Single Women: Sign of the End Times?

Roy at alicublog wonders just what it is about those single gals that bugs conservative blogger Lileks so much. Why should it be considered some kind of social crises per se that 51% of adult American women are now single?

Why are the private beliefs and behaviors of other citizens so annoying to Lileks? Probably because what was once said of the left wing is now demonstrably true of the right: for them, the personal is the political. The marriage habits and bedroom behaviors of others obsess them; they obsessively judge the political content of movies, TV shows, and so forth. I guess when your politics are shown to be disastrously inapt for the country, what else have you got left?

Of course, the personal was always political for many conservatives. A great deal of conservatism has related to moral judgments about the way people should live their lives - they should live their lives as conservatives believe people used to live their lives, in those virtuous days recalled in the mystic chords of memory.

The difference is that many modern conservatives, not content to tut-tut or to "protect" society from liberal social engineering, have taken it on themselves to try and actually reverse the river of history. The problem, for them, is that all they can achieve is some rather silly-looking splashing around.

Labels: alicublog, conservatives, feminism, James Lileks

  ¶ Posted by Paul Curtis 2:24 PM