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The destruction of Western society's moral backbone through the degeneration of traditional marriage such that the Victorian account reads anachronistic to a mo
by vezzy-fnord 11y ago
The destruction of Western society's moral backbone through the degeneration of traditional marriage such that the Victorian account reads anachronistic to a modern reader, is, I'd venture, a relatively positive development. The conception of traditional marriage that cruder familialists and social conservatives promote then is not really that traditional, nor divinely enshrined.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- stevebot 11y agonot sure i grok this comment, but I think I agree?
- imissmyjuno 11y agoare you saying social conservatives are sexist in a way that's similar to the patronizing behaviour quoted from the book? i'm a little confused about the 2nd sentence too.
- rodgerd 11y ago(S)he's making two points as I read it: 1. Much of what is being described as traditional marriage practice isn't actually traditional; the article notes that what a modern person might consider Victorian marital values often weren't. 2. Much of what remains (as being actually traditional) is better off being destroyed.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- InclinedPlane 11y agoA good sentiment, though I'd quibble about the use of the word "moral" here. It's a shame there isn't better developed terminology, but the social norms and standards of the Victorian elite were quite far from anything I would term moral. Selfish, oppressive, iniquitous, abusive, racist, hypocritical, and worse. This was the culture that spawned and supported numerous physical and cultural genocides against native populations around the world. The culture that was so iniquitous it gave rise to the backlash of Marxism and totalitarian communism which had such a disastrous impact on humanity in the 20th century.
- atlantic 11y agoI don't think that physical and cultural genocide is exclusive to the Victorian era. How much difference is there in reality between the Victorian drive to civilize and Christianize, and the modern Western impulse to ram "democracy" and "freedom" down the throats of unwilling societies at the point of a gun? If anything, they were a lot less hypocritical than we are.
- mikeash 11y agoI'd wager that India and China would say there's a pretty big difference between then and now.
- Swizec 11y agoWould the middle east also consider the difference positive? Hell, the NATO bombings in Serbia happened just 15 years ago. That was pretty damn close to home for some of us. I have many friends who remember the bombings. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia And 20 years ago NATO bombed a different part of Yugoslavia that was even closer to where I grew up. [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Deliberate_Force https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Deliberate_Force I am really happy that Slovenia was able to secede from Yugoslavia without NATO bombings. Although I do remember hiding in the cellar one night when the sirens went off. Luckily no actual air raid occured.
- sageikosa 11y agoYes. Now they get to be on the semi-dominant end of the spectrum.
- jdjdirn 11y agoOh how things have changed /s
- jdjdirn 11y agoOh how things have changed /s
- mikeash 11y agoBack when traditional marriage was strong, it was acceptable for people to own people, for young children to be forced to work in sweatshops, and for people to be persecuted, imprisoned, or even killed because of homosexual activity. If that's what qualifies as society's "moral backbone" then I am extremely grateful to have destroyed it.
- vezzy-fnord 11y agoI was being sardonic about the "moral backbone," if you failed to pick that up.
- mikeash 11y agoI noticed eventually, but I figured my message served just as well to reinforce yours as it did to argue against what you weren't actually trying to say.
- cpursley 11y agoYeah, I always cringe when conservative politicians rant about 'traditional' marriage. Especially when the bulk of their region's history allowed for things like polygamy^1 and forcing their victim to marry them after rape^2. To be fair, their 'traditional' definition of marriage is certainty saner than parts of the historical version in the good book: ^1 "..I will take your wives [plural] while you live to see it, and will give them to your neighbor. He shall lie with your wives in broad daylight. You have done this deed in secret, but I will bring it about in the presence of all Israel, and with the sun looking down." (2 Samuel 12:11-14 NAB) ^2 "If a man is caught in the act of raping a young woman who is not engaged, he must pay fifty pieces of silver to her father. Then he must marry the young woman because he violated her, and he will never be allowed to divorce her." (Deuteronomy 22:28-29 NLT)