The piece is titled: "How My Worst Date Ever Became My Best/Agreeing to see him again would require a minor miracle. A minor miracle is exactly what happened."
Imagine a milieu in which the idea that "The Handmaid's Tale" was prescient is so well engrained that to agree about it is experienced as generic.
"The Handmaid's Tale" came out in 1985 and tells this story:
After a staged attack that killed the President of the United States and most of Congress, a radical political group called the "Sons of Jacob" used quasi-Christian ideology to launch a revolution. The United States Constitution was suspended, newspapers were censored, and what was formerly the United States of America was changed into a military dictatorship resembling a theonomy, known as the Republic of Gilead. The new regime moved quickly to consolidate its power, overtaking all other religious groups, including traditional Christian denominations. In addition, the regime reorganized society using a peculiar interpretation of some Old Testament ideas, and a new militarized, hierarchical model of social and religious fanaticism among its newly created social classes. Above all, the biggest change is the severe limitation of people's rights, especially those of women, who are not allowed to read, write, own property or handle money....What in hell about the way the real world turned out was more like that story than that story was like the way things were in 1985? And yet these 2 date-goers couldn't figure out how to be anything other than dull because they could only toss around the conventional wisdom that the United States is on track for the Canadian writer's fever dream.
In this era of declining birth rates due to increasing infertility caused by environmental pollution and radiation, [fertile woman are] forcibly assigned to produce children for the "Commanders", the ruling class of men... Apart from Handmaids, other women are also classed socially and follow a strict dress code.... [A Handmaid] is treated poorly by a... Commander's wife... [T]he Commander [engages in] a sexual ritual obligatory for handmaids and intended to result in conception in the presence of his wife....
(If you can read the NYT story, it does have an interesting twist that makes it fun.)
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106 comments:
Sorry I wrote "2 sentences" originally. It's 3 sentences.
While The Handmaid's Tale is one form of dystopian fantasy, the 1980s abounded with such drivel.
May I recommend The White Plague, by Frank Herbert of Dune fame? It, too, describes a horrible dystopia, but a different one than the Handmaids experience.
Or if you want a threeesome of purer fantasy, The Gormenghast Trilogy is just the ticket. Every person I know who has read it (me and one other) have thrown Volume 3 across the room in disgust as we finished it.
Dystopias are to be avoided. Go with stories where success occurs. The world is a harsh enough mistress without Vonnegutting yourself at a young age.
Maybe she actually read the book, but he only watched the 1990 movie, at best. Most likely, he merely browsed some articles about the book/movie.
Has any man anywhere ever read the book?
The problem with the hysteria over "The Handmaid's Tale" today is it's more descriptive of the left than the right, and that point gets missed by the ladies who like to play dress up.
What in hell about the way the real world turned out was more like that story than that story was like the way things were in 1985?
It's pretty silly. In 2020 human beings live such wonderful, affluent lives with such plenty and so many personal freedoms. But so many of us choose to believe in nonsense. Choosing to believe that we're just inches away from living in a dystopian nightmare world where women are reduced to brood sows for a bizarre cultish pseudo-Christian patriarchy is the height of such nonsense.
In the right margin of this blog page, I am seeing an advertisement for the Spicy Lingerie company. The advertisement shows ten thumbnail photos of young women wearing lingerie, and each such photo is expanding in turn.
Maybe I'm seeing this amusing and pretty advertisement because today is Valentine's Day.
I"m surprised they talked about "The decline of the Subway". I thought only proles rode the Subway in NYC. But then I get most of my ideas about NYC from 1940s movies. Do people still go to Coney island?
Haven't read the story, but first impressions are often very wrong.
it's like the fear toxin, in batman begins, of course the same people are mostly supportive of Salafist organization who would spread sharia law here,
Leftists project. That's why you get novels like "It can't happen here" and "Handmaidens Tale". Its the Left that secretly dreams of "The Revolution" when we suspend the constitution and and set up Gulags.
@Eleanor
"The problem with the hysteria over "The Handmaid's Tale" today is it's more descriptive of the left than the right, and that point gets missed by the ladies who like to play dress up."
The problem with the hysteria of the "The Handmaid's Tale" is that the dystopian fantasy feminists keep imagining for this country happens to keep landing as a reality in the rest of the world. Quite literally, there are 1 billion + women in Africa, Southwest Asia, and India that do, in fact, live the Handmaid's Tale in real life but they are A) not white (western) and B) they're not useful as a political cudgel by Western women who are not-incidentally the most liberated female creatures ever to walk the planet.
They're too busy knitting pussy-hats or making giant vagina costumes (you mentioned dress-up?) and listening to Sarsour in a Hijab talk about how they're but footsteps away from total domination by male boogeymen for not being able to 'shout their abortion'.
The right-wing can't even fund a border wall. They're keystone cops.
According to the Wikipedia article about the 1990 movie, the movie cost $13 million to make and earned $5 million at the box office.
The movie opened on February 15 -- the day after Valentine's Day.
Dystopia fortunately is not forever. Look at this rebellion starting:
The movement was born amid the sounds of the morning wash being automatically battered and dried in the laundry rooms of suburbia. The last crumbs of breakfast had been lugged away, the coffee was poured, and a scowling Miss Betty Friedan sat with the most awesome circle of women ever gathered under the roof of a modern ranch-type house. Together they deliberated, as rage feathered the linings of their bowels. The whole day yawned before them. Soon it would be back and forth, back and forth to the powder room. Coffee and house work can have that effect. These brave women were trapped with a vast expanse of desolate hours stretching out to that remote time when the kids returned from school and the idiot traipsed in with his evening paper. It was insanity, and still the infernal washing machine kept vibrating in the background. Soon the maid would be emptying it and feeding it, emptying it and feeding it. There would be telephones and shopping and God knows what all. Rosa Luxemburg had been right ; so had -- their genitalia notwithstanding -- C. Wright Mills and Norman O. Brown. It was time to hoist the black flag. Penis envy, ha!
The women began to read, and in time they began to shout. Millions of witches had been burned in the Middle Ages, yet here we were in the early 1960s and still no inquest had been held. Not even many books on the atrocity could be found. There was much work to be done.
(R Emmett Tyrrell)
Has any man anywhere ever read the book?
I read it years ago. Sometime back in the 80s or 90s. Might have been a college class thing.
I definitely remember reading The Awakening for a college class. Most everyone in the class understood it except for the professor (and maybe the author).
"can read the NYT story" : Maybe.
"think reading a NYT story is a good use of time" : Nope.
Apologies.
What in hell about the way the real world turned out was more like that story than that story was like the way things were in 1985? And yet these 2 date-goers couldn't figure out how to be anything other than dull because they could only toss around the conventional wisdom that the United States is on track for the Canadian writer's fever dream.
Thank GOD they found each other! Now normal people everywhere can breath a heavy sigh of relief that they won't accidentally get sucked into a committed relationship with either of these two.
What type of deranged mind must one have to actually believe we are in or on the verge of "handmaiden's tale"? They should both be committed for their own safety.
Banal people thinking they are interesting until they meet their equal. Lockstep thought control at work in the land of blue hell.
Lovely post.
I hope these two will fight the tide of forced reproduction by never having children.
Best not to adopt either.
"In 2020 human beings live such wonderful, affluent lives with such plenty and so many personal freedoms."
Not everywhere and not everyone.
Are you sure this article isn't from The New Yorker? It is certainly conjures the vacuity that defines the typical New Yorker article.
Re Valentine's Day, has anyone noticed this trend that comes of as being proud of being single today? There's this 'sour-grapes' kind of feel that I've seen on twitter and elsewhere the world over the last few years intensifying. I don't think there's anything wrong with being single, possibly for one's entire life, but this 'shout your singleness' seems reactionary to me. My fiancée can't understand it either and it doesn't exist (at least not yet) where she's from. Are single people really triggered by this day that much? When I've been single the thought never entered my mind. It was more subconsciously like Cool. You're single. You can watch TV with a 6 pack and a pizza in your underpants tonight!
My only thought is that it's yet again status projection, mostly feminine.
Atwood seems to be a great short story writer. Sorry, I'm mixing her up with another Canadian - Alice Munro. Anyway, I skimmed through the Handmaiden's Tale, but had no desire to read it further. Its chick lit. And there's nothing wrong with that.
The Handmaid's Tale is also a very successful series on streaming service Hulu. In fact, it was the first streaming service drama to win a Golden Glove for Best Television Series - Drama. It is now in its fourth season, with 37 episodes so far.
The "educated" can only talk about what their media tells them is important.
That's how they demonstrate their education to other educated people.
Men who read the NY Times, and the New Yorker, read the "Handmaiden's tale" and talk about it. Its just something you do. I'm sure Harvey Weinstein read it. It's just a part of being a liberal/leftist.
It's hilarious to watch the pussy hat wearers think that this is what they are going through, when we are the luckiest women on earth to live in the United States of America. If they don't like it here, there are a load of places they keep talking about being better....go there!! Live your life and stop groveling over your "victimhood"
Dystopias are to be avoided. Go with stories where success occurs. The world is a harsh enough mistress without Vonnegutting yourself at a young age.
Now you tell me.
You think that was a bad date? This woman's first date turned into a bank robbery!
Not everywhere and not everyone.
I agree. But in America at least, things are pretty good in general. And even in the third world things have been improving. By every significant metric, infant mortality rates, literacy rates, reductions of non-communicable diseases, access to food and clean water, has improved over time and continues to improve.
But people love to dwell in negativity. We love to fuss about all that's wrong with the world rather than acknowledging at all that's right. It's how we're wired because historically we've needed to be constantly looking for and preparing for future problems in order to survive.
The left wanted to get everyone on the 1984 meme.
But they couldn't stop talking about undocumented immigrants and unrecognized citizens.
Imagine a milieu in which the idea that "The Handmaid's Tale" was prescient is so well engrained that to agree about it is experienced as generic.
Why imagine when we have Inga as our real life example?
Currently on Netflix it seems about three-quarters of the movies on offer are post-apocalyptic/dystopian future tales. Many of these involve zombies. This trend in movie-making has been going on for what now seems a long time and it has gone way beyond being tediously outdated.
What Margaret Atwood and her fans don't realize is that Handmaid's Tale is about the treatment of women in the Muslim world.
Dr. Althouse: Imagine a milieu in which the idea that "The Handmaid's Tale" was prescient is so well engrained that to agree about it is experienced as generic.
I don't have to. I was dating in Silicon Valley in the mid-90s.
A local granola-crunchy-healthfoodie restaurant had a program in which they sponsored employees from overseas. I visited for lunch one day, and one of the local staff, a young southeast Asian woman conforming to statistical height norms for southeast Asian women, was struggling to hang the chalkboard with the day's specials on hooks hanging from the ceiling. I asked if I could help, walked up, and hung the chalkboard. Another young woman whose name tag identified her as being from Ireland, and whose lilt confirmed it, said: "Isn't it nice having a man around?" It occurred to me that I'd just heard a sentiment I wouldn't have expected to hear in America since the 1950s.
I am surprised that her bubble was big enough for two, although maybe he was just pretending so that he could squeeze in. I doubt her living in the Handmaid's Tale would be as horrible as living in her lonely bubble of comfortable misery. No wonder she is angry.
But did they live happily ever after? Maybe they did. There is lot of happiness going around these days. Hope for a good life that puts Americans first and collectivist preachers of guilt last has that effect.
"In this era of declining birth rates due to increasing infertility caused by environmental pollution and radiation..."
Little did they know that educated women would have declining birth rates due to feminism, ambition and abortion.
No outside forces necessary; all done by women's choice.
The cautionary tale has the caution in the wrong place.
I am Laslo.
I used to enjoy reading the personals in the NYPress, even though I was coupled up and not looking for anything. People put effort into those and many were very funny.
Dull, boring, fact-challenged people should pair up and it's great if they find happiness together. Build love on anything, even your inadequacies.
The Handmaid's Tale is really about the dark desire that's present in all women, to greater or lesser degrees to be dominated. It's the equivalent of the "dark triad" in men. It supplants (or supplements) the desire to be ravished by the "demon lover."
Handmaid's Tale or 1984. On a scale of prescience, I'd say Handmaid's is a 1, 1984 a 9. But don't tell a progressive, or else your a racist misogynist bigot.
The Handmaid's Tale sounds like a taboo sexual fantasy with literary trimmings to allow people to convince themselves that they're reading/watching for political significance and not titillation.
'shout your singleness'
That was Althouse a few years ago.
Prescient definition, having prescience, or knowledge of things or events before they
exist or happen; having foresight:
The Handmaids tale; has any of it; COULD any of it actually happen?
I'm afraid i'm stuck with the original version, but if any of you are familiar with latest version; please let me know.
Otherwise, in the famous words of Inigo Montoya
" You Keep Using That Word, I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means"
"In this era of declining birth rates due to increasing infertility caused by environmental pollution and radiation, [fertile woman are] forcibly assigned to produce children for the "Commanders", the ruling class of men... Apart from Handmaids, other women are also classed socially and follow a strict dress code.... [A Handmaid] is treated poorly by a... Commander's wife... [T]he Commander [engages in] a sexual ritual obligatory for handmaids and intended to result in conception in the presence of his wife.... "
I mean, c'mon. Fifty Shades in a tweed jacket.
Dystopias are to be avoided. Go with stories where success occurs. The world is a harsh enough mistress without Vonnegutting yourself at a young age.
I'm enjoying my reread of "Last Centurion" - John Ringo which is a Dystopian military fiction piece that features, a flu plague out of China (covered up by the CCP), the US Army in an insurgency in Iran, a Feminist President who ignores her advisors, and a little ice age.
The heart of the book is about trust, and how it binds us together to survive.
“Dull, boring, fact-challenged people should pair up and it's great if they find happiness together. Build love on anything, even your inadequacies.”
Inga and Chuck, A Love Story.
Love is where you find it. If you can find it with a person of similar cultural background, religious faith and trained in social intelligence, then thank God who is the Great Matchmaker.
a Golden Glove for Best Television Series - Drama
It also got an asterisk because of steroid use.
rcocean said...
I'm sure Harvey Weinstein read it.
Absolutely! I'm sure somewhere in his house there's a well thumbed and unusually stained copy of the novel!
on the other hand;
The Handmaid's Tale (the 1985 one anyway), DID talk about a 21st century future where
Boys would be competing against (and out performing) girls, in High School Track
Girls that didn't feel feminine ENOUGH, would be encouraged to say that they were men
Sharia law would be THE LAW, in MOST of Europe; and soon to be so in America
so, maybe they have a point
Wait - a Canadian writing about a theocratic takeover of the United States?
Cultural Appropriation.
Stay in your lane.
If I was trying to get into a leftist girl's pants, I'd also tell her that The Handmaid's Tale is omg so exactly Trump's AmeriKKKa srsly you guys.
I'm very glad I'm in my mid 50s and no longer a slave to my genitalia, so this is not a scenario I have to concern myself with.
Not everywhere and not everyone.
Cookie,
HS sophomores have figured out that test questions with "every" are almost always false. Of course, not every sophomore has figured that out or those questions would disappear.
Is it your position that everyone must benefit for a society to be just?
Pussy hat wearers.
My first thought is that they are terrible knitters. Unimaginative hats knit by first grader level knitters. Not even knit in the round. Just a stupid rectangle. At least show some talent or skill with your shrill whinging.
:-D
TheDopeFromHope said...
What Margaret Atwood and her fans don't realize is that Handmaid's Tale is about the treatment of women in the Muslim world.
What Atwood and her fans refuse to realize is that they all have a kink. They're just too cowardly to do anything about.
I've never read the Handmaid's Tale, but the short description in your post sounded more like the story of Abraham, Sarah & Hagar than the Christian dystopia that I hear the book is about.
Margaret Atwood, the author, has said that story was one of the sources for the novel.
I do not lower myself to read the NYT and sully my mind.
I read Handmaid's Tale a few years ago. I roll my eyes when someone says it's coming true or dresses up like a handmaid to make some political point. Our society is nothing like Gilead and it's not heading that way either.
Too many on the left have fantasies of themselves as courageous defenders of truth and freedom and, dammit, if society doesn't give them a threat to defend against, then they will pretend there is one. That's why everybody they don't like is literally Hitler--not because someone out there is Hitler, but because thousands out there need a Hitler.
Preferably a fake one who will take their abuse without too much objection.
Freeman: "I mean, c'mon. Fifty Shades in a tweed jacket."
As you said, some people lack the self-honesty to just enjoy honest prole porn, straight-up. They need it smuggled past their super-egos in the brown paper wrapping of literary seriousness and woke projection.
alanc709 said...
Handmaid's Tale or 1984. On a scale of prescience, I'd say Handmaid's is a 1, 1984 a 9
I don't think 1894 is all that close either. The propaganda techniques are coming along but the rest not so much. Brave New World on the other hand is becoming clearer all the time.
Comparisons of the handmaid tale 2 Republican politics is the equal and opposite side of the coin that says Democrats are radical socialist Communist. So therefore ipso facto if you keep pressing the commie Stalin button, you are at the same level of intelligence as a radicalized new aged 3rd generation modern feminazi. Just sayin
We are become Venezuela
If you want to read a gender dystopia, "The Shore of Women" by Pamela Sargent is a far better read:
https://www.amazon.com/Shore-Women-Classic-Feminist-Science-ebook/dp/B00J90CEX8/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=the+shore+of+women&qid=1581702333&sr=8-1
If you like Gilead, you ought to love Islam. There are obvious undertones of traditional Roman Catholicism, too, but apparently (I haven't read/seen the fantasy) without the faggotry.
The next time I run across a cosplayer in Handmaid costume, I hope I have the presence of mind
to tell her how hot she looks.
Narr
Especially if she's a dog
Heinlein told the theocracy story better and did it in 1940.
"The Handmaid's Tale sounds like a taboo sexual fantasy with literary trimmings to allow people to convince themselves that they're reading/watching for political significance and not titillation."
Yes, the image of the extra woman in between the man and wife is either very sexy, very annoying, or very hilarious.
The book presents this required form of sex and a solemn ritual, which I found annoying. The movie SHOWS it, with actors pretending to take it quite seriously, and that is hilarious.
The recent TV show isn't something I've watched. I had my fill of "The Handmaid's Tale" 30 years ago, and I think it seemed more "prescient" circa 1990 than it does now.
Howard said...
Comparisons of the handmaid tale 2 Republican politics is the equal and opposite side of the coin that says Democrats are radical socialist Communist. So therefore ipso facto if you keep pressing the commie Stalin button, you are at the same level of intelligence as a radicalized new aged 3rd generation modern feminazi. Just sayin
2/14/20, 11:41 AM
You are exactly right except for everything you said. The Democrats running for POTUS just so happen to be socialists and proud of it. They are in a race to out socialist each other. They are anti-capitalism, want to control all aspects of business, want to force everyone to adhere to their ideas of what is right and proper, and their "underlings" brag about putting those that resist into re-education camps.
What Republican politician is trying to prevent women from reading, using money, etc.?
Thought so.
Same with gun control. Every Democrat politician that gets in front of a camera is yelling about how they are going to ban this or that gun or pass this or that new gun control law. People get upset and then along comes people like you asking why are all the conservatives paranoid and falsely think Democrats are coming for our guns.
Who are we to believe? You or our lying eyes?
Oh, stop the presses - Blogger rcocean said...The right-wing can't even fund a border wall. They're keystone cops. 2/14/20, 10:25 AM
Amazing observation? "...https://www.npr.org/2020/02/13/805796618/trump-administration-diverts-3-8-billion-in-pentagon-funding-to-border-wall..."? But wait until the 2nd term when Trump has both Chambers of Congress.
But, "rcocean" is one of these people who believes in fictional works as facts. "The Hand Maiden Tale" is a perfect metaphor for you "rcocean".
I've never read the Handmaid's Tale, but the short description in your post sounded more like the story of Abraham, Sarah & Hagar than the Christian dystopia that I hear the book is about.
Actually, that is a pretty good take on it.
The Commander's wife wasn't too happy with her humiliating position in society either. Bad enough t have your infertile status shoved in your face but then t have to participate in the ritual insemination of the Handmaid as well. Insulting and demeaning.
The other men were pretty disgruntled as well since only the "elite" men got to have access to the fertile women and have children of their own. The only class group that seemed to be ok with their situation was The Marthas since they got to keep their identities although being forced to act as domestic servants.
BTW: The Handmaiden got away from the Cult in the end of the book with her boyfriend. If I remember, she was then going to look to find her first child out in the rest of the world.
I bailed out of Prime Suspect. Weird bad guys, Helen Mirren always breaking down over some womanly interest or other. Was it made in day care center pedophile hysteria days? I think so. Women advancing with woman issues always trying to take them down, written for women. The last half may be better, who can tell.
Somebody's firing a rifle outside. Lots of backyard firing range setups in Ohio. Guys.
Have these people ever met a Christian conservative, or even cracked open a real history book? I mean true, there are a lot of men who would enjoy impregnating other women in the presence of their wives, if they had their pastor's permission. But the story doesn't make sense by its internal logic: in a society where making babies is vital, it's the fertile women who will be holding all the cards. In antebellum America, fecund slave women could expect much better treatment than other slaves! How much more would they have an advantage in a society desperate for new children? And how much more intolerant would they be of women trying to horn in on privileges for their children?
So if you think The Handmaid's Tale is cruel? Just put the wives in charge. If the sluts are lucky, they'll be tossed into impregnation brothels. If they're not, they'll be reduced to egg sacs in some dank basement, and the brief touch that results in babies will be the highlight of their year. In every colonial society, mistresses (especially minorities) could expect to be treated best if women were scarce and their white partners were lonely. They could expect the most severe sanctions if the white wives were nearby. Ask Harriet Jacobs or Mr. Northup.
I'm surprised, Professor. I thought skepticism of THT was grounds for having your feminism card revoked!
"I'm surprised, Professor. I thought skepticism of THT was grounds for having your feminism card revoked!"
Click my "Margaret Atwood" tag. It's too late to be surprised. Either you have so much invested in me that you can be surprised or you haven't read enough of my stuff to be surprised.
"Imagine a milieu in which the idea that "The Handmaid's Tale" was prescient is so well engrained that to agree about it is experienced as generic."
What do you mean, imagine? Is there any English department in the country -- heck, any college -- where that idea is not engrained?
Are the 'Modern Love' articles fact, fiction or simply 'creative writing'? If true in this case the 'twist' really is amusing.
@Chuck
Yep, the first time I heard of "The Handmaid's Tale", I thought of "If This Goes On".
Blogger Roughcoat said...
Currently on Netflix it seems about three-quarters of the movies on offer are post-apocalyptic/dystopian future tales. Many of these involve zombies. This trend in movie-making has been going on for what now seems a long time and it has gone way beyond being tediously outdated.
2/14/20, 10:49 AM
I dunno. There's some pretty good zombie movies and series. Of course, you have to like zombie stuff. Usually with a twist on zombies (not saying you can't take it too far: TWD, for example - you need to actually have zombies in it for it to be classed as a zombie show).
doctrev But the story doesn't make sense by its internal logic: in a society where making babies is vital, it's the fertile women who will be holding all the cards.
Did you read the actual book? Granted it has been some years since I re-read it. It has a great deal of logic and is plausible in a dystopian universe. It depends on who is in power and the fertile women were very very outnumbered.
The Handmaids were a precious and coveted commodity. They were very very well treated, even though they didn't have what they really wanted. Which was freedom to choose who to have babies with. Or not to have children at all. Or who to love, marry and have as sexual partners. They were property of the "Commanders" who were leaders or elites in that dystopian society.
Being so well treated. Getting the good food. The nicest housing, even though it wasn't what they necessarily wanted....created a lot of resentment among the other classes of women. Especially the Marthas who had to do all the work. The Commander's wives also didn't like or even hated the Handmaids. Even though they were producing children for the Wives to rear...the humiliation and resentment is strong.
The TOP DOG men in power, were the ones who held the cards...at least until the rest of the men would decide that enough of that shit. (It seemed that the plot was moving that direction). The lower caste men were able to have sex...just not to have children. Only the chosen men were allowed to produce and continue their DNA line.
While the fertile women held the "baby making card"....it wasn't so great. They were just vessels to create children for someone else. Get pregnant with some odious old man and have your child taken away from you.
Some cards. Deal me out.
In the end of the book the Handmaid is fleeing along with her lover who is a rebel. What happens after that? No one knows. The book says nothing about society outside of Gilead. Maybe it is better? Maybe not.
Oh, and in zombie movies, men and women are equals. There's just no getting around that if you want a good zombie movie.
Perceptive and perspicacious French visitor to the fledgling United States, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote about a situation not terribly dissimilar in spirit from The Handmaid's Tale — which he saw in the (1830's) antebellum South: [quoting…]
Once in the South of the Union I chanced to meet an old man who had lived in illicit intercourse with one of his Negro women. He had several children by her, who became their father's slaves as soon as they entered the world. He had several times thought of giving them at least their liberty, but years flowed by and he was still unable to remove the obstacles to emancipation put there by the legislators. Meanwhile he had grown old and was on the point of death. He imagined his sons dragged from market to market, exchanging a stranger's rod for a father's authority.
Such horrible visions threw the dying man's imagination into delirium. I saw him a prey to the agony of despair, and then I understood how nature can revenge the wounds made by the laws.
____
(Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 13th Edition, 1850, Edited by J. P. Mayer, Translated by George Lawrence, Anchor Books, Doubleday and Co., Inc., New York, 1975, p. 362)
Having never read Handmaid's Tale I don't know if this is addressed but . . . if ONLY the Commanders get to have children where do all of the lower caste people come from? Will the next generation only consist of children of the elites? Are there no none-elites being born?
At the end of "Dr. Strangelove", Dr. Strangelove outlines his scenario for surviving nuclear annihilation that is a secular version of "The Handmaid's Tale."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybSzoLCCX-Y
I think today's "elite" men would be even more enthusiastic about such a scenario. There would be no pesky Deplorables, and the elites would quickly drop the PC and feminist bullshit. Elizabeth Warren and Mayor Pete would not be selected to join them in the mine shaft (gay men do not have any reproductive value either.) The Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders would.
in the third mission impossible, phillip Hoffman's supervillain had stored the 'rabbits foot' in shanghai, Wuhan was probably still too remote in 2007, in the predecessor film it was released in Australia,
Quite the twist ending to that NYT story.
Hamlet's Fool said...
Having never read Handmaid's Tale I don't know if this is addressed but . . . if ONLY the Commanders get to have children where do all of the lower caste people come from? Will the next generation only consist of children of the elites?
I'm pretty sure the idea is that there basically Won't Be a next generation
As i understand it:
A) green nude eel scientists, worried about over population...
..i make a sterilizing drug
.ii release said drug into the general population
B) this DOOMS society, which then
..i overthrows the moronic scientists that have done this
.ii make a religious cult (a cargo cult?) in desperation
C) every realizes that Unless GOD steps ,in saves them; they are Screwed
doctrev: But the story doesn't make sense by its internal logic: in a society where making babies is vital, it's the fertile women who will be holding all the cards.
"A society where making babies is vital" describes most societies throughout history. That usually resulted in fertile women having more, not fewer, restrictions placed on them. The people who "held the cards" regarding this reproductive resource were not the fertile women, but their male relatives, or other high status men who helped themselves to the resource or distributed it as they saw fit.
Lol, do you think young women in tribal/pre-modern agricultural societies got to wander around as they pleased striking their own bargains for access to their valuable reproductive resources?
without elaborating, that was the plot in dan brown's inferno, another series based on the film of snowpiercer, shows another 'hail mary pass' against the skydragons, that results in a deep freeze,
then there was player piano, which had an unknown element ice 9, provoking a similar reaction,
I think I'll go and re-read the book.
A couple of years ago, I read Children of Men, having seen the movie a couple of years before that. I prefer the film - it tells a better story, although you have to overlook the director's attempt to hijack the story to make some point about immigration.
Anyway, the premise of Children of Men is what is most fascinating -- that the human race has suddenly become infertile. The last child was born 18 years before.
You might think that people in our contraceptive age would celebrate their sexual liberation of being free of the risk of pregnancy. Actually, the whole world is in despair, with many consuming suicide drugs dispensed by the government, because there is no more future for humanity.
be careful what you wish for, my understanding is strahovski's replacement of faye dunaways character was an improvement, but Elizabeth moss, formerly president's Bartlett daughter for natasha Richardson, meh,
On imdb the 1990 movies is categorized as a romance.
And it is described thus:
"In a dystopian, polluted right wing religious tyranny, a young woman is put in sexual slavery on account of her now rare fertility."
And you should check out the poster.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099731/mediaviewer/rm1959932928
Somebody knew what they were marketing.
The Handmaid's Tale is frighteningly real.
I just wonder, did Judy Dench realize she was playing a "Commander's Wife" when she fed innocent girls to Weinstein?
"In 2020 human beings live such wonderful, affluent lives with such plenty and so many personal freedoms."
Not everywhere and not everyone.
But human beings every where not dominated by Socialism or Communism, are living much higher standards of living and getting higher, since the fall of the USSR.
“Dull, boring, fact-challenged people should pair up and it's great if they find happiness together. Build love on anything, even your inadequacies.”
“Inga and Chuck, A Love Story.”
Ken B and Birkel a match made in heaven, if they don’t kill each other first.
"I'm enjoying my reread of "Last Centurion" - John Ringo which is a Dystopian military fiction piece that features, a flu plague out of China (covered up by the CCP), the US Army in an insurgency in Iran, a Feminist President who ignores her advisors, and a little ice age."
Now that's prescience!
Ice-9 was Cat's Cradle, not Player Piano.
Narr
Always new maps of hell
"And you should check out the poster.
"https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099731/mediaviewer/rm1959932928
"Somebody knew what they were marketing."
Ha! I rest my case.
Sanders was eight years out of college when he wrote in a column about gender roles: "A woman enjoys intercourse with her man — as she fantasizes being raped by three men simultaneously.’’
So if you want to be a hand maid...vote for Bernie.
Lol, do you think young women in tribal/pre-modern agricultural societies got to wander around as they pleased striking their own bargains for access to their valuable reproductive resources?
2/14/20, 2:49 PM
No, but you did say those were pre-industrial societies. Given the historical experience of post WWI America, combined with the fact Gilead keeps society generally intact (as opposed to the Commanders simply killing their barren wives and marrying Handmaidens)? There's no reason to believe that women will be reduced to chattel slavery at all levels of Gilead society. That's the kind of low-value history that Margaret Atwood promotes, but has never historically been true.
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