offshoots’ of chivalry, since chivalry is a body of virtues and not a political ideology. Treating chivalry as a political ideology is the same error of the feminists: it leads to Feminists only standing for feminists, and ignoring women, thus neglecting their true objective. Political ‘chivalrists’ only standing for themselves, and ignoring the virtues their name implies.

 

AMDG