Lockeanism Run Amok, Fundamental Questions, and Teachable Moments

Due to the absence of West Coast Straussians and perhaps the silence of Mr. Ceaser, we’ve reached a kind of postmodern and conservative consensus that PART of progressivism—the part articulated by the Court in PLANNED PARENTHOOD v. CASEY and LAWRENCE v. TEXAS—is a kind of Lockean extremism.

I’m sticking with my opinion, nonetheless, is that our President meant something kind of prosaic and unerotic when he defended the alleged rights to abortion and contraception. Women need to be able bring their distinctive biological burdens under their conscious control to be free and equal persons in our country’s political and economic life. He was thinking of the bourgeois bohemians in Murray’s Belmont—where his daughters will likely end up. Women have a a kid or two, but they carefully plan their careers to minimize the damage done by reproduction. Still, they love their kids, and they live pretty conservative family lives. Their seemingly liberal/radical talk is not the story of their lives. When they balance work and parenting they’re balancing competing goods. That might mean they’re conflicted and somewhat unhappy. But they are an understandable human mean between the extremes those lovers of autonomy who enjoy their freedom too much to be saddled with parenthood at all and those who have four or more kids and think of themselves as parents above all. Our president has two kids.

That’s why I said Patrick Deneen was kind of over-the-top to connect this with the radical Marxist (it’s true it might be called hyper-Lockean in some ways) hedonistic liberation of Shulamit Firestone.

But our threader Germaine—a brilliant political philosopher and an exemplary teacher—says otherwise:

But I actually liked much of what Deneen says about Firestone. I’ve been using her book in my Gender in Political Theory class for almost 20 years and as “wacky” as her arguments are, they really force the reader to confront the most fundamental questions about nature and sex. The students, even those who are dispositionally quiet and reserved, can’t stop themselves from expressing their opinions of her arguments. The classes I’ve had on her book always have the liveliest discussions, and the students tell me that they remember that book years later, even if they’ve forgotten much else.

One of the more disturbing things I’ve noticed in recent years is that more and more of the female students express very strong agreement with Firestone’s view on how horrible pregnancy and childbirth are, and say very confidently that they intend never to have children, and even those intend to marry sometimes say this. Some now even express agreement with her argument that children can and should engage in sex. The only argument Firestone makes that all the students consistently reject is her defense of incest–lots of groans and moans on that!–but that seems to be the last acceptable limit on sexual activity.

It’s really true these are radical (in the sense of getting to the root . . . ) issues. And it’s both good and horrible that we live in a time when we can and maybe have to think about them in a personal way. Still, my own experience is somewhat different.

When I teach Aristophanes THE CLOUDS, I of course dwell on the part when the poet shows us that a guy who loves his family not about to listen to “the case for incest.” The problem, for Aristophanes, is that there’s no argument against incest from the point of view of pure reason that works on the individual level. Why not enjoy incest if I can away with it?

So I ask students to give me an argument against incest. They usually say it’ll produce little monsters—the genetic argument. I respond even if that’s true, give me argument against “safe incest”? Or “safe, homosexual incest?” We work our way to the conclusion that being pro-choice on incest—and sexualizing the relationship between mother and child and sister and brother—would be devastating for the family. But what about a time when our new understanding of freedom keeps us from privileging the family over personal autonomy? My students aren’t really moved by that question, because they still tend to personally privilege the family.

The case for incest doesn’t really move the students, as it doesn’t move Germaine’s. So it tends to be a merely academic discussion. And the point that philosophy is dangerous because it promotes incest doesn’t grab them.

But in Germaine’s case—the women she teaches are talking about freely choosing against their natures, against being moms, against the natural point of the family, against the future of our country and our species. And Firestone suggests to them that any agrument in the other direction is patriarchal despotism. Sex is for pleasure, and we can have more pleasure if we safely techno-separate it from its gross natural consequences. One we say that, there’s no reason kids can’t get in on the fun. There might be no argument against such liberation that works for the women on an individual level. Maybe Germaine can say that you’re mistaken about what will make you happy. But they can answer back—I’m not like you. Someone might say they’re going through a bitter stage explained by the dearth of eligible males at the liberal arts college, and they’ll change when the guys finally grow up. Maybe that explains Belmont.

The young women in my classes only very rarely think or at least talk that way. They still think in terms of marriage and kids, are close to their parents, and want to be parents themselves. Some of them even want to have A LOT of kids. I’ve never heard them talk about being grossed out by the prospect of childbirth.

I’m not sure all this has a point, but I’m following the Pete the Greek Ranter by bringing cool thread issues up top for comments.