This is an inevitable consequence of a society that values individuality and individual rights above everything. From Western individualist perspective, why should the woman be deprived of her "right" to her choices and preferences because of arbitrary traditions and norms? If individual is "sovereign," the woman should not be deprived of any of her "rights" to her preferences. A society that indoctrinates its young with concepts of individual sovereignty, individual "rights," "self-made" individuals, and similar concepts naturally engenders self-obsessed egotists who equate their individual preferences with that of universal law. Is it any wonder that a society that prides itself on "questioning authority" produces men that question the very foundations of social construct and biological nature?
One does not necessarily follow to the other. There was a time where common sense existed along with an individualist perspective.
It is the authorities here who have promoted such nonsense. From their media to fake education system, the psychobabble that passes as science as they experiment new drugs on their human cattle. Many men aren't for this nonsense. It wasn't until women's suffrage that the nation turned towards feelings and pseudosciences, as they tend to view situations from the heart instead of mind. You can view the downward shift in society from personal responsibility to denying biology and human nature directly to the appeal to feelings. The masters of the cattle (authorities) are very perceptive in their methods of manipulation.
What is "common sense?" It seems that not a single person can define the term. In the more ancient and civilised societies, there were overarching cultural and group perspectives, with which men align their thoughts and actions. These cultural perspectives are regional and ethnic specific and do not necessarily transfer across regions and ethnicities. The Protestant West has a perspective that places particular emphasis on the "individual," under which perspective and assumptions your post begins. The curious narcissism that permeates the modern average Western man, who imagines that the universe ought to revolve around his needs and preferences, is but another iteration of the Protestant rebellion, albeit without God.
The relentless subversion of cultural, social, political, and legal authorities by minor aristocrats and mercantile class in the West, via pernicious humanism, has resulted in the current Western social milieu. It is not the anointed rulers who have led the West into societal fragmentation, but the low-born humanist scum clamoring for reform, dictating to their betters on sociopolitical policy issues with which they are and remain ignorant. It is not women's suffrage that caused problems, but the very concept of "democracy:" a ludicrous idea that the unlettered opinions of hoboes are of equal value to that of their erudite betters. At the core of all social ills lies a system that permits men to reach beyond their station. Emphasis on "individuality" not only permits but encourages men to overreach.
Maybe because it's situational.
Don't set yourself on fire. Common sense.
Don't harm others for the joy of it. Common sense.
Eat nutritional food. Common sense.
If you need something mechanical fixed, you seek out a mechanic, not a baker. Common sense.
I could go on but situations are endless.
Of course it is. They control the education system, the television "programming" and the medical field and on and on. The indoctrination is endless, as well as honed by their years of research into the nature and doings of the human crowd.
I agree that democracy is not a good solution, which was why it was introduced in a limited capacity in the United States. But then tyranny (which is what democracy allows by those who study the human crowd) in the east doesn't seem so much better. How to balance a true aristocracy that is not damaging to the majority while keeping the majority from being narcissistic. Not sure it's possible for more than brief periods of time based on the history I have read.
As well as allows men of genius to reach where their gifts can without being stifled. But of course we don't have individuality here in the west, which is somewhat the purpose of my post. The rights of the few are allowed to damage the rights of the many. Each of those few and many being individuals.
And before we begin throwing rocks at the west, lets not pretend that the east is some great beacon of peace and tranquility. I'm old enough to remember the Tiananmen Square protests. Men of evil design will seek power and dqueeze their fellow men despite the system used to achieve such a thing.
Who are the "they" that control every aspect of Western sociocultural milieu? Certainly, they are not those in political offices, who essentially have no real power to affect any thing tangible in Western society. "They" would not be the bureaucrats, who operate all the levers of government, yet have precarious economic existence. "They" are not academics and intellectuals, who though influential with the ignorant youths, have no power (hence their perpetual discontent and ill-temperament). "They" are not the failing newspapers and increasingly irrelevant cable news networks. There are the moneyed class, but their only interest seems to be making more money. The only organised, focused, and far-sighted group may be the communists, but they are facing opposition from nationalists and reactionaries, and do not hold monopoly on the levers of social influence or power.
The problem with the West is the social and cultural chaos engendered by the innumerable factions squabbling with each other over trappings of power, in the absence of real, hegemonic, political power. The character of modern Western government/political system seems to be the curious fear to rule. Power vacuum inevitably creates chaos. It is not freedom that the hoi polloi demand, but rational governance and competent leadership. The failure of the modern Western governments to rule, has led to the social and cultural fragmentation. Decision by referendum and poll data is prostitution, not governance.
Tiananmen ought to be discussed in context. The CCP did not execute the protesters on whim or pique. The USSR, the one constant political symbol of international communism, fragmented into irrelevance. The East German government dissolved, due to miscommunication between its politburo and the border guard station. Yugoslavia was devolving into ethnic enclaves, preparing to eat each other. Any wrong decision, any sign of vulnerability by the central government could have resulted in China fragmenting into 55 ethnic regional enclaves, and another rebirth of the warlord era.
Would 1 billion people have had a better life under mafia rule, in the likes of Yeltsin's Russia? Would the Chinese have fared better in civil strife, along the line of Yugoslav civil war? The average Western thinker seems to think that mere freedom begets utopia, in the absence of sociopolitical infrastructure, national boundaries, legal enforcement, common cultural perspectives, and political stability. If the Shanghai clique did not wrest control of the government in a coup from Deng, China may have dissolved into irrelevance, into which Russia has devolved. The Toad merely traded lives of thousands, in order for the CCP to remain in power, and in the process, may have averted sociocultural collapse. In this circumstance, the interest of the Party may have been aligned with the well-being of the many, however unintentional.
Geniuses are not necessarily a positive force in human history. Gengis Khan was a genius, and killed more people and destroyed more knowledge than any human being past or present. Einstein's genius brought forth the atomic bomb and the nuclear sword of Damocles. The geniuses of the French intellectuals gave birth to the Terror. What new horrors will the genius of bioengineering usher for the 21st century? The West has a mercantile perception concerning information - always seeking to acquire and demanding more quantity - rather than understanding that some information is dangerous and need to be regulated.
What the West needs is a government that rules. The flowers of human liberty and prosperity blooms only under the harsh sun of iron fisted leadership that engenders sociocultural stability.