David Gelernter is a modern intellectual giant. He is a professor of computer science at Yale and his research focuses on computer programming and artificial intelligence. The “tuple space” introduced in his Linda system (1983) is considered the basis of many computer communication systems worldwide. His expertise extends beyond programming—he is the author of seminal works on religion, philosophy, and the arts. He was targeted and attacked by the Unabomber in 1993. He is a survivor and hero and I’m proud to call David Gelernter a friend. Here he offers his thoughts on men, women, and culture.
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Ordinary stories would begin with June 24, 1993, describing the moment nails exploded from an envelope—ripping into the torso, the arms, and eye of David Gelernter. They would begin with the bleeding, nearly blinded professor of computer science staggering his way from his office in Watson Hall on the campus of Yale University to a health clinic, arriving with his body torn and no blood pressure.
Targeted by the Unabomber, Gelernter was thrust into the headlines. Films are made out of such violent moments; news revolves around conflict. A victim seeking to overcome tragedy is a hard story line to displace. The brutality screams out and swallows any other accomplishments or nuance. The attack could have been the event that defined Gelernter for the rest of his life.
But Gelernter scoffed at the idea that the knighting of the title “victim” should carry any weight or credence. This is a man who pushed computer science forward, who foresaw the Internet. He paints. He regularly publishes articles and books on culture, philosophy, and religion. His life and his work were far more important than the evil of any deranged man.
And so instead of talking about what he gained in surviving the attack, Gelernter starts with what has been lost. He speaks of the true victims.
“The great disgrace of modern society is the destruction of female self-respect through feminism.”
Women have been left vulnerable by the changing expectations. Denied the right to be treated differently—as women—they are forced to hold themselves to the standards and desires of a man. They are left vulnerable, forced to destroy parts of their soul, their innate character, and left cut off from any maternal urge.
This defense of women might seem out of place for a scientist, but Gelernter has never been confined to the lab. Gelernter’s work in the field of computer programming saw the shift toward a digital system of information centralization and pushed technology accordingly. The titles of his books attest to his psyche, a kaleidoscope of the perpetually curious conservative thinker: Americanism: The Fourth Great Western Religion; Machine Beauty: Elegance and the Heart of Technology; 1939: The Lost World of the Fair; and Drawing Life: Surviving the Unabomber. Gelernter also documented the tradition of his faith with Judaism: A Way of Being.
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It is this holistic approach to life and philosophy pushing him to defend women and the destruction of the first relationship ever created.
Genesis 1:27 says, “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” Man and woman.
As Gelernter and his wife raised their two sons in the Jewish tradition, they watched that first relationship come under siege.
“The greatest difficulty has to do with relationships between young men and girls. It is to bring young men up to be chivalrous.”
Chivalry is an old term. Knights joust for the honor of a fair maiden. Sir Walter Raleigh spreads his cloak across a muddy puddle and allows Queen Elizabeth to cross unscathed. The HMS Birkenhead and the iceberg-struck RMS Titanic sink as men fill the lifeboats with women and children and sacrifice their lives in the process. Or it may just be respecting the dignity of a woman and the sanctity of the marriage bed.
“Chivalry is to ask them to make an enormous sacrifice,” said Gelernter. “To deny desires and make a sacrifice in a happy-go-lucky atmosphere. But that atmosphere is a systematic attempt to destroy all attempts to reinforce any ideas of a girl’s dignity and what she’s entitled to ask from a man.”
Gelernter is not asking his sons to be angels, but he expects them to rise above the level of animals.
“It’s easy for me to say what is required of them; it’s hard for them to carry that out. But I’m so very proud of them.”
When a young man from the Gelernter household takes a girl “out,” there are certain standards that will be part of the evening. He will hold the door open for the young woman. He will pick up the check at dinner. He will treat her with respect. He will walk the young woman home at the end of the night, and if it is a cold night, he will offer to lend her the warmth of his coat. Trifling details to some, nostalgic reminders of a different time to others—but for Gelernter, the small things add up.
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“These are tiny things, but they add up. In a larger sense the idea that a man’s role in respect to women is to protect, to help, to support, to cherish as opposed to consume. We are a consumer society and the number one consumption is that of women.”
The change in role came alongside two developments. Men chose to ignore traditional responsibilities in relationships—forestalling marriage and maintaining a perpetual adolescence. Feminism swept the schools of women’s studies, teaching that women should respond and encourage the prolonged independence. By severing the natural progression of relationships and encouraging premarital sexual relationships, women were left defenseless and unable to demand some of their most basic rights.
“It is awful that there are young women who don’t feel that they can want what they want, women who want a career, but also want a family and a home. They just do, they feel it. There are so many young women who don’t feel entitled to what women in every other generation in human history have. In modern Western society, feminism has abolished it in one generation.”
And this ties into deeper urges of the divine.
“Women have an urge to nurture and cherish children; men don’t have that, but they can substitute an urge to nurture and cherish women. Men need to turn their sexual interest into something that goes deeper, emotionally and spiritually.”
Young men must be taught that their desire for women is something natural, something good. When a beautiful woman walks into the room, there is a stirring deep within the soul that is tied to something more than just the firing of synapses and hormones. When Adam saw Eve in the garden of Eden, he saw that she was good. But Adam did not merely treat Eve as another creation to consume, but rather as part of him to care for and to be joined to. And so that attraction must be properly understood in a way motivating noble action that honors the value and dignity of the women.
Modern society teaches individuals to follow their feelings. Being a man often involves denying those impulses or channeling them in the proper direction, as in the impulse toward doing absurd and dangerous things that captivates boys of all ages. This can either be courage or insanity.
“Courage in the sense that has been abolished for the Hallmark version in modern society,” cautioned Gelernter. “Society sees everybody as courageous. A congressman takes a courageous stand, a garbage man takes a courageous stand, or a teacher courageously allows a Christmas card to be shown. All this is nonsense, but men are still capable of being urged to be courageous . . . Bravery is not in all of us, but it is a manly virtue that can also be turned to the benefit of society. One wants to be brave on behalf of one’s wife and children or girlfriend for that matter.”
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By slathering “courageous” across all of society, a casual contempt has been attached to the term, one that undermines the higher meaning of the term. Courage becomes a hollow shell, stripped from the necessary philosophical and religious roots that give strength and meaning.
While Gelernter might cringe from labels like “courageous” or “victim,” being the target of such an action, then witnessing—from the inside out—the reaction from society, provides him with a unique perspective on how men act in times of adversity.
“Part of the manly attitude is to keep your feelings to yourself and not visit them upon the world,” said Gelernter. “Self-expression is not your goal, except if you’re in a very limited part of the world. And even then you’ll probably be a pretty lousy artist if you think that self-respect is your goal.”
This is not to say that men don’t feel emotions; it’s just what feelings they choose to share with the world.
“Self-pity—feeling sorry for yourself—well, of course, you bang your foot and of course you feel sorry for yourself. If you see someone who just made a billion dollars and you’re just as smart and you didn’t make anything, you feel sorry for yourself. That’s human, but a man may not control his mental life, but he controls his behavior. It’s probably the case that a stiff upper lip—if you keep it to yourself and don’t make an issue of whining and expressing the self-pity—that some of that self-pity melts away and you look around and see how much you have.”
That type of thinking runs squarely in opposition to what men are trained to believe about life and themselves. Film after film, pop song after pop song preaches the value of “finding oneself ” and living in a perpetual state of teary-eyed emotional breakdown. Gelernter taught his boys differently.
“Don’t leave it outside. Keep your feelings to yourself. It is unseemly in a man to make a public show of his feelings. You must think about what type of example you’re setting for others.”
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Feelings cannot master the decisions and mental well-being of a man. And when it comes to the issue of getting a job and going to work, Gelernter has a message for men: “Work is not supposed to be fun. You go to work to make money and support you and your family, and to maybe make something productive, not to have fun. We are too easy on ourselves. We are a lazy people.”
He lives what he preaches. It might be surprising to discover, but David Gelernter—the man who foresaw the Internet and who can bend technology to his will in a way that most individuals can barely dream of—hates computers.
“One does not have to go into the field that is easiest for one. My own limited successes in computer sciences have been precisely because I don’t like computers. I have no patience with them. I’m not willing to play with software. I require it to be simply and elegantly designed so I can figure out how to use it in thirty seconds, because if not, I’m not going to bother.”
He was majoring in art, philosophy, and Hebrew, but none of those fulfilled a requirement of his belief system.
“Jewish tradition meant that I had a responsibility to do something that would be worth something to someone and would let me support a family. Computer science interested me, but I don’t love it.”
Art and science might be opposites for Gelernter, but they aren’t mutually exclusive fields. The search for truth is often the search for beauty. A beautiful theorem, a well-constructed dam, or an intricate computer process can reach the limits of poetry. Gelernter keeps painting, keeps writing, and keeps cultivating all sides of his personality and soul.
That development comes hand in hand with Judaism—more a pattern for life than a system of “faith” for Gelernter and his family.
“Judaism makes the texture of life. It’s a particular texture of time, a certain feeling at Hanukkah and at the High Holy Days. It’s a mood that’s constantly changing and gives a certain character to every week and it’s more of an approach to life; it isn’t as narrow as we often think of it.”
His sons were raised with an understanding of that tradition. One wears a yarmulke; the other doesn’t. Both are equally Jewish and have their understanding of life shaped by that reality. This belief and practice shapes every part of life, including that fundamental relationship with and protection of women.
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“Chivalry is an inherently Judeo-Christian idea. Self-abdication in sake of decency and higher standards is an inherently religious idea. It’s a Judeo-Christian idea.”
To those who would haggle over the jots and tittles of behavior, asking whether one could be chivalrous without being religious, the reminder from this modern-day prophet is that it is not about the minutiae, but rather about seeking to formulate commandments for living that can be applied across all of life. How can society create men who will protect and serve women?
“Society cannot produce a generation of young men who are gentlemen without a religious context. The idea of a gentleman is very much a Western idea. It is not an Asian idea. It is not an African idea. It is not an Arab idea. The idea of monogamy developed in the West. The idea of the married couple being the fundamental building block of society emerges in the book of Genesis in a startling statement that has no equivalent in other religious traditions. To the extent that society discards its Judeo-Christian framework, it discards the idea of a gentleman.”