1. One of the great, underappreciated benefits of having clearly defined roles for men and women is that they prevent direct competition between the sexes. Less competition means less resentment and less animosity

2. Equality naturally creates resentment, because one who values equality will always be on the look out for signs that someone somewhere has violated it. And how easy to think that any slight or disappointment or annoyance is a violating of the precious equality. One whose equality is violated is not just someone who has been bothered or rebuked or come off the worse, as anyone might be, but is a positive victim who cries out to heaven for justice.

3. I favour corporal punishment (not always, but as an option) because it can neither be answered back nor ignored. Violence is the ultimate problem solver because it relies on brute fact. It’s all well and good to say that one ought to reason with people, but the fact is (as everyone knows who thinks honestly) that most people at most times don’t want to be reasoned with. This is doubly true when they’re acting out of order.

You can shut your mind to the truth, you can shut your mind to reason, but you can’t shut your mind to a slap to the face.

4. Or rather, you can shut your mind to a slap to the face if you learn how, but those who do very rarely need one.

5. As another example, there’s the bit in Anne of Avonlea where Anne, as a young teacher, struggles to win the affection of little Anthony Pye while also maintaining a strict rule against ever beating students. Her efforts with the boy go nowhere until one day when her temper is soured by a toothache. Following a series of disasters in the classroom (including fireworks), Anne reaches her breaking point when young Pye puts a live mouse in her desk and does some yeoman’s work with a pointer.

Anne is naturally horrified and ashamed of herself for breaking her rule, but to her surprise she finds that small Pye respects her now and no longer acts up in class. She never whips him again, but the knowledge that she could is enough to win him over.

6. Speaking of Anne, my current anime diet consists of the 1979 Anne of Green Gables adaptation. This is honestly one of the best adaptations I’ve seen, not specifically of Anne (I haven’t seen any others) but of anything. It follows the story almost exactly, which is appreciated, but what it does add almost always serves the story beautifully, making use if the visual and auditory nature of the medium to support the story in new ways (like I mentioned last week, and yes, this is where I got the idea).

For instance, take the scene where Anne has her fateful encounter with Gilbert. The book describes how she was lost in a daydream while he was trying to get her attention. The anime shows her imagination, picturing a cloud castle and dancing fairies while a song plays in the background. Meanwhile, Gilbert’s shown doing various tricks to get her attention, until he tugs her braid and calls her ‘carrot.’ Then the song abruptly stops as Anne turns on him, shouts at him, and breaks her slate over his head (the animation has it shatter completely instead of just cracking in half).

This is exactly how you adapt the book’s ability to describe the feelings of the two people involved into and audio-visual medium. It’s a little different, but it’s different in a way that serves the same end in another way.

7. I understand that the Anne Shirley books are very popular in Japan, to the point where it’s impossible to get any LM Montgomery memorabilia in the west because the Japanese obsessively buy it up the moment it surfaces. Why this is, only a Japanese fan could say (though I’m sure the phrase “It’s a good story with great characters” would feature somehow), though it is another counterexample to the ‘representation’ narrative. Prince Edward Island is almost literally as far as you can get from Japan, and none of the cast are remotely Japanese. The only reference to Japan in the books at all is when one of Anne’s friends marries a missionary bound for there (if I’m remembering right). But the ideas and events of the story apparently make perfect sense to a Japanese perspective, so none of the surface level matters.