From: Valence (valence10@hotmail.com)
Date: Fri Jun 13 2003 - 00:01:11 BST
Hey Johnny,
JOHNNY
> Hang on a second...you wrote:
> >He describes this individuality as "blasphemy" and warns that...
>
> Just to be clear, what I decried as blasphemy was much more general.
> Individuality isn't blasphemy, it isn't even immoral today. I said:
>
> "Patterns should do what they should, people should be moral. That should
> be obvious, but instead people feel pattens should be thwarted. That's
> nothing short of blasphemy, which IS still a crime in my state."
>
> In other words, blasphemy is to deny or otherwise purposefully malign the
> moral imperative in general, to say that morality should be thwarted
because
> it is bad. That is the equivilent in religious terminology of blasphemy,
> saying that God is bad.
RICK
I agree that it is obvious that patterns should do what they should and that
people would be moral if they behaved morally, but it's only obvious because
it's an empty tautological formulation. It's like when Aristotle defined
'justice' as the notion that similar things should be treated similarly. To
his credit, he was quick to note that the formulation was only so valuable
because it failed to state what things are similar or how they should be
treated (something he went to great lengths to do in works like Nicomachian
ethics). Of course people should do what they should do; the relevant
question is *what* should they do?
You say, "...blasphemy is to deny or otherwise purposefully malign the moral
imperative in general, to say that morality should be thwarted because it is
bad." But I know of very few, if any, people who argue simply that
"morality is bad" (maybe some extreme-anarchists?). Most everyone believes
in behaving morally, the disagreements are about what is and isn't moral.
JOHNNY
The terms I would use to describe individuality and
> breakdown of the pattern of lifelong marriage are "sad" and "alrming", but
> not "blasphemous." Most people who are the perpetrators of this
> individuality and who get divorced are doing it because it is now -
sadly -
> expected of them.It is the greatest apparent good. They are being moral,
> not blasphemous, and following the tradition of the culture, which is very
> different now from what you describe it as being hundreds of years ago.
> That USED to be the tradition 500 years ago, but tradition was different
100
> years ago, and tradition is different today. Tradition isn't static, it
> changes. (Nothing is really static, now is it?)
RICK
As for your idea that divorcees are just 'following the tradition of the
culture' and getting divorced because now it's 'expected', I hasten to point
out that the divorce rate has leveled out quite a bit in the last decade or
so. As it stands, slightly more than half of couples who marry, stay
married until one or the other dies. In other words, there is no clear
social expectation anymore. Some people stay married, some people don't.
But even if you were right about divorce being the expectation; Is divorce
really any sadder or more alarming than the idea of those people trapping
themselves in a miserable marriage for the rest of their lives simply
because *that's* what is expected of them? I think you place way too much
emphasis on the importance of expectation... but we've been over that ground
before. Expectations change and change back and change back again (nothing
is purely static...we agree). And in a time like the one we live in now,
where there is no clear social expectation of how a marriage should turn
out, there's no other option but to make our own moral decisions.
RICK (from last time)
> >But as the man said, "...the
> >courage to love [is] the courage to affirm one's own experience against
> >tradition..." Here's hoping Johnny Moral can find this sort of courage.
JOHNNY
> It would be much less courageous for me to go along with the culture and
> just let marriage be abolished...
RICK
Once again, I don't think the culture is clear on marital expectations, so I
think you're assertion that going along with a culture that has more liberal
attitudes towards divorce is 'less courageous', is premature,
overly-dramatic, and somewhat self-serving (by the way, I know of absolutely
nobody who calls for the "abolition" of marriage; if you are seriously
maintaining that abolishing marriage is the mainstream social view, anywhere
in the world, I would love to see some evidence).
JOHNNY
..., just chase amor where ever it beckons me
> like most people do.
That's what I have always done in the past, and it
> sure has been easy. I've never married, I've even had an adulterous
affair
> because it was so amorous (which i regret terribly and won't do again.
> she's divorced now and may be better off, but he was hurting for a long
> time, or so I heard). Was that courageous of me? Chasing amor really
> takes no courage if it is what everyone is doing. It's recklessness not
> courage..
RICK
I think you should go back and read the Campbell passage again Johnny.
Clearly, you either badly misread or badly misunderstood its content. For
the love that you lament over in this quote is NOT "Amor"... "it's eros"
(Campbell mentioned 3 species of love "eros", "amor", and "agape"... go
review). Eros is the swelling of the loins, it's passion. Agape is loving
your neighbor, it's compassion. Amor is the romantic love that exists
between two autonomous individuals, it's LOVE!!! And that's the whole
point! The kind of love you mean to be defending, Amor, REQUIRES strong
individuals who are willing to buck popular conceptions and to love each
other regardless of public morals. This means autonomous individuals loving
each other *as* individuals without kneeling to whatever social morality may
object. When society says you two can't be together because of religious
differences, economic differences, racial differences, gender
similarities...etc; The lovers reply, "you ain't the boss of us." BOLD AS
LOVE; just like the Electric Troubadour sang.
It seems now that "pre-existing marriage" has been added to the list of
public morality concerns that loving individuals have refused to yield to.
Society may have responded by sanctioning bigamy instead of divorce, but I
guess we believe that the one-on-one nature of marriage is more valuable
than the permanence of it.
As for your personal story (by including it in your post I assume you
intended it to be fair game for comment), I hope I'm not being to forward by
suggesting that you seem to be going to great metaphysical lengths to
relieve yourself of responsibility (the most elaborate I've seen since
Phaedrus himself dreamed up the MoQ in order to justify a fling with a party
girl). I think I've mentioned before that I briefly clerked for a family law
judge in NY, a job where I got a very up close and personal look at divorce
and divorcees. Most of them find a way to rationalize why it wasn't their
fault. Part of being a being an emotionally mature, autonomous individual
is taking responsibility for your mistakes. It wasn't a social expectation
that killed your marriage. I don't mean to be harsh, but it goes to the
greater point. All the divorcing couples that have driven the rates up
divorce because of decisions they made as individuals, not because of
society's expectations of them.
JOHNNY
> Now in case anyone points out that I am being immoral and advocating
> immorality by wanting to change expected behavior: yes, that's what I am
> doing.
RICK
It is not immoral to want to change expected behavior if you honestly think
the expectation is immoral. You just have to acknowledge that sometimes
behaving morally means fighting expectations. Go on, say it Johnny,... You
think the expectation is IMMORAL! It will feel good to admit :-).
JOHNNY
But note that I don't say that this (relatively new) social moral
> pattern should be changed because it is a social moral pattern, I am not
> being blasphemous, or disrespectful of morality. I say that it should be
> changed for the intellectual reason that allowing it to propogate will
> result in that litany of bad things I keep repeating, like reproduction
> becoming production, people no longer being the living manifestation of
> their parents unity and love.
RICK
The sky isn't falling Johnny, it's just that the-times-they-are-a-changin'.
Your spin seems unnecessarily apocalyptic. Advances in technology also
mean that couples and individuals who were once denied the ability to
reproduce will now be free from the chains of biology to create a living
manifestation of their love and unity.
JOHNNY
> And it takes some amount of courage to take this position in todays
> repressive intellectual environment. It is risky to put my name to it (I
> once sent an email from work to my state reps in support of a marriage
> ammendment here, signed personally with no company footer, just my home
> address, and one fascist rep actually contacted my boss in an effort to
get
> me in trouble. I really thought I might lose my job when I was called
into
> the boss's office. I had to send another letter saying those were my
> personal views, not the company's, etc. There's no way the state rep
could
> have thought I was representing the company, just cause it says
> companyname.com in my email address. Does anyone think I am speaking now
on
> behalf of Hotmail? It was just harrasment. By a state rep! grrr.
RICK
That sucks. What an a**hole.
JOHNNY
> Rick brings up a valid point that people's reproduction used to be
> controlled by arranged marriages. Whatever we think of arranged
marriages,
> they aren't the only alternative to cloning and state controlled
> reproduction. There is a little wiggle-room between these things, Rick.
RICK
Agreed. And the more wiggle-room the better. Where we disagree is in our
outlook on what these changes promise to loving individuals. You think the
changes will deprive them of their autonomy and put control of reproduction
into the hands of the state. I think the changes will increase the freedom
for loving individuals to unite and reproduce.
JOHNNY
It is not ironic at all that as a pattern evolves, where it came from, and
> where it doesn't want to go, are quite similar. The place marriage wants
to
> go is a voluntary, loving, life-long union between a man and a woman to
> create equality for all of humanity.
RICK
Disagree. Marriage born of Amor wants to shed expectations like "life-long"
and "between a man and woman". That sort of discrimination can never lead
to equality. Amor is individual love, it cares not about the public and
their silly expectations. Remember, to the Troubadours, the love between
individuals was the highest love of all and socially restraining that would
be immoral (there may be a tie-in with Sam's Eudemonia here).
The place marriage wants to go is a voluntary, loving union between
autonomous individuals. That's the endgame of equality for all humanity
(or, the humans that wish to marry anyway).
take care
rick
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