Questions about Norms

It seems that the War on Error is actually slowing down. So I'ld like to talk about some thoughts I had in response to Jay Michaelson's Megashabbat talk on social norms in sexuality. Michaelson's core argument was that hidden behind the battle over gay marriage was a question about whether or not we were going to have a sexual ethos peculiar to sexuality.

This wasn't the only argument he gave: he also argued that underlying the question of social norms was an anxiety over very closely held beliefs that make people fear violation of rules, and that sexual norms in particular are tied closely to beliefs that we would see as central to religious belief.

I think regardless of whether we think it is desirable or not, we don't live in a society where we can form a coherent social set of expectations and roles. The act of living according to the dictates of all 613 mitzvoth has a very different meaning today then it did in early Rabbinical Judaism. Conservative Christians define themselves as being outside the norms of society through their beliefs. Historically these wouldn't be active choices: it's impossible to imagine Orthodox without Reform, and impossible to imagine either without Jewish emancipation making Jews into citizens.

Yet at the same time I'm willing to concede that there are norms that I would like to see in relationships. I would endorse the norm that relationships should benefit those involved and mutual respect should be a component of them. But this inevitably leads to the realization that we don't live in a society in which any norm could possibly be created, especially not in a society where sexual violence is endemic. Must we wait for society to change before we can change how relationships look?

David Brooks Hits a New Low

David Brooks today cited Charles Murray's new book approvingly. Let that one sink in for a bit: it's like trusting Schmitt on jurisprudence. He doesn't mention that the book is really just worrying about white people becoming divided by class, and doesn't care about black people. This isn't innocent oversight.

Secondly Brooks creates an ideal type: the urban university-educated professional who goes to church and married before they had kids. He then has the chutzpah to say this is 20% of white america, and that it represents traditionalism.

There's something deeply wrong with this argument: just because some college educated people go to church more often and marry before having children doesn't mean you can construct a sociological narrative of college educated people with particular values leading them to this. Certainly the attitudes of the urban elite towards homosexuality, birth control, abortion, secularism, and the existence of other modes of life are deeply untraditional.

Furthermore, lower-class americans are working less not because they are less industrious, but there is less work that exists for them. The decline in wages and benefits of lower-tier work has been a constant trend since the 1970's. Pinning this on attitudes towards work changing requires evidence, and I don't trust Dr. Murray to tell me what the evidence is. The work that does exist is under conditions of scheduling and environment that do not lend themselves to social engagement.

Lastly, the elite is not homogenous. If we think Upper East Side we get a different picture from wealthy Dallas doctor. Social attitudes are not the ultimate predictors of success that Brooks has them be in his editorial.