Dorothy Day Caucus of the American Solidarity Party A Revolution of the Heart
Menu
by Zeb Baccelli This is the first of a two-part essay on the economic value of traditional marriage. The second part will be published on Wednesday, September 6. PART 1: The economic case for civil marriage
Too often the debate about which domestic arrangements should be recognized as marriage have failed to clarify what marriage even is. Is it a simple honorific we can bestow on any arrangement? Is it an ontological reality to be discovered and recognized through philosophical argument? A sacrament crafted by the churches? A legal construct at the mercy of the state? A cultural tradition emerging through pure historical contingency and open unlimited evolution? When arguing about what should count as a marriage, one must specify which of those senses is guiding consideration. I think each sense is a valid way to talk about marriage, and I would not insist “marriage” should necessarily only be used for arrangements of one man and woman one in each of those approaches. If it’s only an honorific, just a word, we traditionalists could let go of it. Marriage has certainly been construed differently in other times and places, stretching to include polygamy and proprietorship. If the word evolves to absorb other variations, we can accept that reality. But as a political party it is the legal sense of “marriage” that most concerns us. In their landmark paper What is Marriage (1), Girgis, George and Anderson demonstrate convincingly that what is often now called “traditional marriage” is a significantly different kind of arrangement from all others; whatever we call it, that particular arrangement has important and special economic consequences. Much of the modern legal structure of marriage served to address those special economic consequences, and it is a matter of economic justice that we reestablish a legal structure around the unique domestic arrangement that I will call here “traditional marriage.” Capitalism leaves uncompensated any work that cannot be commodified or that people will do for free, no matter how essential, valuable or productive the work. Men and women must be induced to give up their freedom and labor for someone else’s gain, but they will mate and care for their children for free. And yet society depends absolutely on the labor of bearing and rearing children, and capitalists likewise depend on the constant replenishment of both labor and demand. Procreative families create inestimable social value at significant economic cost to themselves, and society can reap the benefits even without having to pay for them. Women bear the burden of this economic imbalance the most. Natural, cultural and personal factors lead women to give up economic opportunity in order to bear and rear their children. Not only do they miss months or years of paid labor, they are slowed in their career advancement by the time they may take off, leading to lower lifetime earnings. Despite legal protection they still face workplace discrimination due to their higher likelihood of missing work for parenthood. Though not as much now as in the past, they continue to be relegated to lower wage and less secure jobs. In the early days of the labor movement women’s economic position was far more precarious than today. Jobs were few, wages were low, and there was virtually no social safety net. Women largely depended on economic support from men who could earn a living wage. Among the early demands and gains made by the labor movement were survivor benefits for spouses of those killed on the job so women and their children were not left in the cold if their breadwinner was killed at work. As pensions and health insurance became standard employment benefits, they were extended to spouses. Government benefits like SSI followed this trend, meaning the widow of a retired worker would be supported after his death. These spousal benefits were a way of extending ‘male privilege’ to the women who volunteered for the uncompensated labor of child-bearing and child-rearing. This was an unprofitable subsidy by both private and public sectors: a married man effectively cost more than an unmarried one though financially he produced no more. However, justice and social necessity embodied in the labor movement demanded this indirect compensation for women’s labor and loss of economic opportunity. It was a way of distributing resources according to need rather than strictly according to market forces. It was a way of balancing the injustice of devalued labor and sacrifice, one which the market alone would never do. This is why marriage as a legal and economic institution is so important to maintain. Parents will continue to sacrifice economic opportunity for their children, and that sacrifice will continue to come disproportionately from women. Generous spousal benefits allow parents to work as a team and put their children’s well-being first, knowing that whichever parent sacrifices career gains will share in the gains made by the other. But why should these benefits be maintained under a restricted institution like “traditional marriage”, rather than opened to a wider diversity of domestic arrangements? That’s the question I’ll respond to tomorrow. (1.) http://ssrn.com/abstract=1722155
0 Comments
by Tara Ann Thieke Of course we all know the internet is a wild wonderland frontier. Iit brings us strange and fascinating discoveries; it also brings comment threads.
How to moderate our unruly avatar-selves is a struggle which has gone on since the dawn of the internet and will continue. But we don't have to wait for a perfectly regulated internet community or the Kingdom itself to improve online discourse. Dorothy Day's "Revolution of the Heart," a phrase which traces its message back to the Gospels, is probably a better starting place than any other. Here are the rules we need in order to follow this message: Rules for Engaging in Discussion on the Internet 1. Respect the person you are engaged with because they, too, are a beloved child of God. This does not mean you are required to validate their ideas. You are called to love your neighbor, not necessarily their ideas. 2: See 1. This is the entirety of the rule. There might be some confusion, so let's address possible concerns: Q. What if their ideas are really, really, really bad? A. You still must show love and kindness to the person. You do not owe this kindness to the ideas, but you must take care to show it to the person. Q. Why? A: For three reasons. First: Because that is how we like to be treated: with respect and dignity, no matter how wrong we may be. Second: Because labeling people, even if you think that label fits, is not going to convince someone. It is only going to alienate them further. Third: Because, as stated in Rule One, every human being is a beloved child of God. God desires for each person to be reconciled to Him. If you are the one tasked with bringing Love and Truth to an individual you think has gone astray, why would you instead show anger, disdain, contempt, or rage? All of these will only further alienate them from what you see as the truth. God commanded us to love our neighbors. Q: About that point two. I find labels very helpful in political discourse: "libtard," "rethuglican," "garbage," "greedy capitalist pig," "tankie,""warmonger," "sexist," "femi-nazi," "baby-killer," "theocrat," "cockroach," "scum." A: That's not a question and you know it. Every time you label someone you turn your neighbor, a fellow subject who bears the Imago Dei, into an object. You turn a human being whose end is in God into a thing, and thus you can rationalize treating that "thing" however you want. You strip them of their God-given dignity, something that we are specifically commanded not to do. Q: This person literally is a Nazi. I have an obligation to call them a Nazi, and possibly even to punch them. A: What happens after you punch them and they are still a Nazi? If they deserve to be punched, and we all know Nazis certainly -deserve- to be punched, what else do they deserve? Surely they deserve more than a punch, which mostly serves to make the inflicter of the punch feel good. As J.R.R. Tolkien wrote: "Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement, for even the very wise cannot see all ends." Q: But some ideas are so evil, so dangerous, that we cannot treat our opponents with respect. A: No doubt some ideas verily are absolutely evil and dangerous. No doubt the people who espouse them are very lost indeed. The world offers hundreds of ways to deal with those ideas. We have seen their fruits: sometimes they bring peace for a day, a year. More often they bring bloodshed, war; in the 20th century they have ended often enough with purges and genocides. The only true revolution is Christ's. He never said we cannot oppose an idea, but we must remember He has ransomed and redeemed us from the bondage of sin. We are called to do differently. No one said turning the other cheek would be easy. No one said loving your enemy would be a walk in the park. If that was the case the world would have become a garden of peace long ago. The reason this is the true revolution is because it is hard. You are asked to walk into the fire and love your enemy as the child of God, no matter what. All other revolutions merely shuffle the same tropes of violence and power. We want to turn this teaching into something else, and thus we fall off the narrow path in one of two ways. On one side we say there are no real disagreements, thus no real "enemies." This way of relativism makes loving our opponent easy because we're disregard the differing content of our ideas. We go along with sin and create a false peace. The other way is to change what Christ meant by "love" and tell ourselves actions such as labeling, insulting, name-calling, even violence, are actually loving. We turn our neighbor into an object so we can achieve our greater vision of how the world "should" be. However laudable the vision, it is to become a Machiavellian and depart from Christ in the very act of presuming achieving our vision is more important than following His teachings. People are not means to our ends.There is no earthly paradise so great it justifies abandoning His teaching that we are to love God with all our heart and our neighbor as our self. The moment we rationalize treating our neighbor as an instrument, a means, we have substituted our commandments for His. Christ is called the Word. Through His deeds, parables, miracles, teachings, and life, His teachings were clear. It is we who wish to re-define words in order to make them more palatable. At the end of the day Christians have a unique task in this world and we are charged to follow it even in politics. We are called to affirm the truth, but also to turn the other cheek to someone we think is espousing falsehood. Christ was silent in the morning as He stood before Pilate. No matter what sort of bad arguments your opponent employs, you are not to return evil. You are to continue extending mercy, reason, and love to the human being, all without affirming wrong beliefs. To start labeling, condemning people, and engaging in personal attacks is to give up on your neighbor. It is to shrug off the burden given to us and to forget we will be judged by how we treat others. We are someone else's burden as well, though we may not like to reflect long on that thought. As we grow more comfortable labeling, insulting, and issuing ultimatums, we begin thinking: "My enemy must be eliminated. If they are not with me they are against me." Of course we know we are called to the opposite. Each of us is aware what is actually asked of us; we simply wish it wasn't so hard. But the path was always called narrow. Violence does not emerge from the blue: it begins in our hearts. The good news is love begins in the heart too. Let's joyfully engage with those we disagree with more than ever, with gladness when truth is on our side, with willingness to encounter our neighbor and learn from them when possible, and in the knowledge that submitting our hearts to God's mercy and love is the only true victory. |
AuthorsTara Ann Thieke Archives
April 2018
Categories
All
|