America was founded by thinkers, serious thinkers who
struggled with new theories of how things ought to be,
rather than resting content with how things were. They
believed the old political relationships between the rulers
and the ruled were falsely based on pretended rights of
strength, wealth, birthright and tradition. They concluded
that these connections were manmade rather than natural,
and therefore were not morally binding. They decided that
the only morally binding relationship between a government
and its people would have to be based on consensual
agreement of all the parties. These 'contracts' would have
to be freely entered into by equal partners, and rationally
negotiated for everyone's benefit.
Family relationships were a different matter, for it seemed
evident that these relationships are based on nature.
Rulers and ruled are not drawn to each other by any natural
longing or love, but lovers and families are. It was
therefore expected that family relationships would remain
intact, and this in itself would be a good thing for the
state. When loyalty and devotion to a divinely ordained
king was replaced with a dispassionate political contract,
there would be far less emotional force to make citizens
remain loyal during times of difficulty. Instead, people
would turn their passions toward their loved ones. Because
the state protected families and kept them safe, however,
this would provide a powerful incentive for remaining loyal.
But American history is the story of the continuing forward
march of our twin goals of freedom and equality, and this
dual mission has now reached deeply into our family
relationships. Husbands and wives and children argue about
'freedom' and 'equality', and establish relationships based
on agreements rather than nature, negotiating these
agreements with due regard to individual rights and
sovereignty. The issue remains on the table, however, of
whether the intimate relations between men and women,
parents and children, are fundamentally shaped by rational
choices or natural impulses.
Personal freedom now demands the same respect as political
freedom. As a result, the old tension between longing for
personal freedom and longing for intimate attachment,
between individuality and mutuality, once understood to be
the permanent condition of human life and a source of much
serious thought and creativity, no longer troubles us very
much. There is hardly any tension left. Freedom won.
The complementary struggle for Equality has put an end to
much injustice, but along the way it attacked all the
legitimate differences amongst people as well as the
illegitimate ones, and "PC" now makes it dangerous to even
discuss whether there are any legitimate differences that
ought to be reinstated.
This vast extension of our political project into our
personal lives first appeared in two successive waves
during the 1960's -- the sexual revolution and feminism.
The first championed Freedom, the second championed
Equality.
The sexual revolution freed us from the remaining residues
of Puritanism. No longer were any obstacles in the way of
the free expression of our sexuality. Making love, not war,
was to become our primary activity, and this was promised
as the key to true happiness. For this new project, men and
women would necessarily become more emphatically men and
women.
But it did not turn out that way. When sex became 'easy' it
became 'no big deal'. The most striking effect of the
sexual revolution turned out to be passionlessness. Making
sex easy trivialized it.
It also removed the need, which in the past had been
especially important to women, to invest serious emotions
into sexual relationships. Soon, among the young,
convenient coed 'roommate' arrangements became the norm.
Everyone became comfortably unisexual, reverting to males
and females only for the sex act.
After the sexual revolution liberated us from convention,
feminism came along to liberate us from nature. Biology was
no longer destiny, though this required a stunning
assortment of new laws to help repress some apparently
natural instincts that could no longer be tolerated.
While the sexual revolution had aimed at bringing men and
women together bodily, feminism aimed at helping women
realize that they did not need men at all. Free of male
tyranny, women were free to do 'more important' things than
develop deep emotional relationships with men and create
and care for a stable home and family. This whole notion
was contradictory to the original aim of the sexual
revolution, which was to invigorate life with endless
sexual passion. So the two movements parted ways, leaving
conservatives paranoid about both sides, and liberals
trying to figure out which side to support.
Despite the many successes of egalitarianism, nature
continues to weigh more heavily on women than on men. If a
woman wants children, nine months of pregnancy will
continue to get in the way of her career. We can legislate
paternity leaves as well as maternity leaves, but we cannot
pretend that we don't notice the difference. In addition, a
woman today is less likely than ever to receive help from a
man. The male drive to protect women was certainly sexist
and patronizing, but it did accomplish the task of
encouraging many men to participate in the family,
reconciling the tension between their desire for freedom
and their desire for attachment. Now that this incentive
has been discredited, men are given license to be
irresponsible. The problem can be attacked by rational
negotiations and legal procedures, but if men don't feel it
these contracts will be broken.
Still aching for human attachment, we have no other
recourse but to reduce our relationships into contracts:
I'll do this if you'll do that, and we'll continue with
this arrangement for as long as both parties find it
satisfactory. Relationships are based on reciprocal
benefits rather than natural inclinations, on
self-protection through negotiation rather then
mutual-perfection through love.
All of this has ended in dismantling the family.
Child-bearing is again somewhat in vogue, but children are
to be had on the mother's terms, with or without fathers.
So we have reproduction without family, all of which
ironically feeds into the old complaint of women that men
do not want to make commitments and do not want the
responsibility of a family.
The important lesson that children once learned in the
family, even unhappy ones, was that there was always going
to be this one unbreakable bond, for better or worse. With
the decomposition of the family, children learn instead to
fear relationships and to trust nothing. As they grow up,
Allan Bloom noted, these children "are full of desperate
platitudes about self-determination, respect for other
people's rights and decisions, the need to work out one's
individual values and commitments, etc. All this is a thin
veneer over boundless seas of rage, doubt and fear."
But this is a two-sided fear: the fear of being alone and
the fear of attachment. Either possibility arouses anxiety,
with the result that enthusiasm for life is cooled,
youthful confidence and hope for the future begin to fade,
while self-doubt and cynicism take their place.
So we turn to therapists to help our children 'adjust', to
tell them everything is all right and here is what they
should think and feel rather than what they do think and
feel. After all, they are better off this way than in an
unhappy home, and their parents still love them. But
however reasonable this sounds to adults, children don't
believe any of it. They just feel the pain, indignation and
fear, and are confused by always being told to feel
something other than what they feel. An all-too-common way
to cope with this is to learn to feel nothing.
Children have always expected to leave the family, but
today it seems as if everyone, parents and kids alike, are
itching to be 'free'. So children learn early on that bonds
are made to be broken and love leaves. The family, once
considered a constant in life, is now just temporary, so
children realize at a young age that they must prepare to
be alone and self-sufficient, and must not count on anyone
or risk falling in love.
Past forms of relationship between men and women, filled
with lies and injustice and unhappiness, are best left to
die. But as these old forms have disintegrated, nothing has
taken their place but confusion. Our human feelings have
been dampened or re-defined to toe the line with political
ideology. As a result, our souls cry out for a chance to
discover what we actually feel and desire, what we actually
are, before we 'correct' it.
Everyone is free, but free to do what? Everyone is equal,
but there is no guiding principle to link us together, no
common good to motivate us. Our paths are flat and
parallel, no longer pointed toward each other, and no
longer pointing upward. If something does not change, our
admirable principles of freedom and equality will only be
realized at the cost of everything that is noble,
excellent, beautiful, and worthwhile.
----------------------------------------------------
Dr. Andrew Cort, D.C., J.D., is a Teacher, an Attorney, and
a Doctor of Chiropractic. His books include "Return to
Meaning: The American Psyche in Search of its Soul" (this
article is an excerpt), "From Joshua to Jesus", and "The
Song of Songs: A Lover's Poetic Dialogue". To browse and
order books, and to find out about Talks and Seminars,
visit http://www.andrewcort.com . Dr. Cort lives in the
Berkshire Mountains in western Massachusetts.
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