Big Love, Reality Style
Jonah alerts me to this decadent news:
“They are very much a modern family. They are open-minded. They are generally adorable,” said Bill Hayes, president of North Carolina-based Figure 8 Films and co-executive producer of the show. “Their children were so well behaved and polite and healthy and happy,” he added. “Pardon the cliche, but the proof was in the pudding. I thought, ‘What a bunch of great young people, and there was nothing strange about them.’ They have an unusual lifestyle, but for them, it was their lifestyle.”
Please restrain me from asking whose lifestyle isn't theirs 'for them.' We make a mistake if we think of gay marriage simply as the pointy end of the wedge driving a full complement of Alternate Lifestyles into the heart of the culture. The slippery slope metaphor implies a single-lane ski jump. A better metaphor is a large scoop of ice cream on a tiny cone under a heat lamp. It melts in all directions. The troublesome principle is that however you live should be celebrated -- not just tolerated -- as long as you're "modern," "open-minded," and "adorable." That kind of love is way too big, isn't it?
Hunter Thompson understood: "Just how weird can you stand it, brother -- before your love will crack?"
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Aug '10
Re: Big Love, Reality Style
Polygamy is, of course, more widely-attested in human history than same-sex unions. But it's not great for promoting equality between men, the powerful men becoming even more powerful with their many wives, while ordinary Joes are left out in the cold, mateless and frustrated. Nor is serial polygamy (a.k.a. serial monogamy) all that great for women, who become infertile, hence less desirable, at a younger age than men do.
Some say monogamy benefits men while polygamy benefits women. George Bernard Shaw said it: “The maternal instinct leads a woman to prefer a tenth share in a first rate man to the exclusive possession of a third rate one.” Of course Shaw was enough of a crank that when he recommends something, maybe that's a good reason to stay away from it
As for me, I'm the jealous type, and couldn't stomach anything less than a whole share in my husband -- who is of course first-rate. Polygamy? Brrr...
May '10
Re: Big Love, Reality Style
Hmmm, perhaps soon we'll have a chance to explore "gay polygamy". I'm envisioning a charming new children's book, "I have six daddies". I'm sure everyone will be "generally adorable."
I just had an odd thought. Perhaps the US has been inventing a new kind of polygamous society for some years, since we have a growing population of men who father children with multiple women, but marry none of them.
Kids being resilient, many of them will turn out happy and healthy despite the lifestyles of their parents.
Jul '10
Re: Big Love, Reality Style
TLC is so obnoxious. Not because it's the 21st century equivalent of the old freakshows, though it is. What gets my goat is that I can only watch BBQ Pitmasters (http://tlc.discovery.com/videos/bbq-pitmasters/) on demand in the winter. That is just cruel.
Re: Big Love, Reality Style
G.A. Dean: I just had an odd thought. Perhaps the US has been inventing a new kind of polygamous society for some years, since we have a growing population of men who father children with multiple women, but marry none of them.
Kids being resilient, many of them will turn out happy and healthy despite the lifestyles of their parents. · Aug 10 at 4:29pm
I'd like to think so, G.A., but evidence seems ambiguous today about, by way of comparison, attitudes of children of divorce toward marriage. Do we have any good studies of attitudes of illegitimate children toward illegitimacy? (Would we want to pin our judgments about illegitimacy to a study like that anyway?)
Jul '10
Re: Big Love, Reality Style
I demand that everyone celebrate the part of my lifestyle that involves brandishing firearms while imbibing large amounts of adult beverages.
Jul '10
Re: Big Love, Reality Style
I, for one, am in favor of "weekends."
Re: Big Love, Reality Style
I remember reading Scalia's dissent in Lawrence v. Texas where he pointed out that the manner in which the court was ruling against sodomy laws would lead to the overturning of many other laws such as those governing incest, bigamy, etc. He referenced Hardwick.
From the last lines of the Supreme Court ruling on Bowers v. Hardwick:
I don't quite know what the modern argument against polygamy would be, should Walker's ruling be upheld, now that gender is no longer important to marriage, reproduction not even of passing concern, etc. By what right would society have anything to say about polygamy? That question, however, is much less interesting to me than the one where we ask what the effect of this will be on society.
There is the story about how a conservative approaches a fence he has never seen before and says, "I wonder why they put this fence there." A liberal approaches it and thinks "We must tear this down."
Jul '10
Re: Big Love, Reality Style
I'm not as troubled by this as I am by the idea of everyone "celebrating" their lifestyles. It's a bizarre concept to me. I have a fun job and obscure interests, but I don't celebrate that fact...and I certainly don't ask others to celebrate my lifestyle along with me. I just go about my business.
It's the same brainless principle behind modern art. By virtue of a painted pile of garbage being "unique" or different, I'm supposed to celebrate it. I The whole mindset strikes me as a bad case of narcissism.
May '10
Re: Big Love, Reality Style
James Poulos, Ed.
I'd like to think so, G.A., but evidence seems ambiguous today about, by way of comparison, attitudes of children of divorce toward marriage. Do we have any good studies of attitudes of illegitimate children toward illegitimacy? (Would we want to pin our judgments about illegitimacy to a study like that anyway?) · Aug 10 at 5:09pm
We can start with the lack of stigma about being called a "bastard". Used to be, that word could, all by itself, start one heck of a fight. Nowadays? Meh.
Re: Big Love, Reality Style
Byron Horatio: I have a fun job and obscure interests, but I don't celebrate that fact...and I certainly don't ask others to celebrate my lifestyle along with me. I just go about my business.
It's the same brainless principle behind modern art. By virtue of a painted pile of garbage being "unique" or different, I'm supposed to celebrate it. I The whole mindset strikes me as a bad case of narcissism. · Aug 10 at 7:02pm
It's all about what a culture finds interesting, Byron. Any sane observer of our culture, with any political disposition, has got to notice how over just the past ten years varieties of sex that aren't hetero have become almost the centerpiece of our sense of entertainment. You can like this or hate this or be vaguely disconcerted by it or you can simply say "meh" and mean it, but there it is. Ever since the Britney/Madonna kiss, pop culture has found gay to be supremely interesting. Those with an ear for these things now hear a drumbeat. But nothing is interesting enough alone these days. Polygamy, we 'suddenly' see, is so interesting too...!
May '10
Re: Big Love, Reality Style
Ah yes. The old "slippery slope" argument. So James, do I understand you right that without bans by the government on pernicious behavior, society will unravel and the Embassy Suites will be filled with men demanding their goat-brides equal place at the free omelet bar? That we are saved from such perdition solely by Federal tax policy? How can such supremely flawed, debauched creatures ever be trusted to make their own health care choices?
Re: Big Love, Reality Style
Au contraire, Trace! I'm arguing that the slippery slope argument doesn't grasp what's really going on -- which is an attempted root-level revision of our cultural first principles. Government in a free country can't do much to affect the kind of change in mores that leads lots and lots of people to assess behavior and relationships based on whether they're entertainingly adorbs or not. Obviously there are way richer and more nuanced arguments about why Americans should support gay marriage. What concerns me most is that the thin and banal aesthetic/entertainment argument will seize the upper hand -- not just on gay marriage but a whole other range of cultural and moral issues...