the post-moral period

it's amazing what is an illness these days: to begin with, your personality, your actions being symptoms. i guess i would think of this as a model, metaphor, or ideology: a central one of our era. apparently weiner is actually entering a residential treatment facility for compulsive sexting. now if one is any sort of materialist, one would have to expect personality and brain configuration to be correlated to some extent, even though i think 'science' is much further from explicating these correlations, or assigning causal roles, than it thinks it is. i think the idea that 'depression is a chemical imbalance,' for example, is an obscure and ham-handed (and basically unsupported) claim. at any rate, the basic idea is to de-moralize various traits or actions, which can be important in helping people stop doing destructive things. of course, it is also potentially an excuse, as when you attribute your harassment of congressional pages to an illness and disappear into treatment. it would be important to de-moralize some things, i think, but though the idea that people are born gay or straight reduces the moral weight, it also seems to concede that there would be moral weight otherwise, and it hints that one or the other might be an organic disorder. it's also kind of ridiculous in that sexual identities are extremely historically liquid, and hetero and homo as we get them have only been around a couple of centuries, more or less.

of course, if whatever you or society thinks is bad is the result of a disordered brain chemistry, then it seems likely that anything good anyone does is the also result of brain chemistry, and credit would be as out of place as blame. however, maybe it is.

at any rate, what hints that these models are ideological is that the positions people take up with regard to them are the positions that are useful for one purpose or another, that help you out politically etc. the rankest use is just the straight-up excuse a la weiner. but eventually it seems likely to excuse everyone for everything. that might be a good idea or it might not: it would be interesting to see what a post-moral culture would look like. one thing: it will be extremely profitable for pharmaceutical companies. 

if it's any comfort to you, i think it's fair to characterize individual responsibility and demon possession as ideologies as well. so then the question might be: which ideology do you prefer? i think the inquiry into us by us has irremediable problems.

i might suggest that treatment would be a good approach for assad or gaddafi after it all goes south, if they're still alive. being a tyrant is surely symptomatic. however, so is tyrannicide.

Comments

[Henry]

I too have read, and do not deny, "that sexual identities are extremely historically liquid, and hetero and homo as we get them have only been around a couple of centuries, more or less." Yet, if one's sexual orientation is genetic, then it would be unlikely that the percentage of purely or predominantly heterosexual people, and of purely or predominantly homosexual people, would have been significantly different in the past from what it is today. Therefore, doesn't the liquidity of the identities in the past mean only that people did not recognize homosexuality, at least not publicly? Homosexual men were simply called "bachelors."

[Henry]

Or they married, and they and their wives were not as happy as they might have been.

[stillnotking]

Brain chemistry and individual responsibility aren't mutually exclusive. "Responsibility" in a social context means something imposed from without: we will punish you if you do something that harms us. Whether your bad actions were the result of your brain chemistry or a hypothetical self-determining homunculus (maybe the homunculus' brain chemistry?) is irrelevant.

The same logic applies to the silly nature/nurture debate over sexuality. I get frustrated with other gay-rights advocates' insistence on getting involved in a useless (and potentially harmful, depending on how the scientific evidence shakes out) argument. We have no right to discriminate against gay people because their sexuality doesn't harm us. The question of whether they "chose" to be gay is irrelevant. There's probably a genetic component to stamp collecting or drinking gin & tonics, too, and even if I personally don't want to do those things, I have no grounds to deny others' right to do them if they're so inclined.

[Henry]

Stilnotking, you're right, of course. Only a homophobe would think that, if being gay were a choice, then it would be okay to discriminate against gays. Crispin writes, "though the idea that people are born gay or straight reduces the moral weight, it also seems to concede that there would be moral weight otherwise." But note the "seems": it only seems that way to homophobes. Still, if it reduces the moral weight and takes some of the wind out of the sails of homophobes, that's a good thing.

[Lisa Simeone]

stillnotking writes: I get frustrated with other gay-rights advocates' insistence on getting involved in a useless (and potentially harmful, depending on how the scientific evidence shakes out) argument. We have no right to discriminate against gay people because their sexuality doesn't harm us. The question of whether they "chose" to be gay is irrelevant.

Ditto.

[Karl]

I think if someone could parse and explain the divide in attitudes toward sex's role:

* means of procreation

* means of deriving pleasure

then they'd be 95% of the way toward answering all the Qs Prof Crispy raises here.

The moralist's impulse tends (in my experience) toward wanting to deny others any kind of "fun" that the moralist considers un-fun, or questionable in its fun-ness. The question may be that the "fun" makes the moralist squeamish for this reason or that, and therefore shouldn't be called "fun." Et cetera.

Homosexuals trigger a moralist's response rooted in the

* means of deriving pleasure

aspect of sexuality. The moralist often doesn't approve of sex being used for pleasure, and when the moralist does so approve, it's usually with guilt and grudgingly so. Since homosexuals cannot produce a child from a same-sex sexual union, the moralist finds their use of sex "objectionable" or the like.

Get at the roots of this and you answer a whole lot of questions.

[Karl]

Also, it would do a lot of good to stop using "homophobe." It's the most inaccurate label I have seen used in my lifetime.

Most people I know who hate on gays and lesbians do so because of what I just posted. They don't "fear" homosexuals, they don't "fear" homosexuality, and they don't "fear" sameness.

So the "-phobe" part is inaccurate. And since it isn't sameness they "fear," the "homo-" part is inaccurate too.

I guess if someone wants to look stupid, though, they can continue to use "homophobe" as a disparaging label. It works almost as well as "Evil Rethuglican," I guess.

[Lisa Simeone]

Well, I think there's plenty of fear involved, but I don't care. I don't care if they hate because of fear, loathing, squeamishness, or anything else. I don't care about their fucking reasons. They're dinosaurs, anyway. Good riddance.

Have always believed, though, that the fun aspect is a big part of it. Same reason why the anti-abortionists are on the warpath. They want to punish women for having sex. "You made your bed, now lie in it." They thought Hawthorne was writing an instruction manual.

[Henry]

Karl, you have a point about the inaccuracy of "homophobe"; "anti-gay bigot" would be better. But there is an element of fear in bigotry toward gays: the bigot's fear (perhaps unconscious) that he himself is gay -- and sometimes he is. That's why calling an anti-gay bigot a "fag" or other anti-gay epithet will so often elicit a violent response.

[Karl]

That's such a sad old saw, toothless and dull, the idea that a bigot secretly is gay if his or her bigotry is anti-homosexual.

Apparently it's rooted in the analysis of prominent GOP politicians who squawk about gay/lesbian rights being "special" or whatever, but troll airport bathrooms for same-sex fleshplay. I mean, in the case of a closeted Larry Craig or Lindsay Graham, it might superficially be true, but I'd say in each man's case he **knows** he's gay but politically hides in the closet.

But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe every anti-gay and anti-lesbian bigot actually is what he or she is complaining about. Why analyze the person's full sexual identity when we can just say "you're afraid you're gay, Jim Bakker" or "you're terrified of being secretly a lesbian, Phyllis Schlafly."

I sorta roll my eyes at this being generally true, though I guess it can be true in certain cases.

I don't know why you need to call them anything more than "asshole," personally. Specialized code-phrases for various types of bigots seems to me the playground of catty ... uh ... gay men.

[Henry]

Karl, it seems that you're looking for a fight even with someone who agrees with you. I began my last comment with "Karl, you have a point about the inaccuracy of 'homophobe.'" thereby agreeing that fear is not central to anti-gay bigotry. Then I added that there is nevertheless "an element of fear in bigotry toward gays: the bigot's fear (perhaps unconscious) that he himself is gay -- and SOMETIMES he is" (emphasis on "sometimes" added). It seems that you agree with me, because you write, "I guess it can be true in certain cases." You might not want to call all anti-gay bigots "asshole," however, because singling out that orifice might cause some to think that you're accusing them all of being gay.

[Xtab]

Homophobic men are more likely to elicit sexual arousal to homosexual stimuli (gay porn) than non-homophobic men. Not always, not necessarily, just more likely. In the famous study of this (I looked it up), 26 percent of homophobic men showed a moderate increase in penile circumference, 54 percent showed definite increase of more than 12 mm, in contrast to the respective 10 and 24 percent of non-homophobic men.

[Xtab]

Hey Henry,

I'd take a look at the Knobe effect. It's pretty interesting. Often when someone says something is a "choice" or that someone did something intentionally, they more likely disapprove of it.

So if you tell people their sister caused a big accident that wrecked the environment, destroyed a river or started a big fire that destroyed the school, people are much less likely to believe their sister did it intentionally than if they were told a corporation or government (or other generally hated figure or institution) did it. If a government fucks up, then people tend to believe the government did it on purpose.

Same is true of homosexuality. Now, I think Crispy is homophobic (he's admitted it), and this might explain why he thinks it's a choice, but it's not the worst kind of homophobia and I'm not, like, personally upset or anything.

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