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dsrtaoSuppose your next-door neighbor puts up a large sign in her front yard that says "Cable television will destroy society." You ask her to explain the sign, and she replies, "Cables are an affront to the god Thoth. They radiate theta waves, which make people sterile." You ask her to explain how a low voltage, electrically-shielded coaxial cable can make anyone sterile, but she changes the subject. The DSM-IV defines a delusion as "a false belief based on incorrect inference about external reality that is firmly sustained despite what almost everyone else believes and despite what constitutes incontro- vertible and obvious proof or evidence to the contrary" (APA, DSM-IV, 1994, p.765). Your neighbor is clearly delusional and possibly schizophrenic. She is responding to forces, threats, and agents that simply do not exist.
But now suppose another neighbor puts up a large sign in his front yard that says "Gay marriage will destroy society." You ask him to explain the sign, and he replies, "Homosexuality is an abomination to God. Gay marriage will undermine marriage, the institution upon which our society rests." You ask him to explain how allowing two people to marry who are in love and of the same sex will harm other marriages, but he changes the subject. Because your neighbor is not alone in his beliefs, he does not meet the DSM-IV criteria for delusion. However, you might well consider your homophobic neighbor almost as delusional, and probably more offensive, than your cable-fearing neighbor. He, too, seems to be responding to forces, threats, and agents that do not exist, only in this case his widely shared beliefs have real victims: the millions of men and women who are prohibited from marrying the people they love, and who are treated unjustly in matters of family law and social prestige. If only there were some way to break through your neighbor's delusions -- some moral equivalent of Thorazine -- which would help him see the facts as you see them.
From Haidt and Graham -- When Morality Opposes Justice, in Social Justice Research 2007.
I wish I had the moral equivalent of Thorazine.
Also:
Kohlberg proposed that moral development in all cultures is driven forward by the process of role-taking: as children get more practice at taking each othersÕ perspectives, they learn to transcend their own position and appreciate when and why an action, practice, or custom is fair or unfair. Children may be blinded by their need for approval (Kohlberg's stage 3) or by the overbearing pronouncements of authority figures (stage 4), but if given enough practice and exposure to democratic institutions they will, in adolescence, reach the post-conventional
level of moral reasoning (stage 5), at which actions and cultural practices can be critiqued based on the degree to which they instantiate justice.
But now suppose another neighbor puts up a large sign in his front yard that says "Gay marriage will destroy society." You ask him to explain the sign, and he replies, "Homosexuality is an abomination to God. Gay marriage will undermine marriage, the institution upon which our society rests." You ask him to explain how allowing two people to marry who are in love and of the same sex will harm other marriages, but he changes the subject. Because your neighbor is not alone in his beliefs, he does not meet the DSM-IV criteria for delusion. However, you might well consider your homophobic neighbor almost as delusional, and probably more offensive, than your cable-fearing neighbor. He, too, seems to be responding to forces, threats, and agents that do not exist, only in this case his widely shared beliefs have real victims: the millions of men and women who are prohibited from marrying the people they love, and who are treated unjustly in matters of family law and social prestige. If only there were some way to break through your neighbor's delusions -- some moral equivalent of Thorazine -- which would help him see the facts as you see them.
From Haidt and Graham -- When Morality Opposes Justice, in Social Justice Research 2007.
I wish I had the moral equivalent of Thorazine.
Also:
Kohlberg proposed that moral development in all cultures is driven forward by the process of role-taking: as children get more practice at taking each othersÕ perspectives, they learn to transcend their own position and appreciate when and why an action, practice, or custom is fair or unfair. Children may be blinded by their need for approval (Kohlberg's stage 3) or by the overbearing pronouncements of authority figures (stage 4), but if given enough practice and exposure to democratic institutions they will, in adolescence, reach the post-conventional
level of moral reasoning (stage 5), at which actions and cultural practices can be critiqued based on the degree to which they instantiate justice.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-23 04:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-23 05:03 pm (UTC)That being said the essay really annoyed me and I'm trying to extricate why.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-23 08:50 pm (UTC)Someone who does not educate himself on the statistics of committed homosexual relationships is thus lying to himself and others if he preaches that they are harmful.
Maybe this could be of use as moral thorazine.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-23 09:13 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-23 09:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-23 09:23 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-23 11:08 pm (UTC)Which I would hold that they do (see below).
Though perhaps it would be more accurate to say that their authority structure is threatened. That authority upholds "the sanctity of marriage", so any change to the definition of marriage erodes the authority.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-23 11:02 pm (UTC)I'm with most of the people probably reading this in finding such a statement delusional. But...
Gay marriage will undermine marriage, the institution upon which our society rests.
Given some understanding of variant cultural assumptions, this statement is perfectly logical, and (from the speaker's point of view) true.
"our society" - By this he really means the subset of society which he participates/identifies with. There is also a connotation that this sub-society is "right", and its values should be adopted by the wider society at large. Societies are defined (at least in part) by their social institutions, and if those institutions change, you end up with a different society.
Marriage certainly is an important social institution. That's *why* gay people (and their friends) want to change it. Without gay marriage, gay people are more stigmatized, and also more likely to attempt to at least ape the outward appearance of conformity by marrying opposite gender people (no matter how unhappy this makes them). While we here decry such occurrences, to a social conservative, they are *positive* outcomes.
Make no mistake, I don't *agree* with the agenda of these social conservatives. But I think that the liberal political position is weakened by treating that position as deluded nonsense. We *are* threatening their way of life, in a very real way. We shouldn't be surprised when they react defensively.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-23 11:06 pm (UTC)No, I don't think so. I usually see this argument written/specified as applying to all of the USA, if not all of the Western World.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-23 11:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-24 12:19 am (UTC)I disagree with your "no", thinking it should be an "and": My strong impression is that such speakers are conflating their society and all of the USA, in precisely the same way which many Scadians conflate their experience with their local groups and the whole of the SCA; in precisely the same way UScadians have historically conflated the US SCA with the whole of the SCA; in precisely the same way in which someone who lives in one of the fifty states is not generally thinking of Puerto Rico when they think of the US; in precisely the same way in which members of one Christian denomination will assert that they are Christians and the differing sect down the road isn't; etc.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-24 01:03 am (UTC)Ok, agreement.