More Marriage Advice from the Media
One of the most disturbing elements of the Weiner fallout for me has been the flood of editiorials amoralising and offering unsolicited marriage counseling—which largely consists of saying that failures in marriage don’t really matter because marriage isn’t really anything in particular. Fellow Ricochet member L.T. Rahe has already highlighted one example for us. She nominated an article for sickest of the century; I suppose this article by Jessica Bennett is my nomination in the same category.
Here’s its highlighted quotation:
"Humans aren't monogamous, we need to get over that," says Ken Haslam, a retired anesthesiologist who curates a library at the Kinsey Institute. "We fool around. We do! And if you don't fool around, you want to fool around."
I have never understood why this form of argumentation gets a grip when sex is at issue. Consider: “Humans aren’t honest, we need to get over that. We lie. We do! And if you don’t lie, you often want to.” Does this suddenly make you want to rethink your notions of honesty in the way that Bennett and Haslam assume you may now wish to rethink your notions of fidelity? Fill in the blank with whatever vice you like. All things evil, on some level, come naturally to human beings. And so the fact of an impulse is irrelevant, even if we grant that the impulse is universal. The question remains whether it is an impulse we ought to act on.
Nevertheless, considering that stubbornly persistent impulse to fool around, the article suggests: “‘Giving ourselves the license and permission to evolve marriage is perhaps the unique challenge of our time,’ [Pamela Haag] writes.” –As though following whatever impulse we have at the time or rationalizing through hyper-romanticizing is a challenge. My guess is the true challenge spoken of here is that of shutting up those who think there are higher goals to achieve. Well, that and shutting up conscience.
The deepest offense to me is the idea that casting off the shackles of fidelity in marriage (as Bennett aparantly conceives things) would be progress, would be to ‘evolve marriage’. As though the rational animal’s achievement of rationality, which enables it to reject animal impulse for higher goods, is ultimately a defect: we should return to pursuing whatever desire demands at the moment. Being the rational animal means, in part, being able to step back and call into question the prudence of acting on our impulses. Sure, we can argue the wisdom of monogomy. But to take the fact of sexual impulses inclining us toward violating the vows of marriage as reason to abandon monogomy is to reject the very thing that makes humans distinctive, indeed, the very thing that makes us capable of such a thing a making vows.
Bennett urges, “Surely everyone in a relationship wrestles at some point with an eternal question: Can one person really satisfy every need?” That’s an easy one: of course not. But what a shallow understanding of human nature it demonstrates if this is all it takes for her to give up on traditional ideas of marriage! Contrast her question with an observation of Stanley Cavell’s: “The achievement of human happiness requires not the perennial and fuller satisfaction of our needs as they stand, but the examination and transformation of those needs.” If we do no more than take our needs at face value and seek to satisfy them on their own terms, we will never mature, and will certainly never achieve anything approaching genuine happiness. The successful human endeavor requires severe scrutiny of whatever presents itself to us as a need and, where scrutiny reveals there is a better or richer or wiser or healthier end to be pursued, the strength and patience to transform that ‘need’, to bring it captive to the obedience of the higher good.
Emerson decried his acute observation that we all too often sell the throne of angels for a short and turbulent pleasure. It seems many are responding to the Weiner scandal by endorsing just this transaction.
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Re: More Marriage Advice from the Media
It's astonishing that this needs to be said, isn't it?
Oct '10
Re: More Marriage Advice from the Media
That's not a post, that's an essay. Well thought out, well put, well worth rereading. I'm saving it, it's a keeper.
Jun '10
Re: More Marriage Advice from the Media
To paraphrase Thomas Sowell: "Some ideas are so stupid it takes an intellectual to believe them." I nominate Dr. Haslam as our intellectual of the week.
Does monogamy work? Exhibit A: My parents. 64 years of love and companionship until my Dad died. My wife and I hit 39 years this year.
The problem with these people is that they believe the moment you have an urge, you must act on it, which is a truly barbarian idea. The most distinctive idea, at least to me, of the Judeo-Christian culture is that God gave us a moral law (which includes fidelity) and the power to choose to live it or not.
The anti-monogamists forget some other data. Every study shows that children grow up with a far reduced likelihood of negative life consequences (abuse, drugs, problems with the law, dropping out of school, and on and on) when they are raised in an intact family by both biological parents. Seems like that is the ultimate case for monogamy.
Sep '10
Re: More Marriage Advice from the Media
Wonderfully written and argued.
I think what most people miss is that human interactions are not mathematically precise of the 2+2=4 type. Everything members of society do, produces a variety of outcomes (like a bell curve I guess). What works for me, namely monogamy may not produce as good an outcome as serial infidelity for some people. On the whole, however, I suspect it does produce better outcomes. Anyone who has watched a documentary about 60's free-love communes knows that they did not last because people preferred to pair off.
One of the rotting leftovers of the 60's is the phrase "Some men see things as they are and say why - I dream things that never were and say why not." Leftist are often dreamers who believe that the thin-right end of the bell curve can be everyone's outcome if we just wish hard enough.
Dec '10
Re: More Marriage Advice from the Media
Simply apply the idea to any other urge. I'd be on an A&E reality show in no time if I applied this asinine idea to pizza and chocolate.
Monogamy in marriage may be a social construct, but it serves the very real and useful purpose of civilizing men and keeping them where they can do the most good in fostering the continuation of society, and that is not by having them spread their seed like dandelions. We see the degrading result of that approach in certain areas of society where fathers abandon numerous children from numerous women and the entire culture suffers for it.
Jun '10
Re: More Marriage Advice from the Media
Catholics would agree that it's not "natural" to be monogamous, but we're not trying to be natural. We're trying...with God's unique grace...to be supernatural. We follow the Ten Commandments, if we do, because we love the Author, and believe He's much wiser than us.
Jan '11
Re: More Marriage Advice from the Media
If man is irrational ... and can't follow reason ... why fund a Kinsey Institute?
Mar '11
Re: More Marriage Advice from the Media
Catholics would also attribute the impulses celebrated in the article to the Fall, and use the wonderful term "concupiscence" to describe them.
Jun '10
Re: More Marriage Advice from the Media
KC: Could it be that they really know most everything they do is irrational and silly? Is my memory correct that Kinsey actually faked some of his data?
Edited on Jun 11, 2011 at 9:27amJan '11
Re: More Marriage Advice from the Media
Well, the moment you reach that conclusion, the next conclusion is that truth doesn't matter. Truth is silly, and the pursuit of truth is silly. It's a game anyway, and all that matters is winning.
I'm sure there are some ideologues who just want to win, and truth doesn't matter. I'm sure there are a few of those on both sides.
Paul Ryan, on the most recent podcast, said that the major problem in American life is not the budget, but moral relativism. That observation has been lurking in the back of my mind since hearing it. Of course I agree with him, but I'm hoping that Ryan embarks on a real campaign that addresses the importance of confronting that relativism, not just the budget numbers and charts.
May '10
Re: More Marriage Advice from the Media
My daughter was married on Thursday in a beautiful Nuptial Mass. Imagine my feeling as I watched her groom take her right hand in his and say, in a strong steady voice, before God and all the assembled friends and family: "I promise to be true to you, in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love you and honor you all the days of my life."
And "Take this ring as a sign of my love and fidelity, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit."
Tears of joy and gratitude flowing freely throughout the flower bedecked chapel.
Then the little four voice choir sang Palestrina's Sicut Cervus. One of them recorded it on his iphone. Here it is. Listen and rejoice and give thanks with me all my Ricochet friends.
How sad and sorry I feel for those who don't know or who reject God, and with Him everything highest and deepest and most beautiful in human life.
Edited on Jun 11, 2011 at 9:58amJan '11
Re: More Marriage Advice from the Media
I'm rushing to be the first to congratulate you, and trust of my prayers for the new family.
Dec '10
Re: More Marriage Advice from the Media
"The successful human endeavor requires severe scrutiny of whatever presents itself to us as a need and, where scrutiny reveals there is a better or richer or wiser or healthier end to be pursued, the strength and patience to transform that ‘need’, to bring it captive to the obedience of the higher good."
That's all that is needed to demolish the argument of the Haslams and Bennetts. Because if we are merely automatons driven by the needs of the moment, we're not what we conceive human beings to be.
May '10
Re: More Marriage Advice from the Media
Great post. Thank you, Hegesias.
Re: More Marriage Advice from the Media
Hegesias, A truly lovely (and lucid) post. Keep them coming.
Feb '11
Re: More Marriage Advice from the Media
katievs: My daughter was married on Thursday in a beautiful Nuptial Mass. Imagine my feeling as I watched her groom take her right hand in his and say, in a strong steady voice, before God and all the assembled friends and family: "I promise to be true to you, in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love you and honor you all the days of my life."
And "Take this ring as a sign of my love and fidelity, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit."
Tears of joy and gratitude flowing freely throughout the flower bedecked chapel.
Katie, congratulations on the happy event! You had me tearing up (I definitely know where John Boehner is coming from) thinking about a similar happy day - far in the future - when one of my own daughters stands in much the same way before God and embarks upon her new life building her own family. My son, on the other hand, is slated to be the first American Pope so that will be a little different.
Feb '11
Re: More Marriage Advice from the Media
I agree with the original post and most everyone else who posted in response. But is it really that easy? Open and shut case? Wouldn't these people put up some kind of argument?
As devil's advocate: you're all assuming that the sexual urge, while natural, is something to overcome or to transcend. But why? Isn't it not only natural but also good and harmless (assuming proper precautions against unwanted pregnancy and disease)?
May '10
Re: More Marriage Advice from the Media
Ed Gorz
Katie, congratulations on the happy event! You had me tearing up (I definitely know where John Boehner is coming from) thinking about a similar happy day -
Tears were streaming down my husband's face--which of course made practically everyone in the chapel start...
How could anyone experience such a thing and not intuitively grasp the truth that Hegesias lays out so beautifully here?
Marriage may not be "natural", but we are made for it--made to give ourselves in love and fidelity, till death do us part. The human person is fulfilled as person precisely by transcending (through freedom and grace) the limits of mere nature.
Edited on Jun 11, 2011 at 10:32amJul '10
Re: More Marriage Advice from the Media
The Kinsey Institute! I'm astonished that organization founded by one of the 20th century's creepiest sexual degenerates is still around. Its research, if you could call it that, has long since been discredited. What is it that Dr. Haslam "curates" at the institute, dirty pictures?
Aug '10
Re: More Marriage Advice from the Media
katievs: Congratulations to you and your daughter! It may just be my computer, but the link you provided isn't working for me. I'd love to hear it.
KC Mulville: Ryan's remarks on how big government sets up enabling conditions for moral relativism to flourish were simply fantastic. I know the fellas needed to move the interview along, but I wanted them to pause with a grand "Hear ye! Hear ye!" at that point. Anyway, his idea that he was battling relativism in the way that government can by seeking to return responsibility to the individual while noting that the battle against relativism must take place in large part in the culture strikes me as largely right. Were you thinking of additional ways a government can 'embark on a real campaign' against relativism in a way that respects the proper bounds of government (other than clearly and publicly articulating its dangers)?
It's worth stating the obvious here, that in all these articles, one of the things that allows them to insist on the obsolescence of traditional marriage is living in an entitlement society where certain forms of familial dependence can be replaced by dependence on the state.