Tea at Trianon: Protecting Women's Spaces

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, November 24, 2024

Protecting Women's Spaces

Who is privileged? From Culturcidal:

One thing you will notice with liberals is that they always define the people who don’t support them as the “privileged” ones and the groups they believe are “on their team” as the outgroups. In other words, the privileged ones are the non-liberal white people (particularly the men), Christians, and conservatives, and the “outgroups” are people who are trans, gay, women (when it’s convenient), and black Americans. Asians, Jews, Muslims, and Hispanic men are harder to categorize because liberals will sometimes claim they’re outgroups but will also attack members of those groups for not doing what the Left wants.
In Western culture, this is a way of thinking that comes right out of the Middle Ages, where kings and noblemen were privileged by virtue of their birth, and everyone did what they were told because they were paid to do so or out of fear. You could also make a case for it in a heavily class-based society, like India where they have a caste system. But in America, who is a member of the “privileged” or “outgroup” at any given time is almost entirely situational. Don’t believe me? (Read more.)