What, and with which, and to whom, part 1

This week, I'm going to tackle the first half of an article that a friend of mine posted to Facebook quite some time ago. The article recaps ten arguments against gay marriage, and my intention is to deal with the first five in this installment, and then come back to the next five some time soon (i.e.: next week, if all goes according to plan). So, here goes.

#1: The first argument is that though marriage has evolved through time, all over the world it has been recognized as a union between one man and one woman for the purpose of raising children, which is the fundamental essence of marriage. The author claims that though it could change again, that is no reason to assume that it should.

The structure of this argument is as follows: marriage has been one way forever; therefore, it ought to remain that way. This is a fallacious argument. Nothing says that things ought to remain the way that they always have been. Adopting the same argument structure, I could conclude that there ought to be massive wealth disparities forever because there always have been up to now. So there's clearly a problem with this argument structure.

Secondly, there is a problem with the claim that marriage all over the world has recognized the fundamental essence of one man and one woman for the purpose of raising children. There are polygamous societies, which clearly don't fit that mold. There are also societies where children are raised by the community rather than by the immediate family alone (and in fact, our own society might learn a thing or two from that). Clearly, there are societies in which marriage has not been between one man and one woman, and where child rearing and marriage come apart.

It is false to claim that marriage has universally embraced this essence. And even if that were the case, that fact alone would not justify the claim that it ought not to change.

#2: Those supporting gay marriage claim that to exclude homosexual relationships from the recognition of marriage is unfair, that it treats people unequally. In response, the author argues that equality means treating similar things in a similar fashion, not treating different things equally. Any unmarried man is allowed to marry any unmarried woman, so we all have equal rights! Why are same-sex couples different? Because they cannot produce children, nor can they "ensure a child’s basic right to be raised by his mother and father" (which I'm not sure is a basic right, as the author presumes but does not justify). The author then concludes with the point that there are many benefits that come with marriage, and to allow homosexual couples access to these benefits would be an unfair favoring of homosexual over heterosexual relationships. That last point is entirely unclear to me, and the author doesn't do nearly enough to justify his claim. If two people are married and upon the death of one, the other receives the remaining pension, what does it matter whether the two are of the same or of different genders? How would it be an unfair advantage to leave that parameter unspecified?

The author's point here again relies on accepting the definition of "one man and one woman for the purpose of child rearing" as the essence of marriage, which he failed to support in his first point. Even if that is a big part of marriage, it certainly is far from its only feature. Love figures prominently in marriage, one would hope, as does the social stability of having a partner on whom one can rely, a confidant, etc. These are all important features of marriage (and if you want to know why so many of those fail these days, perhaps its because a man and a woman making a baby isn't all there is to marriage, as this author tries to convince us), and they can be just as easily true of homosexual as of heterosexual relationships. (Here is an interesting article on the benefits of a strong marital bond; recognize that these benefits seem equally applicable to gay as to straight marriage.)

As for raising children, adoption is certainly a reality in our world, so there's no reason that a homosexual relationship couldn't involve children. The author makes some toss-away claim about the fundamental right to be raised by one's own parents, but that's nowhere written in stone, and in many cases children are raised by aunts and uncles, grandparents, close friends, etc. Do we refuse marriage in those instances? Furthermore, as technology advances, the possibility of making a child that is the biological offspring of two same-sex parents becomes more and more of a reality, sidestepping the issue of raising "someone else's child."

#3: The author then moves on to address the claim that anyone may marry whomever he or she loves. In fact, the author claims, the government doesn't support marriage for the sake of love, but rather for the sake of children, and once again, because homosexual couples cannot raise children (which I again must press the author to consider more closely), the government should not sanction such marriages.

What the author again overlooks is that firmly entrenched within our society is the notion of a long-term, romantic, sexual relationship with a single partner. That notion also embraces the raising of a family, but the child-rearing aspect is not the only salient feature! Much of our sense of self and sense of worth is based on our relationships, and to have one's (arguably) most important relationship not be deemed worthy of public/official recognition is extremely damaging.

Furthermore, the social benefits of a romantic partnership, as in the pension example I mentioned above, are certainly values that the government has an interest in endorsing. Social services these days are strongly overburdened because children are no longer looking after their aging parents as they once did. Imagine how much worse the situation would get if aging spouses didn't look after one another. Part of looking after one another means sharing social benefits such as insurance and pensions, which are often linked to marriage. The government therefore has an interest in supporting as many such successful partnerships as they can find!

#4: Some same-sex marriage advocates say that whether they are allowed to marry or not is irrelevant to heterosexual couples, to which the author replies that to expand the definition of marriage would weaken the institution itself. Marriage is already about as diluted as American beer, so any further weakening would just break the darn thing, as people wouldn't take it seriously anymore.

Secondly, the author draws on an example from Toronto where a couple's desires for their child's education were overruled in the name of an education about tolerance. Thirdly, he believes that it threatens religious freedom.

The second and third issues are ones that I gather probably pull more weight with Americans than they will up north. Canadians don't get scared as easily by the prospect of having their children learn things that they don't agree with. Learning doesn't mean accepting, as many a parent probably already knows, and therefore to have tolerance included in the curriculum doesn't necessarily bring about tolerance. (Too bad, I know.) Furthermore, the religious freedom issue is not a hot-button topic up here the way it is for them southern folk. We certainly take it seriously, but when discussing the legal, not religious, definition of marriage, I think that most Canadians don't take it to be an assault on Christian values.

The first point, about the broadened definition weakening the institution, is actually one that deserves further inspection. It's true that opening up membership to an exclusive club can make it lose its cachet. But how much would the scope be widened, and what would be the principle according to which some are allowed and others not? I'll explore this issue more in #5.

#5: The author claims that if we break from the "one man one woman, for the purpose of making babies" definition, then we lose traction on where to draw the line. It's a slippery slope argument, which the author claims is not merely hypothetical: in some places where same-sex marriage is allowed, polygamous groups have sued for recognition as well. "When sexual love replaces children as the primary purpose of marriage, restricting it to just two people no longer makes sense." (First off, I'd like to point out the little jab at "sexual love," which presumably is being derided by comparison to "real" love. My spidey sense just tingles at that one.)

Once again, the author is begging the question. He assumes that polygamous relationships are not acceptable without offering any proof. According to his definition of marriage, of course it's not. But it's specifically that definition that's at issue here! It appeals to people's gut reaction against polygamy to motivate the fear of the slippery slope. One could just as easily flip the argument on its head and ask what, if anything, is wrong with polygamy. The point here is not to begin with assumptions about which marriages are acceptable and which aren't, and on that basis to formulate rules to justify one's position. Rather, one is supposed to be inspecting one's notions of marriage itself, and that includes inspecting our intuitions: what do we think about polygamy? And are those intuitions justified? Perhaps the proper response here is not to say that allowing same-sex marriage would also allow polygamy, and that's not acceptable. Perhaps the proper response is to say that we should also be examining our intuitions, trying to figure out why it is that up to now, most of us have taken it for granted that polygamy is wrong.

If we are open to reflect on that issue (and I'm not saying here that we must or even necessarily should allow polygamy), then we realise that the author is just trying to scare us out of considering the issue of same-sex marriage. What we should be doing is reflecting on the basis of marriage, not being scared out of doing so. Getting back to point #4, the issue of diluting marriage cannot be properly assessed until we find a new equilibrium point: what would the new basis of marriage be? Until that question is answered, the issue of how much marriage is diluted by its redefinition cannot be addressed. The scope of marriage can be widened by just weakening the rules, and there dilution might become a reasonable concern. But the scope can also be widened by adopting a different set of rules, one that valorises parts of marriage that we've already discussed here (e.g.: social stability) and that need not entail a weakening of the institution.





Anyway, that's all for me for this week. Until next time. Looking forward to some nice, heated debate on these cold winter days... though there are no such things in southern Ontario, apparently.

PS: The title is a reference to an amazing limerick about a whore from Khartoum. Totally worth checking out.

Doing our part

            In her Christmas message, Queen Elizabeth spoke of the importance of service to others, of reaching out beyond our familiar relations and putting the common good before our own personal interests. Her discussion of duty arose in the context of the volunteers for the Olympic Games (oh, sorry, make that “London 2012”), the fire, police and hospital servicepeople, and the military folk, all of whom give up great swaths of their time in the name of something larger than themselves.

            Relating this issue to the story of Christmas, our monarch reminded us that Jesus was sent to earth to serve, not to be served; greater than to receive a gift is to give one. (For those wondering why the Queen of Canada would speak of Jesus, remember that she is the head of the Church of England.) She specifically cited the last few verses of the Christmas carol “In the Bleak Midwinter”: “What can I give him, poor as I am? If I were a shepherd, I would bring him a lamb. If I were a wise man, I would do my part. Yet what I can, I give: my heart.”

            The verse about wise men struck a particular chord with me. Where are our wise people; what are they doing; and how are they benefitting the community? They are supposed to be doing “their part,” but they seem so invisible, so what part is that? Over the past few weeks, I’ve been reading Roch Carrier’s Le Rocket, in which Carrier explains how Maurice Richard sparked a sense of hope in French Canadians, and how Quebec society began to change during his days with the Canadiens de Montréal. A fascinating aspect of that book is the occasional appearances of some important and impressive political figures: when recounting the strikes in mining towns in Quebec, the young Pierre Trudeau, then a journalist, arrives on the scene to document the events. Later, Trudeau founds Cité Libre, a political journal that was very critical of Dupplessis’ politics. That journal was co-founded with René Lévesques. And near the end, Carrier himself writes personally to the editor of Le Devoir: Pierre Laporte. Charles Taylor, Canada’s most famous philosopher, ran for federal office in 1965, and lost to Pierre Trudeau. These were all very well educated people.

            The wise men of the day contributed to public life all those decades ago. But where are they now? In what riding do I get to choose between intellectual titans, each of whom I would be thrilled to have represent me on Parliament Hill? Sadly, they are all too few, and more often than not we elect one candidate simply because the others are even worse. Political discourse is the same humdrum of empty promises. We’re all very concerned about how much F-35s will cost, but our politicians never seem to address the issue of whether a greater military strength is the direction we want to take as a country. Is that really the Canada we want to build for the future?

            The public sphere needs its intellectuals to take a more active role in contributing to our society, because public discourse about values and about direction for our society is pitifully superficial, when it takes place at all. That is not to say that we should turn over such discussions to the high-priced help, tossing the discussions to the intellectuals and butting out: what we need is inclusive public discourse that doesn’t fall back into obscure jargon and technical terms, which most people neither understand nor care about (and rightfully so).

            Our society invests in its intellectuals through the public funding of higher education, though there’s less and less of that funding with each day, as this province knows only too well after the events of this past year. We say a lot about what’s a fair share for students to pay to supplement the public investment in education, but when do we ever talk about what the society gets for the money it puts in? It’s important for intellectuals to offer a return on that investment. It’s a matter of duty.

Foxy news item

It's been far too long since I've updated my blog, and now that I've got a bit of a break from my semester's duties, I'm taking the opportunity to get back to it. Feels strange to be typing away here, like a once-familiar project from long ago that one no longer does completely comfortably. What better way to get back into the swing of things than by taking potshots at some low-hanging fruit: FoxNews? In their self-styled "Fair & Balanced" way, Fox published an article about a week ago about the gender wars, and specifically the war on men in contemporary society. (I'm sure that all of you out there are shocked to learn that Fox would publish anything so culturally conservative, but you'll just have to take my word on this one, and you can read the article if you really need proof that it's true.) The argument in that article is interesting, and I'd like to explore some of the issues that Suzanne Venker glosses over with her broad brush strokes. First what's her argument?

The piece was motivated by some new stats that suggest that the importance of marriage is growing among women while declining among men. Why is this a problem? Because women want to get married, but aren't finding mates that live up to their expectations. There's a "dearth of marriageable men." The culprit: feminism, naturally. For the first time in US history, women outnumber men in the workforce, and in the university classroom (though not in the boardroom, university or otherwise). Gender politics have been shaken up mightily by this shift in the balance of education and employment. And some men don't like it: "Women aren't women anymore," they proclaim.

Women carried out a sexual revolution (and continue to do so, I'll claim), whereas men had no need for such a thing, and have therefore remained mostly the same as they ever were. And men don't like the New Women that this revolution has produced. These women are angry and defensive, says Venger, and men find that unattractive. Men have been demonized as the hated oppressors, and feel that they've had enough of all that, tired of being constantly painted as the bad guy, as the enemy, as the culprit for any and all unpleasantness in gender politics. Men are not threatened by women, they're just pissed off and don't want to deal with it. They'd rather go it alone. Men want to love women, not compete with them. Their nature is to provide for their families, picking up the extra slack at the office while the wife stays home with the babies, and, well, the house. "It's in their DNA." And the modern role of women as educated, employed individuals threatens that conception, so naturally men resist this change that is against their nature.

Women had a reason to carry out their sexual revolution, says Venger. But now that we're in the post-sexual-revolutionary world, who's winning and who's losing from the equilibrium point at which we now find ourselves? Men have much more sexual access to women than e'er they did before, no longer needing to wait until marriage to bed their best gal. This also means that men have a much easier time walking away from a sticky situation if the contraceptive fails to counter the 'ception. Women are therefore at a greater risk of being left with children and no provider, forever striving to find some kind of balance in a life that presents them with a great number and variety of expectations on their time. Men need women for sex, and they're getting that. Women need men for protection and provision, and they're at risk of not getting that, or so the author wants to claim.

It's the sexual revolution, the change in women's temperament and in their outlook on life that has been the major cause of this situation, so if women are woe-ridden by this new reality, they need only fall back into the comfortable arms of their natural calling, and allow men to do happily do the same. So put down the briefcases, ladies, tidy away those diplomas, dust off the teddies and welcome your men home with open legs.

I must admit that coming from Fox, this kind of argumentation is hardly surprising. The picture that it paints is full of assumptions: essentially, Venger is claiming that men and women acted "according to their natures" up until about 40 years ago. Then women changed, but men didn't. And now there's a mismatch. Women stand to lose from this mismatch, whereas men don't. So if women want the situation to improve, they should feel empowered to go back to the way that things were, the natural way. She talks about the reemergence of "marriageable men," whereas one gets the distinct idea that men will actually just go on being exactly as they are (or as she claims them to be) and that women will see more men as marriageable by simply lowering the bar of expectations far enough.

So, the author assumes that men and women acted in a particular way before the sexual revolution, a way that was both static and natural. That seems a very far-fetched claim. Men and women interact in radically different ways across cultures, not to mention the fact that these dynamics between the sexes are in a perpetual state of flux. It is unwarranted to assume that "the way that men and women interacted before feminism" even refers to anything determinate. There was no such single, univocal way! It therefore could not be claimed that this univocal way was "natural." (Even if there had been such a univocal way, calling it natural would be extremely problematic. And DNA won't do the work that the author wants it to do here, because even third-rate biologists will tell you that genes are useless in the absence of environmental factors, and even a third-rate sociologist will tell you that the environmental features for humans are greatly constructed/constituted by social factors. We can't assume that DNA has a particular set of instructions that is insensitive to social factors.)

Gender politics are constantly in flux, and often favour the flexibility and freedom of men in the social realm, to the detriment of women. However, the feminist movement has made huge strides in improving that situation. Has parity been reached? No, but we're a heck of a lot closer, and the sexual revolution is not over: the dynamism of sexual politics persists.

One important reality that the author is pointing out in this article is that many men have been resistant to keep up with the times. Many men dig in their heels, and will only consider progress in sexual politics kicking and screaming, led reluctantly by the wrist, like a child (husband?) through a shopping mall. Venger claims that men have not really lost much, haven't been seriously threatened by the progress of women, and therefore can't be pressured into progress of their own. Threats aren't exactly my idea of a good motivator, though they can be effective. However, the author is wrong in claiming that men are not threatened by the sexual revolution: after all, if a central pillar of manhood is to get a job and contribute to the workforce, then they are being seriously threatened by women. The author herself claims that for the first time ever, women outnumber men in the US workforce. Sounds like a serious enough threat to me, if men are to define themselves by their jobs. Men aren't getting the jobs or the education that they used to. Having women in classrooms and shop floors means that there are fewer spots for men. (Though, of course, there are always an infinite number of jobs, right? I mean, that's why we don't need unions or any government control over market forces: there are always other options, and the market can regulate itself.) The classrooms and the shop floors are becoming more and more dominated by women, numerically speaking. The boardroom is resisting so far, but inroads are already being made there, and it's only a matter of time.

So why don't we give up this regressive rhetoric? Why not just admit that women have changed the world a lot in the last 40 years, and probably even for the better. (Men haven't played no role in that either, and I think it's important to point out that progressive men do exist, perhaps contrary to popular belief.) There's more work to be done moving forward, the dynamics of gender politics haven't been sorted out, probably not even close. But it's time for men to realize that things aren't going to, and shouldn't, go back to the way they were. And that means no longer whining that "women aren't women anymore." It means manning up and heeding the call of social progress.

Post-Philopolis ruminations, pt 2

Before jumping back into these ruminations, I just want to mention that we're looking for feedback on Philopolis Guelph 2012. So, if you attended the event a few weeks ago, please fill out this really short feedback form. We really appreciate it, and it makes a huge difference for us to have some insight into who's coming to the event, how they heard about it, and how we can make it even better.

Alright, back to the matters at hand. Last time, we were addressing the issue of what to do about things like the Danish cartoons of Muhammad and The Innocence of Muslims. What we were specifically interested in is whether we ought to allow these things, by law. In order to address that question, I was examining the role of free speech in a democratic society, its importance for rational and critical dialogue, and more specifically the joint responsibility of all parties in a dialogue to listen to the other parties without breaking off dialogue prematurely, as well as to make their point clearly without offending the other parties and thereby forcing them to break off the dialogue.

Another very good friend of mine talked about the role that power dynamics plays in this dialogue: it is one thing for a newspaper in the Islamic world to run blasphemous cartoons against  Christian laws, but quite another for a newspaper in the West to run analogous cartoons against Islamic laws. A dominant power can use free speech to sanction acts of oppression against a lesser power, whereas the converse is not the case.

Cultural critique is important; we really should be reflecting on our culture and the values that underpin it. It is also very important that we not segregate ourselves along cultural lines, and on that basis prohibit any cultural critique "from the outside." Critical reflection upon culture (including the historical narratives we construct for our cultures and ourselves) is fundamental, lest fundamentalism take hold unchecked. Freedom of speech is an important component of this: cultural critique sometimes needs to speak against the powers that be or the dominant ideology, and restrictions on free speech impede that. However, it seems to me that we can use the insights from my previous post to understand the need to restrict hate speech: as individuals participating in a common dialogue about our culture (which is all to uncommon in North America these days) we have a responsibility not to offend the sensibilities of our interlocutors to the breaking point, forcing them to abandon the dialogue.

This need to restrict hate speech is particularly acute for something like the Danish cartoons depicting Muhammad. As I discussed some months ago, these cartoons are a symbolic act of domination, as to depict God (or the Prophet) is to claim power over him, and thereby to claim the subservience of the entire culture that worships him. So the cultural critique that is being leveled here is boot-strapping: it is not a criticism of any particular facet of the culture, but instead a wholesale criticism. Furthermore, it is a criticism arising from without rather than from within. These cartoons symbolize the West's complete rejection of Islam.

Or at least they can symbolize this. Many in the West of course did not agree with the spirit expressed by these cartoons. But we must strive to make that clear. If the editor and cartoonists responsible for these cartoons are making a statement that we don't agree with, a deep-cutting and wholesale rejection of an entire religion that we feel is inappropriate, we cannot simply let their statement become a representative for the views of the West as a whole. One way to do that is to restrict free speech through legal means. If indeed we are committed to refraining from such legal limitations, that is acceptable. However, it puts the onus on us as individuals to dissociate our views from those that are being expressed.

There are important cultural criticisms to be made, both about other cultures and about our own. However, it strikes me as untrue that any culture is so distorted and warped that it is beyond repair, and these wholesale rejections suggest just such a thing to me: "Your culture is fatally damaged, and the situation can only be repaired by abandoning the culture, wiping the slate clean and starting again." It also strikes me as unfruitful to approach anyone with this sort of cultural critique. Who would listen to that sort of thing anyway?

Wholesale cultural rejection is unnecessary, it's unhelpful, and in the case of the criticism originating from a dominant power and being leveled against a lesser power, it is oppressive. Should we allow such criticisms under our laws of free speech? If we had a reasonable prospect of such critiques being widely disowned by members of the dominant culture, of these critiques not being allowed to speak for our culture as a whole, I'd say that we should allow them under the law. However, that would require a much more prevalent practice of cultural dialogue than is currently the case in North America, and so I feel that leaving these statements legally unchecked is dangerous. If freedom of speech is indeed so important to us, then we must make more of an effort to speak. To leave speech unchecked, either by legal means or by means of dissociation in the public sphere, leaves open the possibility that some would act as representatives of our culture as a whole, and do so irresponsibly.