As my friend wrote in that same letter: "My oldest boy is so much like me it hurts. I have to survive to be there for him. My youngest -- my circus acrobat -- is much like his mother."
He is studying his children, as my wife and I studied ours. We didn't always act as they wanted us to, and sometimes we allowed our own feelings and weaknesses to interfere. But we all learned from each other and made a home for each other, as they are now making their own lives (even the teenager who is still at home).
We look at their lives now and the question of "success" or "failure" doesn't even make sense. That's an on-off switch that doesn't exist in the real world. We can succeed at everything that is within our power and still have negative outcomes; but then we deal with those outcomes as best we can; and every step of the way, we succeed as long as we care enough to do our best for our kids.
A while back I would have included this in a series about the power of religion. This is a completely secular idea, but unfortunately is left to religious people to make. Only the religious people seem to be even trying. And that is, as I always lament, the problem with the secular movement.
"How can one person’s marriage threaten another person’s? How is that even possible or plausible?"
ReplyDeleteAs Mike Barnicle asked when he was guest hosting Hardball, “I still don’t get it. How, you know, if the couple upstairs, Ray and Tommy – what do they have to do with my life downstairs?”
This elision is a common one in the popular debate, a shift from the macro to the micro.
Genderless marriage proponents often deploy the language of autonomous individuality. By that, I mean a discourse focused solely on individuals qua individuals, or couples qua couples, with no reference to their social context or to institutional realities.
An example of this is actually an effective political tactic deployed by genderless marriage proponents. The tactic is to ask, "How can letting me and my [same-sex] partner marry in any way hurt your marriage?" Or, "How is Jim and John marrying going to have any effect on yours and your husband's relationship."
By its very language, this question forces the issue into the micro framework, that is, it requires that the marriage issue be decided on the basis of benefits and harms to specific individuals or couples, as in "me and my partner" or "you and your husband." And by that same language, the question precludes consideration of the marriage issue in the macro framework, that is, the framework provided by social institutional studies. Moreover, it is precisely because of this "forcing" mechanism that the question is so often an effective political tactic.
After all, not many lay people are prepared to respond by saying, "Well, if Jim and John marry, that means that our society will have changed a core constitutive meaning of the vital social institution of marriage from the union of a man and a woman to the union of any two persons. With that radical change, the old institution will disappear and therefore, necessarily, its invaluable social goods will disappear. Those social goods have meant a great deal to my forebears and their society and to me and my society and I want my posterity to have those social goods down through their generations, because I don't think they can have a good society without them."
Most people stop reading Orson Scott Card at 13 or so. There's good reason for this. Have you read Ender's Game? That's one messed up book.
ReplyDeleteWow, Emma.
ReplyDeleteBitter?
Orson Scott Card is an amazing writer, but I've seen him give a talk in person and his political/religious ideas are WACKY. I forget the label he chose, but he literally believes that everything should be decided by popular vote. I wanted to walk out when he started to talk about what a shame it was that the California courts overturned the popular vote (pre-Prop 8), and of course, this was in Texas so most people cheered. It's hard to see a childhood hero of yours say things that are so very wrong, especially when you associate his very work with the reason you are agnostic/atheist. But I digress..
ReplyDelete"This is a completely secular idea, but unfortunately is left to religious people to make. Only the religious people seem to be even trying. And that is, as I always lament, the problem with the secular movement."
I too wish secular americans would have more visible presence in the marriage/family world, but the movement is still young. If you haven't heard of Dale McGowan, check him out ASAP. The book is Parenting Beyond Belief: On Raising Ethical, Caring Kids Without Religion.
It's not just the religious people who are trying, they just have a lot of control over the resources necessary to be heard.
I forget the label he chose, but he literally believes that everything should be decided by popular vote.
ReplyDeleteIts called direct democracy, and I remember it from Perot's campaign.
I wanted to walk out when he started to talk about what a shame it was that the California courts overturned the popular vote
Why is that?