Previously I have praised Ross Douthat for being a conservative that actually acknowledged the great irony at the heart of America's culture wars.
That great irony is that it is precisely the culturally liberal and tolerant portion of American society that exhibits the 'positive' family outcomes that conservatives desire: stable two parent families, low rates of early and single parent birth, low divorce rates - while the culturally conservative portion of American society (think of the Palins) is mired in the distinctly 'negative' family outcomes that conservatives hate: early and out-of-wedlock pregnancy, high divorce rates, single parent families, and so on.
Although I was tempted to believe we had a 'thinking' conservative on our hands after that piece, unfortunately, in a follow-up piece from yesterday, Douthat has reverted to conservative ideological ridiculousness. You see, he says a reason for all of these problems is pornography.
According to Douthat's latest discussion, while the difference in family outcomes between the culturally liberal portion of society (which he calls the "upper half") and the culturally conservative ("lower half") is real, the solution seems to be... well... acting more like the later.
As one (possibly minor) example in the first category, I’d cite pornography, which has become a lark and a joke and a form of casual entertainment among many well-educated Americans, who can rest secure in the knowledge that they aren’t going to end up on a "Girls Gone Wild" video, that they’ll always have healthier influences to supplement the kind of sexual education that hard-core pornography supplies, and that nobody they know will ever end up selling their souls to the pornography industry. As a class, this sense of security means that American elites don’t have a strong personal interest in trying to stigmatize pornographers (instead of being amused by their antics), or in allying with anti-obscenity crusaders (instead of making fun of them). But I think there’s a pretty good case that they should do it anyway, because other people’s children, further down the ladder of education and income and prestige, might stand to gain from a less pornified society. That would be a kind of noblesse oblige, and it would be admirable and welcome.
If I were to write a parody of American conservative thought, it might be this exact paragraph. It manages to a) be incredibly paternalistic and authoritarian, b) incredibly sexually prudish, and c) incredibly off the mark.
How ironic that in the same breath as acknowledging that the culturally liberal people are having better family outcomes, he comes back and argues for more cultural conservatism!
The real story is this: what is actually keeping Douthat's "lower half" mired in early pregnancy, single motherhood, and divorce is 1) lack of access to, or failure to implement, proper birth control, along with 2) declining economic opportunities.
The reason that the "upper half" is able to delay childbirth and therefore pursue education and a stable marriage partner is that they implement birth control and safe sex from the start! They are given the knowledge of how to avoid pregnancy, along with the expectation that they should do so, at all costs. They are told that the worst thing would be for them to get pregnant, or get someone pregnant, before they are ready. Early pregnancy is much more stigmatized than sex itself.
In contrast, the culturally conservative segment of society sends the opposite message. People are told that nontraditional sex practices are wrong, often told that sex outside of marriage is wrong, and often told that birth control is wrong. Even if they are not explicitly turned against birth control, they are not properly educated in it, or do not enjoy the same access that people living in other places or under other circumstances do. Since it is a lost battle to keep most people from having sex entirely, the outcome is entirely predictable: sex + inadequate birth control = early pregnancies, which in turn means either single parenthood or early marriages. And of course early 'shotgun' marriages are much more likely to end up in divorce.
We must also acknowledge the role of economic opportunities and outlooks. In the past decades, our society has entirely failed to provide sufficient economic opportunities to the bulk of the working class. So while a person who is in the position to pursue a lot of education sees the tangible rewards of delaying parenthood - increased financial stability, increased career success, and the freedom to enjoy the benefits of a prosperous life without children - a person from America's vast working and middle class does not have the same economic incentives aligned against early parenthood. Indeed, with the ever decining fortunes of the working class in recent years, if anything the incentives are aligned in favor of early parenthood.
In summary, the family problems of Douthat's "lower half" are not caused by Seymore Butts and Sasha Grey. They are caused by Tony Perkins and Wal Mart.
In the end, I hope that both political liberals and conservatives can agree that the very high rate of early and single childbirth in this country (now 40% of all births) is a huge problem, and that we should, as a society, do something about it. But it is going to be hard to do so if conservatives like Douthat keep insisting on a return to the culture of the 50s, simply because they like it there better. The realities of our current situation in 2010 requires a sober analysis of things as they actually are now.