Gay Marriage Is A Threat To Male Insecurity

[A colleague sends me one of those futile Internet petitions regarding a controversial topic.]

Dear MoveOn member,

In less than 48 hours, Congress will vote on an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would permanently deny marriage equality to same-sex couples. This is unprecedented. Never before has our Constitution been amended to take away anyone's rights. We've got to fight back.

Please sign on to our emergency petition to Congress to stop this divisive amendment at http://www.moveon.org/unitednotdivided.

[I decide to address the topic if not the lame petition. Partially as a means to deter further thoughtless agitation. Partially as an exercise to express my thoughts in writing.]

I don't understand this vehement opposition. How does it lesson one's own marriage? Or maybe I do understand it.

I'll tell you what this is in my view, if you're willing to hear some frank opinion. Some of it is outright ignorance or hate. But most of it is simple insecurity. I think the opposition to gay rights comes from a lack of self confidence of one's own social standing. That's male insecurity mind you- clearly homophobia was born of male competition over women. These men see gays as a threat to their own chances with women. If society allows homosexuals to coexist openly among heterosexuals, then these homosexuals may begin to influence women's opinions of what traits are desirable in men. Rather than controlling themselves, confident in their choice of lifestyle, interests, opinions, and how appealing they are in the eyes of women, these men panic, and demand absolute control over the rules of the game. They insist very publicly that everyone must hold the same opinions and respect the same rules. This is absurd in my mind.

Though nothing new, of course. It's simple Darwinian competition, and has been in play for millions of years. This political issue illustrates two very different approaches to life: One values working hard to make oneself a strong competitor in a game with ever-evolving rules. The other pretends the rules- and only such rules as benefit oneself- are static and absolute, then forces these fictitious rules upon all of society and punishes any skeptics or non-conformists.

Both approaches to life raise one's stock in the Darwinian game. It is undeniable that bigotry is effective. It achieves its aims. But which approach is stronger, that is, which approach ultimately will succeed in the long run? Before you answer, ask yourself one more question: Which approach is more adaptable? Well, you can see where I'm going with this. In a game of Darwinian competition the more adaptable strategy ultimately wins. So long as man remains civilized, the liberal belief wins out. It requires less energy. One manages oneself, not everyone else.

Civilization produces homosexuality. That's an uncomfortable fact to many men, but that's in our genetic makeup. Let's ask ourselves why homosexuality is more prevalent in cities. Why? Because of the reasons given above. In a city one learns very quickly that one cannot possibly manage everyone's beliefs. In rural settings, however, it is possible. People who live in rural settings are no different than their urban neighbors, it's just that one Darwinian strategy- the conservative one- plays out more favorably. Why is homosexuality more accepted in Europe? Older cities.

I believe my analysis applies to many other issues, not just the issue of gay rights. I see this political issue as one of many social conflicts that at their most basic become a struggle of the self versus the group, the individual versus the collective. Nothing new, Freud called it Civilization and its Discontents. Who you side with depends on your self-confidence regarding the Darwinian competition at stake. Do you gain more by siding with the group, or do you gain more by setting out on your own?

I have a contrarian personality, so I tend to fight the group because I rarely see it as benefiting myself. I see it as constraining me; constraining talent and ingenuity in return for familiarity and predictability. No doubt the world is a much cozier and safer place if everyone holds the same opinions, respects the same rules, and refrains from questioning Official Wisdom. It is also a much more boring place.

To quote Jim Morrison,

"How many of you are alive? How many of you people know you're really alive? You're all plastic soldiers in a miniature dirt war. I am the lizard king. I can do anything!"

A little out there, but essentially correct in my book.

     

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The Leaders Do Not Believe Their Own Orthodoxies

[An e-mail to my father.]

Frightening. The neoconservatives want all this power and they are often so terribly wrong:

Saddam was an imminent threat to the world because he possessed weapons of mass destruction. Wrong. I remember a dramatic moment when at a United Nations press conference the German foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, switched mid-sentence from German to English to reproach Donald Rumsfeld- who was rudely shaking his head- Fischer saying, "... I'm sorry Mr. Secretary, but I am not convinced!"

That Islam, where it's at today, lacking any equivalent of Christianity's Protestant Reformation or the West's Enlightenment, that Islam is compatible with democracy. Wrong again.

Then again, Cheney doesn't really believe that himself. He lets George W. believe it though because the man's complete unawareness of the fear inspired by newfound personal responsibilities for the social and moral arrangement of one's own life that is required by democracy can be debilitating to one raised outside of Western culture, lacking the 500 years of cultural support we may take for granted in the West- Cheney lets George W. believe this fib because it jibes with the general public's ethnocentricity. Also because George W.'s simplistic faith in the malleability of humanity sells well with the public, who tend to believe such fairy tales due to their evangelical orientation.

Many of the neoconservatives believe in this idealistic nonsense, and it may hurt them to be proven so wrong. But some of them do not believe their own orthodoxies. This situation in American government today is no different than in other institutions that wield great power and influence over their people. In the U.S., those in the congregation are called patriots. In religion, they are the faithful, the chosen, the flock. In fascism or communism, they are the proletariat, the workers. I have said this in the past, but I will reiterate it here: It is my reading of life, that those at the top of these institutions do not believe their own orthodoxies. Whether it's the Pope, Islamic mullahs, Osama bin Laden, or Dick Cheney. They do not believe their own sermons, their own ontologies, their own politics, their own propaganda. They feign belief merely as a means to an end.

This is called cynicism. It represents a deliberate choice to exploit ignorance, rather than an attempt to educate it away. Its cause is a deeply seated misanthropy, a hatred of humanity, a belief that most of mankind is stupid, ungrateful, and unworthy of assistance from those of strength and ability. Again I refer to worn texts: The battle between these perspectives, that of the cynic and that of the humanist, is the paramount issue explored in The Brothers Karamazov, receiving its most profound treatment in the chapter entitled The Grand Inquisitor, which relates a fantastic confrontation between a Catholic cardinal at the height of his power during the Spanish Inquisition and his prisoner, Jesus Christ of the Second Coming.

This difference of perspective is illustrated in the vastly different worldviews held by the religious zealot and the secularist; between the power politician and the teacher; between America's Founding Fathers of democracy and Iraq's Islamic clerics. We pretend that much more exists in common between the last pair than in actuality does, because it is pleasing to believe such fantasies. Or, because the converse, contemplating the backwardness of Islamic culture, is too terribly frightening. Or, because many of our population were raised among a solidly Christian evangelic group of family and friends, where people were never challenged to defend their beliefs against outside opinions. Regardless of the cause, belief in this fantasy allows us to feel self-righteous about our good deeds.

Cheney is the perfect example of this cynicism. That is why he is so detestable, in my mind. Cheney is the archetype of the Nietzschien superman that thinks he knows what's best for the weaklings among humanity, and that he must impose his will upon the masses for their own good. Dostoevsky warned in Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov that the logical conclusion of this line of reasoning is a monster of a man. Depending on his character and strength, he may evolve into a Columbine killer, or a Napoleon, or a Hitler.

The reason why it seems absurd to imagine Dick Cheney as such a monster is because he is so effectively restrained by our democracy. It took Western, Christian culture centuries to store up the strength and courage to do this, to cast off the social and moral certainty provided by Nietzschien leaders. But we did it at last in order to starve these monsters. By separating Church and State, by providing a secular education for our population, by creating competing branches of representative government, by protecting freedom of speech and press, we starved the monsters of their sustenance.

And yet, Dick Cheney and today's neoconservatives are asking us to roll back these very same protections, in the name of fighting tyranny and terror, and to protect our Western culture and way of life. It is these protections that have safeguarded, nurtured, and promoted our culture, not the wisdom of Nietzschien supermen. Islam, beholden to such supermen, if not reformed by its practitioners as Christianity was by its Protestants, will eat itself. Islam will consume itself in ignorance and hatred.

For Cheney, even if he comprehends it, none of this matters. He acts on a ruthless calculation: enacting the means to his end. Cheney wants the oil. Cheney wants to kill Arabs to avenge September 11th. Cheney wants a name for himself as a tough power-player with connections. Cheney wants to ensure himself a high profile job after he's completed his "service" to his country. And Bush is too stupid to understand this or see the puppet master moving his strings.

     

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The Liberal Media

[A friend e-mails me this article knowing I would find it amusing.]

Brent Bozell, head of the conservative watchdog group Media Research Center has issued a $1-million challenge to NBC anchor Tom Brokaw following Brokaw's comments in the current issue of Columbia Journalism Review that Bozell's complaint that the news media show a liberal bias "just doesn't hold up." Bozell said he would be willing to submit his group's research to a neutral third-party panel. "If this panel agrees with Brokaw's contention, the Media Research Center will donate $1 million to the anchor's favorite charity. If the panel agrees with us, NBC and Brokaw will donate $1 million to the Media Research Center. Oh, and to sweeten the pot we'll do this: we'll limit our evidence only to Tom Brokaw and NBC. Frankly, that's all the evidence we need to prove the point." Neither Brokaw nor NBC has responded to Bozell's challenge.

[My response.]

I have two opinions on this charge of liberal bias in mainstream media:

1. Of course the media is liberally biased! Look at the values and skills required of a journalist: suspicion of authority, skill at discerning the interests and motivation of one's sources, inclination to doubt moral authority, ability to separate fact from opinion or dogma, empathy for people of many walks of life, etc.

These values and skills are given more weight by the liberal mind than by the conservative mind. The liberal mind is inquisitive, wants to understand how the world works, and most importantly, why we find our world arranged as we do. Who benefits? Who loses? Who's free? Who's shackled? The conservative mind is confident, wants most of all to ensure that the answers developed by one's forefathers and one's superiors are established as certain fact, incontestably moral and true, and are obeyed without exception.

Take a look at how Dostoevsky contrasts the man-of-action (conservative) with the intelligent man (liberal) in his Notes from the Underground.

In actuality, in my opinion, this confidence found in conservatives is not confidence at all, but insecurity- the insecurity in one's own ability to decide what to believe in when one is confronted with opposing views. If one goes to great lengths to ensure that everyone believes the same thing, then one avoids the moral anxiety that liberals have learned to live with, have recognized is the natural state of man. But I digress...

In general, a liberal media is a sign of a healthy, open society. Take a look at the alternative, countries with conservative media: Russia, China, the entire Islamic World. Conservative media, by definition, is propaganda. Russia's conservative media defends the oligarchs. China's conservative media defends the Communists. And the Islamic World's conservative media defends the clerics and mullahs. I'll take our media, thank you, even if it may be a little biased.

2. Of course the media is not liberally biased. Does anyone remember Monica Lewinski? The 24-hour Clinton conspiracy machine? And, as Al Franken points out, other more detrimental biases exist in the media: do it first, do it cheap, dumb it down, etc.

     

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The Primary Difference Between Conservatism And Liberalism

[An e-mail to my father.]

I enjoyed both essays. But I think that David Brooks gives George Bush too much credit. If I had read Brooks exclusively, and had not seen or heard George Bush speak for himself, I'd come away with the impression that George W. is a deep thinker embattled in a war of ideas with America's liberal legacy. He's not. He's a cultural and moral simpleton. He means well, but he doesn't understand the arguments of his adversaries, nor is he interested in them.

David Brooks' portrait of George Bush is not reconciled to this reality. I get the impression, when reading David Brooks, that he is writing about the man the Republican party should have to offer. I think that David Brooks is frustrated that conservatives in America have so few men or women of any intellectual heft to engage the other side in an intelligent debate of ideas. The Republican party has a surfeit of blowhards, but few intelligent leaders. Lacking such a leader, Mr. Brooks is inventing one in George W. Bush. I find it a little absurd.

I think that David Brooks is a closet liberal. He may have been snubbed or insulted at an impressionable age by the liberal establishment. He seems at once desirous to be among them- he writes for the Atlantic Monthly and now the New York Times, he lends his analysis to PBS, and he is found of profiling the East Cost liberal lifestyle in his essays- and desirous to ridicule them: He spends an inordinate amount of time deriding liberal narcissism.

It is my belief that this desire to ridicule comes from envy. I think David Brooks secretly wishes that he could find such engaging minds among his conservative friends. He lashes out at liberals not simply because they disagree with him, but because of the manner in which they disagree: They construct well defended, well articulated arguments. If his conservative friends were capable of engaging his mind in such a manner, he would be free from this need to prove so publicly that he is not a liberal.

It strikes me as quite revealing of the fundamental deficiency in today's conservative thought that Mr. Brooks demonstrates through his behavior a recognition that within conservative circles it is not enough to challenge one's adversaries on his thoughts. One must attack one's adversaries personally, make them appear morally slack- hence his harangues against liberal narcissism. I think this behavior is exacted from those claiming to be conservatives chiefly because intelligent debate is so strongly identified as an attribute of the liberal mind. Show a preference to engage in such intelligent debate rather than trite moralism and conservatives will question your credentials.

I too am offended by liberal narcissism. But it doesn't make me run to the Republican Party. That would be like Richard Feynman giving in to scientific elitism because the host presiding at many of his public lectures would introduce his as "a quantum physicist who also plays bongo drums." The compulsion of the common man to explain away one's intellectual fascinations is not license to derogate him. It identifies an opportunity to educate him and improve our common culture.

This, in my mind, illustrates the primary difference between conservatism and liberalism. It is a question of how to react to the shortcomings of others: exploit the man, or educate the man?

     

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John Ashcroft, Simpleton

[An e-mail to my father and sister.]

Hope everyone's having a good day. Some more political commentary:

Have you heard about John Ashcroft's recent move? He wants all federal prosecutors to charge defendants with the "most serious offense," and try all these cases if necessary, even if this means forgoing the opportunity to extract a guilty plea from the defendant on a slightly lesser charge.

Now, keep in mind that 96% of all federal cases are settled without a trial because the prosecutors have extracted such a guilty plea from the defendant. Ninety six percent.

96! That's out of 100.

Legal professionals, of course, point out the obvious. That if Mr. Ashcroft were to have his way, the courts would be overrun. Our judicial system would collapse under its own weight for the sake of satisfying the principles of this simpleton.

This just goes to show how idiotic is their approach to life:

Rule #1: Never, under any circumstances, allow fellow human beings to exercise judgment. This is the same principle behind city ordinances that force clerks in the liquor department at Jewel to ID retirees. No judgment allowed. Can't trust those clerks. Come to think of it, can't trust damn near anyone.

And the people who believe in this system, these trust-withholding misanthropes, call themselves Christian. What?

Rule #2: Always trust us. Nunno- I'm aware of the first rule. Not a peep out of you!

Rules #3 and 4: No violence. No lust.

These are my favorite rules. They betray such a naive approach to life. That it is possible to tame man of deep seated biological urges simply by legislating it. We, the elders, proclaim that man should not be violent. Furthermore, we, the elders, proclaim that neither should he be filled with sexual desire. Done and done.

Of course, the deterrent effect of the penalties for non-compliance with these two rules has demonstrated over the years how effective is such a legislative approach to washing man of his undesirable traits. Capital punishment, mandatory sentencing, and the clever one-two punch concocted by the Catholic Church- glorifying emblems of sexual purity (the Virgin Mary and the celibate priest) while simultaneously threatening eternal hellfire for not idolizing and obeying them- have truly changed man's behavior for the better, have they not?

Are the elders that believe in this simplistic vision of life like children, whose minds have not matured to the point where they may comprehend the complexities and moral ambiguities of our life? Or, are they just incredibly mean-spirited, human-race-hating people that want to break our backs, break our will, and remake us better than our Creator could? Their way.

     

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