The Garbage Generation

[Buick Electra]

Has anyone read the book, The Garbage Generation, by Dr. Daniel Amneus?

A mantra of patriarchy vs matriarchy came up over the holiday gatherings when this book was brought up as we were told it explains how crime and social breakdown is due to female/single parenting.

I decided to check it out on Amazon and it does get some good reviews, (I can see it being good for it's 'shock value'), but it also had a few bad one's like this...

Amneus tries to argue that the natural order of human society is 'matriarchal' and that this matriarchal form of human society is incapable of sustaining human civilization. By the same token, he argues, 'patriarchal' society is responsible for the creation of human civilization and necessary to sustain it. ...

There are two huge flaws in Amneus' reasoning that render the whole project unsupportable:

First, as at least one other reviewer has already pointed out, Amneus' assertion that primitive human societies were matriarchal in nature is highly questionable and seems not to actually be true. Amneus bases his assertion, ironically, on an apparently large body of feminist scholarship to the same effect, i.e. that the natural order of human society is matriarchal and patriarchy is a recent phenomenon. ...


The other huge problem with Amneus' reasoning is that he references an abundance of modern sociological studies in an attempt to demonstrate that matriarchal families tend to be unsuccessful and result in social disintegration, but does not differentiate between single mother households and single father households. Most of the studies that Amneus refers to, for example, speak of 'single parent households' and any differentiation between single mother households and single father households is not addressed by Amneus or by any of the study excerpts that he quotes.

More at link http://www.amazon.com/Garbage-Genera...DateDescending

And this...

This book takes the cake. In the first chapter he denounces "female-headed families" at least ten times and mentions a possible problem caused by impossibly bad relations between a father and his children once. A man's responsibility is severely lacking in this text.

More http://www.amazon.com/Garbage-Genera...DateDescending

And This...

"the success of the system in generating male overachievers who create wealth, social stability and progress--all beneficial to women--proves the arrangement to be desirable. Women would not have accepted it unless its benefits were greater than those offered by matriarchy. The wife of an impoverished burgher could have been de-classed by her husband's behavior, but she chose to be his wife because through marriage her status and income were more likely to be raised than lowered. This is the way the patriarchal system works, and it benefits everyone."

Sure it does, or did historically, until a marriage didn't work out and the wife was cut off entirely. Do we need to remind Mr. Amneus that historically, most women had no property rights or titles and ended up with nothing after divorce? It's been proven more than once that the system of "cling to a man or you got nuthin'" doesn't work for the greater good. And that one sentence, "Women would not have accepted it unless its benefits were greater than those offered by matriarchy", is another blatantly false statement. Ultra-patriarchy was established the same way white-power was: force and a lot of brain-washing. Following Amneus's logic, we might conclude that black people must have personally accepted white prejudice because they thought it beneficial and, after all, they did "accept" it for hundreds of years.

More http://www.amazon.com/Garbage-Genera...DateDescending

But there are also plenty of these...

Flying in the face of today's conventional (feminist-promoted) wisdom, this brilliant book painstakingly shows that patriarchy is the indispensable foundation for civilization, and that it is responsible for social stability, prosperity, technological advances, and such peace as human societies have known. "Men, not women, are the ultimate guardians of morality; and while men may delegate the responsibility to women (as in the Victorian age), when women subvert the moral order, men must reassert their responsibility to restore it."

More http://www.amazon.com/Garbage-Genera...DateDescending

He documents how the feminist wish for the rights of the more primitive matriarchy along with the benefits of civilization, which only patriarchy can produce and provide, is wanting to "have your cake and eat it too", of wanting to have it both ways, that the two are incompatible. That, and that the effects on men are uniformly negative, which is why men should oppose these trends. And while many claim we're still under a patriarchal system, Amneus shows that we're actually a long way towards going back to the matriarchal stone age.

http://www.amazon.com/Garbage-Genera...DateDescending

It does sound like a fascinating read...I think anything that evokes big debate is fascinating, but if his sources are off or he has a general dislike for all females, I don't want to waste my time. That's why I'm just wondering if any of you would recommend it or suggest I not waste my money.

Thanks!

[MinnesotaSmith]

That goes right to the core of much or most of what is wrong in the West today. It's available either as a reasonably-priced paperback from Amazon, or online for free. Look at my signature line to find it, where the link has been for months.

There is a related also very worthwhile online piece (under half as long) also linked there.

[agr8gem57]

Well, I've read both links, and I have a few things to say. I won't bother going to the trouble to link to verifiable sources. My verifiable source is LIFE, and I've had a good bit of that. I'm also widely read, and possess a reasonably high IQ .
It appears to me that at the bottom of both these links lies the "BIG STICK" theory, and nothing more intellectual or significant than that. We know that through hormonal gifts of birth, most men are physically stronger than most women. We have to expect that throughout most of the time human beings have survived on this earth, men ruled women simply because they carried the bigger bodies, muscles, and strength. They were quite simply able to beat a woman to death, or punish her in thousands of less physically fatal ways if she didn't submit to man's wishes. I seriously doubt there is any greater reason than what I've stated for women being the "weaker" sex. Other than the physical gifts bestowed as an accident of birth to men and women, men have no advantages over women that would cause them to be deserving of absolute power. We KNOW that women are as mentally capable as men in all ways, given slight differences due to tendencies that are mostly hormone-related. That is to say that in certain areas of intelligence, women are actually superior to men, with offsetting areas where men are superior to women.
Any doctrine that says women should always be subservient to men, no matter how they and their children are treated by their men is totally ridiculous, and anyone who truly believes such theories would make a fine Muslim. I care little how religion would espouse such theories. Who wrote the laws of most religions? MEN! And as Winston Churchill said: "History shall be kind to me, for I intend to write it!" So goes the very great majority of history, and quite a bit of religion along with it.
The bare facts are these: There are a lot of good and bad women and men in this world. No good faithful woman deserves to be stuck forever with a bad man, and vice versa. If a man is allowed sexual freedom while the woman remains faithful, she is at as much risk of fatal disease and other life altering problems being forced upon her as if she went out and found it for herself. Why should it be ok for a man to bring home sexually transmitted diseases to his wife and the mother of his children, but unacceptable for a woman to reject such a double standard? Why should a woman be subjected to abuse and alienation of affection, perhaps belittled for not measuring up to another lover her husband has, while it's perfectly ok for a husband to treat his family in these fashions because he's providing them room and board? This simply doesn't wash.
For hundreds and thousands of years, men were in control of most everything. If men did such a good job, why did women want change that would force them into the workplace, so they could then come home and REMAIN responsible for most all the chores they had prior to the feminist movement? It must be because of FAR MORE REASONS than a few women simply wanting freedom so they could go out and be promiscuous! More likely, it's because too many men did a poor job of being a good husband, too many of them took far too much advantage of women, treating them badly enough that women decided finding more freedom was WORTH the extra burdens they took upon themselves in order to escape the abuse they'd been subjected to for far too many centuries.
As long as men had almost absolute power over women, they were free to let the evil grow roots with very little accountability to anyone, regardless of what level of abuse they dealt their subservient women. Women had little or no voice, and were expected to take it and like it, and keep their mouths shut. This is quite simply wrong. Those men who are unhappy with the changes which have occurred in Western Civilization should be looking at the unfettered greed and evil that persisted throughout their reign over women as the reasons for the changes that have occurred, and NOT blaming women for all the problems of today. The stage was set for these many problems while men were still in control, and I find it sickening that in the few short years women have had a little power over their destinies, there are men who are trying to blame WOMEN for the problems of the world!!! If such amazingly short-sightedness is the best these writers can come up with, then that, in itself shows us that men have failed miserably, and are now looking to throw the blame somewhere off themselves. I'm disgustedand sickened by the entire theory.

[MinnesotaSmith]

To regurgitate the exact same politically-correct/feminist-approved party line that is as ubiquitous in the culture today, as it is inaccurate and fails to describe what is going on, why it is going on, and what will come of current trends.

You mentioned nothing about:

1) The massive change in the legal system to not merely be even-handed towards women, but is now so biased towards women that it discourages tens of millions of men from ever marrying. It also gives a gross corrupting power edge to women in what marriages that are formed that weakens many to most marriages to the point the women deliberately and avoidably choose to end them for advantage, and makes them less nurturing to children as well as husbands in the meantime.

2) The demographic crash in middle-class native-born married Americans resulting from the legal system and cultural changes that is on track to see America replaced by Mexico and the dregs of Africa and Asia during this century.

3) The hypergamy gone wild among women that has the bulk of them pointlessly chasing the top 5% of men WRT attractiveness/status/wealth for commonly 4/5 or more of their fertile years. They have sex (becoming de facto members of harems while they still have their nubile looks) with those few "alpha" men, but don't usually form marriages (mathematically impossible for nearly all of them). This results in them not accepting for marriage the men of their own class and "market value" until their thirties, approaching pointless from those men's POV. This is so common now that it's as unremarkable and unnoticed to most people (other than understandably frustrated beta men) as water is to fish.

4) The increasingly-degraded motivation that millions of American men deprived of wives (especially pre-late thirties) have to produce economically, to the detriment of all. Look at Haiti or the poor inhabitants of any typical inner city to visualize the gross poverty this leads to. Now, imagine no welfare/transfer payments/charity of any kind entering those areas, and you'll see the economic future the change in women's roles is directly leading to.

5) Employment policies and laws changing to confer preference far beyond merit for millions of women (also called "affirmative action"), resulting in three things above all. One, many men BC of it now cannot support families, that could have previously, so they don't marry and start families, when they would have. Two, it aggravates the hypergamic drive of women who become careerists, expecting any man they would look at twice to still earn more money/have higher status, no matter how rare their own situation. This leads them to hold out for men who quite literally either do not exist (they are that rare), or would not look at those women twice. Three, it distracts women from considering marrying until half their looks, most of their appealing optimism, and the bulk of their God-bestowed fertile years are but memories. It also economically enables (think Al-Anon definition of "enabling" here) them to do so, showing how women's careers commonly harm people's lives, while men's careers can make family formation possible, even likely.

6) The ubiquity to the point of being nearly unnoticed, and harmful gross distortion of general expectations among women, caused by what I call emotional pornography. That is, romance novels, soap operas, and pandering women's magazines ranging from Seventeen to Cosmopolitan to Vogue. These observably do much to help lead women to mating hypergamy gone absolutely insane, with the effects mentioned earlier.

7) Everyone comments on the increase in male version of pornography (visual instead of emotional/situational as women's is). What no one is asking is WHY millions of (commonly young) men now prefer video and still images to live women for sex and relationships, when (if financially risky and unlikely to be committed-to by the women longterm) easy sex is that much easier to obtain now.

8 ) The gross favoring of more-socialist/more-statist political candidates by women when voting compared with men to the point of irresponsibility at best. I interpret this as the predictable manifestation of women's overall general preference for security over freedom, and the opposite of what America is supposed to be like -- or leads to prosperity.

9) The millions of abortions being performed every year in America. Whether or not someone is prochoice (I am), there are two blatantly obvious corollaries that follow from that fact. One is that control over reproduction is nearly all in the hands of women, unfair to men who are supposed to be involved in that part of life as much as are women, and a corrupting power imbalance that women are handling very, very, badly. The other is that any society so behaving (really, its women, since most men have absolutely no say in whether or not abortions are performed) has something very seriously screwed up about it. It didn't use to be this way, so something has gone very, very wrong. What has gone wrong is feminism.

==================================================
I could easily double the number of bones to pick with your post, but the point IMO is made devastatingly crystal-clear: you either didn't read 10% of the material at those two links, or you didn't understand squat of what you read. I wil charitably guess the former.

[MinnesotaSmith]

Author of the book Women: Theory and Practice, and the owner of the conservative blog/webcast Chapin's Inferno".

In three parts, "The Quagmire of Older Women":

http://mensnewsdaily.com/archive/c-e...apin122303.htm

http://mensnewsdaily.com/archive/c-e...apin122803.htm

http://mensnewsdaily.com/archive/c-e...apin010204.htm

[Bethshaya]

Hogwash

The single/mother family is a symptom just as the crime rate is, of the REAL problem.

1) Lack of morals/discpline
2) Relinquishing of parental "rights" of raising their own children to the government either through want or by force (don't want to be bothered to raise them, or not being able to discipline them because it isn't PC)
3) Entitlement mentality
4) Greed/selfishness/laziness

There are plenty of single mother families who raise children who are educated, not violent, respectful and responsible. Being a single parent does not guarantee that your child will be a criminal, nor that they will be fine.

The deciding factor is responsibility to raising that child properly. Boundaries for kids are not set as a torture to them, but as a way of teaching right from wrong and the consequences of those choices while they are growing up in a safe environment. Once they are an adult, it is too late.

Teach your children the way they should go, and when they are old, they will not depart from it.

...says nothing about having a single or married family. Many a widow raised their children in biblical days.

That being said, the for none of the reasons stated by the author, the real reason that the patriarchal system works is because GOD set it up that way.

It is the man's job to protect and care for the spouse, as Christ cares for the church. It is the wifes job to be submissive to the husband. That has become twisted to mean that she must be browbeat into every decision that he makes. That isn't true. If the true man operates with his family's best interests at heart, not his own, as is stated in the bible, then the trust of the woman is given to the man to make the decisions. When there is no trust, that is where the struggle begins. That stems from selfishness/greed...me first mentality.

[MinnesotaSmith]

"That stems from selfishness/greed...me first mentality."

IMO you just described the core of feminism.

Well, there is this, too, among its leaders (>40% of whom are reputed to be lesbians):

“Feminism is the theory, lesbianism is the practice.”

(Chicago Women's Liberation Union pamphlet, Lesbianism and Feminism, 1971; Stevi Jackson, Sue Scott, Feminism and Sexuality: A Reader, Columbia University Press, 1996, p. 282)

[Bethshaya]

So only women are selfish/greedy?

How do you think we got into the situation we did in Washington? They are just the "good ole boys?...and that the only ones running the country are lesbians? They sure look like men to me. They must all really be butch....so butch that they took male names.

[valkyree]

I'm with you Bethshaya

the issue of patriarchy v matriarchy is a moot point - proper civilization is where men and women respect each other and love their children and don't abandon them

female/single parenting is a huge problem - it's bad for children

it's a problem caused by both men and women being immature and putting themselves above their own offspring that they are responsible for

women carry the children and give birth and are the natural caregivers and as such they need a partner - the father of their children - to raise them properly - this is the natural order of things created by Our Creator

sure single parents can do a good job - a few of them - that doesn't change the fact most of them would be much better off w a partner and children need mommies and daddies

[valkyree]

now feminism - that's a dif story - feminism is just another word for lesbianism/man-hate and it's anti-family

changing the meaning of what a family is - 2 mommies or 2 daddies - is wrong and will always be wrong

wanting the fed.gov to be the daddy is also wrong

feminism is a trap - a snare - that catches selfish or weak or wrong-minded women and destroys them