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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.
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Agree about the sexual dimorphism, and its influence on manners and morality. But if biology, morality, and manners are as powerful as you say, and puny legislation cannot change that, why get so bent out of shape over such puny legislation?
If this puny legislation presents so little threat, why demand that people care one way or the other about it? Why treat those who are indifferent or disagree with you over it as if they’re vile poison to the traditions that puny legislation cannot change?
Sometimes a fool’s errand. Sometimes not.
Really? If so, then why do you do it?
Your humility has delusions of grandeur.
Again with the humility.
Your fortitude so surpasses that of lesser mortals that our only chance of salvation clearly rests in humbling ourselves to your will.
Yeah, I noticed that. I think that’s a problem if conservatives define themselves as anti-Left. There’s all kinds of stuff conservatives and liberals both support together. Usually those things are horrible.
Should not each of us feel this way? I’m not going to shame or “require” that others feel this way, but I’m not going to shrink from it either. To me, one of the distinguishing characteristics of conservatism is gratitude. You (generic you) can’t be grateful to those who brought you into being if you feel they were all wrong and bad, ignorant savages just awaiting your anointed self. Ingratitude is a distinguishing characteristic of progressivism.
I hope your comment is offered with the same latitude as mine. The thudding literality around here gets thick. I agree with the Randian sense of the magnificence of intellect, but I also have a reverence for ridiculously improbable sequence of events that put me here.
An honored position even if accidental.
I am not a religious person, I do not believe in an afterlife or reincarnation (but I cannot disprove it, so I’m willing to be convinced), so for me it is all about this place. This life. This country. My kids. Their future.
Interesting linguistic gymnastics there. The government doesn’t “ban” gay marriage. It simply sets “standards” which make gay marriage impossible. Orwell would be impressed, I’m sure, but the question remains: Which is the “government interventionist” position – (a) government <bans> sets standards which preclude gay marriage or (b) government <permits> sets standards which allow gay marriage?
Like WC, you duck the issue. If you guys won’t even acknowledge that a government ban on SSM is, in fact, government action, then I can’t possibly make the libertarian / small government argument against the government sticking its nose into marriage. But you’re right – to me it is obvious. Not “insultingly so,” but ridiculously so. Ridiculously obvious.
What remains is my second question, which I will rephrase: By your logic, is there anything the government could not effectively ban by licensing it and then refusing to “recognize” (i.e., issue a license). For example, in a “may carry” state, does the government “ban” carrying guns if no one gets a license?
BDB, you rely heavily on the “tradition” argument (which, I will say, is one of the two best arguments in favor of banning gay marriage). But, I’ll tell you why that argument is unpersuasive to me. Throughout almost all of the time during which the “tradition” you are citing was established, gays themselves were deemed criminals and social pariahs. They were subject to being imprisoned and even murdered for the crime of being gay. (Yes, it was deemed a crime!) They were, in short, considered subhuman, without the human rights that attached to other people. So, to no one’s surprise, they were also not allowed to marry.
The “tradition” that views gays as subhuman is now gone – at least in the U.S. (Gays still get stoned to death in Muslim countries.) And thank God we have rejected that tradition. So the part of that tradition that would not allow gays to marry does not come from accumulated human wisdom. It comes from a time of intolerance. A shameful time. Like slavery.
I don’t think the purpose of marriage is to provide special state recognition and benefits to that subset of unions which are likely to result in procreation. To the extent marriage is about children, it is about child rearing and providing a stable family environment for a child to be raised in. I don’t have a problem with same-sex couples raising children (either adopted or their own biological children) so I really don’t think the “think of the children” rationale for opposing SSM is very persuasive.
Also, if marriage is really about procreation, why don’t we condition the state recognition and benefits of marriage on the couple successfully reproducing?
C’mon Larry. Play nice. How else should the government go about determining qualifications for licenses? Should there be no standards to accommodate the public good? Apparently you think there should be some, or you would have answered my return question about the other standards for marriage — two, age, consanguinity. It’s just the least arbitrary standard — male/female — with which you would dispense.
Okay. Why?
First, SS couples do not have biological children together. There is always, always a third party of the opposite sex involved. This certainly complicates family formation and invites more government involvement, don’t you think? What parental rights does the third party enjoy, if any? Does the child have a right to know his biological parent? What if the gay partnership dissolves? Then does the biological third party have rights?
Now to test the strength of your conviction that same-sex couples are not inferior to heterosexual couples in significant ways using Dennis Prager’s challenge. In this hypothetical, you run an adoption agency and get to decide placement of the orphans. Two couples come to you wanting the same baby. They are equal in every other way (income, education, capacity for love, etc), but one of them is same-sex and the other is opposite sex. Which couple gets the baby? Why?
Because we want the state to be the least intrusive it can possibly be while protecting the public interest. It defines four hallmarks of qualification for marriage: opposite sex, two people, age of consent (which varies state to state), and separation of blood relationship (which also varies state to state). I don’t want the state to test couples for fertility or even for intent to reproduce. There are four parameters describing the “type” that may marry and the state remains neutral on all else.
Don’t come to the state demanding marriage if there are three of you or if your partner is fifteen or if you’re brother and sister — or if you’re a same-sex couple. You don’t qualify. And if you’ve come for a driver’s license, but you can’t pass the test (because you regularly run traffic signals or you fail the vision test), you don’t qualify either. The state protects the public interest in licensing, not the interests of the applicant(s).
Margaret Thatcher “explained that she was grateful to have been brought up by a Victorian grandmother who taught her ….’Victorian Values'”. In 1983 in an interview in the Evening Standard, Thatcher says, “We were taught to work jolly hard. We were taught to prove yourself; we were taught self-reliance; we were taught to live within or income. You were taught that cleanliness is next to godliness. You were taught self-respect. You were taught always to give a hand to your neighbor. You were taught tremendous pride in your country. All of these things are Victorian values. They are also perennial values.”
As Gertrude Himmelfarb notes in “The De-Moralization of Society” journalist, professors and Labour Party members were contemptuous of so retrograde a notion as Victorian values. Aristotle’s “cardinal” virtues of wisdom, justice, temperance, the Protestant “work ethic” and Christian faith, hope and charity are also not as respected as they once were. These virtues or values are not invented by individuals or arranged by contract but are part of the social capital by which societies attempt to sustain themselves. These values are built into the traditions, customs, habits, and manners of a society. BDB says in effect that he is grateful to stand on the shoulders of earlier civilizations. The tragedy of modern society as noted by Charles Murray in “Coming Apart” is that many in the lower class do not have these virtues, many do not want to work, or be responsible. Some conservatives feel that the social capital is being eroded, some also feel that experiments in the configuration of marriage contributes to this erosion.
In post #171, Majestyk said that he was confused by Libertarians when their choices play into the hands of the Progressives. These choices will diminish individual freedom. I think the Libertarian philosophy does not factor in the nature of society. I think this is a blind spot in that human nature cannot be understood as separate from society. Concerning social capital or civic virtue, libertarian analysis seems rather academic and not able to consider the consequences of change which may impact the social good.
So if you don’t treat people who disagree with you like poison, then… someone gets shot? That’s perhaps overdramatic.
In an imperfect world, it’s unrealistic to expect the law to be perfectly aligned with timeless truths. If the only way to avoid the mass bloodshed of honest people is for no law to ever be opposed to BDB’s perception of unchanging truth, then we are all doomed.
You’ll get that kind of credit when you give it.
We cannot know what goes on inside your head, so perhaps you’re just poor at explaining yourself in these matters. But of all Ricochetians I’ve conversed with, you appear to take the most rigid (and vapid) approach to deciding what’s valid conservative reasoning and what isn’t:
You assert conservatism is a platform made up of a laundry list of planks. Agreeing with these planks is conservative; disagreeing is un- or even anti-conservative. One could not ask for a simpler logical algorithm (agreement/disagreement), or one more heavily predicated on rigid statements (the “planks”).
The reason we have trouble understanding one another is that we’re not arguing the same point. You’re talking about government allowing or not allowing gay marriage as if that were just another variation of marriage (like number of simultaneous marriages, age of spouses, race of spouses, consanguinity of spouses, etc.) rather than a fundamentally different thing than what marriage is and has always been throughout all of those non-fundamental variations and all cultures throughout time (except for one province in ancient China and one reputedly insane Roman emperor).
As an example (I hate analogies because I think they tend to distract rather than illuminate, but I’ll attempt it this once): the American League and the National League are both baseball leagues despite variations in the rules of each league. The fundamentals of the game remain the same even with the Satanic abomination that is the designated hitter rule. Cricket, on the other hand, despite having strong similarities to baseball, is still not baseball. The fundamentals are different despite a pitched ball, a swung bat, and running round bases.
Another example: orange juice can come with or without pulp, with calcium or without, from concentrate or squeezed. It’s all orange juice. You can even add vodka – it doesn’t change the nature of the orange juice. You can get tangerine juice or grapefruit juice in similar ways and they have similar tastes and properties even – but they are not oranges. Their juice is not orange juice. Add vodka and it’s not a screwdriver.
At the risk of interpreting him charitably again, I’d say that the principle that BDB expressed is a valid one. In the extreme and or unlikely cases, legislating against fundamental truth is clearly damaging. As we get less extreme and truth gets more contentious, the damage can still be real even if it’s me that’s wrong and it doesn’t lead to actual shooting.
Not necessarily. Perhaps epistemic humility is best reverenced by practicing it. You advocacy for epistemic humility is at odds with your apparent lack of any.
Then that would be zero latitude.
To answer Sal’s basic point of departure that government doesn’t have an interest in marriage itself. If we were talking about baseball leagues or oranges vs tangerines, then government (as the tool of society) doesn’t really have an interest in these things specifically except insofar as it has an interest in creating/maintaining/protecting the conditions necessary for the predicates of these things to flourish. Even more so, government has little interest in personal relationships. Except, there is one type of relationshiop that has unique potential results. The results of this one type of relationship are one of the necessary conditions to general flourishing, but only under certain circumstances and can be detrimental to general flourishing in other circumstances. Some societies react to this fact with rigid and obligatory rules while others take a more variable and voluntary approach. They all take an approach, though, because both the potential benefits are vital and the potential detriment is great, and the nature of the relationship and its draw to individuals means that it will be widespread rather than stumbled upon from time to time.
Because until the advent of oral contraceptives, marriage equaled children for virtually everyone.
Recall, marriages were not marriages unless they had been consummated, and throughout all of history up to the 1960s, regular sexual intercourse naturally resulted in children.
Like or not, the history of marriage is about children and little else, and all government policy around marriage inherently assumes marriage and children are intertwined.
I would like to make the libertarian argument here – specifically, that the burden is on the government to demonstrate a justification for banning private consensual behavior. But since you won’t even acknowledge the existence of laws banning SSM, I really can’t even begin to make the point.
Regarding the paternalistic laws setting age limits on marriage and banning incestuous marriage, I would say this: (1) There are laws setting age limits on almost everything, from drinking to driving to working. And children need protection. I would prefer that protection come from parents, but c’est la vie. (2) Laws (and social taboos) banning incest have a genetic justification. But the burden of justification is still on the government. Laws banning marriage of adopted siblings, for example, are not justified.
This is another point that depends on what marriage is. You say you’re against banning private consensual behavior. So which behavior is banned by not changing marriage to include same sex couples? “Marriage” you might say. Well, what is marriage from a civil perspective (rather than from a religious or private perspective)?
Ed, I have no trouble understanding your point. I just don’t find it persuasive. Please see my comment in response to the “tradition” argument at #220, above.
But my comment here is about something much more fundamental. If you favor banning SSM, fine. Make your argument. But don’t pretend that you’re not arguing for laws banning SSM. Don’t pretend that marriage is not a human institution, but rather something that exists on some higher plane and that government merely discerns its ethereal essence. Don’t pretend that your argument needs no justification, because you merely discern a truth from a higher reality, invisible to me.
Ed’s point seems to be lost on many libertarians (and I’m a libertarian). Not granting the privileges and subsidies embodied in marriage does not ban ANY private consensual behavior. It does not prevent any SS couple from living a lifelong committed monogamous relationship and it does not prevent them from finding a church to perform a wedding Ceremony, wearing wedding rings, or calling themselves married.
All it does is prevent them from accessing the privileges and subsidies that were objectively intended for couples raising their biological children.
Well, that’s sort of begging the question isn’t it?
Well, I didn’t think I’d have to unpack this down to the most discrete element, but here goes.
The issue is that you are making common cause on this issue with people who are never satisfied; never interested in taking victory and leaving well enough alone. The entire progressive program is one of incrementalism. Allow me to illustrate:
Now, it seems to me that the Libertarian position is this: being as we can’t have the slider as far to the left as possible, (no gov’t recognition of marriage) you’re happy with moving it one notch to the right of where it is now. This is due to the understandable instinct of wanting people to enjoy more liberty. Granted. But there are going to be consequences.
The issue is that the people with whom you make common cause here don’t see your preferred position as the logical endpoint for their efforts. It’s merely a waypoint. A stop on the road.
Cont’d
Once the slider advances beyond the (admittedly) arbitrary (although traditional for our society) dividing line there is no legal rationale which will stop it from advancing all the way to the right – merely under the heading of “equal protection under the law.”
Whether the majority of well-meaning gay marriage supporters understand this or not is irrelevant.
The “long game” for progressives is the ultimate eradication of the presumption of things that they deem to be hateful or discriminatory – that means the end of things like “heteronormativity,” the presumption of traditional family structure for the raising of children and a blurring or outright erasure of what have been deemed the traditional boundaries of sexual behavior – up to and possibly including a cessation of laws banning pederasty and various other arbitrary laws such as age of consent and whatnot.
To that end, Libertarians and other well-intentioned but misguided people who assist the progressives are playing the part of Useful Idiots – not my term, but one coined by the progressives for people whom they view as assisting them in an unwitting fashion.
Cont’d
The connection I drew to Obamacare has to do with this progressive tendency towards incrementalism. As you know, they never say “This far, but no further.” There’s always another fix, another program or more funding to be poured into an existing failed policy lurking behind every idea from the left.
Kicking this door open will allow the slider to move all the way to the right, because the Left understands that this is a ratchet effect; that it can never go back once the slider moves.
You wouldn’t have to test for ability or intent to reproduce. If the purpose of granting some couples the benefits of state recognized marriage is that they are reproductive all you would have to do is condition those benefits on them actually reproducing. It’s not hard to tell whether a couple has had a child. That isn’t additionally intrusive. The state already keeps track of births.