"I didn't know cowboys were smart"

Rex Ranch, Amado, AZ.



February 1975. I hired out as a dude wrangler at the Rex Ranch in Amado, Arizona. Never having herded dudes before I was not sure what to expect. It would prove to be a less than successful experience.

The Rex Ranch was a grand old place in the tradition of the mid-twentieth century dude ranches. Like everything else, the place has changed to keep pace with the changing demographics of those that now come out West for recreation. It is promoted as a haven for the urban yuppie elite seeking pampering in a socially and environmentally correct atmosphere. The advertisement says it comes complete with spa, bird watching and other heart pounding events. There is not even a mention of a horse. Good Lord, but the West is truly gone.


The description on the current Ranch History page reads like a diversity seminar. It is enough to make you vomit.


http://www.rexranch.com/history.html


The ranch provided nice quarters, great food, decent horses and a nice selection of pretty and accommodating female staff for after hours recreation. Most of the guests, at least the ones that rode horseback, were very nice people. The ranch paid a small wage and I was expected to make my money on tips. I was never comfortable accepting tip money. It is servile and an affront to the dignity of an independent man. Some of the guests from back east that were of a more timid nature found me a bit too edgy. I could not and would not play the phony, blustering Old West character that so many of these places expected. I did not get on well with the owners, and that was mostly my fault because I just do not have the personality to be properly subservient to my economic betters. I had been places where things really mattered, and this wasn't one of them.


In an earlier post, On Aggression, IQ & Social Policy July 12, 2008, I discussed my introduction to and interest in ethology (the comparison and study of predatory habits in upper mammals including man). Included in the course content, were issues addressing violence and killing in the animal and early hominid world. Additionally, the role of sexuality, natural divisions of labor, the power of sexual politics, and the establishment and defense of territory were discussed from a cultural anthropological and ethological point of view. Throughout my university years as student and professor, the principles of ethology would provide a focal point of intense ideological enmity, and established the battleground for the intellectual warfare between myself and the social architects and moral entrepreneurs of post modern, deconstructionist, Progressive social policy. In particular, the radical, Marxist feminists absolutely hated the ideas, and by extension me. Most of the students, however, loved the ideological contrast with the nonsense they were receiving at the hands of the mainstream academic community.


As the winter dude season wore on into early spring, I found myself one warm day herding three female members of a very wealthy and prominent American family on a ride into the Upper Sonoran Desert. The border area in those days was still a relatively safe place and citizens on both sides of the cultural and geographic border lived in quiet harmony with one another. On Saturday nights, in the company of two Mexican vaquero friends, we would ride across the border to an old time cantina. The beer was cold, tequila cheap, and the food was great. The men were tough, the senoritas warm and everybody damn sure knew how to have a good time. Of course, if you were inclined to insult someone you had to be prepared to defend or pay with your life. Them Mexican boys know about knives and the women aren't too shabby either. Kept everybody polite.


The three silver spoon females in my care were a mother and her two college age daughters. Both of the young women were pretty and, as might be expected, a bit spoiled though not in the malicious sense that so many privileged youth often exhibit. Mom was well kept as only real money can do. The young ladies were students at Brown University and Vassar College. As we rode along towards Tortilla Well, I did the usual guide thing explaining the flora and fauna of the desert and a bit of the local history. The conversation became more animated as the young women began to grill the cowboy about his political and social views.


The ERA (Equal Rights Amendment) was the big domestic issue at the time. It had piggy backed onto the Civil Rights Movement. Somehow, in the confused politics of the time, the Viet Nam War, and by extension, those that fought in it, was thrown into the mix. Politics was becoming about blame and group identification. The political philosophies connected with these movements were based on various forms of Marxist ideology. The lexicon of the Left began to be filled with terms that were mandatory in conversation to demonstrate one's political enlightenment. Emotionally based arguments filled with accusations of oppression, exploitation, environmentalism, American imperialism, racism, ad naseum were the stock in trade of those whose real motivation was to realign the power base from the competent to the incompetent based upon gender and skin color. It was the beginning of victim hood politics and cry baby activism. The real hidden agenda that we see maturing today and will see even more so in the upcoming election with its probably disasterous results is about income redistribution and transfer of wealth.


The engaging young women were eager to point out the backwardness of traditional male thinking. Sex was a tool of oppression and the male libido was the cause of racism, war, environmental destruction, starvation in the Third World, leprosy, mental retardation and every other known evil past, present and future. Until that time, I had no idea how awful we Anglo-Caucasian guys were. Damn. The inevitable nonsense about full physical equality was the mantra of Feminist politics. I could understand the ugly broads feeling that way, but not the pretty capable ones. Particularly bewildering was the fawning acquiescence of a good many of the new generation of psychologically neutered post-adolescent males to the same stupid ideas. Then again, it made sense if they wanted to get laid.


Men are not really, on average, bigger, stronger, and faster. That was just a construct of male patriarchy and a further example of white, male-dominated oppression of women and people of color. Women were just as capable of being soldiers, cops, firemen, steel workers, and professional hockey players as any man - and, if there were some disparity in physical ability and or strength, they should be given special considerations and allowed to participate regardless of the negative effects upon efficiency. Gender and race norming of testing and qualifications became all the rage. If some people died or were injured due to incompetence or lack of ability to perform to standard, that was the necessary price of a more harmonious world. And, if they happened to be white males, and especially if they were baby killing Viet Nam veterans, well, they deserved it. Bloody Hell.


I countered with ethological arguments regarding the obvious quantifiable physical differences and divisions of labor found throughout the natural world. The socio-biological principles offered were met with sniffs of abrupt dismissal. It was obvious to these privileged women that I was a prime example of a knuckle dragging misanthrope. I was devastated. Male chauvinism and domination had to be stamped out regardless of the assault upon logic and the prima facia evidence present in the natural order. The young ladies were not to be confused by facts that went against their firmly established ideological bias.


We arrived at the well and as we stepped off our horses, I knelt and drew a mathematical matrix in the sand illustrating the biological basis for a portion of my argument. I gathered up the lead ropes of the horses and led them off to the well for water. A subtle shift of the wind allowed me to overhear a whispered remark that would provide the motivation for me to sacrifice nearly everything I had to achieve a University education. One of the young women said to her sister and mother "I didn't know cowboys were smart."


It isn't what she said that pulled my trigger, it was what she did not say. Until our intense and animated conversation, these people, and most others just like them, assumed that if a man made his living in boots and spurs on the back of a horse, he was stupid. As pampered elitist products of the Eastern Establishment, they had no idea about cowboys and ranchers. Anybody in the livestock business that can make a living inspite of weather, market conditions, the harsh and often dangerous working conditions, environmentalists, and the damn government is hardly stupid. Something I have learned in a life spent around those kind of folks and ranchers is that ranchers could learn to do and be successful at most of whatever the fly over crowd does, but based upon experience, the fly over crowd does not do well at ranching. They have to rely upon a rancher to run their weekend outfits for them.


A kind, older friend would later note while I was attending university that I was seeking education for the wrong reasons. He said I was seeking it as a form of revenge. Maybe so. But it worked. When you start out in life with less than others, you are faced with a choice. Submit to your circumstances and blame the unfairness of life or, you can tighten your cinch and get the hell on down the road. It is a matter of character. Somebody might point that out to Chocolate Nagin, Jesse Jackson and the denizens of New Orleans.


Far Rider
See to your weapons and stand to your horses