"A woman takes pleasure in being a follower and finds ease in obeying a husband who loves her."
Another pious gem from Focus on the Family? There is that distinctive quasi-pornographic pleasure Dr. Dobson took in the idea of obedience -- for a sample, see his detailed descriptions of how to punish defiant children in his classic Dare to Discipline, certainly a more straightforward title than Fifty Shades of Grey. But no, as it happens, this particular piece of pseudo-psychology comes from Dr. Abou Salama of Cairo University and The Muslim Brotherhood -- from an address he was making to a premarital counseling class. And women in the audience met expectations, demurely shaking their heads when he later asked, "Can you as a woman take a decision and handle the consequences of your decision?"
Ah, yes -- fundamentalist Islam, fundamentalist Christianity. So much in common...
Looking forward to the day when the far right nightmare of a global social order looms larger on the horizon of the possible than it does now -- here's a modest proposal for how world politics might be organized during the transition: on the one hand, the Grow Up Party, running under the slogan "Our Lives are Utterly Contingent and the Universe Doesn't Care -- So Deal With It"; on the other hand, the Prop Me Up Party, running under the slogan "Feeling Really, Really Sure is Knowledge."
Imagine the conventions! The various delegations! Talk about postmodern pastiche!
I want to thank Ben Elga and Maura O'Conner for stimulating input on this topic.