… which is sad. Gerald Bostock, Aimee Stephens and Donald Zarda, the appellants in the three cases decided yesterday, were discriminated against by their employers for no other reason than what they were, or had decided to be. In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court decided that this breached the landmark 1964 civil rights legislation which banned discrimination in the workplace on the basis of race, religion, and gender, or what the law called “sex.”
This morning I criticized the Times for a cut line in its print edition that read “A Trump justice delivers an LGBT ruling that demoralizes the Right” as a gross exaggeration and “psychic news” —how does the Times know that conservatives are “demoralized”? However, I did recently encounter an article in The Federalist by a conservative who not only was apparently demoralized by the decision, but driven to the edge of madness. In all fairness, I thought I should mention it.
Joy Pullman, the author, is a Hillsdale College grad and an executive editor of the Federalist, which will lead me to be a bit more careful using the magazine as a source in the future.
As a preface, I note that Pullman isn’t a lawyer, and I see nothing in her background that suggests qualifications to analyze a Supreme Court decision. Indeed, I see nothing in the article that suggests that she read the majority opinion and the dissents. I’m guessing that she read a news article about the decision, or maybe a critical blog post. Well, a non-lawyer can only criticize a SCOTUS ruling according to his or her policy and ideological preferences. I don’t know why the Federalist would entrust an essay about the decision to someone like Pullman, though she is an executive editor.
Hear are some extreme and irresponsible statements from the piece, which has an extreme and irresponsible title that kindly warns us of the hysteria to come: “SCOTUS’s Transgender Ruling Firebombs The Constitution”:
In Monday’s ruling inserting “gender identity” into the word “sex” in a 1964 employment law, the U.S. Supreme Court called a man a woman, possibly leading to eventually forcing everyone else to do so also.
That’s the first sentence, and normally, if I didn’t have responsibilities to Ethics Alarms readers, a sentence that dishonest and simple-minded would cause me to stop reading on the spot. “Gender Identity” was not so inserted, and in fact the term does not appear in the Court’s ruling at all. Nor is there any rational reading of the opinion to suggest that it could lead to anyone being “forced” to call a man a woman, though Justice Alito did raise that ridiculous hypothetical (and he should be ashamed of himself.) I hope I’m not being overly technical to point out that compelled speech is a First Amendment issue, and that isn’t part of the SCOTUS decision or the issues of the cases involved at all.
Whatever. Details, details.
The 6-3 majority included Chief Justice John Roberts, appointed by Republican President George W. Bush, and Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch, appointed by Republican President Donald Trump. These presidents promised voters their justices would uphold the rule of law and the Constitution, and were elected in significant part based on these now-broken promises.
A lawyer, but also a reasonably intelligent person, would recognize that nobody else can break your promise. All a President can promise is to appoint a qualified judge to the Supreme Court, and that the judge has a conservative orientation toward the law and a judge’s role in resolving legal controversies. To say that a President has broken a promise because a judge has not voted a particular way in a single case, or many cases, is infantile as well as ignorant.
Given all that has happened after Obergefell v. Hodges, which we were vociferously told was ridiculous to forecast — transgenderism immediately going mainstream, pushing religion inside the closet LGBT people were vacating, limiting people’s ability to freely express their faith and ideas, forcing education institutions to promote LGBT politics and behavior — it’s naive to think such scenarios will not quickly become reality as a result of this court decision.
This was the author’s “proof” that the parade of horribles she (actually the religious right authorities she primarily relies on, as well as Justice Alito’s dissent), believes will certainly follow the Court’s ruling. She thus embraces the fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc, “after this, therefor because of this.” Obergefell v. Hodges did no more and no less than establish the right of gay Americans to wed the object of their affections like every non-gay American.
The movement for transgender rights was gaining momentum independently of the same sex marriage movement; if there is a connection, I haven’t seen a credible argument for one. People are as free to express their religion and faith as ever; if a religion or faith depends on the denigration of the humanity of others, perhaps it belongs in a closet. Education institutions should not be promoting any political agenda; they should be educating students about their rights and the rights of others. In the long march towards recognizing human rights, there have always been dissenters who want to teach their children to be bigots against one group or another. Again, you can’t blame Obergefell for that either.
Queer theory is now reigning U.S. employment law. This means it must also dominate all institutions of higher education that are not explicitly religious, both public and private.
Right. The decision means that we are now in thrall to the “gay agenda.”
No, all that happened is that the Supreme Court was presented with a clear cut example of unconscionable discrimination in the workplace that the 1964 Civil Rights Act only prohibited in principle, but not in its literal text, and decided it was time to fix the problem.
There is no question, none, that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity is exactly as offensive to the principles embodied in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution as discrimination on the basis of race. In great part because of people like Pullman, politicians have been unable to mount the fortitude to address this problem, though it ought to be simple. The technical objections of the dissenters are worth making as a matter of jurisprudence— “I understand your argument, but right now, I am busy applauding,” wrote Ann Althouse in response to the Alito dissent—-but there are many examples of the Supreme Court deciding that something is obviously broken that it has the power to fix, so it fixes it.
The Court is a branch of government as well as a judicial body. The Court acted in its governmental role when it used its power to stop the potentially disastrous train wreck that the endless Florida recount was wreaking on the nation in 2000. (For all the evocation of Justice Scalia “originalism” in the dissents to Bostock, he voted to fix the problem in 2000.) That wasn’t the first time, nor will it be the last, that SCOTUS has taken some liberties to do the right thing when the right thing needed to be done. There can hardly be an example when such a decision was more justifiable that the cases decided yesterday.
Interestingly, Justice Kavanaugh, who wrote a dissent, acknowledged this in it:
Notwithstanding my concern about the Court’s transgression of the Constitution’s separation of powers, it is appropriate to acknowledge the important victory achieved today by gay and lesbian Americans. Millions of gay and lesbian Americans have worked hard for many decades to achieve equal treatment in fact and in law. They have exhibited extraordinary vision, tenacity, and grit—battling often steep odds in the legislative and judicial arenas, not to mention in their daily lives. They have advanced powerful policy arguments and can take pride in today’s result.
Not just them, though. All Americans, and the Court itself, can take pride that a persistent form of invidious discrimination that wrecked lives and families based on hate and ignorance is finally as illegal as other discrimination specifically outlawed in Title 7. Yes, it would have been better if Congress had taken action, just as it would have been better if Congress had integrated the schools. However, the Court taking action in these extreme cases to remedy injustice is not a sign that the Supreme Court will run amuck. Those, like Pullman, who claim otherwise are deliberately fertilizing anti-gay, anti-trans hysteria.
They don’t call them “justices” for nothing.
Ethics Alarms 
The next step from ‘bake the cake‘ is ‘look at my dick little girl‘. Keep indulging the lunatics, odds are it won’t be your child sexually assaulted in a bathroom.
Funny, I thought Ernest T. Bass was smarter than that.
Wasn’t ETB intending sarcasm? At least, I hope so.
I doubt it. Once again, you’re more generous than I am, but I get about ten posts a week that are almost just like that, and they get trashed.
I bet you don’t know who Earnest T.Bass was (there’s no reason why you should.). Here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_T._Bass
Do you think you’ve heard the last……of him?
I think you have to be of a certain age.
This Ernest T. Bass is a strange and weird character.
(My childhood included television shows from long before I was born.)
Many thanks for this introduction to a part of US culture I wasn’t aware of. In fact, I was a victim of the Dunning Krueger effect. So ignorant of it that I wasn’t aware of how ignorant I was.
“Was” being the operative word, thanks to you. I owe you one for the education, and another for the kind way in which it was conducted.
There is little I can teach one as erudite as you, ZB, but US pop culture history may be an exception.
Tangentially, but ironically, Google has threatened to demonetize The Federalist if it doesn’t control the content of its (unmonitored) comment sections, causing the site to temporarily (it says) disable comments. Of course, this is in keeping with Google and the other online platform giants policies of advocating for themselves to likewise be held liable for user generated content, and be open to punishment if they fail to control it . /s
Jack quoth The Federalist thus:
The 6-3 majority included Chief Justice John Roberts, appointed by Republican President George W. Bush, and Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch, appointed by Republican President Donald Trump. These presidents promised voters their justices would uphold the rule of law and the Constitution, and were elected in significant part based on these now-broken promises.
I generally respect The Federalist, but this quote would’ve stopped my reading on the spot. There is so much wrong with this paragraph that it may take a while to unpack it all:
1. Presidents cannot legitimately promise anything about a Supreme Court nominee’s ultimate rulings and positions;
2. Who gets to define what the “rule of law” means? I hear liberals spout that platitude all the time in regard to the most lawless things imaginable;
3. The constitution wasn’t even at issue in this particular case;
4. What “promises were broken?” The Federalist, as I recall, was largely over the moon about Gorsuch, and Roberts when he was nominated. How is a president supposed to do better? The promises were kept, it is just the outcome this writer resents. Sounds vaguely leftist to me…
5. There is something about the words, “their justices” that makes me want to embrace Roberts’ obsessive desire to see the courts not be politicized. This sort of reference perfectly encapsulates his fear of illegitimacy arising from political decisions.
I can’t add much to the rest of your commentary.
The Federalist, to it’s credit, will often publish articles with multiple viewpoints in an issue. Some of those viewpoints are simplistic, infantile, and/or just stupid. Look at their series of articles on Catholicism and Protestant Christianity, for example. This isn’t the first Federalist article I have had to just dismiss. It won’t be the last. However, I don’t think this article was any more wrong than 90% of what the mainstream media has published about Trump for the last 4 years.
I just feel sorry for some of those poor kids writing for the Federalist, trying to figure out the world with little to no guidance. ;’)
Look at their series of articles on Catholicism and Protestant Christianity, for example.
For the sake of better understanding can you link to one of the articles you referred to? I did a search on their site with the term catholicism but didn’t pull up anything that seemed particularly outrageous. What are you referring to?
Here is JoyPullman’s article.
(It just occurred to me that you are not being completely serious . . .)
Unless all speech other than conciliatory speech is deemed “discrimination” by the courts, then speech could be compelled. We’re free to speak freely so long as we don’t also have employees!
The logical progression is so clear and obvious that I despair of all hope that an explanation would aid understanding. No, logical progression is a fallacy! It’s Post hoc ergo propter hoc! There is no slippery slope!
Said in another deliberately reductionist way which avoids rather than engages a thought at issue, Obergefell v. Hodges did no more and no less than establish the obligation for businesses and thus citizens to call not-X X.
It is as I have said. The difference between a conservative and a progressive is only velocity. Sell your belongings and join a third order. There’s no place for you left in the world if you practice the Apostolic Faith. Even that existence will be taken from you when the “conservatives” turn from the cities they’ve ruined in unison with the progressives and look to your pacifist monastery, peoples with “bigots”.
I wonder if that Benedict option ever got off the ground. I wonder if it actually follows the Rule of St. Benedict.
Jack, I have no big difficulty with this decision because it does not affect me or my beliefs but to others it undercuts their fundamental values. They see this as one more step into anything goes. For years, we had man made laws prohibiting homosexuality, sodomy, and other sexuality based rules based on what we call the Judeo-Christian values. The same reaction we see today is no different than when those laws were struck down. It is not that far fetched an idea that this is another step toward an anything goes society. Further, some of these new letters in the LGBTQXYZ recognize forms of sexuality that even I cannot comprehend. What the hell is gender fluid? Does this mean I can adopt that mantle and apply for grants and contracts reserved for a specific gender. Beats me. The point is if society is forced to accept forms of sexuality that were once deemed immoral, what is in store tomorrow. That is their whole point. It is not unreasonable for those that hold strong religious convictions to push back on decisions that theoretically can open the door to all sorts of human sexual behaviors. For example: I watched a NatGeo program some time ago about people that get married to inanimate objects https://www.buzzfeed.com/natgeo/10-people-in-love-with-inanimate-objects-5n1c
To many, these decisions effectively cheapen the value of the “marriage sacrament” rendering merely a contract between two people and not a covenant between the couple and their god. That is why people get “hysterical”. We have seen the effects on society when the family structure is reduced to nothing more that people living in the same house; the nuclear family is eroding and the social structure it provides. It took some time but society is now recognizing that nuclear families require two parents regardless of gender.
As for Earnest T’s comment above, I don’t know what he is talking about. Why couldn’t a XX transitioning to be an XY sexually assault my son. Why is it that only gay or trans-men go after children in a bathroom. Wouldn’t you more likely fear a gay woman with your daughter? All Earnest has to do is take his kid into any restroom he chooses and watch over the child. If he gets any grief just point to this SCOTUS decision.
All facetiousness aside like professional sports teams, religion and its constructs about sexuality are unifying to a large portion of society. When it seems to them that government has stripped them of something that is sacred they feel they are under attack. They feel a sense of loss. For them it goes far beyond not being able to watch their beloved team paly.
It is just as much tunnel vision to see the world through the eyes of someone that sees this decision as an historic milestone as it is for Evangelicals to see the world as a religious one.
Thank you!
The United States, based on its Mission Statement, the Declaration, does believe “anything goes” as long as it doesn’t harm others. Right now, the Left is trying to argue that opinions it doesn’t like “harms” people and makes them unsafe. This is no more valid than holding that what people do with consenting adults in the privacy of their homes are the government’s business.
Religions can inveigh against any conduct they choose. They can ban gays and onanists, vegans and Yankee fans. Since they deal in morality, not ethics, they can be rigid, but as the Founders went to great lengths to establish, religion can’t call the shots. I suspect that the Court will eventually rule that a religious organization does not have to hire individuals who openly violate the values and tenets of that religion, but its a close call. I put it on the same footing as the conscience clauses, but we shall see. All choices have unintended consequences. They do is not an argument for inaction.
Jack writes: The United States, based on its Mission Statement, the Declaration, does believe “anything goes” as long as it doesn’t harm others.
I can see how that position could be argued. But it requires thousands of antecedent decisions about all sorts of different values in order to arrive at that *interpretation*. It is the modern notion about what things should be allowed, accepted and encouraged, that is reverse-inserted into what the Founders intended. It is impossible — at least in my view — to assert that these men taken corporately would ever have meant or would ever have declared “anything goes as long as it doesn’t harm others” in the sense that you have taken it. Simply put there is no way. (But I am open to having this demonstrated).
Now, it is simple to see that the conversation, if it is to be a robust and meaningful one, has to turn to consideration of what *harm* is. This is obviously not a simple or perhaps I should say not a *self evident* set of definitions. It is very complex in fact. The best articulation of Catholic values pertaining to sexuality has been expressed by E Michael Jones in Libido Dominandi.
There it is easy to discover that the issue of ‘harm’ arising out of sexual expression is quite complex and has been considered relevant for many centuries within Occidental culture. The notion of sexual deviance, and sexuality as a tool of control, does seem to be relatively modern. It seems to have arisen with mass communication. And the use of sexual seduction in advertising and entertainment is of course quite new as we all recognize.
So if aberrant sexual practice (of any sort, be it homosexual or heterosexual) is understood to be a potential or an actual tool of political domination and control, and if sexual expression has broken out of all conventional limits in our present, then the tie-in to political harm is not spurious. Just here I have touched on a theme that certainly would have been of concern to the Founders: sexual manipulation as a tool of political control. It is with this group of ideas and concerns that Christians seem to concern them selves. One might not agree with them but their concerns and the ideas behind them are coherent.
Right now, the Left is trying to argue that opinions it doesn’t like “harms” people and makes them unsafe.
The actual position of the philosophical Left is that they must take action against the opinions as you put it, which contain ideas, which if unchecked lead to actions which are harmful. They do not seek to limit opinions simply because they are opinions. The Left seems to take up action against thought speech and action in a preemptive sense. My understanding is that this derives directly from Antifaschistishe Akton and those groups who fought against fascist groups. The Antifascist Left, according to its own statements, and after analyzing those statements, has a certain logic. So for example when Richard Spencer was punched it was easy to understand that it was good, proper and necessary ‘to punch a Nazi’. Because in a very real sense — a sense that I understand fully because I have studied his thought (and that of Bowden who influenced him) — he does stand for something proto-fascistic in the precise definition of the world.
According to simple logic then, the ideas of Richard Spencer on not ‘merely opinions’ and they should not be opposed merely because they make some ‘feel unsafe’. They should be opposed because if left to develop they will become destructive, just like the National Socialist Party when it was not opposed by direct action.
This is no more valid than holding that what people do with consenting adults in the privacy of their homes are the government’s business.
But it very much becomes the concern of an average citizen when through an array of complex influences and factors the culture in a general sense is ‘perverted’. If “politics is downstream from culture” then (obviously) these are cultural issues and topics of the Culture Wars. Why then do those who feel they are *victims* of socially rigid mores turn to Government to redress their issues? If government has no place in deciding any of that, then they should have no place at all. But government inserts itself.
The issue turns on the problem and the issue of ‘social engineering’. And this turns back to the fact — not an assertion but a fact — that government has become activist in social engineering projects in collusion with many other forces and poles in society.
Since they deal in morality, not ethics, they can be rigid, but as the Founders went to great lengths to establish, religion can’t call the shots.
At this point I see both these terms ethics and morality as being obfuscating. Let’s forget those words and talk about what we mean. Religionists, and certainly Catholic philosophical theologists, talk ultimately about values. And it is these notions of value that operate through the entire Occidental structure. It is a fallacy to push religious consideration out of the picture and to imply that ‘ethics’ is superior or more valid. Because it all turns back to what we value.
To be ‘rigid’ from a religionist perspective is not to be unreal or too abstract or even to be *severe* for the sake of severity. Clear theology is sound reasoning within the categories of value.
And the Founders were entirely the products of long chains of such meditation upon values. This seems true as rain to me.
In all senses though it is a fascinating topic! It goes right to the heart of . . . everything.
“Right now, the Left is trying to argue that opinions it doesn’t like “harms” people and makes them unsafe. This is no more valid than holding that what people do with consenting adults in the privacy of their homes are the government’s business.”
I whole heartedly agree but the government does seem to consider its business for behavior exhibited outside the home. If it did not it would not rule either way.
The concept of doing harm to others is extraordinarily dubious. How many children are taken from parents because some CPS employee deems it harmful. Why are children required to wear bike helmets today when we never had to. In Taneytown MD even adults must wear a helmet. The argument is that head injuries add to everyone else’s health care costs. There are ordinances that ban smoking in ones own home if it is attached to another. And someone explain why we don’t just let the junkies kill themselves off with their drugs. Their drug use doesn’t harm me. Now if they rob me to get money then we can proscribe the robbing people.
We do not have an “Anything goes as long as it does not hurt anyone else” society”. Ladies try walking down the Boardwalk at OC or down your front street naked. How does walking naked harm anyone else; except their puritanical sensibilities.
I submit that we pick and choose what goes or what is acceptable behavior even if it harms no one.
I for one don’t want religion to call all the shots but they do have a right to have input. My entire point was that for many who find some types of sexuality objectionable and feel they are forced to accept it in their economic lives I can understand how they might feel like the fan sitting in the bleachers with his team down 4 runs in the bottom of the 9th with no one on base and the pitcher is at bat with an 0 and 2 count.
Oh, I think a strong argument can be made that public decency and decorum is essential to a livable society. There a society can hold to reasonable norms. If you want to call public decency, like disturbance of the peace, an exception to Mill’s formula, that’s fine, but saying that we pick and choose what goes or what is acceptable behavior even if it harms no one. That goes too far. Public and private behavior are distinct, and the lines are pretty clear.
How do we define public decency and decorum and who shall do it? Is that not what the fight is all about?
In conclusion I do agree with 99% of your perspective in this matter. I am merely trying to point out that one person’s decency and another’s can be diametrically opposed. Further, my understanding of the court rulings is that they are not related to what transpires in private but what will occur publicly. The government is not regulating what consenting adults do in private they are requiring consent from adults that chose not to do something which is deemed to be discrimination based on sex. In this case, consent is relating to contractual relationships not personal ones. Here the court said that sex was not verb or a noun but an adjective to describe an orientation. One wonders why Congress, if the intent was to mean sexual orientation not gender, was unwilling to fix the 64 civil rights act to bring the language up to speed. It seems to me that for years discrimination based on sex meant women could not be discriminated against in a male dominated society. Why did Title 9 focus only on female opportunities and not non-binary athletes? It seems like words like genders are as fluid as a mountain stream. It is no wonder people get confused.
Those are actually interesting points; I’ll address the ones I have succinct answers for.
The laws are not getting closer to “anything goes” but rather getting closer to the secular ethical standards for sexual behavior, which is “safe, sane, and consensual”. Any rules beyond that would be imposing someone’s religious laws on someone else.
Gay people do not have the right to ask your religion to marry them. They do have the right to enter into a marriage as legally defined by the government. If the sanctity of your religious marriage can be disrupted by someone else getting legally married, your religion may have some psychological issues regarding control.
I agree that we’re losing some important things that religion provides: culture, community, traditions, institutions. My goal is to design versions of those that are in accordance with actual ethics and which promote transcendence, rather than becoming dogma.
I agree that we’re losing some important things that religion provides: culture, community, traditions, institutions. My goal is to design versions of those that are in accordance with actual ethics and which promote transcendence, rather than becoming dogma.
Fair enough, as far as it goes (and it goes a little while but not that far and not far enough!) But you come from a non-Christian and generally non-religious orientation. As I once said you could be a bit Buddhist though. But who knows?
However, you do not in any complete sense understand Christianity nor the Occident in a Christian sense. If you did you would see that our “culture, community, traditions, institutions” arise out of a Greco-Christian context. You cannot separate one from the other. You can try though. But you will never succeed. Because one created the other.
In your way of seeing things, then, we just need to *shore up* community and traditions and institutions perhaps by keeping the public library open for an hour longer or through some other substitutional means.
But a Christian religious praxis — the life lived — cannot be gotten through substitution. And when we lose the effervescent cause of what our culture is, we cannot hold it together (as anyone with two eyes in ther heads should be able to see!)
Should I quote Yeats here? 🙂 (It is kind of a shame that everyone uses that poem).
You’re making assumptions about what sort of system I would design given the opportunity and given input from all the people who would be helping to build the system they’d be living under. The system has to have continuity with what already has meaning for people. I’m mostly concerned with taking out the dogma.
To put it succinctly, anything that’s useful, we can keep. Ethical human values, we can keep. My main concern is that people should be able to evaluate traditions and values on their own merits, and not on the say-so of a deity. People should not be told that their values are valid or their traditions are useful because they’re backed by false authorities.
Does that make sense?
You mean do I understand you? Of course. I know pretty well what sorts of notions inform you simply because I have studied the rejection of Scholasticism.
You know what I reject, but you haven’t shown that you know anything about what I stand for. What do you know of existentialism?
I’ve looked over your blogsite. I think I can grasp, and respect, what is constructive in your approach. I can see why you’d define your motivating philosophy as Existentialist as well. I respect (what I understand of) Existentialism. I’ve read No Exit. Does that qualify me as understanding Existentialism? 🙂
I think you misunderstand what *dogma* is, or what it is not. I also am definitely of the opinion that, despite what I might call the folly of idealism ‘the people’ (mankind in general) require both authority and Authorities.
I am also opposed — at a pretty basic and profound level — to what I understand of the movement that gave birth to Existentialism. But the reason I say this is because a) I ‘believe in’ the existence of a Divine Authority, b) in a ‘metaphysical order’, and c) in the concretized form through which ‘proper teaching’ and understanding are brought to man’s awareness.
To the degree that you, shall I say, cooperate with that, we will likely be able to talk.
To the degree that you seek to diminish the primary relevance of the understanding that supports that, is the degree that we will not have a sufficient base for conversation.
I should have written both Authority and authorities.
I’m not sure what you understand of existentialism, but I would like to know what your definition of the word “dogma” is and what it’s for.
I regard the existence of a divine authority as an absurd concept, because I don’t buy that you can have objective normative statements. Where would they come from? How would you know what they were in any given situation, or whether you were mistaken? (These aren’t rhetorical questions. I really do want to know what people think the answers are.)
We may not know that we’re right about what the empirical world is like, but we know it’s there somewhere. There’s no difference that I can observe in any fashion between a world for which objective norms exist and one for which they don’t.
In place of an objective purpose, I substitute concepts describing the basic motivations of conscious beings, and the fundamental liabilities that those motivations can incur if people aren’t careful with how they pursue them. That has so far been sufficient to give me a nuanced understanding of people’s values and the meaning they create for their lives.
dogma (ˈdɒɡmə)
n, pl -mas or -mata (-mətə)
1. (Theology) a religious doctrine or system of doctrines proclaimed by ecclesiastical authority as true
2. (Philosophy) a belief, principle, or doctrine or a code of beliefs, principles, or doctrines: ‘Marxist dogma’.
[C17: via Latin from Greek: opinion, belief, from dokein to seem good]
_______________________
That is the definition of that word. That is what it means, independent of my definition.
I regard the existence of a divine authority as an absurd concept, because I don’t buy that you can have objective normative statements. Where would they come from?
They are metaphysical constants and they came into being with the kosmos itself. Plato developed these ideas in detail. If you cannot have objective normative statements you have undermined knowledge and knowing. You have also undermined the possibility of any true predicate.
Fine for a shape-shifting octopus I reckon!
Yet you will certainly recognize normative statements as they pertain to scientific facts. Truth is another category of knowledge.
The grounding of Occidental entity — being — is in those Occidental categories.
I would bet that a great deal of what is today termed religious dogma is exactly what people, with as high an intellect as you EC, came up with as they evaluated human behaviors and the merits of those behaviors which in turn established the traditions and values upon which many religions are based.
These high intellect persons were the shamans, mystics and priests and used stories to coalesce diverse demands into manageable societies. The saw patterns in physical and human nature but were unable to explain them fully but knew they were good for all. They developed gods that could not be refuted to explain natural occurrences and control unbridled human desires.
None of us truly know without a shadow of a doubt that a God or supreme being does not exist. We have no way to assess whether Moses actually talked to God or if Lot was told to vacate Sodom and not look back. We take it on faith that God exists. What demographic has not taken on faith that the person they elect will do what he or she promises to do. I took it on faith that John McCain would be against Obama Care. Ah, fooled again. Interesting thing about faith in God is that God does not let you down; at least not in such a way that can be measured.
The lack of physical evidence for God is not evidence itself. Evidence is available only to those with the tools to measure what they are looking for. Atoms existed long before we could measure them.
The false authorities to which you speak may not be as false as you my think. They were the scientists of their day and they followed that which benefitted the society. Unfortunately, man is an imperfect being and these same men soon learned that ability to understand gave them power and that power gave them to ability to control the masses. The real question before us is which of those traditions and values still help society and which were merely self serving.
Well, you’re not wrong, but that’s different from being meaningfully right. Rationalists have a principle called “making beliefs pay rent,” which means that if you believe something, it should enable you to make accurate predictions that help you accomplish things (paying you rent for the space it occupies in your head). If your deity never lets you down in a way that can be measured, you may need to reflect on whether you have ever asked your belief in that deity to pay you rent, and if not, why not.
That said, I respect the intelligent people you speak of for having done their best. It is only through learning from their mistakes that I was able to come up with concepts like the fundamental liabilities of stagnation and conflict, in order to avoid repeating those mistakes.
Stagnation describes limitations on people’s ability to form and pursue goals. Underregulated, it takes the form of decadence: an addiction to instant gratification. People tried to overregulate it and created dogma: rules limiting what people are allowed to think and feel.
Conflict describes a clash between goals with an uncertain victor. Underregulated, it takes the form of turmoil: a violent struggle in which the strong impose their will on the weak. People tried to overregulate it and created corruption: rules which were used as weapons by those in positions of power, to oppress others.
There is no abolishing either of these liabilities, for they are also fundamental aspects of conscious existence as we know it. Stagnation is merely the harsh side of identity: the knowledge and consistency of the self. Conflict is merely the harsh side of choice, the unknowability of what a person or group of people (including oneself) will do in all situations.
There is no magical balance between underregulating and overregulating these liabilities. Instead, we need to practice behavior that actively constructs better situations.
Transcendence is the only word I’ve found to label the practice of rising above stagnation of all kinds. Through self-reflection and contemplation of the world around us, we can develop over time into the people we would prefer to be, or the people we need to be to fulfill our values.
Ethics is the best word I could think of to describe the practice of resolving conflicts. By thinking win-win and working together to figure out how to best fulfill the values of all involved, we can build a more welcoming environment for people to contribute and flourish.
That’s my idea of what will replace our various dysfunctional cultural models of right and wrong, admiration and contempt. How does that sound?
EC
I have no dog in this fight but we are not considering semantics. Gays are fighting for the right to “marry”
Marriage is a religious term not a secular one. Civil unions as far as I know carry with them all the rights and privileges of a church marriage. So why the push to use the term marriage? That is the question the religious right is pondering and railing against. If civil unions do not carry the same rights and privileges as a church marriage that is correctable by legislation.
If an Episcopal denomination allows for gay weddings or even weddings between people and inanimate objects so be it. These issues should be resolved among the various Christian denominations without government involvement. That is truly separation of church and state. Court decisions that impact the church’s teaching tend to put the government’s finger on the scale thus making it more difficult for the free exercise of that denomination’s beliefs. If government recognizes “Church” marriages and the Episcopal or Methodists allow them the government has no need to get involved in the activities of the church regarding who the participants are. The only reason to involve the government is to place its heavy hand on what is to be considered gospel. The last thing we need in this country is more division brought about by government decrees that are best resolved within the organizations that hold strong religious opinions.
As for this point, “The laws are not getting closer to “anything goes” but rather getting closer to the secular ethical standards for sexual behavior, which is “safe, sane, and consensual”. Secular standards are no more ethical, moral or justifiable than religious ones. If we actually promoted safe, sane and consensual we would not have thousands of pregnancies terminated annually, we would not have widespread STD’s in some communities, and the number of children born into poverty would be far lower. Further you cannot determine sane without qualifying something as insane which is exactly what Christian and other religious groups do when the consider anything other than a male female sexual relationship insane or at least an abomination. It is just their definition of sane is vastly different than what a secular humanist believes. Again, I have no dog in this fight and have no problem with whatever sexual choice a person chooses to make. I am however willing to consider the other perspective and why they hold it.
Surprisingly enough, “marriage” is a legal definition that carries more rights than “civil union” does. https://family.findlaw.com/domestic-partnerships/civil-unions-v-marriage.html
You’re right that this could be corrected by legislation, but is it that difficult to say “legally married” versus “married in the religion of such-and-such”?
The perceptive Tailsteak has a nice outside-the-box take on it, as usual. I think this probably describes the page you and I are both on already. http://tailsteak.com/archive.php?num=495
You’re right about people not actually following “safe, sane, and consensual” in practice. Laws are not sufficient for building a better world. Human culture is not educated for constructive design of the future. Humans usually only have two options: take what you’re given, or leave it behind and wander around until you find something that might work. Some people try to force everyone else to leave it, by breaking the current system, but they don’t know how to replace it. I’ve been working on finding the missing pieces that humans need to move forward.
How useful would the following illustration be to represent why we have differing opinions on the SCOTUS verdict in this case?
Imaging a 2 dimensional plane of points which are opportunities for legislation. This plane is divided by a line which demarcates separation of powers between the SCOTUS and the U.S. Congress. A line has no width and yet occupies some points on the plane. Who’s points are they? SCOTUS can rule on them. Congress can legislate on them. If either neglects them, the other can address them. And, where the other addresses them, there will be much gnashing of teeth concerning injustice or legislating from the bench.
Not bad!
Jack wrote: There is no question, none, that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity is exactly as offensive to the principles embodied in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution as discrimination on the basis of race.
The thing that interests and concerns me, culturally and philosophically, is how progressive ideologies function. I have said, and I am certain that it is true, that Jack is a progressive and not a conservative. And many who write here who seem to represent themselves as ‘conservative’ are, when you examine their beliefs, their policy recommendations, also progressives. So, my suggestion is that understanding these unusual twists about the function of progressive ideology in our present can be very useful to understanding *the larger picture* of what is going on in our world.
The only possible way to counter rigorously advancing progressivism is first to *see* it. How it will be countermanded, if indeed it will be countermanded, is another question.
I am interested in the sentence I quoted and want to spend a moment to examine the predicates operating in it. First, if we are going to think in terms of ‘originalism’ (that the intent of the author should be understood and adhered to) that we must examine what their *principles* actually were in respect to ‘race’. Very little proof is needed to be able to say with complete certainty that they had ideas about race that are today thoroughly unconscionable. What they were attempting to establish was something they felt was uniquely for their selves and their progeny and descendents. They had very very clear ideas about how they as men came to be and also how unique and different they were. So much so that they conceived of what they did as part of a new order.
So, what is the principle embodied in the Declaration of Independence as they would have conceived it? I suggest that it is not the principle that Jack refers to and that Jack indicates here an interpretation that is infused with different values and different principles. Isn’t this what the conservatives object to when they critique the Living Constitution philosophy? If you go that route, they say, you can retrofit all of the *intent* of the Founders to conform to your own progressive or radical interpretations as if you have special ears to hear a principled choir . . . that others don’t possess.
OK so if what I am saying here is clear then it seems to me that the issue and question of ‘principle’ is not clear nor is it defined. What they meant is not what we now mean. This is not very complex really. But what I react to, and I also reject, is that someone, in this case Jack, is certain that he can recite to me what the ‘principle’ is that must be adhered to. And I react to and reject the same when hot-headed progressives make the same assertions based only out of their own assumptions and interpretations. And I suggest the examination these assumptions and the assertions that rise from them.
Now if the comparison is made between the ‘principle’ that is expressed in an abstracted sense by the Declaration of Independence in regard to how race is understood and that of moderns issues pertaining to sexual *orientation* and *identity*, and if it is true that all of the Founders had quite rigid notions about their own racial selves when compared to other racial selves, then it follows that it is extremely doubtful that they could even have conceived of seeing the principles they actually valued get twisted or bent or convoluted to allow such ‘rights’ as are given to those who defy sexual categories and push *identity* into radically new territories. Again I think this is a simple issue in respect to how they would have thought and felt. And I am largely certain that they would not have gone along with it.
So, when this phrasing is used: “There is no question, none. . .” that a peculiar interpretation is the ‘true’ and ‘certain’ one I have to say No, there most definitely is a question and it is not answered by a forceful assertion that has behind it an unusually strong moral condemnation. That is if you do not see what I see you are retrograde and condemnable.
This of course is related to the entirety of the issues and questions we face in our present! It is basically the ‘deplorables’ argument. “I think you are deplorable, therefore you are deplorable, and I deplore you, and I will rally others to deplore you, and through this deploration will work to get you eliminated from the public sphere of discourse”.
This is how the game works, the deadly game of blame & shame being played today. I only suggest that what I say be considered and thought-over.
” Joy Pullman, the author, is a Hillsdale College grad and an executive editor of the Federalist, which will lead me to be a bit more careful using the magazine as a source in the future”
If you think the Federalist is bad (it is) you should see some of the dross emanating from some equivalent Leftist sites…
On the other hand, if an idiot speaks a Truth it is still True. If a genius savent speaks a Falsehood, it is still False.
So yes, be careful of the Federalist, the HuffPo, etc, but it’s only a few such as ONN, WND, Alex Jones etc where the signal to noise ratio is indistinguishable from 0. I’ve seen some good even in First Things. Talking about which..they’ve lost their um.. used food over this.
A Morally Empty Jurisprudence – Hadley Arkes
A Striking Display of Sophistry – R. R. Reno
The latter article makes some valid points about legalisms – but then goes off the rails.
” Our legal regime has repudiated the Book of Genesis and the scriptural account of God as Creator. This puts our law on a collision course with human nature. If we continue on this course, the word used to describe the legal and social reality of this collision will be totalitarianism. ”
Yeah well.. I’ve seen worse hyperbole from the other side. It also doesn’t detract from some of the good arguments – ones I don’t always agree with, but well thought out – in the rest of the article. The point is, lawyers are supposed to indulge in legalistic casuistry, Judges especially so.
Now perhaps you may understand why I cannot partake of those strange cookies you recommended! 😉
The Federalist:
“Our legal regime has repudiated the Book of Genesis and the scriptural account of God as Creator. This puts our law on a collision course with human nature. If we continue on this course, the word used to describe the legal and social reality of this collision will be totalitarianism.”
Notice that I made a related argument just below. By reference to ‘metaphysical categories’. What I notice people doing is using ‘abbreviations’ to try to encapsulate what they mean. They might not also fully understand what they mean. They feel they mean something though. Clarification is problematic.
But what I would point out is that — and this is one example with no desire to offend in it — is that Jack articulated in beautiful rhetorical arrangement that could only be symphonic harmony to an acute lawyer — what are essentially corrupted ideas.
That would fall under this category in case you did not correlate:
If a genius savant speaks a Falsehood, it is still False.
One has to take a long and wide detour in order to establish — or reestablish — the categories of the true.
Ooops. That quote in bold you said was from First Things.
A minor error, of no great worth and moment. It speaks highly of you that you corrected it though.
MassResistance can always be relied on for entertaining reading, even though they make up stuff a lot, deliberately fabricating bizarre events in order to bolster their position. The compulsory performance of genital reconstruction surgery on children by Marxist Transsexuals in Massachussets Churches for example.
https://www.massresistance.org/docs/gen4/20b/Analysis-Supreme-Court-ruling/index.html
” Should bad laws and US Supreme Court “rulings” that are clearly and unambiguously unconstitutional be blindly followed? Maybe not.
Here’s the sort of defiance that there must be more of:
We’ve often said that Judge Roy Moore is the greatest pro-family figure since Phyllis Schlafly. After the ridiculous Obergefell ruling, Judge Moore (as Alabama’s Chief Justice) ordered the state’s probate judges to obey the state Constitution and refuse to issue same-sex marriage licenses. He had earlier placed a Ten Commandments monument in his court building, despite phony “separation of church and state” orders by another court.
Because of that, Judge Moore was hated by the Republican establishment, who stood by and watched as he was hideously vilified by the Left when he recently ran for US Senate in Alabama. He would have been their worst nightmare as a US Senator, boldly standing up for the truth in that political cesspool.
Don’t despair. Don’t give up. Begin fighting back.
In our daily lives, as much as possible, we all need to say NO and do what is right – and confront our officials and judges to do what is right. That is the direction MassResistance is taking – especially regarding this latest ruling. We will be discussing more of this in upcoming articles. If enough people get involved, amazing things can happen!”
It speaks highly of you that you corrected it though.
Finally! Some recognition of my wonderfulness. Let’s hope this is just a beginning . . .
____________________
I came to an interesting conclusion some years back: that I needed to pay especial attention to what people *rejected* and *denigrated*. For one example on a forum where the Nietzschean perspective was the reigning one I found it necessary to make notes about those precise things they rejected in absolute terms, with declarative force, and then investigate them; make a deliberate decision to consider what they rejected as containing *hidden valuable material*.
When I come into a discussion I tune my ears to everything that *the group* is denigrating and rejecting with all the force of groupthink and then make an effort to *look into* what they reject. This led me of course to focus my attention on fascist and neo-fascist thinking simply because it is an axiomatic position in most Occidental circles. Just by saying what I just said I have discredited myself in the eyes (the ears) of many. Because you simply cannot find value in what some have rejected as *absolutely evil* and what must be absolutely rejected.
Controlled and coerced thought, then, becomes something to resist. This is especially hard within those categories one feels oneself to be attached to or into which one has made an *investment*. I have written a good deal about reflexive American Patriotism for example and Americanism (and the Americanopolis) in critical terms but I generally feel guilty doing so because upsetting people’s *certainties* and disturbing their *cherished notions* tends to create animosity.
This preamble is necessary to say something about unsophisticated nativist perspectives, the mood of resistance, and the creation (I call it *cobbling together*) stories and narratives through which resistance-moods are communicated. So this is a way of commenting on the publisher Mass Resistance and its sometimes non-sophisticated opposition to what they feel is being done to them. I refer you to The Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions of Contemporary America by Michael Barkun.
It is important to note that Barkun’s overall *purpose*, if I can use that word, is to expose and to denigrate and dismiss the *extremist* views that are the subject of his study. What I want to point out is that those who have the intellectual ability to see and encapsulate larger narratives in the way that Barkun can and does have a unique function in developing the strategies that become necessary to contain them. Barkun’s first book was Religion and the Racist Right: The Origins of the Christian Identity Movement and his perspective, I have to point this out, Jewish. Obviously, Jews have some good reasons to notice and to oppose Christian radical identitarianism. But let’s leave that aside (though it should not be left aside for those wishing to better *understand our present*).
Now let’s return to Mass Resistance. I book-marked all the websites you referred to and glanced through them. Especially I noticed that Mass Resistance has a video-page set up on BitChute. That is where ‘content creators’ who have been banned from traditional platforms like YouTube are retreating. Mass Resistance (though I have not positively determined this, yet it seems obvious) has its place within Christian Identity in the larger sense. This goes back to Randy Weaver of course, but it goes back much further and to the “100% Movement” of the 1920s (a manifestation of the Second Klan in American life). Eventually it extends back into the very identity-fibres of America. So in this sense I could refer to David Duke as a prime example of American Identity and also of Christian Identity.
Do you notice how by making all these references that I am tremendously complexifying the task of *understanding our present*? Not by my own will or intention of course, but because it is all genuinely complex and to a degree ‘convoluted’.
Notice too how any consideration of these different elements necessarily and immediately involves us in application of our own Weltanschauung? [Weltanschauung: composed of Welt (‘world’) and Anschauung: ‘perception’ or ‘show’]. So, this involves in a sense our way of seeing as a sort of projection of a ‘theatre’ as in the sense of ‘show’. It should not be hard then to make a connection between our TeeVee mediated world(s) and the *viewer* who receives the *content* which contains the *interpretive material* that helps that viewer to *see* and to *understand* her and his world.
Now I just want to say a couple of things more. The main one — this interests me tremendously — is the notion that our present government has been *occupied* (you can examine the ideas behind ‘ZOG’). I want to point out that when we examine the ‘counter-narratives’ to the System Narrative that is operating today that all the developed perspectives deal, in one way or another, with one intensity of connection or another, with the notion of ‘occupation’.
So, you notice the unsophisticated and even the *fabricated* elements in the resistance stories that are being put together by people who could be said to lack a wider frame of reference. Or perhaps I might say simple *more information*. They work within a more limited frame. But they are also working within a ‘metaphysical’ frame-work which is foreign to you: you cannot ‘conceive’ of it. And so you can only ridicule it, more or less.
The movement for transgender rights was gaining momentum independently of the same sex marriage movement; if there is a connection, I haven’t seen a credible argument for one. People are as free to express their religion and faith as ever; if a religion or faith depends on the denigration of the humanity of others, perhaps it belongs in a closet. Education institutions should not be promoting any political agenda; they should be educating students about their rights and the rights of others. In the long march towards recognizing human rights, there have always been dissenters who want to teach their children to be bigots against one group or another. Again, you can’t blame Obergefell for that either.
It seems entirely reasonable to say, that is to perceive, that over time there is a general progression of deviation from ‘standard sexual norms’. It seems to me that the *connection* is self-evident. There definitely was an extensive social-engineering project to legitimize homosexuality and surrounding that, in many adjacent areas, ‘diverse sexuality’ as it might be called has only advanced, never retreated. The area in which advocates operate — where they push forward their ‘agendas’ — expands constantly. The object, in a general sense, of this social activism can be both *vaguely* and *concretely* distinguished.
I have said this before and have no option but to say it again: we are in ‘progressive times’ and this progressivism has identifiable historical roots that many are not aware of. Progressivism is based in a zealotry to *embrace* the novel, the revolutionary, the overturning, but many progressives in my experience are not aware of the structures — or one might also mention the *achievements* — of those who worked hard to establish hierarchies of value.
Nevertheless, it has to be stated that the revolutionary and progressivism of the time we live in is intimately bound up in the general rejection of *Christian categories*. So, if one no longer understands the reasoning behind the theological logic it comes about because one no longer *believes in* that description of ‘metaphysical order’ that is encased in the general Christian perspective. My point? Only to indicate that this is what is happening.
Essentially, this idea-movement began in earnest in the 17th century. It is a complex but a fascinating area of study. Shakespeare’s ‘philosophy’ of life, for instance, is filled with metaphysical notions that we have difficult distinguishing unless it is directly pointed out. But note that there is no other artist (and he was more than a mere artist) who so thoroughly and beautifully expounds on and reveals value than Shakespeare.
The slow ebb away from the metaphysical structures that were defined by scholastic-minded men (Shakespeare existing, intellectually, in a liminal area) results in a slow destruction of the capacity to *recognize* values. It is a complex topic, no doubt, but my view is that when we speak of ‘dumbing-down’ we are, in fact, speaking of what results from becoming unhinged from the recognition of metaphysical structures. Metaphysical structures are only perceived by the intellect and in the mind.
What Jack does — he does this because in interior and intellectual orientation he is a thorough atheist — is to reduce ‘religion’ and the practice of it to a category of activity or concern similar to knitting or some other hobby one engages in to pass the time of day. That is, ultimately, that the anti-scholasticism movement since the 17th century results in: a separation of applicable metaphysical understandings to the affairs of the world.
Two statements interest me:
1) “If a religion or faith depends on the denigration of the humanity of others, perhaps it belongs in a closet.”
2) “Education institutions should not be promoting any political agenda.”
My assertion is that within Christian doctrine generally, but always articulated extremely specifically, there are strict but highly rationalized descriptions and assertions about what results to man when sexual impulse becomes unbridled. The notion of ‘bridlement’ was thoroughly expressed in basic Platonism: the building block of education (Occidental paideia). I should not have to expound on this because basic Platonism should be everyone’s intellectual possession. But let’s face the fact: not only cannot people think in these terms (the notion of the ‘chariot’ of the self that a person ‘drives’ through life and the balance required), but ‘the entire culture’ has become geared to seducing the individual not only sexually but in myriad other ways. So, to analyze *what is going on* requires a holistic philosophical lens. But who is interested in this? or capable of it?
The ultimate purpose — in my view and my understanding — of social rules that establish sexual limits were expressed in and through the philosophical and the religious sectors of our Occidental culture. So the definitions were not set up to ‘denigrate the humanity of others’. In fact they were established with the very opposite intent! Christianity has always set itself in rebellion against sexual sin and the endless perversions that arise from it when it is let loose. “To take the Christian cure” was to consciously and purposefully enter into a new style of life the purpose of which was, in fact, to cure.
What is my point? Not necessarily to argue either in favor nor against any Supreme Court decision, or for or against the progression of sexual ‘liberation’ so-called, but to attempt to *locate* these shifts in understanding within larger currents. Basil Willey in his book “Seventeenth Century Background” says that in order to understand these huge shifts that we require a ‘master metaphysician’ who can point out these things. The idea stuck with me. When I speak to *you-plural* I am very often aware that *you* do not have such a wide perspective. And that is why I say that many here seem ‘mired in’ superficial perspectives. You can see the smallish issue but you cannot seem to see the larger progression.
And my argument is that Jack’s entire perspective — solidly argued, argued with good-will and with integrity, and also argued with rhetorical rigor — is still bound up in a startlingly robust and aggressive progressivism that leads, inexorably, to not only a social breakdown but to a civilizational breakdown. The Sexual Liberation Movement has ‘demonstrably’ evinced not so much what it says it wished to do (liberate and *free*) but what it ultimately destroys.
And this, of course, connects it to those patterns of action and ideation that we now recognize as “Marxist” and as Cultural Marxism. Jack says that he cannot perceive ‘a connection’ between one camp of activism and other camps of activism. Yet *we* see them. They have been explained.
Now, it has to be said, because it is true, that the so-called Religious Right is in dangerous disarray. Why? How? Well, it has been and is being attacked constantly by atheistic persons and atheistic processes. This I call *undermining*. And Christian Metaphysics — I mean a viewstructure that convinces others because they ally themselves to it in the same sense that early converts ‘took the Christian cure’ — is in a weakened and divided state. It is our fate! It is our Christian fate. But my point is that now, at this juncture, when the vice-press of history and a long causal chain of choices and rebellions has matured within a scientific-materialist and developing political totalitarian movement with a vast technology within its grasp . . . that the larger issues that have ever motivated people to concerned about their *world* are now coming into a very very strange focus in our present.
And my basic intention is to relate this to the Culture Wars and to fundamental struggles about ‘values’.
All Americans, and the Court itself, can take pride that a persistent form of invidious discrimination that wrecked lives and families based on hate and ignorance is finally as illegal as other discrimination specifically outlawed in Title 7. Yes, it would have been better if Congress had taken action, just as it would have been better if Congress had integrated the schools. However, the Court taking action in these extreme cases to remedy injustice is not a sign that the Supreme Court will run amuck. Those, like Pullman, who claim otherwise are deliberately fertilizing anti-gay, anti-trans hysteria.
I could also work this one but the first cup of coffee is wearing off . . . 🙂