Politics and CoJ... I'm impressed (Page 3)

(hoo boy.. well, I guess I deserve this since I stirred the pot with red meat... )

No... No... men too...

I have a friend who is a male grade school teacher with a degree from Swarthmore. My wife teaches part time, has a degree from Bryn Mawr, but took many classes at Swarthmore.

And still, I get what Goldberg means.

He does not mean that the folks he calls "liberal fascists" are the monsters that constituted the Nazi party, for example. Not that at all.

Look, clearly there is a culture war going on. It's a war that was started against a traditional culture (call that culture the patriarchy if you want). You could argue that this old traditional culture should be changed because it is inherently anti-human (I wouldn't argue that, but I understand that people of good will might).

But the fact remains that this traditional culture, and especially the traditional family, is under attack. The "traditional" is in the defensive position.

My friends on the left applaud this.

I think what Goldberg is getting at with his grade school teacher remark is that this attack is often furthered by forms of pedagogy, often supported by the state, that are developed in leftist/liberal/progressive institutions such as Swarthmore and Brown, and Bryn Mawr for that matter.

Myself, I'm just coming out of this leftist/liberal/progressive world view. I use to support the kind of pedagogy that Goldberg is criticizing. I don't so much anymore. It's actually troubling to me.

Some of my best friends are leftist, deconstructionist, feminist, professors with tenure. I love them. I just don't think they're so right so much anymore. And I like people from Swarthmore, Brown, Bryn Mawr and I'm sure from Middlebury as well.

It's been clear to me for a while about the connection between the early 20th century progressive movement and some European fascist movements of the same period around the issue of eugenics. What Goldberg's book is fleshing out for me a bit is some further connections between the two movements regarding issues such as economic planning.

Don, the traditional family is not under attack.  That paranoia serves no one, and is really unbecoming. You take care of your family, and I'll take care of mine.

It's just that many of us don't fit that "traditional" mold.  And we'd very much like to be considered equal human beings under the law. And you obviously know NOTHING about elementary education, the politics of education, or the reality of many urban schools in this country to make such statements., or to suggest that teaching kids to think for themselves, to question, and to work towards peace at all costs are at all at odds with whatever nostalgic patriarchy you seem to have accepted.

And your constant "some of my best friends are..."  and "even my wife..." and "I used to think that way" are so patronizing, I almost can't read your posts anymore.  

OK, let me just be a bit more precise...

The "traditional family" is shorthand for "the traditional family, the core of which is a marriage of one man and one woman, and is the main building block of society."

That's more of what I meant.  And it certainly is under attack.

History may prove that your view is the correct one.  I just don't agree. 

As for being patronizing with my references, I offered them to stem the kind of attack you make in your second paragraph where you say that I know nothing about elementary education.

I know some, and I know people who know a lot and it's from them that I learn.

And I would disagree to a large extent that kids in the kinds of systems that Goldberg is criticizing are learning to think for themselves.  Rather, they're learning to think as their teachers want them to think, at least as far as certain core values are concerned. 

I want to hear more about how your traditional family is under attack.

And how my kind of family is so damaging to yours.

Actually no I don't. This is clearly where you want every conversation to go... Down the  twisted and sometimes impassable "Natural Law" Lane. I should know better by now not to engage with you. 

Poli Sci 101: 

One can be on the left or right AND have an authoritarian bent. These are people who believe that the government should have authority, to varying degrees, over the governed (authoritarianism being a continuum, not a static point).

One can be on the left or right AND have a libertarian bent. These are people who believe the goverment should have less authority over the governed.

To paint either side as authoritarian (fascist, nazi or otherwise) or libertarian is to misunderstand very basic concepts and/or simply ignorant.

Not every post gets read by a moderator. Don't confuse missing a post with bias.

And we must also take the source into consideration.

Exactly.

It's just an objective fact.

My expanded definition of "traditional family" has been the norm.  You would like to change that norm to a different norm, one that is open to other possibilities.  All of the things that need to be done to change the norm is the "attack".

Sometimes attacking things is good, if you think that what you are attacking is bad.   

No need to go down the natural law path to answer that one.

Your second question, maybe needs to go down that path.  So I won't. 

Don, regarding your opinion about the threat to your family... 

So change = attack.

And even though your personal family would remain intact, this change threatens your personal family... how? (I assume you feel threatened since that is what an attack implies.)

I agree that attacking an institution can be good, case in point the institution of slavery that marred our history. Our country changed for the good, despite the arguments that favored maintaining traditional slavery. To the slaveowners who were disenfranchised of their 'property' I'm sure the change was not perceived as good. So, I can see how someone who is on the unwilling end of change to civil traditions would find change (that impacted them personally) undesirable or dangerous.

I'm wondering how you, personally, would suffer from the kind of change that would allow Hollis' and K to enter into a marriage contract, for example.

No, that's not what he's doing.  He's merely filling out the full possibilities on the political spectrum, the type of spectrum that Renee just pointed out.

He's not claiming that there is no fascism on the right.

And no, your logical chain is not his argument.  Liking organic food is neutral.   

You may be right, that change equals attack.  Need to think about that.

And sure, if you believe that the traditional definition of marriage is bad in some way, then of course you would believe that attacking it is good.

Attacking can be good.  In this case I don't believe that it is.

But it is an attack going on.  What often happens, is that rather than proponents simply acknowledging that this is what they are doing, attacking the norm of marriage, they often quickly shift gears and say, "well, how am I attacking you?"

Well as Hollis understands, your second question probably means going down that path of natural law.

I'm not sure I want to do that tonight.  I'm happy to do it another time, if that's ok. 

My original pot stirring post had to do with some of the fascistic roots of modern liberal/progressivism. 

Yea, but that doesn't work in the UK.

See how complicated it is?  

And the other possibility is:

And sure, if you believe that the traditional definition of marriage is bad limiting in some way, then of course you would believe that attacking expanding it is good appropriate and fair.

I'm not as fond of polarizing words like bad/good, especially when there are more precise words available.

OK.

I would just say that the process by which the expanding is happening very often includes an "attack".

For example with that particular issue, I'd say that state legislatures voting to change laws is not an attack necessarily.  However, cultural campaigns that try to exert influence  through "emotional" arguments often are.

Is it just the emotional arguments that are attacks? What about the civil liberties arguments? The reasoned arguments?

It's convenient for your argument to keep using the emotionally laden word "attack" when we're talking about change, and I do agree that some social agitation will occur to secure the change. But that's the American way - make your case, get it heard, get enough people to care about making the change. If that's an attack, then the democratic voice is an attack voice.

Well, this gets back to the question of what liberalism actually is.

I'd say that the liberalism of today is not the "classical liberalism" that most of the founders held.  In many ways, it's the opposite.

I think classical liberalism was about freedom.

It seems to me that the progressive liberalism of today really is about license rather than freedom. 

Reasoned arguments are always good, because usually they get to the truth. 

I'm not saying that attacks are necessarily bad. I'm just saying that an attack is going on regarding that social issue. 

Whoa. You don't think that conservatives aren't licentious? Seriously?

For example? 

You are serious. Wow. No need for me to continue this exchange.

BTW, I shouldn't have said that about Neiwert.  I had no way of knowing whether he read the book or not, so it wasn't fair of me.  I'm glad he did read it.