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Imagine…
Since a number of us have hijacked @drbastiat‘s Grand Unifying Theory thread, I thought I’d begin a new one with this proposition:
The desire to improve human life can (and has) become a determination to perfect it. Utopianism pits the real against the ideal, and insists it is possible for the former to become the latter.
When Utopians take power, the end result of their effort appears virtually guaranteed to be unfathomable cruelty and pointless destruction.
On a small-ish scale, a reasonably effective, earnestly equitable, fair and decent college (Evergreen, for example) in which students and faculty are encouraged to think that a perfectly equitable, perfectly fair, perfectly painless educational experience is possible is a college that will devolve into mayhem, violence, the expulsion of its best and brightest minds, the abandonment of its educational mission.
On the larger scale of a nation — Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union — the same thing happens, only more spectacularly. In the end, the survivors/liberators stand around amidst the rubble and the heaps of corpses asking one another, “how on earth did we allow this to happen?”
The answer to that may lie in the seductive power of utopianism as an intellectual and imaginative, not to mention emotional, orientation. That human beings can imagine, analyze, and desire what doesn’t actually exist: This is the source of the incredible creativity that allows human beings to bring extraordinary things into being. In this, we are Godlike — God-like. And so we imagine ourselves God. Capable, that is, not merely of creating within reality but of creating reality — better reality, reality as it ought to be. Reality as perfected by us.
Once one has been persuaded that perfection is humanly possible, or even easy (natural!) and so close we can taste it, anything short of perfection is vexing, and anyone who stands in the way of progress towards it, whether by disagreeing with the definition of “perfect” or by pointing to the obstacles reality presents, will inevitably be seen as the enemy. And, really, when the end is perfection, what means of achieving it can possibly be too extreme?
Published in Religion & Philosophy
I oppose cannibalism.
Since a proportion of people are bi-sexual, it makes sense that some teenager who decided early on that they happened to be gay could through conversion therapy go on to be able to view themselves as heterosexual.
But I have serious doubts that it would be successful for everyone.
The auxiliary categories have always been there probably – I remember as a student of literature in the 1960’s how my very Catholic nun told us students that Kafka was a confirmed a-sexual. He simply had no interest in sex.
The current situation is that these auxiliary categories are being used to widen the divide between gender normalcy and out and out gender craziness. These categories have been inflated into a pretense such that every other child in America must consider by age five whether they are in the right body or the wrong one.
About which preference to act on (or not). They still can’t choose their preferences – those are givens.
I’m currently looking after my mother, and it’s a question that’s occurring to me quite often these days. With any luck my bad habits will take me out before I get anywhere near my mother’s 89 years. (And counting.)
My father. He is a veterinarian.
Well, now we’re getting into what is homosexuality. I’ve asked some questions but I don’t think I’ve gotten any answers addressing them. Maybe we don’t really know, or know and don’t want to address it.
A few people have written “I’ve known I was gay from the time I was 5,” or “Looking back I see I’ve been gay since I was 5.” What does this really mean? And what’s the difference between knowing you’re homosexual at age 5 and knowing you’re heterosexual? Do children mimic adult sexual roles at age 5 — they see their father kiss their mother and want to imitate the father — or the mother? That children have mild sexual urges that they don’t understand or think to act upon? That children have sex-related bonding to adults at age 5 — gee, I love my mommy or daddy (whatever love means to them) and delight in a parent’s company age 5? Or that children are not really sexually latent but merely — what? — for some reason hiding their thoughts on sexual activity and their sexuality?
Are these adults misremembering their childhood, or reinterpreting their childhood feelings in light of their later sexual desires? Is a boy kissing a girl in the first grade really a sexual act? Or is it more a pleasant sign of affection, like kissing your baby sister.
This I do know. Sex is a lot of things. Including the orgasm, and the physical pleasure. It’s the conscious interpersonal intimacy. It’s the physical touch and corresponding hormonally-induced sense of trust. It the social and cultural expectation and societal position. The desire for procreation. And it’s the hormonal drive.
But I also know this. Homosexuals do try to “convert” heterosexuals to homosexuality. I could give you humorous stories told to me by homosexuals of failed attempts. They haven’t told me of their successful attempts and I’ve never asked.
If we’re not going to live and let live, but instead discuss it and try to explain, protect, and justify it, we really need to know what we’re talking about and where it comes from.
Flicker, perhaps have a go at answering those questions about heterosexuality and then people would have a clearer understanding of what you mean?
Once again, you didn’t answer. I’ve gone into great detail more than once as to what I mean. These questions do not rely upon heterosexuality to be answerable. Will you give an attempt at an answer from you own perspective?
Perhaps you can start with one of my earliest questions. Do you consider homosexuality to be separate and distinct from every other form of sexuality, or does is fall on a spectrum of sexuality? Answering this will help us to both form the beginning of a coherent answers.
Looking back, the topic of sexuality wasn’t in the OP, but was introduced, I think, in comment #14.
If you don’t want to pursue this, then nevermind.
I would say spectrum. Like all sexual orientations.
All sexual orientations? Hm.
All sexual orientations? Hm.
And thanks.
Yes all. Nu?
(You’re welcome.)
It’s not just a question for gays and lesbians, of course. There are increasing numbers of childless heterosexuals as well, here and in Europe. I think the conceit was that social security and single payer healthcare were all that was required—in other words, that the only thing elderly people need is enough money.
When my mom got sick (ALS) and then died, the role that family plays and the difference it makes were very clear. Mom wasn’t poor. But there isn’t enough money in the world to buy what my siblings and I provided her, and I’ll bet anything the same is true for your mother and you.
My mother had three children in her early twenties. Between us, the three produced seven grandchildren, all of them adults by the time Mom died. Mom, in other words, had a deep bench of fully-capable adults to draw from when she needed “boots on the ground.” She had had time to form real relationships with the grandchildren, any or all of whom could easily have stepped in had my siblings and I been, for whatever reason, not capable of bearing the whole weight, and one of whom—my daughter—helped me give her the kind of really excellent bed baths that money just can’t buy.
If a gay man is one of several siblings in a reasonably pronatalist culture (even just a postwar Baby Boom) he is likely to have —as mentioned—nieces and nephews, or great-nieces and great-nephews, in whom he will have made supplementary investments and from whom he can reasonably expect consideration, company and care when he needs it.
What happens when childbearing is delayed until the late 30s and beyond, with one or maybe two kids being the norm? And when childlessness isn’t just the natural result of being gay or lesbian, but also happens when young people spend their twenties and thirties prioritizing work and fun?
When Granny gets sick, Granny’s one offspring could easily be tied up with the needs of a tween/teen. When Uncle Sparkly gets old, his sole niece may already have her hands full with the care of her own parents, to whom she naturally feels a greater responsibility.
As with so many features of complex human life, interest in reproductive activity falls along a spectrum. I’m not talking about the desire for children (also on a spectrum, BTW) but merely about the inclination to engage in the activity likely to lead to pregnancy. We don’t have to want children, we just have to want sex, and that desire did the trick nicely for all the millennia of human (and animal) existence up until recently. Variations of desire could be tolerated, were relatively easily manipulated by social conventions, and could even prove advantageous… as long as the babies (future workers, care providers, duty-bound advocates) were still pouring through the pipeline (sorry—icky image).
For most of human history, sexual opportunity (which nature “intends” primarily as reproductive opportunity) was relatively scarce, so the drive to find and take advantage of it was strong (though, again, stronger in some than in others, and stronger in men than in women on the whole). I have argued that sexual activity alters the relationship between two people, creating a pair-bond (or at least the beginnings of one) that strengthens over time, with obvious benefits for the babies that often-enough result. The pair-bond is further reinforced by social norms. Societies go to the trouble of creating those norms because the sexual pair-bond and resulting family is the nucleus around which a society gets built.
Attempts (sometimes with deliberately Utopian intentions!) to replace parents with paid care-providers, or to rear children in communal rather than familial arrangements turn out badly. We’re designed for families, not kibbutzes, and for Mom and Dad (and Granny, and Uncle Sparkly) not for the care of strangers, however kind.
Both Zafar and I could, if we were so inclined, attest to the irreducibility of family relationships at the other end of life too: Products of socially-reinforced sexual pair bonds, we take care of our Moms because they are ours. (I also took care of Dad, by the way, but Dad had the sudden and premature death that (listen up, Zafar!) definitely is not the better bargain.
That doesn’t seem so bad compared to many alternatives.
Interesting conversation. I want to jump in and back out with just a comment or two about “spectrum.”
When discussing homosexual attraction and behavior, I think it’s useful to distinguish between male and female behavior. I think that, for many or even most women, the idea of a sexuality spectrum is meaningful: the cost, in terms of sexual identity, for a woman to engage in same-sex intimacy is lower than it is for a man. For men that “spectrum” is a lot more like a great big peak at the heterosexual end, and then some distribution of gay and bisexual men along the rest of it. The cost of same-sex experimentation for a heterosexual man is high, again in terms of sexual identity.
It isn’t too hard to see why this would be true. In a female same-sex encounter, neither woman has to adopt a role that is significantly uncharacteristic of her role during a heterosexual encounter: neither has to perform in a way deemed distinctly masculine by conventional standards. (This is why women engaged in same-sex pornography can remain attractive to heterosexual men: neither need appear unduly manly.) That isn’t true in male same-sex encounters: one or both men must adopt a role conventionally taken by a woman.
All opinions my own. Obviously.
@henryracette
Well that would explain the acceptance of pederasty among rich and powerful men for millennia in multiple cultures. The Roman idea was that to penetrate was manly and good but to be penetrated was shameful and womanly. Exactly the same in Muslim cultures.
Fascinating stuff.
Everybody’s a top. (Or lying.)
The cost of same-sex attraction is initially high for most men in terms of sexual identity. Hence the whole coming out thing and why it isn’t easy. And also why some homosexuals never come out and become gay.
My spies tell me that ‘lesbian porn’ (like any porn, I guess) is not realistic (especially the long nails – yeeeeek!). Like slashfic (a whole fiction genre largely by and for women but about gay males) is enjoyable (maybe) but not really about gay men as we actually are.
I agree in total, Granny Dude.W
What I observed repeatedly as an elder care giver is that it is both a great good fortune and a curse to be an older female. If a woman makes it to age 83 in good health, with no cancer to be fought, a working ticker, no emphesyma, just a healthy person who happens to be 83, she might easily live to be 93.
If still in good health, then she can pull through til the age of 103.
Here is the problem: she most likely will have outlived her money, unless she was rather extra-affluent. She might also have outlived the spouse, the three children and even the 4 or 5 grandchildren.
Oof!
I’m hoping for 103…and great grandchildren who think fondly of me!
Well, also, a woman is just a whole lot less threatening than a man, no matter who you are. The effective aggression of males is recognized and provided some sort of context, rules and boundaries in heterosexual relationships, which is to say, the majority, and in particular the relationships that society has the most interest in. E.g. “Men don’t hit women.” Etc.
Male-male relationships must negotiate the combination of physical, to say nothing of emotional or psychological, vulnerability (which sexual activity always includes) with the potential for aggression and violence.
I am hoping to die earlier and to see humans start genetically engineering themselves. I don’t believe that Jesus Christ, socialism or libertarian activists will redeem humanity so I’m going with genetic engineering. I hope my Nieces can have genetically engineered children or better engineered grandchildren.
If we were women we probably would think about it, but honestly this potential for aggression and violence from sexual/romantic partners generally doesn’t occur to us.
A while back a friend who works in the ‘sector’ was surprised because he’d seen a NSW study where reported domestic abuse was broken down by straight couples, gay male couples and lesbian couples.
The highest rate was for lesbian couples, followed by straight couples, followed by gay male couples.
I don’t think this necessarily means that lesbians are more violent than anybody else. I reckon it just reflects that women perceive things differently and are more comfortable than men about speaking up when they believe they’ve been subject to domestic abuse.
[Also – to be fair, a gay bar/dance party is also one of the least violent spaces you could go out to enjoy yourself. So there’s also that.]
Yes, I’ve never thought of the gay scene — male or female — as being particularly inclined toward violence. What it tends toward, at least where men are concerned, is, I think, promiscuity.
And that makes sense. Generally speaking, men are the ones who pursue sex most aggressively; women are the regulators of that impulse, the ones with whom compromise must be reached.
There’s an old line that has a lot of truth in it: “Women want one man to fulfil their every desire, and men want every woman to fulfil their one desire.”
Gay men are circulating, sexually speaking, in a very sex-positive population. It stands to reason that there will be a lot of opportunistic sex.
Gay men are as promiscuous as all men would like to be? Could be. Possibly why we’re less aggro on the whole?
I don’t mean that everyone walks around consciously negotiating these things, Zafar.
The premise of evolutionary psychology is that human brains and bodies were created in and by an environment that is not the same as the environment (social as well as physical) we now inhabit.
For instance, we evolved in an environment in which sugar—a compact source of energy—was difficult to find. We developed a strong taste for it, because that taste would drive us to do the work required to locate, say, a beehive with honey. Nowadays, we are basically bathing in sugar, but our brains still drive us to seek it out and consume it as if it remained rare—one really good reason for the obesity epidemic.
If I bring up sugar as an example, I’m bound to have someone say “well, I don’t eat all that much sugar,” as if an individual experience, or even the experience of a subculture (e.g. vegans, who recuse themselves from the otherwise universal practice of eating meat) somehow invalidates the entire premise.
In human beings (as in virtually all other species, with very rare exceptions) males are more violent than females, are far more effectively violent—that is, their greater strength makes a male blow far more damaging than a female blow. Homicide is a leading cause of death for adult males in many cultures (including subcultures such as that of the welfare-dependent inner city). And let’s not forget that it was still, if barely, within living memory that huge numbers of European males were killing each other wholesale across all of Europe, and bombing the bajeesus out of each other’s cities. Like Berlin, where German, Jewish, French and British homosexuals had danced happily and peacefully with one another at gay nightclubs a mere few years before.
The fact that an American or Australian male, circa 2022, might go his entire life without ever striking or receiving a blow in anger does not invalidate the idea that human males are violent, and that human brains —consciously or otherwise—factor the potential for violence into their assessment of people, groups, relationships and activities. This is especially true for males because it is the traditional function of males to inflict, protect against and generally manage violence.
I am well aware of the delights of partying at gay nightclubs, having done a fair amount of it when I was young together with my first husband, the late straight state trooper. I am not arguing that gay men are violent. I’m just saying: They’re men.
Why?
By the way, @Zafar, what do you think of this idea (just thought of it!)
That some of the distinctive features of a gay male subculture may actually be ways that gay men developed both for managing the potential for violence—diffusing, de-fusing, channeling— and for signaling non-violence?
I’m thinking about the dancing, the humor, the behaviors (including tone of voice ) so often described as “effeminate?”
Also: It doesn’t surprise me that lesbian relationships are (at least possibly) the most inclined to domestic violence. Women can be really, really mean. (I know. I’m one of ’em).
Weirdly, women don’t really have that much experience controlling their own violent impulses because the results are ineffectual—think of all those black and white movies in which a woman slaps a man across the face. The man barely flinches, whereas if he slapped her, using an equivalent percentage of his strength, he could break her jaw.
This is why boys are (used to be) taught not to hit women. Women do sometimes attack men (domestic assaults on men by women is a thing) and even inflict serious injury; they also weaponize domestic violence law against their boyfriends and husbands. I know a woman—very normal, nice, upper-middle class woman—who bit her husband so badly he had to go to the E.R.
And of course, women commit violence against children when it suits us.
So why wouldn’t lesbian relationships be as prone or more prone to violence?
I had a conversation with a gay male friend who said he thought one factor constraining violence in gay male relationships is simply that it was more likely to be a fair fight—that is, if A hits B, B is going to hit back, and it’ll hurt.
Don’t know if that’s true or not.
We’re a charming species, aren’t we? Yikes.
Bonobos!