Ilse
"Patriarchy intrudes itself into the social fabric as nascent tyranny and terror," continued Ilse. "All the positive emotional and social bonding values the family represents -- which conservatives and Confucianists extol -- must be seen, objectively, as existing apart from the effects of patriarchy and patrilineage, which are quite contrary to those positive values. Yet, the panderers pleading patrimony would have us believe that the two are inseparable! Even identical! But the truth is that patriarchy undermines the inherent social and psychological utility of the bonding values the extended social unit generates. Patriarchy contravenes the bonding values of the family system. If this were not so, war would not have been such a pervasive feature of human history.""Interesting distinction," mused Derek.
"And," Ilse went on, "the patriarchal family has been a model informing industrial organization for at least two-hundred years: Fried. Krupp A.G. was founded in the first decade of the last century. The bonding values of family are touted as justification, but the actual source of those values -- empathic identity transparency -- finds no place in corporate frameworks; only the patriarchal hierarchy is used, which undermines the bonding values. Whole national populations, one generation to the next, have eaten this propagandized transposition of black into white! And here it is again in contemporary Confucian Japan. . . All those insecure little cockerels should be caponized! We could secret female estrogen hormones into the fertilizer used to grow soy beans. That would do it."
Derek looked over at Tadao slumped in his chair, then turned back to Ilse. "You'll have to say more to be convincing about the opposition of the two, uh, bonding values and patriarchal hierarchy, I'm afraid," he said.
"Whenever you have a system of dominance relations imposed upon an entity," Ilse began again, "that entity's ability to self-organize is undermined. It is at the service of something outside itself -- and not as an expression of its natural internal impulses. The bonding values inherent in an extended social unit are distinct from the system of dominance relations which constitute the patrilineage. This patrilineage, unfolding in time, transforms the extended social unit into a servant of the state. To a German, sitting here in Japan, such a statement doesn't sound like an argument at all, but like a tautology, an unquestionable truism. The state is absolutely dependent upon a basic unit with imposed dominance relations. The very fact that the family system, as patriarchy, patrilocality, and patrilineage, is deteriorating worldwide -- primarily due to economic forcing functions -- can be considered an unprecedented positive sign of the inevitable decline of the nation-state (Nationenstaat) and its transformation into a cultural-lag (Kulturnation). And the thing that is so wonderful is that it is being driven by inexorable economic factors: the very things the unholy patriarchs are so intent upon elaborating! Only once this has completely transpired will the full benison of the bonding values of the extended social unit become possible; until then, the potential blessings remain bound in patrimony. . . As someone concerned with understanding the origins of World War II, I feel quite strongly about these things."