Back in early September, Candace Owens interviewed her fiancé—now husband—George
Farmer on her weekly PragerU podcast. They answered questions from viewers as a
way for us to get acquainted with him.
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| Candace Owens and George Farmer screenshot from here |
There’s a segment where they’re talking about one of the
things she learned from him, which was about hunting—he does big game hunting—and
which has been fascinating for her. He was talking about the difference between
what liberal Westerners think compared to the Africans, who benefit from the
hunting. It keeps predators down. When it’s an animal such as an antelope, which
is mainly what George has hunted, the village cuts up the meat to share. So
they get income from the hunters, and they get the food. It’s in their interest
to keep the animal populations healthy so this can continue.
The conversation goes on to talk about how out of touch with
nature some people are—maybe particularly in New York and California. Candace
Owens suggests they should, “Go out and see the lions. Pet them. Talk to them
about their feelings. And see what happens.”
George Farmer then brings something to the conversation I’ve
been thinking about since: “Let’s put it like this; they’re not having a debate
about which bathroom to use in Africa. Right? Because, at the moment, it’s
about survival.” And this leads to more on this and related subjects. I’ll just
share some of the transcript here:
CO: We’re so over-privileged… We talk about this a lot, the
idea of over-civilization, where your society has become so civilized that it
starts going backwards, and you start treading just towards stupidity. Like if
you’re debating bathroom signs, you are way too privileged—way too civilized,
if you are even talking about bathroom signs.
I mean, go to Africa. This is like one of you and I—we’re
really big on just watching clips on the internet and just cracking up for
hours. The best clip, I mean, the one that never gets old, is this African
reporter who’s breaking a story, and interviewing someone, because they cannot
grasp the concept of being gay or being a lesbian.
GF: Oh, yeah, that’s brilliant.
CO: And the interviewer is, “Welcome here to the show,” and
he’s got this woman who’s a lesbian. She’s a girl and she’s a lesbian, and he
just turns around to her, and his question, in this African voice is, “Why are
you gay?”
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| "Why are you Gay" screenshot from here |
[I looked for the video. I think this is it. Being interviewed is a transgender
male—i.e., a female who presents as a male, who is attracted to females. The
interviewer doesn’t understand the motivation for making such choices.]
GF: It’s the supposition, something that we’ve talked about.
You’re absolutely right, the word over-civilization is a great word.
I’ve been to the Far East as well. I’ve mentioned before that
I’ve been— This is making me sound edgy and trendy. I’m not, as you well know—but,
I went to Bhutan, which is this kingdom in the middle of the Himalayas. It’s
the last Himalayan kingdom. And it’s a Buddhist kingdom. It’s basically sealed
off to the world. It’s very difficult to get into. And they perform a—they are
part of a Buddhist theology which involves tantric Buddhism, which is a form of
sexual Buddhism. And, this was about six years ago—seven years ago. And I said
to them, I said, “What’s the feeling about the gay rights movement in this part
of the world?” And they looked at me as if I was an alien. They had never even
heard of this. And I said, “Well, you know, relationships between men, and
relationships between women.” And they just said, “Well, he’s my friend. Please
explain,” kind of thing.
And it was just bizarre. Because it was a case where,
we’ve got to a point in the Western world where the debate’s become
self-fulfilling. We start talking about these issues that become issues. The
issues develop their own issues, etc., etc.
I’ve written here on this blog[i]
quite a bit about LGBT issues. But this idea that, in some parts of the world
these issues don’t even come up was surprising to me. I’m wondering what the
social research would show, if the question of LGBT issues occurring in a
society focused on survival were asked, or in a society that had never had the
idea brought in.
In J. D. Unwin’s research[ii],
in which he showed the power of what he calls absolute monogamy on a society—using
data on every society in history he had any social data on—he had a sort of
throwaway comment about homosexuality. He didn’t research it, but it appeared
to him that it was a phenomenon that shows up in a society that is in decay. By
decay, he means a society that does not embrace absolute monogamy.
I don’t know if we could get the right question studied today.
For one thing, so much of the world is connected that the Hollywood culture has
affected all but very few pockets. And you’d have to be able to do the study
without introducing the idea where it hadn’t previously been thought of.
There are countries where homosexuality is illegal, and
those societies eliminate the issue by executing any instances of it. Nazi
Germany did that. Iran does that. But we’ve assumed that instances pop up about
as often as average—about 2% of the population—and just stay hidden when the
consequences are so dire.
But those examples aren’t survival societies or even fully
separate-from-the-outside-world societies. If these things appear naturally
(nature, not nurture), you’d expect the same natural incidence regardless of circumstances.
If (and this is what George Farmer is suggesting, but not
something I have data on) the incidence is near zero in a society focused on
survival, that’s interesting. Even more interesting is the near incidence in a
society that simply hasn’t had the idea introduced by the outside world. If
these zero-incidence places do exist, that leaves causation to something other
than nature. Which I think we knew the umpteenth time it turned out there’s no
gay gene[iii],
according to DNA mapping.
But we don’t know exactly what part of nurture (possibly
combined with some personality trait or combination of traits we’re not sure
of) is causal. If we knew that, could we prevent it? Or find a way to heal from
it? (Assuming the person wants healing; I’m not suggesting anything by coercion
or even pressure.)
I don’t think we’d want to voluntarily become a subsistence
society focused on survival. There are way too many advantages to thriving
economically and socially. But it would be interesting to know what it is about
a survival-focused society that leaves no room for wondering about LGBT issues.
If you’re going to survive—as a species—you need to reproduce. We know how that
happens, and LGBT behaviors obviously do not get us there. As the African
interviewer said on the video, “Why are you gay?” Why would you make a
lifestyle choice that offers no chance of procreation?
Those who have these issues often do not feel like they have
a choice. But if, under the surface, there are psychological issues combined
with life experiences that lead to these LGBT issues—many of which could be
described as failure to accept the body one is born into—then it would be a
kindness to learn how to help[iv].
About the assertion of over-civilization: I don’t think it’s
possible to have too much civilization. But, then, I am defining it a specific
way here at the Spherical Model[v]. When Candace and George use the term over-civilization, I think they mean
that we are disconnected from what is essential. We over-complicate and
over-emotionalize all kinds of things that, if we had a better perspective,
would simply not be issues. The fact that we never seem to face life-threatening
issues—our privilege of being so safe—leads us to weaken, and decay, and invent
problems that aren’t relevant to thriving.
I believe if we actually lived fully civilized lives,
without the decay that so much of the sexual revolution has characterized, some
or all of the symptoms of decay would stop afflicting us.
The simple but not easy solution is for a critical mass of
society to honor God, life, family, truth, and property ownership. It’s what we
find in the Ten Commandments. It’s still true.
[i] I
compiled “The Defense of Marriage Collection” in 2013. That’s a start, but these issues continue to come up regularly on this blog.
[iv] I’ve
written here about the work of Dr. Joseph Nicolosi,
Jr., who has developed what he calls reintegrative therapy, which is intended
to deal with underlying issues from childhood that lead a person to dissociate
from who they are, and to then heal that underlying issue. The therapy is to
gain a person greater peace but has in cases led to decreased or apparently
erased feelings of same-sex attraction. It is my supposition that reintegrative
therapy is based on principles that could also help people with gender
dysphoria, although I haven’t heard Dr. Nicolosi assert that.
[v] At
the Spherical Model, I describe civilization this way:
Families typically remain intact, and children are raised in loving
homes, with caring parents who guide their education and training, dedicating
somewhere between 18 and 25 years for that child to reach adulthood, and who
then remain interested in their children’s success for the rest of their lives.
Civilized people live peaceably among their neighbors, helping rather
than taking advantage of one another, abiding by laws enacted to protect
property and safety—with honesty and honor. Civilized people live in peace with
other civilized people; countries and cultures coexist in appreciation, without
fear.
There is a thriving free-enterprise economy. Poverty is meaningless;
even though there will always be a lowest earning 10% defined as poor, in a civilized
society these lowest earners have comfortable shelter and adequate food and
clothing—and there’s the possibility of rising, or at least for future
generations to rise.
Creativity abounds; enlightening arts and literature exceed
expectations. Architecture and infrastructure improve; innovation and invention
are the rule.
People feel free to choose their work, their home, their family
practices, their friendships and associations. And they generally self-restrain
before they infringe on the rights and freedoms of others. Where there are
questions about those limits, laws are in place to help clarify boundaries of
civilized behavior. When someone willingly infringes on the rights or safety of
another, the law functions to protect that victim as well as society from
further uncivilized behavior from the offender.
