Quote:
Originally Posted by peter12
No, on the whole it's an argument against modern marriage as defined primarily through John Locke. I just want to start off by saying that I know I'm making an unpopular argument. It's complicated and I don't expect many people on here will follow it or agree with it.
To begin with norms are the effect of our choices, the fact that marriage is optional and people choose to engage in it is what makes it a norm. The norm has changed, however, moving from an Aristophanic view of love and relationships as eros to a Lockean view of relationships (and children) as being instrumental in the conquest of nature.
In regards to stability, this isn't a bad thing. The family unit with children raised by a mother and a father is the best way to raise children who are stable, contributing "members of society." This is why I still think we should keep around the traditional definition of marriage as the only marriage in modern society. It is the best way for encouraging stable family units in a materialist world where notions of God and the eternal order no longer resound in communities and extended families.
On to my view of love and why I think homosexuality is prior and more significant than being subsumed by this bourgeous definition of marriage. Going back to Plato's Symposium we learn of the Greek definition of eros. That is, the notion of soulmates and longing we feel for other souls. In regards to human sexual activity, this is not bourgeous morality. It involves often a pansexual exploration of oneself in a very Dionysian fashion. Promiscuity leads the way to one day stability.
Homosexuality, especially, according to Socrates is notable for this type of behaviour. Historically, homosexuals did not have the final consequence of the marital act to act as a natural break to their sexual activity. Homosexuals were far more likely to explore the notions of brotherhood and community bonding through their sexuality.
Legalizing gay marriage uses the modern language of rights. Ignoring the diversity and plurality of society, it instead seeks to bureaucratize something as personal as love creating a new norm where bourgeois morality is the state-approved norm for all relationships.
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In fact, I really like this post--and I think I have a better understanding of what you mean.
But I stand by my original point, which although I will now concede that it does not defeat the totality of your argument, certainly curtails its real-world import: compliance with law can never be the constitutive shape of resistance to norms. If it were, then paying your taxes would be antisocial, not jaywalking would be avant-garde and not stealing chocolate bars would be Marxist.