Over the years I’ve come to realize that “relativism” is the wrong way to describe the way in which secular elite culture approaches moral questions. It’s obvious that all things are not permitted, which is why Pope Benedict coined the term “dictatorship of relativism.” One MUST be affirming, inclusive, and non-judgmental. We’re heavily policed, as the term “political correctness” indicates.
Furthermore, the moral norms that progressives endorse aren’t just of this sort. In America, our secular elites put a great deal of emphasis on subtle forms of moral formation. First there is the imperative of success. Getting into a good college is all-important. This cult of success requires a great deal of self-discipline, and although one often sees a work-hard/play-hard mentality, that’s more characteristic of the 1980s and 1990s than the rising generation. Today parents emphasis the need to make “healthy choices” or “responsible choices.” That may allow for hedonism, but it’s a moderate hedonism organized around the larger goal of controlling one’s destiny and being successful.
This cult of success carries over to marriage and family. The well-educated and successful in America don’t affirm “family values,” and in fact many are politically and culturally opposed to social conservatives who do. Saying that marriage is morally necessary or even socially normative is “exclusive” and “intolerant,” a stance inconsistent with elite commitments to “inclusion.” Nonetheless, the same elites have a strong culture of marriage and family. It’s sustained by a super-subtle moral system only accessible to insiders who know the nuances of “responsible choices.” This system makes is entirely consistent for a Harvard graduate to have many sexual partners in his twenties and thirties, and then marry and accept the traditional presumption that he’s to be faithful to his wife. Making sense out of this requires a profoundly esoteric moral wisdom, one that can parse the differences between relationships that are “unhealthy” and those that are “healthy.”
It’s this quality—the esotericism—that is as destructive today as political correctness and the dictatorship of relativism. I’m not a fan of the elite approach to sex and marriage, but it’s shown itself to be a functional system—for elites. The problem is that for everybody else it’s mysterious and inaccessible. And so we have no functional social norms for ordinary people. Traditional views are bludgeoned by the elite commitment to “inclusion.” But nothing clear takes it’s place. Elites are happy with their esoteric approach, which can’t function for society as a whole.
Why the esotericism? Why no commitment to a larger, functional social ethic of sex and marriage?
I don’t want to be too Marxist, but I think it has something to do with sustaining class domination. I can’t imagine a system more congenial to elite domination than one that demoralized most (the dictatorship of relativism) while allowing elites to flourishing according to esoteric norms that only insiders can apply (“healthy choices”).
December 28th, 2012 | 1:37 pm
Correction: I think you meant to say “it’s obvious not all things are permitted” instead of “it’s obvious all things are not permitted.” Surely some things are permitted–just not all of them.
You raise some interesting observations, by the way.
December 28th, 2012 | 1:50 pm
The esotericism is partly due to the fact that there are the “useful idiots” who truly believe in “not imposing their values” (e.g. marriage) — these might be your state school or business graduates — and then those who more clearly see that “not imposing your values” is really selective imposition of values, e.g. freedom of abortion, but not traditional marriage. This type of person is more likely to be an Ivy League graduate or an urban studies professor. The true nature of the agenda is carefully couched in postmodernist journals that few people read, but is pretty clearly about the take-over of society by a revolutionary vanguard. That’s too rich for most people’s blood, so a watered-down version, combating “ignorance” and “bigotry” is provided for the masses. So you’re not being Marxist at all — this is actually a critique of Marxism. Marx was quite explicit about the need to destroy “false consciousness” through any means necessary, and about the role of an vanguard intelligentsia in leading the people toward the revolution.
Another reason is that esotericism allows a constantly shifting standard that those who want to be considered “relevant” must continuously strive to meet. Tradition, by nature, doesn’t change, or changes subtly and predictably over the generations. Thus, it can’t be manipulated to suit the expediency of a political party. Progressivism, by nature, is always changing, much like how a new iPad or Air Jordan is always a few months away. Like fashion, it allows an in-group to identify itself, and to always stay one step ahead of the masses.
December 28th, 2012 | 1:59 pm
In many cases I don’t think there is any direct ill-will. I think a large amount of the elite in this country honestly think that everyone can live by their moral code; the esoteric parts are seen as simply “common sense”. This is even to the point where someone deserves their fate for transgressing this ethic. Obviously, the social and economic consequences of this are the maintenance of the elite, but that is certainly not a conscious goal.
December 28th, 2012 | 2:28 pm
It seems to me that what the “conservatives” see as wickedness in those who don’t want to “impose their values” is acceptance and tolerance by “liberals” of situations that already exist and which there is no point in stigmatizing. On the one hand, it is a catastrophe (in my opinion) that 41% of children are born out of wedlock in the United States (and 72% of African Americans). But I see no point in stigmatizing single mothers or single motherhood. I do not see an affluent, educated “elite” working (actively or passively) to keep marriage for themselves but somehow deny it to the less affluent and less well educated, or to try to promote marriage for themselves and send a message to others that they can do just fine without it.
There are many different forces at work shaping American society, economic forces being by far not the least of them, and it seems rather foolish to me to assume that there is some kind of liberal “elite” who is shaping those forces and intentionally causing social problems.
I can’t for the life of me figure out what the “dictatorship of relativism” means, and I don’t think R. R. Reno has made anything clearer by saying—as I understand him—it’s not relativism, it’s the dictatorship of relativism.
December 28th, 2012 | 3:27 pm
David, if you sincerely are unable to appreciate the meaning of the term, take a look at this article, which is a pretty classic case: http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/education/ed0508.htm
The essential substance of it is a form of Il est interdit d’interdire. The only rule is that you can’t make any rules. With… of course some exceptions, such as rules for “diversity.” Some are more equal than others.
As for not “stigmatizing”… You could of course argue that such situations only exist because a Marxist vanguard manipulated society into ending their stigmatization. While, at the same time, making sure their own children don’t follow that path. This is much like how many modernist architects would never have lived in one of their concrete high-rises.
Yet still, progressives have no problems stigmatizing the overweight, the loudly religious, and the rural, white poor. Once again we see the “rules” work one way for certain groups, yet their application differs for others, usually depending on whether the group can be expected to vote Democrat or not. There is an entire “cultural sensitivity” industry, similar to the fashion houses of Paris and Milan, which sets the trends for what is currently stigmatized or tolerated.
December 28th, 2012 | 4:05 pm
I’ve taken to wondering about class domination myself. Perhaps this is best considered on a local or state level, rather than a national level? Local elections in big cities are more important than many realize in setting the tone of a state.
The dominance of Harvard elites’ views in Boston and Massachusetts is in part a product of the collapse and co-optation of Irish Catholic culture and political power, which culturally radical elite views helped to accomplish. Liberal elite dominance of New York City politics (and perhaps the broader national culture) would be impossible if the NYC family breakdown rates and abortion rates were not so ghastly high among blacks and other minorities.
December 28th, 2012 | 6:18 pm
I’m not sure what’s so esoteric about the morality of the so-called “elite”.
Parents want their children to fare well in this life, and it’s difficult (if not impossible) to go to med school or launch a career when one is raising a child. Further, marriages that are started immediately after high school fail at a higher rate than those entered into at a more seasoned age. So … there is probably a subtle stigmatization of those who marry and bear children while in their late teens by the “cultural elites” as you call them.
That being said, once a worldly path is decided and embarked upon and once one’s personality has matured, the stability and joys of family are more obvious and obtainable. In fact, there is the *expectation* of marriage and family by the time one has hit their mid-30s.
This has nothing to do with being “anti-family” or any other such nonsense. It’s simply being pragmatic about life.
December 28th, 2012 | 9:02 pm
M Bradshaw,
You say, “That being said, once a worldly path is decided and embarked upon and once one’s personality has matured, the stability and joys of family are more obvious and obtainable. In fact, there is the *expectation* of marriage and family by the time one has hit their mid-30s.”
Right, but there is a big gap between graduating college at 22 or 23 and marriage and family at 33. Why the wait? Oh yeah, so these elites can live lives of hedonism and so-called “wordly success” and then “settle-down” and have their one or two kids. As Mr. Reno says, this seems to work O.K. for them, for various reasons, but it is not a sustainable path for the rest of society, especially those who don’t plan on going to college.
We need to do better for those folks (and in the long-run better for the elites as well — a restoration of Christendom should be for all of us).
December 29th, 2012 | 12:30 am
“Further, marriages that are started immediately after high school fail at a higher rate than those entered into at a more seasoned age. So … there is probably a subtle stigmatization of those who marry and bear children while in their late teens by the “cultural elites” as you call them.”
I think the problem is that many of these people are bearing children but not marrying. Why aren’t they marrying? I agree that the cultural elites probably stigmatize early marriage—-do they feel the same way about unmarried, undereducated and struggling parents? Or would such disdain violate the taboo of judgmentalism? Maybe they don’t think of the lower strata of society at all. Sometimes it seems we live in separate worlds.
The collapse of marriage in the lower- and middle classes seems recent to me, so I do not know if many of these couples will decide to “settle down” and tie the knot when they reach their thirties. It is not obvious to me that the fathers stick around, or that the mothers want them to do so.
December 29th, 2012 | 5:59 am
One wonders what effect the availability of civil unions or domestic partnerships will have on marriage rates on the one hand and on rates of unregulated cohabitation on the other.
In 2010 (the last year for which figures are available) in France, there were roughly 250,000 marriages and 200,000 civil unions [Le pacte civil de solidarité or PACS] Of these, about 86% were of opposite-sex couples. At present, marriage is not available for same-sex couples, but a PACS is. Even so, they account for only about 7% of civil unions.
Before civil unions were introduced in 2000, marriages were running at just over 300,000 a year, so the figures represent an increase of nearly 50% in formal unions (marriage or PACS)
December 29th, 2012 | 7:30 am
Implicit in this critique is a “top-down” structure of value imposition from the elites.
Hogwash.
I claim the culture is influenced from the bottom up, and always has been. Hence, the import of a strong, healthy lower class and middle class, which is the opposite of the consequences of the economic morals war.
“Elites” as the conservative boogie man is identifed, have begun to engage in the same “out of wedlock” childbearing more prominent in lower class (independent of party-voting preference) that has been an element of lower class lives for at least 50 years.
Sexual mores in trailer parks or ghettoes are unchanged over 50 years, despite claims to “family values” and wooping it up at Alabama churches or Harlem churches.
Male roles of the trailer park and the ghetto-a hypermasculine, many-partnered sexual history, has been present again for 50 years, its now permeating up into upper classes more frequently with less of an expectation for mem to be anything more than a temporary sexual partner fathering children and maybe, maybe holding a job. This has been a phenomenon of the lower class, and has been aided and abetted by conservative push for hypermasculinism since the 1980′s.
The dynamic of influence is incorrect. Its a bottum up problem.
Imrespect the efforts Professor Reno tries with regard to identifying matters of the lower class, however, I recommend a time of experiential study and immersion into a ghetto to begin to meet and greet these folks. I have been a resident, student, or physician in such a place since for 25 years, and can assure you, that the dynamic is all wrong.
December 29th, 2012 | 9:11 am
Jeffrey writes: “As Mr. Reno says, this seems to work O.K. for them, for various reasons, but it is not a sustainable path for the rest of society, especially those who don’t plan on going to college.”
And? Why must the same path be imposed upon everyone like a straight jacket? For those who have no interest in attending college (and I think higher education is overrated and unnecessary for many), then sure … getting married early could work. I see no shame in graduating high school, marrying and settling down and actually living life on a farm somewhere. Someone has to. Why must everyone, though?
Peg asks: “do they feel the same way about unmarried, undereducated and struggling parents?”
Wasn’t the attitude of the Republican Party in the last election one that seemed to imply that if one was financially hurting, it was because of some flaw in one’s own character? Hence the “47%” comments, the cracks about “entitlements”, and so on. Now, suddenly it’s the liberal elites who are being condescending?
Generally, though, Peg, we tend to stigmatize the struggling if they are that way due to sloth or bad choices. Most of us are sympathetic if there are some life circumstances that caused it, whatever our political leanings. At least that seems the general attitude of those NOT in Washington.
December 29th, 2012 | 12:22 pm
I wonder if people have been polled—-asked why they have not married. I really want to know. The unmarried parents whom I know personally say they fear divorce, having suffered through their parents’ splits. There seems something sadly irrational in this, since I don’t see why they think they will be spared misery in the case of separation.
My sampling is small, and their families all formed through unplanned and (initially) unwanted pregnancies. Some parents are no longer couples; one never really was to start with. None are self-supporting, all are slipping backwards economically.
Another link on First Things led to an article asking if men are necessary to women at all—that more women go to college, get jobs, etc., and do not need or want a dependent man in their lives. This implies more planning than I’ve seen in the unmarried mothers I know, but I would like to see legitimate poll responses.
December 29th, 2012 | 10:33 pm
Dan C writes: Sexual mores in trailer parks or ghettoes are unchanged over 50 years, despite claims to “family values” and wooping it up at Alabama churches or Harlem churches.
Apparently I missed something that Dan C has seen. My understanding is that out-of-wedlock children for blacks have risen from 30% to over 70% in that 50 years and that whites have the same problem for 30% of the children risen from single digits (including the trailer parks) in that same period. So the question is, “What has changed?” I gather DanC doesn’t think it was the Alabama churches.
December 30th, 2012 | 6:45 am
Charles Murray’s book, Coming Apart, corroborates Reno’s view. Liberal elites, for want of a better term, get married and stay married, according to Murray’s statistics.
Reno’s description of the “healthy and responsible choices” leading to “success” dictum is spot on. This is what they teach in school sex ed programs. The problem is that in working class homes the message is not reinforced by the parents. In working class homes there may still be the vestiges of “traditional social values” but those values are denigrated in these same school programs. So what does a teenager do who has no visible model of the “healthy and responsible choices” path at home? Probably he or she finds the “freedom” from moral constraints within the message found in school appealing without understanding or adopting the model of “success” promoted there. So they engage in the risky behavior without using birth control as the upper class kids do and sometimes abort but often give birth and keep the child. And as many contributors above have pointed out, it’s difficult to corral and degree and move into the working world when you are responsible for a child or children.
December 30th, 2012 | 2:42 pm
Apparently I missed something that Dan C has seen.
Mike Melendez,
I think that Dan C’s main point is that there is not some esoteric elite (liberal) morality that has been imposed on the “lower classes” from on high, leading to an ever-increasing rate of out-of-wedlock births. It’s clear that there have been dramatic social changes, but as to why they have come about, there is nothing approaching a consensus. To pin all social problems on some “esoteric elite morality,” especially when the tenets of that morality are things like “do well in school” and “make healthy choices” is scarcely a serious step toward understanding or influencing the negative trends undermining marriage.
December 30th, 2012 | 7:02 pm
David Nickol writes:
“To pin all social problems on some ‘esoteric elite morality,’ especially when the tenets of that morality are things like ‘do well in school’ and ‘make healthy choices’ is scarcely a serious step toward understanding or influencing the negative trends undermining marriage.”
*************
It surprises me that you did not address the flip-side of Dan C’s main point. Might I suggest that to pin all American social problems on the supposed influence of some “ghetto ideology” or “NASCAR Weltanschauung,” as Dan C appears to do, is also a move in the wrong direction? (for reasons that should be obvious)
As for Reno’s original statement, I don’t see why it’s necessary for him to employ a new-fangled notion of an esoteric (progressive) elite morality when the time-tested and exoteric notion of “moral hypocrisy” is still available for use.
December 30th, 2012 | 9:57 pm
Back in 1900, a rather high — high for that time, quite low for ours — percentage of black children in America were conceived out of wedlock. Note the verb. They were conceived; but they were not born out of wedlock. People married.
My wife and I have an interesting hobby. We read old magazines — very old magazines. They’re pretty revealing, if you bother to pay attention. Let’s just move a little away from the sixth commandment for a moment. Let’s consider some other virtues — and see how we fare.
Frugality — forget that one.
Temperance? At best the “elites” practice a highly “protected” hedonism, immensely selfish.
Humility? When we have shows called American Idol, which are nothing but stages for wailing and preening — a far cry from Arthur Godfrey’s Amateur Hour? And an idiot of a politician who defines sin as “not being true to my values”?
What are our virtues? Grace? Gentleness? Meekness? Loyalty? Self-Denial? Innocence? Prudence? Courage?
I spent a few weeks recently reading the memoirs of Edith Stein, which end at the time she receives her doctorate, still some years before her conversion to the Catholic Church. It’s like reading an account of people from a different planet. They aren’t perfect. They’re sinners as we are sinners. Or I should say, “They are sinners, and we are sinners,” but otherwise they make us look like pygmies. And that wasn’t her intention — there isn’t any boasting in that book at all. All she has to do is describe what went on in her family for a few weeks or how she and her fellow nurses served the wounded in World War I, or what her regimen of study was, or how the Husserls treated her and her fellow students, or what they all talked about, or how the men and the women treated one another when they went on their hiking tours … They were not perfect; they were corruptible; we are corrupt.
The “elites” bear the burden of responsibility here; they presume to lead, and all they have done is to destroy the lower classes with their amorality. Case in point — paradigmatic case in point: a few years ago the snotty elites in Minneapolis voted to oust the Boy Scouts from public buildings in the city. Meanwhile, same snotty elites were shoveling money to gay causes and the arts scene — while the dropout rate for black males in the county was ridiculously high. The next time the rich feminists in this country give a passing thought to working class males, except to abuse them, will be the first time.
December 31st, 2012 | 11:53 am
I just want to thank Dr. Esolen for his incredible clarity and forthrightness.
December 31st, 2012 | 3:33 pm
Tony,
I used to read old magazines for a living, and I heard a different story from them. What I see is a huge change in the economic landscape that has sent everyone—elites, common people, and churches—scurrying to figure out how to adjust old patterns of belief and behavior.
Consumer capitalism changed everything, turning savers into spenders. All of the virtues you admire had to be recalibrated to fit the new conditions. The change is notoriously summed up by Bush’s advice to express our patriotism after 9/11 by shopping. He was right, of course, but it still felt wrong.
As for those children conceived out of wedlock, their fathers married their mothers in large part because the village scolds made them. The anonymity of the city has abolished the village scold. In the meantime, the rise in divorce is largely driven by women who see no need to stay with shiftless men. The collapse of good, working class jobs has a large role in the destruction of the old virtues.
What you see as a failure of elites to lead is a longer story of elites and the middle and working classes trying to retool the virtues.
January 1st, 2013 | 12:44 pm
Fewer and fewer people are marrying, but, even in the lower orderss, reason, combined with instinctive feelings, can preserve the sympathies and affections they feel for their mates and offspring. They know that bringing up a child requires the united exertions and superintending care of both parents.
In France (I do not know the figures for the USA) 44% of all births are out of wedlock, including 56% of the births of first children. Nevertheless, 85% of children under 15 are living with both their parents.
The question is not one of persuading parents to stay together, for the sake of their children; it is one of persuading them that marriage is something of relevance to them, not only to the rich, Muslims and gays.
January 1st, 2013 | 4:48 pm
Michael PS,
I think the question might be to persuade American parents to stay together—married or not at this point—for the sake of their children. I suspect that argument is doomed to fail in today’s environment, though.
35 percent of American children are being raised by single parents. This is the highest rate in the developed world, far above that of France. I have yet to read any article anywhere that claims this to be a good trend with hopeful outcomes.
http://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/acrossstates/Rankings.aspx?ind=107
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