The logical end of defensive warfare

Amidst all the kvetching, grimacing and posturing over the New York debacle, a couple of voices here and there have tried to warn us that the problem is worse than we think, that our focus is misdirected, that the legalization of gay marriage has “killed” an institution that was already on terminal life support in 2003, the year the Massachusetts Supreme Court handed down its decision in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health.

Stephen Greydanus, for example, writes: “The problem is, it isn’t just same-sex marriage advocates who are unable to explain what marriage is. It’s practically everyone. Marriage has been redefined for decades in our society, and it isn’t homosexuals or politicians who have done it. It’s our culture as a whole. And that’s why we are where we are” (emphasis in original). In line with that thought, Taylor Marshall has pinned down two culprits, contraception and pornography.

David Carlin and John Zmirak have blamed it on our unwillingness to assert on natural-law principles that gay sex is wrong. If it comes to that, we — as a culture — been equally weak at asserting the wrongness of premarital sex and contraception. Here, though, we’ve been as much at the mercy of our allies as of our opponents; those of us who have managed to connect all the dots are part of a rather tiny minority.

The make-believe world of social construction

The trend for the future appears to be towards greater radicalism. [Alison] Jaggar, [currently Professor of Distinction, Philosophy and Women and Gender Studies, University of Colorado at Boulder.—TL], recently denounced the nuclear family as a “cornerstone of repression” and eagerly anticipated scientific advances to eliminate such biological functions as insemination, lactation, and gestation. “One woman could inseminate another … men and non-parturitive women could lactate … fertilized ova could be transferred into women’s or even men’s bodies.”[1]

This partial paragraph comes from Dinesh D’Souza’s controversial book Illiberal Education: The Politics of Race and Sex on Campus (New York: Vintage Books [Random House], 1992). At the time I first read the book, I was studying sociology at the University of Nebraska at Omaha; Jaggar’s statement struck me as an example of how the rhetoric of social-conflict theory could carry someone beyond the bounds of reason and fact.

Alas, no. Since he was studying the success of radical activists in imposing feminist and Afrocentric agendas on college campuses, D’Souza didn’t see —and possibly didn’t know of — the influence of social constructionism, or its apotheosis in queer theory.

Broadly stated, social constructionism is a set of sociological theories that tries to explain how language as a social construct affects our perceptions of reality. Ideally, this set of theories should explain why Aleuts have twenty-seven different categories of snow and Europeans have only one, or why certain tribes may only have two or three words to express color while your local Sherwin-Williams needs a dozen or so just for shades of white.

The end of the Republic

Back in February, I wrote a post comparing the US in 2011 to Rome in 59 BC, asking, “So just how far have we progressed?” Without boasting, it’s been my most successful post to date; it was a lot of fun to write, too.

Of course, surface comparisons can only take us so far, especially when you’re trying to write social commentary. You can get so wrapped up in the obvious similarities that you ignore the deeper differences; even worse, you can strain to make meaningful equivalences out of situations that are apple-and-orange different.

For example, gay-rights advocates are at some pains to equate the homosexual experience of discrimination with the black American experience … an effort that must cause many black Americans either amusement or disgust. The most obvious dissimilarity? Most of the time, if you’re black, you don’t have to tell anyone. And that accounts for most of the differences in treatment and experience.

(By the way, this isn’t another flipping post on gay marriage; I’m sick to my gills with the topic. Just let me set the stage here.)

Overheard at a Denny's - I

“I really don’t see what business the government has prying into people’s sex lives. I think whatever goes on between consenting adults in the privacy of the bedroom should be nobody’s business but theirs, as long as nobody gets hurt.”

“Okay, so you’re for sexual restrictions?”

“What? How did you get that out of what I said?”

“Simple. You said consenting, so you’ve ruled out force — that’s one restriction. You said adults, so there’s another restriction — no pederasty, no pedophilia. You said in the privacy of the bedroom, so I presume no sex in the middle of The Ballpark at Arlington, right? You said—”

“Y’know, Derek, you really are annoying when you get like this.”

Reflections on the setback in New York

Okay, I suppose at this point, I should make some grumbling noises about the State of New York passing (and Gov. Andrew Cuomo signing) the gay marriage bill. Supposedly there was an amendment adopted requiring stronger religious protections … but the bill was voted on almost as soon as the amendment was released, before anyone could take a good look at the legal language. I have no doubt that, when the legal analysts actually take a look at it, the language will be equivocal, capable of bearing the worst interpretations possible.

Okay, I’m not happy about it. But then, I didn’t expect a victory for the “culture of life” team. It would have been nice, but New York was a blue state long before colors were assigned (what would Richard Nixon have thought about conservative states being called “red”?). And of course, there’s always three or four RINOs on the floor, who talk pro-life and pro-family during the election cycle yet manage to find reasons to vote with the liberals when the issues become final votes. (“Crypto-liberals?” “Stealth Democrats”?) But we’re not England, so party members aren’t required to vote the platform.

The wealth gap and economic stalemate

If there’s any commercial which sums up the economic trap we’re in, it would have to be the one recently released by the American Realtors’ Association.

The commercial does a pretty good job of pointing out that building homes puts people to work, and has been a major driver of our economy for some time. From there, it wants us to draw the conclusion that it’s Our Patriotic Obligation to buy new houses, to get America back to work again.

But I already have a house. It’s not twenty years old yet. I’m not moving anywhere. I don’t have the funds on hand or the income to justify a second home. Nor do I see the point in having a new home built for me when this one does me just fine; to do so is simply wasteful — consumption for consumption’s sake.

And even if I could qualify for a mortgage for this theoretical new house, the construction workers would be put to work for only a couple of months. After that, for the next thirty or so years my money would go to support people who service mortgages.

I think you get the drift: Asking people out of work to buy houses and saddle themselves with extra debt to put some people to work for a short time is a clear sign that nobody knows what the hell to do.

Freedom and the paradox of choice

Over at Startling the Day, my friend Elizabeth Hillgrove talks about a label psychologists and sociologists are starting to apply to certain twenty-somethings: emerging adults. These are the typical qualities of the emerging adult:

• They are searching for their identity and exploring different options.
• Their lives are unstable.
• They are self-focused, meaning they are not yet beholden to anyone.
• They feel “in-between” adolescence and adulthood.
• It’s a time of remarkable optimism.

My first reaction to this list was to quip: “After thirty, they’re called slackers.” And, in the way of all jokes, this is true. I ran into a similar label, pre-adulthood, in Kay S. Hymowitz’s controversial WSJ essay, “Where Have The Good Men Gone?”, which I discussed back in February (“Fish need bicycles”). But while emerging adulthood as given by psychologist Jeffrey Jensen Arnett is given a positive spin, Hymowitz’s pre-adulthood is almost synonymous with “men who won’t grow up”.

The odd thing is, this post comes up right after I’d had a quick discussion on Facebook with the Crescat and Michael Liccione over Richard James Verone, a 59-year-old man who deliberately “robbed” a bank for $1 very politely in order to go to jail and get free medical care. I’d also watched an hour-long talk psychologist Barry Schwartz gave at Google on The Paradox of Choice. And, to top it all off, the day before I’d just watched The Shawshank Redemption, one of the best movies ever based on a Stephen King story.

Discipline, habit and Catholic modesty

The other day, I posted as part of my “Seven Quick Takes Friday” entry the video for The Romantics’ “Talking In Your Sleep”. At the very beginning of the video, we’re presented with shots of a woman dressing for bed in a manner that in 1985 was rather risqué. (By today’s standards it’s pretty tame … and even pretty lame.)

Chalk it up to my rather late reversion and my ongoing struggle against the thoughts and habits of a lifetime, but I never thought I’d ever have to warn men to practice custody of the eyes. So to offset my discomfort, I cracked a joke about the cringe-worthy hairstyles (the pompadours disappeared in time for their next hit, the ever-annoying “What I Like About You”). But there’s still that lingering feeling of hypocrisy: Good Lord, what right do I have to be a prude?

But the thoughts and habits of a lifetime are precisely what concerns us in discussing Catholic modesty. It’s those habits that, in my case, created an addiction to porn against which I still do battle, and which will remain a temptation as long as I’m hooked to the Internet. (Take a moment here to say a prayer for me, please.) And it’s from that perspective that I feel I should contribute.

Lost in transmission

Let’s reflect for a moment on some words Cdl. Séan O’Malley of Boston wrote about the recent flap over a church offering a Mass in celebration of Gay Pride Month:

The Church opposes changing the definition of marriage because to do so would weaken one of the oldest and most sacred institutions of human society. The most recent Census revealed that married households are, for the first time, in the minority in our country. The culture of easy divorce, cohabitation and the redefinition of marriage are all threats to strong family life. For this reason, the Church will always defend traditional marriage. This does not mean that we reject anyone.

Before moving forward, we should pay careful attention to what he’s saying. Whatever else can be said about gay relationships — and there’s much that bears discussion — they’re not the only concern the Catholic Church has about the state of marriage and sexual relationships today. And marriage and sexual relationships aren’t the only concern of the Church. Gay marriage simply happens to be one of the hot topics of today.

This is worth underlining because of the impression people have about the Church’s “obsessive concern” over what people do in the sack. If there were a movement to legalize perjury or petty larceny, we’d doubtless hear moans about the Church’s antiquated and unscientific hatred of lying and theft, along with some resentful condemnations of the Church’s resistance.

The lost practice of teaching common sense

My brother Ted served 17 years in the Air Force, getting an early retirement in 1995 at the rank of Master Sergeant (E7). For a couple of those years, he earned extra money teaching at a local college, where he’d earned his bachelor’s in engineering.

One day, he was running through the breakdown of a complex formula and its application. At the end of it, he saw the students were puzzled … so he ran through it again in a slightly different way. Yet the students’ confusion still reigned. One student said, “We understand how the formula works, sir … but how do you know to apply it there?”

Ted replied, “Practice.” And suddenly he remembered struggling with advanced algebra and calculus in high school, asking the same question of his teachers — and thinking the answer was no help at all.

If you’re a parent, this may have happened to you already; if not, I promise it will: In the midst of remonstrating with your child, you will hear yourself repeat verbatim the same thing your mother or father said to you on a similar occasion (“If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you do it?”). If you’re not a parent, you may still find yourself repeating as an adult things your parents told you when you thought you weren’t listening … and finally realizing how true they are. Like the time at work when, in discussing annual reviews, I had to find an HR-appropriate way to tell others what my father once told me: “One ‘aw s***’ will wipe out ten ‘attaboys’.”