quote:I see viewing marriage in the "Close your eyes and do it for England" manner, where it's something people naturally don't want to do, but have to be tricked or coerced into as a really terrible way to approach one of the most beneficial relationships people can form.
Card never proposed such a thing. You're being misleading here, Squicky.
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Yes, in fact he did. He specifically made the sociobiological case that men don't want to get married and that they need to be forced to do so by societal pressure so as to provide a good environment for children. This is further compounded by his assertion that gay people are fooling themselves if they think that they would receive any benefits from marriage. I've brought this up on numerous occasions when discussing his homosexuality articles.
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quote:Since the natural reproductive strategy for males is to mate with every likely female at every opportunity, males who are not restrained by social pressure and expectations will soon devolve into a sort of Clintonesque chaos, where every man takes what he can get.
quote:Civilization thrives only when most members can be persuaded to behave unnaturally, and when those who don't follow the rules are censured in a meaningful way.
Why would men submit to rules that deprive them of the chance to satisfy their natural desire to mate with every attractive female?
Why would women submit to rules that keep them from trying to mate with the strongest (richest, most physically imposing, etc.) male, just because he already has a wife?
Because civilization provides the best odds for their children to live to adulthood. So even though civilized individuals can't pursue the most obviously pleasurable and selfish (i.e., natural) strategies for reproduction, the fact is that they are far more likely to be successful at reproduction in a civilized society -- whether they personally like the rules or not.
This desacralization of marriage is an inherent danger whenever people try to oppose homosexual marriage by saying that the vital thing about straight marriage is that it can produce biologically related children. This is further compounded when you try to apply simplistic evolutionary psychology, as OSC does.
Marriage is a wonderful relationship that people enter into not just because it's the only way society will let them obtain a sexual partner, but because it confers some very big benfits on them (provided it's done right). This is one of the big reasons why I'm so opposed to so much of the anti-gay marriage and anti-divorce sentiment around Hatrack, because it basically spits on what to me is the terribly important core of marriage.
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If I understand your point, then I must disagree with you. It seems to me that all law that's based on some moral tenet forces that tenet onto those who don't hold it. The source of the moral is irrelevant.
--Piracy of music --Murder --Theft --Child porn --Prostitution --Drug use --Rape --Discrimination by age or race
All of the laws dealing with these practices have a religious basis in many who support, enforce, and enact those laws. And we support them by coercion. Freeing the slaves in the Civil War had a religious basis for many participating in the conflict. More force, based on religion. Mormons were forced to give up polygamy based on religiously motivated laws. Laws involve coercion. That's why we have law "enforcement."
You can't have complete freedom of religion in any society. What if I wanted to start up human sacrifice because I truly believed in the Aztec gods? Or pratice the cleansing that's part of Neo-nazism or the Klu Klux Klan? Sorry, we're going to force you to not practice that religion because it's offense to our morals which are strongly influenced by our religions. Living in a society means that some freedoms will be limited or sacrificed because the majority of the society doesn't beleive that way. They have other morals that oppose it, some of which are religiously based.
What we have in America is the freedom to practice any religion or none at all AS LONG AS we remain within the contraints of the laws of the land. The state tries to keep a level playing field for all religions, but it cannot separate public policy completely from religion. We don't have complete freedom of religion just as we don't have complete freedom to do anything we like at our workplace or in our homes with our children.
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Card isn't arguing for "Clos[ing] your eyes and do[ing] it for England;" rather he's stating that civilized society has a responsability to hold members who offend social code accountable (through disdain).
He is not arguing that everyone should get married, even if such a union is loveless.
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jb, See, but that's not actually true. Those laws do not, in fact, rely merely on moral tenents held by some people in society. Rather, they all have aspects of demonstrable harm associated with them.
Religious or moral motivation is by no means an intrinsically bad thing. The problem comes in when it is the only basis for using force against other people. Realizing that this is not legitimate is the difference between a marketplace of ideas and the Spanish Inquisition, between trial by jury inside a legal system and trial by combat.
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Of course you can't call whatever you want to do part of your religion and thus receive carte blanche to do it. In fact, as you may have noticed, I've been speaking out pretty strongly against forcing your religion on other people.
There are no such things as absolute rights. You have certain rights, but these do not abrogate other people's right. So you can't, for example, kill people as part of your freedom of religion. But, within your own personal sphere (and granted in some areas, such as religious drug use, people's definition of personal sphere differ), you're free to hold and practice whatever religion you want.
Personal sphere. Freedom. Very important concepts. See, the problem here is not in the personal sphere, as much as certain activists try to paint not being allowed to force their religion on others as an attack on their religion. It's that people are taking what belongs in the personal sphere and extending it into the public, legal sphere without the appropriate justification for that sphere. Much like the ID movement trying to extend their personal beliefs into the scientific sphere without any scientific merit or basis.
Unless you're willing to grant that other people can force their religion on you, you have no right and no justification to force it on other people. For many people on this board who are LDS, this principle that they have such a problem with it's used to support groups they don't like is the things that keeps their Baptist allies in the fight against gays from doing carrying out the bad things they want to do to them.
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quote:For many people on this board who are LDS, this principle that they have such a problem with it's used to support groups they don't like is the things that keeps their Baptist allies in the fight against gays from doing carrying out the bad things they want to do to them.
The threat of loosing rights (proselyting for example) does not exempt us from trying to do what we feel is God's will-- in this case, using political rights to keep same sex marriage illegal.
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Scott, What he's saying is that people don't want to get married and that they have to be tricked or coerced into doing so for the reason that it's best for raising children. To me, this is very similar to telling English women, "Yes, we know that having sex is an unpleseant task, but it's the only way to have children. So, close your eyes and think of England." I very, very strongly disagree with this and I also view it as an extremely harmful way for a society to view marriage.
Honestly, the idea that straight people aren't going to get married because gay people can, that allowing gay people to enter into this extremely beneficial relationship somehow steals something or devalues other people's marriages is a mindset I shudder to consider. It makes me think of the ex-gay programs where after you get through your Clockwork Orange style conditioning, they pair you up with a feamle volunteer to be your wife, all in the name of "defending marriage".
Marriage (again, done correctly) is an extremely beneficial relationship for both the people inside it and society as a whole, even if their are no biologically produced offspring. I want very much to get married, not because that's what society tells me I should do or because that's the only way I can get sex, but because I really want the benefits that go along with being in a marriage.
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Scott, We've had this exact conversation. You think that it's okay to do this (legislate your religion) to other people, but that it would be wrong if other people (say the Baptists) did it to you.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote: He is not arguing that everyone should get married, even if such a union is loveless.
Actually, he HAS made this argument -- specifically, that people who don't marry in the correct way simply don't matter, and any society that pretends they do is doomed; in fact, his argument against gay marriage hinges on the idea that we shouldn't be pretending that gay relationships have any long-term value. He's also made the argument that marriage is far more important than love.
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quote:What he's saying is that people don't want to get married and that they have to be tricked or coerced into doing so for the reason that it's best for raising children.
No.
He is saying that when men and women go against legitimate social custom (ie, in committing adultery, or in engaging in sexual relationships before marriage) civilization should hold them accountable for their actions by disdaining them.
Biologically, it IS more effective for men to spread themselves around to as many partners as possible. Biologically it IS (or was, before technology became such a large factor) more effective for women to make babies from the strongest suitor.
Civilization means we've overcome those biological urges through societal pressure. Reproductively speaking, when a man is civilized, he restricts himself to one woman. And the woman doesn't seek other biological inputs, as it were, for the creation of progeny.
Because violating those laws turns us back to un-civilization.
THAT'S OSC's point-- nothing to do with trickery.
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You're arguing about what's *convincing* to some in the current public sphere, not the fact that we force our morals on others all the time. And what's convincing changes over time. That's why we have laws on the books against adultery, sodomy, etc. because at a point in time those arguments *were* convincing in that sphere and legalized and supported by the state. I would certainly agree that as more Americans distance themselves from religion there must be more than an appeal to religion to convince a majority. But that doesn't mean religion will not play a huge role for a great number of those participating in that sphere and may be their primary motivation.
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quote:But that doesn't mean religion will not play a huge role for a great number of those participating in that sphere and may be their primary motivation.
Can you write a convincing defense of shari'a law?
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Scott, You're ignoring a pretty significant part of what OSC is saying. I'll re-emphasize:
quote:Since the natural reproductive strategy for males is to mate with every likely female at every opportunity, males who are not restrained by social pressure and expectations will soon devolve into a sort of Clintonesque chaos, where every man takes what he can get.
quote:Civilization thrives only when most members can be persuaded to behave unnaturally, and when those who don't follow the rules are censured in a meaningful way.
OSC makes a pretty big point that marriage only continues because society coerces and tricks people into doing it, even though they don't want to.
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See, yeah it does mean that. That's the whole point of the social contract. You give up some of the things that you want to do to other people so that other people don't have the ability to do them to you. You don't want other people to do what they think God tells them to do by legislating against you, so you give up the ability to legilate your religion against others. Or, more generally, you want a society that isn't like the bloodly sectarian mess that characterized most of Western history prior to nations being founded along Enlightenment principles, you don't get to violate those principles because it's different when you do it.
Given a different social centext, say that in certain sections of the Islamic world, Pat Robertson, without changing his character much, would be issuing fatwa's against your religion and his followers would be butchering you. In Europe, they called that the majority of the 2nd millenium A.D. We've gotten away from that god awful way of living and seeing things and I'm willing to give up my ability to force other people to go along with what I say for no other reason than I say it to keep us away from it.
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johnbrown, No, it's not about what's convincing to people in the public sphere. It's about a separation between what people think is right in their personal spheres and what we have a right to enforce in the public sphere. I think that expressing Neo-Nazi views is just an awful thing to do, and more than a little pathetic. I (as well as a large majority of the country) am strongly opposed to these views and even go so far as to see them as without merit. However, despite near universal opposition, I have no right to say that people can't say them. If I'm a member of a Baptist majority somewhere, even though most people find it convincing that LDS is a pernicious religion that is spreading false doctrine and taking people away from the right way to do things, I don't have the right to legislate against them doing so.
It doesn't just come down to having the most power as you are claiming. There are rules outside of might makes right. Part of what these rules do is help determine what actions and what justifications are legitimate in the public legal context.
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I would suspect the US would run much like a country under Shari'a IF an overwhelming majority all had the same views. The fact is that we're a diverse bunch and have been since the inception of the country. We also have statutes on how much one segment can limit another's religious practice. And it's exceedingly difficult for one party to get the overwhelming majority. We've all decided to play by the system set up (no coups etc.) But if there were a supermajority, then I don't see what's preventing it from going that way. Perhaps you have an argument for what we have in place that would prevent this from occuring. The only thing I can see are the limits placed in the first amendment. But we already prohibit the free exercise in some circumstances.
Amendment I Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
I'm certainly open to arguments to the contrary.
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quote:Perhaps you have an argument for what we have in place that would prevent this from occuring. The only thing I can see are the limits placed in the first amendment.
I agree with you that the limits built into the Constitution are our best defense against shari'a law even in a supermajority. Which is why I find the concept of things like the "Defense of Marriage Amendment" so odious and repugnant.
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I agree that (much like the case with Blacks prior to the 14th Ammendment and the Civil Rights Act in 1964), there is nothing explicitly forbidding legislating prejudice against gays. To me, though, there's a big difference between what is expressly forbidden by the rules and what is in the spirit of the rules and what should be done.
I'd say one of the big reasons why we shouldn't like in a country with shari'a-like laws is that then we'd be living in a country with shari'a-like laws. In case people haven't noticed, these country are pretty much immense train wrecks.
I like scientific progress. I like provocative books and movies and such. I like having a multitide of perspective in the marketplace of ideas. I like equal treatment before the law. I've made my peace with women voters. To me these are good things.
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And, beacuse it seems to alway be needing in these discussions, here's my discussion of what the Enlightenment was and what it means for our country.
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You know, when the legislature convenes to make laws, they don't require debate or any types of evidence by law (proving demonstrable harm, for example, isn't required by law). All that's required is a simple vote. The statue is written, often without any mention of all the reasons why. So it seems that it's all a matter of convincing the parties voting and those who keep them there. Not a very effect wall when you get into supermajority situations.
It's an interesting question for another thread, but where should the line be drawn on legislating morals? (Again, it's impossible to not legislate morals because laws are things we think we should or shouldn't do, i.e. morals.) Someone here suggested only legislating those that can prove demonstrable harm. But then we can prove drunkeness causes much harm but don't legislate against that (except in the case of drunk driving). We tried with prohibition. I'm finding it difficult to find a satisfying principle or set of principles to draw this line.
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Squick, there's a big difference between saying, "person X said Y, and Y leads to Z through steps A, B, and C" and saying, "person X said Z."
Even if your logical analysis about steps A, B, and C are correct, it is still an ineffective and less than totally honest way of recounting what others have said.
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Yeah, it's nice that I didn't do that than and instead said "OSC said this." and then showed where, in my opinion, OSC said that.
I'd appreciate it if you and Scott could, I don't know, stop throwing out random attacks at my character, too.
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Yeah, "viewing marriage in the "Close your eyes and do it for England" manner, where it's something people naturally don't want to do, but have to be tricked or coerced into" is EXACTLY what he said. </sarcasm>
It's not random. It's in direct response to what you do.
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BTW, what someone said isn't an opinion. It's demonstrable. If your little renditions of other people's views were accurate, you wouldn't be recasting them for rhetorical effect. Their own words would serve your purpose well enough.
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quote: Since the natural reproductive strategy for males is to mate with every likely female at every opportunity, males who are not restrained by social pressure and expectations will soon devolve into a sort of Clintonesque chaos, where every man takes what he can get.
quote:Civilization thrives only when most members can be persuaded to behave unnaturally, and when those who don't follow the rules are censured in a meaningful way.
Squick wrote:
quote:OSC makes a pretty big point that marriage only continues because society coerces and tricks people into doing it, even though they don't want to.
Coerces, yes, but I still don't get the "tricks" part. If we look at behaving as wild animals as the only option to behaving in a civilized manner, then being civilized is "unnatural".
As unnatural as it may be, it is also a meme born of making the choice to be civilized generation after generation. Frankly, I'm not sure that it is the natural predilection of humans to be polyamorous. Some animals take a mate for a lifetime. Who's to say that we aren't among those? It is altogether possible that a single mate is a better evolutionary strategy for humans, and the social norms are the result of trying to codify and enforce that strategy.
In any case, I don't get that anyone is being "tricked". We all fall under the same social pressure to marry, have children, etc., etc. It's not a trick, it's right out there in the open.
If one makes the decision to go against the social norm, they may be coerced, but not tricked.
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jb, I'm on board with it being difficult to 1) enforce a following of the spirit of the laws sort of thing and 2) precisely evaluate what action would cause the least harm. However, I don't necessarily think that they are all that relevant here.
First, again, I'm not talking about what is explicitly prohibited by the system, nor in fact about any one specific vote of something in Congress.
It's entirely possible (likely in fact, at least some of the time) that the Congressmen are voting the way they do because some one paid them money to vote that way and that there is really not much we can do about that taking any one specific vote into account. What we can do, however, if propogate a view of the system where such a thing is considered bad.
When you get right to it, that's pretty much what I'm trying to do here. I'll admit that, while there is a whole lot of spirit and more than a few letters of the law that are directed towards preventing the sort of thing I'm talking about, in this particular instance, there is nothing specifically prohibiting legislating your religious prejudice (assuming that you don't blatantly come out and say that's why you're doing it). However, I have been trying to show how it definitely goes against the spirit of our system and is both unjust and not a particularly good idea to adopt this sort of thinking. Even if you ultimately disagree, you've got to admit that there's more than a little hypocrasy in saying that you can do this to other people but they can't do it to you.
On the second part, I think you're criticism of the practicality of utilitarian systems kind of overjumps what we're talking about here, which is that there should be at least some objective and transferrable basis available for thinking that a course of action is good or bad before we enact it onto law that is to be carried out with force on the population.
To take a commonly used example, murder is not primary against the law because we think it's a morally bad thing to kill people. It's against the law because, hey, I don't want to get killed and this whole note desiring death thing is pretty much universal. It's not so much a restriction of people's personal actions as it is a protection of people's personal rights, in this case my right not to be beaten to a bloodly pulp with a tire iron. I can make a similar argument for nearly all of the laws you think are based mainly in morals.
Not so with the legalized prejudices against gays (or blacks for that matter). They are about enacting the majority's belief that a certain section of the population (who is never them) should not be treated as full citizens in some way.
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LD, In that essay, with those two quotes, I think saying "tricked" is a bit of an extention on my part, but taking the whole of OSC's writing on it, I think it's an accurate description of his attitude. If it's really so terrible, I don't really have a problem with withdrawing it. The main point remains that OSC has characterized marriage as something people wouldn't (and shouldn't if they are following their "natural" self-interest) enter into and thus society must exert pressure to make them.
This, to me, is related to the divorce thing, that I think you were in on recently, where people think that the thing to focus on is not letting people get divorced, whereas I think we should mostly be focusing on building up strong marriages and showing why it's in people's interest to choose good marriages.
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I can't help thinking that OSC's view on marriage makes it as unappealing to me as sitcoms do. I just have trouble believing that men are uncivilized animals that just want to have sex with as many women as possible and women just want to rope the strongest possible man regardless... I just don't agree... It seems too simplistic to me.
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I am most certainly not a fan of Clinton - but whoever said "devolve into Clintoneque chaos" was being a very over-dramatic. But I won't get into a off topic debate.
A friend friend of mine just got married at to another guy. When I asked "Well...that's not legal, is it?" he shot me a offended look, "Toph - your not turning into some stupid fundamentalist are you? Of course it's not, and that makes so much better."
Perhaps I should adopt this attitude.
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I agree. That's one of the reasons I mentioned the possibilty that monogamy is natural to other species; why not us?
I get very confused when I try to think about this whole issue. And I'm sorry if I confuse you as I try to explain my thoughts.
If we are animals, then sex is about procreation, not love, comfort or enjoyment. Marriage is so closely tied to sex that in purely practical terms, it seems to lack a spiritual component. If marriage is only about sex, then an unbreakable social contract of marriage makes sense
If marriage is more than sex and sex is more than an animal instinct, does that mean that we are more than animals? And if we are more than animals, can we truly choose to look at sex as nothing more than an animal instinct?
Squick, I agree that more emphasis should be placed on creating stable marriages than on punishing divorce. I just don't think that one can make a point of encouraging good marriages while turning a blind eye to failed marriages.
I think that sex and marriage are too important to us as a species to take a neutral position on the matter.
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I'm not going to get involved in the main argument here, but I did want to address one thing Avery said:
quote:Roman's and greeks developed man love to a kind of social party status.
I'm not entirely sure what is meant by this.
Romans and Greeks certainly did have absolutely no problem with male-male sex. No problem at all (save perhaps in the military). Social roles and obligations constrained it somewhat - ideally a man was supposed to be faithful to his wife when he married, for example - but the practice of what we today call homosexual sex was socially acceptable and even encouraged. When you read Latin love poetry, often the only way to tell if it is addressed to a female or male lover is if the poet names the object of his affection. Men had sex with men, and no one really cared.
The only real social stigma with male-male sex was to be the submissive partner, since Real Men aren't passive, but active. Having sex with another man was okay, as long as you weren't acting the part of a woman. The active partner was more or less regarded as bisexual, whether or not he had any sexual attraction towards women; the submissive partner was considered "homosexual."
I have no idea what "social party status" means, but it's entirely ignorant to make a blanket claim that dismisses the widespread popularity and acceptance of male-male sex in Roman society.
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quote:Even if you ultimately disagree, you've got to admit that there's more than a little hypocrasy in saying that you can do this to other people but they can't do it to you.
I wasn't saying that. I was saying there's not enough pro-homosexuals to push through their agenda right now with ease and probably the most effective way to get some traction is to move the grounds of the debate.
I find your idea compelling and I can see it covering many situations
quote:It's against the law because, hey, I don't want to get killed and this whole note desiring death thing is pretty much universal.
But there are many situations where despite not liking to be killed, we do it anyway. Abortion, capital punishment, war, self-defense, anti-terrorist operations, etc. In some societies you can kill for all sorts of offenses. So I don't know that this one rule is going to clear everything up because there are so many rights in conflict. And when you have rights in conflict you have to prioritize one. How do you do that? Well, there's the moral again. I'm sure what you're saying has to be part, but it doesn't seem to cover all conflicts of rights.
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LD, Have I come across as being unconcerned about sex or marriage?
We got onto this track because I'm extremely concerned at the pernicious attitudes towards marriage that many of the so-called defenders of marriage put out so as to show how gay people shouldn't get married. Don't get me wrong, I think that OSC is very concerned about marriage. It's just that what comes across as his definition of marriage appears to me to be both a twisted view of the institution and a twisted view of the world itself.
I don't think that this breaks down into simple for, against, or neutral positions. A lot of the fight is over the defintion of what marriage is. Some people appear to me, either out of an honest reflection of their views or out of a desire to define in as important only in the ways that gay people can be excluded, to define marriage in a very damaging, desacralizing way, even as they are claiming to support it.
I don't think that marriage is against my self-interest (except as it relates to raising children in a stable environment). I don't think that the problems with marriage began when we started allowing divorce. I don't think that marriages that, for whatever reasons, don't result in children are at best meaningless. I even think that regarding the divide between men and women as far surpassing any other possible divide between people is...how am I supposed to say this...widely divergent from reality.
I do think that marriage provides for a relationship that offers up stability, engagement, mutual creativity, happiness, health, support, sharing, and a whole host of other things that you just can't get at anywhere near the same level anywhere else. I think it's fantastic. I think if people really understood how much better their life could be if they were in a good, working marriage, getting married and supporting good marriages would be topping most people's life goals.
I date a lot, especially by the standards of Hatrack. Many of my friends also date a lot. We have the opportunity of say having sex with a lot of people that many here don't even see as a possibility. And to a certain extent, we take advantage of that. And you know what, nearly all of my friends in this situation really want to get married (actually, most of them have already gotten married, some with kids now). The people who really like just bouncing from person to person are, in my experience, generally not particularly happy people.
You can talk to me all you want about how evolution has given me a barbaric need to always just sleep with as many women as I can. The thing is, I'm not a monkey. You're just so story doesn't fit me. Maybe that describes how you see the world, but it doesn't describe me.
What we really need is not a bunch of joyless social scolding about you have to go against your natural instincts and self-interest and get married for the kids or because society will punish you if you don't. What we need is people coming forward with how great it is to be married, with stories of all the things they get out of it. See, because I get these stories from the people I know who are married. I see their joy in their lives and their partners, some after 8 years of marriage now.
But of course, if that were the case, it would be just about unconscionable to not let gay people enjoy this wonderful relationship...and we can't have that.
posted
jb, In those situations where we kill despite not wanting to be killed ourselves, the wider issue is generally that we'd rather be in a situation where people were killed in situations like that than not. We kill in self-defense and consider it okay because we'd rather live in society where it is permissible to kill someone who is trying to kill you than where it is not. We have capital punishment because many people believe that there are some crimes where it is important to have this punishment for. Having a penal system does introduce an element of punishment, even up to that of death, but it serves to take away the threat of people breaking the laws it is set up to protect.
I'm not suggesting some simplistic concept here. More of a general truth, which is that most laws in our society can in fact be justified by maximizing good, preventing harm way instead of saying that the only support they have is a moral judgement.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:You can talk to me all you want about how evolution has given me a barbaric need to always just sleep with as many women as I can. The thing is, I'm not a monkey. You're just so story doesn't fit me. Maybe that describes how you see the world, but it doesn't describe me.
Ah, I have successfully caused you as much confusion as I've caused myself.
Actually, I was disagreeing with Card's idea that man's natural state is promiscuity.
quote:I do think that marriage provides for a relationship that offers up stability, engagement, mutual creativity, happiness, health, support, sharing, and a whole host of other things that you just can't get at anywhere near the same level anywhere else. I think it's fantastic.
I think that we are more than animals and that marriage is about more than sex. Thus, though I respect the idea that marriage is about procreation and community, as a spiritual being, I have trouble seeing it as only about procreation and community. That being the case, I have trouble accepting that it is to be regulated by the community, yet I believe it must be.... ::mumbles:: I have many questions and few answers.
The only point in that post where I disagree with you is in the idea that you can encourage stable marriages and ignore or not criticize divorce. I'd love to think that extolling the virtues of marriage would be enough to make people choose good mates and keep their commitments, but I don't think it is.
Posts: 2425 | Registered: Jan 2002
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LD, That wasn't directed at you. It was directed at the "just so story" sciencesque evolutionary psychology idea that OSC was advocating.
I think the divorce thing falls into the general class of things I call the welfare queen category. That is, punishing the small number of defectors, satisfying though it may be, screws up the system a great deal more for the majority of people who aren't defectors. I think the little good that you can do with many of the ways people want to punish or prohibit divorce is outweighed by the greater harm that they will cause.
You may have missed it, but in the last thread, I was exactly ignoring or not criticizing divorce. In fact, part of the conflict was that I was extending the failure inherent in a divorce further than some people thought that I should.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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I think that sex and marriage and all of that is a sacred thing. I'm not against some aspects of conservatism, but I can't help that some of these concepts contribute to all the things the conservative types are against. Like do you really need society to look down on people for their private problems without knowing of the whole situation? Should we be like ancient China killing those that commit adultery or breaking their legs because that's what that leads to... People make mistakes. People will sometimes have affairs instead of dealing directly with their problems. People will often view marriage as the road to some faerytale like existence without realizing that it's hard work to maintain a relationship no matter what. Wouldn't it be a better idea to emphasize how sacred sex and marriage is instead of condemning adulters or painting human beings as yet another animal instead of an individual with complex problems and complex reasons for doing things besides our genes say to sow as many seeds as possible. That just gives people an excuse instead of taking responsibility for their own actions. There really needs to be middle ground!
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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But MrSquicky you cannot maximize good until you define what it is--morals. Capital punishment to some is a great evil. What's moral? What right outweighs another? There are a lot of ways we arrive at it--authority, reason, observation, empiricism, utilitarianism, etc.--but saying it maximizes good is too general for me because goods often conflict.
We want a safe society. That's good. We think capital punishment deters. We think the punishment does some good. So we kill. But others in our society turn that on their heads saying it only makes things worse. Well, which good is good? We say a woman should have autonomy and therefore right to choose any type of abortion. A good. But we also say that the child has a right and needs to be protected. Goods in conflict. Which one really is better? How do you prioritize?
So saying that maximizing good is the key is a fine general thing to say and may apply in many cases but there are quite a few where it fails us.
Posts: 53 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Scott R: Card isn't arguing for "Clos[ing] your eyes and do[ing] it for England;" rather he's stating that civilized society has a responsability to hold members who offend social code accountable (through disdain).
OK, that's certainly reasonable, but it's going to happen anyway. That's what a social code means : Something such that, if you transgress against it, you are treated with disdain. And you are certainly free to disdain anything and anyone you like. (And before you say that you are not free, in a politically correct world, to disdain gays, let me point out that you are wrong. It's just that other people will then use their right to disdain you.) What you are not free to do, is enshrine your social code in law.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:What you are not free to do, is enshrine your social code in law.
Well, that's not actually true, now is it? You might wish it weren't so, but that doesn't change the reality of the situation.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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Well, yes. I sit corrected. Let me instead say 'what you should not be free to do, is enshrine your social code in law.'
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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You know, in a certain way, KOM is actually correct. If the laws specifically said, "What we're doing here is enshrining our religious tenents in law." (which, as far as I can tell is actually what people want to do), the ink wouldn't have time to dry before they were struck down.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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And if I had indeed said 'tenets', I would be very clear that they have nothing to do with 'tenants'. That said, I do think this particular social code is, in fact, a religious tenet.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:He said "social code" not religious tenents.
Which is why I provided a qualifying "in a certain way" and tied it directly to the specific issue under discussion, which does involve enshrining religious prejudice into law.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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Welcome Topher. I found your tale moving. I'm a gay man and have had similar reactions to OSC's works and views. Best of luck and all hail OSC, for better or worse. Posts: 4953 | Registered: Jan 2004
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quote:Which is why I provided a qualifying "in a certain way" and tied it directly to the specific issue under discussion, which does involve enshrining religious prejudice into law.
Which, in your opinion, involves enshrining religious prejudice into law. You got that part right the first time.
Your inability to comprehend others reasons for their policy preferences doesn't automatically make those preferences the "enshrining of religious prejudice."
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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