The basic reason why I make these personal notes is that I forget most of my life with great rapidity. I seem to have forgotten at least 99% of my life. So much so that I can have an enjoyable dinner with friends and relatives and not be able afterwards to remember one thing that we discussed. If I make my note of the occasion within about an hour afterwards I can remember a bit but after that I am pretty sunk.
And that arose the morning after the dinner that I put on for Nanna's 93rd. By the time I wrote the memoir of it I could remember little of the occasion. So when Joe and I met for our usual Sunday brunch I asked him what he could remember. He was pretty vague too but remembered that I talked to Kate about feminism being misleading to women and causing them to make unrealistic relationship decisions. As Kate does have some feminist sympathies I was a little embarrassed as I probably seemed a bit of a bully.
Anyway, that led into Joe and I making feminism the main subject of our morning deliberations. Although Joe and I have very similar views on most things political, I tend to be a bit more extreme than he is. And on feminism, my views are well out of the mainstream: I think feminism is a low-grade mental illness. That flows from the fact that the defining mark of mental illness is loss of reality contact. And a rather clear example of such loss is the central feminist claim that men and women are not really genetically different -- though, rather confusingly, men are still the "enemy", the "patriarchy" or some such.
Joe argued for a more moderate view -- that feminism is just another example of Leftist devotion to the Marxist view that all men are equal. The American revolutionaries thought that in a sort of a way too -- but they attributed the equality to exist only in God's poor vision. God apparently needs optometrical assistance.
And Joe is of course right to see feminism as just a branch of Leftism -- but I think that belief in human equality is pretty deranged too. But Joe has the probably correct view that the Left can see reality but just don't want to. And various Freudian mechanisms such as denial, compartmentalization and projection enable them to serve that need.
Another thing I mentioned to Joe was that I had kept the receipts from the night before and that I was a little surprised to see that the bottle of Mawson Sauvignon blanc that I had bought on recommendation had cost me $26, where the shop price is $14. That is of course routine for a restaurant but I had some vague recollection that clubs don't usually mark up so heavily. The wine was however perfectly nice and I would buy it again.
And after most of the morning discussing heavy subjects, Anne and I had an afternoon outing. It was to celebrate a great Saxon occasion: The first successful break with Rome by Christians -- at the hands of Martin Luther and his King, Frederick, "the wise" of Saxony -- 500 years ago.
So together with Anne's sister June we went to a "Praise Fest" at St Paul's Presbyterian church in Spring Hill. It is Brisbane's grandest Kirk. It is a large church but it was full of geriatrics for the occasion. So Anne and I fitted in there.
The point of the occasion was to sing Protestant hymns, which must seem rather mad for Anne and me, seeing that neither of us I are believers these days. But we both enjoyed our time as Protestant Christians greatly, particularly the hymns. And we still sing them together at times. We even sing them in the bedroom, which is probably bizarre but neither of us care much about what others think.
I am obviously completely incapable of judging hymns as music objectively but I do enjoy them as much as I enjoy Bach and Mozart so maybe that means something. Bach often based his chorales on hymns, of course.
Anyway, the occasion was rather disappointing to me. It was put on by some teacher lady who could not resist the urge to teach. So for about half the afternoon we got lectures about the history behind the hymns rather than just singing the hymns. I would have preferred more hymns and a lot less talk. I wished to myself that she had followed the Biblical instruction:
"Let the women keep silent in the congregations. For it is not permitted for them to speak". -- 1 Corinthians 14:34, NW. See also 1 Timothy 2:12 .
It is an amazement to me how alleged Christians pick and choose what to believe in the Bible. They say the Bible is God's word but seem to think that they are capable of editing God. The same goes for homosexuality, despite 1 Corinthians 6:9, 1 Timothy 1: 8-10, Romans 1:27 etc.
And the woman conducted the gathering as a service, with prayers etc. But as far as I can gather she is not an ordained Presbyterian minister so that seemed impertinent to me. I suspect she is an attention-seeker.
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