At CBS, Marriage is 'Unnatural'
This is one of the most depressing things I have seen in a while. My friend Paul Wilson from Media Research Center reports on this is as a growing trend in news coverage on this issue. CBS had a panel earlier tell their audience that marriage is basically obsolete. My favorite part is when Matt Titus says this:
''Think about it. Men are supposed to run around the forest and propagate the species and do it multiple times a day. Do you think that we're supposed to be with one person for the rest of our lives? It's unnatural, and if it was the case we probably would not be sitting here right now.''
Somebody please pull the irony alarm and evacuate the building before you laugh yourself to death. Whenever someone suggests that homosexuality is "unnatural"- a view which I don't necessarily endorse- the left cries foul at the intolerance of the right. Lots of other things are probably appropriate to the term "unnatural," a term these esteemed scholars don't seem to need to define. We could include television news in the unnatural category, but somehow I don't think the folks at CBS would care that much.
More disturbing is the use of the word "supposed" I've highlighted above. Don't you see? We don't need marriage because it's supposed to restrain us from doing something we're "supposed" to be doing. Obviously since we feel very strongly motivated to do something, presumably by our genetics, then that is what we're "supposed" to be doing. This would then mean that other "natural" behaviors- they must be natural because people are apparently strongly motivated to do them- should be condoned. This would include such niceties as child abuse, rape, and murder. All they have to do is read the Wikipedia article titled "appeal to nature" to see why this doesn't make sense.
As someone who hopes one day to be lucky enough to perpetuate this ancient institution, socially constructed or not, this whole segment makes me angry in ways I can't describe fully. This is one of those things that leads me to think my invitation to western civilization's funeral got lost in the mail.
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Dec '10
Re: At CBS, Marriage is 'Unnatural'
The problem here is the idiot idea that natural is good. In nature the young, the weak, the old and the sick are killed. Poison ivy is natural; do not rub it on your face. Toad stools are natural; don't eat them. The same goes for blow fish livers (unless prepared by a skilled chef) and South American tree frogs.
The whole point of child rearing is to make the child unnatural, meaning unselfish, considerate of others.
No, monogamy is not natural; it is good.
Re: At CBS, Marriage is 'Unnatural'
Did I hear "it takes a village" in there?
I always think of Liberal Fascism when I hear that.
Re: At CBS, Marriage is 'Unnatural'
Yuck. No wonder that bitter, disheveled man with the wrinkled blue shirt and sloppy tie can't get a date.
Most, though not all, people crave stability and community. Broken as they may be in 21st century Western civ, marriage and families help fulfill that most basic of human desires. If you look at the human species as just one of the animals, then I suppose marriage is not "natural." And while we're at it, neither are churches, charities, or governments. So down with them all...let us go run about the forest!
Dec '10
Re: At CBS, Marriage is 'Unnatural'
I heard Mona Cheran and Bill Bennett talking the other morning. They told a story of how Mona once corrected a man who said that marriage civilizes men (he was trying to make a case for for gay marriage.) She (rightly) retorted that it was women, rather than marriage, that civilize men. None of mankind's accomplishments would have been possible without the civilizing effects of women (through marriage) on men.
May '10
Re: At CBS, Marriage is 'Unnatural'
"Sexologist" and "relationship expert", eh? Dare I say it? These are a couple of ignorami.
Why don't we all just cast aside all restraint in the name of going "natural" then (those of us who are strong enough) can just take what we want when we want. Nasty brutish and short for thee but not for me.
How idiots like these get a hearing in the public square is beyond me.
Apr '11
Re: At CBS, Marriage is 'Unnatural'
Why do these so-called experts sound like a couple of juvenile pseudo-intellectuals aping their betters? Matt, if he wasn't so poorly dressed I would suspect of being gay, but then maybe that is his problem: gay marriage threatens his pool of potential partners which is probably small to begin with.
Its likely he thinks of himself as progressive while basing his opinions on pre-civilization human behavior.
Either the left is doomed in this country or the country is doomed.
Dec '10
Re: At CBS, Marriage is 'Unnatural'
"Sex expert" Dan Savage has said that monogamous marriage is an unnatural condition - and that the solution is dropping the monogamy requirement.
Savage’s suggestion was a novel one. Heterosexuals, he reckoned, should learn to behave more like homosexuals — and gay males in particular. What this means, in essence, is that they should re-examine their ideas about fidelity. Savage, who’s gay himself, insists he’s faithful to his partner, and vice versa. That said, his definition of fidelity is one that any thesaurus would struggle to accommodate.
“My partner’s fidelity to me is as important as anyone who’s in a monogamous relationship with someone else; we just don’t define sexual exclusivity as the be-all and end-all of commitment. In other words, we’re faithful to each other, but sometimes we have sex with other people.
“However, that in no way violates our commitment to each other.”
Remember that when someone tells you that gay marriage has nothing to do with redefining traditional marriage.
Edited on October 14, 2011 at 8:47pmJun '10
Re: At CBS, Marriage is 'Unnatural'
In the history of Man, there's nothing more natural than toothaches, parasites, and dysentery, but I don't want to go back to those either.
Jan '11
Re: At CBS, Marriage is 'Unnatural'
Hold on there, let's not overlook the obvious. If Matt Titus says to us: "Do you think that we're supposed to be with one person for the rest of our lives? It's unnatural, and if it was the case we probably would not be sitting here right now,'' we should allow that he knows more about his parents proclivities than outsiders do (well, at least those that haven't been, shall we say, "acquainted" with them).
Sure, flit around as nature requires us to do. Of course, there would be the inevitable problem of indicating parentage on a passport application.
Edited on October 14, 2011 at 9:24pmMar '11
Re: At CBS, Marriage is 'Unnatural'
Marriage is an institution of God. Monogamy is demanded by God. The argument of what is "natural" is nonsense, If I want to run around naked, copulating with every person who will agree or even disagree and I call it my "natural" yielding to desires that I have, is it acceptable? Any thinking individual can see that the ways which God declared are better than the alternatives; do not steal, kill etc. But our society struggles with no adultery, no homosexuality and such like, even though it is clearly better by all measures including sexual satisfaction and diminished disease.
Our problem is that Obama is correct, we live in a post-Christian nation, and the Judeo-Christian values which used to identify us have been shucked for the natural state of dare I say it; sin. Evil is the natural state of an unregenerated man, Entropy running out its natural and destructive course.
Re: At CBS, Marriage is 'Unnatural'
Foxman: The problem here is the idiot idea that natural is good. In nature the young, the weak, the old and the sick are killed. Poison ivy is natural; do not rub it on your face. Toad stools are natural; don't eat them. The same goes for blow fish livers (unless prepared by a skilled chef) and South American tree frogs.
The whole point of child rearing is to make the child unnatural, meaning unselfish, considerate of others.
No, monogamy is not natural; it is good. · Oct 13 at 9:39pm
A thousand thank yous for this. I have such a hard time translating when people try to sell me on something by arguing it's "natural." I have to remember -- again and again -- that they think that word speaks in favor of the thing.
Nov '10
Re: At CBS, Marriage is 'Unnatural'
This gets at a central point of my earlier post, Nietzsche on Love & Marriage, viz., my allusion to the problem of "nature drained of all meaning." For something to be “natural” -- in some moral sense -- doesn’t mean it has to be ubiquitous. "Ubiquitous" includes: a trait or inclination that may randomly occur (homo-eroticism). Something isn’t natural simply because it’s manifested in every instantiation of a thing or of a species. Something isn’t natural to human beings just because every human being has it or possibly has it.
Consider: It is natural for human beings to appreciate fine music (it “maps” onto the world, etc.). But few can appreciate it, and -- the deeper point -- only a tiny minority of human beings can actually make such music.
It is also natural for marriage to occur. Traditional marriage will endure -- despite its overall collapse in the Western world -- precisely because marriage is built around, and rooted in, the fundamental but complementary distinctions between men and women.
People saying marriage is unnatural are simply saying nature is not a term of distinction. You precisely then end up with Martha Nussbaums of the world saying incest is okay.
Jun '10
Re: At CBS, Marriage is 'Unnatural'
Mollie Hemingway, Ed.
Foxman: The problem here is the idiot idea that natural is good. In nature the young, the weak, the old and the sick are killed. Poison ivy is natural; do not rub it on your face. Toad stools are natural; don't eat them. The same goes for blow fish livers (unless prepared by a skilled chef) and South American tree frogs.
The whole point of child rearing is to make the child unnatural, meaning unselfish, considerate of others.
No, monogamy is not natural; it is good. · Oct 13 at 9:39pm
A thousand thank yous for this. I have such a hard time translating when people try to sell me on something by arguing it's "natural." I have to remember -- again and again -- that they think that word speaks in favor of the thing. · Oct 14 at 12:17pm
A few other "natural" things: volcanoes, tornadoes, microorganisms that kill people, and tsunamis. Some "unnatural" things: all gizmos invented/marketed by Steve Jobs, antibiotics, jet planes, pasteurized milk, bifocals (ask a 60 year old if they're important), books, Ricochet, the power of a free people to disagree with each other and not kill one another.
Jun '10
Re: At CBS, Marriage is 'Unnatural'
Double amen. Let's see what happens in China where there are six men for every five women. Anarchy, anyone.
Nov '10
Re: At CBS, Marriage is 'Unnatural'
Foxman:
No, monogamy is not natural; it is good.
Yes, monogamy is good, but it is good because it is natural to what human nature in fact is, or to what is best for human happiness. Moore's "naturalistic fallacy" is true (and it's certainly implicit in any argument I have with dingbat tree-huggers and Whole Foods types invoking the specter of "evil chemicals!" and pesticides, etc.) only when we're speaking of a purely materialistic notion of nature or positivism; with regard to the methodologies of science, that's all perfectly fine. But natural law morality is the only morality that makes any sense...
Dec '10
Re: At CBS, Marriage is 'Unnatural'
Some of the thoughts that went through my mind as I watched this:
1) You're kidding -- there really is such a thing as a "sexologist?"
2) "Men are expendable" -- How does this statement not earn the slightest reaction from anyone on the panel?
3) Lots of talk about how women no longer need men. No discussion about whether kids still need fathers.
4) "It takes a village" -- I actually think there is some validity to this; I just don't like the village those who toss the phrase around have in mind.
Oct '11
Re: At CBS, Marriage is 'Unnatural'
The left doesn't understand how important monogamous marriage is to egalitarianism. Studies have shown that more intelligent men have many, many more mates than the more dull among us. The disintegration of marriage would lead to the sexual disenfranchisement of minimum wage males as women flocked to live in billionaire harems. I guess once that happened they would need a government agency to ration sexual favors to the less fortunate.
Jun '10
Re: At CBS, Marriage is 'Unnatural'
How quaint and old-fashioned (and empirical). Probably the most solid proposition from the social sciences is that if you want kids to grow up strong and less prone to negative life consequences (school dropout, illegitimate child, trouble with the law), the single greatest thing that child needs is to grow up in an intact home being raised by, if possible, both biological parents.
"Do it for the kids" has fallen out of the social equation.
Aug '10
Re: At CBS, Marriage is 'Unnatural'
Rutting like animals may be a shrewd evolutionary strategy when the only issue is the propagation of the species. But if you want something that resembles civilization, a different set of behaviors pay off. The evolution of civilization is the long process of discovering what those behaviors are. As Rose Sayer put it in The African Queen, "Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put in this world to rise above."
Dec '10
Re: At CBS, Marriage is 'Unnatural'
Dandelions are prolific in their reproductive methodology, but they're no where near as beneficial as a carefully cultivated garden.