Thread by @thisisfoster

A thread...

How a culture of flattery is crippling people, especially single women.

Flattery is false praise.

Flatterers offers praise, not because it’s deserved or rooted in reality, but because they believe it will gain them some personal advantage.

Why is this crippling?

Flattery perverts a person’s self-assessment.

A flatterer doesn’t only over-praise and over-state a person’s virtues. They also recast a person’s vices as virtues.

In doing so, the flatterer inflates the person’s self-opinion and clouds their vision.

An accurate self-assessment is essential to success in this life.

Not only is it the basis of humility but, practically speaking, it allows you to push hard towards your limits without exceeding them.

Icarus could fly until he got too close to the sun.

We live in a culture of flattery:

-The tone-deaf are told they’ve got a beautiful voice
-The obese are told they’ve go an impressive physique
-The mentally unstable are told they are brave and stunning
- The fool is told that they are wise beyond their years

And on and on…

Flattery courses through the veins of every facet of our culture.

The education system, corporate America, church pulpits, etc…

It’s everywhere but especially on online social networks.

It’s true that there is also a lot of hate but remember flattery is a form of hatred.

“Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.” Pr 27:6

People who love are appropriately critical. Sometimes those criticism sting. But they help you.

People who deceive (shield you from the truth) are using you. They don’t love you.

Now, let’s circle back around to how this is crippling single women in particular.

Let’s use the example of Tomi Lahren’s “all men are trash” rant:
tinyurl.com/y2wtmnzz
She says all her single female friends (24-36) are “attractive” & “successful” but can’t find a good man.

Lahren, of course, blames men. She says she is a “woman of value.”

She seems incapable of contemplating the possibility that she and her friends over-value themselves.

How could they? So many men praise them for their beauty, success, etc.

But here’s the thing…

…a lot of that praise comes from men who are just flatterers. These men are what some call "simps" or "nice guys."

They are men who flatter for female attention and validation (and maybe some sexual attention).

Women despise these guys. See: reddit.com/r/niceguys/

While women despise these sort of men, the inordinate amount of praise lavished on them by “simps” does have an effect.

Namely, it gives women an exaggerated sense of desirability.

This in turns makes them see themselves as above men who are of a similar or even higher status.

About 15 years ago, I began to notice this in the church over and over again.

I’d see very average women repeatedly pass on above average guys and then complain how there are no good men… but they’d replace good with “godly.”

I wondered "What is going on with these women?"

It's become clear that the "culture of flattery" (in & outside the church) has inflated single women's vanity and is leading them to hold out for a man truly worthy of their value.

When they start to realize that they've been had by the culture, their "simp" pastors say...

... "No. You're not the problem. Reject the idolatry of marriage and family. Singleness is a gift and the church is your family."

This, of course, is a lie that the pastor tells to:

-Get praise from women
-Avoid the emotional whirlwind from them realizing they were deceived

These men are flatterers.

They don’t love single women. They use them.

1 Tim 5:14 is in the context of widows but certainly applies to younger single women as well.

Flatterers are gutless and many pastors are flatterers.

Thus, churches will be more & more overwhelm with older single women. Plutarch:

"The surest prophylactic against the evils of the flatterer is a just opinion of oneself that will reject, as untruthful, the flatterer's insinuations.”

Truth is pride killer & humility gives life.