Rad Trads and Rad Fems: Not Friends at All, Actually

I have found that misunderstandings are enjoyable…when you’re not directly involved. My laughter changed to tears at the misfortune of MacBeth, because I, like MacDuff, was from mother’s womb “untimely ripped.” My reaction would have been quite different had I suffered the great misfortune of being MacBeth. But thanks to my colleague Chase Padusniak, I have at least been spared the agony of misunderstanding, even though I suspect that I have been misunderstood.

Mr. Padusniak cites me at the outset of his “Rad Trads and Rad Fems: Best Friends” essay. During his account of feminist antics, he suggests that they share common ground with conservatives, both in certain conclusions concerning Ms. Minaj’s nudity and in existing “at the margins” of the world. Mr. Padusniak proposes that friendship can be forged because both the “Trads” and the “Fems” exist at the edge. We might as well argue that a pancake and a scimitar are similar for both having an edge. I could more easily swallow the scimitar than think radical feminists “have a strange amount in common with conservatives.” I could more easily slay an animal with the pancake than think that “being correct on the issues” “isn’t what matters.”

The issues matter immensely, because society is fickle about who is pushed to the periphery. Westboro Baptist exists at the periphery of America. Chen Guangcheng exists at the periphery of China, but no one would compare him with Mr. Phelps. Expulsion from the mainstream may be a symptom of virtue, but it is not a sufficient symptom. Society expels both the virtuous and the vicious. Dr. King was arrested in Birmingham for a very different reason than Prof. West was arrested in Ferguson, something Prof. West hasn’t yet realized. Three men were once killed outside Jerusalem for disturbing the peace, though only one is worshiped for it today.

The criterion remains why an idea or a movement or a man has been expelled from the mainstream. The criterion remains the relation of an idea or an utterance to the truth. Radical Feminists have a theory of human nature, but have yet to produce a human with that nature. Conservatives have a theory of human nature which is confirmed every time a student discovers himself in the words of Plato or Cicero. Mr. Padusniak must not cast aside this distinction. He may think mutual agreement on the existence of evil or mutual dislike of naked dancing is sufficient to secure friendship between feminists and conservatives. He may think it wise to gain as many allies as possible, regardless of divergent creeds and motivations. The same was thought by Roosevelt concerning the Russians.