You can’t lay claim to a biblical argument when you’re really just echoing evolutionary science and modern sociology. Foster and Tennant’s It’s Good to Be a Man starts with Cicero just as Goldberg (1973) does originally and then quotes Goldberg (1993) a few paragraphs later to support patriarchy as “the natural and inevitable state of the world”. So, the book relies on 20th century evolutionary science and anthropology to make a sociological claim that is at best only partially true signified by the careful qualifications Goldberg offers in revising his original 1970s theory that was poorly received by the academic community at the time. Further, Goldberg is working with different definitions in terms of what patriarchy means than Foster and Tennant offer. Goldberg’s (1973) treatment is about society and “suprafamilial” (above the family, 30-31), while Foster and Tennant see patriarchy as simply universal, “the natural rulership of men”.
Goldberg offers his theory as a careful academic exercise, but Foster and Tennant reduce it to the fact of the matter. Of course, their claim is interspersed with reference to the Bible and redemptive history and who would expect otherwise in a book by Christians? They even claim that patriarchy is “built into the fabric of the cosmos” whatever that means. But, is that really true? Is there something patriarchal about Mars and Jupiter orbiting the Sun that we missed? The point here is not whether men rule the home, but how wide and universal the claim Foster and Tennant are making in their interpretive maximalism in recasting Goldberg. Here is the quote they offer from Goldberg:
In no society, anywhere or at any time, have these realities been absent . . . In every society that has ever existed one finds patriarchy (males fill the overwhelming percentage of upper hierarchical positions and all other hierarchies), male attainment (males attain the high-status roles, whatever these may be in any given society), and male dominance (both males and females feel that dominance in male-female encounters and relationships resides in the male, and society and authority systems reflect this).
Goldberg, Why Men Rule, 1993
Foster and Tennant then matter-of-fact conclude, “So, patriarchy is the natural and inevitable state of the world” neglecting to let their readers know that Goldberg in fact is not working with the same universality in mind.
But, the appearance of an obscure quote from Cicero in the opening sentences of the first chapter of It’s Good to Be a Man without attribution to Goldberg is concerning and likely means that there is some level of plagiarism attached to this text, a sign that the authors are working off of a compendium of various sources but not always giving credit where credit is due or offering anything original that adds to the current melee of arguments and positions on what it means to be a man.
Next Review:
The War Between Patriarchies
The Anti-Technological Stance of It’s Good to Be a Man
No Fatherhood, No Manhood – Part 1
No Fatherhood, No Manhood – Part 2
No Gravitas, No Manhood – Part 1
No Gravitas, No Manhood – Part 2
How Porn & Video Games Hijack Manhood
Two for One Day – How to Bear the Weight/Manhood Through Mission
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