Obfuscatory?

Justin Katz has responded to my responses to his response to my post! Once again, he complains I look to narrowly to find a theme, and I should reconsider the effect of welfare reform. He also suggests I am distorting the theme suggested by Dr. Kurtz, and provides an example showing how to identify principle themes of campaigns. He also wonders about my motive and I think is is concerned this may be a waste of time.

As to my motive, does it matter?

Readers can choose to read or not. As I told Mr. Katz, he can reply or not as the whim takes him. Evidently he has chosen to do so, having some motive of his own. I imagine his readers and mine will soon grow bored; I am sure some already are. For that reason, I will not likely blog responding to Mr. Katz again.

Notwithstanding Mr. Katz statement to the contrary, I have not given him or anyone my word that this is not a big waste of time. As it happens, I have plenty of time, and I am enjoying writing this more than doing the laundry. So, I will respond. Those who prefer to get their laundry done, or just kick back and relax on a Friday afternoon are welcome to do so!

Now I will proceed to the criticisms.

Do I “look narrowly” to find the theme I advanced?
He complains that I misinterpreted his definition of “looking narrowly” and transformed it into the entirely different idea of “defining narrowly”. Regardless of what he meant, he now explains how one should look to identify the correct theme. He uses Dr. Kurtz’s proposed theme as an example.

I will attempt to follow Mr. Katz’s example. Hopefully, I will look neither too narrowly nor too broadly.

This is the theme Dr. Kurtz actually provides at the beginning of Going Dutch:

Justin elaborates his understanding of Dr. Kurtz argument and showing how to look for the theme:

I think Mr. Katz is suggesting that the rights based assertion is the principle theme, and that “disconnecting the presumed ability of couples to conceive children is an necessary consequence. Since, when he wrote the words I quoted, he was describing why Dr. Kurtz’s theme is a “principle theme”, I would infer Mr. Katz is telling us that a necessary consequence of a principle theme is itself a principle theme.

I do not think this is the best possible method of finding a principle theme, but I will set that issue aside for now. Instead, I will apply the method myself and see where that takes me.

Mr. Katz asserts that, in both the Netherlands and the US, the principle theme of advocacy for SSM has been rights based. Why don’t I try this:

Is this inevitable consequence of the rights based assertion very different from these two principle themes I called out in my very first article?

I ask this: If Mr. Katz elevates the necessary consequence he chooses to the level of principle theme, why not elevate this obvious necessary consequence? Am I looking any more narrowly than he? Or too broadly?

I never apologize for my candor. This inconsistent elevation of consequences to themes, lifting Dr. Kurtz’s consequence and decreeing it a “principle theme” while claiming one must read narrowly to identify an obvious inevitable consequences as a principle themes is obfuscatory nonsense. Actually, it is not obfuscatory; obfuscatory means obscure or unclear. His method of identifying themes is so clearly inconsistent no one could fail to see it.

Who Distorts Dr. Kurtz theme?
Mr. Katz’s ability to look broadly for themes when he wishes to do so, and look narrowly when does not wish to do so is not limited to cherry picking principle themes. No, Mr. Katz is willing to look at other things broadly. For example, if Mr. Katz’s synopsis of Dr. Kurtz argument is correct, the theme Dr. Kurtz actually spits out seems a severe distortion. Yet, Mr. Katz seems willing to see two very different themes as identical.

Let us compare these two phrases:

Kurtz:

Katz:

Mustn’t one read “disconnecting the presumed ability to conceive mutual children” broadly indeed to think it means “to dislodge the conviction that parenthood and marriage are intrinsically linked?”

I think one must. But let us read the argument that they do mean the same thing. Reading “Going Dutch” I find no argument to explain why the potential for procreation is the “intrinsic link”. He simply replaces one with the other.

Let me explore what I believe the intrinsic link is. I will begin with questions.

Isn’t there some link between parenthood and marriage other than the presumed potential for mutual conception? Don’t most people believe one link between marriage and children is that married parents form a stable home in which they can better nurture children? After all, if creating and maintaining a stable family to better nurture children isn’t the intrinsic link between parenthood and marriage, why not just procreate and divorce? Isn’t the reason reason why we prefer people to marry before procreating is to guarantee a stable child-rearing family exists before the child arrives?

In fact, isn’t the nurturing link intrinsic, and the procreation link subordinate? I believe most people would answer: “Yes.”

People who see the intrinsic link as being related to nurturing, and the procreative link as subordinate, must conclude that Dr. Kurtz’s stated theme as a distortion of the theme in his underlying argument. Why? Because “the ability to conceive mutual children” is simply not the “intrinsic link” between parenthood and children.

I will now address the accusation that I distorted Dr. Kurtz theme. Dr. Kurtz provides no argument to indicate that the procreative link is the intrinsic link between parenthood and marriage. Since I argue the intrinsic link between marriage and parenthood is that “a long term marriage creates the stable base for a nurturing child-rearing family”, doesn’t Dr. Kurtz stated theme, referring to the dislodging the intrinsic link and not the procreative link at least seem to suggest these two possibilities?

What else might “dislodging the intrinsic link” mean to readers? Frankly, I persist in believing that most people infer it to mean more or less what I said. Possibly some do not, and instead agree with Mr. Katz. In which case, we simply disagree.

Method of finding themes.
Now, having shown that, using Mr. Katz method, I obtain the same principle themes I advanced in my first article , I would like to turn to Mr. Katz’s claim that my method of finding themes in obfuscatory nonsense. I recognize that my method is different from Mr. Katz’s method, but I do not believe it is either obfuscatory or nonsense.

I explained my method of finding themes of a campaign in a previous article. I try to identifying the proponents of that campaign and read what they actually say. Consequently, I consider it important to identify the specific campaign and distinguish it from others; I use hierarchical rankings of various campaigns.

I recognize the Mr. Katz dislikes my notion of referring to the campaign for same sex marriage as a child campaign operating under the umbrella of the parent campaign for gay rights and calls the notion “obfuscatory nonsense”. That is to say, he finds the idea difficult to understand or obscure.^[1] I might point out that only hours after my post appeared, Julian, a poster at Alas, correctly applied the concept to entirely different political movement, and suggested a refinement. Overnight, he translated the idea into this perfectly accurate diagram. Possibly, that diagram will help clarify the idea for Mr. Katz or others who find the idea obscure or confusing; possibly it won’t.

Even if the diagram does not clarify things for Mr. Katz, I suggest my method is useful if one wishes to avoid quoting the wrong people when identifying the themes of a campaign^[2]. It might also useful if, when applying Mr. Katz method of finding principle themes, one wishes to avoid elevating unintended inevitable consequence to the level of “principle theme” of a campaign.

Although I felt it useful to defend my method, I would like to point something out. It no longer matters whether my method if flawed, or whether Mr Katz understand and accepts it because:

Having shown I get the same themes using both methods, I will respond to his complaint that, I supply an insufficient number of early quotes or the quotes are too brief.

First, using Mr. Katz’s method, of finding a principle theme, the existence of quotes to support my theme would be irrelevant. I simply show my theme is a consequence of the principle theme. Therefore, I will provide no additional quotes.

However, if I misunderstand Mr. Katz, and quotes are essential, I ask this favor. Could he demonstrate the proper use of quotes? Since he admires Mr. Kurtz method of argument, could he point out the numerous early quotes from Dutch advocates of SSM saying that they wish to “dislodge the conviction that parenthood and marriage are intrinsically linked”?

Second, I intentionally limited my references to quotes that are available on the web and to those from Sullivan and Rauch because he specifically insisted they did not mention either of the themes I suggested. Although graphical browsers like Mosaic were available as early as 1992, the number of web based magazine article, blogs, and newspapers published prior to the 1995 introduction of Microsoft Internet Explorer I . As I noted in the pedantic end notes of my article, this makes it somewhat difficult to provide links containing quotes early in the campaign. Those articles and quotes that exist rarely appear on the web. The fact that I was able to find Andrew Sullivan’s 1989 article suggest his writings and statement were and are influential. It suggests someone bothered to obtain the permission to repost an older, widely read article written by a prominent advocate. The difficulty of finding intervening linkable quotes does not imply Sullivan didn’t continue to say what he had said in 1989. The difficulty is due to the relative sparsity of web based magazine articles. Obviously, further restricting my quotes to two people also limited the number of quote available.

Back to The Welfare Reform Act.
Mr Katz suggests when he referred the effect of to welfare reform, on the 1995 birth rate, he was not referring to welfare reform itself, but to the campaign for welfare reform. Specifically, he was referring to the effect of “The Contract for America” published in 1994 on 1995 the birth rate. He does not postulate an exact sequence of events or describe the mechanism, but leaves it to readers to speculate how this might have occurred.

As I do not wish to provide his theory for him, I ask him to elaborate. (That is, should he choose to respond.)

In my previous two articles, I mentioned the 9 month gestation period, and noted that people sometime forget about this. Conceptions leading to births in 1995 begin on March 31, 1994. On Sept 27, nearly six months later, The Contract for America, a campaign promise with no force of law, was signed by a minority party and disseminated to the public. That party’s victory in November was seen as a surprise by many. Even afterwards their victory, passage of bills based on campaign promises was not assured; as usual some bills based on promises were passed, other were not.

So, I ask Mr. Katz: Does your theory involve prescient, prospective welfare mothers reacting to a campaign document six months before the document was published? Did they knowing in advance who would win? Etc.

Do you believe this makes more sense than my contention that they might not fully react until 6 months after the a court ruling?

Or, do you have another theory?

Satire or sincere, this house of cards seems to have some glue!

====== END NOTES======

[1] I would, by the way, admit to the accusations that my discussion about themes was long winded, excessively detailed and pedantic. Although it is great fun to be pendantic, I have managed refrained from Dr. Kurtz’s practice of sprinkling in allusions to 17th century history, reminding American readers that we learned about the Puritans in grade school. You can find these in Going Dutch.

[2] For example, in this article Mr. Katz suggested I read, Andrew Sullivan points out that members of the gay rights community included those who advocated against both heterosexual and same sex marriage, and those who advocated for both types of marriage. Using my terminology, there were two separate, and somewhat contradictory campaigns, operating under the parent gay rights campaign. Only one of these is the campaign for gay marriage. He then mentions that Dr. Kurtz consistently quotes members of the gay rights community who opposed gay marriage. He likens this to using Al Sharpton to criticize the agenda for the DLC..