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Notes -
I've been really thinking about this tweet.
This point is interesting, and I think rather noteworthy. There were many protests over the Vietnam conscription, Muhammad Ali's being the most famous example, so perhaps saying no backlash at all is a bit hastey. And who could forget our poor friends in Ukraine.
Still, I think she raises an interesting point. Most men still, (both legally and socially). Have to abide by the traditional man script. And this pressure is more on them then womens end of the social contract, which (from what I can see) is basically non existent.
Now the easiest explanation for this double standard is probably just gender bias: we simply have less empathy for men as a whole.
The way I see it, there are a couple of plausible solutions to make things for fair or consistent(any additional ones are welcome):
Gender "Equality". Extend "bodily autonomy" rights (for those who are actually consistent and believe in the concept, as a side note, I believe this is just a silly excuse) to men and end the draft, eliminate male disposability. Both men and women ask each other out. Stop valueing men as pure economic units. Men aren't wallets or soldiers, their people! Ect. Basically "Masculism" or some variation of MRA movement.
Extend the social contract obligations to women, and all that entails. Basically bring back some (or all) of the "patriarchy".
From what I can tell, 1 has kinda been tried, and has basically failed, probably due to the gender bias mentioned. I imagine Lauren favors the 2nd option, (& I kinda do). Implementing it may be unrealistic, however, due to various political and environmental constraints. I think realistically though, we are probably gonna have take a hard examination at the female end of the social contract at some-point, when birth rates and their implications become more severe and un-ignorable. Maybe we get lucky technology bails us out, but fundementally, I find the prospect of a society with no children, no families, etc, to be deeply dystopian.
I think one thing conscription shows (and the fact that many societies have it) is that, no society really wants to cease to exist. Nor should we. There is something valuable about societies existing, and continuing on into the future, even if we have to make some sacrifices for it. I think one can make a case (and many indeed do!) for extending some modified version of the social contract/roles to women. I've been deep thought about if societies might attempt this in the future, or what a modified variation of feminine roles/obilgations would look like. What do you think?
I mean, generally speaking a child is an 18 year commitment (and socially this is not usually passed on to fathers); the most we asked from any drafted Vietnam soldier was what, a 13 month tour? Sure, WW2 if you were unlucky it was maybe 4 years at most, WWI was only like a year, and the Civil War was a 3 year commitment (which ended early). This is not a fair comparison at all and I cannot really get past that so I don't understand what use the rest of the conversation is. They also all involved a pretty serious national or international emergency.
We could do a Spartan-style thing, and only have women "drafted" for the duration of their pregnancy with the ability to give up the child for adoption, with the children being raised communally.
That said, I really don't think any of that is necessary one way or the other.
I know this is a bit more off-topic, but it's been extremely hilarious to see various right-wing communities essentially suggest or re-invent the American left-wing commune (that actually has a very rich and deep history that doesn't even have much to do with communism exactly) from first principles. It's uncanny. Understandable, but still uncanny. I guess in some sense communitarian counterculture homesteading has intrinsic human appeal, but in another sense they don't spring up out of nowhere and so their presence I think usually says something about moral and socio-political climates, beyond just "horseshoe theory is correct".
Communes arent inherently leftwing. There is something very conservative about sticking with your own people and raising kids in a very orderly community based way. The problem of the left wing commune (and possibly Sparta, I am no expert on Greek history) is the intentional dissolution of family units which results in pedophilia, pederasty, and polyamory (with the associated bastardy) which are degenerate. A commune with strong families is just the Amish with electricity, and is a very strong social force indeed.
Communists to the left, communitarians to the right, pretty much no place for an individualist in this fallen world.
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