Politics and Culture

Middle of the road

Standard Asymmetric disclaimer.

With all of the discussion of Giuliani, social issues, and politics, I've decided to come up with what I think is a workable methodology to values issues that would be acceptable to most people.

The essential dilemma for conservatives, as articulated well by commentators like Dennis Prager and poorly by 90% of other conservatives, is that while many in the center-right wish to conserve traditional standards of behavior, they also recognize that attempts to do so require one to exclude, to some degree, those who don't choose to conform to those guidelines. Not only is this consequence unacceptable to many conservatives, but neutral or hostile observers would perceive discrimination (true, by definition), a lack of compassion (not necessarily), or just plain meanness in the standard bearer's stance.

The approach I propose allows the moderate liberal or conservative to participate in the fighting retreat that is the culture war without breaking bonds of friendship or themselves risking social alienation. I'll start by giving a general outline to this approach and then give an example of its application to two modern social dilemmas. The underlying assumption behind this strategy is simply that most social traditions serve an important, if not readily apparent purpose, and that hurting people is not one of them (some social policies like race-separation existed primarily to preserve advantage and aren't what I'm talking about).

First, it's important to separate people with those traits which by themselves disqualify them from acceptance into decent society. As of 2007, and for most Americans, murderers, child-molesters, racists and bigots of various kinds, wife-beaters, and deadbeat dads fall into this category. Fifty years ago, most Americans would have added homosexuals to that list and 100 years ago, the divorced and the illegitimate would have made the top ten while racists may not have. Absent those "deal-breakers," people take into account others' list of positive and negative traits and then come up with an overall assessment which may vary from:

"There's nothing wrong with him that reincarnation won't cure."

-Jack E. Leonard

to

"What a comfort it was to see her pass. She would speak to one, and nod and smile to as many more; but she could not do it to all you know. We lay there by the hundreds; but we could kiss her shadow as it fell and lay our heads on the pillow again content."

-Anonymous on Florence Nightingale

Follow up:

Of course, criteria vary within groups, subgroups, and individuals. People overlook the character flaws of the wealthy or talented. Attractive people receive positive attention despite not being good at anything, as evidenced by the many fans of the recently incarcerated Paris Hilton, although her judge, apparently, lacks the weakness for waify blonds. And, of course, some people consider others to be good for doing nothing else than espouse correct ideas. Maureen Dowd not only didn't condemn Bill Clinton's behavior, but even offered to replicate the offense. And, people adore Rush Limbaugh, a man who's done nothing except opine.

It's here that many conservatives stumble. In an effort to maintain a certain standard, the thoughtless conservative allows a trait unworthy of deal-breaking importance to overshadow the rest of a person's character. A recent example is the Army recruiter who took one aspect of a person's character, his sexual preference, and, without any consideration to his whole person, absolutely savaged him. Now, the average person, who probably has gay friends and likes them, reads that email and is correctly shocked (it turned out there was more to this story than originally reported, but you get my point). That same average person is less willing to uphold that standard because he doesn't want to associate himself with people who would hurt his friend.

The progressive response is also incorrect in that it denies any impact homosexual behavior may have on society and, as is the wont of progressives, declares both or indeed any sexual behavior as equal to any other behavior (It's also common for progressives to declare the previously condemned behavior as superior to the norm- at least until the inequality is gone). The progressive approach today has the advantages of making all of one's friends feel good, making oneself feel good for being so accepting, and avoiding further debate on the issue. Of course, people who question the progressive way are as bad as the Army recruiter above. Witness the reaction to Santorum's comment that rescinding sodomy laws on the basis of privacy may lead to other sexual practices being protected by law (incest, etc.) You may agree or disagree with sodomy laws, but the response from some was fierce, suggesting that, for some, even arguing for the irrelevance of the constitution in these matters amounts to bigotry. And, frankly, most won't risk being called a bigot to enforce a standard that rarely affects one personally and whose benefit is difficult, for most, to rationalize.

Still, many, despite the threat of exclusion by the tolerant (weird how this thing works, huh?) refuse to cede so easily and insist that society at least discuss the advantage to itself of some of the unfashionable moral notions,

Thus, I propose a middle approach which I'll call the Modcon way. Realizing he too falls short, the Modcon would accept his imperfect brothers and sisters as long as their moral imperfections weren't included on the list of unpardonable transgressions. The difference from the progressive approach is that the Modcon will still maintain that there exists an ideal behavior and order the different or inferior behaviors according to their deviation from that ideal. In other words, being or doing whatever (nothing deal-breaking) isn't horrible; it's just not as good as this better thing.

This policy shifts strong emotion away from the transgression (negative) and towards the ideal (positive). I'll briefly demonstrate how the Modcon approach would be applied to both gay marriage and divorce (many of you fall into one of the two categories which is why I picked them):

1. It's good for society to have children.
2. It's good for children to have parents of the opposite sex who are committed to each other.
3. Therefore, society should encourage people to commit to somebody of the opposite sex and have children.
4. To the extent that gay-marriage (or divorce, for that matter) prevents this ideal, it should be discouraged.

That's it. No hate. No exaggeration of differences. One just says, "You are a good person and a valuable member of society. I would never harm you for having a certain predilection (for the same sex or for multiple women in the case of many divorced men). However, I think this other behavior should be encouraged because it's better."

Another problem to be worked out is how to communicate preferences of certain behaviors without sounding overly harsh to those with whom you have friendships or to the general public. Each may have their own solution, but I would combine a positive reinforcement of the desired behavior with a refusal to celebrate the undesired behavior. Under this approach, one would, for example, enthusiastically congratulate a young man and a young woman for marrying, and then eventually one would celebrate them having children, and then, ultimately, for staying together. Conversely, one would give a muted or, at least, a less triumphal response to anything else, depending on its deviation from the example above. One wouldn't dismiss another from his company, as mentioned, for being gay or divorced, but one wouldn't celebrate that fact, either, although it would be correct to sympathize with those who find a lifelong marriage to the opposite sex difficult or psychologically distressful.

The political consequences of the Modcon social policy would be to have the government encourage social behaviors that contribute to a healthy society while ignoring those behaviors that don't. Using the sample behaviors above, sodomy laws would still not exist, but tax breaks for children and marriage would remain. Politicians in some states have already adopted the Modcon approach in welfare when they decided the state shouldn't subsidize more than one illegitimate child.

In education, Modcons wouldn't spend resources on children who, through lack of effort, repeatedly fail classes. Neither would the non-academically inclined be denigrated.

In conclusion, love your brothers and sisters and encourage them to do what's correct. If what's correct is impossible (remember, that may be you [or me for that matter] one day) for them, but they don't hurt anybody except society in general, love them still. Just don't let that love interfere with the sometimes cold work of organizing society.