This is important, and worthy of discussion, so please pay attention! Editor's Note: I took out a reference to "Frameshop" as a way of making a hat tip to Jeff who does the Frameshop diaries, but took it out to avoid confusion with his actual diaries
When the left talks about morality, we are accused of being "politically correct." That means, generally, that we are engaged in knee jerk identity politics and intellectual-campus elitism in order to keep a fraying majority cultural and political coalition together.
On the other hand, when the right talks about "morality," it is assmued they are indeed talking about morality, rather than evangelical fundamentalist sexual ethics.
Time to revise the debate and put this in a new context. More after the jump.
The accusation of being "p. c." carried some weight when in fact the left really was an aging, creaking, fading majority coalition trying to maintain its majority status. But those days are clearly over. The Dems have been reamed, and the left is trying to reinvent and rearticulate its vision for a new century, revising and updating its emerging new coalition along the way (hint: think Latinos and think Western States). But the accusation was also a very successful way to deligitimize the left from talking about morality.
When talking through the frame of knee jerk identity politics, we were also really talking about fairness and the protection of minority rights. True, we got too smart for oursleves with a lot of academic cultural and moral relativism, and so even when we were talking about moral issues, we did not like to admit we were talking about moral issues, or that we were advocating one set of moral priorities over others when it comes to government. I think we're over that now (let's hope!).
Now, the right owns the debate about morality, but it should not. First of all, few people actually subscribe to the right's sexual agenda, especially when you look at it closely. For example, here's a segment from Andrew Sullivan today (I know, I know, but bear with me):
CHILD MARRIAGES: Here's under-age sexual behavior endorsed by the "abstinence-only-until-married" school: teen marriages. This article in the
Chicago Tribune suggests it's becoming more popular with the rise of abstinence-only education programs. The nut-graf explains:
"One of the few studies of teen marriage in the United States, carried out by the Center for Law and Social Policy, a Washington think tank, found that the number of married teenagers in the U.S. surged by almost 50 percent during the 1990s--the most significant jump in early marriage since the 1950s. The report pegs the growing attractiveness of early wedlock in the U.S. to a complex variety of factors: the spread of abstinence-only-until-marriage sex education at American schools, a shift toward cultural conservatism among some teens and a growing fear among youngsters of contracting AIDS through promiscuity."
Question: is it pedophilia for a forty year old man to have sex with a fourteen-year-old girl - or is it marriage?
I was struck by these stats:
According to records at the Texas Department of Health, Liset was one of nearly 60 girls in that state who married in 2002 at the tender age of 14--the minimum age in Texas with parental consent. (A handful of other states sanction extremely early marriages with parental consent: In Alabama, South Carolina and Utah, girls can marry at 14; in New Hampshire it's 13; in Massachusetts and Kansas, 12.)
Twelve? Shouldn't these laws be repealed?
I recently read a terrific off-the-maintream blog entry about using the term "moral elite" (hat tip: Matthew Yglesias) to place these people in context. This is a must read: please check it out, and note, the quoted text is not by Yglesias, but was from another blog he provided a link to. Here's a taste of it:
Here's my stab at the whole 'framing' problem the Dems are grappling with. I don't really like what Lakoff has to say, but I don't feel like flogging him either; so let's just start from scratch. One of the great framing successes of the past quarter century has been 'politically correct'. . .
Now the striking thing about 'politically correct' is that it really means the same as 'moral values', as per Republican rhetoric and post-election polls, etc. Both terms denote sets of moral beliefs which are held strongly enough that believers are prepared to impose them on others, politically. Obviously the sets in question are different, but the thing that makes the term toxic to the bearer is actually the connotation. The elitist moral superiority of it. So what we need is an appropriate analog to pin on conservatives. There ought to be one, by rights, since the Republicans surely are elitists, and they surely do think they are highly morally superior.
Once you put the problem that way, the solution is obvious. Let's get in the habit of calling Republican moral elitists: 'the moral elite', 'morally elite', 'moral elitists'. Just use the terms as flat descriptors for anyone proposing to legislate morality in any of the usual ways. Just to change things up, sometimes you use: 'morally superior' to designate the attitude. And 'moral superiors' to designate the tribe. Maybe you start to distinguish, as a matter of course, between legislation that ensures 'moral superiority' and the regular stuff. Talk about Repubicans taking 'necessary moral superiority measures'.
The beauty of it is that 'morally superior' is already a term of faint opprobrium. It connotes petty social snobbery, schoolmarmery, so forth. It stinks. And it fits. Perfect for our purposes. And 'moral superiors' sounds worse.
It should be hard for Republicans to unstick this stuff from themselves, if accurately applied, because what are they going to do: deny that they are morally superior? In the context of, say, proposing to legislate against gay marriage, can they deny that they think they are morally superior to those who think this stuff would be alright? If they deny they are morally superior, then what do they think they are doing? Letting your neighbor be is such a fundamental American value that it is very embarrassing to be on the wrong side of it, as Republican often are these days
Elite is another good one. Republicans love to dish it out. They ought to get a taste of their own medicine. Again, the hook should be hard to weasel off. Suppose the target denies being 'a moral elite'. Then what proper business does this lot have bothering their neighbors with imposed 'moral values'? Only an elite should think it knows enough about right and wrong to take that rather extreme step. If they are not an elite, they are morally irresponsible.
I really like the prescription from this blog entry.
So, get in the habit of using the term "moral elite" to reframe the debate about morality.
Then we can talk about fairness, transparency in government, good government and restoring credibility to the political system.
We can no longer accept any intimation that moral issues = sexual ones, as government does not belong in the bedroom, and we don't need Alabama Ayatollahs to tell us how to live our lives.
What's more, "blue states" lead "red states" in the kind of low divorce, low abortion outcomes the moral elitists say they want.
There is one final element to unpack from the "p. c." smear: it was a barely coded attack on intellectualism, education and science. The moral elitists like to claim the mantle of victimhood by saying they are looked down upon and shut out from academia. But isn't this backwards? Don't the moral elitists lack tenure and access to academic appointments precisely because they denigrate learning, intellectualism and science. . . the very tools we used as a nation to make ourselves the dominant economy and power in the world?
The moral elitists would like to return science to its medieval practice, allowing inquiry to be proscribed by sectarian religious doctrines. Good luck inventing an I-Pod or a flatscreen T. V. or an MRI machine to save your life that way!
So next time you hear these people trot out the old "p. c." smear, ask them why they hate education? Could it be because it would allow our children and poor to advance their stations in life?