Subject:
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Re: Family values?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Thu, 4 Jan 2001 19:55:20 GMT
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Viewed:
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377 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, James Simpson writes:
> The act of marriage is an expression of commitment and aknowledgment of a
> moral truth that has been self-evident to the great majority of humanity
> (through distance and the stretches of time) since humanity's intellectual
> and moral faculties have been sufficiently developed to sufficiently
> understand and apply the truth.
The fact that you suggest the self-evidence of marriage indicates that you
and I have two fundamentally divergent worldviews. That's fine, of course,
but we need to recognize that certain issues are therefore insoluble between
us, and this may be one of them. For instance, cultural anthropology has
identified countless examples of practices that have become institutions in
order to preserve those parts of life that a culture deems necessary to
protect longterm. Marriage is one of these; in its Classical Roman
incarnation it can be identified with the protection of property rights and
to prevent skewed lineage so that a man need not (presumably) worry if he is
supporting another man's child. In any case, how far back does this
self-evidence go?
Having said all that, I need to ask again: how would any of this make
extramarital sex immoral? (Which it is not.)
> Western, Eastern, Southern and Northern alike have understood the gravity of
> marriage (as a permanent commitment between the betrothed, no matter the
> custom or form of ceremony, and deity or state paid homage before) - it is a
> moral understanding that has not faltered in its application amongst the
> consensus of peoples and civilizations throughout known human history. I'd
> say that the burden of proof is upon the man who would discard the great
> experience and consensus of human history and say that marriage as such is
> but a passing form of groundless insignificance.
No more passing than any other human institution, and of no greater
universal significance. I referred to the "current manifestation" of
marriage (or something similar--I snipped that part by accident)
deliberately. You seem to be saying that because we are able to identify
similar characteristics of formally commited human relationships that
marriage as a concept is humanity-wide, and I cannot agree with this because
it's too broad a statement requiring too much glossing over of details. Is
the lifelong betrothal of a US man and woman the same as in a country that
places the woman entirely under the hegemony of the man? What about in
cultures in which a man may have several wives? Are all these types of
marriage the same simply because we in English can group them under the same
word? Obviously you're not suggesting that all marriages are created equal,
but these are real and essential cross-cultural differences that need to be
addressed if we're asserting marriage as a basic human truth.
> > That is, of course, unless morality is a human invention, too, in which case
> > something is only "morally wrong" until we decide it isn't.
>
> By no means! The historical and personal testimony of human conscience is
> proof that morality is no base invention. The conscience may be tutored, may
> be refined, may be developed, but it is an endowed faculty of the human
> condition.
Just for clarity, I'm not asserting that morality is relativist; I was
citing the above as a rhetorical example.
> > If, on the other hand, "morally wrong" is self-evident in the universe, then
> > marriage still has nothing to do with it because marriage is not self-
> > evident in the universe.
>
> But is the application universally applied? That question can't be answered
> unless we 1) verify whether or not intelligent life exists anywhere in the
> universe outside of Earth (which would be impossible to ever fully know,
> even if we contact a trillion other worlds.), and 2) Positively verify that
> no creatures in the whole expanse of the universe recognize or understand the
> importance of some sort of committed union amongst their kind. If we're
> going to talk in terms of a universal level, let's not put our conclusions
> ahead of our observations.
Easy there, tiger! I meant "universal" in the figurative
"every-human-on-the-planet" sense, not as it applies to Alpha Centauri and
all points west.
> Killing babies will never cease to be anything but Bad.
I'm generally uncomfortable with absolutes, but I understand what you're
saying. But let's not start that tired debate again.
> > or morals are an invention (in which case the rightness or wrongness of
> > extramarital sex is only as permanent as the morality du jour).
>
> God help us if morality becomes du jour.
Well, *somebody* help us, anyway.
Dave!
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Family values?
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| (...) Granted, but i'd be suprised if anything is ever solved in debate. Personally, I prow around here because I enjoy a gentlemanly clash of arms and because I think that it's fundamentally important to speak up about certain things. For instance, (...) (23 years ago, 4-Jan-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Family values?
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| (...) Current "Western" ([American, Western European, Canadian, Australian) as a functional (as opposed to formal) culture and economic region]) society may have it's own particular flavor, it's own particular "style" of marriage, but I think that (...) (23 years ago, 4-Jan-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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