Chapter 5-7 D’Souza and the West

       Modern Western civilized man is ignorant of the history of Western civilization. Many modern people believe that Western culture was built on Athens and Rome when in fact it is built on Athens and Jerusalem with Jerusalem being the most important influence through Judaism and Christianity. Many believe Rome was destroyed by Christianity leading to the dark ages of Europe with only the Renaissance saving it to become what it is today. In fact Rome fell because of its own decadence and ultimately was sacked by barbarians of northeastern Europe pushed from the East through expansionist pressure from Asia in the form of the Indo-Turkic peoples. Over time, Christianity civilized these people. Christopher Dawson shows in "Religion and the Rise of Western Culture" how the Christian monasteries became the locus of productivity and learning through Europe. Where there was wasteland they produced hamlets, then town, and eventually commonwealths and cities. Through the years, the savage barbarian warrior became the idealized chivalric Christian knight, and new ideals of civility and manners and romance were formed that shape our society to this day. If Christianity had not come, we might still be living in the dark ages.
      The idea of USA’s limited government is born out of the idea that man inhabits two realms at the same time, the physical and the spiritual. A ruler’s realm is circumscribed by limits beyond which he simply cannot go. The Greek, Alexander the Great when confronted by those limits after conquering much of the known world, perhaps reluctantly, claimed divinity so as to be able to command the Greek city states who believed no mortal had the right to command them to unite. He died before the theory was tested. The American form of government was formed upon the Christian principle of the limitation of government to non religious activities and Christian morality was believed to be a requirement if the constitution was to be effective.
      The belief that ordinary people matter is derived from Christianity. The nuclear family, the idea of limited government, the Western concept of the rule of law, and our culture’s high emphasis on the relief of suffering are derived from the basic Christian understanding of the dignity of fallible human beings. For the Greeks of Plato and Aristotle’s time, the ordinary people were primarily useful as slaves whose value was to provide time for the ruling class to learn, think, and participate in the government of the community. An old Chinese proverb states that the tears of strangers are only water. A Roman father had the right to kill his children. The idea that individuals matter arises not from Greece, Rome, or the east, but from Christianity. Under Christianity, women and children gradually assumed value until prior to the Renaissance, women could conduct business, vote, assume public office based on character and wisdom. One unfortunate consequence of the Renaissance was that women again lost those rights, not to be regained for many centuries.
      Nietzsche thought the Christian idea of the equality of man was crazy and that this crazy idea was “the prototype of all theories of equal rights.” Christianity gave status to women; few societies in the world today give the status to women found in the West. Slavery was opposed by Christian thinkers and is it surprising the slavery world wide is on the rise? Slavery was the norm throughout history, the values of Christianity slowly eroded support for slavery until it was eventually made illegal. Nietzsche forecasted that as Secularism gained ascendancy, ‘new’ values – infanticide, redefinition of the family, and eugenic theories of human superiority – would begin to emerge. D’Souza postulates that “if the West gives up Christianity, it will also endanger the egalitarian values that Christianity brought into the world.” Nietzsche’s future is now.

Chapter 3-4 D’Souza and Atheism Part 2

        Atheists, alarmed by the rising power of religion around the world are mounting an unprecedented attack on religion. They thought they were winning; but with the decline of secularism and possibly with the precipitous decline of communism, atheists have suddenly become aggressively evangelistic in their efforts to convince the world of the righteousness of their cause.
        Their arguments tend to follow one of two lines of thought. The first is that science has shown that religion is unnecessary to explain reality and that science seems to work better. Carl Sagan writes; “We can pray over the cholera victim or we can give her 500 milligrams of tetracycline every twelve hours.” Sagan also points out that even Christians who pray are likely to supplement the prayer with medicine. We are simply carbon based machines and the mythical ‘soul’ is just a ghost in the machine that science has driven out.
        The second argument is the historical crimes of religion, the Crusades, the Inquisition, religious wars, witch trials and the like. The solution for them is to weaken the power of religion and drive religion from the public sphere. “Modern atheists view themselves as brave pioneers, facing the truths of man’s lowly origins and the facing death with heroic acceptance.
        “Not content with committing cultural suicide-they want to take your children with them.” The atheist strategy is to let the religious breed the children, but the secular will educate them to despise their parent’s beliefs by focusing on science, portraying it as the only reliable source of truth. Richard Dawkins poses the question of how much authority society and the state should give parents to ‘indoctrinate’ their own children and when the state should define such ‘unscientific’ education as child abuse. Is it surprising that home school education is growing at a rate of 15-20% per year or that California recently aborted legislation that attempted to curb the freedom of parents to educate their children as they see fit?

Response to Skinner and Soul Level

Skinner

            First let me thank you for the response; I’m excited to have thoughtful comments to help me focus and to carry on an interesting discussion. My original hope in starting a blog was to carry on a dialog about things I was thinking or reading about. The blog has been up for some time, and based on comments, only family commented and not much discussion. As a result I lost interest for a time and then started to use the blog as a file repository for some of the stuff I was reading or thinking about. This is good!
            The primary point that D’Souza is making in Chapter one is that the world is rejecting the secular perspective. Whether that is good or bad is the subject of later chapters. Radical Hinduism seems like an oxymoron and so far at least hasn’t seemed like a good thing. Back to the point of the chapter – that secularism / materialism doesn’t have much draw. Certainly, religion of all varieties is growing with Christianity growing the fastest.
            In the words of David Quammen in The Reluctant Mr. Darwin, even in the USA, in spite of a couple of generations of biology classes in which mention of religion is frowned upon, most people “choose to understand the origin of our species as if Darwin had never lived.” The Gallup organization has been polling people since 1982 on the issue of evolution and creation. In 2004 when posed with the statement “God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time in the past 10,000 years or so” (Creationism), 45% agreed with that statement, 38% agreed with the statement that “humans have developed over millions of years from lower forms of life, but that God guided the process” (Theistic Evolution). A statement that Quammen says is “utterly inconsistent with what Darwin proposed”. Just 13% agreed with the statement that “humans have developed from other life forms without guidance by God”. The interesting thing is these numbers have not changed significantly in the 6 times they have conducted the poll since 1982. Again in the words of Quammen, an admirer and biographer of Darwin, approximately 87% of the American population does not believe the fundamental principle of Darwin that higher life forms evolve from lower life forms through blind materialistic processes. Darwin's Evolution doesn't appear to be believable to the majority of the population of the world.
            Communism or at least the socialistic versions seen in USSR and China, while not dead, is not doing well for a variety of reasons. Probably the main reason it has imploded is that it is inconsistent with the nature of man even though many aspects pure communism are a great idea and tried briefly in early Christianity. For communism to work well, the people must be fundamentally and almost exclusively good, generous, and kind people. Not much evidence of that.
            I guess it is important to define secularism a bit more precisely. Skinner is correct saying that historical secularism refers to separation of religion and government. However the term has morphed to include separation of religion and truth which expands the definition and somewhat merges it with Materialism – the idea that there is only one true thing – matter. I (and I think D’Souza) am using Secularism and Materialism somewhat interchangeably. Secularism as such goes beyond a form or philosophy of government, it is a philosophical world view that says we don’t need divine intervention or revelation to give meaning or direction in any area of life including government, biology, the ‘meaning of life’, etc, or any of the important questions humans ask. A pure secularist (whatever that is) would say that the only valid source of truth is science and no god is necessary; many of the current atheist authors are saying that religion is a liability and must be eradicated.
            I’m not sure I have ever heard anyone argue that murder, rape, and pillage have survival value in the way that Darwin used it.
            Darwinian theory is clear that we humans are here as a result of a purposeless, directionless, and meaningless process with no guarantee that humans are a good idea or a dead end and with some speculating that the world might be better off without us. (Chernobyl in its current form gives some indication that nature might do well with some well placed nukes to clear out the human population.) Purpose and meaning for our existence can’t come from a directionless process.
            I’m not sure what swarms of people have to do with the argument. Demographics seem to say that the secular materialistic countries of Europe and now America are not reproducing themselves; they are short of workers and it is causing problems for their economies and cultures. You might argue that is not a problem, there are swarms of people who want to fill the void, but that begs another question of why those people want to leave. I’m afraid that is an issue beyond the scope of this argument.
            I don’t think I understand the optical illusion and shaft arguments. The only point I was making is that hopeful people whose hope is based on truth or reality with survive better than hopeless people or hopeful people whose hope is based in fantasy.
            Again I don’t think I understand the ‘human history’ argument. All the countries named rose to power under religious (not necessarily good) people, they now seem to be declining in influence, stability, and prosperity relative to the rest of the world as a function of their move toward a secular and non-religious society. Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, the Roman philosophers, and our founding fathers all seem to agree that governments will fail if the moral discipline of religion is missing.

Soul Level Response (It’s late and I’m tired so I hope this makes sense when I read it tomorrow.

            I guess there is a difference between a story that entertains us and fundamental truths. There is general agreement that myths are built around at least a kernel of truth. If there is not at least some truth and we live our lives around a lie, I can’t see how good will come of it.
            “Religion is a good way to motivate society.” The question is why is “religion a great way to organized people and society”. Men like Plato and Aristotle while not so sure of the Olympian gods, were adamant about religious duties and some believe were tending to a supreme being – a first cause. Many of the founding fathers of our nation while themselves not professing to be whole-hearted religious men felt that our government could not function without the virtues espoused by religions men.
            In the first few chapters of this book, D’Souza is arguing that Atheism is losing the battle against Religion worldwide, mad as hell about it, confused about the stupidity of humans who don’t accept evolution as a fact, believe in science as the arbiter of truth, and that they are becoming aggressive about promulgating their belief.
            Taoism - There is a difference between a personal god and an impersonal something that is a first cause. I know little about Taoism, but it appears to me to be a system somewhat related to later Buddhism and still later Epicureanism where the goal is to purge oneself of desire. That might be a good idea when applied to warring or covetous neighbors but if applied to our business or children is likely to result in failure. In any case, again forgive my lack of knowledge of Taoism, but I think it has an understanding of origins that includes purpose and therefore at odds with evolutionary theory. Again based on the little I know, Taoists believe that something nurtured humans in the beginning but doesn’t care much about what happens to us now. I’d better leave Taoism at this point before my ignorance becomes more obvious.
            I’m not sure I understand the population argument unless you might be arguing that it would be a good thing if Secular / Materialists failed to reproduce themselves so as to leave room for people too ignorant to figure out how many kids they or their nations can afford. I’m not convinced that we know enough about overpopulation issues, but we sure know enough about starvation to do what we can. Unfortunately, even starvation is not a simple issue – witness Zimbabwe or Sudan.

            Well this has been fun, hope it continues, but I need to get some sleep.

D'Souza and Atheism Part 1

What’s So Great About Christianity by Dinesh D’Souza Part 1

       I have been reading D'Souza's book over the past several months. Like CS Lewis' books, it is heavy reading because he says so much in so few words and covers such a wide range of arguments. I have been curious for the past several decades about what will happen as the center of Christianity moves out of the West. A partial answer for me is that several of my favorite Christian apologists originate from the Indian subcontinent. D'Souza came from India young enough to become involved in American politics at a national level.
       I had intended to summarize his book with a page or two, but am finding that impossible because of the subject range so here goes with D'Souza Part 1

Note that when quotes are included without referencing the author, I am quoting D'Souza

Chapters 1 & 2

       D’Souza opens his book with an aggressive statement about atheism. He say the world is witnessing a huge explosion of religious conversion and growth and Christianity is growing faster than any other religion. We are witnessing the twilight of atheism. The ranks of atheism are shrinking as a percentage of the population world wide. The fact that it is not so obvious to us living in the USA is that Christianity is growing in the southern hemisphere and Asia, but not as much in the west, especially in the USA and Europe. An indicator of the fact that secularism is not progressing as fast in the USA as many atheists would like is the regularly repeated puzzlement of secularists about the data that shows the number of people who believe in God and have doubts about evolution has stayed fairly constant for decades. An interesting and growing trend in Europe is preachers from developing nations moving to Europe to serve as pastors for churches there.
       Secularism, the idea that you can isolate the physical world and especially science and call it reality has lost some of its appeal. D’Souza says; “Secularism has lost its identification with progress and modernity, and consequently it has lost the main source of its appeal. God is very much alive, and His future prospects look to be excellent. This is the biggest comeback story of the twenty-first century.”
       A somewhat bizarre argument for the reason for the demise of atheism is that it is anti-evolutionary – there is no survival value in atheism. Secularism says that life and existence is meaningless and purposeless. Given that foundation, it is not surprising that secularists tend to not reproduce themselves. Atheists such as Scott Altran and others believe that religion requires a commitment to ‘factually impossible worlds’. The question for atheists then can be posed; Why humans would evolve in such a way that they come to believe in things that don’t exist. Christianity teaches that you are a special creation of a good and all-powerful God; created in his image with the capacities to think, feel, and worship that set you above all other life forms.
       Imagine these as two tribes of people, the secular and the religious, subscribing to two world views. The secular is made up of people who are not sure why they exist at all and are made only of matter with no explanation of why they can think at all. The religious tribe is composed of individuals who view their every thought and action as consequential. Which of the two tribes is more likely to survive, prosper, and multiply?
      “Atheism, not religion, requires a Darwinian explanation. Atheism is a bit like homosexuality: one is not sure where it fits into a doctrine of natural selection.”

Response to Jim Pruitt's Comment (Last Post)

          The author probably accepts the evolutionary perspective, but most characteristics of creatures that could be demonstrating survival of the fittest could also be taken as good design repeated in multiple creatures when appropriate. Similar functions in different species can be seen as nothing more than careful design for function; when a similar function is desired in different species, a similar design is called for.
          We can hypothesize that females carrying babies or caring for babies should be designed so that they are more cautious. This could result in design goals for females to have smaller ranges, stronger desire to be close to the babies, more care in the kind of rough-housing when pregnant and around the babies, stronger attachment to the babies and to the group. If we want to design the group or pair so that the combination has the greatest survival probability, the male might be designed for less caution when seeking food, less fear when faced with danger etc. In general, it would seem to be a good design if the females were more protective and nurturing (since in mammals, they carry the babies) and the males less careful about their personal safety. Body chemistry would be a good way to address these design characteristics in a biological machine. A brain that responded positively to adrenaline might be a good way to get a male to disregard danger to protect. Sin might make that good design characteristic bad if the subject decided to selfishly try to repeat the adrenaline rush for no good purpose.
          Now, about how faith fits into this, it appears to me that God requires us to act on our faith. Faith that God will care for my loved ones (or my neighbor) doesn’t release me from the responsibility to protect and provide. If God is a good designer, he will have given me the requisite skill requirements. I don’t think I can separate natural from divine given that the divine is the designer of the natural and that the end game is to transfer / transport something of the natural into the supernatural after the natural death transition.
          I think of the ‘lion laying down with the lamb’ thing as something very separate from the current state of affairs. It appears to me that people were vegetarians and that prior to the fall, the animal kingdom was also vegetarian implying that the ‘lion and lamb’ coexisted prior to the fall and will again after Christ removes the curse after the end of the world. Examples of the possibility are clear in nature – such as the Panda Bear with carnivore teeth and bamboo for food or omnivores in general and quite a lot of dog food is cereal.
         This is hardly scientific, but I don’t think we need to try to prove that the world was different before the fall because the scientific rules had to change at the point of the curse. For instance, entropy – the second law of thermodynamics – probably wasn’t in effect then or after time ends. If that were the case, science couldn’t even speculate because scientific method has to assume the scientific rules don’t change to even begin and investigation. I think I’m a little off the subject, but it’s fun to speculate about.
          Thoughts?

Gender Matters by Leonard Sax

        After reading Boys Adrift, I read Gender Matters, also by Leonard Sax. Gender Matters was written before Boys Adrift, but I happened to hear about that one first. I’m glad I did read Boys Adrift first because it is more alarming and attention getting than Gender Matters. However, this book provides more evidence for the differences between boys and girls and how that affects the way children react to subject matter and how they can best learn different types of material.
        In Boys Adrift, Sax’s focus is on boys and he largely ignores girls, though he does mention that fact is not because girls do not have problems in the educational system. Gender Matters presents more hard data on gender differences and makes recommendations on how parents and teachers can or need to respond in regard to raising and educating children.
        Examples include the sight and hearing differences between males and females mentioned in the Boys Adrift post. Another example cited it the common male characteristic among primates for rough and tumble play among primates. This kind of play is commonly discouraged in our society and reflected in our educational systems with the result that games such as dodge ball and similar rough or dangerous activities (teeter-totters, swings, and slides) remove a necessary outlet for the aggressive tendencies of boys. Males that are not allowed rough and tumble behavior among primates have a tendency to produce brutal behavior later. The rough and tumble activities of friends appears to teach them rules of fair play that instills boundaries for the activities of adult activity. He says that our efforts to create a more soft and gentle boy may result in more aggressive and brutal activities in adults. Sax cites examples and research to support these conclusions.
        The feminist theory of our times lead us to believe that gender differences are minimal and largely taught. The foundation of Sax’s theories is founded in research that demonstrates the differences in the ‘hard wiring’ of the brains between boys and girls. As an indirect result, Sax believes the modern gender philosophy is driving a trend to drug both boys and girls; boys with amphetamine stimulants such as the Ritalin family of drugs and antidepressants for girls.
        In summary, a very thought provoking book well worth reading.

Boys Adrift by Leonard Sax

I just read a fascinating book called Boys Adrift by Leonard Sax. Apparently huge numbers of boys are doing badly in school and then never finding a nitch as adults. Many of them live with their parents and just get by and are happy with that. The book gives five reasons for this problem:

Boys Adrift is about a couple of generations of boys (40 years) who are unmotivated by such traditional factors as girls (desire to please so as to date and marry a good one), money (work hard so as to have a nice toys and a nice house for the lady to live in), and traditional standards of masculine duty (the obligations of an adult male to protect and provide for). The name assigned to this group by Sax is ‘Failure to Launch’.

Sax reports that the first indications can show up as early as kindergarten indicated by lack of motivation, class disruptions and, underachievement. When these children become young adults, an astonishing number are stalling with many leaving home and then returning to live for years or decades in their parents homes. In 1949, 70% of undergraduates were male. In succeeding decades, the numbers dropped to 64%, 59%, 49%, 46%, 44% respectively and was 42% in 2006. Some of this is due to women becoming more successful at overcoming female stereotypes, but men are both enrolling in and finishing college at ever decreasing rates. Over that same time period the number of able bodied men who could find work but are unemployed and not looking for work has changed from 1 in 20 to a current 1 in 7 men who are content to not work or work part time or at minimum wage while employers seeking skilled craftsmen are having an ever greater difficulty finding workers.

A lawyer joke introduces the chapter concerning the shortage of workers. A lawyer with a luxury house has a plugged toilet. He tries without success to clear the blockage with a plunger and called a plumber. The plumber cleared the blockage and handed the lawyer the bill. The lawyer looked at the bill and exclaimed; “$250 labor, you were only here 30 minutes, that’s more than my hourly rate and I’m a lawyer.” The plumber replied; “I know; I used to be a lawyer”.

Five Reasons Boys Are Doing Poorly:

1. Changes in the way we teach: Kids are going to school too young. Kindergarten used to be mostly constructive play. The emphasis has changed to teaching the skills prerequisite to reading, writing and math resulting in children and especially boys being required to do ‘schoolwork’ before they are developmentally ready. Finland, whose students have the highest scores on standardized testing, don’t start school until age seven while our children are expected to do the same work at age five. School has changed so it is a much better fit for girls than boys. Some issues have to do with the fact that boys and girls are different and these differences may be unknown or even believed to be wrong and needing to be changed. Physical differences that many teachers don’t know about include the fact that girls’ hearing is better than boys and if a female teacher speaks loud enough for the girls to be comfortable, the boys at the back of the room may not even be hearing the teacher. Boy’s eyes have a higher percentage of receptors that see in black and white and respond to motion, speed and direction and less of color and texture. This affects what they see and what interests them in a classroom. Societal definitions of healthy relationships and appropriate behavior can result in normal boyish behavior common to both human and animal male play being ‘treated’ with drugs or simply discouraged. Boys can then come to believe that school is not for them, school is stupid, school is for girls and nerds. In any case, many boys are completely unmotivated and under achievers by the third or forth grade.

2. Video Games: Certain kids with a strong desire to control their environment find that they have a home in the video world where they are in control. Unfortunately, the environment is not healthy and quite addictive. In addition, the brains of these kids have physical changes to centers for motivation and direction with the result that they don’t care about much of anything except the games. The changes appear to be long lasting.

3. Prescription drugs associated with ADD: These drugs affect the same brain area as the Video games and have the same effect in reducing motivation with the result that the boys change from active energetic little boys to lazy, unmotivated, and often overweight kids who hate school. Some of them may still actually need the drugs, but the side effects may include permanent brain malfunction resulting in a kind of laziness that the parents and kids can’t seem to find a way to overcome with the result that they can end up taking 6-10 years to make it through college and then can’t hold down a job. I have a nephew who has a roommate who is a very talented guy and who currently makes just enough money to pay the rent and food and turned down a $120,000 job offer because he would have to work 50 hours per week. My nephew says this guy is a slug and fits the description of the boys in the book to a tee.

4. Endocrine Disruptors: There are two chemicals that are given off by clear plastics which are made from petroleum which that act as estrogen mimics. They first discovered the problem in fish in the Potomac River; the females were normal, but the males while having male organs, were producing eggs instead of sperm. They have since found the same problem in fish elsewhere, alligators, mammals of all kinds, and little boys. Researchers eventually identified two different chemicals that have that same effect in high levels in all those species. Researchers have known for a long time that males of many different species including people play differently from the day they are born. When the give the level of the chemical to animals equivalent to what would be found in a clear plastic water bottle or a baby bottle, the play instantly changed. The chemicals had no effect on the females, but the males became hyperactive for a while and then later became lazy, not wanting to play or even to eat well. In San Juan, Puerto Rico girls were going through puberty as early as eight and in the rest of the USA, girls are going through puberty about 2 years earlier than in the past. When they investigated the cause, researchers found high levels of the chemicals in the girls systems. The drugs appear to reduce testosterone in boys reducing drive and motivation and with identifiable brain dysfunction and serious problems with the reproductive system.

5. Devaluation of Masculinity. In my mind this an effect rather than a cause, but Sax says that masculine values need to be taught to boys by men and many boys are raised in homes without men around. There is some research that boys with the problems listed above can be cured by going to an all boys school. The caveat is that the school has to be run by men who define masculinity for the boys with enforced values and modeling of the behaviors.

All in all a very interesting book.

Persons and Things - Tournier

I think Tioli is correct. Life is all about relationships; we appear to be designed for relationships and to some extent cannot grow to become whole persons without significant personal relationships. In addition to the interactions with friends that shape us simply by, to some degree, sharing in their experiences; our spouses shape us even more. For instance, most of us are inherently selfish without knowing it. Babies are almost totally selfish, demanding our attention;probably because their awareness of the world around them is so limited. But growing up should change that as we realize there is value and satisfaction in interdependent or even purely altruistic relationships.

I think much of the conflict of in spousal relationships is caused by a lack of focus on the ‘other’. I sometimes think the main value in raising children is to help us become aware of our own selfishness. A significant percentage of the time, the root of my annoyances with my children was caused by my own selfishness – they were interrupting my activities, taking up my time, disturbing my peace.

I also am thankful for the differences in genders, but these days that is often viewed as an exercise in diversity in much the same way that you want contrast in a photo to make it prettier, more interesting, or clearer. I think Tournier would agree that those perspectives have value in themselves, but his claim is that our civilization is incomplete and more importantly distorted in such a way that Western civilization causes harm because of it’s fundamentally male value system.

One of Tournier’s lifetime activities was to reintroduce personal relationship into the medical profession. He told medical doctors that their patients were not just a combination of symptoms to be diagnosed and treated in much the same way that an auto mechanic would fix a car. That if people were not also seen a persons, the best diagnosis and treatments could be ineffective if the patient did not believe the doctor cared.

Tournier highlighted studies where lack of 'caring' resulted in poor medical care and higher mortality rates in patients. One that he referred to was a well known study of babies in hospitals in the early 1900’s. At that time it was believed that if you held babies too much, it was not good for them. The mortality rate was higher than expected and someone conducted an experiment where the nurses would pick the babies up and hold them on a regular schedule for fixed periods of time. They found that the mortality rates dropped as a result. We would probably say ‘duh’ to that, but many doctors still treat patients as if they are malfunctioning machines with the result that a current study shows that if the patient believe the doctor cares as evidenced by the doc spending 15 minutes with a patient, the mortality rates go down and malpractice lawsuits drop to almost nothing.

In spite of more than a century of feminist efforts, this kind of illustration comes as a surprise to many. I think most men and many women who go to a doctor just want an accurate diagnosis and the right treatment. Does that sentence make sense? If it does and Tournier is correct, (“that a ‘male’ dominated society values power, reason, and technology”) then our mindset is typical of Western civilization. It’s not that power, reason, and technology are bad; (I want a smart doctor with a good grasp of medical technology) but that being treated as a respected person is also critically important.

Tournier says that during the Renaissance, Western civilization made a resolute choice of:
          Rational against irrational
          'I it' against 'I thou'
          Objectivity against affectivity and mystical communion
          Physics against metaphysics

One result was a world that most people are somewhat uncomfortable in and another was to push women into the wings to the detriment of all.

Women's mission? Push your way back onto center stage without pushing men off. Partner with men to create a culture that balances a value of both things and persons.