The Issue is Marriage

In the United States there are two main ideological division that group citizens between conservatives and liberals. The economic issues and the social issues. The combination of both divisions give fours possibilities: Socially liberals, federalists (social democrats); socially liberals, anti-federalists (libertarians); socially conservatives, federalists (neoconservatives); socially conservatives, anti-federalists (paleoconservatives). Of course this is a coarse division based on generalities that does not contemplate regional differences, but as political scientist try to do, at least it helps picturing the broad sample of all American citizens. I don't even picture myself easily in this lines of cleavage, but I would say I move between paleoconservatives to neoconservatives. Why? Because more than the economy, the issue for me is social values. And I want to talk about what I consider is the center of the debate between social conservatives and social liberals: the issue of marriage. Every specific issue of the broad debate can be traced back to marriage, and from it it springs to all other branches and specific questions. Marriage can be smelled in abortion, stem cell research, gay rights, education, feminism, religion and secularization, etc.

I'm going to call the institution at hand in the United States (and the rest of the Western Civilization if that's the case) Christian Marriage. This is an institution that we have inherited for thousands of years now. The debate is if it must be preserved as originally was given to us, or the movement of history forces us to change it. The problem of why marriage is so important is that it's the institution we have for the preservation of the species in a general sense, and the continuation of the citizenry in a narrower sense. Through it we defeat death and we engender life. Such an important goal always produces debate in a society as free as ours, as to how should we interpret marriage, its purpose and the role it plays in our society. Naturally the defenders of Christian Marriage, acknowledging its importance for the healthy survival of our society, gather around its defense. The perception that one of the holiest of institutions is in danger of being overrun can even turn them irrational contenders, as it usually happens. For a defender of Christian Marriage, the perspective of losing it to liberal forces seems as monstrous as communism itself, because he/she conceives that institution as the spring of everything beautiful and worth living in life and freedom, and the expectation of losing it produces a profound sadness and anxiety.

On the other side, the opponents of Christian Marriage see in it an institution of repression, first of the woman, but ultimately of the individual. Because Christian Marriage demands a level of abdication of the individual's will, and the effort of working together in an almost compulsory way, liberal individualists see in it the embodiment of intransigence. Because what is more intransigent than an ancient tradition that does not answer back with arguments, but with the immense strength of its ancestral authority? Let us remember that the real individualist distrusts any kind of authority, and only justify it in the extremest of cases. The authority of Christian Marriage is not that clear today. Ergo they see it with contempt and move forward an agenda to undermine it.

In what sense the entire debate of social values move around the issue of marriage? Some common cases will illustrate my point, abortion being the most dramatic one. Marriage as the institution that creates family, the ancestral mean of engendering new life and preserve the species and citizenry of a country, is completely annihilated by the idea of abortion. Abortion is the strongest way out of marriage, for it facilitates premarital sex and takes away the goal for what marriage exists. If the engendering of life can be kept away, why marrying? The modern answer is that the goal of marriage is love. Love is a strictly subjective experience, fundamentally necessary for a happy marriage, but not a strong groundwork for marrying, because we can actually fall in love and love another person in the most extraordinary way without ever marrying. As all subjective experiences, love can fade away as it happens all the time, and then the main column of a happy union collapses, from which what springs is divorce. Even more, love as the goal of marriage is a perfect justification for same-sex couples. The idea that love is not the means for preserving marriage but the goal of it turns the relation upside down in favor of the individual and opposed to the union. Its consequences are seen clearly; that interpretation of marriage is one of the main principles that threaten Christian Marriage in the United States.

The same applies to stem cell research, which is an issue close to abortion. But the strongest advocacy against Christian Marriage resides in the feminist movement. It is true that marriage has a long history of male domination and female repression. But I don't think that such a history justify the war feminism has waged against the institution. Instead of destroying marriage, the promotion of more happy unions might be the most reasonable solutions. Male domination must be eradicated, that is true, but the destruction of Christian Marriage is not a mandatory requirement for that goal. With feminism stands secularization, a very controversial theme these days. The case for the secularization of political institutions is clear, but, in the case of marriage? The belief that God is the supremest authority in sanctioning the union of a man and a woman is very important for a lot of people. It is the strongest argument against divorce, and also the strongest argument in favor of making an effort to fix a demoralized marriage. It takes away from the individual the capacity to choose, because God is a judge no one can get away from. Usually secularization comes together with atheism (not always and not necessarily, but usually).

Education, is it in the hands of the State or is it in the hands of family? If marriage is a holy institution as Christians are led to believe, then the strongest argument goes for family. No better judge and better educator of their child's good than their parents. Secularization thinks otherwise. The State as the supreme regulator of social life chooses what is better to be imparted to the new generations. Christian Marriage as the institution that engenders life loses another space of action (and justification to continue existing) when the State kicks in.

Everywhere I see, the debate between social conservatives and liberals reaches its ultimate consequence in the nature, principles and purpose of marriage in society. The line of cleavage here is strongest than anywhere else, and the ability to reach agreement is close to impossible. The good thing is that in the United States this issue has been discussed by parts, in the different segments of the topic, and not as the center of the whole, which has given some space for compromise.

Live as Seasons in Spengler's words

One of the most beautiful, and also real metaphors that explain all living experiences, from the most basic unit which is the individual life, to the broadest bodies of civilizations, was given to us by the German philosopher Oswald Spengler. A man today forgotten by contemporary thinking and academics, and relegated to the field of history of philosophy as a tangent thinker. I think nothing could be more unfair. The metaphor consist in interpreting every living phenomena with the four calendar seasons. There is in everything that has to do with living things a spring, a summer, an autumn and a winter, that embodies all life since its birth till its death. This metaphor is explicitly in thought as old Goethe (as far as I know. I might be wrong), but the first, and apparently until now the only philosopher that has taken it seriously is Spengler.

The Spring signals everything that comes after birth. Even a human person, when it is born, its first three decades (more or less) are dedicated to learning. And the form and content of this learning determines the shape of the entire life. Whether a person dedicates to sciences, to arts, to business, to politics, to humanities, or whatever; these first years are the moment when all the creative production takes place. It also happens to cultures and civilizations, when a new principle of collective self-consciousness appears in a body of pre-cultured people (what is more commonly, and usually contemptibly called barbarians or savages). What I also called the heroic moment: the stage of culture where polities are still primitive, but a new ethic and aesthetic standard is raised, and a caste of warriors is actively pursuing honor, glory and adventure (the times of the War of Troy for ancient Greece and Rome, the time of Moses and King David for Jews and Semites, the time of the Martyrs for Greek Christianity, the times of Mohamed for Islam, the times of the Crusades for Western Europe, etc.). Spring is where the groundwork for individual and cultural life takes place, and honest religious piety.

The Summer is the moment of plenitude, the period where all the wealth grows, spiritually, intellectually and materially. As it is the warmest moment of the year, it is the period of life with more energy, with more heat. Where the individual develops his/her career to his fullest, and the respective culture gives birth to its greatest artists and thinkers, and usually a moment of religious dogma. Victory and defeat can be definitive in this stage, for, contrary to spring which is the moment of trial and error, a mistake can be devastating. But definitively is a moment of much activity and intensity. All the possibilities laid down at the spring are fully developed at the summer. This is so actual, that even in love relationships and marriages it takes place; the moment when passion is more present and sex is more common. Depending on how well the energies of the period are used, the reserve for autumn and winter will make life, creativity and love prevail. If they are depleted, autumn and winter might be a fast and certain death. If they are wasted, all those energies rotten, and autumn and winter are long, sad, cold and foul smelling.

The Autumn is a moment of soft decline. If all energies weren't depleted in summer, autumn might last. Otherwise winter will be longer. This is the period where a person is getting old, and is enjoying the fruits of his/her life, but with little creative energies to continue to grow. Some new things might be worked, but usually are repetitions or footnotes. Happiness might be more identifiable in autumn, for is the moment where all the efforts of youth are clearly visible. The success of a career, or of a political movement, or of a cultural endeavor, or of a marriage, is visible in autumn. But what seems the pinnacle of life is precisely the signal of the decline. The philosophy of Aristotle for Antiquity or of Kant for Modernity show the ultimate effort of a culture to grow, but it only leads to decay, for all creativity is gone, and only systematic and humdrum thinking is left (Stoicism, Marxism, Positivism, etc.). Not a Plato, but an Archimedes, not a Newton but an Einstein. Autumn, as it signals old age, it also means a lose of faith and hope.

The Winter is nothing more than cold and sour old age. If life was vastly productive, old age might be livable. But in itself, is a lack of life, for it is a lack for energy and productivity. Is nothing but a waiting time for death. Like waiting by the fireplace, not venturing outside, winter is nothing but wait. And it that process we feel lost, because we don't know what to do; because actually there is nothing else to do. Cultures that reach winter are stroke by skepticism. Religion and great ideas no longer convince nobody. And those that still believe do it with a glimpse of fear, not of God, but of the lack of God. Cynicism, crude realism or simply giving up are the typical behaviors of cultures in winter. Marriage or love relationships, when they reach winter, there is a taste of unpleasantness but conformity. Those famous couples that are to used to themselves and don't risk a break up, even though they don't love themselves anymore. That is winter. Those civilizations that indulge in nihilism, because pleasures or suicide are the only things left. That is winter. And for those that want to remain alive, nothing but power and money substitute vaguely the vacuum of the absence of faith, hope and love leave.

I find Spengler's philosophy absolutely compelling, and empirically demonstrable by actual historical and contemporary facts. The problem is that his philosophy is too strong to bear, and even though its exposition seems so reasonable, people usually are too afraid to face the facts. Westerns are too focused on making things work, when actually there is nothing less to work on. Spengler told them that, and they stand in negation. Naive ideas of progress and absolute happiness or freedom are nothing but a long for immortality. In the end life and history is but pure tragedy, and destiny is something that cannot be stopped.

Thucydides and Republicanism

"For though it be the part of discreet men to be quiet unless they have wrong, yet it is the part of valiant men, when they receive injury, to pass from peace to war, and after success, from war to come again to composition, and neither to swell with the good success of war nor to suffer injury through pleasure taken in the ease of peace. For him whom pleasure makes a coward, if he sit still, shall quickly lose the sweetness of the ease that made him so" (Thucydides: I: 120).

This might sound an ethic of an eye for an eye, but real political wisdom is at place here. Liberal pacifist ideas are so common these days, and especially among educated middle class young people, that what seems to be the most basic common sense is underestimated as simple chauvinism. War is never good from a moral standing point. But then, politics and morality depart when the most extreme circumstances come at play. When a country is attacked, or humiliated, or some external aggression is inflicted upon it, how can we expect it to lay down? As Thucydides accurately points out, that would be nothing but a cowardly behavior.

Another thing is at play. Peace and prosperity bring pleasure and laziness. Liberal thinking, again, at defending the individual's choice at all cost, render any kind of personal sacrifice (either for country or religion) as irrational, unnecessary or crude fanaticism. The problem of the ease of peace is that, by making men lazy, it makes them cowards; it softens their characters, making them fall in love with their pleasures; and when the time comes that their liberty to be lazy is threatened and the risk of being taken away by tyrants or conquerors, they are overthrown by panic or indolence, which result in crude slavery. Today's liberal ideas (and particularly libertarians'), are nothing but a very complicated set of political and ethical beliefs that are the truest road toward losing any liberty at all and falling into the longest period of slavery.

"And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country" John F. Kennedy, presidential inaugural address, January 20, 1961.

A return to Ludwig Van Beethoven

Last time, I spoke about my favorite writer; a Russian. Now it is the time for me to remember the musician that has kept me in awe since I was a child; a German. I have so long since I heard the 5th symphony, that now that I have retaken it, I cannot but remember clearly the impact that the 1st movement had on me for many years. For my readers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4IRMYuE1hI

Beethoven marks a moment in the history of Western music. It puts away all the cute melodies of the Baroque and Classical music, and it sets forth the foundation for a real music of the human spirit. No longer tones for the courts of kings and aristocrats, but a music for human kind. And that specific moment I trace it back to that 1st movement of the 5th symphony that resonates and will resonate through the ages.

Every time I'm hurt, every time I feel with deep emotion, moved by despair, anger or tears, I return to Beethoven. For all passions, all longing and all love, everything is there. All possible nihilism is banished and life acquires a spiritual dimension that can only be surpassed by reading the Bible. I invite every Western soul that ignores this magnificent spectacle of universal music to know Beethoven; to overcome all that shadow of mediocrity and vulgarity that is so characteristic of pop culture and admits the place where we all come from. Beethoven, like Cervantes, is at the opening of our spiritual consciousness. Western man, return to your origins. There is nothing for you in the future but death and decay.

My feelings through Dostoyevsky's words

"To love someone means to see him as God intended him" Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

Every time I read something new from Dostoyevsky I can't but feel touched. Even loose quotes like this one speak the most uncontroversial truth, and any one who both believes in God and has been in love can understand at first glance what this words are all about. And here I speak with the most personal tone; I find in this author food for my own personality, and through his characters I feel myself represented. With all their vices, all their defects, all their profound feelings, me, a Western without hope in our lost civilization, cannot but feel touched. Only love can displace and set apart all traces of bias and ignorance from our eyes when contemplating the work of God in another person.

I read Dostoyevsky over and over again, and I feel pleased. If being in love is our perception of the work of God in a specific person, I tell with utmost certainty that I have seen. And I still see what is part of God in a specific woman today. Among all the millions of souls and minds that walk the populous city of New York, she knows that I'm talking about her.