05/10: More Wisdom from Cardinal George Pell: Women in Combat?
Category: Religion & Public Policy
Posted by: an okie gardener
More wisdom from Australian Archbishop George Pell. The issue is women in combat, evidently an idea being floated in Australia. The Cardinal is against it, offering reasoning both traditional and practical. Read the whole Essay here.
Excerpts and comments:
But do we really want to expose those who are the source of life and love in human communities to the horror of the battlefield, just so the defence bureaucracy can meet recruitment targets and feminists can tick another item off their equality agenda? This is not a peculiarly Roman Catholic statement. In most cultures throughout human history women have been regarded as somehow linked to the sacred by virtue of the ability to bring forth new life. In most human cultures over the history of humanity, men have functioned as the agents of death (warriors and hunters) and women as agents of life (childbirth and nursing). It seems to me we should not blithely ignore millenia of tradition without seriously considering the consequences. Only a kind of bias toward modernity, a narcissism that only we know the ultimate truth about human beings that our ancestors did not know, a hubris that only now has the human race reached wisdom, would allow us to discard long-standing practice without compelling argument and evidence in our favor.
Many who return from battle physically untouched often suffer from post-traumatic stress for years with devastating consequences. The effects on children whose mothers have been crippled by PTS after combat does not bear considering. The Cardinal, of course, is saying that we must indeed consider this reality if we are to be prudent at all.
Western soldiers taken prisoner or hostage on the battlefield can expect little mercy in today's wars. Women combat soldiers could expect even less, especially if they fell into the hands of misogynistic enemies like the Taliban or the militias in Somalia and Sudan. There is a word for those who ignore hard reality when it does not fit their ideals--delusional
Archbishop Pell also points out the common sense observations any one can make about boys and girls. Growing boys play rough, give and receive physical pain in play and in fights, and tend to be less sensitive emotionally than girls. My sister played with dolls. I liked blowing up dolls and other toys with firecrackers.
Our military is under similar pressure to make quotas, and to conform to modern feminist sensibilities.
Excerpts and comments:
But do we really want to expose those who are the source of life and love in human communities to the horror of the battlefield, just so the defence bureaucracy can meet recruitment targets and feminists can tick another item off their equality agenda? This is not a peculiarly Roman Catholic statement. In most cultures throughout human history women have been regarded as somehow linked to the sacred by virtue of the ability to bring forth new life. In most human cultures over the history of humanity, men have functioned as the agents of death (warriors and hunters) and women as agents of life (childbirth and nursing). It seems to me we should not blithely ignore millenia of tradition without seriously considering the consequences. Only a kind of bias toward modernity, a narcissism that only we know the ultimate truth about human beings that our ancestors did not know, a hubris that only now has the human race reached wisdom, would allow us to discard long-standing practice without compelling argument and evidence in our favor.
Many who return from battle physically untouched often suffer from post-traumatic stress for years with devastating consequences. The effects on children whose mothers have been crippled by PTS after combat does not bear considering. The Cardinal, of course, is saying that we must indeed consider this reality if we are to be prudent at all.
Western soldiers taken prisoner or hostage on the battlefield can expect little mercy in today's wars. Women combat soldiers could expect even less, especially if they fell into the hands of misogynistic enemies like the Taliban or the militias in Somalia and Sudan. There is a word for those who ignore hard reality when it does not fit their ideals--delusional
Archbishop Pell also points out the common sense observations any one can make about boys and girls. Growing boys play rough, give and receive physical pain in play and in fights, and tend to be less sensitive emotionally than girls. My sister played with dolls. I liked blowing up dolls and other toys with firecrackers.
Our military is under similar pressure to make quotas, and to conform to modern feminist sensibilities.
