Ann Oakley Quotes
The primary function of myth is to validate an existing social order. Myth enshrines conservative social values, raising tradition on a pedestal. It expresses and confirms, rather than explains or questions, the sources of cultural attitudes and values.
Ann Oakley, English Sociologist & Feminist, Woman's Work, 1974
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
She was observing that while some autocrats try to change societies like Catherine the Great, and Kamal Attaturk, many try to maintain the traditional status quo like Franco of Spain and Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany
See {585464} and {585466} for a similar view.
Democracy and a republican form of government ran counter to the Chinese customs and failed, with Yuan Shikai taking all power—the “immemorial custom” of the autocratic Mancho and earlier Chinese dynasties. This failure of republican government in China so colored the future Chinese political leadership that both the Communists and Chang’s Kuomintang Nationalist anti-communists were both dictatorial and autocratic with great power lying in military hands. It was only in the later years of the 20th century that the Nationalists began to have a real democracy and although the Communists became avid capitalists and loosened up in terms of economic freedom, they did not feel the Chinese masses were ready to accept anything but the authoritarian political system that was the Chinese “immemorial custom”. They would not risk another collapse of modern government and all the factions fighting for control as in the Republic failure.
Ann Rosamund Oakley is a British sociologist, feminist, and writer. She is professor and founder-director of the Social Science Research Unit at the UCL Institute of Education of the University College London, and in 2005 partially retired from full-time academic work to concentrate on her writing, especially on new novels.
