On
Monday, Raw
Story published an article written by Vyckie
Garrison offering a critique of a meme that appeared online which
likens girls to apples. Within a day or two and after
much discussion, it came to my attention that the meme that
appeared on the Patriarchal website called Let
them Marry was actually
a commentary on a previous meme.
A quote
that allegedly originated with a
member of the band Fallout Boy became a meme that likened
girls to apples. Promiscuous girls were easy to obtain because they
were said to be closer to the ground and often fell to the ground and
spoiled. Those young men who were virtuous were encouraged to work to
get to the top of the tree to get the pristine apple as a bride –
one that was unbruised and unbroken. I don't think that it suggested
that her station in life contributed to whether on not she was
promiscuous but was rather an encouragement for young men and women
to respect one another and themselves.This contradicts the way a groom finds a bride within the Patriarchy Movement which concerns itself with male headship and responsibility for women. In hindsight, I hate to admit it, but I actually feel some compassion for the author of the second meme. I can imagine (and hope) that a loving father who follows this system would be grieved by the idea of a young man using his daughter. If that's the case, then the meme might actually be an effort to encourage others to value their children. It just goes awry when the pitfalls in the belief system so blatantly reveal themselves. I just have the sense, though that the author of meme two likely had a good motive.
This also demonstrates how difficult it can be to sort out what the belief system actually teaches. Parents who are highly motivated and many who are afraid for their families buy into the ideology to protect and love those in their care, but as the meme reveals, the ideology becomes more important than the people that it was meant to help. This is terribly painful and confusing to realize, especially when so many people who get involved with the religion mean to do well and hope for something so much better.
Bad
Apples
The bad
apple analogy has actually been used by Philip Zimbardo to describe
the manner by which good people end up doing evil things, and I'm
amazed at how this unfolding story of apple memes validates his
findings.
I will
let him do most of his own talking, as I've taken the liberty to edit
video clips that quickly illustrate what research findings tell us
about behavior that is influenced by social proof, authority,
commitment, and those things which we believe will benefit others.
The entire lecture appears below, and there are other lectures online
that explore the topic in more depth.
Dr. Z on Bad
Apples from Cynthia
Kunsman on Vimeo.
Bad
Barrels and Bad Barrel Builders
Both
memes touch on the subject of bad apples, and both make some
reference to how apples are procured – and that involves storage
and transport. Could we find a more perfect example of a bad barrel
than Patriarchy as portrayed in the second meme? How well it is
illustrated – both through the process of how the farmer gets those
apples from tree to consumer and the system for which the meme makes
the patriarchal father entirely responsible.And such closed systems which use formulas to control and limit bad outcomes do blame their failures on the followers. Neither the barrels nor the systems that provide for the barrels ever count themselves as the source of those bad apples which are said to spoil them all. It's not the apples. It's the barrel. And it's the system. Because girls aren't apples, and people are vulnerable in this life. Bad barrels do more harm than good.
But I
would never....!
The
Milgram Study illustrates so well that the best of intensions may
produce the most regretful of outcomes, especially when we
underestimate not only our own virtue or intent but our vulnerability
to circumstances and social pressure. Two thirds of us will very
likely do what we are pressured to do, but if we step forward as
dissidents and refuse to follow the crowd, we can have a tremendous
influence on what others will tolerate. When we stand up for what we
believe, though we may stand alone, we actually have more power than
we think. We create a safe place for others to step forward to go
against the flow.
Dr Z Milgram
Results from Cynthia
Kunsman on Vimeo.
Lord
Acton's Absolute Power: It corrupts absolutely!
As
Zimbardo notes, accountability helps to prevent evil. We human
beings quickly lose touch with healthy perspective when we have no
oversight and fail to rightly attribute consequences to our behavior.
So much suffering can result from our loss of perspective as we put
the barrel before the apple were created for the apple. But it seems
as though the apple was created for it.
What
can we do?
If you
follow the ideology of quiverfull, please consider that the influence
of your peers and your religious authorities have a profound effect
on what you do – and more of us than not fall into that 2/3 of
those who will follow the crowd.
Power without
Oversight from Cynthia
Kunsman on Vimeo.
What
price are you willing to pay to be honest with yourself? Are you
willing to consider that perhaps disappointment with the foolproof
formula of courtship and patriarchy might not be all that they
promised? Is it you, or could it be that the barrel demands too much
from you? Are you really that influenced by what others around you
do? What your role models and your authorities ask of you? Is it
worth it?
The line
between good and evil is not external. It runs through every human
heart. Every choice that each of makes matters, and the little ones add up.
PLEASE
TAKE NOTE of the use of a “four letter word” that references the
moniker used to describe a prisoner at Abu Ghraib immediately
following the slide show in the presentation which features very
disturbing photographs taken by US military personnel who served at
the prison.
