I read the Fabius Maximus site because it often has cleverly correct ideas and conceptions of the world intermixed with ludicrous, absurd or offensive ideas. Sometimes, I am not sure which is which — and that is exactly why I do continue to visit.

Like in this post.

The whole idea of “beta males” is an absurd oversimplification of something occurring to the social realm as society and its relations changes. I just skip over those parts.

However, these paragraphs are stunningly perspicacious.

For centuries every generation of the West has been a journey into the unknown, with social change the only constant. We have consistently stumbled our way to success, with the occasional failure like those of the communist and fascist nations. That those were intellectual experiments should worry us, since we too are making radical changes based only on ideology — abandoning our successful strategy of incremental changes.

The most common reaction in comments to this series is that “nothing much will change.” That’s delusional. We have had the current social system of romantic love and nuclear families for an eyeblink of time in humanity’s long history. It is no more natural than the many other systems our species has used.

Something that I’ve been concentrating on more lately is the persistent denial of the huge social alterations that have occurred in my lifetime and immediately before. Many people insist that nothing has changed or that if it has changed, it doesn’t matter, or that I’m just delusional.

I think because I’ve never been strongly connected even to my own society and culture that it is easier for me to perceive these shifts, and also because I’m never quite “in the moment.” Wherever I am, I am always elsewhere too. Watching and not immersed.

Regardless, the obliviousness to enormous social alterations is something I’m very interested in sociologically. That someone else has noticed that in a different context is heartening in a way.