Meandering Manifesto, Part 4: Stability

This is part four of my Meandering Manifesto series.

Last year, Grace and I went to a second wedding in Michigan. It was much more pleasant than the first one. This time the priest didn't say anything that made me apoplectic with rage. But he did say something that got me thinking.

He began with a statistic that something like one in two marriages end in divorce, then worked his way down a line of increasing religious context of the marriage. I don't remember the following numbers exactly, but that's not the point.

• Of the couples who were married in a church ceremony, about one in fifty get divorced.
  
• Of the couples who were married in a church ceremony and who attend church regularly, one in several hundred get divorced.
  
• Of the couples who were married in a church ceremony, who attend church regularly, and who pray together at home, one in about twelve hundred get divorced.
  

As a left-leaning agnostic this made me squirm a bit. Those numbers made me uncomfortable. I found myself wanting to read up on the research to see if they were skewed.

Later, I realized that the degree of accuracy didn't matter. Because whether those numbers were spot on, or off by an order of magnitude, there's no doubt in my mind that he's right.

He's right.

A religiously involved marriage brings stability to the married couple and to their society.

Just stop for a minute. Don't react. Just breathe.

Now. Hear what I'm saying. We are adults. Not only can we hold contradictory ideas in our heads, we can also parse wildly disparate ideas that at first seem as inseparable as the hydrogen and oxygen atoms in water.

We can admit that folks on the other side of the political divide are right to call the bathwater dirty. That admission in no way implies that we favor throwing out the baby.

I admit that religion, marriage, and the potent combination thereof bring stability to our society. I do not, however, agree that the stable structure that we gain is worth the cost. I believe that the foundation stones of that structure rest on the backs of my gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender friends.

Stability always demands unity. Unity always eschews variance. People don't like what is different. Communities and societies and countries develop a collective animus against the unusual. This animus may well have served a vital purpose in primitive marginal communities which could have gone extinct if members had strayed from the norm. But today we are no longer primitive, or so we flatter ourselves. Today our hard-wired animus against sex and gender variance is out of all proportion to any conceivable harm that such variance could cause.

Traditional religious marriages bring valuable stability to my country, my community, and my life. I admit that freely.

And I don't care.

I don't want that much stability. I don't want stability at the cost of hatred. I don't want a life so stable that, while I'm hiking with my good friend Mel, we have to worry that someone might overhear her talking about her girlfriend. I'm not so ravening after peace and quiet that I want Vikrant to be anything less than himself, because I find Vikrant's himself to be quite a delightful one. And I sure as hell ain't willing to pretend that another person's sex life is any of my damned business, let alone that it could somehow threaten my wobbly-ass secular marriage.

Keep your stability. It's covered in blood and lies. My hands ain't the cleanest, but I'll be damned if I'll dip 'em in shit.

Meandering Manifesto, Part 3: The Prisoner

Continuing from Meandering Manifesto, Part 2: Moral Turpitude...

Grace and I were watching "Strong Poison", one of our old favorites. It's a marvelous BBC dramatization of the Dorothy Sayers mystery. At the outset of the story Harriet Vane stands accused of murdering her former lover. As I watched the first trial scene my gears started to turn.

In his preliminary speech the Judge warned the jury not to take the defendant's lifestyle too much into consideration in their deliberations. His condescending tone spoke volumes about his society. The following comes from the book.

"At any rate, in March of 1928, the prisoner, worn out, as she tells us, by his unceasing importunities, gave in, and consented to live on terms of intimacy with him, outside the bonds of marriage.

"Now you may feel, and quite properly, that this was a very wrong thing to do. You may, after making all allowances for this young woman's unprotected position, still feel that she was a person of unstable moral character. You will not be led away by the false glamour which certain writers contrive to throw about 'free love,' into thinking that this was anything but an ordinary, vulgar act of misbehavior. Sir Impey Biggs, very rightly using all his great eloquence on behalf of his client, has painted this action of Harriet Vane's in very rosy colours; he has spoken of unselfish sacrifice and self-immolation, and has reminded you that, in such a situation, the woman always has to pay more heavily than the man. You will not, I am sure, pay too much attention to this. You know quite well the difference between right and wrong in such matters, and you may think that, if Harriet Vane had not become to a certain extent corrupted by the unwholesome influences among which she lived, she would have shown a truer heroism by dismissing Philip Boyes from her society.

"But, on the other hand, you must be careful not to attach the wrong kind of importance to this lapse. It is one thing for a man or woman to live an immoral life, and quite another thing to commit murder. You may perhaps think that one step into the path of wrongdoing makes the next one easier, but you must not give too much weight to that conclusion. You are entitled to take it into account, but you must not be too much prejudiced."

The judge's disapprobation was palpable, yet his concern was genuine: he had to remind the jury that they were not to let their opinion of Harriet Vane's scandalous behavior dictate their judgment of the murder case.

This scene resonates because we've all heard about local and national scandals that have shaken our certainty that "that doesn't happen here" or "people of that class just don't behave that way". Well it does and they do. Yet folks go right back to believing otherwise, don't they?

Humans need to believe in things that are demonstrably untrue. In the case of sexual scandals, a community brings its collective hand to its mouth and gasps at one of their own having done something so shocking - so unheard of!

The first reason for this reaction is simple: it provides a way for a person to feel superior. She could be genuinely free of vice and fooling herself into thinking that sexual improprieties are rare. Maybe she has her own juicy skeletons but finds ways to rationalize them. Or perhaps she simply enjoys her cynical triumph in covering up her own liaisons better than that sap on the front page. Whatever the specifics, everyone in the community gets to feel superior.

Methinks there's also a potent genetic reason why folks doth protest too much. Let's assume that I'm hard-wired to spread my genes around while keeping my neighbor from doing so. How would I go about it? Well, fulminating about sexual improprieties wouldn't cost me anything but could yield two benefits: it could draw attention away from my own dalliances, and make any guilt-prone people within earshot that much more likely to keep it in their pants. It's a two-for-one deal: cover and sucker-bait! For that kind of reward I could see myself getting very noisy in my hypocrisy.

So people maintain their illusions of propriety by casting stones at those who violate them. And I believe that bendy people make a very convenient target. That's why straight people love to pretend that gay people don't exist, and why they freak out so much when gayness happens. It is in their best interests to play out both acts of the charade.

Meandering Manifesto, Part 2: Moral Turpitude

Continuing from Meandering Manifesto, Part 1: Tintinnabulation...

I've been thinking a lot about society's relationship with bendy people. Of the disparate sources that contributed to my musings, the most unexpected was Skylark of Space. It was written between 1915 and 1921 and first published in 1928. It's considered by many to be the first space opera, and man, it's quite a ride. I highly recommend it. You can read the full text on Project Gutenberg.

One of the reasons the book is such a gas is that it's breathtakingly foreign to modern sensibilities. For example, late in the book there's about to be a double wedding on the planet Osnome between two Earth couples: The good guys and the damsels they've rescued from the bad guy. The leader of Kondal, the nation they've befriended, is holding forth on Kondalian customs.

     "I have called in our most expert weavers and tailors, to make the gowns. Before they arrive, let us discuss the ceremony and decide what it will be. You are all somewhat familiar with our customs, but on this I make very sure. Each couple is married twice. The first marriage is symbolized by the exchange of plain bracelets. This marriage lasts two years, during which period either may divorce the other by announcing the fact."
     "Hmmm..." Crane said. "Some such system of trial marriage is advocated among us every few years, but they all so surely degenerate into free love that none has found a foothold."
     "We have no such trouble. You see, before the first marriage each couple, from lowest to highest, is given a mental examination. Any person whose graphs show moral turpitude is shot."

Whu... buh... WHAT???  That was my initial reaction, and it still hasn't faded. The thought of exterminating people who don't live up to a standard has been anathema to most folks ever since Hitler's Final Solution. Obviously the idea wasn't so abhorrent in 1921.

Speaking of extermination, the second most breathtaking thing about the book is that the Earth people give the Kondalians the technological knowledge that will allow them to annihilate their Mardonalian enemies. Just a few pages after the wedding, we find a justification for this action.

     "You do not understand?" he went on, with a deep light shining in his eyes. "It is inevitable that two peoples inhabiting worlds so widely separated as are our two should be possessed of widely-varying knowledge and abilities, and these strangers have already made it possible for us to construct engines of destruction which shall obliterate Mardonale completely...." A fierce shout of joy interrupted the speaker and the nobles sprang to their feet, saluting the visitors with upraised weapons. As soon as they had reseated themselves, the Karbix continued:
     "That is the boon. The vindication of our system of evolution is easily explained. The strangers landed first upon Mardonale. Had Nalboon met them in honor, he would have gained the boon. But he, with the savagery characteristic of his evolution, attempted to kill his guests and steal their treasures, with what results you already know. We, on our part, in exchange for the few and trifling services we have been able to render them, have received even more than Nalboon would have obtained, had his plans not been nullified by their vastly superior state of evolution."

Wow. Now I see Star Trek's Prime Directive in the context of the late twentieth century. The contrast between E.E. "Doc" Smith and Gene Roddenberry is blinding: at the beginning of the twentieth century, there were clearly some lessons yet to learn about stepping into a foreign civil war and handing over weapons to "our guys". And there's that pesky genocide issue again.

World War II gave people in the United States a powerfully negative association with racial sanctions. I think that this stigma favors inclusiveness, so it helps progressive movements. On the other hand, World War II also made socialism into a Brobdingnagian boogeyman by associating it with both National Socialism and Communism. Just glance at today's headlines and you'll see that that one's still got legs.

There are plenty of people alive today who, as children, ran laughing past newsstands stocked with the issues of Amazing Stories that brought Doc Smith's unapologetically genocidal and eugenics-happy vision to the general public. They liked it well enough for it to blossom into a series of books, so apparently folks had no problem with an absolutist, conformist vision of their society. Think of the changes that have been wrought in a single lifetime. Think of the assumptions and certainties that have shattered. Be grateful for the opportunities that the twentieth century afforded for progressives, and understand how fragile the circumstances are in which progressive thought can fluorish. And be aware that the bubble could pop at any moment. We have to be smart about how we maintain and reinforce it.

Meandering Manifesto, Part 1: Tintinnabulation

I've been thinking a lot about society's relationship with bendy people. Well, I say "thinking". The process resembles nothing so much as stars winking unpredictably into view through the gaps in the clouds sweeping across a night sky. A science fiction novel from 1928 and an LGBT advocacy blog article posted this morning seem equally likely to illuminate the social struggle that this blog presumes to support. My thoughts are still an inchoate constellation, so I'm not even going to try to coalesce them into a single entry. I'm going to work through just one piece at a time, and at the end I expect I'll be better able to tie them all together. Please bear with me.

The following is my favorite passage from The Nine Tailors, a mystery novel by Dorothy Sayers published in 1934.

    The time wore on towards midnight. The Rector, advancing to the chancel steps, delivered, in his mild and scholarly voice, a simple and moving little address, in which he spoke of praising God, not only upon the strings and pipe, but upon the beautiful bells of their beloved church, and alluded, in his gently pious way, to the presence of the passing stranger--"please do not turn round to stare at him ; that would be neither courteous nor reverent"--who had been sent "by what men call chance" to assist in this work of devotion. Lord Peter blushed, the Rector pronounced the Benediction, the organ played the opening bars of a hymn and Hezekiah Lavender exclaimed sonorously: "Now, lads!" The ringers, with much subdued shuffling, extricated themselves from their chairs and wound their way up the belfry stair. Coats were pulled off and hung on nails in the ringing-chamber, and Wimsey, observing on a bench near the door an enormous brown jug and nine pewter tankards, understood, with pleasure, that the landlord of the Red Cow had, indeed, provided "the usual" for the refreshment of the ringers.
    The eight men advanced to their stations, and Hezekiah consulted his watch.
    "Time!" he said.
    He spat upon his hands, grasped the sallie of Tailor Paul, and gently swung the great bell over the balance.
    Toll-toll-toll ; and a pause ; toll-toll-toll ; and a pause ; toll-toll-toll ; the nine tailors, or teller-strokes, that mark the passing of a man. The year is dead ; toll him out with twelve strokes more, one for every passing month. Then silence. Then, from the faint, sweet tubular chimes of the clock overhead, the four quarters and the twelve strokes of midnight. The ringers grasped their ropes.
    "Go!"
    The bells gave tongue: Gaude, Sabaoth, John, Jericho, Jubilee, Dimity, Batty Thomas and Tailor Paul, rioting and exulting high up in the dark tower, wide mouths rising and falling, brazen tongues clamouring, huge wheels turning to the dance of the leaping ropes. tin tan din dan bim bam bom bo--tan tin din dan bam bim bo bom--tin tan dan din bim bam bom bo--tan tin dan din bam bim bo bom--tan dan tin bam din bo bim bom--every bell in her place striking tuneably, hunting up, hunting down, dodging, snapping, laying her blows behind, making her thirds and fourths, working down to lead the dance again. Out over the flat, white wastes of fen, over the spear-straight, steel-dark dykes and the wind-bent, groaning poplar trees, bursting from the snow-choked louvres of the belfry, whirled away southward and westward in gusty blasts of clamour to the sleeping counties went the music of the bells--little Gaude, silver Sabaoth, strong John and Jericho, glad Jubilee, sweet Dimity and old Batty Thomas, with great Tailor Paul bawling and striding like a giant in the midst of them. Up and down went the shadows of the ringers upon the walls, up and down went the scarlet sallies flickering roofwards and floorwards, and up and down, hunting in their courses, went the bells of Fenchurch St. Paul.
    Wimsey, his eye upon the ropes and his ear pricked for the treble's shrill tongue speaking at lead, had little attention to give to anything but his task. He was dimly conscious of old Hezekiah, moving with the smooth rhythm of a machine, bowing his ancient back very slightly at each pull to bring Tailor Paul's great weight over, and of Wally Pratt, his face anxiously contorted and his lips moving in the effort to keep his intricate course in mind. Wally's bell was moving down now towards his own, dodging Number Six and passing her, dodging Number Seven and passing her, passing Number Five, striking her two blows at lead, working up again, while the treble came down to take her place and make her last snapping lead with Sabaoth. One blow in seconds place and one at lead, and Sabaoth, released from the monotony of the slow hunt, ran out merrily into her plain hunting course. High in the air above them the cock upon the weathervane stared out over the snow and watched the pinnacles of the tower swing to and fro with a slowly widening sweep as the tall stalk of stone gathered momentum and rocked like a windblown tree beneath his golden feet.

I adore this passage. The skill I treasure most in an author is her ability to transport me in time and space: to pull me past the black marks on the page and into the story. I feel the old wood and the rough hemp of the rope sallies; I see the ponderous swinging of the bells; I hear the ringing, and feel the sound resonating in my rib cage. And I feel the sway of the bell tower as my mind's eye lifts off from it, swoops around it for one breathtaking view, and finally settles in and, alongside the cock upon the weathervane, presides over it all.

I also love this passage for how it evokes a people's love for their traditions. And here's the thing that makes it relevant to this blog: those traditions are arbitrary. The type of bell-ringing that Wimsey was participating in is called Change ringing, and it follows a set of mathematical rules without regard for melody. Some folks back in the seventeenth century got it in their heads that following a mathematical sequence with bells was a Good Idea, and here we have a hallowed tradition followed by townsfolk who know bugger all about math. But those people would probably fight tooth and nail if you tried to take those well-tested ropes out of their hands, or suggested changing the style of ringing. They love it because, from time immemorial, they have done it.

Except, well... they haven't.

That's the thing about time immemorial, isn't it? It is one of our most profound fictions. People have a way of convincing themselves that what's been done for as long as their family remembers it is the way it's always been. And the truth of our collective cognitive space is built on that lie. We mold a plastic reality every day out of demonstratively false assertions, the greatest of which is the immutability of that reality.

The Parish of Fenchurch St. Paul is a fiction that Dorothy Sayers wove from her own fond memories of growing up as the daughter of the rector of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford. So while neither it nor its inhabitants are real, they evoke real human truths. People love their traditions, which to them are every bit as solid as the stone stairs of a bell tower and the generations of feet that wore depressions into them. To you and me, those traditions may be constructs. They may be arbitrary. They may be vapor. But we cannot diminish their subjective solidity one whit by ignoring or dismissing them, nor do we have any business doing so.

And if an arbitrary system of yanking on a bunch of ropes to ring a bunch of bells can so grasp our affections and screw them to a social sticking place, how much more does a system of sexual morays bind a people? Sex is our greatest compulsion. What the hell do you expect? Stop acting surprised when people act like people.

I'm not saying that we have to accept another person's tradition. I'm not even saying that we have to respect them. But we should bloody well stop acting so surprised. I know you know how it feels to grin as you enthusiastically heft that bushel basket of umbrage at that which violates your sense of propriety; after all, you're human, just like me. Just like them.