Reasonable people may disagree about ...

[dZpADTLrPmX4c]

Okay, fine. Being a sinner is a position of everyone, but the way you put it is like a resignation. Having a virtue is ultimately having a responsibility, and that's not nothing. It might even be everything.

Like a resignation?
I had meant it with some light humor (by comparing myself to others who are supposedly free of wrongdoing), and also self-acceptance. Which is to say, I agree cultivating virtues is healthy and a good path to follow, and I must also remain conscious about how it changes little about my humanity.
I hope I haven't misunderstood what you meant by this because I get the creeping feeling that I have.

 

[aeon]

My question is, do you have any political beliefs that you are both very firm in, but also acknowledge that there is room for disagreement? What are they?

Yes, every last one.

If you believe in something firmly but do not have an inviolable moral principle at the root of it, what makes you so sure that you have the right answer?

I’m not sure about anything, and my interest in being right always answers to being shown how wrong I am. I have nothing to defend, and when I defend an ignorance, let it be slain such that I can endeavor to know.

But I have an inviolable moral principle that informs everything. It is the only one I know. I do not dare to entertain others as any kind of knowing.

Omnia Vincit Amor

Best to You,
Ian

 

[slant]

In my lifetime, in my cultural environs, I have seen certain political issues shift from "negotiable" to "nonnegotiable." I guess the most famous example is gay marriage. This used to be something high schoolers could pick sides on in debate club; now, the very idea of being opposed to gay rights is appalling. Gay marriage is not an issue that reasonable people will disagree about, because we have come to recognize as a society that being gay is just not wrong in any objective sense.

Of course, many people work very hard to couch all of their political beliefs in this kind of absolutist language. "If you oppose free school lunches, it's because you're racist" and stuff. Indeed, this is a very tempting rhetorical move. If you admit that reasonable people may disagree about your political beliefs, then you are essentially admitting that your favoring one side is just a matter of preference, not something grounded in firm and eternal principles like justice and fairness. By asserting that your view is the only reasonable view, you excuse yourself from having to defend it in the first place.

There are hidden dangers in chaining too many of your beliefs to universal moral axioms. For one thing, you have to keep your axioms straight: It is easy for a critic to come along and use your own principles against you, or show that your axioms, taken to a logical extreme, would produce some horrible injustice. For another, if you spend too much time grabbing onto beliefs based on their proximity to your basic moral axioms, you might start to get sloppy, and forget how the actual derivation of the belief follows from the principles. In other words, you have beliefs that are ostensibly grounded in basic principles, but in actuality, the basic principles are merely phantoms and your so-called beliefs are actually just strident guesses.

My question is, do you have any political beliefs that you are both very firm in, but also acknowledge that there is room for disagreement? What are they? If you believe in something firmly but do not have an inviolable moral principle at the root of it, what makes you so sure that you have the right answer?

This is very relatable to me, as I feel that there is an influx of people responding to politics or opinions as moral judgements on others rather than being able to separate an idea from who a person is. To me this is necessary because the ideas we believe in change over time, so if you are only your ideas, that would be to say that you are constantly changing whether you are a moral "good" person to whatever group happens to disagree with you.

I suspect it has something to do with different parts of the brain developing as we age, basically, maturity. I see this thinking more in younger folks and it can start to peter out when people hit their 30s. It's that observation that people "mellow out" as they age..I honestly think it is having a better grasp on emotional regulation and cognitive functioning.

The #1 fueling absolutist views no matter what "side" they are on is emotions. By no means am I saying that our emotions shouldn't influence our politics- they always will, as do our history and personal experience of the world.

But I do think we need to be able to create space between our feelings and the way that we approach decisions, including what ideas we decide to believe in.

There's this book I love, "heartwounds" that explains to me what is going on so clearly. Essentially the idea is that we all go though traumatic things in our life that we carry with us and sometimes something that somebody says or does will not only hurt us in that moment, but it hurts *because* of all of the times in the past that we were wounded in that way and we in a sense can overreact. Instead of objectively looking at the situation we compound all of the pain and suffering of our past and incorporate it into the current conflict that often times has nothing to do with those past hurts.

Unless we can gain awareness of these "triggers" or maybe you could say "pain points" that we have, we will forever be subconsciously controlled by them. Even when we gain awareness we cannot fully remove ourselves from these biases, nor is that necessary. The beauty of the human experience is that we each have a unique point of view based on our life events and we can share that with each other and learn from each other. What we have been through will always factor into what we believe, but we can become consumed in it if we don't actively seek to understand our own blind spots.

There is a move "gone baby gone" that I like to illustrate the point that life is only based on what we value and what perspective we see the world from. Therefore, there are hard decisions we all have to make where the outcome is terrible no matter what but what we choose directly depends on what we are valuing more- that's it. I won't spoil the movie because I recommend you all watch it, but at the end the main character is faced with a dilemma: either he can break the law for something he's being told will have a better outcome, or he can follow the law with something that might have a worse outcome. If you look at the YouTube comments on this final scene, people are split on what decision they agree with and it's based on what they value. Some people, like me, see both sides and I actually switched who I sided with over the years.

In general I have a hard time "picking a side" on politics and recently lost a friendship due to political differences. I remember her telling me specifically that she hated "moderates" because they won't make up their mind. That was particularly hurtful because although I understand decisions ultimately have to be made I feel like there is value in having a less strong opinion on things and being open to new information. It just goes to show how differently we can operate.

 

[Sidis Coruscatis]

What if my virtue is being mayor of ClownTown™

Then you better know how to clown judiciously.

I hope I haven't misunderstood what you meant by this because I get the creeping feeling that I have.

I'm not thinking of this in terms of self-identification with good. I just know there are good ways to act and those are salutary, especially with regards to current problems. No amount of moral subjectivism and ambiguity will change that. Whether that makes me good as some form of status in a moral doctrine is completely beside the point as far as I'm concerned.

 

[aeon]

I will always be a sinner.

Think what you like, but I don’t believe that, about you, or anyone else.

When a person renounces Love, they sin. A choice, and an action.

But a person, a sinner, intrinsic to their being, forever and always? Not what they do, but who and what they are?

No, I don’t believe, think, or feel that. Even allowing for that which makes us human.

So think that if it is your truth, but know that if I were there I would hold up a mirror, and for a second you would be blinded by how absolutely luminous you are.

Blesséd Be,
Ian

 

[aeon]

There's this book I love, "heartwounds" that explains to me what is going on so clearly. Essentially the idea is that we all go though traumatic things in our life that we carry with us and sometimes something that somebody says or does will not only hurt us in that moment, but it hurts *because* of all of the times in the past that we were wounded in that way and we in a sense can overreact. Instead of objectively looking at the situation we compound all of the pain and suffering of our past and incorporate it into the current conflict that often times has nothing to do with those past hurts.

Unless we can gain awareness of these "triggers" or maybe you could say "pain points" that we have, we will forever be subconsciously controlled by them. Even when we gain awareness we cannot fully remove ourselves from these biases, nor is that necessary. The beauty of the human experience is that we each have a unique point of view based on our life events and we can share that with each other and learn from each other. What we have been through will always factor into what we believe, but we can become consumed in it if we don't actively seek to understand our own blind spots.

I wonder who would offer argument against this idea. I mean, is this not a good and simple encapsulation of “the human condition?”

Cheers,
Ian

 

[aeon]

I don't see anything reasonable about bastardization of a sacred institution in the name of inclusivity; a word that increasingly makes me cringe.

Back before the herd shifted, I was vocal about my lack of support for gay marriage, or any other kind of marriage if the State was going to be involved.

Let the Church have Marriage, and let them do with it what they will. The State should have no business with it.

Let the State issue Civil Unions, and have them be the basis of legal, and commonplace day-to-day, recognition.

And yes, I’m an idealist, I know that, and I know it would not have worked, not here (’murica), anyway.

-------

Some opposed gay marriage on the basis of faith. I don’t have a problem with that position.

Some opposed gay marriage because it would lessen and weaken the meaning of the word. But not in the sense of the faith-based meaning. Instead, their wish was to preserve a power dynamic and cultural legacy that says women are property, and marriage is the sole institution where property rights are both transferable and rightfully recognized as lawful. To alter the cultural definitions that serve to preserve the inequities of that institution could result in people asking uncomfortable questions of the hegemony, or going fully off the rails and doing something outrageous, like recognizing women as actual people, in possession of reason, agency, and autonomy. Start doing that and women might forget their place and the assigned reason they are here. Each might shrug off their yoke of responsibility and the expectation of their unpaid labor. Those women might begin to live their own lives, by themselves, for themselves, and by standards of their own choosing.

Those poisoned by misogyny and fully enmeshed within the functional patriarchy wanted none of those things. Both because they already regarded women as less than, as well as the fact human beings so rarely relinquish positions of power on a voluntary basis. Especially when that position of power comes with culturally-validated and promised expectation of rewards.

Yeah, arriving at such a position on gay marriage because of that sort of thinking and values? I didn’t like that, not at all.

Change is slow, and oscillates. At any given point, things seem perilous, but that’s the passion of cultural change—the want to preserve the traditional mistakes of the past versus risking making new mistakes in the progressive effort to correct past mistakes.

Well, I tend toward risking making new mistakes in the effort to correct those mistakes of the past. So bring on gay marriage, I said. Some people told me it was an erosion of culture. I agreed with them, and such was my mirth that I donned my jester costume, and became a Chaos Agent, mocking those fear-mongers who warned of a nation lost to unnatural acts, and that any sex outside of their churches’ sanction was immoral.

No, I said. Be like Bonobo monkeys I said. And then it was done and over, and the law had changed, and more than a few minds, but the most essential things had not.

Cheers,
Ian

 

[AureaMediocritas]

In my lifetime, in my cultural environs, I have seen certain political issues shift from "negotiable" to "nonnegotiable." I guess the most famous example is gay marriage. This used to be something high schoolers could pick sides on in debate club; now, the very idea of being opposed to gay rights is appalling. Gay marriage is not an issue that reasonable people will disagree about, because we have come to recognize as a society that being gay is just not wrong in any objective sense.

Of course, many people work very hard to couch all of their political beliefs in this kind of absolutist language. "If you oppose free school lunches, it's because you're racist" and stuff. Indeed, this is a very tempting rhetorical move. If you admit that reasonable people may disagree about your political beliefs, then you are essentially admitting that your favoring one side is just a matter of preference, not something grounded in firm and eternal principles like justice and fairness. By asserting that your view is the only reasonable view, you excuse yourself from having to defend it in the first place.

There are hidden dangers in chaining too many of your beliefs to universal moral axioms. For one thing, you have to keep your axioms straight: It is easy for a critic to come along and use your own principles against you, or show that your axioms, taken to a logical extreme, would produce some horrible injustice. For another, if you spend too much time grabbing onto beliefs based on their proximity to your basic moral axioms, you might start to get sloppy, and forget how the actual derivation of the belief follows from the principles. In other words, you have beliefs that are ostensibly grounded in basic principles, but in actuality, the basic principles are merely phantoms and your so-called beliefs are actually just strident guesses.

My question is, do you have any political beliefs that you are both very firm in, but also acknowledge that there is room for disagreement? What are they? If you believe in something firmly but do not have an inviolable moral principle at the root of it, what makes you so sure that you have the right answer?

I am woefully new at this site, but I'll attempt an answer since this is interesting. Hopefully, I did this right.

I have moral principles which are delineated between principles I hold myself to and none other to such a stringent standard, and principles which I consider universal axioms that I hold everyone to but less severely. Only I can know my reasoning through the lens of my own experience and moral reference points, so I find it odd to hold others to a comparable standard, otherwise lacking absolute certainty on the aforementioned point. My policy is to be harsh with myself, and lenient with others.

The law which guides my inner compass tends to be discerning whether whatever I believe is the best possible outcome for the most affected. I don't care to align myself with ideologies that only serve the good of a select few (even myself) at the cost of the whole, no matter how enticing they may appear. In general, my desire is for everyone to get along and let people be as they are as long as they aren't forcing their ideologies onto others harmfully or unnecessarily. Unfortunately, this is an idealized viewpoint in a world full of truculent people who can hardly concede to any point, if it doesn't benefit them directly. Hopefully, that isn't too harsh.

Suffice it to say, I am never certain of anything, except more and more that nothing we once thought certain stays certain for long.

 

[John K]

I agree. In fact, my question was motivated by thinking about what defines politics as opposed to law or government or psychology. A tentative answer I came up with was, "Politics is the set of issues that reasonable people are allowed to disagree about."

The problem with this definition is that it is somewhat circular: As I argued in the OP, there is broad disagreement when it comes to which issues are a valid subject of political debate or not. If you believe, as most do, that divorce is a human right, then a religious conservative who comes along is only "right" in a religious—and therefore not political—sense.

My thinking is sort of similar, but maybe rooted in pragmatic reality. Most problems of human societies have no logically correct self evident solution - yet not choosing a way forward and ignoring the choices is usually either not possible or leads to worse outcomes than any of the choices. For me, Politics is the art of decision making in these circumstances and it will be biased by the value sets of those who have the power to make and enforce such decisions.

 

[John K]

Just picking up some of the other themes of the thread, I think we should be very careful about projecting our own ideas of what is right and wrong onto other people. What goes for us isn’t necessarily true for them too.

Let’s take abortion as an example. For the many of us who believe human life begins at conception, abortion is no different to infanticide. For people who think human life begins well beyond that, it’s not a moral evil at all and is a necessary freedom for women. What’s wrong for me is not wrong for them and we need to tolerate each other’s differences in a diverse community.

It isn’t as simple as this though is it? If I believe that all races are human but someone believes only Arian races are fully human do I tolerate this difference too? If not, why is it different in principle other than that there is a wider consensus against it and that it’s consequences are more readily visible?

These are intractable problems which folks gloss over and pretend are straightforward and obvious but they aren’t. Simply yelling conflicting value statements at each other won’t resolve the issues.

 

[uuu]

Warning, boring mental gymnastics-type stuff for the first part of this post.

I have things that I feel aligned with and are stable enough to stand on, but not anything I could or would want to argue is absolutely right.

I’m not sure about anything, and my interest in being right always answers to being shown how wrong I am. I have nothing to defend, and when I defend an ignorance, let it be slain such that I can endeavor to know.

OK, I guess we just mean different things by the word "firm" then. My sense of meaning was, if you are firm in your belief about something, then you cannot imagine changing your mind about it.

For intellectual types like you (and me), the idea of saying "I will never change my mind about" might seem childish, but if there is a direct line between one of your inviolable moral principles, say

Omnia Vincit Amor

(you're such a dork, btw)

and one of your political beliefs, say, that children should have free lunch in school (never mind if you agree with this particular view), then it would be hard to envision changing that political belief, right? Because it is so enmeshed with your inviolable moral principle.

But what I am asking about is the case where we don't have the moral axiom to back up the view. I simply believe that giving students free lunch in school is the right thing to do, and it is unimportant to me whether the goodness of this policy flows from its ability to counter systemic racism or social inequality: I simply believe that free lunch is a good policy.

Moreover, I don't hold free lunch up as some kind of moral axiom unto itself. I think that reasonable people may disagree with me.

But it is difficult for me to imagine changing my view on this issue. I have heard the counterarguments and I think they suck.

So, is it intellectually lazy of me to claim to be firm in my pro-free-lunch views, but not to have a moral derivation of this view at the ready? Am I required to either produce such a derivation, or admit that my mind may change?

End mental gymnastics.

I suspect it has something to do with different parts of the brain developing as we age, basically, maturity. I see this thinking more in younger folks and it can start to peter out when people hit their 30s. It's that observation that people "mellow out" as they age..I honestly think it is having a better grasp on emotional regulation and cognitive functioning.

I'm not at that magic number yet, but I can sense that I have mellowed out a bit over the course of my short life, and I look forward to the trend continuing. However, I also have become more interested in being internally consistent in terms of my political and moral beliefs, and this works against the mellowing out. Take an issue like abortion, for instance, since that can of worms is already open in this thread—I don't know whether or not a fetus is alive, but it seems incredibly urgent to figure that out, because if the answer is yes, then abortion is an unadulterated evil, and if the answer is no, then the failure to provide affordable abortions to women who want them is an obvious vector of sexist oppression.

The #1 fueling absolutist views no matter what "side" they are on is emotions. By no means am I saying that our emotions shouldn't influence our politics- they always will, as do our history and personal experience of the world.

I'm not sure I agree with you here. I think that absolutists often are driven to their views by a desire to be morally consistent and intellectually rigorous, and to them, it is the centrists who look emotional and wishy-washy. Again, consider abortion: hardcore abortion activists say it's all about women's rights (that's not an emotion), and hardcore pro-life people say it's all about babies' rights (again, not an emotion).

On the other hand, the moderates who want to allow access to early/mid-term abortions often arrive at their views by taking the average of various conflicting strains of empathy: "The idea of having an unwanted pregnancy is so terrifying... Imagine being responsible for a life that you never consented to create... " and so on. You know, emotional stuff.

Perhaps these were cherry-picked ideas, but I hope my broader point is clear, namely that emotions do not necessarily influence our politics in a way that drives us to extreme views.

There's this book I love, "heartwounds"

This has been recommended to me before, I better add it to my list.

In general I have a hard time "picking a side" on politics and recently lost a friendship due to political differences. I remember her telling me specifically that she hated "moderates" because they won't make up their mind. That was particularly hurtful because although I understand decisions ultimately have to be made I feel like there is value in having a less strong opinion on things and being open to new information. It just goes to show how differently we can operate.

I agree that there is value in an open mind, all the more so because we often don't have all the information we need in order to arrive at the correct view. But there are some issues, like (again) abortion, where we are so saturated in media coverage and information that it seems baffling not to have a strong opinion. I mean, what novel piece of information can you imagine receiving that would sway you one way or another.

(The bafflement expressed in the previous paragraph is directed more toward myself than you. I am frustrated often by my inability to discern which side is correct, even given an abundance of information.)

 

[uuu]

I am woefully new at this site, but I'll attempt an answer since this is interesting. Hopefully, I did this right.

You did it right! Welcome.

I have moral principles which are delineated between principles I hold myself to and none other to such a stringent standard, and principles which I consider universal axioms that I hold everyone to but less severely. Only I can know my reasoning through the lens of my own experience and moral reference points, so I find it odd to hold others to a comparable standard, otherwise lacking absolute certainty on the aforementioned point. My policy is to be harsh with myself, and lenient with others.

I strive for the same.

The law which guides my inner compass tends to be discerning whether whatever I believe is the best possible outcome for the most affected. I don't care to align myself with ideologies that only serve the good of a select few (even myself) at the cost of the whole, no matter how enticing they may appear. In general, my desire is for everyone to get along and let people be as they are as long as they aren't forcing their ideologies onto others harmfully or unnecessarily. Unfortunately, this is an idealized viewpoint in a world full of truculent people who can hardly concede to any point, if it doesn't benefit them directly. Hopefully, that isn't too harsh.

Suffice it to say, I am never certain of anything, except more and more that nothing we once thought certain stays certain for long.

I don't have much to say because I simply agree with you, haha.

These are intractable problems which folks gloss over and pretend are straightforward and obvious but they aren’t. Simply yelling conflicting value statements at each other won’t resolve the issues.

Good point—introduce yet another element of this topic, which I neglected to mention in the OP, but is the ever-important question of which style of argument will actually win people over to your side.

Whether you believe in free lunch because of systemic racism, or believe in free lunch because you read a scientific paper about it, if you truly think that free lunch is the right answer for society, then you should be willing to do what it takes in order to get others to adopt your view too and hopefully enact the policy into law. And if the thing that wins people over is the strong statement that "Non-free lunch is tantamount to slavery" then, hey, maybe the ends justify the means?

 

[John K]

Whether you believe in free lunch because of systemic racism, or believe in free lunch because you read a scientific paper about it, if you truly think that free lunch is the right answer for society, then you should be willing to do what it takes in order to get others to adopt your view too and hopefully enact the policy into law. And if the thing that wins people over is the strong statement that "Non-free lunch is tantamount to slavery" then, hey, maybe the ends justify the means?

There’s an interesting political issue here of course because lunch can never be really free and has to be paid for - the issue is not whether it’s free or not but who pays and where does the money come from.

I suppose that if the lunch was prepared by a farmer who had produced the food on their own farm than it would be sort of free, but it would still cost them in labour and raw materials. Always there will be someone who has to pay in some way.

 

[AureaMediocritas]

I have to agree with what a few have said here. Some political beliefs simply exist on a spectrum that shifts depending on circumstance, an individual's personal experience with issues surrounding that tenet, and information learned.

For instance, abortion has a lot of gray area. One could argue from a basis of ignorance, but they really shouldn't be voicing their opinions without their due diligence in the first place (though too many do anyway). A problem occurs when people want policies based on their presupposed and misappropriation of virtues, and the confusion abounds (ie: failing to differentiate a myth like "free choice" with a very real consequence of ending a life prematurely, or failing to differentiate between the rights between an embryo or a fully formed and viable child). We have enough scientific evidence to know exactly when an embryo changes into a fetile form resembling a baby with limbs, tissue, and organs. Further, identifying the point in which they can experience physical pain in the womb, have dreams, feel fear, etc. There is a clear line scientifically with consideration to viability, and additionally an ethical line which is clear from a preservation of children's rights standpoint. However, these lines shift when you conflate the various virtues associated with the scientific evidence, which is why the gray area exists.

There is a reason we should have both the scientific evidence and the virtue of preservation of life to guide this policy and make room for gray area. This is common sense, which is the balanced consideration of reality and ideal, but too many people find an extreme hill to die on. Without the science then there is no separation, and thus, zero criterion by which we can preserve the virtue. Without the virtue, then there is reckless abandon with undue harm and consequences of constantly taking viable human life past an ethical point without scientific standing to substantiate such a choice. The latter, I think is often not thought about enough.

You can create policies and hold belief that creates a middle ground that upholds the virtues of the majority, and reveres the science. It's not wrong to say, as an example, "I am pro-choice, until X term in the pregnancy (substantiated by the science)". It just takes critical thought, an honest look at what the consequences are, and a risk analysis of how far you're willing to push to affect the changes necessary and educate the public.



Ultrauber, thank you for the welcome and the reply.

 

[AureaMediocritas]

There’s an interesting political issue here of course because lunch can never be really free and has to be paid for - the issue is not whether it’s free or not but who pays and where does the money come from.

I suppose that if the lunch was prepared by a farmer who had produced the food on their own farm than it would be sort of free, but it would still cost them in labour and raw materials. Always there will be someone who has to pay in some way.

I appreciate your take on this, and share it. This is a point no one ever considers in the free education debates, either.

Further, the misnomer of "free" anything. Take "free choice/will", as another example. What is it free of? Free of expectations, consequences, responsibilities to self and others, cost/risk to someone else or something else? No. We aren't truly free, without the potential of infringing on other's assumed free will, or incurring consequences (seen/unseen) of every choice that we make. Further, no one is free from the binding laws which govern our natural state; for we cannot escape such things no matter the will.

 

[slant]

@ultrauber

We definitely do differ there in how we view things. I think the idea that you can have objective/non emotional based morals and principles is an illusion. The more "extreme" a perspective the less willing a person is to look at a different perspective, convinced they are right.... And it is entrenched in emotion. Emotion won't be convinced by compelling arguments. Even moderates can be influenced by emotion - we all are. I'm not sure I really understand your abortion example because I don't perceive that as the moderate position? My position would be, "it's complicated, I can see why some people want it legal and others don't" so my position would actually be just to not make a decision on either position because neither of them seem particularly clear or convincingly right. So maybe I'm perceiving moderate positions differently, too.

 

[dZpADTLrPmX4c]

I agree with @slant regarding emotions. Absolutists, in my experience, can rarely regulate their emotional responses to something and it tends to frame everything in simpler perspectives - like mentally regressing, momentarily, to an earlier frame of mind. They may not display emotion or be consciously aware of it, and that runs a risk of me ascribing an attribute to somebody despite their assertions that they don't have.
Typically my test for this is plotting their behavior against two models: who they say they are and what their behavior says they are, and comparing the two.
Somebody can be intellectually rigorous and still be operating in the grip of overzealous feelings. It might even make things simpler.

There's nothing really wrong (to me) with having emotions influence our decisions because that's what they're reason for being often is. It's more about handling them maturely and in a balanced way.

hihi @AureaMediocritas it's lovely meeting you. Is your name latin for 'Golden Mean'?
in any case I hope you enjoy your time here.

For the many of us who believe human life begins at conception, abortion is no different to infanticide.

This is something I'm curious about. I don't know if this is your personal stance so I'll put this out for anybody who relates with it: if you imagine an embryo aborted by medical intervention, and then again imagine a postpartum infant similarly 'aborted'. what are your thoughts & feelings between the two?
Are they identical?

 

[AureaMediocritas]

Winterflowers,

Hi! It is a pleasure meeting you also. Not to derail the conversation, but what led you to your username? Yes, mine effectively translates to Golden Mean; keen observation. I just joined, but am clicking on particular conversations of interest as they are highlighted. It seems like a nice site. Thank you for saying hello.

 

[Sidis Coruscatis]

Some opposed gay marriage because it would lessen and weaken the meaning of the word. But not in the sense of the faith-based meaning. Instead, their wish was to preserve a power dynamic and cultural legacy that says women are property, and marriage is the sole institution where property rights are both transferable and rightfully recognized as lawful. To alter the cultural definitions that serve to preserve the inequities of that institution could result in people asking uncomfortable questions of the hegemony, or going fully off the rails and doing something outrageous, like recognizing women as actual people, in possession of reason, agency, and autonomy. Start doing that and women might forget their place and the assigned reason they are here. Each might shrug off their yoke of responsibility and the expectation of their unpaid labor. Those women might begin to live their own lives, by themselves, for themselves, and by standards of their own choosing.

Well, that's the feminist story which doesn't strike me as sober representation of affairs. It's muddled with the fallacy of moral progress and the idea of equality meaning that women should act like men, which is not justifiable from an evolutionary standpoint. It's not like these roles have been arbitrarily decided by some cabal of men who just wanted to rule everything forever; it's the necessary consequence of masculine energy manifesting into political systems.

I don't understand, for example, why is it considered empowerment when women work for a corporate boss, but oppression and injustice when they work for their families. It seems much more influential, therefore powerful, to be able to raise and shape a child who will then go on to do the same outside of the family. The whole idea of empowerment really just seems like enfeeblement in most cases, in that it's trying to maximize what you're allowed to do while minimizing having to deal with the uncomfortable consequences of doing it. So then we went on to have a sexual revolution, and what of it? All we got is hookup culture, chronic loneliness, awkward consent soliciting and AIDS after we learned that there is no such thing as free sex—and men have suffered just as much from this. Not to mention the aberration of open relationship, or God forbid, open marriage, which is entirely predicated on the idea that it's okay when you can't satisfy your wife's emotional or sexual needs; no, it's actually a moral virtue that you are allowing her the freedom to cheat as you try to appear nonchalant while getting cucked. And it happens the other way around too obviously.

We can say that any relationship where the wife is actually being denied any agency in running a family or abused is wrong, and it's also wrong in violation of the ideal of marriage. Similarly we can say that arranged or forced marriage is a bad idea, for it undermines the opportunity to form a truly loving bond on optimal grounds. But marriage itself has always been the ultimate ideal of harmonious cooperation between men and women as lovers—a hierophany, if you will. And I don't accept that some men who have failed to secure that harmony should be used as an excuse to dilute that specific meaning.

 

[dZpADTLrPmX4c]

Winterflowers,

Hi! It is a pleasure meeting you also. Not to derail the conversation, but what led you to your username? Yes, mine effectively translates to Golden Mean; keen observation. I just joined, but am clicking on particular conversations of interest as they are highlighted. It seems like a nice site. Thank you for saying hello.

Oh totally you're welcome.
I like winter and I like flowers. It could also be seen as 'something that thrives in adverse conditions', though that may be a stretch.

@Sidis Coruscatis
While I disagree it's good hearing your perspective about it.