I wrote a post for Times and Seasons today: Privilege and the Family. The post borrows heavily from work that Walker Wright has done right here at Difficult Run collecting research and data (like the chart above) on the impact of marriage and family for children’s outcomes, and also seeks to answer a couple of questions raised at By Common Consent recently: Who has two thumbs and doesn’t give a crap about the Family? The questions are:
- Why should we care about the family?
- What does it mean to stand up for the family?
If that sounds like an interesting post to you, then you should check it out.
Well, I just left one of my rare comments at T&S at that post.
Very well done post; it tries to navigate a nice middle ground, though I think that explains a lot of the pushback you’re getting in the comments. As Bruce Charlton said over at jfganymede about your post: “it pursues a very subtle line of argument that makes a path down the middle of the culture wars, but which I believe cannot prevail in the inevitably simple and dualistic world of public discourse. . . I am pretty sure that the lines of the culture wars are substantially fixed”
Unfortunately, I think he’s right, and that saddens me quite a bit.
Interesting article, especially the point about privilege, class, and liberal views. If nothing else, it helped me understand my husband more. He has a dry sense of humor, and there are a few people out there who do not understand him. Despite a few people who really hate him, he has an incredibly diverse and large group of friends, many very liberal and lifelong, and they all genuinely love debate. I usually think he is hilarious, but I misread him recently. When discussing those points with him, he said, “I just tell everyone to keep taking their drugs, numbing their thoughts and emotions, and destroying their families , because it makes it easier for my family to win out in life.” It always disturbs me when he says that. I told him that wasn’t a very Christian idea. He gave me a strange look and said, “I’m not serious. When I say that, I am making the same point with my socially liberal friends.” They are encouraging other people to live destructive lives, while they personally make healthier choices, and they ultimately gain from the fallout. It was actually a running joke in law school where sabotaging your peers is a more open and obvious reality, because everything is curved and ranked. (My husband and those who remained friends with him did not engage in that law-school war, but it was observed and joked about.) Of course, as you pointed out, most people don’t make those social arguments with class warfare or sabotage in mind, but it is interesting to see it more clearly in the more liberal law school environment.
I had to laugh at myself for misjudging my own husband the way others have in the past. So thanks for the article that started our conversation :).