[This was originally posted right after the 2008 election. It has stirred considerable interest, so here it is again. The "friend of mine" referred to is Mister Ben Finiti.]
A friend of mine used to theorize that all conservatism, and therefore all defense of society, rests on the fathers of daughters – FODs, as he called them.
He explained that it is only when one has children that one begins to recognize how fragile is the future, how dangerous the present, and how great our responsibility to protect the vulnerable, such as children.
The problem is that women, for the most part, tend to believe that the world is dangerous only by accident, rather than as a basic, natural condition. My friend claimed that he had never met a woman who would not agree with the statement that “People are basically good.” And increasingly many men agree with them.
Of course, people are not basically good. Any Christian who even slightly understands the doctrine of Original Sin can be in no doubt about this. But most Americans, including most church-goers, would readily subscribe to the “basically good” hypothesis.
As Reinhold Niebuhr put it, “No cumulation of contradictory evidence seems to disturb modern man’s good opinion of himself.” Yet it is modern woman who seems most undisturbed by human nature.
So women, even as mothers, tend to underestimate the degree of the risks their children face in society. Continue reading ‘Back by popular request: Fathers of Daughters’
