I’ve been working on a thought experiment that I’d like to share with readers, not because I think it’s a slam dunk for either side in the current marriage argument, but simply because it fascinates me. Here goes:
I’m a concerned Israelite citizen in the early-monarchy period, and I have come to believe that it’s morally wrong for King David to have more than one wife. I know he’s a national hero, and beloved of the Lord, and “the sweet psalmist of Israel”: All the more reason, say I, that he should set an example by getting rid of all of his concubines and all but one of his wives.
Now: In this thought experiment, I am just one Israelite citizen. I don’t have the police power of a Bull Connor, or the concentration-camp system of a Kim Jong Il to enforce my views. I’m just an ordinary Israelite who has an idea for moral reform. Should I try, through nonviolent political persuasion, to convince my fellow Israelites and our King David (blessings be upon him!), of my point of view? Or would this be an attempt on my part to impose a “dictatorship of relativism,” or something even worse — not just a relativist dictatorship, in which I claim that my opinion is equally as good as King David’s, but an absolute dictatorship, in which I claim that my opinion is actually better than King David’s? At the very least, I would be trying to change society’s clear definition of marriage — as a sacred relationship of a man and a woman and a woman and a woman and a woman and a woman and a woman, and a concubine and a concubine and a concubine and a concubine and a concubine and a concubine and a concubine — in conformity to my own whim. They didn’t have the word Jacobin in ancient Israel, but my brazen view would certainly qualify as something analogous.
The fact that King David appears to have God’s approval for all his wives and concubines — with the one stark exception that God is angry with him for the way in which he got one of them (Bathsheba, via killing her husband) — would certainly give me pause.
So: Should I be brave, and express my opinion in the public square of Jerusalem? Or should I refrain, lest I undermine the institutions that have brought Israel to its cultural zenith?
I believe in absolute truth. It’s the underpinning of any coherent metaphysics, and indeed, I think, of any coherent worldview at all. But I also believe that the way in which we apprehend truth — and the way in which society comes to realize and institutionalize such truths as we do, haltingly, apprehend — can be very hard to diagram.
What percentage of the people who think that men should be able to "marry" men think that we can know absolute truth? Isn't a strong part of the argument, at least from the intellectual left, that no one really knows what they're talking about. (And hence it is arbitrary to confine marriage within its traditional boundaries).
From that point of view, to take the classic, Aristotelian view, that nature intended men and women for each other, is to be an "essentialist."
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI'd move to New York, where, thank goodness, those good people have outlawed polygamous marriage.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHere is some ice-cold truth: Gay marriage is a joke and it always will be, no matter how many states legalize it.
That piece of paper stamped with a state seal and signed by a bureaucrat may give you legal legitimacy, but in society at large, same sex marriage is a joke, and it always will be; fodder for edgy stand-up comedians and raunchy animated sitcoms on Fox.
Teh Gheys may feel they've won an "in yer face" to the Christian Right, but society will have the last laugh. And two queens arguing over a China pattern will always be hilarious.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseVery poor taste.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseLook at this guy's passion.
Mitch Daniels wanted to stamp this out for truce.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseActually, Yardale, the joke is you're so out of touch with the world around you and so blinded by your poor excuse for morals that you don't even see how absurd and ignorant your rant actually is. And that, in fact, is the "ice-cold truth". Granted, you're so afraid of the reality around you, you wouldn't recognize the truth if it was wearing a nametag.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"and so blinded by your poor excuse for morals "
That's rich. Lectures on morals from men that want to destroy them.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI predict this is going to end with Mike posting a longwinded post involving a lot of self analysis about this or that, sort of half apology while also thanking his 1 supporter from Texas, who just happens to be a cheeky Texan "good ol boy" who's not a "metrosexual by any means", and then he will move into a quasi-sermon and then he will quote some obscure poetry. It's always a train wreck.
This guy is just like a character out of a Fyodor Dostoevsky, except those characters were usually drunk. :)
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWho knew the passage of gay marriage laws would result in such an sudden and unending display of self love?!?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSometimes you need to step away from the keyboard, Mike.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSo apparently a significant number of posters only like posts they already agree with?
The original post (buried a few pages back with nearly 350 comments on it) had some really interesting back and forth between the two sides of this issue. I don't understand the need of some to act like the mob throwing dung at the guy in the stockades.
Whether you agree with him or not the discussion is worth having even if only to help all of us strengthen and flesh out our own thoughts on the issue. Unless everyone believes they already have this issue (or any other issue for that matter) 100% nailed down and that they'll never hear a counter point that will require them to stop and think then this discussion is worth having and should be treated a little more respectfully.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWinTheFuture????!!???
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe only way this thought experiment would hold up is if the "average Israelite" looked at King David's good deal, and tried to EXPAND the franchise. Since you have defined the franchise as wife/wife/wife and concubine/concubine/concubine, then the franchise expansion would have to redefine "wife" and "concubine" to include things King David (and his followers) might or might not have considered out of bounds. Let's say this average Israelite wanted to include children under 10 and zebras in this new definition. He should have to try and sell *that* to his fellow citizens.
Your thought experiment tries to equate a person wishing to bring order to disorder with a modern-day effort to bring greater disorder to an already disorderly house. The illogic kills the experiment before it even starts.
Increasing the entropy of the system will not make things "better". It will just increase everyone ELSE'S entropy in the system leading to even more disorder. An "absolute dictatorship" would have the benefit of keeping the system entropy constant or nearly so. A "relativistic dictatorship" just feeds more entropy because all comparisons are relative, and no effort is made to maintain the overall system. Nobody feels obligated to mind the system because only the individual interactions "matter" in a relativistic dictatorship.
All this marriage amendment in NY does is increase societal chaos. It helps only a few people (theoretically to feel better about themselves, there is no practical benefit of any kind), but it creates system chaos by increasing the randomness of the system. Any and all permutations are now acceptable. After all, who are we to say whether a 59 year old auto mechanic should not be allowed to marry his 8 year old niece and have children when she sexually matures? As long as that 59 year old auto mechanic has the votes, who cares, right? Right.
If what you wish is societal chaos, then by all means, stick with relativistic theory.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe 59 marrying an 8 year old is such a bad example because (fairly obviously) the 8 year old doesn't have the vote so can't be coerced into marriage.
But yes, two people who are old enough to vote should be able to marry if they want to. Why should any body tell them any different?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseExcept what is "old enough," really? If society can't impose moral judgments on others, how are we to say what the proper age of consent is? 18? 16? 14? Who is to say, who is to judge? Didn't Loretta Lynn marry at 14? She turned out okay, didn't she? What right do we have to impose limitations on anyone?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe age of consent has always been set arbitrarily, by whatever customs that particular community adopted.
In colonial New England prior to the Revolutionary War, the age of consent for a girl was--whenever her parents decided she was ready. (That was also the tradition in Europe in past centuries.) Some girls married at the age of nine, the minimum age when she and her family could legally accept a dowry from her suitor.
In early 19th century New England, the legal age of consent was 12.
Somehow, the United States survived all that.
From world history, we learn that there are numerous ways that nations can decline and fall.
But having sex is never one of them.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOkay, so you are fine with marriages between men in their fifties and, say, eight-year-olds, then. Just making sure.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWho do you guys think will win the Superbowl this year, if they have the season?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI have no idea, but I'm pretty sure the NFL will have a terrible, chickified halftime show involving aging 60's musicians with 17 year old poptart backup singers and an overarching theme so bland that it'll make the Coors Lite seem tabasco sauce.
If we're really lucky, this season the NFL will ban tackling, high-5's and other unsportsmanlike on-field behaviors.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI live in Massachusetts, which has had same-sex marriage for five years now.
And I see no evidence of "social chaos" resulting from that. Heterosexual couples are still getting married in church, still raising children, still living their lives.
Life goes on.
Believe me, more "social chaos" has been caused by Obama's economic policies than by same-sex marriage. When older folks have lost their jobs and been out of work for two years--now that's what I call social chaos.
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