What is the purpose of marriage? Why do we have the institution? Now that the pressure to legalize gay marriages has reached the boiling point, what is so important about allowing homosexuals to partake in the same tradition as straights?
The sociologist Andrew Cherlin has argued that contemporary marriages are individualistic. People embark upon them because they want to be happy. Couples assume, correctly so in the case of good marriages, that tying the knot will lead to greater personal fulfillment.
From this perspective, if making a matrimonial commitment does not enhance one’s personal well being, a divorce is in order. More than this, if a person is uncomfortable with promising to be faithful forever, then engaging in cohabitation is a viable alternative.
Given this background, why are gays so insistent on participating in what many people have described as a dying convention?
I submit that it is because homosexuals also want to be happy. As human beings, they too seek love that they can depend upon. Since they too assume that marriage is a bond they can trust, they crave access to its benefits.
But is this what marriage is about? Why, since at least hunter-gatherer times, have all societies established some form of permanent heterosexual union? Why have they all insisted that couples pledge to remain together—no matter what?
The evidence is compelling. It is because marriage is not about personal happiness, but about providing security for the children a man and woman may produce. Were it just about obtaining a compliant sexual partner, shacking up would serve quite as well.
Way back when our ancestors roamed the countryside pursing game and picking berries, it was impossible for a mother to raise her offspring without assistance. She could scarcely have tracked prey animals with toddlers trailing close behind. No, she needed a husband to do the hunting and to bring home the fruits of his labors.
Times have obviously changed. For most people, meat is no longer obtained by stalking buffalo, but comes pre-packaged in the supermarket. There is no reason for a woman, or her children, to be protein deficient, that is, as long as she has money in her purse.
Moreover, now that most women are out in the marketplace earning their own dollars, they do not need a man to do this for them. Even if they are unemployed, they can rely on the government to provide a welfare check and food stamps.
So why the need for marriage? As it happens, the research shows that children do much better when raised by two parents. Unwed parents sometimes succeed, but the results are far from uniformly positive.
Alright then, so why not sponsor gay marriages on the grounds that they too are superior compared with single parenthood? The answer here is not clear. First of all, far fewer gay alliances produce children than do heterosexual ones. This is especially true with respect to gay men whose unions are notoriously insecure.
As to lesbian couples, these are rearing fewer offspring than media accounts might leave one to surmise. Nonetheless, if they do as good a job of parenting as do a traditional husband and wife, does this matter?
According to the studies that have been produced, being raised by a gay couple is no worse than being raised by a straight one. The trouble is that this research is largely anecdotal and, because it is recent, is not long-term.
The bottom line is that we do not know if homosexual marriages are as good at raising children as the conventional sort. They may be. But then again, perhaps they are not.
With all of the contemporary agitation in favor of gay marriage, we probably need more time to figure out what works before committing to an entirely new form of interpersonal commitment. While gays deserve as much happiness as straights, the real concern here is what happens to their children.
Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology
Kennesaw State University
Saturday, June 2, 2012
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Creating a Civil Right
Three decades ago most people would have scoffed at the idea. A century ago, the vast majority would have been perplexed that the proposition was even raised. Almost no one, until fairly recently, accepted the notion that gay marriage was a human right.
How, it would have been asked, could something, which had not even existed until almost the day before yesterday, be considered a right? That would be like calling the ownership of a cell phone a right.
But come to think of it, some folks are indeed calling cell phone ownership a right. Moreover, nowadays, according to some polls, nearly half of all Americans have decided that homosexual marriages are on a par with freedom of speech and freedom of religion.
What has happened here? How can our moral judgments have changed so rapidly? Have people, in fact, discovered a new civil right? Or is it merely that they have been sensitized in ways their ancestors were not?
One of my specialties is the sociology of morality; hence I find it fascinating to observe a moral right being created right before my eyes. Many people think of morality as eternal and never changing, but the evidence that much of it is socially constructed is difficult to deny. The gay rights crusade is a case in point.
Consider how this new moral entitlement has risen from nowhere to dominate many political discussions. The steps in this evolution are classic. They provide a vivid example of moral entrepreneurship at its creative best.
The first step to establishing a moral right is to affirm it. People who want a novel entitlement to be socially accepted must begin by asserting it. They must proclaim loudly, and energetically, that it is an eternal verity. It does not matter whether anyone has previously entertained the idea as long as they insist it is a universal truth.
Next, they must demonize the opposition. Those who disagree with them must be portrayed as the essence of evil. Only their vile, mean-spirited natures could prompt them to deny so valid a claim. If need be, they must be punished to provide an example of what happens to villains.
As part of this process, the pain and suffering endured by the purported victims must be highlighted and driven home. In the case of gay marriage, individual couples whose love has been crushed by the bigotry of the mob need to be offered up as object lessons as to why we need this new right.
In moral negotiations—for that is what these are—the objective is to elicit sympathy for one’s own side, while simultaneously arousing loathing for the other. The goal is to convert as many as people as possible to one’s own viewpoint.
If all goes well, a bandwagon effect will have been fashioned. The fact that one’s allies are increasing in number will then influence the uncommitted to join what seems to be the winning side. As s result, one’s own position will become dominant and the new right will have been established.
President Barack Obama’s coming out of the closet to support gay marriage was part of this momentum building process. He, and those who agree with him, hope that it will nail down a majority so sizeable that henceforth no one will consider supporting their competitors.
Because rights exist, when, and only when, overwhelming numbers of people subscribe to them, in having swung popular opinion in their favor, the gay marriage advocates will have achieved their objective. What had not been a right will, by virtue of their political efforts, have become one.
That said, the game is still in progress. It is in the interest of the pro-gay marriage faction to portray their victory as inevitable, but it is not. The perception that it is, is itself part of the process of trying to recruit as many people as possible to their side.
Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology
Kennesaw State University
How, it would have been asked, could something, which had not even existed until almost the day before yesterday, be considered a right? That would be like calling the ownership of a cell phone a right.
But come to think of it, some folks are indeed calling cell phone ownership a right. Moreover, nowadays, according to some polls, nearly half of all Americans have decided that homosexual marriages are on a par with freedom of speech and freedom of religion.
What has happened here? How can our moral judgments have changed so rapidly? Have people, in fact, discovered a new civil right? Or is it merely that they have been sensitized in ways their ancestors were not?
One of my specialties is the sociology of morality; hence I find it fascinating to observe a moral right being created right before my eyes. Many people think of morality as eternal and never changing, but the evidence that much of it is socially constructed is difficult to deny. The gay rights crusade is a case in point.
Consider how this new moral entitlement has risen from nowhere to dominate many political discussions. The steps in this evolution are classic. They provide a vivid example of moral entrepreneurship at its creative best.
The first step to establishing a moral right is to affirm it. People who want a novel entitlement to be socially accepted must begin by asserting it. They must proclaim loudly, and energetically, that it is an eternal verity. It does not matter whether anyone has previously entertained the idea as long as they insist it is a universal truth.
Next, they must demonize the opposition. Those who disagree with them must be portrayed as the essence of evil. Only their vile, mean-spirited natures could prompt them to deny so valid a claim. If need be, they must be punished to provide an example of what happens to villains.
As part of this process, the pain and suffering endured by the purported victims must be highlighted and driven home. In the case of gay marriage, individual couples whose love has been crushed by the bigotry of the mob need to be offered up as object lessons as to why we need this new right.
In moral negotiations—for that is what these are—the objective is to elicit sympathy for one’s own side, while simultaneously arousing loathing for the other. The goal is to convert as many as people as possible to one’s own viewpoint.
If all goes well, a bandwagon effect will have been fashioned. The fact that one’s allies are increasing in number will then influence the uncommitted to join what seems to be the winning side. As s result, one’s own position will become dominant and the new right will have been established.
President Barack Obama’s coming out of the closet to support gay marriage was part of this momentum building process. He, and those who agree with him, hope that it will nail down a majority so sizeable that henceforth no one will consider supporting their competitors.
Because rights exist, when, and only when, overwhelming numbers of people subscribe to them, in having swung popular opinion in their favor, the gay marriage advocates will have achieved their objective. What had not been a right will, by virtue of their political efforts, have become one.
That said, the game is still in progress. It is in the interest of the pro-gay marriage faction to portray their victory as inevitable, but it is not. The perception that it is, is itself part of the process of trying to recruit as many people as possible to their side.
Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology
Kennesaw State University
Saturday, May 19, 2012
The Biltmore Effect
Biltmore is splendid. Nonetheless, the largest private residence in the United States, it is, unfortunately, no longer a home. Too expensive to maintain as a family dwelling, it has devolved into a tourist attraction.
Constructed by George Washington Vanderbilt, it is a monument to his ego and a warning of what happens when wealth goes to a person’s head. The grandson of Cornelius Vanderbilt (the architect of his family’s fortune), George was a man of leisure and limited vision.
Sadly, we Americans may need to learn a lesson from his spendthrift ways. No doubt George believed that his inherited wealth would remain intact for the indefinite future. Yet even though his grandfather had amassed more riches than any of his contemporaries, these were insufficient to sustain a determined effort to live in utmost luxury.
We too, as a people, seem hidebound to squander our patrimony. Having been born into the richest large nation in world history, we too seem to believe that we can afford whatever we desire. For many of us, our inherited advantages are treated as a God-given birthright.
Consider the deficit crisis. The numbers don’t add up, but for millions of on-lookers there is no impending emergency. They seem to assume we can keep borrowing ad infinitum. The young, in particular, often regard the wealth their predecessors created as theirs to do with, as they will.
For the radical young—you know the ones who spark street riots—work is something other people do. Their job, because they are better and brighter than the rest of us, is to instruct their elders on the evils of capitalism so it can be dismantled.
Meanwhile, their parents and student loans support the protestors. That these funds had to come from somewhere does not intrude into their reveries of a perfect society. Fancying themselves as intellectuals, they cannot imagine dirtying their hands in the grubby details of earning a living.
Recently some of these rabble-rousers have been demanding not only free student loans, but free housing, food, and clothing. Naturally, they are not looking for modest accommodations. To the contrary, they expect handouts commensurate with what many received when they were children.
Still, the Biltmore Effect appears also to corrupted many of those who should know better. Too many full adults—people who are actually engaged in earning a living—are prepared to take seriously the blandishments of demagogic politicians, such as Barack Obama.
Too many potential voters appear not to have projected ahead the consequences of unrestrained spending policies. Somehow the money available to the federal government is deemed unlimited. Much like the scions of wealthy families, they cannot conceive of the faucet running dry.
It would be well, however, for us to remember that Britain, Spain, and France are no longer the superpowers they once were. Having grown complacent after years of dominance, they too squandered a glorious patrimony.
We are no different. Our self-satisfaction can be as damaging as was theirs. When Obama accuses Paul Ryan of proposing draconian spending cuts because Ryan is not increasing the budget as quickly as the Democrats desire, on-lookers had best get out their calculators.
Those who imagine that there is always enough cash to append just one more room to the house will eventually find they can no longer afford to live in it. No one’s pocketbook is bottomless. Not even the beneficiaries of an incredibly wealthy, and generous, federal uncle.
Political consultants tell the candidates they must lie to the American people. They say that even though voters claim to want a balanced budget, they are not prepared to endure genuine limitations in expenditures. Like George Washington Vanderbilt, they want what they want when they want it.
Too bad! If we too cannot deal with fiscal realities, then one day we too may need a new place to call home.
Melvyn L, Fein
Professor of Sociology
Kennesaw State University
Constructed by George Washington Vanderbilt, it is a monument to his ego and a warning of what happens when wealth goes to a person’s head. The grandson of Cornelius Vanderbilt (the architect of his family’s fortune), George was a man of leisure and limited vision.
Sadly, we Americans may need to learn a lesson from his spendthrift ways. No doubt George believed that his inherited wealth would remain intact for the indefinite future. Yet even though his grandfather had amassed more riches than any of his contemporaries, these were insufficient to sustain a determined effort to live in utmost luxury.
We too, as a people, seem hidebound to squander our patrimony. Having been born into the richest large nation in world history, we too seem to believe that we can afford whatever we desire. For many of us, our inherited advantages are treated as a God-given birthright.
Consider the deficit crisis. The numbers don’t add up, but for millions of on-lookers there is no impending emergency. They seem to assume we can keep borrowing ad infinitum. The young, in particular, often regard the wealth their predecessors created as theirs to do with, as they will.
For the radical young—you know the ones who spark street riots—work is something other people do. Their job, because they are better and brighter than the rest of us, is to instruct their elders on the evils of capitalism so it can be dismantled.
Meanwhile, their parents and student loans support the protestors. That these funds had to come from somewhere does not intrude into their reveries of a perfect society. Fancying themselves as intellectuals, they cannot imagine dirtying their hands in the grubby details of earning a living.
Recently some of these rabble-rousers have been demanding not only free student loans, but free housing, food, and clothing. Naturally, they are not looking for modest accommodations. To the contrary, they expect handouts commensurate with what many received when they were children.
Still, the Biltmore Effect appears also to corrupted many of those who should know better. Too many full adults—people who are actually engaged in earning a living—are prepared to take seriously the blandishments of demagogic politicians, such as Barack Obama.
Too many potential voters appear not to have projected ahead the consequences of unrestrained spending policies. Somehow the money available to the federal government is deemed unlimited. Much like the scions of wealthy families, they cannot conceive of the faucet running dry.
It would be well, however, for us to remember that Britain, Spain, and France are no longer the superpowers they once were. Having grown complacent after years of dominance, they too squandered a glorious patrimony.
We are no different. Our self-satisfaction can be as damaging as was theirs. When Obama accuses Paul Ryan of proposing draconian spending cuts because Ryan is not increasing the budget as quickly as the Democrats desire, on-lookers had best get out their calculators.
Those who imagine that there is always enough cash to append just one more room to the house will eventually find they can no longer afford to live in it. No one’s pocketbook is bottomless. Not even the beneficiaries of an incredibly wealthy, and generous, federal uncle.
Political consultants tell the candidates they must lie to the American people. They say that even though voters claim to want a balanced budget, they are not prepared to endure genuine limitations in expenditures. Like George Washington Vanderbilt, they want what they want when they want it.
Too bad! If we too cannot deal with fiscal realities, then one day we too may need a new place to call home.
Melvyn L, Fein
Professor of Sociology
Kennesaw State University
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Are We Stupid?
According to Mitt Romney, Americans are not stupid. He tells us that we, his fellow citizens, realize the economy remains in trouble—whatever the Obama administration propaganda.
This, of course, implies that Obama believes we are stupid. But are we? Let’s look at some of the evidence.
The president states that we are running out of oil left to drill in the United States. He gives speeches during which he asserts that we have only 2% of the world’s proven reserves, whereas geologists claim that we may have as much as 26% of the potentially recoverable oil.
Then Barack declares that it does not matter how much oil we have because drilling now will not bring down the price at the pump. Meanwhile, he asks the Brazilians to drill off their coast—with aid from our treasury. And at the same time, his minions urge Saudi Arabia to increase petroleum exports.
Now why would the president want other countries to raise their production, but not want to raise ours? It can’t be because he desires us to be more dependent on imports. It can only be because he thinks this will eventually reduce domestic prices.
Of course, Obama also keeps insisting there is no magic bullet to lower the cost of gasoline. This might be true with respect to current prices, but what about those five years down the road when new wells might come on-line? Wouldn’t these future savings count?
To add to the confusion, Democratic spokespersons routinely declare that oil production has surged dramatically on the president’s watch. When Republican’s counter that this is because of policies instituted by the Bush administration, the president’s defenders remain silent.
Nor is there a response when it is pointed out that the increases occurred on private land. Supplies coming from public lands decreased in large part because the Obama administration approved significantly fewer drilling permits.
Do these blatant contradictions add up to Democratic stupidity? Can it be that these partisans do not realize they are inconsistent? On the other hand, perhaps, they do think the public is too dim-witted to catch them in their verbal gymnastics?
To judge from their words, liberals assume they are smarter than ordinary folks. Having proclaimed themselves to be “the best and brightest,” they boast of a superior ability to make choices others are too thick to make for themselves.
Does this mean that the president and his supporters genuinely believe voters are dumb? Or are they merely convinced they can pull the wool over their eyes? At minimum, Barack believes he can persuade most people of almost anything.
At this point, I am not completely sure what the Democrats believe. But the signs are not good. They are obviously determined to run a campaign that diverts attention from the president’s lack of accomplishments. But are they relying on the voter’s lack of intelligence to achieve this?
Actually, I suspect that what the administration is depending upon our species’ normal non-rationality. Although most people are capable of calculating what is true, all too often they do not. While most of us possess the mental equipment to identify contradictions, there are deep-seated reasons we refrain from doing so.
One of these is our reliance on authority. Rather than figure things out for ourselves, we have a tendency to take what our leaders say on faith. It they are confident in the way they present ideas (as Obama is), we go along without being too critical.
If this is so, then the fact that Obama is president provides him with special credence. As a result of his status, some people will believe him no matter what he says.
This inclination is useful when our leaders know what they are doing. It can, however, be dangerous if they are demagogic. When those in power arrogantly assume they know best, reflexively following their lead can have dire consequences.
Melvyn. L. Fein
Professor of Sociology
Kennesaw State University
This, of course, implies that Obama believes we are stupid. But are we? Let’s look at some of the evidence.
The president states that we are running out of oil left to drill in the United States. He gives speeches during which he asserts that we have only 2% of the world’s proven reserves, whereas geologists claim that we may have as much as 26% of the potentially recoverable oil.
Then Barack declares that it does not matter how much oil we have because drilling now will not bring down the price at the pump. Meanwhile, he asks the Brazilians to drill off their coast—with aid from our treasury. And at the same time, his minions urge Saudi Arabia to increase petroleum exports.
Now why would the president want other countries to raise their production, but not want to raise ours? It can’t be because he desires us to be more dependent on imports. It can only be because he thinks this will eventually reduce domestic prices.
Of course, Obama also keeps insisting there is no magic bullet to lower the cost of gasoline. This might be true with respect to current prices, but what about those five years down the road when new wells might come on-line? Wouldn’t these future savings count?
To add to the confusion, Democratic spokespersons routinely declare that oil production has surged dramatically on the president’s watch. When Republican’s counter that this is because of policies instituted by the Bush administration, the president’s defenders remain silent.
Nor is there a response when it is pointed out that the increases occurred on private land. Supplies coming from public lands decreased in large part because the Obama administration approved significantly fewer drilling permits.
Do these blatant contradictions add up to Democratic stupidity? Can it be that these partisans do not realize they are inconsistent? On the other hand, perhaps, they do think the public is too dim-witted to catch them in their verbal gymnastics?
To judge from their words, liberals assume they are smarter than ordinary folks. Having proclaimed themselves to be “the best and brightest,” they boast of a superior ability to make choices others are too thick to make for themselves.
Does this mean that the president and his supporters genuinely believe voters are dumb? Or are they merely convinced they can pull the wool over their eyes? At minimum, Barack believes he can persuade most people of almost anything.
At this point, I am not completely sure what the Democrats believe. But the signs are not good. They are obviously determined to run a campaign that diverts attention from the president’s lack of accomplishments. But are they relying on the voter’s lack of intelligence to achieve this?
Actually, I suspect that what the administration is depending upon our species’ normal non-rationality. Although most people are capable of calculating what is true, all too often they do not. While most of us possess the mental equipment to identify contradictions, there are deep-seated reasons we refrain from doing so.
One of these is our reliance on authority. Rather than figure things out for ourselves, we have a tendency to take what our leaders say on faith. It they are confident in the way they present ideas (as Obama is), we go along without being too critical.
If this is so, then the fact that Obama is president provides him with special credence. As a result of his status, some people will believe him no matter what he says.
This inclination is useful when our leaders know what they are doing. It can, however, be dangerous if they are demagogic. When those in power arrogantly assume they know best, reflexively following their lead can have dire consequences.
Melvyn. L. Fein
Professor of Sociology
Kennesaw State University
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Educational Indulgences
Almost five hundred years ago, the Catholic Church was in all its glory. Easily the foremost denomination in Europe, it was rich and powerful, and growing richer. In the midst of a building boom, it had recently started construction on the new St. Peter’s Basilica, which was to be the largest cathedral in all of Christendom.
The problem was that the church’s ambitions exceeded the assets at its disposal. More money was needed; hence a fund raising drive was in order. This entailed dispatching papal emissaries to distant outposts so that they could sell indulgences to the faithful.
Indulgences were writs that presumably allowed sinners to speed their journey from purgatory to heaven. In return for cash, the church promised that the souls of the departed would literally have to spend less time cooling their heels as they waited for eternal salvation.
Martin Luther, until then an obscure German monk, went ballistic. How could the Pope’s legate, Johann Terzel, make such a claim? It made no sense to believe that one of the Lord’s servants could commit the Creator to so significant a decision—and do so for something as crass as money.
As a result, Luther issued his Ninety-Five Theses. In these, he challenged the corrupt practices of the Church, thereby launching the Protestant Reformation.
Today another powerful institution has gone into the indulgence business. Not monolithic or spiritual like the medieval church, but nonetheless arrogant and over-ambitious, contemporary universities have entered the salvation business. And they too have done so for cash on the barrelhead.
What is being sold today is not entry to heaven, but the credentials to move ahead in the commercial marketplace. The instrument for doing so, however, is not a signed document from the Pope, but official credits that allow the bearer to graduate with a college degree.
The means whereby this fraud is perpetrated is the on-line college course. It is supposed to be the equivalent of a traditional college course, yet rarely is. Inferior in the materials taught and the information acquired, it often bears little resemblance to what it theoretically replaces.
Why, you ask, is this done? The answer is money. Colleges charge a premium for on-line courses. The schools get more per credit hour and their instructors are remunerated with additional dollars per head they teach. So conventional has this practice become that no individual school can afford to repudiate it lest its competitors leave it behind.
Nowadays one hears computer based learning lauded as the wave of the future. It is said to be innovative and efficient. No doubt it is convenient. But is it effective? Its partisans say yes, but most students concerned with learning say no—at least in the humanities and social sciences.
Almost everyone agrees that there is more cheating on-line, but the apologists for web-learning assure us they will soon have this weakness under control. By the same token, most acknowledge that the communication between the teacher and student is truncated, yet they counter that this is more than compensated for by the individual attention made possible.
In fact, quality suffers. Some insist that the for-profit schools, which specialize in on-line courses, will eventually be the model for higher education. Nonetheless, these folks must also admit that the diploma mills cater to vulnerable students, many of whom cannot hack it at a traditional college.
The truth is that easy answers did not work five hundred years ago and they will not work now. Back then shortcuts to heaven were an invitation to buy one’s way out of trouble. Today they allow the lazy and unmotivated to obtain the simulation of a college education without having to invest the intellectual energy required by the real thing.
What we lack—that early modern Europe found—is someone to sound the alarm in a way that is heard. Without this, we too may wallow in corruption.
Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology
Kennesaw State University
Saturday, April 28, 2012
The Right to Disrupt
As you might imagine, I do not usually hang around with the Occupy Wall Street crowd. But last week I made an exception. At the request of a student, I attended a panel at KSU’s Suburban Conference on social issues. He wanted me to serve as a counter-weight to what he knew would be an ideologically skewed presentation.
Subsequently, for more than an hour I sat quietly, if not patiently, as a series of activists celebrated their adventures in disruptive behavior. They boasted about how they entered parks with permits, then refused to leave. They likewise gloated about how they “saved” people from eviction by physically interceding on their behalf.
What rankled the most, however, was the glee in their eyes as they described how they shut down foreclosure auctions by singing as loudly as they could. As one of the presenters put it, “It was a beautiful thing.”
Shortly after this, I could contain myself no longer. Consequently, I raised my hand to assert, rather energetically, that this was one of the most “ignorant” and shortsighted displays I had witnessed in recent memory.
Naturally, this was not perceived as constructive criticism. Quiet the contrary, my use of the word ignorant was decried as an unprofessional epithet. Nonetheless, the accuracy of this descriptor was shortly confirmed by the reaction to another of my comments.
In trying to explain why the Occupy tactics would make things worse, I alluded to the Great Depression as a cautionary precedent. To this the reply was that precedents did not matter; that they were irrelevant.
When I further inquired about whether I got my facts wrong, I was told that the current situation was unique and therefore what happened in the past need not be considered. Indeed, it was plain that at least one of the presenters had no knowledge about the financial policies of the Roosevelt administration, nor of their impact.
But what really set the fur to flying was when I asserted that the Occupy people were not protesters, but provocateurs. This was not appreciated. The presenters did not perceive interfering with what others were lawfully doing as a provocation. They were merely seeking much needed publicity for a good cause.
From their point of view, I was the provocateur. It was I who was interfering with their ability to make their case. Meanwhile, it was their duty to be as unruly as the situation merited. After all, they were only protecting the rights of others.
Obviously, people had a “right” to housing—irrespective of whether they could afford it. They also had a “right” not to pay back their loans. It was the banks that were at fault. It was they that forced people to take out loans they could not afford and therefore they that should bear the burden of the defaults.
When an older, more experienced member of the audience objected that buyers had a responsibility to take on obligations they could manage, this was airily dismissed. Nor did the presenters acknowledge that shutting down the nation’s financial system would have dire economic consequences.
Smug and self-satisfied, they directed their ire toward me. Amazingly these activists who prided themselves on their lack of public civility lectured me on the need to be civil. They were merely making an intellectual case, whereas I was violating the canons of academic etiquette by being vociferous in my objections.
Indeed, they complained about my behavior to the conference organizers. Even though they identified themselves as dissenters, they were not prepared to tolerate dissent directed their way.
They were especially unhappy that my critique was so voluble. While they routinely shout down others, they demanded rights they deny their adversaries. Clearly, their idea of fairness is rather one-sided. Evidently, they reside on a more rarified moral plane than ordinary mortals.
Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology
Kennesaw State University
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Social Discipline
We have become a middle class society, but in the process we have inadvertently corrupted our lower classes. Because the rules that apply to middle class folks don’t always apply to the poor, treating everyone the same has resulted in a host of tragedies. Let me explain. I have been reading Charles Murray’s new book “Coming Apart” as well as an article about Melvin Kohn’s ideas on social values, and putting the pieces together. What they suggest is something that at first blush sounds antithetic to the American Dream. Murray richly documents the diverging fates of those at the upper and lower ends of our social class system. While members of the upper middle class are doing very nicely, the lowest thirty percent are trapped in a cycle of crime, unemployment, and disintegrating marriages. Moreover, they are unhappy. Meanwhile, Kohn has provided evidence that middle class parents teach their children to be self-directed, whereas lower class parents demand conformity. The latter insist on obedience and if it is not forthcoming have no compunctions about imposing physical discipline. What this results in are upper middle class children who are capable of self-discipline and lower class children who have difficulty with self-control. The former internalize social standards such as morality, while the latter become oppositional and seek to get away with what they can. The difference in these orientations is on display in the sports they favor. Thus, the middle classes enjoy golf, an activity that is notorious for the personal concentration it requires. The lower classes, however, are enraptured by pro-wrestling, a spectacle in which large-bodied paladins often cheat in order to defeat their opponents. This disparity may seem amusing, yet is anything but. When it is translated onto the larger social scene, it means that middle class persons are more worthy of trust than their lower class peers. Because they monitor their own behaviors and control their selfish impulses, they can be allowed to function without external controls. Indeed, as social leaders they often control others. Meanwhile, those belonging to the lower strata more often seek to elude social constraints. They hate being bound by rules, thus if they believe their activities are not being monitored, they over-step the lines. I saw this when I worked at a methadone clinic where the attitude was that lawbreaking was okay—as long as you didn’t get caught. Put this together with the fact that our society today believes in “tolerance” and the consequences are alarming. We are now supposed to offer everyone “unconditional positive regard” and refrain from being “judgmental.” This stance appears humane, yet is fraught with danger. We can indeed take a hands-off approach with people who are self-directed. Because they discipline themselves, they can be allowed to make independent choices. On the other hand, those who are not self-directed cannot be extended a similar independence. In short, members of the lower classes require a greater variety of external constraints. If they are to behave in a disciplined manner, they must be subject to exterior sanctions when they violate social standards. Nonetheless, we as a society have decided that imposing standards on people violates their rights. This tactic, while it works perfectly well with most middle class folks, invites irresponsibility and lethargy from lower class folks. Once upon a time, most people understood this. They realized that social discipline was required if we were to have an orderly society. The founding fathers recognized this when they endorsed religion as a means of keeping people socially accountable. Most ordinary people endorsed it when they subscribed to a legal system that punished the guilty. They also approved it when they scorned those who broke their marriage vows. Regretfully, we too must uphold social discipline. The fact is that there are some folks who need it and others who suffer when it is absent. Melvyn L. Fein. Ph.D. Professor of Sociology Kennesaw State University
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