JONAH GOLDBERG'S LOVE GOSPEL.
Ladies: Grateful to be considered something more than an object, but nostalgic for old-fashioned romance? Jonah Goldberg has good news: Conservatives may be willing to treat you nicer. In fact, look at the sacrifice he's prepared to make:
Political correctness can actually be seen as an example of Hayekian spontaneous order.
The guy who wrote Liberal Fascism is saying nice things about P.C.! The need to peel some unmarried-female votes from the Democrats has been judged an all-hands-on-deck situation at Camp Conservative, I guess, and Goldberg must move with the times. But he can still keep his Hayek! Also he can portray himself as a thought-leader:
I wish more conservatives recognized that at least some of what passes for political correctness is an attempt to create new manners and mores for the places in life where the old ones no longer work too well...
Identity politics is only part of the story, and not even the most important part. Medical, technological, and economic changes are almost surely far more important than changing demographics alone...
The New Conservatives are watching their pressure gauges and tracking the New Mores. Apparently these studies are desperately needed (and possibly eligible for a grant!), because the New Conservatives are locked in a Mores Race with the liberals to see who's got the best political correctness, and Goldberg wants potentially donors to know that the libs' sexual Sputnik is still in orbit:
Democrats recognize this, which is why they’ve cynically exploited changes in family structure, female labor participation, and reproductive technology and declared that Republicans have declared war on women.
This is like saying "Democrats cynically exploited growing tolerance of minority groups to make us look like bigots." There's a step missing there, Goldberg, can you guess what it is?
Progressives are steadily dismantling the beautiful cathedrals of traditional manners and customs, arguing that they’re too Baroque, too antiquated. They use the sledgehammer of liberation rhetoric to destroy the old edifices, but their fidelity to liberty is purely rhetorical. In place of the old cathedrals they build supposedly functional, modern, and utilitarian codes of conduct. But these Brutalist codes are not only unlovely, they are often more prudish than traditional approaches...
It's like he knows us, right? To capture chick votes we smashed the cathedrals of courtly love! Which was awkward, you know, because all those apses and semitransepts are so vaginal, but it was worth it to get rid of that meddling Christ. Then we put up a Government Fucking Center. A bit sterile, but it does the job, especially after you put down the hemp mats.
Goldberg thinks he can do better:
What I would like to see from conservatives is recognition that some of the cathedrals are outdated. But instead of arguing that they should be razed and replaced with Jacobin Temples of Reason with rites and rituals grounded in abstraction, why not argue for some long overdue updating and retrofitting? I guarantee you more women prefer a modified version of the traditional process of wooing, courting, and dating before sex than the “modern” schizophrenic system of getting drunk enough for a same-day hook up but not so inebriated to forget to get a signature on the consent form. Traditional notions of romance and respect are far better tools than the mumbo-jumbo campus feminists have to offer. The problem is that the mumbo-jumbo feminists are fighting largely uncontested.
I look forward to seeing this conservative modified version of the traditional process of wooing, courting, and dating before sex. "I'm here to read you some pastorals." "OK [continues texting]." Later: "I swear by my life and my love of it I won't cum in your mouth."
Just not being a dick was never an option, I suppose.