The Peculiar Logic of Robbie George
Robbie George has weighed in on gay marriage in general, and gay marriage in New York in particular. He tries to make a nuanced internally consistent argument, but it doesn’t work. Basically, George blames the “ideology of sexual liberalism”, especially in its 1960s manifestation, for paving the way for same-sex marriage. For, he holds, if you follow this path to its logical conclusion, “the reality that has traditionally been denominated as “marriage” loses all intelligibility.” As a core argument, this has a strong kernel of truth. But I contend it is George himself who does not take the argument to its logical conclusion. Consider this point:
“Devotion to “sexual freedom” had been no part of the liberalism of FDR, George Meaney, Cesar Chavez, Hubert Humphrey, or the leaders and rank-and-file members of the civil-rights movement. Today, however, allegiance to the cause of sexual freedom is the nonnegotiable price of admission to the liberal (or “progressive”) club. It is worth noting that more than a few conservatives have bought into a (more limited) version of it as well, as we see in the debate over redefining marriage”.
This mirrors I point I have made often here, as have others. The Democrats ceased being the party of the worker and the middle class, and instead became the party of more elitist interests – interests based on the core ethic of individual rights. But George misses something profound. In tracing the developing of changing sexual ethics, he misses the connection between sexual individualism and economic individualism. It is no accident that the revolution in sexual ethics in the 1960s pave the way for the revolution in economic ethics in the 1980s. It has the same philosophical foundation – downplaying the notion of a harmonic social order in favor of the supremacy of individual freedom. The satisfaction of individual needs trumps all, and the sole purpose of the social contract is to set boundaries on individual freedom. From this perspective, bringing to sexual ethics what had long been present in economic ethics was quite natural. It was bound to happen. Getting the government out of the bedroom is the same as getting the government out of the wallet.
Catholics, of course, don’t accept this philosophical foundation. They believe in a cohesive social order, where the different parts form a cohesive unity, well-balanced and bound together by solidarity and subsidiarity. From a policy perspective, everything is channeled through the prism of the common good, not individual liberty. And for a few decades after the New Deal, this outlook rose to greater prominence in the United States. There was a feeling of solidarity, an instinctive distrust in the perils of industrial capitalism. It was a stance based on the lost value of prudence, as it acknowledged the real and legitimate attractions of socialism and other forms of social upheaval. This all came to a head in the 1960s, with a younger generation rebelling against what they saw as stultifying conformity (plus some grave injustices such as war and entrenched racism). But they through the baby out with the bathwater. As they strove for social justice, their focus on individual rights paved the way for a return of the cult of the individual, both sexual and economic. Ronald Reagan is as much a child of the 1960s as High Hefner.
But George doesn’t get this for a simple reason – he himself is enthralled by the dogmas of laissez-faire liberalism, in the boardroom if not the bedroom. Just look at his American Principles Project. This is a site that twins “the sanctity of human life and the integrity of marriage and the family” with “economic freedom, limited government, private property and the free market”, completely blind to the discontinuity in these positions and completely oblivious to the disconnect between Catholic social teaching and this flawed philosophical foundation. This philosophy – which the Church refers to as the “poisoned spring” of the “evil individualist spirit” – is just as wrong in the economic spehere as in the sexual sphere. It’s actually sad for a Catholic philosopher of George’s reputation to set up an outfit that simply echoes every awful Republican talking point on economic matters – including the truly insane, unfair, imprudent, and immoral tea party positions. George himself has acted as a court theologian to Glenn Beck, a man whose views on Catholic social teaching are well-known and scandalous. Is it really any surprise that some of the biggest backers of the gay marriage initiative in New York are Wall Street firms? This clear connection seems lost on George.
Let me now tackle another core problem with George’s narrative. He says the following:
“Once one buys into the ideology of sexual liberalism, the reality that has traditionally been denominated as “marriage” loses all intelligibility…As a result, to the extent that one is in the grip of sexual-liberationist ideology, one will find no reason of moral principle why people oughtn’t to engage in sexual relations prior to marriage, cohabit in non-marital sexual partnerships, form same-sex sexual partnerships, or confine their sexual partnerships to two persons, rather than three or more in polyamorous sexual ensembles.”
As before, there is some truth to this. But George has another huge blind spot. He ties it to New York being a “socially liberal state” , where its leading political leaders – Cuomo and Bloomberg – “openly cohabit with women with whom they are not married”. He sees them as an urbane, sophisticated, elite that look down their noses at the less enlightened unwashed masses. This, of course, is a dominant theme in current American politics on the right. It serves as a useful ruse to disguise the upward distribution of income toward the real elites – those with the money. Of course, this game wouldn’t work so well if the Democrats didn’t keep playing into their hands…
But the idea that marriage is viewed differently in “socially liberal” and “socially conservative” regions is bogus. Marriage is no longer seen as a social institution, a bedrock of the social order, in any place. It is a not seen as an institution whose primarily function is the bearing and rearing of children (and this function extends beyond the narrow nuclear family). It is certainly not seen as a total self-giving of one man and one woman, bonded for life. Not even close. Instead, it is seen as romantic individual wish-fulfillment, the search for the perfect mate that can satisfy sexually, emotionally, and economically. When every little girl wants to be Princess Kate, you know the institution of marriage has been debauched. It is about the perfectly American “pursuit of happiness”. It is an individual right. If this is what marriage is, then of course it should be open to same-sex couples. Those who oppose the extension of this version of marriage are not protecting traditional marriage at all – they are just highly uncomfortable with homosexuality.
While George focuses on Cuomo and Bloomberg, he misses the point that marriage in the so-called “socially conservative” states is even more debauched. Divorce rates are higher. Out-of-wedlock births are higher. Serial monogamy is the norm. Contraception is ubiquitous. There is nothing “elitist” about the sexual revolution and the re-definition of marriage among individualist lines since the 1960s. There is nothing partisan about it either. And it has nothing to do with the gays, even if George claims that a huge proportion of gay marriages are “sexually open” (if monogamous, does that mean there are OK?). The damage has been done long ago. What George calls ”counterfeit” marriage has been with us for some time. Newt Gingrich probably did more to destroy traditional marriage than Andrew Sullivan.
One more point that annoyed me – George’s smug attack on fellow Catholics:
“There are many devout Protestants and even Jews and Muslims whose moral beliefs and practices are far more closely in line with Catholic teachings than Andrew Cuomo’s are. Andrew’s father’s views and policies gave scandal (as Catholics use that term) precisely because people took him to be a serious Catholic.”
Irony is lost on George. His interviewer is Kathyrn Lopez, a known supporter of torture, which is a clear and unambiguous intrinsically and gravely evil act. He himself cavorts with Glenn Beck and holds views on economic issues that (to put it charitably) are not exactly in line with the tenor of Catholic social teaching. And there is no way a Catholic can admire Ayn Rand. Of course, he mirrors Edward “One-Note” Peters here, who is yet again calling for somebody to be denied communion under Canon 915. Yet again, this uniquely American concern wants the Eucharist to be used as a political tool in a selective and partisan fashion. That’s the real scandal.
But if George is off base, how should Catholics respond to the coming acceptance of same-sex marriage? George may carp on about “marriage” not being marriage and he has a point. But then again, what he dubs “conservative” isn’t conservative either. Let’s get past the semantics. As Catholics, we must recognize that the culture does not see marriage as Catholics do, or are supposed to. Same-sex marriage is merely a symptom of this problem, not the problem itself. If we continue to single-out same-sex-marriage, we risk looking hypocritical. Why the years of silence about the culture of serial monogamy, followed by vehement outbursts against same-sex marriage? This is presents a unique opportunity for Catholics to be countercultural – to emphasize how our approach to marriage differs from the dominant cultural norm. Let’s stay positive and let’s stay optimistic.
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Well I hate to say it but I share “one note ” Dr Ed PEters concerns over Robert Mugabe recieiving communion at the Vatican recently at John Paul the II beatification Mass . From what I can tell that was far from just an American concern
The only reason they allowed Mugabe in is that they know that the future of the Catholic Church is in Africa.
Nice post. I have always sensed that there is something hypocritical about the Left rejecting Catholic sexual morality. They’re all about the common good *except* in the bedroom.
Of course, both sides are hypocritical and inconsistent. The Catholic position is beautifully consistent. Politics sucks.
Nice!
Sam
Why the years of silence about the culture of serial monogamy, followed by vehement outbursts against same-sex marriage? This is presents a unique opportunity for Catholics to be countercultural – to emphasize how our approach to marriage differs from the dominant cultural norm. Let’s stay positive and let’s stay optimistic.
Though it’s worth noting that pretty much the only people speaking out against divorce, and upholding the Church’s teaching that one cannot divorce and remarry, have been the social conservatives within the Church.
Indeed, if I recall correctly, in these very pages there has been a lot of call for “a more pastoral approach” to helping Catholics engage in serial monogamy — so long as they aren’t Newt Gingrich.
Is making divorce and remarriage unimaginable again (with the tools of social disapproval that real human societies use to achieve such ends) in fact a goal that you yearn for, or is this merely a stick with which to beat Robert George when convenient?
It’s interesting that while Americans view the communion issue in terms of canon 915, outside America it’s apparently viewed as being part of the ‘internal forum’. From La Stampa:
“Speaking on behalf of the Conference of Catholic bishops of South Africa, and even though he is personally very critical of Mugabe’s conduct regarding human rights, Cardinal Wilfried Napier tried to throw water over the firestorm of problems, explaining that «for any Christian, the reception of communion is a personal matter, consciously made in front of God. As such, it is a matter for the ‘internal forum’, in other words the space between God and the believer. No-one, except Mugabe, and perhaps his confessor, can know if he was in a state of grace when he presented himself to receive communion in St. Peter’s Square. It is not up to us to ask Mugabe about his “internal forum”»
I guess I find the point of your post peculiar: You apparently agree with everything George says regarding the New York law and causes of same-sex marriage, and yet you fault him for not talking about economics and for not understanding economics better from a Catholic perspective. But he’s not talking about economics — he’s talking about the NY same-sex marriage law. I mean, even supposing that you’re completely right that George is mistaken on the economic issues and is missing the connection between sexual individualism and economic individualism… so? George wasn’t talking about economics or the American Principles Project or capitalism in the interview, he was talking about same-sex marriage, and as far as I can tell, you agree with his point 100%: that the sexual revolution of the 1960s led to the sexual individualism of today and same-sex marriage in New York. There’s no problem, of course, for you to argue against George’s economic views and say how terrible the American Principles Project is, etc., but I’m not getting why this particular interview bothers you.
As for your discussion about “socially conservative” states being more debauched. I dunno. Statistics are funny things that are sometimes misinterpreted. And even if I take your word that “red states” have more out-of-wedlock marriages, that might be because “blue states” have a bigger abortion rate and contraceptive rate; or red states having bigger divorce rate might be because blue states have a lower marriage rate/higher cohabitation rate. Now I’m not trying to defend the moral superiority of red states: I’ll admit freely that marriage is messed up all over the US, and extremely messed up in the red states. (There’s plenty of blame to go around with no-fault divorce maybe being the most guilty.) But same-sex marriage is slowly but surely getting legalized in what is generally considered the blue states, and its not strange to note a greater sexual liberalism in the people and political leaders of those states as opposed to other states.
There is also the matter of the facts on the ground. Up until about two years ago, New York state was the only state in the country that didn’t allow “no fault” divorce. Unfortunately, that fact messes with people’s narratives.
We must be free to pursue equality and we must be free to be pursue love regardless of the criticism of others. We must be free to go through the stage of narcissism and experience the natural consequences of that selfishness. Hopefully, we learn from it and wisdom develops. If we are repressed and psychologically fortified against others within that stage of narcissism then we pursue what we have always pursued since adolescents, freedom from authority, that is, any authority that disagrees with us.
Same sex marriage is the pursuit of equality and validation for the love that is forbidden by fearful repressed individuals.
You (we) can talk ourselves blue in the face and Robert George (the Cornell West of the American Right) and Novak and Weigel and Fr. Siroco, etc. will NEVER get the connection between libertarian fantasies about “the market” (a useful metaphor turned into an idol) and libertarian fantasies about the bedrooom, because they are ideologically committed to not getting it.
I hadn’t even heard about the American Principles Project until now. I checked out their website. I don’t what was funnier (sad, sick funny) -the pretence about caring that funding for Community Health Centers is being cut (which has its origins in the House Republican budget)or the obsession with the Gold Standard. The utter Looney Tunes quality of today’s leading “public intellectuals”, or whatever they think they are….
Great post, MM!
Sam
MM, this is a really terrific post. If, as I believe, our principal concern should be seeing the world as Catholic Christians first, guided by the whole, authentic teaching of the Church, then it is impossible NOT to make the connection between the dominant (and bipartisan)American ideology of laissez-faire individualism and the reduction of everything – including marriage and abortion – to questions of consumer choice.
Kudos for this great little phrase: “he himself is enthralled by the dogmas of laissez-faire liberalism, in the boardroom if not the bedroom.” [!!}
1960′s, try The Enlightenment.
I just read the Robert George piece again, and this time it was not his usual blinkered stances that struck me, but this little nugget:
“So people are calling you “intolerant” and an “anti-civil-rights bigot”? Well, for those who have absorbed the premises of sexual liberation and embraced its dogmas so fanatically that they can’t fathom the possibility that any reasonable person of goodwill could dissent from them, that’s what people like you and me seem to be. Like overly impassioned believers at all times and in all places, these folks suppose that anyone who doubts the tenets of their faith must have malign motives. Dissenters from what they regard as an unquestionable orthodoxy must be “haters” (the modern word for “heretics”). It’s ironic — and amusing — that these folks regard themselves as urbane, sophisticated people — critical thinkers — who are much smarter and better informed (not to mention more “tolerant” and “open-minded”) than their opponents. In truth, they rarely have the foggiest notion of what the arguments are in support of the view they reject or what the intellectual challenges are for the view they hold. They already know the truth, and that’s that! So what need is there for reflection, study, deliberation, and debate? Why argue with “intolerant, anti-civil-rights bigots”? To the barricades!”
On the surface this just seems to be the usual Fox News blather about “free speech” of right wingers being impinged upon. But what is curious about is the mixture of the usual notion of liberalism as some de facto Church and the admission that it has “premises”, apropos specifically the issue of sexual liberality. One can limn an evolution in George’s intellectual tactics here. Previously all his arguments devolved to the basic assumption that the only reasonable argument was one based on the type of reasoning he favors — Catholic Natural Law thought, tweaked and updated. But now the other side has “premises” , and the problem is that they are just to “fanatic” about them. Previously anything that did not fit his schema was lacking even tools for construction. This shows an acceptance of a view, perhaps grudgingly, that a certain amount of balance in matters is valuable as a desideratum for thematic positions in society, be they intellectual, religious, or other. Not just congruence with a putative desirable whole. It seems George is starting to understand that his previous dream of creating some conceptual scheme for American society whereby by Catholic Thomism will somehow be seen as a rationale for a social order created by various Enlightenment characters was a stillborn ambition. It is wonder that he got as far as a he did with this ambition, even interacting with the Supreme Court. Now Robert George no doubt will be casting about for a new sense of mission. Well, you can’t blame a guy for trying to make a living.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding your point, but I don’t think that George sees value in the “premises” of the sexual liberal side, or is grudgingly accepting of this side.
Thales,
Well, of course not. But what is significant is that he now recognizes that there are “premises” at all. It is a characteristic of the strict Thomist-style view that the ultimate judgment about faulty reasoning, from that perspective, is that it is not rational. Because rationality is consistent with the correct view consistent with their reasoning. And not being rational basically means not have any real existence, at best a sort of ex nihilo identity. Of course the whole premise of the Summa, ironically, is that there can be some form of back and forth argument. But no real debate on the ultimate matters. Thus no debate on what is real, that is , rational. Thus societally the wrong side, for them, has no real rational premises at all. Only maybe argumentative ones, whose only purpose is to be disposed of later. This is how George has been writing basically, except for little flourishes for effect.
Naturally, this sort of assumption is a bad fit with any kind of democratic polity, which gives a lot of weight to both sides, or many sides in areas where the two party ethos is not active. The overall point is that George was able, because of the unique environment of the Bush presidency to smuggle in an essentially anti-democratic, ahistorical notion of truth and legal reasoning and get pretty far with it. I find it shocking.
If people want to be Thomists, no problem. But there is a big problem with pretending that such an intrinsically authoritarian philosophy is amenable to democratic conceptualization. People can of course believe so. But if others call it a farce and dishonest that is not anti-Catholicism in the slightest. It is simply serious intellectual precision.
I don’t follow what you’re saying, but I get the impression that you have an odd view of Thomism: an intrinsically authoritarian philosophy that is not amenable to democratic conceptualization. I don’t think that’s fair.
You wrote: Ronald Reagan is as much a child of the 1960s and High Hefner.
Did you mean “as Hugh Hefner”?
Yes, thank you!
“His interviewer is Kathyrn Lopez, a known supporter of torture, which is a clear and unambiguous intrinsically and gravely evil act.”
LOL, yea right.
No one here at Vox Nova has yet to answer the objection: if not all State killing is “murder,” then not all State infliction-of-pain can be called “torture” in the sense the Church intended when defining this category of grave matter.
Is it the “Vox Nova position” that any State infliction-of-pain is torture? I didn’t get the memo.
On the other hand, I did get the memo that torture is intrinsically evil, though it didn’t come from my superiors at VN.
I guess that means there are circumstances where agents of the government can engage in non-consensual sexual intercourse and not have it denominated as rape…
The State has never been given the authority to have sexual intercourse; that’s an authority only spouses have over one another. The State does, on the other hand, have the authority to take life and to inflict pain (as well as to confiscate private property). Which situations justify it are up for debate, but State infliction-of-pain is only “torture” inasmuch as State executions are “murder.” “Torture” is the sin of intentional infliction of pain on someone by a private individual, and I’d think it’s gravity would be proportionate to the gravity of the pain inflicted.
Yes, that is correct.
It is not about some paganistic sexual liberation; it is about extending the blessings of marriage to a group hitherto excluded thereform, or forced to go through the tragic charade of a marriage with someone they had no sexual interest in. The battle lines are drawn not between a saintly church and an evil world, but between those who cling to the status quo and those who are thinking on the basis of more radical gospel principles — both sides strongly represented by Catholicism.
I’ve noticed George’s allegiance to libertarianism and the tea party, when he completely ignores my emails about the need to prohibit same-sex reproduction and genetic engineering. Apparently that would go against the individual’s right to procreate offspring however they feel like or something.
This was a great article, and hopefully will be a watershed moment in the evolution of George’s thinking and advocacy. Maybe he will realize that we need some federal laws that limit what businesses are allowed to do, and shake off his Koch contract.
hahhahah
You write in regards to the recent recognition of same-sex marriages in New York, “(for Catholics) From a policy perspective, everything is channeled through the prism of the common good, not individual liberty”. In the case of same-sex marriage, this makes no sense whatsoever. Here we have people who are begging to take on the responsibilities of legally, communally enforced partnerships, and to rear children; begging to take part in the “common good” and yet we would refuse. We have people who are specifically asking to trade their “individual liberty” for a partnership that benefits the common good and we insist that they do not. It makes no sense. If we are really interested in the common good over individual liberty, we would ENCOURAGE them to form legally recognized partnerships. Indeed there has never been a good reason put forth based on civil law or the “common good” that supports marriage discrimination.
J,
Very well put, wish I had thought of saying that! But for those with Robert George’s ambitions, you see, have another definition quite apart from actually doing our commonality some practical good. It means that they wish to force what we have in common to accept what they delineate as good. And thus even real, daily, practical goods would be considered a privatio boni if they did not conform with some “higher” conception of “good”. The way they will want to construe such “good”, which would deny real goods as privatio boni, is usually, these days, as a sort of declension of some view of the “Angelic Doctor”. Thus I feel confident in asserting that Robert George and also people like Thaddeus Kozinski, with whom I have interlocuted in these pages and whose book I just reviewed on Amazon, are interested in a very attenuated and very personalized notion of the common good. Attenuated by medieval deductions, that is.
J, you make a good argument for Civil Unions to provide the security and stability of marriage to couples that we do not want to approve and allow to reproduce offspring together. Tell me what you think of the Egg and Sperm Civil Union Compromise – please google it and tell me what you think. I think it could go viral and be enacted in a matter of months, there is no reason not to.
Proof that Robert George is engaging in some sort of uncommonsensical hyper-rationalization comes in a sort of amusing form. Turns out he is so enamored of his rationalizations that in his scrutiny of masturbation as something that the state should be concerned with, in line with his general tack we assume, if you masturbate yourself, you might rund the danger of metaphysically masturbating someone else and somehow not know it, and might in such bewilderment be lead into electrical sex toys. Is this someone we want instructing the young, I ask you?? To wit:
“But similarly in solitary masturbation: here, of course, it does matter whose body it is, but it does not matter what sort of stimulation produces the pleasures the masturbator desires. Whether the cause of the pleasurable sensation be a caress, a poke, or an electrical stimulus….”