Isaiah 3 and Modern Examples

        Chapter 3 of Isaiah can be a hard chapter for many people to read and understand, with all its talk (at least in the KJV) of "changeable suits of apparel, and the mantles, and the wimples, and the crisping pins," and so on. The confusion is because Isaiah was describing the latest fashion trends among the decadent women of that time, and then a Renaissance translator, who would have never seen such women, was attempting to translate it into the language of his time. It is best to read the passages concerning women's fashions and behavior (verses 16 through 24) as describing vain "fashionistas" that dress and act like tarts. Of course, it's unacceptable to point out when a woman is dressing slutty (see, e.g., this news story: "US high school student, 16, who dumped her slut-shaming boyfriend after he said her prom dress 'showed too much skin' finally reveals the offending gown - but says she WON'T be attending").

"Woman, 23, shares her incredible transformation after spending
more than $10,000 on her body art, including
 a split tongue and blue tattoos on her
 EYEBALLS that could have blinded her"--Daily Mail.

        Applying r/K theory as described by Anonymous Conservative, what is being described are women that are highly r-selected: sexually promiscuous, attention-seeking, thrill seeking, flaunting their sexuality and oblivious to consequences. I rather like Albert Jay Nock's characterization:

The picture which Isaiah presents of the Judean masses is most unfavorable. In his view, the mass man — be he high or be he lowly, rich or poor, prince or pauper — gets off very badly. He appears as not only weak minded and weak willed, but as by consequence knavish, arrogant, grasping, dissipated, unprincipled, unscrupulous. The mass woman also gets off badly, as sharing all the mass man's untoward qualities, and contributing a few of her own in the way of vanity and laziness, extravagance and foible. The list of luxury products that she patronized is interesting; it calls to mind the women's page of a Sunday newspaper in 1928, or the display set forth in one of our professedly "smart" periodicals. In another place, Isaiah even recalls the affectations that we used to know by the name "flapper gait" and the "debutante slouch." 

However, I can't criticize the person that tries to figure out what are each of the luxury items described by Isaiah, as I also had at one time researched the issue.

       As long time readers know, I read and get a lot of news stories from the U.K. newspaper, The Daily Mail. It occupies a very similar position to the New York Post, combining serious journalism with a lot of sensationalism and celebrity gossip news. If you view the Daily Mail website on a computer, there is a large collection of headlines for the latter type stories along the right-hand margin, classified, ironically enough, as the "Femail Today" section. And, boy, do the stories seem to mirror the debouched women Isaiah describes. I was particularly reminded of that today as I saw the following headlines: "Kim Kardashian appears TOPLESS in new makeup video... but she actually has on a see-through nude tube top" and "Brandi Glanville nearly reveals her ample assets in sheer black lace dress for breast cancer benefit."

        It was more than the simple decadence that these story reveal, however. In Isaiah 3:23, it specifically mentions "[t]he glasses, and the fine linen, and the hoods, and the veils." And, when I was researching this at one time, it was explained that the term "glasses" did not refer to optical glasses as we think of them (spectacles or corrective lenses hadn't even been invented at the time of the KJV translation), but to transparent clothing.  Fine linen, likewise, suggests thin or tight fabric. It is items like these that convinces me that the first few chapters of Isaiah, during which Judah was in severe political and moral decline, apply to our day and age.

       Or, perhaps our recent past would be a better descriptor. For Isaiah describes women that at least want to appear attractive. Now we live in a society where many women, still exposing as much skin as legally possible, strive to be as repellent as possible. The point is made clear in this article comparing a group of Amish youth to modern teens. Speaking of the Amish youth, the author describes:

       Even in the scorching summer heat, the girls wore modest squirts, that extended beyond their knees (in the same vein, the young men wore properly-fitting pants and shirts). The young girls also were healthy and fit. They had no tattoos, no piercings, no dyed, half shaven hair. There were no outward signs of brokenness. They were playing with a cordial innocence, the kind you’d expect from teenaged girls who haven’t been tarnished and soiled by consumerism, social media, and postmodern filth. They were beautiful, happy, and innocent. 

        On the adjacent field, the young men were playing an old-fashioned, no-nonsense game of footy. No whining and certainly no bitching. Every player was getting on with their task with gravitas and determination. The young men were playing with an incredible intensity. They were determined to score, and to win. All forms of masculine virtues were on display.

But of the group of "modern youth" he wrote:

Drawing this into stark perspective, was the third field, that was occupied by a co-ed (i.e. non-segregated) Canadian group of young men and women playing soccer. The women were fat, obnoxious, and foul mouthed. They sported aggressive, masculine tattoos. Meanwhile, the men were weak and effeminate house-pets, almost subjugated and controlled by these vile women. The women were barking orders, and the men would do as they were told, without batting an eye-lash. Such are the rotten fruits that feminism has produced.

Nevertheless, as Spengler and others have noted, the tolerance for sexually liberated women is a sign of a civilization in decline.Thus, it may be that we are regressing past even what Isaiah saw.

        A good video on this topic is the following from Black Pigeon Speaks:

"Why Women DESTROY NATIONS * / CIVILIZATIONS - and other UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTHS"--Black Pigeon Speaks (19 min.)