Still Toying with "Tommy": On Kipling and Prejudice

It is a coincidence that today happens to be Martin Luther King, Jr., Day and I post a short blog note -- my first entry in some time -- on prejudice. My reflections are not on racial prejudice in the United States. There is unfortunately much of that still to be reflected on and rectified. What stimulates my thoughts is the poetry of a perhaps unlikely source: Rudyard Kipling.

In the estimation of George Orwell, "Kipling is a jingo imperialist, he is morally insensitive and aesthetically disgusting" ("Rudyard Kipling," Collection of Essays, 117). Orwell was a contemporary and published this essay in 1942, six years after Kipling's death. Orwell was also a writer of powerful pen and deep cultural observation. I, however, find what little I know of Kipling's verse to be complex -- complex with regard to imperialism, morality, and aesthetics. More than Orwell concedes, Kipling is at times artful in his moral critique of British imperialism and social prejudice.

Rudyard Kipling, 1895

One example comes from his poem "Tommy" (1890). The speaker is a common British soldier, who was by this time already known in slang as Tommy Atkins. Such soldiers then, as now, in both the U.K., the United States, and other countries, came often from the lowest socio-economic strata of society. They were much in demand as Great Britain expanded its imperialistic ambitions ever more globally afar in the latter half of the nineteenth century. They did the dirty work that made the crown sparkle with gems and ever increasing wealth. Kipling captures in this poem through Tommy's decidedly non-Oxford dialect a tension in British imperialism that consisted of not only prejudice against those foreign others but also those domestic others.

The speaker recounts in each stanza some experience of social prejudice, exclusion, ostracism, ridicule, moral snobbery, and a myopic concern for social justice. Then he follows each main experience with a varying chorus that points out the inconsistent ways in which not only proper British society and politicians but also bar maids and common theater-goers disregard "Tommy" (the familiar form of [dis]regard) in everyday situations, but quickly revert to "Mr. Atkins" (the respectful form of needy regard) when the topic turns to patriotic parades, military deployment, celebration of national heroes, personal protection, and defense from foreign enemies.

Striking, among other things, is the way in which the speaker captures how embarrassingly quickly disregard for him and his "kind" can turn to regard, nastiness can turn to need, jeering can turn to appreciation, and rejection can turn to reception. The aesthetic oscillation between the vocal forms of address "Tommy" and "Mr. Atkins" reflects the hypocrisy, or two-facedness, of those in society who so alternate.

Particularly indicting, it seems to me today, is the way in which politicians, as the speaker reports, can outwardly advocate improved military conditions and benefits for common soldiers, yet not only do they fail to deliver but they also miss what is most important to this common solider who would stand to benefit: humane, caring, consistent treatment face-to-face. The speaker says he would go without even more food provisions if those advocating them would just treat him like a valued human being: "We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational. / Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face."

Finally, the poem ends with the speaker's chilling reflection of social and moral condemnation: "An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool -- you bet that Tommy sees!" If there were any doubt about whether this hypocritical, inhumane instrumentalism of imperial and social convenience were done in the dark, the speaker removes it. He not only passively suffers; he actively sees. He experiences it painfully as he describes in so many situations, but what he ends with is a self-conscious recognition of his experienced injustice that, with the exclamation point, emphasizes his emotional anguish and the implied accusation. The sense is that this injustice does not escape notice -- and it will not escape judgment either.

Sometimes we need strong voices like those of "Tommy" or "MLK" to bring to light the various forms of inhumane treatment, marginalization, and prejudice in our own midst that work against human flourishing, consistent implementation of moral values, and social harmony.

Tommy

By Rudyard Kipling

(1890; reprinted in Barrack-Room Ballads, 1892)

I went into a public 'ouse to get a pint o' beer,
The publican 'e up an' sez, "We serve no red-coats here."
The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I:

O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away";
But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins," when the band begins to play
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
O it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins," when the band begins to play.

I went into a theatre as sober as could be,
They gave a drunk civilian room, but 'adn't none for me;
They sent me to the gallery or round the music-'alls,
But when it comes to fightin', Lord! they'll shove me in the stalls! 

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, wait outside";
But it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide
The troopship's on the tide, my boys, the troopship's on the tide,
O it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide.

Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap.
An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit. 

Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an` Tommy, 'ow's yer soul?"
But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
O it's "Thin red line of 'eroes," when the drums begin to roll.

We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints; 

While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' Tommy, fall be'ind,"
But it's "Please to walk in front, sir," when there's trouble in the wind
There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind,
O it's "Please to walk in front, sir," when there's trouble in the wind.

You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires, an' all:
We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow's Uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace. 

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' Chuck him out, the brute!"
But it's "Saviour of 'is country " when the guns begin to shoot;
An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool -- you bet that Tommy sees!

Echoes of Dante in Kant

One of the great pleasures of reading and re-reading is encountering conceptual connections between authors and works that you may have never considered in common.  I had one of these experiences recently while reading a short book about Dante.  While working through the author's discussion of Monarchia and its relation to the Purgatorio, I found myself thinking that in some respects Dante's dualistic political philosophy anticipated important elements in Kant's short monograph Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals and his essays "What Is Enlightenment?", "The Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Intent," and "Toward Perpetual Peace."

Campus Rage Culture

I am reproducing below an interview-article with Jonathan Haidt about the genealogy and anatomy of campus rage culture. That is my term to refer to the now common system of expected and policed beliefs and practices on college campuses in the United States that characteristically seeks to exclude certain opinions in the supposed service of inclusion and to homogenize ideological perspectives for the purported purpose of diversifying viewpoints. It will, for instance, marginalize some authors in order to de-marginalize others, all because in this new political-civil religion marginalization is bad. (See, e.g., the new policy of the English department at Harvard.) It must be rooted out by Inquisition, alleged heretics must be proscribed, and all of their writings -- no matter their content or actual arguments -- must be condemned.

I have decided to reproduce in full the interview with Professor Haidt for several reasons. One is that he is a well-respected social psychologist, and his observations therefore carry a weight and garner a hearing that others might not receive. He has waded in previously on the danger of the proliferation of required "trigger warnings" and the protections that universities seem endlessly to supply undergraduates (e.g., his "The Coddling of the American Mind" in The Atlantic, Sept. 2015).

Another reason is that this is a timely topic of utmost importance not only for university campuses but also for the nation. It is important for the nation because what is occurring on campuses in opposition to some persons and viewpoints is often, as was the case at Villanova University last week, eerily similar to the Southern lynchings of persons like Emmett Till on the basis of hate fomented by slander, false accusations, and misimpressions, typically based on hearsay. The campus rage culture is a contemporary form of lynching others based on prejudice. 

For instance, Villanova University students and faculty who protested the speaking engagement of Charles Murray reported their reason to be his "white supremacist" writings in The Bell Curve; however, it remains unclear whether the protesters had read all of the book in question, including the clarifying sections designed specifically to prevent readers from drawing unwarranted inferences. As two Cornell University professors note in this recent New York Times column, “…only a small fraction of the people who have opinions about that book have actually read it. (Indeed, some people protesting Mr. Murray openly acknowledged not having read any of his work.)” It is not uncommon at such speaking events for protesters to be asked why they are publicly denouncing Mr. Murray or some other controversial figure, calling him a “bigot” and “white supremacist,” if they admit that they are not sure that he in fact was one. What matters to them is not the truth to guide their beliefs, actions, and emotions but a social practice of protest, marginalization, and essentialist name-calling. (Would that they had read this prior post.)

Another student at Villanova who actually attended the lecture is reported to have started crying after it because she understood Mr. Murray to have said that her specific undergraduate degree was worthless. Other students also report that a concerned faculty member approached the student to check on her and learned that this was the reason for her tears. When, in an effort to reverse the student’s lachrymose lament by encouraging an accurate, charitable understanding of Murray's words, the professor said, “I don’t think that is what he said,” the student replied, “I'm not ready to hear that right now.” Other faculty members are said to have embraced the student and joined her, as a form of comfort, in lambasting the speaker. What mattered was not the truth to guide her beliefs, actions, and emotions but a social practice of emotive affirmation to demonstrate tribalistic loyalties. And this, mind you, occurred at a university whose explicit mission promotes veritas (truth), unitas (unity), and caritas (charity).

Those three virtues -- truth, unity, and charity -- are what hang in the balance for larger society nationally according to what emerges from our universities locally.

Bergson on Mechanism and Vitalism in WWI

Why is the tendency so strong for us to argue against our opponents by dehumanizing them?  This tendency finds expression as much in daily domestic life situations with family members or professional contexts with co-workers as it does on a wider, often political, stage.  The French philosopher Henri Bergson contrasts “vitalism” and “mechanism” in cultural and national terms.  His patriotic alignment with and encouragement of the French cause in World War I against Germany led him to characterize the ethos of those two countries in strikingly opposing ways. I am struck, among the features of Bergson's interpretation of the contrasting civilizational forces, by the way in which he vilifies his enemy by dehumanizing him.

The Economics of Empathy (and Thanksgiving)

In the United States, the Thanksgiving holiday is two weeks away.  For those who have experienced it, Thanksgiving can be a wonderful holiday.  Everyone across ethnic, political, and religious lines can equally participate.  Indeed, that was the purpose in President Lincoln's proclaiming it a national holiday in 1863, when the country was torn apart by Civil War.

In more recent times, Thanksgiving seems to be part of a double holiday, or at least a double tradition. Thanksgiving Thursday is followed by Black Friday, so named because it is the day when, traditionally, retail sales increase to the point that merchants begin to turn a profit for the year. That is, their books move into the black. The observance of Thanksgiving is completed by consumption. Let us not forget that the purpose is to pause and render gratitude for the blessings of one's life. From the outside, however, it could seem as though Americans are most thankful that they can hit stores at ridiculously early hours on Friday morning to spend money on largely frivolous things.

That is a cynical view of Thanksgiving.  It is one to which I am susceptible.  But there are, I believe (or would like to think), more sober observers of this holiday and the use of money.  Some people volunteer at soup kitchens for the homeless or the working poor.  Others donate money to these shelters or similar aid organizations so that they can operate to serve the needy.  Many of these volunteers and donors tear up at the thought of a child's going hungry on any day, but especially on a festive day that celebrates not just bounty but, most basically, shared life together in community.  These people recognize that although they may be celebrating life, others are fighting for it.

These benefactors, just ordinary people, are thinking not primarily of their own happiness:  watching football, enjoying tasty food, relaxing from daily labors, basking in the company of treasured friends and family.  They are trying to share the simple happiness that comes from food with others who lack it.

In a 10-minute TED talk given two years ago, Harvard professor Michael Norton takes up the question "how to buy happiness."  His research, both in the United States and abroad, confirms, perhaps unsurprisingly but still emphatically, that people report increased happiness when they spend money on others, not on themselves.  The amount of money spent does not matter.  What matters is the target.

 

http://www.ted.com/talks/michael_norton_how_to_buy_happiness.html

The short video is worth watching for the creative ways in which Norton and his colleagues test this hypothesis.  Some tests are even humorous.  And the results were not solely about personal happiness but, more generally, about the positive effects that accrue within groups who are charitable, empathetic, or just concerned about others.  There appears to be a multiplier effect that arises from demonstrating empathy:  the reward is greater than the investment when one invests in other people.

My sense is that this will also increase one's general sense of thanksgiving.  Spending money on others will foster an increased feeling of gratitude for one's current lot in life.  A huge part of this is through deepening personal connections.  Sometimes it comes from making the effort to establish them.

I am reminded of the Thanksgiving scene from the movie The Blind Side.  The video below does not adequately depict the scramble that the Tuohy family members have on Thanksgiving for the television where the day's American football games are being shown.  Thanksgiving in their world is about private consumption:  family members eating plates separately, watching multiple screens, and not really communing with one another.  They are alone together.  Their guest is alone by himself.  This is where the clip begins.

http://vimeo.com/67084873

Mrs. Tuohy discerns the difference, and she does something about it.  It was not enough, she realizes, to invite Michael into her home for the holiday because he had nowhere else to go.  She, and the rest of her family members, needed to make him part of their family.  And this meant that Mrs. Tuohy's family needed to act like one itself.  Disconnected viewing of television around a large room needed to give way to the connected holding of hands around the Thanksgiving table.

After all, what would have been the point of reproducing in their home the isolation that Michael already felt without one?

This is the economics of empathy:  greater rewards and personal happiness accrue when we invest in -- that is, spend time or money on -- other people.  First comes empathy, then happiness, because empathy establishes personal connection.  By it we embrace our common humanity.  This is the purpose.  But the effect is that by it also both giver and receiver become truly thankful.

Revisiting Just War Theory

On August 11, Jean Bethke Elshtain passed away after a remarkable academic career.  I first became familiar with her work some years ago while working on a term paper for an ethics course.  The subject of the paper was whether violence in defense of justice was ever legitimate.  Professor Elshtain wrote with vigor and clarity on just war theory and its application to contemporary geopolitical problems.  Both in honor of her passing and in view of the current debate in the United States about a potential military strike on Syria (President Obama intends to address his nation during prime time tomorrow), I thought it worthwhile to revisit the criteria for determining the legitimate use of violence in defense of justice that she helped to refine.

When antonyms are, literally, synonyms

I normally do not post two entries on one day. Well, for that matter, I normally do not post -- if that means publishing more than 182.62 submissions per year. But today is a Friday, and so I make an exception.

Gene Weingarten has a playful but pointed column in The Washington Post about the, to his sense and mine, dangerous demise of the English language, or the culture in which it is employed: "Weighing in on 'literally,' but figuratively, of course." (And if you want background, try this article last month from the UK's Daily Mail.)

Now Weingarten thinks that it is absurd when words are redefined to mean the same thing as their opposites. I am the one who thinks it dangerous when literal means figurative.

Whether words refer to reality (so Augustine), or whether they have meaning in connection with the real activities, or forms of life, into which they are woven (so Wittgenstein), or whether it is some combination of the two, this much is clear. The plasticity that allows a word meaning X simultaneously to mean not-X reflects something significant -- and troubling -- from an Augustinian or Wittgensteinian perspective. Why? Because it signals how confused and confusing is the reality in which we live (Augustine), or the activities and forms of life that contemporary culture takes (Wittgenstein), or both.

Maybe the closest approximation I can think of to this plasticity is the explanation of "fuhgeddaboudit" in Donnie Brasco. In fact, this scene is not merely amusing but actually illustrates the point. Donnie's world, living simultaneously as a law enforcer and as a mobster, was psychologically confusing and his life confused. Ultimately, Donnie could not handle the tension, his personality was changing, his marriage was dissolving, and he could no longer play the part of both at the same time. This example of semantic confusion (and contradiction) could be broadly instructive -- for words, people, and social institutions.

Moral Ambiguities in Prévost, pt. 2: Autonomy and Empathy

In my previous post on moral ambiguities in Prévost's Manon Lescaut, I observed how, even when characters and stories are explicitly said to be moral examples, the precise nature of the moral instruction may not be clear.  In particular, I asked of the ethical lesson reflected in the Chevalier des Grieux's interactions with others, "Is one to avoid (being duped into) compromising one’s moral judgment because of compassion, or, positively, to pity a libertine and lighten punishment?  Is one to recognize that pity is a virtue but that manipulating it for self-gain and moral license, as Des Grieux does, is a vice?"  In this post, I simply want to mention a couple of ways in which these questions are as alive for us today as they were for Abbé Prévost in the 1700s:  the relationship between autonomy and empathy in moral evaluation.

Narcissism on the Rise: Notable and Quotable

From D. G. Myers, Social Psychology (11^th ed.; New York:  McGraw-Hill, 2012), 54.

After tracking self-importance across the past several decades, psychologist Jean Twenge (2006; Twenge and others, 2008) reports that today’s young generation – Generation Me, she calls it -- express more narcissism (by agreeing with statements such as “If I ruled the world, it would be a better place” or “I think I am a special person”).  Narcissism scores rose over time on college campuses from Alabama to Maryland to California (Stewart & Bernhardt, 2010; Twenge & Foster, 2008, 2010).  Narcissism correlates with materialism, the desire to be famous, inflated expectations, fewer committed relationships and more “hooking up,” more gambling, and more cheating, all of which have also risen as narcissism has increased.  Narcissism is also linked to a lack of empathy -- the ability to take someone else’s perspective and be concerned about their [sic] problems -- and empathy has dropped precipitously among college students (Konrath & others, 2011).  The researchers speculate that today’s generation may be so wrapped up in online interaction that their in-person interaction skills have atrophied.  Or, they say, empathy might have declined because young people today are “feeling too busy on their paths to success,” single-mindedly concentrating on their own achievement because the world is now so competitive.  Yet, ironically, those high in narcissism and low in empathy are less -- not more – successful in the long run, making lower grades in college and performing poorly at work (Judge & others, 2006; Robins & Beer, 2001).

But what about a different version of that last ironic phenomenon (high narcissists with low empathy who are lower performing academically and professionally but nevertheless are long-term successful)?  That phenomenon which is familiar to many of us in our everyday experience has a technical explanation attached to it:  promote the jerk and make him someone else’s problem.

There actually is a social scientific explanation more nuanced than the (accurate) one that I just gave.  It is that “even if overconfidence produces subpar results, others still perceive it positively.” Therefore, a jerk, sub-par performer is elevated in an attempt to pair appropriately his status with his perceived attitude.  The thought might be something like, “Well, I find him gratingly obnoxious, but he must be the type of person who gets ahead, because he displays similar traits of authority, power, and exceptionality.” 

We may not be able to control the behavior of narcissistic jerks, but we can be more mindful not to perceive them as better than they are.  And we can take more self-conscious care to check our first psychological impression and not put them on a pedestal.

Of course, sometimes narcissists are at the top simply because they own the place.

Butler and Rousseau on Identity

Discussions, often controversial ones, about same-sex marriage are largely, among other things, about one's gender identity.  And discussions about gender identity can vacillate from the deterministic pole ("I was born this way") to the performative pole ("I construct my own 'gender,' which might differ from my 'sex'").  A recent speech by Lori Watson, Director of the Women's and Gender Studies Program at the University of San Diego, illustrates especially the performative emphasis.  The speech was given in support of the Catholic university's Pride organization student group, which was organizing its 2nd Annual Drag Show.  In thinking about contemporary issues involving gender identity, I returned to the influential theorist Judith Butler.  Her 1990 book Gender Trouble is a seminal study of performativity that is influential in gender/queer circles such as Professor Watson's.

As I began Butler's 2004 book Undoing Gender, in which she clarifies her position on this passive/performative spectrum, I began to wonder about the pedigree of her central theoretical claims.  To what extent does her balancing act now between biological determinism and social construction resemble concerns about identity that also flowered in another era like the Enlightenment?

Although Judith Butler herself would likely not draw connections between her critique of gender and Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s critique of the Enlightenment, some noteworthy echoes (and perhaps unacknowledged debts) exist. In particular, her insistence in Undoing Gender that gender “is a practice of improvisation within a scene of constraint” (p. 1) reflects, despite some important differences, a comparable tension that in his discourses Rousseau argued attended human self-invention in Enlightenment society: enslaving liberation, or alternatively liberated confinement. This similarity between Butler and Rousseau appears in several respects: recognition, the paradox of agency, and (in)authenticity.

An inch of difference?

What difference does an inch make?

That is really the question raised by this USA Today column, "We've Forgotten What Belongs on Page One."

The author writes about the events that form the basis of an ongoing trial in Philadelphia about infanticide performed routinely by a physician. The question surrounds the seemingly artificial, in the author's eyes, distinction between what is moral and what is legal:

...whether [the doctor] was killing the infants one second after they left the womb instead of partially inside or completely inside the womb — as in a routine late-term abortion — is merely a matter of geography. That one is murder and the other is a legal procedure is morally irreconcilable.

So an inch makes the difference between what is illegal and what is legal, between permissible termination of a life and the impermissible termination of it.

The details that emerged during the trial and that are described in the column are just horrifying.  The trial seems to highlight the real dispute at issue:  not when does life begin but when does life become socially valuable?

Our enlightened society and its legal system have an answer. An inch makes all the difference.

Ralph Waldo Emerson is famous for writing in his essay "Self-Reliance" that "[a] foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers..."  Apparently, little statesmen are also wont to adore foolish inconsistencies.  And it reflects the smallness of their minds.

Hookup Culture and Same-Sex Marriage

A fascinating book review appears in today's Wall Street Journal.  The review is by Emily Esfahani Smith of a new book by Donna Freitas called The End of Sex:  How Hookup Culture Is Leaving a Generation Unhappy, Sexually Unfulfilled, and Confused About Intimacy.

The review includes an interesting suggestion, which I had not seen before but makes perfect sense.  It is that there is a high positive correlation between the increased use of technological devices among youth -- which replaces, removes, or corrupts traditional human interaction (a la Sherry Turkle, Nicholas Carr, and many others) -- and the rise of hookup culture on college campuses. (Previous posts here and here provide a summary of Prof. Turkle's ideas.)

Something else worth pondering is a point that Prof. Freitas makes about the culture of sex on college campuses, here summarized by Ms. Smith:

In other words, many college students, who in philosophy class would surely recognize the ethical imperative not to use other people as means to an end, do so every night in their dorms. This selfishness is why, as Ms. Freitas argues, the hookup culture is intimately related to sexual assault. In both, one person uses another to satisfy a sexual or social desire without any regard for what that other person wants, needs or feels. 

Now, one might counter that the sex is consensual and so there is no assault. But the idea underlying the claim of selfish sexual use that disregards what another person "wants, needs, and feels" goes deeper than this.  It is more holistic.  The assumption seems to be that this sexual activity is done in the absence of thinking about what sex is, what it does relationally, and what it is part of holistically.   And absent these fundamental considerations, hookup sex is personally utilitarian to the extreme and, at bottom, immoral.

Professor Freitas may not go so far as I just put it (i.e., say that hookup sex is immoral), but that is apparently her instinct.  And there is something to that notion.

This discussion of campus sexuality is revealing, it seems to me, for the contours surrounding, and the connections to, the same-sex marriage debate that is now current.  Proponents of same-sex marriage tend to defend it on the basis of a "rights" argument, that it is an individual and civil right to be able to marry whomever one may wish.  But this line of argumentation, while it needs to be considered, may be similar to the hookup sex culture in this way:  it tends to assume something about the fundamental issue of what marriage is, and perhaps like hookup sex culture it misses the point.

Arguing for same-sex marriage may not always include explicitly a definition of what marriage is, but there is certainly an assumed definition, which is really a re-definition.  Redefining marriage from the conjugal view to include same-sex partners turns on the idea that marriage is simply a relationally satisfying forum, one that exists for the pursuit of the happiness, or the fulfillment of desires, of those persons involved.  One full expression of this revisionist view is given by S. Girgis, R. George, and R. Anderson:

Marriage is the union of two people (whether of the same sex or of opposite sexes) who commit to romantically loving and caring for each other and to sharing the burdens and benefits of domestic life. It is essentially a union of hearts and minds, enhanced by whatever forms of sexual intimacy both partners find agreeable. (my emphasis)

What if sexual intimacy according to whatever form that partners find agreeable turns out to be deleterious and misguided, as Prof. Freitas argues about hookup culture?  What if the potential form that sexual intimacy takes in marriage is in fact constitutive of marriage itself properly practiced?

I don't know Prof. Freitas's view of the same-sex marriage question, and I am not suggesting that she would support a conjugal view of it.  Based on the review, I doubt she would.

My main contention is simply that if one is going to discuss the merits or legitimacy of different forms of sexuality -- hookup culture on college campuses and marriage itself (because sexuality has been viewed as intrinsic to marriage) -- one needs to be candid about this:  the fact that the discussion is about, or should really be about, what sex or marriage is most basically.  And everyone in the conversation needs to be willing to engage substantively in that discussion.

The preoccupation with a supposed individual right of same-sex persons to marry obscures the logically prior and necessary question of the basic definition of marriage upon which the exercise of any right depends.  Moreover, if someone is confused about what something is and what it is a part of, as in the case of hookup culture, then the doing of that thing will have deleterious and misguided results.

To adapt the subtitle of Prof. Freitas's book, what if same-sex marriage ends up leaving a generation and its posterity confused about intimacy and what marriage really is?

Against Fairness

I have addressed the matter of "fairness" in a number of prior posts.  It is an important moral sense, but one that has more than one facet, as I explained previously.  It is also a cultural watchword that can distort as much as illuminate our activities.

The following excerpt from today's Wall Street Journal finds closest affinity with a short piece on gratitude as outlined by Roger Scruton.

The Wall Street Journal
Notable & Quotable
Stephen T. Asma on the social threat of 'fairness.'

Prof. Stephen T. Asma in his new book Against Fairness (University of Chicago Press):

Our contemporary hunger for equality can border on the comical. When my six-year-old son came home from first grade with a fancy winner's ribbon, I was filled with pride to discover that he had won a footrace. While I was heaping praise on him, he interrupted to correct me. "No, it wasn't just me," he explained. "We all won the race!" He impatiently educated me. He wasn't first or second or third—he couldn't even remember what place he took. Everyone who ran the race was told that they had won, and they were all given the same ribbon. "Well, you can't all win a race," I explained to him, ever-supportive father that I am. That doesn't even make sense. He simply held up his purple ribbon and raised his eyebrows at me, as if to say, "You are thus refuted." . . .

More troubling than the institutional enforcement of this strange fairness is the fact that such protective "lessons" ill-equip kids for the realities of later life. As our children grow up, they will have to negotiate a world of partiality. Does it really help children when our schools legislate reality into a "fairer" but utterly fictional form? The focus on equality of outcome may produce a generation that is burdened with an indignant sense of entitlement.

A version of this article appeared November 18, 2012, on page A19 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Notable & Quotable.

Ancient Greek Tragedies and Our Own

I have been rereading some ancient Greek tragedies, and I am impressed by how relevant their themes remain, especially for our struggles in families and societies.

Making Sense of Wilson, pt. 9: Universal Impulse

In a prior post in which I reflected on James Q. Wilson's book The Moral Sense, I drew attention to the universal impulse in moral sentiment that he identifies:  "The most remarkable change in the moral history of mankind has been the rise -- and occasionally the application -- of the view that all people, and not just one’s own kind, are entitled to fair treatment" (191).  Because it is so remarkable, and because it has such sweeping implications, it is worth probing further this topic about the development of universalism in moral thinking and practice.

We can begin by focusing on a question that Prof. Wilson himself poses:  "How can we explain the great expansion of the boundaries within which the moral sense operates?  How, in particular, can we explain why we believe that moral rules ought to have universal applicability?  This aspiration toward the universal is the chief feature of the moral history of mankind" (194).  Indeed.

Professor Wilson suggests that the long development of consensual marriage, particularly in northwestern Europe, helps to provide a key, but not the only, component of an explanation.

The link between the two, consensual marriage and universal moral applicability, may not be immediately apparent.  The tie, however, is the parallel development in northwestern Europe of individualism.  What is the connection?

Making Sense of Wilson, pt. 7: Family

Why are the nature and structure of family life so heatedly debated?

This question can often be overshadowed by the rancor of contemporary disputes about family matters (such as cohabitation or marriage and wealth), but it is important to ask.  It is a question that arises in my mind frequently.  I wonder if exploring an answer to it might lay the groundwork for more constructive and less rancorous dialogue about these substantive topics than we sometimes have.

James Q. Wilson's discussion of the family, which occurs in a different context that is not about moral debate per se, may help us to pose an answer to this question.

Quite simply, one reason the nature and structure of family life are so heatedly debated, it seems to me, is because "[t]he family is a continuous locus of reciprocal obligations that constitute an unending school for moral instruction" (The Moral Sense, 162-63).  The fabric of the family ineluctably shapes the fabric of its members' morality.

Testing Tolerance

Until now I have tried to stay above the fray involving Chick-fil-A.  I post this only to say that the main point of an editorial in today's The New York Times strikes me as correct:  Government officials, such as the mayors of Boston and Chicago, the Speaker of the New York City Council, and an alderman of Chicago, ought not to discriminate against a lawful business enterprise on the basis of the personal views of the business owner.  Those officials have said that they would block additional expansion of Chick-fil-A franchises in their jurisdictions.

The editors at the Times, as well as NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg, hold a view of the permissible parties involved in and the moral nature of marriage that is opposed to that of Chick-fil-A owner Dan Cathy.  What they both accurately recognize, however, is that the public relations campaign and business threats by government officials against Mr. Cathy amount to intolerance of his religious beliefs and his entitlement both to hold and to express them.  As Mr. Bloomberg is quoted in the editorial as saying, “You can’t have a test for what the owners’ personal views are before you decide to give a [business] permit to do something in the city.”

The Chicago and Boston mayors', the NYC councilwoman's, and the Chicago alderman's views are intolerant because they seek to deny public rights (the rights to pursue property and lawful enterprise) as an attempt to censure private rights (the rights to free religious belief, free speech, and liberty of conscience).  These officials may attempt this in protest to, or as an expression of disagreement about, some other closely-held matter, but they are still intolerant.

And they are intolerant, moreover, because they deny in practice something at the heart of political liberalism, the fact of reasonable pluralism.  In a contemporary democratic society, John Rawls observes, the fact of reasonable pluralism is "the fact of profound and irreconcilable differences in citizens' reasonable comprehensive religious and philosophical conceptions of the world, and in their views of the moral and aesthetic values to be sought in human life" (Rawls, Justice as Fairness, 3).  The government officials do this -- deny in effect the fact of reasonable pluralism -- precisely by seeking to banish from their political communities (because they cannot be tolerated) those who differ in moral and civic viewpoints from them.  They do not accept profound and irreconcilable differences in worldview; they wish to eliminate them.  The officials make no room for public debate about how to balance in the community all agreed upon liberties with those that may be disputed.  In fact, they make little to no room for the exponents themselves who hold and express differing viewpoints.

In this vein, a creative thought experiment was narrated by Mona Charen in a column that she titled "Al-Rahim and Chicago Values."  She describes a situation in which a Muslim business owner of convenience stores articulates to a Muslim periodical his belief in the traditional, Quranic view of marriage, which is a man's having not more than four wives.  Apparently this differs from the view of marriage held by the mayors of Chicago and Boston, who go on record that they will do all within their power to prevent him from opening up more convenience stores in their cities, because his personal beliefs about heterosexual matrimony are at odds with their and their cities' approach to marriage and civil unions.  What would the response be to this Muslim man's comments?

This is a thought experiment, because it is retelling the story of Mr. Cathy as Mr. Al-Rahim, the story of a Christian businessman's expression of his personal viewpoint as the story of a Muslim's.  As Ms. Charen explains, "Rahim is an invention to illustrate the selective outrage of liberal Democrats. It is simply impossible to imagine that liberal Democrats would treat affirmations of Muslim faith with the kind of bullying that Cathy and Chick-fil-A have received.  Yet Islam is at least as doctrinally tough on homosexuality as Christianity is, and considerably tougher in practice."

The fact of reasonable pluralism, as Prof. Rawls understands it, is an unavoidable fixture of contemporary democratic republics such as the one in the United States.  It is also, as the present brouhaha attests, difficult to navigate in conjunction with a commitment to the core and treasured liberties of the moderns:  freedom of thought, speech, property ownership, and liberty of conscience.  (I borrow the phrase "liberties of the moderns" from Prof. Rawls; see Justice as Fairness, 140-45.)  As much as definitions of fairness still need to be clarified carefully, about which I wrote in a previous post, so, too, does the concept of tolerance.

Tolerance of a belief is not the same as acceptance of that belief.  In my view, however, in common, everyday practice, tolerance has become in many people's minds synonymous with conforming to, or acceptance of, their viewpoint.  This conception of tolerance is the converse of the popular conception of intolerance:  If you accept my view about P, then you are tolerant; if you do not accept -- do not agree with, do not conform to -- my view about P, then you are intolerant.  Disagreement is designated intolerance; reasonable difference of opinion is often quickly labeled bigotry.

But this popular conception, where it prevails, not only may serve as easy ad hominem argumentation.  This conception evacuates tolerance of all its meaning, for tolerance assumes non-acceptance.  It presupposes disagreement.  It says that a differing viewpoint and the one who holds it are not to be excluded from public discourse and the public square.  Reasonable disagreement will be endured and respected -- tolerated.  By contrast, to be intolerant is to be unwilling to grant equal freedom of expression or to penalize people unjustly for making free expressions.

The fact of reasonable pluralism tests real and workable conceptions of tolerance.  We may not agree with the fictional Mr. Al-Rahim's endorsement of traditional, Quranic marriage.  We may object to the real-life Mr. Cathy's advocacy of traditional marriage as a conjugal union.  These sorts of expression of speech and conviction of conscience are rights protected by the Constitution and enshrined as Constitutional essentials.

What we may not do, however, is this.  In advocating for fairness for all, we may not practice a selective view of fairness for some.  In an attempt to prevent certain Muslims and Christians from supposedly treating a group as separate but equal (for so goes the argument for same-sex "marriage"), we may not treat these Muslims and Christians themselves as separate but equal.  We may not, in other words, claim that they are equal but seek to separate them from our civic and business life.

But this is what the mayors of Chicago and Boston have done.  They say, "You may have your beliefs, but you cannot pursue your conception of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in our community through your business enterprise.  You are equal, but you must remain separate from us.  We can discriminate, but you cannot."  In so doing, that is, by practicing a real separate-but-equal approach to matters of freedom of speech and lawful employment, these officials have undermined their professed moral justification for same-sex marriage on the basis of the same, namely, ending a purported practice of separate but equal.

Whether, in fact, the debate about the definition of marriage admits, as some parties believe, the separate but equal line from Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) is another matter.  The black community, for instance, does not on the whole view the subject in that light, and they might be positioned better than others to know separate but equal when they see it.  Separate but equal sounds nice; it is a powerful sound bite with a known civil rights pregnancy; but I am not sure that upon closer inspection it fully applies.  The debate about marriage seems to me fundamentally about the wisdom and propriety of redefining -- and thereby changing -- an indispensable cultural/civil (and arguably religious) institution, as well as about the moral consequences entailed by such a redefinition.

Be that as it may, the mayoral hubbub about Chick-fil-A demonstrates the ways in which so-called tolerance is frequently championed but inconsistently practiced.  For calling out what would amount to unjust policing and penalizing of law-abiding citizens and businesses for protected First Amendment rights, The New York Times editorial board is to be commended.

Conjugal Haves and Have-nots

In Sunday's The New York Times on July 15 appeared an article by Jason DeParle on "the way family structure deepens class divides."  Among the observations is that children in two-parent homes tend to fare better than children in single-parent homes.

Much of this faring well is understood in the article economically:  "striking changes in family structure [in the U.S. over recent decades] have also broadened income gaps and posed new barriers to upward mobility."  Mr. DeParle continues, albeit in a somewhat attention-grabbing, Marx-related way of articulating these descriptive trends:

Estimates vary widely, but scholars have said that changes in marriage patterns -- as opposed to changes in individual earnings -- may account for as much as 40 percent of the growth in certain measures of inequality.  Long a nation of economic extremes, the United States is also becoming a society of family haves and family have-nots, with marriage and its rewards evermore confined to the fortunate classes.

This is empirically revealing and helpful data for informed debate.  But is marriage really "confined" to one segment of society in the sense that it is out of reach, or in the sense that a man and woman who wish to marry are not permitted to do so?

It may be the case, as Andrew Cherlin, a sociologist at Johns Hopkins University, says, that “[i]t is the privileged Americans who are marrying, and marrying helps them stay privileged.”  So the main question in my mind is, Why are not people marrying who might stand to benefit in numerous ways by so doing?

Education level is cited as a factor correlated to one's state of marriage and parenthood.  The more educated a woman is, the less likely she is to have a child out of wedlock.   A racial correlation exists but is decreasing.  Multiple factors are interrelated, to be sure.  I wonder, however, if the view of one of the subjects of Mr. DeParle's story about income levels and family structure is closest to the mark:  “I’m in this position because of decisions I made.” 

These are not the words of a privileged outsider looking in on someone less wealthy.  These are not the words of controversial sociologist Charles Murray, who argues in his most recent book that moral decline is responsible for matrimonial decline.  (That book is reviewed in the NYT and WSJ; also available are a chat with readers, an op-ed, and summary essay.)  These are the words of someone who is actually and personally affected -- by the decisions that she says that she made.

All of this brings to mind a topic from a previous post on poverty.  In it, I reproduced a statement by Ron Haskins of the Brookings Institution.  His main point in recent Congressional testimony is that certain behavior is an extremely accurate predictor of adult poverty or, alternately, of general economic success:  "Young people can virtually assure that they and their families will avoid poverty if they follow three elementary rules for success -- complete at least a high school education, work full time, and wait until age 21 and get married before having a baby."

Consider these statements from the article in the Times, which are congruous with Mr. Haskin's remarks:

• "Nearly half the unmarried parents living together at a child’s birth split up within five years."
• "Marital decline compounds economic woes, since it leaves the needy to struggle alone."
• "Forty years ago, the top and middle income thirds had virtually identical family patterns: more than 95 percent of households with children in either tier had two parents in the home. Since then the groups have diverged, according to [two researchers] Mr. Western and Ms. Shollenberger: 88 percent at the top have two parents, but just 71 percent do in the middle." [A different but related research finding is depicted in the nearby chart.]
• "While many studies have found that children of single parents are more likely to grow up poor, less is known about their chances of advancement as adults. But there are suggestions that the absence of a father in the house makes it harder for children to climb the economic ladder."

In other previous posts (two in May, here and here; and one in April), I also commented on family matters.

Upon continuing reflection, two important considerations occur to me.  One is that the heightened contemporary concern about income discrepancy among Americans, the so-called haves and have-nots, may be legitimate, but it may need to be examined and discussed from a wider perspective than purely monetary differences.  Mr. DeParle's article serviceably suggests that conjugal differences are related to income differences.  To put a finer point on the broader perspective that may be required, increasingly cultural or lifestyle or -- may we actually say it -- moral differences, too, must be brought into the conversation about differences in income levels.

In addition, our examinations and analyses will benefit if we can move beyond the passive victim explanation (i.e., "Those people over there wholly did this to me!").  We may not be able to be content either with the opposite, active agent explanation (i.e., "You did this completely to yourself!").  The proper weighting of these two reasons for a certain state of affairs may be difficult in general to quantify.  Neither may be the whole story.  Both, however, passive and active, object and subject, victim and agent, explanations are relevant.  Still, in the public debate, more room than currently seems popularly acceptable may need to be made at the table for the this-is-a-result-of-your-choices element.

In so saying, I do not wish to be misunderstood.  Environmental factors beyond one's control do often influence the opportunities (or the perception one has of opportunities) about which one may make active decisions and in light of which one may pursue certain goals.  Examples may include being born into a family in a violent neighborhood, which entails pressures that limit educational possibilities, or being born to a parent who has few inhibitions, which leads to destructive effects that harm the child.

However, it seems equally obvious that individuals do, by and large, voluntarily if not always deliberately make decisions that have undesirable consequences for themselves.  Individuals are not forced but rather choose whether or not to be married.  They choose whether or not to behave in such a way that they may have children out of wedlock at a certain age.  They choose whether or not to commit themselves to the laborious task of reconciling with a spouse in the wake of the contentious situations that arise in a marriage rather than divorcing.  They even choose whether to (behave in such a way as to) complete at least a high school education or to seek full-time employment.  All of these bear on one's financial prospects, income level, and upward mobility.

Why is this view, that an individual's decisions may bear on one's financial situation and that these decisions may be moral in nature, controversial?  Let me offer a few suggestions.

First, a possible reason is the nation's drift in culture, or character.

In the article in the Times, Mr. DeParle remarks, "Across Middle America, single motherhood has moved from an anomaly to a norm with head-turning speed."  The language of anomaly and norm reflects not just frequency of occurrence in the culture, as in a move from uncommon to common, but also a moral acceptance of single motherhood in the culture, as in a move from not acceptable to acceptable.  If single motherhood does not carry the same social stigma, then that is because single motherhood is not viewed with the same moral disapprobation as previously.  Whether this is because divorce, too, is more common and less stigmatized that earlier, or because reproductive technology is more accessible to more people, or because the sheer number of single parents makes it hard for people who know single parents to be critical of them, or even because being critical itself is frowned upon -- all of these things reflect both changing behaviors and a changing attitude toward matters of morality.

Answers to questions -- and the questions themselves -- are different.  What shape should a nuclear family take?  What sort of commitment does one actually make in marriage?  What is marriage?  What sort of family structure both is appropriate to and should best foster becoming a parent and discharging that loving, sacrificial duty?  If I wish to be a mother but marriageable men are hard to come by, perhaps because men lack the desired and necessary moral qualities or character, should I go it alone through a means like sperm donorship and in vitro fertilization?  A positive answer assumes that one has the means to pay for the technological procedure.

Or in the case of many inner cities, where poverty and violence are more common, if I have the same desire for a child and find few or no marriageable men not only because of the previous reasons but also because they are unemployed or incarcerated or dead, do I just have a child with my current boyfriend outside of marriage?  This potential answer, of course, assumes something about the permissibility of pre-marital sex, itself a moral topic about which society's public moral opinion has changed.  Pre-marital sex used to be frowned upon; now it is expected. 

The family is a sphere of life that is inherently moral in nature.  In families we confront the messiness of human relationships; we realize the power of human sexuality, which connects us most intimately with another human; we find our notions of and capacities for commitment, sympathy, fairness, patience, and self-control tested.  Insofar as marriage is integral to family structure, which inescapably entails these things, marriage also, and any conception or pursuit of it, is moral in nature. 

This drift, first of individual behavior in community and then society's view of it, involves unavoidably the social conception of what is in fact moral.  I mean "what is in fact moral" in the sense both of what is a moral matter and what is the proper way in which one ought to think or act about a particular matter.  Both have broadly changed.
 

Second, and closely related, this morphed view of what is moral does not include cultural "lifestyles" or has relativized them.  For this reason, so-called lifestyle choices are deemed irrelevant to the morality inherent in the income debate.  To introduce them is to make a contested move.

If it is controversial that an individual's decisions may bear on one's financial situation and that these decisions may be moral in nature, then this may be because activities like pre-marital sex, cohabitation, and single-parenthood are not viewed as moral matters.  Where they are viewed as moral matters, they tend, as I have suggested, to be viewed as equally morally acceptable alternatives to abstinence, marriage as a conjugal union, and two-parent households.  This shapes politically correct debate.  These behaviors, in other words, are either off-limits (because they not seen as ethical in nature) or accepted (because ethical standards have been flattened).  It is perhaps because they are accepted that they are off-limits.  Certain family-related behavior is not illegitimate, but criticizing another lifestyle is impermissible.  "You just don't do that these days."  This is the new morality.

The nature of the family and its role in the social fabric used to be expected; now raising questions about variations from that previous expectation is frowned upon. 

Third, accompanying the drift in the nation's culture and its reconfiguration of what is moral has been a greater abdication of individual responsibility and a tendency to assign blame to other agents.

In a previous post, I drew attention to a suggestion made by Roger Scruton about his perception of growing ingratitude.  According to his (quite sensible) view, when one receives something by grace, gratitude follows; when one receives something by justice, ingratitude follows.  Grace is understood as an undeserved gift; justice is understood as an expected right.

In American society over the last fifty years (and even longer), more citizens receive monetary assistance of some kind from the federal government in greater amounts than in previous generations.  These distributions are made in the name of justice.  The discourse about them focuses on the distributions, and often prejudges them, as rights, a supposed right to health care, for instance.  They are even referred to in the federal budget as "entitlements."  Slowly and sometimes not-so-subtly the culture's assumptions about its own nature shift in this direction, too.  The way in which I think about what I have in life, or should have in life, increasingly includes a component of that which I expect to receive from others owing to a form of justice.

Entailed in this evolving mentality is a diminished, although not obliterated, sense of individual responsibility and local community.  Entailed also, on the other hand, is a magnified, although not total, sense of third-party (often state) responsibility for the national community.  When I do not have what I expect to have by right (and often I may confuse what I wish to have and what I ought to have by certain just deserts), I find fault with some third party.  I blame someone else.  This is usually the third party that I believe is supposed to guarantee my rights (the state).  It also often is the entity that I believe is preventing me from receiving what I suppose, whether by desire or justice, is now rightfully mine (the state and/or an economic system or a party or an industry or a company or a person).

How does this relate to conjugal haves and have-nots?  Recall that the discussion about income discrepancies in the United States generally takes place at the level of those who have agency, those who earn X and those who earn Y.  This is helpful to recall because the argument that I am trying to make is a moral one, namely, that an individual's decisions may bear on one's financial situation and that these decisions may be moral in nature.  When we speak of rights or what ought to be the case, we are squarely in the moral sphere.  Assigning blame is a moral action and reflects a moral judgment.

A curious irony exists.  The fact of disparity in income levels is presented as a moral issue (e.g., "I am not receiving what I ought to receive"), but it is often also seen as illegitimate and prejudicial to explain that disparity by way of other moral issues (e.g., the consequences of individual moral choices and habits some of which relate to family and sexuality).  Put the other way around, why is it legitimate to cast the disparity in income levels among persons in society as driven by immorality (greed, exploitation, cronyism) but illegitimate to offer as a contributing factor other forms of immorality (lack of self-control, failures of duty, infidelity)?

I suspect that one answer, not far off the mark, is that the former immorality (greed, exploitation, cronyism) is committed by other agents but the latter (lack of self-control, failures of duty, infidelity) are committed by the persons with the lower income levels who claim to be hurt by the greedy, exploiting cronies.

What we find, then, is a propensity to criticize but not an openness to be criticized.  We can "call out" other people's immorality, but we cannot bear to have them call out our own.  We moralize selectively.  Whether this is perhaps another moral shift in culture, or just intrinsic to human nature, it is strikingly reflected in contemporary American individual character, at least at the level of public debate.

Why is a moral understanding of the matter important?  What is gained by identifying morality as involved in the descriptive relationship between marital and parental situation, on the one hand, and financial situation, on the other?

One benefit is that a moral understanding allows us consistently to hold together both passive and active causes of the income gap.  Not only may an individual in some sense be on the short receiving end of some other group's morally dubious actions, but also individuals are in a real sense active agents in producing their own financial state of affairs.   The former covers the "I'm not receiving what I ought to receive" notion; the latter covers the "these are some of the consequences of your individual moral choices and habits" idea.  When we see both elements as moral, we may open up to better view than if we do not the nature of the problem, its origins, and potential remedies.

A second benefit is that we can thereby more acutely perceive the effect of the morality of public culture on public debate -- and we can talk more openly about that effect.

Public culture, what is accepted within a community, does imply notions of personhood and society to which persons and society should aim.  These are goals of the group, and as goals they function as constraining norms.  In this way we see that public culture influences behavior, which leads to consequences both for persons and for the group.

This is a significant observation that is all too often dismissed when it is claimed that culture is neutral.  Usually that happens when culture is influencing ideas and behavior in the way that a partisan likes.  In Justice as Fairness, John Rawls, the towering figure of modern political liberalism, writes:  "We suppose, as a general fact of commonsense political sociology, that those who grow up in a well-ordered society will, in good part, form their conception of themselves as citizens from the public culture and from the conceptions of persons and society implicit in it" (122).  Political liberals and conservatives both understand this "general fact":  Culture's influence is always operative; that influence is powerful; and it powerfully influences identity and morals.

If the current debate about the sources of income gaps and class stratification is lopsidedly moral, namely, to the passive/victim/environmental explanation, then the lopsidedness itself says something noteworthy about the morals of the culture that the nature of the debate reflects.  Less cumbersomely put, the focus of the debate reflects the prevailing moral disposition of the culture.  In this case, the moral disposition may be a decided shift to rights-based thinking, enlarging statist institutions, moral blame-shifting, and ingratitude.  Whether this is entirely accurate, we should, at the very least, pause to ponder whether how people conceive of themselves and of society is true to other moral sentiments that we may have (we might not be consistent), or that it may be legitimate to have (we might not have a monopoly on morality).

In writing this, specifically about a possible marked shift of this sort, I wish to be clear.  I am speaking of the broad culture, not of every individual.  Indeed, as we will remember, the lead subject in Mr. DeParle's article says of her situation:  “I’m in this position because of decisions I made.”   

I do hope that these reflections add some balance to what I see as an uneven public debate.  The element of individual responsibility is not only marginalized in the media; it is also frequently vilified or scorned, as are those who suggest it.  In asking why some moral elements are permitted in public discourse and others are not, I am not only pointing out an inconsistency; I am also suggesting that something valuable is lost in our understanding of real social situations like marriage and sexual behavior.  That something valuable but lost is recognition of a more holistic moral dimension that is inherent in social life.