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[–]Ponderer 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Virtues need to be universal in order to work. If large percentages of the population are openly bucking a virtue, most people will see the virtue as fake.

Think of religion. When ~99% of people are devout church-goers, it's incredibly difficult to dissent against religion or disobey its commandments. But if 30-50% of people are atheists, the rest of the population starts wondering why they have to abstain from alcohol and get up early on Sunday.

So, a fully-chaste society could work. A fully-promiscuous society could work. A partly-promiscuous partly-chaste society would not work, because the chaste people would always get jealous of the promiscuous people, unless you can convince the chaste ones they are somehow superior.

In the past this worked with monks and the clergy because everyone respected them and at least paid lip service to chastity as a virtue. The clergy were chaste but took solace in it because everyone looked up to them. Today this would not work, because the majority of people do not even pretend that chastity is better or that chaste people are worthy of respect. This is the reason you don't see people clamoring to join monasteries, nunneries, or the priesthood.

[–]FlippyKing 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I don't know how much I agree with what you're saying. It might the context. I am not really addressing at all the idea of a "incelphobic soyciety" because I don't know what it is supposed to mean and doubt it exists. I don't think we live in a single society really in any real sense anymore. I think society has died a slow death from a cancer that sees the masses of people as either superfluous to the needs and goals of those who are atop powerful institutions or as pawns to be pushed around. I am speaking in my above comment more about the incels themselves, or the caricature we have of them.

Virutes do not need to be universal to work. Virtues are loosely speaking the opposite of vices. In my own life if I pursue virtues and shun vices I will be happier, more productive, and more of a benefit to those around me. Those around me might not think anything I'm doing is any good or of value to them, and I may well be doing things badly or imperfectly, but the final assessment of such things are always a long ways off. There is a section in a Taoist book called Leih Tzu that talks about how even simple things like being passed over for a promotion might be good for many differing reasons. There is no real way to assess our long term impact on those around us. But something simple as suggesting we do not drink and drive or that we do not be envious of those around us can't be bad things.

I also think if large percentages of the population are openly bucking a virtue, a honest look at that population will show us the merits of the choice. It is not to say if a majority ignore virtues and are lost in their own pursuits that the virtues is meaningless. It is not a tv show that seeks ratings. It is more like an internal treasure discovered, cultivated, and cherished by the individual.

I think in both cases in your paragraph starting with "think of religion", everyone would acknowledge that you do not have to abstain from alcohol or get up early. The fruits of such choices will be evident to anyone who considers them. Either of those specifics can lead on to virtue or away, false piety is not a virtue. Abstinence from anything is niether a virture nor a vice if the absence is not replaced with something beneficial. Angrily not drinking, frustratedly not getting laid are not virtues. Saint Maximus the Confessor wrote (he may have been quoting someone else) that when pursuit of virtues are blocked the path to vice is opened. Going down that path might seem inevitable but it is a separate thing from both pursuing or not pursuing virtues.

A fully promiscuous society seems to not work, but promiscuity is not all that is left outside of strict Catholic marriage until death/monasticism/no sex before marriage. In the wake of the Russian revolution, the throwing away of sexual prudence (as in the virtue not prudishness which I guess has to be toss aside or actively teased or mocked in the process even it is within one's self engaged in throwing away sexual prudence) was tried in a couple of places. The soviets abandoned it because they could not run a society that way, and those who worked for a more libertine revolution were sidelined as the needs for production and order were recognized by the "soviets" who sat atop that society. In one of the Eastern European or Balkan countries it was also tried, as part of the public education system and it was a disaster. James Lindsey details it in a very long podcast.

The reason we don't see people clamoring to join monasteries, nunneries, or the priesthood is not that simple. First off, rarely have people ever clamored for these lifestyles. But, the drop off in Catholic vocations is something we have very good numbers on. To find similar numbers in protestant denominations is more difficult because of the fluidity between them and the simple fact that you just have to open up a church in a strip mall and you entered the clergy. The problem in Catholicism is complicated.

The following paragraph contains long parenthetical portions for each thing I'm listing as contributing factors for the lose of catholic vocations. A deep dive into each is not the point here in this thread of comments, but I didn't want to fling phrases around without at least some indication of what I'm talking about.

It is too simple to blame Vatican II but, whether you list it as a symptom or a cause, it is a problem. The literal and very real infiltration into the church by intentionally subversive elements (Belle Dodd is one source on just one kind of infiltration), the encroachment of "modernism" (specifically defined, not say the idea that we do not have to churn our own butter) through universities and politics, the technological advancements that appeared to solve so many problems (where I'm putting coal-burning trains and the image of soot-covered people dressed in fine clothing celebrating the beauty of such an advancement. Basically Walt Whitman's poems encapsulate this. Drugs to control birth while giving women fuller mustaches, all the pollutants we face now), and the ridiculous over-generalization and misunderstanding of scientific advances (be it the way evolution was misunderstood by Malthus and by De Chardin (a biologist apparently but way to enthusiastic about it to project it into the supernatural) or the way evolution or germ theory was given their "wins" as if there were not other factors always (This makes the very real scientific contribution of Kropotkin in his Mutual Aid and the idea that just because germs may cause many diseases, "the terrain" still matters, nutrition still matters and saying a germ caused it and not an intentionally weakened immune system caused it must always be considered, and this fact is sort of rearing it's head now): these are all parts of the puzzle as to why young Catholics are not intentionally choosing a celibate lifestyle in the vocations of the church.

Also, sex being EVERYWHERE makes the idea of not getting laid seem torturous if not wrong has to be seen as part of the vocation problem in the church. Protestantism itself was in part a rebellion against this aspect of Catholicism, so this part of the problem has been brewing a long time. Early anabaptists, maybe the second or third wave of the initial Reformation (still in Luther's time though) had a concept of free love and some sources say wild orgies (going back to a point above) at which point the "serious" reformers of the previous waves and the political leaders who took advantage of them to carve out their Rome-free sovereignty sought Rome's help in quelling these rebellions.

The problem might be reversing. Economics might be a part of it, as it was whenever you saw increases in the numbers of Shakers and other such sects. But, groups like the SSPX who reject Vatican II are both watching the state of the church prove their founder more right than many would have imagined, and watching their churches filling. On the other side, the churches of the baby-boomer generation of priests, who embraced the fashions and social norms of their times, who tired to make the church fit the world it was in ways the previous generation who crafted Vatican II would have been shocked by (not counting those who were part of infiltrations into the church to undermine it), their churches are emptying. This is not universal, there are growing and big main-line Catholic churches, and churches that try to straddle the line between tradition and the modernization efforts of the current church leadership, but the biggest growth is in those groups who are rejecting the fruits of VII if not VII itself. Vocations in those groups are rising.

But, none of these are meant to be the dominate groups in society. The masses may not choose virtue. The benefits of just lying all the time, even to one's self seem all to real and great. We're not even disappointed when people, "leaders", authorities, anyone really, lie. It's tough to talk about any kind of virtues in society when we tolerate lies without even rebuking them. No, such things are not for the masses, any more if ever. (I can't speak for the past. Even if we have tons of evidence, it does not describe many people's inner lives.)

I think it is rare I disagree with someone who is as well stated as you are, as thoroughly as I do. But, I do not disagree with you beyond what I state above here in this comment. It may well be that I am not addressing at all "incelphobic soyciety". I'm OK with individuals cultivating virtues within themselves and being ignored by a society that might start adorning herpes sores and thinking deeply about TED-x talks about "maps".