From today’s New York Times:
There’s nothing like a touch of real-world experience to inject some reason into the inflammatory national debate over gay marriages. Take Massachusetts, where the state’s highest court held in late 2003 that under the State Constitution, same-sex couples have a right to marry. The State Legislature moved to undo that decision last year by approving a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriages and create civil unions as an alternative. But this year, when precisely the same measure came up for a required second vote, it was defeated by a thumping margin of 157 to 39.
The main reason for the flip-flop is that some 6,600 same-sex couples have married over the past year with nary a sign of adverse effects. The sanctity of heterosexual marriages has not been destroyed. Public morals have not gone into a tailspin. Legislators who supported gay marriage in last year’s vote have been re-elected. Gay couples, many of whom had been living together monogamously for years, have rejoiced at official recognition of their commitment.
As a Republican leader explained in justifying his vote switch: “Gay marriage has begun, and life has not changed for the citizens of the commonwealth, with the exception of those who can now marry who could not before.” A Democrat attributed his change of heart to the beneficial effects he saw “when I looked in the eyes of the children living with these couples.”
The anti-marriage equality people aren’t done in Massachusetts yet, of course; they have a new ballot measure to ban both same-sex marriage and civil unions, which the voters will get to consider in 2008. But a March 2005 Boston Globe poll found that 56% of Massachusetts voters favor same-sex marriage, and that percentage will only increase over the next three years. I expect that the numbers that favor civil unions, which the ballot measure will also ban, are even higher. Unless equality advocates in Massachusetts totally mess things up, I don’t see how they can lose in 2008.
The anti-equality line in Massachusetts has now been defeated in both the courtrooms and in the legislature. When it gets defeated in a voter ballot in 2008, what new excuse will equality opponents find to refuse to acknowledge legitimate government actions?
I was particularly struck by the Republican the Times quoted, who said “Gay marriage has begun, and life has not changed for the citizens of the commonwealth, with the exception of those who can now marry who could not before.” Damn straight. The odd thing about the fight for marriage equality is that, in and of itself, it won’t change very much.
Don’t get me wrong – for those lesbian and gay couples who want to get married, it’ll be a huge difference, and I’m outraged at the injustice done to same-sex couples unfairly barred from equality.
Nonetheless, marriage equality is not a radical change, in and of itself. Marriage equality is just the latest step of two long-existing trends.
One trend is the increasing gender neutrality of marriage; although there’s still a long ways to go, the “separate spheres” that once defined marriage have become overlapping spheres. Although stay at home dads are still a small minority, their numbers are increasing, and the idea no longer seems outlandish. The number of households in which both mom and dad contribute to the homemaking and the breadwinning has increased to the point that it’s probably the norm (although most mothers still do an unfairly large share of the shared labor).
There have been a number of laws that have changed as this trend towards greater sex equality has continued. Wives can now own property independently, have the right to refuse sex with their husbands, and women in general have many more protections from discrimination in the marketplace and workforce.
As marriage becomes less and less about “wives and husbands fulfill two strictly-bounded separate roles,” the rule that only women may marry men and vice-versa has lost its basis in our society.
The second trend, of course, is the increasing acceptance of sexual minorities as equal human beings and equal citizens. The increasing acceptance of queer equality has been going on since the Stonewall riot, at least, and marriage equality is just the latest phase of this long-term movement.
Both sex equality and queer rights are important long-term movements in our society – and both of them, over the last several generations, are radical changes. Same-sex marriage, however, is just one more effect of these larger social movements. Gay marriage isn’t a radical step; it’s just the next step.
The next step toward what?
The next step toward what?
Equality for all.
Equality for all? Like, “Harrison Bergeron” or what?
Robert, I think you’ll find that Kurt Vonnegut understands that equality is not the same as everyone exactly the same If you really don’t comprehend that, I recommend to your attention Madelaine L’Engle’s novel A Wrinkle In Time, where she uses Camazotz to mock the idea that for everyone to be equal, complete conformity must be imposed.
(Indeed, recalling Camazotz, isn’t it strange how at-home the homophobes who oppose same-sex marriage would be there?)
Admittedly some straight people are slow on the uptake, but this isn’t really the time to be cursing them, is it? :-)
OK, so if not everybody the same, then what does it mean?
Example. I’m better looking than Amp, in most people’s eyes. Nothing against Amp, it’s just that I am fine. This means I have more opportunities than he does, in multiple arenas.
How do you resolve that, in the interests of equality?
What on earth does that have to do barring a specific group of people from the same rights as another group, Robert?
I do think parts of the right are abandoning their opposition to gay marriage. Frankly, I think it’s because they’ve other battles they want to fight. They see much more important problems with marriage than letting gay people participate in it – such as no-fault divorce. As they see it, letting gay people get involved is minor compared to other issues.
OK, so if not everybody the same, then what does it mean?
No, no, it’s definitely “Harrison Bergeron”. It couldn’t possibly mean equal treatment under the law.
Well, clearly, since some people are better looking than others, we shouldn’t allow same-sex couples to marry. After all, equality is impossible.
Also, since we can’t all be “equal”, certain folks shouldn’t be allowed to vote.
Robert, you are so helplful in prompting us to flesh out our reasoning.
Why can’t we give everyone the exact same mate-attraction opportunity? Because it’s unreasonable to scar all pretty people. It would reduce the total prettiness in the world. Your prettiness cannot be taken from you and given to me, no matter how much I might deserve to be pretty. We can knock you down a level, but I can’t reasonably be brought up a level. We don’t level the dating field by making pretty people ugly- it reduces the net amount of pretty. (We don’t offer all ugly people plastic surgery vouchers because the cost is prohibitive and there isn’t the technology to make it practical. Someone with a radical reparable looks disadvantage sometimes can get plastic surgery through charity or good insurance.)
If we tax people and then give the taxes out as welfare, at least there’s still the same net amount of money. If we tax people so much that they don’t want to work because it doesn’t really make them any more money, we’ve screwed up- reduced the supply of good things.
Marriage equality is better than either of these things: we can give everyone all the marriage they want without reducing the supply! If you see a reduction to the value of marriage, I would want to argue that it is small compared to the value of the increased number of marriages. (We’re not here to make every single opportunity for all people identical, only the one we can equalize without notably reducing overall.)
Of course, I guess I’m not really going to win you over with “It beats facial scarring and welfare.”
Not sure where you’re headed with this, but I’m intrigued.
Admittedly, people have different attributes, some more adaptive than others. Government intervenes to help people overcome some challenges but not others, and the distinctions can seem arbitrary. (Tom Lehrer quips that the army has gone so far in helping people overcome challenges that it promotes people without regard to race, creed, religion or ability.) Even the choices about which attributes are governed by the Americans with Disabilities Act can seem arbitrary.
But where government imposes discrimination, government often has a duty to remedy. I suspect that the Equal Protection clause does not obligate government to help blind people cross the street. A blind person might sue, arguing that sighted people can cross streets safely and that she lacks that same opportunity, but I suspect the argument would not prevail on Equal Protection grounds. But if government passed a law saying blind people couldn’t enjoy the same benefits of marriage as sighted people, an Equal Protection argument would likely succeed. True, government did not create the condition of blindness, but government chose to link that condition to some kind to government benefits. Absent the usual Equal Protection showings (legit government interest linking blindness and marriage, narrowly-tailored policy to promote that interest, etc.), the policy would fail. Government imposed unjustified discrimination; government would have a duty to fix it.
The challenges faced by same-sex people who wish to marry is not a function of the people; it is a function of the law. As Massachusetts and various foreign nations demonstrate, once the legal obstacle is removed the marriages proceed just fine. With this empirical evidence, it grows increasingly difficult to argue that the obstacle to SSM lies with the SS couples themselves. That is, in part, what Massachusetts’ legislators have discovered.
But these are fine legal distinctions. Don’t worry your oh-so-pretty little head over such things…. :-)
I suspect that the Equal Protection clause does not obligate government to help blind people cross the street.
No, that would be the Americans with Disabilities Act.
This argument certainly appeals to the libertarian in me. Two quibbles.
1. Marriage is more like welfare than people want to admit. Marriage results in certain wealth transfers to the happy couple: a spouse gains access to a partner’s Social Security death benefits, etc., which ends up imposing a cost on the rest of society. Thus, a GNM policy is not costless, and there are at least theoretical reasons to question how much “marriage” our society can afford.
2. I’m really hung up on the Equal Protection argument, so forgive me when I say that I don’t give a rat’s ass how much SSM costs. If SSM costs too much, then the nondiscriminatory remedy is to repeal civil marriage entirely or reduce the benefits of civil marriage to the point where we can afford to distribute them on a non-discriminatory basis.
Yes, letting blacks go to lousy schools is cheaper than integrating the schools; TOO DAMN BAD. Equal Protection means EQUAL protection, and cost does not justify withholding it. While I suspect that the social benefits of marriage outweigh its costs (and that the benefits of SSM will outweigh its costs, too), ultimately it does not influence my opinion of this matter one way or the other. Expensive policy, cheap policy, beneficial policy, harmful policy – those are matters of legislative prerogative; but EQUAL policy is a Constitutional mandate, and fundamental to the rule of law.
Pray for wisdom. Demand equality.
“Example. I’m better looking than Amp, in most people’s eyes. Nothing against Amp, it’s just that I am fine. This means I have more opportunities than he does, in multiple arenas. ”
Actually you have less “opportunities” since you have the privilege of being married, thus significantly reducing your “opportunities” to the grand sum of one.
I think the correct Wikipedia link to Harrison Bergeron is this one.
I think Olive has nailed this argument. More marriage for everyone!
Well, I’m confused.
The answer was “equality for all”. Is this answer being moved to “equal treatment under the law”? Because those two things don’t have a whole lot in common.
I can get all over equal treatment under the law.
But is that the goal?
I think equal treatment under the law is the goal, if what we’re discussing is the narrow question of SSM (aka marriage equality, aka gender-neutral marriage, etc).
Robert: The answer was “equality for all”. Is this answer being moved to “equal treatment under the law”? Because those two things don’t have a whole lot in common.
*blinks*
If you think that “equality” doesn’t have even “a whole lot in common” with “equal treatment under the law”, but instead means “everyone forced to be exactly the same”, I think you need to go do some remedial reading, Robert, and that’s not sarcasm: if you’re honestly so confused about the meaning of “equality” that you can’t see any connection between it and “equal treatment under the law”, then your understanding of the English language is mediocre at best, distorted at worst.
Jesurgislac, I wrote specifically and accurately. If you do not understand the rich differences between “equality for all” and “equal justice under the law”, I recommend any of the classical liberal works which form the sadly-neglected foundation of your own (apparent) political position.
Amp, OK, that’s the narrow goal; I had that figured out. But you tagged your post with “[SSM] is not a radical step, just the next step” – and I’m asking, the next step towards what, exactly? Your myrmidons appear to be confused on the issue. :)
Robert: Jesurgislac, I wrote specifically and accurately
*shrug* If you think Like, “Harrison Bergeron” or what? is “writing specifically and accurately” I reiterate my wish that you should do further study. In particular, you need to understand that equality and everyone exactly alike really have nothing in common, whereas equality and equal treatment under the law have… well, a vast degree in common. Your entire argument in this thread appears to be based on your confusion on these points, which rest not on the law, but on a basic understanding of logic and the English language.
Robert: Your myrmidons appear to be confused on the issue. :)
Since you appear to be the only person on this thread confused on this issue, are you then “Ampersand’s myrmidons”? I should tell you, then, that “myrmidon” is a plural noun (the “s” on the end is the clue) and since you should know that you are confused on the issue, a better way to phrase this comment would be “Your myrmidon is confused on this issue”. :-)
nobody.really-
Just for the record, I want to be clear that reasons of equality under the law, fundamental moral values, and the inappropriateness of this discrimination are plenty for me personally : ). I think it’s worth note that there are more than one complete arguments for equal rights to legal marriage. (Another argument over what rights are appropriately bundled together under the label “marriage” might be worth having for your first quibble.)
But hey, Robert wanted a discussion about why we might advocate one opportunity equalizer but not another.
I agree that SSM is part of the trend towards gender equality in marriage, but I also constantly have to remind myself that many people’s discomfort with SSM stems from their desire to maintain traditional gender roles in heterosexual marriage. Of course, it’s ridiculous to think that not legalizing SSM will prevent the shift in gender roles that is already occurring in marriage. It’s also wildly discriminatory to allow the marriages of straight couples with non-traditional gender roles but not to allow the marriages of same-sex couples with non-traditional gender roles.
And speaking of non-traditional marriages, I’d like to take issue with the comment:
With the happy consent of everyone involved, I happen to have both a husband and a boyfriend. So “equal” certainly doesn’t mean “the same,” since my marriage is obviously quite different from the marriage of a monogamous heterosexual couple; yet the law affords my husband and me equal rights to our monogamous married friends. Affording same-sex couples equal protection under the law is the next step towards diversifying the institution of marriage to more fully include the variety of long-term commitments people choose to make to one another.
The next step towards a nonsexist, nonhomophobic society.
I can’t claim to know what the next steps will be; if you had asked me four years ago, I wouldn’t have forseen that SSM would be the next step.
Personally, I’d like to see more child-friendly workplaces, more men taking care of their children, a smaller wage gap, and an openly lesbian President of the USA, among other steps.
Only if, for the sake of your argument, we assume the lights are on.
Only if, for the sake of your argument, we assume the lights are on.
Looks this good don’t rely on any second-hand photons, baby. I glow. There’s a reason I got the womens lining up to be oppressed in my patriarchial dictatorship, ya know.
…towards a nonsexist, nonhomophobic society.
Nuts. I was hoping for the more-easily-destroyed equality-at-all costs answer, but oh well. Now I have to do it the hard way. (“It’s hard work!”)
How will a nonsexist, nonhomophobic society culturally perpetuate itself?
Why can’t we give everyone the exact same mate-attraction opportunity? Because it’s unreasonable to scar all pretty people.
No. We can’t give everyone the exact same mate-attraction opportunity because “all men are created equal” doesn’t mean “all men will end up equal”. Equal opportunity doesn’t mean equal outcome. The philosophy of our system of government guarantees everyone the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. It doesn’t guarantee that they get it. It also doesn’t view the role of government as helping people attain those goals; government exists to secure rights, not to guarantee the outcomes when we exercise them.
Personally, I’d like to see … an openly lesbian President of the USA ….
I’m not sure if you’re advocating this, Amp, but the day that this country elects a President because of their sexual orientation and expecting certain desirable changes to occur thereby is the day we’ll will have officially gone off the deep end.
With the happy consent of everyone involved, I happen to have both a husband and a boyfriend. So “equal” certainly doesn’t mean “the same,” since my marriage is obviously quite different from the marriage of a monogamous heterosexual couple; yet the law affords my husband and me equal rights to our monogamous married friends.
Should you have kids, and should some meddling person decide that living in such a household constitutes child abuse, I wonder if you would find out differently. Let me be perfectly clear that I would not be that meddling person, nor would I advocate it. And maybe this has been adjudicated somewhere and I’m absolutely full of it. I imagine the state courts of Massachusetts vs. those of Utah would rule differently on the subject.
Same Sex Marriage changes a basic human societial institution that has not admitted of such a change from it’s inception 1000’s of years ago. Just because a change seems to be progressing smoothly doesn’t mean it’s not radical. Especially when enough states to pass a Constitutional amendment are on record as opposing it.
Robert,
I _know_ you have more brains than that, otherwise you wouldn’t have used the word ‘myrmidons’ (well, unless you just looked it up or something) and I’m left with the choice to assume you are being deliberately obtuse. Since I also assume you grew up here in the U.S. and not France ;), you also grew up in our culture and know that when Americans speak of ‘equality’ in the political and even social landscape we speak of “equality in our standing before the law.” We aren’t Communist (though I know you conservatives like to label us thusly), or even French for that matter ;).
I don’t know about Ampersand (really, i’m not one of his myrmidons, though I’ve applied at the main office), but to me its the next step towards full _equality before the law_ for all people, we’ve been on that ladder for a long 230 years. We’ve come a long way (considering that getting rid of the official and legal class system we had called slavery was a big step), but we have a ways to go still.
RonF: but the day that this country elects a President because of their sexual orientation and expecting certain desirable changes to occur thereby is the day we’ll will have officially gone off the deep end.
You do realise that this has already happened?
RonF: but the day that this country elects a President because of their sexual orientation and expecting certain desirable changes to occur thereby is the day we’ll will have officially gone off the deep end.
jesurgislac: You do realise that this has already happened?
yeah, we keep electing straight men because they are straight and men and aren’t gay or women and it doesn’t seem to be working. We must really be desparate.
you also grew up in our culture and know that when Americans speak of ‘equality’ in the political and even social landscape we speak of “equality in our standing before the law.”
No, I don’t know that.
I know that there are probably a fair number of people who think that this is true of themselves, but it does not appear evident in their political/social behavior.
To make the easy case in point:
1) Do you believe that all Americans should be equal in standing before the law?
2) Do you support the existence of governmental affirmative action?
I would give long odds that you answer affirmatively to both questions. And then the handwaving and the “yes but” begins, and so forth. People who talk about “equality” generally – not always, but generally – are in fact talking about equality of outcomes, not equal standing. If blacks and Asians are both welcome to apply to UCLA Law and are both judged on the same standing, then there is equal standing before the law – but most advocates of “equality” would find that outcome abhorrent.
People who believe in formal equal treatment before the law are (mostly and broadly) libertarian or conservatives. People who believe in “equality” are (mostly and broadly) liberal. There really isn’t much overlap in the concepts, but it is rhetorically and politically important for liberals to claim there is, because of the beating that “equality” as a concept has taken in the public mindshare. Thanks, as you note, to the Communists and other extreme fringers. You say “We aren’t Communist” – but I’m afraid that quite a number of you are, or were. (Not any particular “you” – the left in general.)
Oooo, the plot thickens! Robert keeps the thread alive with two provocative arguments.
Uh … the same way that sexist, homophobic societies do, but with a little less sexism and homophobia? It is clearly unfair to complain that Robert hasn’t contributed enough to the discussion, but post like this leave me itching to learn how sexism and homophobia are necessary for cultural perpetuation. Or are you simply sayng that human societies will never stamp out prejudice completely?
So Affirmative Action is the target? Got it.
Of course, not all libertarians/conservatives oppose skewing government policy to promote the interests of minorities at the expense of majorities.
And I expect that even libertarians and conservatives would agree with the brilliant commentor above who noted that “where government imposes discrimination, government often has a duty to remedy.” After all, what property-rights-loving American would deny that when a police car crashes into you, you should be compensated? Where AA is understood as compensation for government-inflicted harm, and not everyone was equally harmed, then unequal treatment is justified, no?
Uh … the same way that sexist, homophobic societies do, but with a little less sexism and homophobia? … this leave[s] me itching to learn how sexism and homophobia are necessary for cultural perpetuation.
Culture is passed on through education. The subjects for the education are either born into the culture, or choose to voluntarily adhere to it.
A nonsexist and nonhomophobic culture may be extremely admirable from a moral point of view. However, the cultures that are moving in that direction are also the cultures which are not bringing new children into the world, or convincing members of other cultures to jump ship.
Sexism and homophobia appear to be cultural markers which are somewhat linked to cultural vitality, and their opposites appear to be somewhat linked to cultural decline. I don’t applaud this but I do observe it. It’s great that Amp and his circle of like-minded folks seek egalitarian outcomes in life. Amp and his circle of friends have practically no children. My egalitarian friends have practically no children; my non-egalitarian friends have plenty of kids. Members of other cultures do not come to America and say “hooray, hard-left egalitarianism” and give up going to the mosque – there’s not much of a conversion going on there. There are some “flips” in the university system, where the left-egalitarian memes are fairly dominant – but those flips are rarely deep or permanent. People tend to go back to the values in which they were raised. Late-teen rebellion is not a stable matrix on which to build a new culture.
So – in a world positively teeming with Mormons, hardcore Catholics, Muslims, and evangelical Protestants, how exactly is this wonderful equal culture going to propagate itself?
In a world where no other cultures exist or are conceivable, sure. But in a world with competition from other groups? Don’t see it happening.
So Affirmative Action is the target? Got it.
No, just the easiest example.
Where AA is understood as compensation for government-inflicted harm, and not everyone was equally harmed, then unequal treatment is justified, no?
Surely. But that’s handwaving that obscures the central point: lip service to the philosophical ideal, but actual commitment to an equal-outcome philosophy that goes unarticulated.
Same Sex Marriage changes a basic human societial institution that has not admitted of such a change from it’s inception 1000’s of years ago.
So you also abhor changes in the law that criminalize wife-beating and rape, give women the same rights under the law as their husbands, and allow children born out of wedlock to inherit from their fathers, right?
So – in a world positively teeming with Mormons, hardcore Catholics, Muslims, and evangelical Protestants, how exactly is this wonderful equal culture going to propagate itself?
Public education. Not quite the answer you were hoping for, I’m sure.
Sexism and homophobia appear to be cultural markers which are somewhat linked to cultural vitality, and their opposites appear to be somewhat linked to cultural decline. I don’t applaud this but I do observe it. It’s great that Amp and his circle of like-minded folks seek egalitarian outcomes in life. Amp and his circle of friends have practically no children.
Could it be that in modern western civilization that the egalitarian seeking philosophy happens to often be paired with a belief that we are already overpopulated and, thus, having children at this point in time, in this culture is an immoral act that will lead to the end of our current culture? Just because a culture is currently reproducing below replacement level doesn’t mean that a culture will always reproduce below replacement level. Could there be any of a number of reasons for this phenomenom that you observe?
What is that oft repeated saying about causation & correlation?
Robert,
This has to be one of the dumbest arguments you have ever made.
Comparing today to 100 years ago, would you say that there are more people or less people who believe that men and women are basically equal, and that gays should not be prosecuted and persecuted? Compared to 100 years ago, do you think there are more or less people who reject the idea that women give up the right to refuse to have sex when they get married?
100 years ago, your views (for instance, I think you would be very happy if either of your daughters grew up to be a doctor, or a lawyer or a banker) would have been fairly radically egalitarian. Now they are merely the mainstream muddle.
Given that egalitarian culture has expanded extensively in the past 100 years, your fantasy that culture is replicated almost entirely through having children is simply bizarre. Did Brazil criminalize honor killings in the mid nineties because the anti-honor killing portions of the population had out-reproduced the pro-honor killing portion of the population? Has the massive expansion of women’s suffrage over the past century really been the result of a global population shift in which a pro-suffragist ethnicity has expanded (by breeding) to take over the whole World. Is the ever-expanding movement for Gay Rights being spread predominantly by gay-friendly parents raising their kids to be gay-friendly? Do you think my attitudes towards gays mostly reflect those of my Sicillian ancestors? Come to that, does much of anything in my cultural make-up reflect that of my Sicillian ancestors (since we foreigners are so difficult to assiimilate into the dominant American culture)?
Sheesh!
Going in order of length:
Public education.
Sure. That train has about reached the last station, I think. Publicly-funded education will be with us always; public education setting the cultural agenda, I think not. Public educators had a big window of opportunity (and they used it) for cultural indoctrination, when they were
Charles wrote:
Stick around, I’m sure we can count on him to top himself any minute, but that’s all right– As the best-looking person on the thread, it’s okay for him to be dumb. That way, we ugly smart people won’t have as much cause to be jealous.
BTW, I had no idea you were Sicillian. Can you call me and say, “I will BURY YOU,” on my answering machine like Yaphet Kotto’s character used to do on *Homicide* ? That would be cool.
Some kind of Firefox explosion there. Sorry. Let’s start over.
Going in order of length:
Public education.
Sure. That train has about reached the last station, I think. Publicly-funded education will be with us always; public education setting the cultural agenda, I think not. Public educators had a big window of opportunity (and they used it) for cultural indoctrination, when they had a captive audience of semi-literate farmers and mass immigrants. They now face an uphill battle.
My kids, by the way, aren’t in public school. Nor shall they be. Seen a trendline of homeschooling lately?
Could it be that in modern western civilization that the egalitarian seeking philosophy happens to often be paired with a belief that we are already overpopulated and, thus, having children at this point in time, in this culture is an immoral act that will lead to the end of our current culture?
It could be, but that would be a profoundly stupid belief. “If we replace ourselves, we’ll die!” OK, then. Fortunately this is one of those self-correcting problems.
And finally Charles:
This has to be one of the dumbest arguments you have ever made.
That has to be worthy of some kind of commemoration. How about a flashing gold star next to the comment,Amp?
Comparing today to 100 years ago, would you say that there are more people or less people who [have a broadly liberal view of various things]
In absolute terms, more people. In percentage of the species terms, less. The green revolution (not the hippie kind, the awful one with chemicals and population growth) did not multiply the population of the liberal West tenfold; it multiplied the rest of the world. You got a lot worse demographic slice now than you did then, chief.
your fantasy that culture is replicated almost entirely through having children is simply bizarre
Or voluntary adherence; your Sicilian ancestors, and mine, signed on to America. Those are the only mechanisms I know of; whatcha got up your sleeve, paisan?
Given that egalitarian culture has expanded extensively in the past 100 years…
You’re confusing cultural change with cultural survival. I don’t argue against the proposition that there have been major cultural changes in an egalitarian direction among most Western societies – changes that, as you note, even a rabid old crank like myself often approve. I’m arguing against the proposition that the logical extreme ending point of those cultural changes is a culture that can sustain itself.
In purely demographic terms, egalitarian culture is smaller now than it was in the past. In geographic terms, it’s considerably smaller, and on a shrink curve, not a growth curve. Europe is very egalitarian – but in 40 years, it won’t be, because the nice social democrats who believe in rights for gays aren’t having any kids, and they are importing Islamic fundamentalists to do the work of those kids. Whether that’s good or bad probably depends on whether you’re a European social democrat or an Islamic fundamentalist, but either way, in 2045 we don’t end up with gay marriage in Vienna. They’re already bringing in Sharia law in neighborhoods throughout Europe, Charles.
True, it’s not a pure baby race. Cultures can adapt and change, and perhaps someone will hit upon a way to let a gay-normalized, androgynous, pacifistic culture of sub-replacement birth rates sustain itself against a world full of hungry fundamentalists with nukes. I don’t see it happening, but I’m not God.
In the meantime, my only real point here is that it does not appear to this observer that the desired end-product of the left-egalitarian mindset is a survivable culture.
If you know of a way for that to happen, I’d be very interested in hearing it, of course. Right now it seems like you’re just denying that there’s a cultural competition at all.
As the best-looking person on the thread, it’s okay for him to be dumb. That way, we ugly smart people won’t have as much cause to be jealous.
I’m just better looking than Amp. With Charles, it’s a horse race; he’s a good-looking fella, if you like ’em weedy but cute. The rest of you, I don’t know personally. Post pictures and I’ll tell you.
…because the nice social democrats who believe in rights for gays aren’t having any kids…
Really? I had no idea that social democrats weren’t having any kids.
But seriously, folks. It’s nice to see the racist scare tactic of “sharia law in Europe” gaining ever more popularity. “Breed, white men, the fundamentalists are coming!” is nothing more than thinly veiled fundamentalism itself.
By the who, we are replacing ourselves. We just aren’t doing it at a 2 to 1 ratio. One would suspect that, like most animal populations which go through periods of both growth & decline, that humanity might do the same.
You seem to suffer from the basic problem that dooms capitalism as it currently exists. That is the belief that the economy (or population) can grow indefinitely. Resources are finite and, thus, cannot sustain infinite economic (or population) growth.
Seen a trendline of homeschooling lately?
And you believe that this trend will continue indefinitely? Homeschooling, like many other practices goes through periods of increase & decrease.
What percentage of homeschooling families do so for mainly religious reasons? IME, it is well over 80%, but that’s just anecdotal. What percentage of children are homeschooled today? What was that percentage 10 years ago? 20 years ago? 100 years ago? 150 years ago?
Jake:
It’s nice to see the racist scare tactic of “sharia law in Europe” gaining ever more popularity.
Being concerned about the importation of sharia law to the heart of the Enlightenment is racist?
Hey, there’s another oppressive fundamentalism whose expansion into the state causes concern for a lot of people in the West – and some of that fundamentalism’s followers are black, too. Is pretty much everybody on this blog site a racist for being worried about that?
By the way, “scare tactic” is generally employed to denote the use of a chimerical danger to alarm an audience – the witches are coming, etc. It stops becoming a scare tactic when it’s an actual reality. And it’s an actual reality that sharia law is gaining a foothold in Europe.
Your guesses on homeschooling are off base; I’ll leave it at that.
I’m just better looking than Amp.
Where can I find a picture of you, Robert? I am curious.
Hmm, don’t think there’s a recent photo of me anywhere online. I used to have one on a Yahoo profile, but that was just a successful ploy to get married . You can extrapolate a generation backwards and older from this.
Robert: However, the cultures that are moving in that direction are also the cultures which are not bringing new children into the world, or convincing members of other cultures to jump ship.
*giggles unstoppably*
Why on earth do these people make this patently untrue claims and expect to be listened to?
Adorable. But no. :) I know lots of adorable kids with very homely parents. Based on the evidence, Amp wins. I have seen pictures of him. He is darned cute and cuddly to boot. He could eat crackers in bed any time he wanted to.
You are, of course, entitled to your completely insane opinions, mousehounde. ;P
Jesurgislac, I don’t “expect” to be listened to. Your behavior is entirely of your own volition.
If you have some indication or evidence that there is a positive correlation between gay- and feminist-friendly social policies and birth rate, I would be delighted to review it.
We all know, or should, that the European nations in the vanguard of these policies have low, and in some distressing cases, overall negative birth rates. And we know that our own country has reduced its birth rate among (I think) all demographic groups except perhaps some small indigenous groups, at the same time as women’s rights and tolerance of gays has grown. So that is some data, at least, pointing to a negative correlation: nicer to women/gays -> less babies.
(I hasten to note that although guesses about causation are just that, I would be very surprised to find there is much, if any, causal link between the tolerance of gays and declining birth rates. Maybe a little one. It would seem logical that a causal link, if there is one, would be connected to women directly somehow).
Robert: We all know, or should, that the European nations in the vanguard of these policies have low, and in some distressing cases, overall negative birth rates.
Really? Let’s take a look at some of these countries.
The Netherlands has 11.14 births/1,000 population, 8.68 deaths/1,000 population, and a population growth rate of 0.53%. (Life expectancy at birth: 78.81 years: infant mortality rate: 5.04 deaths/1,000 live births)
Belgium has 10.48 births/1,000 population, 10.22 deaths/1,000 population, and a population growth rate of 0.15%. (Life expectancy at birth: 78.62 years: infant mortality rate: 4.68 deaths/1,000 live births)
Denmark has 11.36 births/1,000 population, 10.43 deaths/1,000 population, and a population growth rate of 0.34%. (Life expectancy at birth: 77.62 years: infant mortality rate: 4.56 deaths/1,000 live births)
Sweden has 10.36 births/1,000 population, 10.36 deaths/1,000 population, and a population growth rate of 0.17%. (Life expectancy at birth: 80.4 years: infant mortality rate: 2.77 deaths/1,000 live births.)
Norway has 11.67 births/1,000 population, 9.45 deaths/1,000 population, and a population growth rate of 0.4%. (Life expectancy at birth: 79.4 years: infant mortality rate: 3.7 deaths/1,000 live births.)
In short, all of these countries have more babies being born than people dying, low population growth rates, and people living long and healthy lives. You see this as a bad thing why?
Comparitive figures for the US: 14.14 births/1,000 population, 8.25 deaths/1,000 population, and a population growth rate of 0.92%*. (Life expectancy at birth: 77.71 years: infant mortality rate: 6.5 deaths/1,000 live births.)
People in civilised countries, where women are not abused, expect to live long and healthy lives; and if they have children, to see their children grow up and have grandchildren. Population growth is stable.
I picked out these five countries because they’ve been in the vanguard both for equal rights for women and for gays: you really need to go check your facts from a neutral source before making fantastic claims. The point is not to have “more babies”, as if that were an accomplishment in itself: it’s no use having more babies than your neighbors if more of them die in infancy, is it now?
*Significantly higher migration rate than for any of the European countries I looked at.
Robert,
Has India gotten more or less progressive in the past hundred years? How about China? How about South Africa? For that matter, how about Kenya or Indonesia? I mentioned Brazil earlier. Did you disagree? Or are you only claiming that a sub-culture that does not have children will necessarily vanish? A strange claim, are there really fewer people not having kids now than there were a hundred years ago? While the act of not having kids may be a genetic dead end, the idea of not having kids is transmitted by other means. Has Catholicism died out because its promulgators and developers don’t have children?
The history of the last two hundred years makes at least as much sense read as: technological advance leads to progressive cultural advances (less sexist, more homophobic), and also leads to a drop in population growth rates, as less children are required to ensure that you have someone to look after you in your old age (if each child has a 50% chance of dying before you reach old age, you need a bunch of children to be reasonably sure you have some left to take care of you in your old age, if each child has a 5% chance of dying before they can take care of you, you can roll the dice on only having one, etc. ), each child can produce more surplus to support you, and the birth control tech gives you the choice of still having sex and not getting pregnant. While the areas that advance fastest technologically see a drop in population, this is not because they have become some sort of bizarre progressive death culture, and they don’t particularly have to worry about becoming progressively rarer, so long as the same technological advances are spreading globally, allowing other cultures to also drop there growth rates and become progressive or so long as they are supportive of immigration, and therefore bring in ever more people to become technologically situated to become low reproducers and progressive.
Furthermore, since nowhere in the progressive industrial nations (including Japan) is radically below replacement or not likely to stay there perpetually, the idea that we progressives are just going to vanish is out-right silly. Likewise, the idea that those scary Islamicists will take over Europe ignores exactly the idea of “buying in” that explains why I don’t speak Italian (or why I am even here at all – I was cheating, I’m only a quarter Sicilian, so it was the Americanization of my Sicilian ancestors (who were hard-core assimilationists) that led my parents to be easily culturally compatible and unremarkable as a couple (and explains why I can’t do a decent mafioso impersonation for alsis)). I suspect that far more first generation Jewish immigrants to the US strictly observed Halachic law than modern American Jews do. Although the European situation of Muslim immigrants is obviously different, I suspect that similarly assimilation and integration are possible for Muslims in Europe (the massive growth in the Islamic population of Europe is still a relatively recent phenomenon – lots of fine conservative Anglo culture mavens were screaming about what the horrid Italians would do to the rest of my family’s glorious WASP culture when my great grandfather and great grandmother were fresh off the boat).
Also, the US population went from 76 million to 272 million during the 20th century, while the world population went from 1.6 billion (approx) to 6 billion. In both cases, this is a little less than quadrupling. Even if we pretend that all of those heathen non-Westerners have stayed frozen in their opposition to gay marriage (which is manifestly untrue), I feel confident that the massive increase in support for it here has easily made up for the tiny decrease in US population as a percentage of the World population (and plenty of those conservative new immigrants in the last hundred years have had progressive children, so the fact that the US has maintained near parity through immigration doesn’t seem to have mattered at all) .
Meanwhile, Denmark has gone from 2.5 million to 5.4 million, so its demographic fraction has dropped noticeably. Since it is still above replacement, but only barely, it will probably be reduced to 1/3 its 1900 fraction of the world population by the time we stabilize at 9 billion.
Does this demographic decrease really warrant fantasies of Danish progressivism vanishing from the world through demographic forces? I really don’t think so.
And I really don’t think its a good idea for Amp to mess with the php to give your dumbest comment a gold star :) It would probably overload the servers and lead to the shutting down of the site.
Oh, come one, RonF!
Marriage, you claim, has not changed in thousands of years. Well, George Bush may claim to have a degree in history but clearly you don’t – or in anthropology, or in literature. What are you, a mathematician?
In my lifetime the proportion of women not marrying at all has increased, the incidence of divorce has increased, the proportion of babies born to a single parent or unwed couple has increased, maternal deaths and infant mortality have gone down, tax and benefit rules have changed – in most of the developed world. And bans on inter-racial marriage in the US were ruled to be unconstitutional. But nothing changed? OK, I’ll try to believe you.
But then we come up against the fairly large chunk of my brain which studied sociology, has always loved social history, has read much of the literature in English of the past 3 centuries plus, of course, takes in the evidence of my own eyes.
I’m not going to do you a reading list precicely because for someone who can make that assertion it would be a waste of time. Just read Anne Bronte’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall – it’s quite slim – then come back and tell us that nothing has changed!
Robert said: Cultures can adapt and change, and perhaps someone will hit upon a way to let a gay-normalized, androgynous, pacifistic culture of sub-replacement birth rates sustain itself against a world full of hungry fundamentalists with nukes.
Well (ignoring Robert’s unrealistic fantasies about “sub-replacement birth rates”) if we look at his assessment of the EU as a “gay-normalized, androgynous, pacifistic culture” and the US as a culture of “hungry fundamentalists with nukes” then it all makes sense. Sort of.
The problem is that the EU:
-has “gay-normalized” laws (of the twenty-two countries now providing equal or near-equal civil rights to same-sex couples/mixed-sex couples, the vast majority are in Europe),
-lack of military spending compared to the US (which may be why Robert thinks of it as “pacifistic” – no, Robert, I think it’s that the majority of people in the EU have either direct experience of war or parents/grandparents with direct experience: which is not true of the majority in the US),
-progress on equality for women and men (which is presumably what Robert thinks of as “androgynous culture”)
and yet, the EU is presently the only global power which may yet challenge the US as a global superpower, that land which Robert thinks of as “hungry fundamentalists with nukes”.
Sooner or later, Robert, you have to learn that just because your country is run by “fundamentalists with nukes”, hungry for power, it won’t automatically win over countries which are, in your view, “gay-normalized, androgynous, pacifistic”. The fundamentalistic aspect of US culture, the right-wing “Christians”, may run the country, but their culture is not popular outside of American borders.
…- lots of fine conservative Anglo culture mavens were screaming about what the horrid Italians would do to the rest of my family’s glorious WASP culture when my great grandfather and great grandmother were fresh off the boat).
This, Robert, is an example of a racist scare tactic. It has been used in the USA during every wave of immigration. It was said about the Irish, the Jews, the Italians, the Koreans and on and on. Now we hear the same things about Arabs in Europe.
By the way, “scare tactic” is generally employed to denote the use of a chimerical danger to alarm an audience – the witches are coming, etc. It stops becoming a scare tactic when it’s an actual reality. And it’s an actual reality that sharia law is gaining a foothold in Europe.
Yes, and it was actual reality that Jewish (and Irish & Italian) culture was gaining a foothold in the USA in the late 19th & early 20th centuries. “Sharia in Europe! Ahhhhh!” is indeed use of a chimerical danger to alarm an audience that those others are really, really scary.
May I ask how you envision SSM as providing “equal protection” for gays and lesbians? I see that SSM would make certain benefits of marriage available to gays and lesbians, but I think it is a stretch to imply that it will offer protection. I am assuming that by protection you mean some of the grosser forms of civil rights abuses that homosexuals still face (i.e. housing, employment, hate crimes).
Changing the nature and institution of marriage only serves to change the nature and institution of marriage. I refuse to buy that in the future I would have to get married in order to have equal civil rights to heterosexuals. That’s putting the most obvious heteronormative expectations and “rules” on my homosexuality that I can think of. You might think you are radically changing some portion of marriage by having a husband that allows you to have a boyfriend, but I hate to break it to you — that is the nature of marriage, and has been since the institution began. Terms like “mistress” help to dispell the myth that you are doing something revolutionary for the good of all gays and lesbians.
If you have some indication or evidence that there is a positive correlation between gay- and feminist-friendly social policies and birth rate
If you have any evidence at all that “gay-friendly” social policies affect the birth rate one way or the other, do share. I mean, one does hear anti-SSMers arguing that SSM would lead to more queers having babies, which is naturally a terrible thing for the children, and so we should not permit it.
Public educators had a big window of opportunity (and they used it) for cultural indoctrination, when they had a captive audience of semi-literate farmers and mass immigrants. They now face an uphill battle.
Other than simple assertion, can you explain in what way it is an uphill battle now and wasn’t then? Legally, students are still a “captive audience”–perhaps more so now that we have better means of tracking down recent immigrants, and greater incentive for them to attend and stay in school. (America is no longer a place where anybody with a strong back can quit school in eighth grade and make a family wage.) And we do, as we did then, have “semi-literate farmers and mass immigrants” flocking to the schools.
I’m all for homeschooling, but there really hasn’t been and isn’t going to be a tectonic shift in the educational system where everyone turns to it.
RonF writes:
Men have traditionally had lovers/mistresses outside of their marriage contract… why do you envision that a “meddling” person would find this to be an abusive situation for children?
May I ask how you envision SSM as providing “equal protection” for gays and lesbians? I see that SSM would make certain benefits of marriage available to gays and lesbians, but I think it is a stretch to imply that it will offer protection.
Absolutely correct, Q Grrl. And that, I think, is why Marriage Rights (the thing formerly known as SSM) is not a radical step. It doesn’t provide equal protection, it merely opens up one set of governmentally recognized privileges/benefits to a minority to which it was previously denied. But it is another incremental change in the direction of equality to the status of lesbians and gays in the USA.
Oh, never underestimate Sydney!
Oh, never underestimate Robert!
Robert, didn’t I JUST say not to do that? (It’s like I’m talking to Sydney….)
Yeah, prediction is hard. Both columnist Thomas Friedman and Rabbi Harold Kushner had expected fundamentalism to disappear from an increasingly rational world. But as social change accelerates and people have fewer things that they can count on, the appeal of certainty increases. “Fanatic orthodoxy is never rooted in faith but in doubt; it is when we are not sure that we are doubly sure.” (Niebuhr)
I suspect we are more willing to entertain discretionary concerns – including the concerns of anyone other than ourselves – when we’re not preoccupied with some larger threat to our way of life. The Civil War, the world wars, the McCarthy-era Red Scare, and the current War on Terror promoted conformity. Periods between these national emergencies – the 1870s, the 1920s, the 1960s and the 1990s – were marked by greater tolerance for people who did not conform.
A social safety net reduces social anxiety. And stability, not necessity, is the mother of social innovation. The US and French revolutions did not occur when the rebel leaders were destitute; they occurred when the leaders were secure enough to demand more. In contrast, I may not really believe that gay marriage will destroy society, but if I’m just barely hanging on to my job and my family as it is, can I afford to take that chance?
The people most opposed to gay marriage live in areas most hurt by social change: outsourcing of low-skilled jobs, increasing divorce, growing drug addiction, violent crime, immigration, the Iraq War, etc. Like the fundamentalist Muslims in the Arab world, they are anxious. They fear – with some justification – that other people look down on them and blame them for their own problems (the “dignity deficit”). They pine for the Good Old Days when things were better, and they curse things associated with the modernity that has robbed them of their rightful place in the world. With so much divorce, out-of-wedlock birth, and indecency in the media, how could anyone possibly think is was a good time to liberalize sexuality? We desperately need to return to traditional ways when things were better, whether as a natural result of our more responsible behavior or as a result of God’s favor. This is no time to parse out individual aspects of traditional morality for the benefit of yet another minority group. After all, this PC concern-for-minorities is just more “modernity” crap that’s brought us nothing but grief.
The more people fear, the greater their emotional need for a vision that offers certainty and hope, and the more tenaciously they cling to that vision regardless of evidence. (Allegedly, the juror who most fears rape it the juror least likely to vote to convict; that juror has an emotional need to deny that rape really happens.) And it is our needs, not our evidence, that drives our beliefs.
Here’s my prediction: If Europe can maintain its safety net, Europe will maintain its progressive politics as well. If the US can enhance its safety net, the US will have more tolerance for social innovation as well. Short of that, I predict tolerance to follow the regional economic booms and busts of the majority of people.
Other than simple assertion, can you explain in what way it is an uphill battle now and wasn’t then
Propagandizing depends on being able to override or bypass the mind’s instinctive defenses and learned defenses. The public school movement of the 1920s had a very naive and uneducated mass of folk to work on. The public school movement of today does not.
To put it another way, who would it be easier for me to convince of (say) the rightness of barring gays from marriage? You? Or your great-great-great grandmother, fresh off the boat from Ruritania?
Robert: To put it another way, who would it be easier for me to convince of (say) the rightness of barring gays from marriage? You? Or your great-great-great grandmother, fresh off the boat from Ruritania?
Are people that age eligible to go to public school?
I do think there’s a causal connection between women’s rights and fewer kids; in cultures where women have more wealth, power and freedom of choice, they rarely choose to have five kids. I don’t think that’s a bad thing, and the claim that liberal cultures dwindle down to zero doesn’t seem well-supported by evidence.
Robert: The public school movement of today does not.
Hm. Joking apart, it’s an interesting question: how much better informed, really, is your average 5 year old today than your average 5 year old of a hundred years ago? To a certain extent, you have to allow for people in general being more widely informed – yet, as we’ve seen, the Internet in many ways simply enables gossip and misinformation to an even vaster degree. Television is a great informant – but TV news in the US is notoriously soundbites. How much of that, anyway, would a first-grader be taking in? Not a lot, I really believe. I grew up in a politically-aware family, with well-informed parents who listened to the news regularly and bought (and read) newspapers: but under a certain age, a child simply doesn’t take anything in that isn’t presented at a child’s level.
Parents can (and do) propagandize to children: a racist’s child is more likely to grow up a racist, a homophobe’s child more likely to grow up a homophobe. A child locked inside their parents’ world, not permitted access to any other, will tend to believe that their parents view of the world is the only view of the world.
A good public school (any good school) will provide windows into other views of the world. Appropriately, Creationist parents can and should tell their children that God created the world in six days 6000-odd years ago. Appropriately, schools should teach all children that the scientific evidence says that the world came into existence about 5 billion years ago, life came into existence as soon as the planet had cooled enough, evolution explains how come we’re not all amorphous green-blue blobs, and that we have evidence of human beings using tools from about ninety thousand years ago: and they should explain, too, the history of religion that leads some people to believe differently.
Parents may teach their children that black people are naturally inferior: schools should teach children that “race” is an ideological creation, that there is no scientific evidence that the amount of melanin in people’s skin affects their abilities or intelligence.
Parents may teach their children that women are inferior to men, that girls do not deserve the same educational or career opportunities as boys: schools should teach children that neither sex is inferior to the other, and that people deserve the same educational and career opportunities regardless of gender: and the exciting and marvellous history of feminism, the longest and most successful revolution the world has ever known.
Parents may teach their children that being gay is perverted, or that same-sex couples shouldn’t be allowed to get married: schools should teach children that normal human sexuality ranges from completely heterosexual to completely homosexual, and that both same-sex couples and mixed-sex couples can have equal civil rights.
It is part of American history that once women were legally inferior to men, and feminists have campaigned to change this: it is part of American history that once whites enslaved blacks, that once (and still) white people treated blacks as inferiors, and that the US civil rights movement worked and works now to change that.
Children will then have the choice to follow their parent’s beliefs or not, not blindly and in ignorance but freely choosing. It is choice that schools give children. This does not change with time: it only changes when public schools are afraid to teach children anything that challenges the view of the world their parents want to give them.
Now we’re discussing the appropriate role of public education? What a thread!
I believe that public education, like any other government program, should do what the popularly-elected officials decide it should do within the limits of the law. In particular, it should 1) promote a legitimate governmental purpose (LGP) while 2) refraining from establishing religion.
What LGP does pub. education serve that is so compelling that we can justify arresting kids who do not participate: Encouraging critical thinking skills, and knowledge of civic matters, to promote sound civic behavior? Agreed. Economic development (that is, making kids more productive)? Maybe. Babysitting/crime reduction? Eh. Promotion of social cohesion/indoctrination? I don’t like it. Spreading knowledge? Now we’re into the “establishment of religion” realm.
I read the Establishment and Free Exercise clauses to say that government should neither discriminate in favor of nor against religion. So government should treat secular and sacred world views equally, only teaching the things that promote a LGP, whether sacred or secular. (Also, I’m not so sure that promotion of social cohesion (propaganda) is a LGP.)
I can envision a LGP for teaching evolution; arguably it’s related to understanding and fighting the spread of infectious disease, for example. And I can envision a LGP to teaching creationism as part of the study of comparative religions, facilitating conflict resolution between people of different beliefs. But I am not aware of the evidence for, nor the LGP for, various negative assertions such as “divine intervention played no role in the creation of the universe.” This looks a lot like a religious point of view to me, and would violate the Establishment Clause.
Similarly, I don’t favor indoctrinating kids that neither sex is inferior to the other, or that people deserve the same educational and career opportunities regardless of gender. I don’t favor indoctrinating kids that feminism, or nationalism, or democracy, is “exciting” or “marvelous” or “successful,” although I would hope a teacher would exhibit excitement for his subject matter, no matter what the topic, and I support teaching history and letting kids draw their own conclusions. I would be careful about characterizing any kind of sexuality as “normal” except perhaps in a sociological context of “conforming to societal norms….” (And I wouldn’t want to teach that mixed-sex couples have equal civil rights unless it were accurate!)
In short, public schools should not be in the business of freeing kids from the influences of their parent’s world view, no matter how misguided, unless doing so is related to a LGP. To do otherwise is merely to privilege one point of view above another – precisely what the Establishment Clause is supposed to avoid.
nobody.really:But I am not aware of the evidence for, nor the LGP for, various negative assertions such as “divine intervention played no role in the creation of the universe.”
Neither am I aware of the evidence for, nor the LGP for, various positive assertions such as “divine intervention played a role in the creation of the universe”.
Safer, all in all, just to leave any claims for or against divine intervention to parents, and teach children – as indeed I proposed in my earlier post (September 21st, 2005 at 11:04 am) – just the facts.
In short, public schools should not be in the business of freeing kids from the influences of their parent’s world view
…huh? Public schools should be in the business of teaching kids the historical and scientific facts. If knowledge of those facts frees kids from the influences of their parents, well, is that a problem? Kids are not their parents’ property: their minds are their own. It is not a legitimate government purpose to keep children ignorant so that their parents’ lies are unopposed. (This presumes, of course, that parents wish to lie to their children. I apologize immediately to parents to whom that would never occur.)
I just picked up a 1911-Era History Schoolbook at a junk shop. Shall I start quoting passages ? Amongst other things, it talks about how we really needed the KKK to preserve the sanctity of White culture and says that the Acadians were ignorant for speaking French and thus deserved to be driven out of Canada and into those Louisiana swamps. Whoo-hoo. Shall I see if evolution is in there, too ?
The historical and scientific facts? Why, Jesurgislac, congratulations. You’re a premodern. We’ll get you fitted for your toga right away.
Facts are tricky things. You, for example, express a number of things as fact that I call opinion, or error. I doubtless do the converse. Who gets to decide which of us is right? The voters?
Nobody is quite correct. It is not the schools’ place, nor the government’s job, to deprogram children from their parental worldview in the absence of some compelling state interest. Trying to make that the schools’ job in the service of any particular partisan agenda will just remove the support of the populace from the schools.
Robert – you’re making a couple of basic mistakes in assuming that the higher birth rates of fundamentalist and/or intolerant groups will lead to the extinction of the more egalitarian view. There’s another point too, but I’ll get to that later.
First, as long as the egalitarians are not falling below replacement (which they do not seem to be), the diiference in birth rates is not a direct competition one-to-one, but rather competing birth strategies. I have fewer children than I could have (partly) because I can offer the offspring I do have greater advantages in the world if I limit their number. They’ll get better educations, more resources, and a better start in life than if I had 20. It’s an old, old evolutionary strategy r vs. K, and in the wild both exist and co-exist side by side. Which one will win in the end with humans, I don’t know, but I’m going for the K’s. Seems like a better deal all round to me. I’d rather side with the elephants than the rabbits.
The other point is that with the exploding population world-wide, limiting our growth is indeed valid, and vital, strategy for survival. Human beings will not survive if we overpopulate to the point where the planet can’t support us any longer. There are more people alive right now than there have been in all the rest of human history combined. I don’t think dying out as a population from lack of replacement is likely anytime soon. On the other hand, I’d like to see humanity survive to get out of the solar system, which is going to require a better long-term strategy than breed ’til you drop.
Robert: Facts are tricky things. You, for example, express a number of things as fact that I call opinion, or error. I doubtless do the converse. Who gets to decide which of us is right?
When you claim that it’s a fact that countries with gay marriage have negative birthrates, you’re wrong, and I’m right. I just demonstrated it by citing a neutral source which researches facts.
2+2=4 is a fact. George Washington owned slaves is a fact. Black people are not intrinsically inferior to white people is a fact. Normal human sexuality may be homosexual, heterosexual, or any degree of bisexuality, is a fact.
Evolution is a theory on which most modern biological science comfortably rests. That is a fact. To teach children that evolution is “just a theory” and that Creationism, or “intelligent design” is an equal and opposing theory, would be to teach them a lie – however comforting that would be to their parents beliefs.
The Earth is five billion years old. That’s a fact.
It is not the schools’ place, nor the government’s job, to deprogram children from their parental worldview in the absence of some compelling state interest
Children’s minds do not belong to their parents. A child’s mind belongs to the child, not to the parents. Given that children grow up to become citizens, it is the compelling interests of the state that children shall be allowed to think for themselves when at school, and not denied the knowledge they will need to be able to think for themselves. If parents are able to make their worldview sufficiently compelling to overcome the influence of school, well, clearly the parents worldview is a bright and shiny thing. It is not the business of the state or of the public school education to do the job parents ought to be doing. If parents are certain that if the child is permitted any outside influence at all the child will question the rightness of the parental worldview, well, I gather the law still permits these uncertain and unconfident parents to homeschool their children… though you have to wonder at people who are so shaky in their beliefs yet so determined to install in their children the beliefs in which they lack confidence themselves.
You’re right, I did misuse “equal protection. ” I don’t think SSM is the panacea for gay rights, nor do I think that marriage is the state to which all relationships should aspire. In fact, I worry that once SSM is legalized, too many people will assume that the battle is over and will become even more intolerant of gays and lesbians who continue to fight for their rights.
Actually, I think the assumption that the only committed relationships are monogamous relationships is one of the most insidious and pervasive norms our Puritan society has gotten us to swallow. To clarify, I’m nobody’s mistress, since my boyfriend is unmarried, and I think my open marriage bears little resemblance to the clandestine affairs that monogamists traditionally engage in, with all the accompanying feelings of guilt. My husband and I have a loving relationship accompanied by a house, a marriage (obviously), and, yes, a baby; but my relationship with my boyfriend is no less loving and committed simply because we don’t share a mortgage.
And I am in no way under the impression that I am “doing something revolutionary for the good of all gays and lesbians” by being polyamorous. But I do suspect that many of the people opposed to marriage equality would also disapprove of my personal life, and I’m simply saying that if the law can’t stop me from getting married, it shouldn’t be able to stop a homosexual couple either.
Robert,
It is plane that you really enjoy this, I wish I had your mind for debate; it is fun to read, it must be a gas to write. (I also wish I had Amps, mythago’s, nobody’s… I am still laughing from post 63, alsis, etc… alas my forte lies in spinning stories and sermons.)
Getting on though, I have two kids, to my surprise; they are currently more conservative and fundamental in many of their beliefs than I. I do not exactly know how this happened, but it is what it is. (The up side is that my son will make loads more money than I did, insurance in my wife’s old age.) They are neat people that have it together as far as race, gender, and religion, are concerned; do unto others, no complaints.
I am perplexed about the “Perpetuating the Culture” argument. What does that mean? It seems meaningless to me; culture is like Karma, it simply is. It seems that one inexhaustible source for liberals are jaded, hurt, and disenfranchised children of conservatives. They may not love us for the right reasons, but we are a rather quirky and accepting bunch anyway, bring them on.
The justification for SSM rights is because it is the right thing to do. The covalent benefits are hopefully greater peace and less judgmentalism in our culture. I have yet to see a genuine risk or threat of letting SS folks get hitched civilly or religiously to our culture, what exactly does anyone think bad will happen? Global warming? Over population? Vicious hordes of GLB folks doing gendercide? Resource exploitation? What do we have to fear in people uniting in love? It is not the folks wanting peace and freedom that are the threat, it is those that hate and fight against nonexistant and unseen evils.
As for affirmative action in education, weighting the applications to take into consideration the egregious imbalances of the past that still affect the opportunities to create inherited wealth and consistent access to higher education (ironically this generally follows income lines and surprise, racial lines…) is not only fair it is a compassionate response. Compassion, Love, is far more justifiable than simply evening the scales. We do this because we are compelled out of our hearts, to heck with trying to do it in our heads, which has proven far too iffy in the past.
One last thing, cute kid! In fairness, you need to post a pic of your wife so we can really know the source of her beauty. I have come to be suspect of people stumping for themselves… call me jaded but… your unwillingness to show yourself leaves one suspicious. It would be brutally unfair for God to have gifted you with both a mind and good looks, but then again, God does what God does. Blessings.
It would be brutally unfair for God to have gifted you with both a mind and good looks, but then again, God does what God does. Blessings.
Thank you for the kind words. God has given me more blessings than anyone I know. I am a profoundly fortunate person. I think He decided to beat me over the head with blessings despite my stupidities until I gave in and acknowledged that He was in charge, not me.
Well, who am I to resist the demands of the adoring public. Here you go. Literally the only picture of me on the hard drive.
You’re a lot younger than I thought. And who’s the bloke with the beard? ;-)
It is not the schools’ place, nor the government’s job, to deprogram children from their parental worldview in the absence of some compelling state interest
Which state interests do you consider compelling?
Propagandizing depends on being able to override or bypass the mind’s instinctive defenses and learned defenses. The public school movement of the 1920s had a very naive and uneducated mass of folk to work on. The public school movement of today does not.
Again, anything for this other than assertion? You’re not really saying that the masses of uneducated, non-English-speaking children in our public schools today are way more savvy than their 19th-century forbears?
mythago, what percentage of students in public schools in this country are non-English speaking? Of course, there are neighborhoods in some urban areas and border areas that have a lot, but what’s the number overall? What are “masses”?
maureen asserts:
Oh, come one, RonF! Marriage, you claim, has not changed in thousands of years.
And then goes on to highlight numerous changes in the institution of marriage that are obvious to anyone who has read any history at all. Or, indeed, isn’t completely tied to getting all their intellectual stimulation from situation comedies and “reality” shows.
However, maureen, this is an example of behavior that you see on blogs on both sides of political or social issues; argue against someone on the other side of an argument from you but distorting their position. Despite your assertion above, I never said that marriage has not changed in thousands of years. What I said was:
“Same Sex Marriage changes a basic human societial institution that has not admitted of such a change from it’s inception 1000’s of years ago.”
“such a change” being the concept that two persons of the same gender are eligible to marry. Yes, there have been a lot of changes in marriage over thousands of years, including opening it up to all social and economic classes, recognizing equal rights between the two people involved, etc. But with all those changes and more, one thing has been constant; the two people in a marriage were of disparate sexes. Even in polygamous marriages, each marriage is between a man and a woman. And this has held in every major religion, and to my knowledge in every secularly recognized marriage. My position is that changing that is a radical change.
You may have a different position. Fine. But please don’t distort mine to attempt to argue against it.
I asserted:
Same Sex Marriage changes a basic human societial institution that has not admitted of such a change from it’s inception 1000’s of years ago.
and mythago responded:
So you also abhor changes in the law that criminalize wife-beating and rape, give women the same rights under the law as their husbands, and allow children born out of wedlock to inherit from their fathers, right?
I really don’t see how arguing that recognizing a bond between two people of the same sex as a marriage is a radical change to the institution of marriage could possible be interpreted to mean that I am in favor of wife-beating, etc. Could you explain that?
RonF: “Same Sex Marriage changes a basic human societial institution that has not admitted of such a change from it’s inception 1000’s of years ago.”
Huh? There are plenty of examples of same-sex marriage in other cultures and at other times. I was linking to them in an argument I was having with Hellcat on another thread – I hadn’t realised you’d missed them so completely.
RonF: I really don’t see how arguing that recognizing a bond between two people of the same sex as a marriage is a radical change to the institution of marriage could possible be interpreted to mean that I am in favor of wife-beating, etc. Could you explain that?
Forbidding wife-beating was also a radical change to the institution of marriage as commonly understood in Western culture. A husband’s “right” to beat his wife has been established in law through many cultures and many times. If you object to radical changes in the institution of marriage as commonly understood in Western culture, you ought to as strongly object to forbidding wife-beating as you do same-sex marriage.
If you object to radical changes in the institution of marriage as commonly understood in Western culture, you ought to as strongly object to forbidding wife-beating as you do same-sex marriage.
Not if you believe that both wife-beating & homosexuality are bad things. And that’s really what the anti-Marriage Rights side’s argument boils down to. “Homosexuality is bad & we should do everything possible to discourage it,” is the whisper behind ever anti-Marriage Rights argument that I have heard.
The name nobody.really was perhaps an unfortunate choice.
Thanks. I think.
Uh … if you don’t mind, I think I’d prefer to discuss public education now.
Epistemology and linguistics are old, well-developed subjects, from which I conclude that anything can be regarded as a “fact” if you define “fact” broadly enough. Here’s how I apply the term.
Fine.
It’s a fact that two apples plus two apples equals four apples. I regard 2+2=4 as an abstraction based on facts. More generally, I regard the study of math to be like the study of language, etc. as providing skills. This study may involve some factual content, but that content is really incidental to the purpose for the study.
Here the meaning of “inferior” rests on an unstated assumptions about which variables matter for evaluating superiority and inferiority, and the value of the variables that are considered desirable and undesirable. This choice of variables reflects the chooser’s values.
I believe that, for most purposes, people should not discriminate on the basis of race. But I know of no testable hypophysis to prove or disprove that belief; it is simply a statement of values.
Similarly, I don’t know what “normal” means in this context. If I were to create a testable hypothesis, I’d start by establishing a measure of social norms (surveys, maybe?). I would not be surprised to learn that homosexuality and bisexuality violate norms that prevail in much of the world, and even in the US, during various eras; by that definition, they are not “normal.”
I believe that 1) humans in many societies and eras engaged in a variety of sexual practices, including homosexuality and bisexuality. I believe that people should not accord homosexuals and bisexuals inferior treatment simply on the basis of their sexuality. I can imagine testable hypotheses for the first statement, but not the second; again, it is simply a statement of values.
Whether Creationism or intelligent design is an *equal* theory depends on unstated assumptions about what one values in evaluating theories. By the same token, the assertion “Intelligent Design is an equal theory to evolution” looks like a values statement, too.
Here’s a shorthand I use for distinquishing between facts and values: facts are subject to revision based on new evidence. I can envision new evidence arising that would persuade me that the world is 6 billion years old, not 5 billion. I cannot envision new evidence persuading me that we should accord blacks inferior treatment. Values are not susceptible to verification or falsification.
Agreed. This is why public schools should be careful not to promote one set of values above another ““ including values about race relations, human sexuality and religion.
Admittedly, schools cannot avoid conveying values entirely. By teaching science, we convey disregard for the view that the world is merely an illusion. By punishing kids who fight, we convey disregard for the view that might makes right. But I argue that the purpose of these activities is NOT to teach values, but to promote legit. gov. purposes; the values lesson is merely ancillary.
I know many people argue that schools SHOULD teach values. But inevitably the question arises, WHOSE values? Arguably, a voucher system would better enable people to pick their schools and get government out of the business of choosing values for everyone. But now we are WAY off topic.
nobody.really: I believe that, for most purposes, people should not discriminate on the basis of race. But I know of no testable hypophysis to prove or disprove that belief; it is simply a statement of values.
…I’m really not sure what to say to this. There are genetic differences between humans in Africa, and humans in the rest of the world: the human population of Africa is far more varied genetically, because the human species originated in Africa, and the variants outside Africa all descend from a comparitively small gene pool that left Africa (in evolutionary terms) a fairly short time ago. But while black people living in the US do have some African ancestry, most of them have non-African ancestry as well: the difference between “black” and “white” in the US is trivial. It is not only morally wrong to discriminate on the grounds of race, it is profoundly stupid: as stupid as it would be to discriminate on the grounds of religion or of hair color.
I would not be surprised to learn that homosexuality and bisexuality violate norms that prevail in much of the world, and even in the US, during various eras; by that definition, they are not “normal.”
No: now you’re talking about cultural values. By some cultural values prevalent in the US, homosexuality and bisexuality are regarded as “not normal”. But the scientific evidence, which shows that throughout human history people have been attracted to their own gender as well as the opposite gender; that our closest genetic relatives among the apes are normally attracted to both genders; indeed that homosexual and heterosexual sexual behavior is normal for virtually any animal that can express sexual choice. If public schools are to refrain from teaching cultural values, they must not teach children that homosexuality is “not normal”: they must teach children the scientific facts, that normal sexual behavior for primates – including himans – ranges from hetero to homo, and the historical facts, that there exists no known human culture in which same-sex attraction was unknown.
This is why public schools should be careful not to promote one set of values above another ““ including values about race relations, human sexuality and religion.
Right: stick to the facts.
Jesurgislac, you’ve got an epistemological problem. My joke about you being a premodern apparently wasn’t a joke.
Most of the things you are considering facts are not, in fact, facts. Nobody missed one too – “the Earth is 5 billion years old”. This is not a fact, unless you were there at the beginning and have been observing ever since with a stopwatch. “Much scientific evidence points to an age for the earth of around 5 billion years; little, if any, evidence exists for contrary views; a substantial majority of scientists endorse the 5 billion year age.” That’s a fact of the scientific variety – subject, as Nobody mentioned, to subsequent data.
On the racial question, you engage in a lot of handwaving, but Nobody’s point stands: “superiority” and “inferiority” are not factual categories. Nondiscrimination or discrimination are values that we choose – perhaps buttressed by data, perhaps not. But “the races are equal” is not a fact; it’s a hope, an opinion, or perhaps a prescription. You can make factual statements concerning race that uphold an egalitarian viewpoint: “the observed range of IQs does not vary among races”, and you can make factual statements that undermine that viewpoint. Again, values are the key element.
On the sexuality question, you are correct about what the scientific evidence shows. However, that does not establish normalcy. “Normal” is a values word, not a fact word. Scientific evidence shows that cancer, homsexual behavior, and kindness are all widely observed in the human species. In the close-to-consensus value model, cancer is considered abnormal and kindness is considered normal (if not common enough). Whether homosexual behavior is cancer/abnormal or kindness/normal is a values question, not a question of fact.
That you hold these values strongly, or believe they should be universal values, does not confer upon them the status of “fact”. They’re opinions.
Robert: But “the races are equal” is not a fact; it’s a hope, an opinion, or perhaps a prescription.
…er, no: scientifically speaking, “the races are equal” is a fact. There is just not enough genetic variation in the human species for it to be anything else. You can engage in all the handwaving you like, but it won’t alter the basic facts, no matter how much you may want to believe otherwise.
For the rest; that you want to believe that facts are opinions is noted.
Robert,
OK, you have two very cute kids. You look like a very nice guy, nothing at all like a Conservative Rep… would that be a value or a fact? Blessings
Jesurgislac:
scientifically speaking, “the races are equal” is a fact. There is just not enough genetic variation in the human species for it to be anything else.
This is absurd. I was about to write a big long post about why, but it is clear that you have a fundamental miscomprehension of epistemology, and that makes this discussion pointless. You mistake your interpretation of scientific facts for the facts themselves. Doesn’t work that way.
Rock:
OK, you have two very cute kids. You look like a very nice guy, nothing at all like a Conservative Rep… would that be a value or a fact?
Actually that’s the same little girl; she does look different in that picture, I don’t know why.
What is a “conservative rep” supposed to look like? Horns? ;P
People with a fondness for dead horses are excused from reading further.
You’re just been assigned to manage the FBI unit in a new town, and you have a tip that the Black Panthers are planning a crime at a meeting that night. You need to phone one of your undercover agents to get there pronto. You have a list of agents’ names, phone numbers, and races. Do you consider race in making your selection?
I suspect we make profoundly stupid decisions every day.
Yes, I read the word “normal” to refer to cultural norms. I sense you mean to say that homosexuality and bisexuality are *natural,* arising without regard to human influence. That strikes me as a factual statement, and likely a true one. But I also sense you mean to imply that because the orientations are natural, they are therefore benign. That strikes me as a values statement.
Eh, seems fact-like to me. You witness Creation: your brain interprets the photos that strike the back of your retina. Alternatively, you witness the performance of carbon-dating, or analysis of cosmic pulses, or whatever: more photons, more mental interpretation. There’s a combination of sensory stimulus and analysis either way.
Ok, we can all stop worrying about racial profiling, or disparity in income, or the treatment of Hurricane Katrina victims, or the need for Affirmative Action, or disparate health outcomes; apparently it was all a gag.
Again, “equal” with respect to what variables? You care about DNA, apparently, and that is the variable you favor. Great. But with respect to any of the issues listed above, I humbly suggest that DNA is not the relevant variable. But the choice of issues to focus on, or variables to measure, is fundamentally a question about what you value. If you assert that black people and white people are, on average, equally tall, that would be a factual assertion (whether true or not). But to suggest that blacks and white are equal, without regard to variable, looks a lot like a values statement to me.
“…because the nice social democrats who believe in rights for gays aren’t having any kids…”
And because of course growing up in a social democratic society will have absolutely no impact whatsoever on the views of the children of those Islamic fundamentalist immigrants. Those children will of naturally share exactly the same beliefs as their parents despite having a radically different upbringing, right? I hate to break it to you pretty boy, but the children of Islamic immigrants in Europe are not being homeschooled, they’re in the public school system. I used to know lots of them in London, and oddly enough they tend to end up with political views rather more like the other kids they went to school with than their fundamentalist parents. There’s a lunatic fringe, certainly, but to suggest that all descendents of Muslim immigrants in Europe are going to be unaffected by the larger culture they grow up in is just silly.
Also, I hate to be mean but I must say that Charles wins the beauty contest (Amp posted a pic of him and Syndey a while back). I am surprised by how young Robert is, though – I was rather picturing him as a crotchety old dude, yelling at unruly children to get off his lawn while brandishing a cane.
Charles, Robert and I are all about the same age – we met each other when we were attending college together. (Elkins too.)
I would not characterize what I did as “attending” college. Attending to bull sessions in the dorms, yes. To Campus Restaurant, yes. Donut runs to Gibson’s, I’m there. Obeying the instinctive call to perpetuate the species, check.
Attending college, not so much.
Robert writes: This is absurd. I was about to write a big long post about why
I am deeply grateful, whatever your reason, that you didn’t. Reading pseudo-scientific rationalizations of racism is a real drag.
nobody.really: But I also sense you mean to imply that because the orientations are natural, they are therefore benign. That strikes me as a values statement.
True. But it is also a values statement to say that natural human sexual orientations are not benign. Therefore, better to stick with the scientifically and historically verifiable fact: that all variations of human sexual orientation, from pure heterosexuality to pure homosexuality, are found in every human society and are natural to the human species.
nobody.really: Ok, we can all stop worrying about racial profiling, or disparity in income, or the treatment of Hurricane Katrina victims, or the need for Affirmative Action, or disparate health outcomes; apparently it was all a gag.
That the races (certainly “black” and “white” in the US) are not genetically disparate enough to be considered “unequal” is a scientific fact.
That people with more melanin in their skin than others have been treated unequally from people with less is a historical fact.
That this historic inequality has led to the present state where people like Robert can think of lengthy rationalizations of racism (even if he kindly refrains from posting them) and you can believe that the races are not equal – despite all scientific evidence – is a reasonable deduction from the facts.
I am surprised by how young Robert is, though – I was rather picturing him as a crotchety old dude, yelling at unruly children to get off his lawn while brandishing a cane.
I dunno about Robert, but that is what I have aspired to ever since I was about 16.
I suspect we agree in concept, but I find this language uncomfortably close to the line from the Blues Brothers movie: “We like all kinds of music here – country and Western!”
If we assume that government has a legit. interest in preparing kids for participation in a pluralistic society, then I could justify teaching the following statement (assuming it is accurate):
“In every society for which we have adequate evidence, we find humans pursuing sexual gratification through a variety of means. These means include monogamous and polyamorous sex with people of the same gender, with people of different gender, with people of both genders, with other species, with objects, and solo. Similarly, some people in every society report no sexual activity at all ““ some due to restraint, some to disinterest. Evidence suggests that roughly the same percentage of the population pursues each of these behaviors in each society, taboos notwithstanding.”
This statement provides the info I find relevant as evenhandedly as I can devise. I expect it will offend people who don’t like to see heterosexuality and homosexuality presented on equal terms. And it will offend people who don’t like to see homosexuality and “man-dog sex” presented on equal terms. That is, the statement’s form suggests an equivalence among sexual behaviors. But the statement does not deny that someone may draw distinctions among these behaviors; it merely invites the reader to consider the basis for which she distinguishes among them. In short, it invites critical thinking.
Hmmm … Gibson’s….