Let’s Play A Game Of Let’s Suppose!

Let’s suppose a group of men formed a brotherhood. Suppose this group is exclusive and entirely extra-governmental, a group with no or only tacit official support. Suppose the men fund their activities by any number of private means. Suppose no list is kept of the members. Suppose when asked every man in the group denies the group exists.

Suppose one of the entry criteria is the ability to perform certain rigorous intellectual tasks. Suppose the men are so good at these tasks, and good-hearted, that they from time-to-time they disseminate a portion, but not all, of what they learned. Suppose the recipients of these gifts benefit from them.

Suppose they only allow as members those men who meet what criteria they decide are best for themselves, regardless of any legal requirements or customs.

Suppose further the men in the brotherhood vow to exclude all women. Suppose they make that rule irrevocable.

Should this group be allowed to exist? Notice carefully that this is a different question than Would this group be allowed to exist?

The group, or rather groups like this, do exist and have existed. Some have been allowed, some not.

The priesthood is the best known brotherhood, allowed but envied and harassed. Though they meet most of the criteria in our game of Let’s Suppose, they don’t entirely deny their membership in quite the same way as in the game. For instance, you won’t always get straight answers at certain monasteries about who lurks within, but your local parish priest will usually admit who he is.

This brotherhood is, however, funded mostly outside official government channels. Indirect government money, such as filtered to some NGO then to the brotherhood, a more common move, does not violate the scheme. If it weren’t for this brotherhood, there would be no Science, and not much other learning neither. This brotherhood are responsible for the Great Preservation, as all know, and indeed they may be called upon to exercise these duties again if things continue on the way they’ve been going. (Cue the A Canticle for Leibowitz reference.)

There have been branches of this brotherhood that forgot their purpose and eventually admitted women. What happened to them? Do I need answer this obviously rhetorical question?

Another brotherhood that meets out criteria is an organization that doesn’t officially exist, and that officials do their best to ensure it doesn’t unofficially exist, either. The kind of knowledge they focused on was local in scope, mostly hidden, and useful almost exclusively in the context of the brotherhood’s fundraising schemes. They managed to keep women free, but greed was their undoing. They are now only a shadow of what they once were. They forgot about everything except money.

The brotherhood of arms, our third example, is so well known I need say nothing, except to recall that when they invited women, they became this:

This leaves us with one other prominent brotherhood, also ancient in origin. Starting with groups like the Pythagoreans which quickly became The Academy, evolving to the University in the Age of Great Light, a system with deep ties to the brotherhood of priests. Membership was once hidden, but gradually became open, and was even boasted of. Women were introduced. In small numbers, at first. And at last becoming the majority. What became of The Academy? Something very like what befell the brotherhood of arms.

That women are now the majority in what was once the brotherhood of schoolmen is attested in several places, like this article. Women have for a while been the majority of undergraduates. But now also graduates:

In 1970, women received less than 10 percent of doctoral degrees awarded in the United States. This percentage has steadily increased, reaching parity with men around 2005. Today, the majority of new doctorates are earned by women. Similar patterns pertain elsewhere, including in Australia and many European countries.

Among the many, many effects of feminine academic predominance is this: “Female academics report a greater willingness than their male counterparts to support dismissal campaigns against a colleague who has conducted research that reached a controversial conclusion.” Women excel at enforcing conformity to standards, which is well when standards are Reality-based, but which is otherwise a dreadful talent. DIEing is female.

Consequence? Men are fleeing university, taking their prestige with them. There is still much to go in the process, to be handled with the biological solution, but here is an article which details men rushing to the exits. My favorite comment (there are nearly a thousand) is the first, from a woman: “Great article. I would bet a million dollars that male flight from college is also a big factor in the anti-intellectual/anti-science attitudes that have been increasing in the US in recent years.”

It would take a heart of stone not to laugh at that. You denier.

But my point is not the wealth of documentation of feminine triumph in these old institutions. It is to play our game: Let’s suppose there is a new open-secret call for a new brotherhood of schoolmen to replace the old, and let’s suppose this call has been answered.

Since men are not legally allowed to congregate on their own, this group is more like the Pythagoreans than The Academy. All in it deny it exists. There is no “paper” trail. Entry is gained upon demonstration of learning sufficient and convincing to a certain number of brothers. All things equal, one brother recommends another over a non-member for any position or activity.

The brothers investigate how the world works, labors funded by means they themselves supply, and choose what to reveal and what to keep. This will lead to natural ties with the brotherhood of priests; there is much overlap.

They will remain a strict brotherhood.

“But Briggs, if they excluded women, they would lose the valuable contributions some women would make.”

True, but only up to a point. But remember, women have the universities, and could make their contributions there. And anyway, it is better to lose the occasional innovation to maintain the brotherhood, from which much greater things would come over time, without suffering the degradations of the old one.

Much more could be said about this, which is really only a fantasy, because no such group exists, trust me. Indeed, it is even unthinkable in our Equality-mad culture. So let’s return to our two questions: should this brotherhood be allowed and would it?

It would seem it shouldn’t make any difference. If men want to go off by themselves and pursue their hobbies, why stop them? And nobody would, until such a group became (unofficially) prestigious. It would then excite jealously and envy, its very existence intolerable to equalitarians (unless this were the Philippines). Women would press to join, as they clamored to enter the brotherhood of priests, citing the Fairness Fallacy or exciting pity.

Legal avenues would be employed, as women used when they pressured judges to allow them entrance to male-only social clubs in the 1970s and 80s. There is now no legal freedom of association.

As the new brotherhood gains renown, its feats spoken of only quietly, the pressure to gain entry will grow. All such attempts should call these activists “conspiracy theorists”, in the same manner in which our rulers say Antifa does not exist.

All this is why it’s important the brotherhood is never acknowledged. You cannot shut something down which you cannot find. You cannot enter something which doesn’t exist.

But it’s going to be the only real way to save and discover knowledge, if events proceed on their course.

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