Temptation and Maturity in Anglophone Society

Analyzed through women and alcohol.


I can finally put it into words: I think one day we'll have adults in our society again. I think one day we'll realize that even though appearances are easier to manipulate, the truth is much more satisfying.

"Good" women aren't supposed to drink. Right now, this is considered "Oppression! Sexism! Reactionary!" "Conservative" is a very dirty word. But lets actually look at this.

Women are supposed to be more responsible than men, because their responsibility impacts the children more directly. A responsible mother and an irresponsible father is a better combination than the reverse.

Does a responsible adult get drunk? Of course not. That's the opposite of responsibility. Besides, real adults don't need to get drunk to enjoy themselves, though they can if they want to, on occasion.

In other words, only children find 'wild' women sexy. Adults find responsibility to be much more sexy - sexier, in fact, than they ever found 'wildness' to be. It's not as intense, but it's much broader, much more satisfying.

Getting drunk itself is just more of the same. It's fun...in a shallow, narrow sort of sense. Fine once in a while, if you're into that sort of thing. But having real, mature fun is a much deeper, much broader and more...wholistic joy than alcohol could even dream of making.

It's real, in other words, not just a veneer or an illusion. It's the meat, not just the dressing. The cake, not just icing. (You'll notice that children love icing.) A real, flesh and/or blood human being instead of a flickering mechanical image.

Our culture, our society, is obsessed with illusions. Addicted doesn't begin to cover it - just think up all the ways someone could be entangled with temptation and you'll start getting the picture. And that's not temptation out of the Bible - that's temptation from the real source, the same source the Bible got it from - alcohol is tempting, no? But it isn't real. And - you'll have heard this before - it's not ultimately satisfying. You want, ultimately, a high that's like alcohol's but that's stable because it's a real high, instead of a transient illusion. But, that's more work. Ultimately, alcohol is just temps you away from doing the actual work of getting the real deal. If you succumb to temptation, you waste your time.

Many people, especially responsible adults, know this instinctively, which is why they condemn porn. Porn doesn't degrade women - that's just their naive interpretation of their intuition or instinct. What porn does is tempt you away from dealing with real women, because it appears to satisfy the urge, and is a lot easier. Imagine that, every time you wanted to look at porn, you had to actually deal with a real woman instead. Now imagine yourself actually satisfying the porn urge by actually doing that. (Not necessarily sex every time here, guys.) How good would you get at dealing with women? How much would you learn, how much would you grow? Compare that to what porn actually provides for you, and you begin to see why porn is called 'smut' with all the connotations thereof. Yes, it is linguistically related to, for instance, corn smut, which are the words for a pathological fungus.

Now, why do theistic religions, like Progressivism's mortal enemy, Christianity, come down so hard on smut? Clearly, their edicts are not supported by the facts. Masturbating will not actually send you to hell, not their literal hell nor the metaphorical hell of just failing at life.

As most things aren't, religions are not rational. (Hopefully the first culture that celebrates consciousness, thinking, and self-awareness will form soon, like in the next millennium or so.) So you wouldn't expect their stated reasons nor their exact predictions to match reality. Instead, you only expect them to be effective.

Christianity's edicts are effective at one thing at least - by over-blowing the consequences of temptation, it makes it much easier for potential adults to avoid them. If you think sex out of wedlock will doom you forever with little chance of reprieve, then it's much much easier to not do it. Since, (especially during Christianity's formative years) sex outside some sort of marriage-like contract does lead to many very negative consequences, such as starving babies and hideous diseases, making it easier to avoid is a very good thing. As a bonus, sex doesn't, of course, always lead to these metaphorical hells, and each time it's risked with no backlash slowly erodes the warnings of the wiser...until you get burned, that is, and it's too late. Over-blowing the consequences helps counteract this compound temptation.

Before our culture was speared in the nads, it used mechanisms like these, non-rational yet effective mechanisms, to transmit best practise, which used to be called wisdom. Getting drunk used to be known by everyone to be a lower-class thing to do, a thing you did either when you couldn't do anything else (e.g. breakup) or because you couldn't help yourself, and the latter was considered contemptible. Very few of these people knew explicitly that alcohol is a waste of time, a side-path leading away from the road to enjoy life, yet they acted exactly as if they did know that.

Now, of course, every other blog and half of Facebook is logs of people getting drunk and pissing around. These people think going out and not getting drunk is weird, strange, a little lower-class. And they can't get their lives together. Now why might that be?

Laying on the debt, not worrying about the future, not preparing to have children, spending a decade in college, getting drunk all the time...and calling anyone who mentions they shouldn't 'oppressive' or some synonym. Oh, yeah, and widespread depression. Could these possibly be related?

And watching Friends instead of talking to their friends. Following celebrity relationships instead of following their own. In moderation, harmless...

So why do I write this? Why am I so concerned? I'm sick of icing. And I'm sick to death of people telling me that since Christianity has some factual errors, icing is all there is. You think the religious right is guilty of splitting? Not a fan? Don't go anywhere near Dawkins.

I don't have TV because I don't want any more icing. I don't read newspapers because I don't want any more icing; I wish I never had to see another commercial again, of any kind. I don't like talking to most people because I don't want any more icing. I don't even try to start conversations anymore because I know I'll just get icing. I can't stand any more smalltalk. I don't get drunk. I don't take advantage of all the easy sex out there. I restrict my porn intake as much as I am capable. I don't do drugs, even caffeine.

I don't want to live in a democracy because I'm fucking sick and tired of icing.

I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't...because none of that is good enough for me. I want something better.

I want Truth. The Whole Truth. And nothing but the Truth. So help me God.



Hey look, I randomly found an example of the culture. No, people, just because Christianity is wrong doesn't mean only icing exists.