It gives men a degree of self control. I notice most of the guys, myself included, who are not circumcised are sex addicts to a certain extent- took me years to control it. It’s not the same as the Whore-Madonna Paradox, but it plays on something similar, if your joining a culture where this is expected. Jewish culture has always been fluid in terms of accepting outsiders, and was much more the case in it’s early times. Abraham’s religion isn’t the Jewish religion… (he accepted a foreign priesthood to administer the rites of his belief system- it’s very common in the Judeo-Christian tradition, Moses and Jesus did the same, accepting the ritual authority of outsiders to intergrate themselves into the belief system, turning it into a more mainstream religion. Jesus didn’t invent Baptism, it’s a Assyrian Royal Rite that he inherited from John the Baptist)… Abraham’s religion was a voice telling him to leave his father’s house and travel, and do stuff to test his faith under daring and absurd conditions. What became Kosher overtime was what binded the community together, and not seperated it. Chanakya did something similar (not circumcision, but the conservative bent to identifying the homogeneous from wide cross currents, Hindus didn’t all agree on what it was to be a Hindu before or during his time, but once Alexander was pushed out of India, this Philosopher determined for all time what it was to be one). Obviously, Abraham wasn’t too deeply concerned with the Categorical Imperiative, or conceptions of Fatherland or Promised Land. These conceptions would emerge in the tradition long after, or in minor branches of it. It was, like all of Abraham’s understandings, something that targeted a thing of great value. It was a extention of the sacrifice unto the self. He figured out one way or another killing one’s son on a alter wasn’t something that voice was too thrilled with. But cutting the forskin off the progenitor of one’s line… that’s a dead on accurate target of one’s hopes in dreams in the very people you most cherish. It shouldn’t be a surprise the jews have survived so long, or the persistance of America and it’s homophobia, or the survival of Islam. These are survivor cultures, and they target the Alpha Males most cherished member. Society to a great degree in each of those cultures still idolizes Manhood to a high degree. It can be lauded, mocked, and lambasted, but all three cultures will survive while more feminist cultures will rise and then fall. Notice I am not saying states, but cultures.
The self control… think the Rape of Lucretia, or of Dido… central to Roman Republican Ideology. A man looking to join a community that practices this circumcision, a form of self control… if he has to, he’s going to do it out of either deep faith and belief, or deep love and attraction. He’s going to be a little more clearheaded about the pros and cons of the woman, and the male members of said community is going to take him more seriously than someone just using one of their women as a careless sexbag. He can become a authoritive member of it much quicker, and with less doubt, totting the status quo of membership of a conservative, responsible outfit. The kids have it easy as they get it what they can’t remember, and just grow up in the culture… guys like Smears can arise in such a society and claim to be ‘Jewish’ or ‘American’ or ‘Christian’ but clearly doesn’t associate with the values, and isn’t really trusted. He might associate enough from his experiences from his childhood to clean his act up enough to become successful enough… but does anyone here think he would ever cut such a body part off himself voluntarily? No. Fuck no… if he had to, he would run and get high as a mother fucker, and wouldn’t be spotted again by his old relations. Big difference in the men willing to go through with this act.
Abraham to a high degree hit upon the smartest formula for binding a community together on sexual norms. The female circumcision just doesn’t have such a historic high turnout. Macho men just don’t give a flying fuck if their sexbags can feel sex or not, just so long as they don’t stray. In male circumcision, it’s different- they are expected to keep track of the family and the community. They become of a higher economic and historic order in administrating and passing on techniques to wealth and know how. It’s a right of passage- taken from the highest Jewish Royalty- Abraham. Our Baptism rites are from Assyrian Royalty as well. Many of our wisdom psalms are of the best of the societies the Jews lived under, from royal texts attributed to the highest kinds. It’s a eclectic tradition, and like the early Jesuits in China, we aim at the highest understandings in existence- both intuitively and from the clear empirical data available. The kosher rule of taking sea salt over say, mined salt seems small and meaningless to us now, but it matters if your a seaside nation sitting on the intersection of several international traderoutes, and had to figure out how to keep your society self sufficient and independent. It also discouraged slavery, which as a Abrahamic value, as Salt Mines traditionally have been slaver operations.
