Why is chivalry good for anyone?

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Ya know what, since this thread isn't making it clear for any of us, I'm just going to be polite whether people like it or not. I'm tired of this pointless fussing, I mean I'm not going to do things for a lady unless she needs it, but if she gets upset at me holding a door, too bad! Since when were things treat others the opposite of the way they treat you?

Any ways, if I know I am doing a good thing and not oppressing ladies by holding open doors for them, then I'll just keep being polite to ladies, don't care if the occasional lady sneers or hisses at me for being nice, obviously they don't want people to be nice to them so I'll be mean to them by keep being nice to them since they hate it so much.

I think that when people are insulted by politeness, you have truly reached a pointless conversation.

Ways that people hear you before they see you:

1. You are fatter than crap

2. You have your IPod on waaaaaaaay too loud

3. You are wearing high heels

Having your own foot stepped on with a stiletto can be nasty, too

"You seem like a guy who seems genuinely interested in being a decent person to other people regardless of gender, despite views on chivalry that I pretty strongly disagree with. But I don't get how chivalry as practiced in the antebellum South was a good thing. If by "our societies would be much better places in which to live", you mean people owning other people as slaves, and men raping their female slaves while their wives get the consolidation of meaningless and at the time legitimately patronizing gestures of chivalry, and the chance to make life even more hellish for the female slaves being raped because of how they must have "tempted" their husbands into their infidelity, then sure, the antebellum South sure could be considered a great model for society. But as we're all reasonable people here, let's not romanticize a society that wasn't nearly as idyllic as the first few minutes of "Gone With the Wind" would have us believe. And I know I'm mixing southern literature here, but adhering to antebellum-era standards of chivalry in a modern world didn't work out too well for Quentin Compson, or pretty much any other Faulkner character, did it?"

President Porpoise, I didn't see this until I read your apology. My real concern is that you are factually wrong, at least with respect to white men raping slaves. Here are the facts:

While rapes and miscegenation did happen, it was relatively uncommon. As the author of the seminal work on Southern slavery put it, plantations were hardly the harems of popular imagination. We know this from the 1860 census, in which fewer than ten percent of slaves had any white blood in them. I can give you more; just ask if you are interested.

It was also the case than when a planter did father a child with a slave that that child usually received his or her freedom, or if the child couldn't be manumitted, it was usually taught a trade and given high status, and a relatively easy life, as a slave. Of course, there were exceptions, but this was the rule.

As far as wanting to live back during that time, I'm not sure what gave you the idea I would like to do any such thing. My contention is that things that have been around for a long time usually serve some beneficial purpose, and I think chivalry is one of those things.

I will accept your apology, but my hope is that you will learn the facts so you can get over your fear of the past, and broaden your horizons beyond the liberal paradigm.

If one believes in the "Golden Rule", there's no need for chivalry........

[quote="Geekonychus"]If one believes in the "Golden Rule", there's no need for chivalry........

Since chivalry centers around the golden rule, it begs the question as to why you have a bias against it. Would you care to explain what you've got against chivalry?