Tuesday, November 15, 2022

Why is there such a hurry?

Near the end of my last post, I briefly discussed our culture's recent pattern of rapid changes on a series of moral issues. As the sexual revolution and other cultural developments have unfolded, we've seen major changes on moral issues (and other significant issues) happening with a lot of speed. In other contexts in life, that sort of pattern, or even one event without a pattern, would make us suspicious. Why does this man who wants you to sign some paperwork about a financial transaction keep pressuring you to do it sooner rather than later, insisting that you don't need more time to look into the details? Why is the used car salesman trying so hard to get you to buy the car so soon, and why is he so evasive in response to your questions? We consider it shameful to be misled by efforts to get us to make an overly quick decision in contexts like those. But an overly quick decision is even worse in the sort of moral context I referred to above. Yet, few people in our culture seem to have much of a sense of shame over how rapidly they've changed their positions on so many moral issues (and other significant issues) with so little justification.

It's predictable that the pattern will continue. Polyamory, incest, pedophilia, and other issues will become more prominent, and there will be an ongoing process of trying to get people to rapidly change their views without thinking much about it or doing much research. In the future, we ought to point out to people that they generally consider it shameful to behave that way in other contexts in life and that they ought to be more consistent by applying that sort of reasoning to these moral contexts as well.

For example, let's say somebody is undecided about something like abortion, same-sex marriage, transgenderism, or polyamory. He should take more time to research it rather than giving in to the pressure to change his mind too quickly. Getting people to take more time to think through these issues is good and will have a lot of positive short-term and long-term results. If we want somebody to not support a particular candidate or referendum or piece of legislation, for example, convincing him of our position isn't the only way to accomplish that objective. We can also accomplish it by persuading him to withhold his support until he's looked into the issue more.

I suspect one of the mistakes Republicans and others have made when issues like abortion and same-sex marriage are being evaluated by voters (and in non-voting contexts) is to neglect some of the options on the table. People ought to be pro-life on abortion, for example, but you don't have to convince somebody of a pro-life position in order to convince him to refrain from supporting a pro-choice referendum, piece of legislation, or whatever. Just convince him to withhold his support for either position (pro-life or pro-choice) until he's done more research. Sometimes it's appropriate to pressure people into making a binary choice. But we need to also be open to the possibility of trying to persuade people to refrain from supporting either side until they know more about the issue. To convince people to not support a pro-choice referendum, all you need to do is persuade them to hold off on adopting a pro-choice position. The large majority of people don't know much about subjects like the moral issues I've mentioned in this post. We should take advantage of that ignorance by reminding them of how hesitant they are when they're ignorant about something in other areas of life. And we should point out how the speed with which proponents of these new moral positions are trying to get people to make changes is suspicious, just as we're suspicious when people act that way in other contexts.

4 comments:

  1. It is exactly as John MacArthur teaches. We are under divine judgement according to the edict of Romans 1. We are under a divine curse and destined for destruction as a nation. Pedophilia and necrophilia and every abomination under the sun will become fully legalized and normalized. I wouldn't be surprised if even marriage itself got banned in the foreseeable future. But Jesus is coming soon, so...

    ReplyDelete
  2. One rhetorical difficulty with the advice given toward the end of this post is that the leftists will imply that if you are uncertain about the issue, the default position should be to "let" people do such-and-such. In other words, they will appeal to a kind of default libertarianism that people tend to gravitate towards. This is often very deceptive. For example, same-sex "marriage" and trans ideology end up being *profoundly* non-libertarian--forcing people to give recognition to same-sex "marriages," forcing people to have men compete as women, forcing schools to let boys use the girls' bathroom, forcing doctors and nurses to participate in abortions against their consciences, etc, etc. So it's a very cynical ploy. And the "we are the party of freedom" rhetoric constantly oscillates with, "Cooperate with what we demand OR ELSE." But unfortunately this kind of blatant, cynical deception *works*. It works again and again. And no matter how often conservatives point it out, it still works. So I could well imagine if one had suggested to an on-the-fence Michigander not to vote for Prop. 3 because he needed to look into the issues more, that he might be primed to say, "Well, if I don't know that much about abortion, I should defer to the choices of a woman and her doctor. She should be free to make her own decisions. I would have to know a lot more before I would *restrict* her access to abortion." Or, "If I don't know that much about gay marriage, we should probably let them get married, because I don't know enough to justify telling them they can't get married." Of course, when gay "marriage" was under debate, people like me pointed out ad nauseum that "letting them get married" was a misnomer, since two men were already allowed to find some person to say words over them and carry out a subjectively meaningful ceremony. And they were also already allowed to jointly own a home, make wills in each other's favor, etc. What was really being demanded was *special state recognition* of their relationships, not "letting" them "do" something they were not previously being allowed to "do." But this was apparently too nuanced and largely fell on deaf ears, however rational it was. Witness the fact that there are still (stupid) bona fide libertarians out there who think gay "marriage" is the proper libertarian position from the perspective of keeping government involvement minimal. So while I don't disagree with your advice, I don't think we shd. be too sanguine about its success.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Lydia Said,

      "But unfortunately this kind of blatant, cynical deception *works*. It works again and again. And no matter how often conservatives point it out, it still works. So I could well imagine if one had suggested to an on-the-fence Michigander not to vote for Prop. 3 because he needed to look into the issues more, that he might be primed to say, "Well, if I don't know that much about abortion, I should defer to the choices of a woman and her doctor. She should be free to make her own decisions. I would have to know a lot more before I would *restrict* her access to abortion." Or, "If I don't know that much about gay marriage, we should probably let them get married, because I don't know enough to justify telling them they can't get married."

      I am probably overly cynical, but Lydia's examples show how powerful propaganda really is in our society. The most absurd moral positions are brought up as if there is some doubt about their moral repugnancy. All it takes is for those in the Cathederal (Hollywood, political institutions, universities which are all under leftist control) to decide to push an idea, and make it "attractive" through advertising, catechizing, and a little force; and you have common people caving left and right. In this situation reason can win small victories, but force and manipulation wins the day.

      The Left have mastered speeding up and using the process Charles Taylor noted about how ideas become acceptable. Ideas at one point are unthinkable, people cannot fathom how anyone could accept them. So, take for example Transgenderism, 15 years ago transgender ideology would have been absolutely shocking. We see this in the debates over gay marriage before Obergefell. No one in the main stream was saying that Transgenderism was a good idea. A few radical left wing anarchist types certainly advocated it, but they advocate all kinds of degeneracy. They weren't the mainstream. The next stage in the process is to make the idea a matter of discussion. So, discussions started happening on twitter, and facebook etc. These discussions opened up the possibility of Trans ideas. But once the ideas are discussed and we start combating said ideas many people see those ideas as options on the table. So, many of us have had debates on Facebook about these issues. Unfortunately, I fear that the fact we entertained the ideas with moral degenerates moved the "Overton Window" on these matters. The ideas became common conversation, and that bred familiarity. Now, we are moving to a third stage of ideological change... Acceptance. Many people I know, common people, have a "live let live" position on gay marriage and trans ideology. Sure they get a little uncomfortable with tranny's teaching kids, but they aren't so worried about it when it comes to "consenting" adults. That is because even many moderately conservative people have bought into the idea that "consent" is a good moral barometer. I fear it will take some form of societal collapse before sane ideas can capture institutions again.

      Delete
  3. Great points made by Lydia and Blake.

    ReplyDelete