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Secular Conservatism, Libertarians, Progressives, and Marriage
I take conservatism to be an appreciation and defense of what has been proven to work, and which benefits society and the individual in a balance.
If that seems overly-broad, let me provide an example. Morality is effective in curbing largely destructive impulses and reactions, therefore morality is worth defending in principle, with some room for debate on many fronts. Not all morality is the same, and it is not always helpful in the particulars. But to hold that morality is not a necessary part of society is anti-conservative in my view, as morality is the most tested method for a society to control its own behavior with respect for the society and the individual in balance.
Libertarianism is a radical extreme that places no value on society as a body, and progressivism is a radical extreme that places no value on the individual. Conservatism is the compromise position arrived at through experience, and stored in our cultural traditions as the wisdom of the ages. To a secular conservative, the Bible is one of many instruments to this end. Just because there is a religious proscription against adultery doesn’t mean that only religious people can defend a belief that adultery is harmful to individuals and society. Likewise with other religious proscriptions.
Religion is, of course, a large component of the conservative movement, but philosophically it is not a necessary component of a thoroughly conservative position. Not even for marriage. I view the partnership between religion and conservatism as a co-development from a common origin. Shared predicates yield shared conclusions, and therefore common interest. Where religion ascribes things to God, secular conservatism agrees to the extent that it is destructive of society and the individual for mankind to mess with certain things. Progressivism on the other hand is the confidence that a small group of people in the present know better than (on the one hand) everybody else across time, and better than (on the Other hand) God in His infinite wisdom. Secular conservatism and religion get along just fine as defenders of our culture.
I see value in describing much of libertarianism as allied with progressivism, because conservatism is where the middle is, and to pull us off that mark either this way or that is just as destructive. If a movement seeks to abolish our traditions as proven over time, it is not conservatism. Progressivism and libertarianism get along just fine as disruptors of our culture.
There is already a philosophical position consistent with conservatism which enshrines human rights and the liberty of the individual: it is called conservatism.
Now, not every tradition is valuable, and a slavish devotion to traditions which are not good is not conservatism; that’s mechanism, on the process level. Radical opposition to a flawed and failing government is not anti-conservative, but radical opposition to the institutions of our culture, most definitely is.
For example, you could argue that big spending by government is now a tradition and that it is therefore conservative to defend it and radical to oppose it, but this is wrong for a number of reasons. First, it may be a tradition, but empirically it has not been proven to be a useful one. Some spending is necessary, some spending is excessive — making judgements is important, and at any rate, even if all projects were equally worthy, the sheer sum of spending which displaces other worthy but non-government projects must be taken into account and weighed for relative merit. Big spending is anti-conservative because it is destructive.
Second, the dependencies come to play in that objects and policies are not the only subjects to be appreciated and defended. The decision to spend less is no less valuable than the process by which we arrive at that decision, and its implications. If we feel that the accumulated wisdom vouchsafed in our culture is probably more valuable as a guide for society (in the aggregate) than the intellect spawned in a few brilliant fellows, then a process which lends itself to operation gently over time by many rather than abruptly, once, by the few is an inherently conservative method of arriving at conclusions. Big spending is anti-conservative because it operates through an anti-conservative process.
As the free market is operated gently by many, and government spending is operated forcefully by few, any problem not specifically recommended for government remedy is probably better handled outside of government. So no matter how “traditional” big spending may have become, it is not conservative in itself, and it is not conservative to defend it merely because it is the status quo.
Marriage pre-dates any law. It simply is, and it is between one man and one woman. This may sound circular, or like a “no true Scot” defense, but I assert it as a foundational fact. Marriage is not produced by law any more than our rights are. Marriage is enshrined and defended by law in our culture, and if the law should fall, marriage would remain, just as our rights do. The law does not trump marriage.
This should not be too alarming; conservatism is a platform, a set of positions. Some planks rest upon others and not all must be as heavily pedigreed. I hold that marriage is a foundational plank in the conservative platform. I hold that marriage is an emergent cultural defense against various destructive impulses and reactions, including those of jealous males, engineering females, and hostile out-group sentiment. Good manners are a defense against some offenses which can become lethal, and marriage is a defense against outrage.
Humans are sexual beings (as our grade-schoolers are reminded every minute by government busybodies), and many of our impulses and reactions are not rational in the way we would like, no matter how logical they may be from a chromosome’s point of view. As manners are typically maintained by society itself, morality is often maintained by religion as a specific example of a philosophy operating in context.
As the male-female pairing is not up for debate in conservatism (I challenge you to convince me that it is not what has been proven to work), so the societal adaptation which defends it is a necessary component of conservatism. I realize that many “conservatives” disagree with this, but they are mistaken about either their conservatism or their conclusions.
Published in General
I’d forgotten about that. Good times.
Beyond a certain point, yes, since the time we spend on one thing is time we don’t spend on another thing. Similarly, beyond a certain point, pro-life advocacy undermines some of the stigma against out-of-wedlock childbirth. These tradeoffs can’t be helped.
Misgivings about the fallout of SSM are understandable. The intensity of certain SoCons’ outrage against SSM raises suspicions of projection, though. I honestly believe that it’s so painful for some people to confront the failings of heterosexual culture that they succumb to the temptation of treating “the gays” as scapegoats. Not because they hate gays, but because pretty much everyone finds it hard to own up to complicity in moral failings, even SoCons. Perhaps especially certain (though not all) SoCons.
You don’t see a connection between procreation and children? I think someone should explain a few things to you before you get married.
Seriously, especially in today’s world where premarital sex is pervasive, the only reason most people get married is because they want to have children with their partner. You’ve said you want to have children with your fiancee.
For reasons that should be obvious to the casual observer, this does not apply to SS couples. Yes, some SSM married couples will eventually adopt, but they don’t get married to adopt.
You seem to assume that SS couples will only get married if they want to adopt children. I dont think that’s true. Would be curious to see the evidence
FWIW, I view government recognition of SSM as the opposite of getting government out of marriage. It puts government very front and center in the marriage and will (in my opinion) inevitably result in government forcing churches and hobby-lobby like employers to treat SS marriages as no different than hetero marriages.
I believe the SSM movement has private religious institutions and religious individuals as key targets of attack.
To paraphrase an earlier comment, if you are a libertarian, you should run away from government recognition of SSM. It will be a train-wreck for anyone that remotely calls themselves a libertarian.
My own view (stated previously here) is that we need to eliminate all government privileges and subsidies of being married and assign them to the parents (biological or adopted) of children. Once we do this, the issue of government recognition of SSM goes away because there is nothing for the government to recognize.
I’d like to piggyback a bit on Midge’s point. The nature and standing of marriage as an institution has changed dramatically over the last 50 years. Many people viewed the net result of these changes to have been disastrous for our culture society.
At the same time that many social conservatives point to the changes of the last half century as evidence that tinkering with marriage will inevitably result in deleterious outcomes, it often seems that social conservatives are ignoring the current state of heterosexual marriage when arguing against same-sex marriage. The fact is that over the past 50 years marriage has become separated from procreation. Whether we like it or not marriage today is primarily considered to be a recognition of the spouses commitment to one another and not an institution based on facilitating reproduction. More often than not, when social conservatives talk about how same-sex marriage would fundamentally alter the institution of marriage they are referring to a conception of marriage which, though it was long the standard and remains the basis of sacramental marriage, has not been the practice in America for two generations.
cont.
If the SSM movement is not interested in attacking religions, they should sign up for this.
FWIW, I don’t think they will. Because I believe the SSM movement is more intent on destroying important cultural institutions (both family and church) than it is about getting tax subsidies.
I seem to recall Cato acknowledging that the Illinois SSM movement was very hostile to allowing much in the way of religious conscience exceptions. That tells you a lot about how consistent with libertarian principles the SSM movement is.
FWIW, I don’t. I view SSM as a symptom of the decline in the importance of marriage and family, not its cause.
That doesn’t preclude government-forced acceptance of SSM from accelerating the decline.
All we are arguing about is how firmly planted our foot should be on the accelerator as we drive this once great nation over the cliff. I vote for taking our foot off the accelerator.
We already subsidize illegitimacy enough as it is. You want to subsidize it more?
Removing the privileges and subsidies of being married is one thing. Reassigning them to any sort of parent, including parents who have borne their kids illegitimately, is quite another.
I guess I’m too socially conservative to privilege illegitimacy just to spite SSM.
I’d be on board with that, though I’d prefer to eliminate the benefits altogether.
Fair enough, but you seem to have been arguing that same-sex marriage would remove procreation as being the basis of the institution of marriage. Procreation is not currently and has not been for quite some time, the generally recognized purpose of the institution of marriage.
That was supposed to be a joke, Midge. But you’re right, after all that drug legalization and open borders talk there’s nothing like some heady economics and markets chatter to bring the blush to a young libertarian’s cheeks.
I disagree with this. I work for a consulting firm that hires a large number of college graduates every year. I see these (relatively) young kids date, live together, buy homes together, yet almost without exception, they put off getting married until they are ready to have kids.
Marriage in our country used to be about sex and children (and possibly love). Now that sex (and love) is completely disconnected from marriage, the ONLY reason the people I see get married is to have children.
You’ve obviously reached the exact opposite conclusion I have from the same evidence. So, one of us is wrong.
Yeah. I said that about 300 comments ago.
It is interesting, is it not, that the same people who often recite the fact that marriage long predated state sanction are also the ones who argue that without state sanction marriage would no longer exist.
Just as it is interesting that they argue that gays should not marry because they cannot procreate and that gays should not marry because they would not make good parents. It seems to me that you can either worry about gays having kids or about gays not having kids, but you can’t worry about both.
I guess I see (at least the potential for) the opposite. Once government derecognizes marriage, government welfare can no longer go only to single mothers. If the government subsidizes motherhood, it will have to treat married and single mothers the same. Once that happens, I believe that young mothers will find themselves better off financially married and living with the father of their children.
Regardless, I don’t necessarily see assigning tax benefits directly to children instead of using marriage as a proxy for children in and of itself subsidizes illegitimacy. Recall, virtually every privilege and subsidy that marriage enjoys was initially predicated on the traditional nuclear family. Once the left is finished destroying the traditional nuclear family, those privileges and subsidies that the SSM claims to be pursuing will go away. We direct them properly or lose them altogether.
Government cannot create things, but government can destroy things.
I have never argued that marriage would not exist without state sanction, I think state sanctioning of anything generally leads to its destruction. That does not imply that government actions cannot destroy marriage.
I only need point at how government efforts have (perhaps) unintentionally destroyed the family over the last 50 years to make my point.
Lefties never believe in the law of unintended consequences, and they are wrong. I know Sal is not a lefty, which is why I’m so surprised he is unwilling to consider the possibility of unintended consequences.
If any entity is capable of simultaneously de-recognizing marriage and privileging single mothers over married mothers, I bet it’s the government. Even if marriage weren’t a licensed activity, the mutual financial support that husband and wife typically give each other could probably be counted against welfare benefits, perpetuating a system wherein it’s easier to get more welfare by severing the relationship between mother and father.
M’kay. I’ve read only nearly all comments.
Fair enough. Regardless of what happens to government privileges and subsidies granted to married couples, we need to eliminate the way our welfare state punishes married couples.
I grant that we won’t because the lefties are intent on destroying the family as one of the few institutions that protects people from dependence on government. FWIW, I firmly believe the SSM is part of the same movement to destroy the family. If Obama didn’t strongly believe SSM wouldn’t destroy the family and create more government-dependent Julias, he would never support it.
I know Sal disagrees, he thinks SSM is all rainbows and unicorns (I exaggerate, but only slightly), but he’s said nothing to sway my opinion (and it’s obvious neither have I).
Well, rainbows at least.
No, that’s not the argument. Marriage will continue on. Without civil marriage, though, we tend to predict overall harm to society.
That’s not quite right either. The argument is not that gays shouldn’t marry it’s that marriage is about procreation so union types incapable of procreation just aren’t marriage.
Also, I’m quite sure gays can make good parents. I’m also quite sure that the argument is rather that the ideal is to be parented by the biological parents (it’s also a benefit to the rest of us to expect that as the ideal), or short of that a responsible man and woman, or short of that two responsible people, or short of that … on and on. I’ve never really used this argument myself. Instead I think we have marriage to attempt to tie bio parents to their offspring in a responsible way; we have adoption for when that fails.
So if a 60 year old couple gets married, then it isn’t really a marriage? An infertile couple? A couple who doesn’t want children? None of them are marriages?
Clearly, the vast majority of childless marriages do not involve same sex couples. And yet I never see 1,000-comment long threads discussing those situations. It’s almost as if there was some other motivation driving these discussions.
Aw, why should I be coy about this? The fact that infertile couples get married does not damage the institution of marriage in any way that I can see, and my intuition is confirmed by the fact that no one ever ever makes this argument in the context of any infertile couple except for same sex couples. The argument that the sole or primary purpose of marriage is to procreate and therefore non-procreative marriages must not be recognized is just, plain, silly.
Procreation isn’t the sole purpose, but it is the primary one. Also, the argument is that the relationship type governs and has governed what is marriage, not specific instances of exceptions within the type – just as a wingless bird is still a bird even though it can’t fly.
The point of the exchange with you in this thread thread was different. I already know you disagree with the way I see civil marriage, and we don’t need to rehash that again. Instead I was trying to figure out if you understand what you are agreeing to when you support SSM. This result of SSM must be based on a view of civil marriage that is different than mine and certainly different than your own (since you would prefer that civil marriage not exist at all). Based on our discussion I’m not at all sure that you do understand what you’re siding with in the name of achieving this one result.
Marriage arose and developed at a time when we knew little about the science of fertility. One thing we did know, though, was that fertility was only in play in opposite sex couplings.
So now that we know more, what are our options concerning marriage?
1) we can go on as before confident that marriage is still hitting the intended target even if it’s in a shotgun scatter rather than a sniper’s precision.
2) we can apply the learned science to exclude specific cases (like infertile or intentionally nonfertile) rather than drawing the line at the category. I oppose this because it’s more intrusive and expensive.
3) we can ditch the old form and instead get super specific about the circumstances and situations that give rise to civilly enforceable obligations. I oppose this because it’s much more intrusive and more expensive.
4) we can keep the civil form and let it operate as if it has no purpose (or worse, a progressive purpose).
5) we can do as you would like and ditch all government involvement in any of this. Of course that’s not even close to being on the table practically, but it is technically an option.
I believe that support for SSM is based on a view of civil marriage that will result in either option #3 or #4. Option #3 has been gaining some ground anyway after NFD, but it would gain more ground absent civil marriage.
@ Ed,
Or there’s always option #6 – people could just mind their own business and let other people make their own decisions.
But what do I know? I’m obviously not as smart as the lefties, because they know how to engineer the economy for the greater good (just ask them). And I’m obviously not as smart as social conservatives, because they know how to engineer society for the greater good. In fact, I don’t know much of anything, except that utopian engineering of any type always, always fails.
But I am curious – how did all you guys get so smart? With all the thousands of variations on marriage through the centuries, how is it that you can predict (without a shred of actual experience or evidence) that this one is going to cause civilization to come crashing down?
Ed, you are just sooooo missing my point. The question is – where is the harm? We have millions of examples of infertile marriages. Can you cite me to a single one of those that supports your argument? How is society worse off if two 60 year olds get married? How is it worse off if two medically infertile people get married? If you consider SSM to be such a horror because of infertility, show me a horror story. But you can’t, can you?