As usual, after I post my "I'll be gone for a while" message, I think of a good post to make.
I'm starting to read Jürgen Habermas's Theory of Communicative Action, and it's suggesting a new set of terms in which to put some of the ideas I've been tossing around about what the gay marriage debate means.
Basically, it seems that the gay marriage struggle can be looked at as a problem of what Habermas calls "the colonization of the lifeworld." He divides society into two parts: the system and the lifeworld. The system -- made up mostly of what we call the economy and politics -- is a rationalized, functional setup. The lifeworld -- culture and social interaction -- is the site of values and social solidarity. Modernity is characterized by the separation of lifeworld and system into semi-autonomous spheres, through the rise of administrative politics and market economics. For example, whereas economic relations were once deeply embedded in lifeworld institutions such as kinship (people lay claim to goods by asserting a kin relation), they're now characterized by relations mediated through the abstract medium of money. At the same time, however, the system is at work "colonizing" the lifeworld, drawing off more elements of the lifeworld and subjecting them to the system's rationality. This process is what has also been described as commodification when the colonizing agent is the market.
Marriage, as an institution rooted in kinship, affection, and socialization, was originally a part of the lifeworld. As the system broke away from the lifeworld, it adopted the concept of marriage as a constitutive institution. Though it was initially parasitic on the lifeworld for the idea and its definition, it eventually became necessary to "write down" marriage in the language of system -- to formalize the institution in legal terms. This shared institution formed a basis for interaction between system and lifeworld.
The dual nature of marriage went unremarked so long as both lifeworld and system defined it in compatible ways. This unremarkability provided an avenue for the system to colonize the lifeworld, expanding its involvement in the shared institution. But there comes a problem when the definitions diverge.
The fight for gay marriage is currently focused on making a change in the system definition of marriage -- the legal recognition of the institution, with all the benefits that come with it. As I see it, changes in the system can be more acute issues because bureaucratic rules are more static, as they're literally written down with formalized processes for changing them. Rules in the lifeworld, on the other hand, can happen more gradually and smoothly because the lifeworld is as described in Anthony Giddens' theory of structuration) being constantly reproduced in social action, and is thus constantly subject to renegotiation rather than being presumed fixed until change is officially undertaken. Within the system, political rules seem likely to be more bureaucratically static, as evidenced by the fact that corporations have moved more quickly than states to change their definitions of marriage to treat gay and straight relationships as equal (to the extent that they're independent of, rather than parasitic on, the political definition of marriage).
The degree of colonization of the lifeworld that has already been carried out makes the system level a crucial struggle for those who would open marriage to homosexual couples. These activists use the logic of the system -- for example, by appealing to constitutional principles of equality -- to effect a change in the system. Yet this systemic activity is percieved as threatening to the lifeworld, a threat expressed in the fear of the commodification and individualism of homosexual marriage (as well as of heterosexual marriage under the influence of the new marital paradigm). Changing the system definition exposes the degree of colonization of the lifeworld that has already occurred by making the two definitions jar against each other. And it reveals the weakness of the lifeworld to resist a new definition of marriage that is sedimented in law. For example, take the fear that churches (religion is a quintessential lifeworld issue) may be forced to recognize homosexual unions, in practice if not in theology, because ministers have been colonized through being given the authority to formalize system-sanctioned marriages. (Apropos of my earlier comments on conspiracy theories, note the frequent references to the "gay agenda" that is said to be engineering this change.)
The analysis presented thus far seems rather favorable to the anti-gay-marriage position. Indeed, the idea of colonization of the lifeworld seems to parallel a common procedural complaint -- that judges, representatives of a highly rationalistic system, are foisting gay marriage on a culturally unwilling society*.
However, it is incorrect to place lifeworld unproblematically on the anti-gay-marriage side. Certainly that is the historical position, and it remains true for many people. But the gay rights movement came out of the lifeworld, as a sort of cultural politics. In many gay-friendly areas, homosexual couples can already acquire most of the purely lifeworld trappings of marriage, from being recognized by their friends to having their union sanctified by a (Unitarian or Episcopalian) church. It's the colonization of the lifeworld by the system, making so many aspects of married life dependent on meeting the system's definition of marriage, that has spurred the legal fight over gay marriage. The incongruence of a pro-gay lifeworld with an anti-gay system motivates the progressive side as surely as the threatened incongruence of an anti-gay lifeworld and a pro-gay system motivates the conservative side.
Further, conservatives are willing to make use of the system to defend their side. The prime example is the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment, an attempt to very thoroughly solidify in the system a certain definition of marriage. This movement goes beyond an attempt to keep the system from interfering with the lifeworld to an attempt to use the system to shape the lifeworld. Eugene Volokh has written of his concern that, in moving the scene of struggle from the lifeworld to the system too soon, the pro-gay will provoke a backlash that puts the system definition of marriage permanently out of reach (and thus cramps the lifeworld definition to the extent that it has been colonized).
Habermas urges decolonization of the lifeworld. The simple interpretation of decolonization would lead us to the view (popular among libertarians, who have a tendency to merge the economic system with the lifeworld in opposition to the political system) that marriage should be privatized. The goal here would be to take away marriage as a point of articulation between lifeworld and system by reorganizing the system so as not to use the marriage concept. The effect of this would be to place all authority for regulating marriage back with the lifeworld (though it says nothing about whether the functions served by system-marriage would devolve to the lifeworld along with marriage, or would be retained by the system but served in a different way, thus weakening the overall institution of marriage). This idea is not popular among social conservatives, who believe a degree of colonization is needed to save the lifeworld from its own liberal tendencies. This is perhaps connected to a view that marriage is defined on a moral level by an immutable natural law, which leads to an affinity for whatever social mechanism -- in this case, the constitutional system -- can best make that permanence materially real.
Pro-gay people have reason to be skeptical of such separatist decolonization as well. The system can be a powerful tool when wielded properly by the lifeworld, as evidenced by the way the Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas was able to take the national majority feeling that sodomy should not be a crime and extend it to places like Texas where the lifeworld (and the democratic politics that feeds off of it) is of a different opinion. But perhaps this view of the system as a tool of the lifeworld is a form of decolonization. This partakes of Max Weber's view of the system. He thought that the system's rationality was purely instrumental, enabling you to get what you want but offering no clues as to what you should want. Colonization involves a sort of idolatry, subordinating the user to the tool.
*Yet conservatives are unable to fully make this argument because it requires assenting to the idea that the judges' decision is the result of legal rationality. They would rather keep all rhetorical options open by maintaining that the derivation of a right to gay marriage from existing law is an incorrect -- irrational -- deduction, and hence illegitimate by the standards both of lifeworld and of system.
Stentor Danielson, 20:59,
Hauskaa Joulu!
At long last, I have fixed my reading list. The quality of the entries is pretty poor, since for at least year now I couldn't publish (though I kept a log in Blogger), and thus I had little incentive to write anything interesting about the books I'd read. There's also a link to it on my contact page, if you ever find yourself wondering what I've read lately.
I'm heading off for a couple weeks of visiting tomorrow, so there will probably be no new posts until January 7. Check out my sidebar for a list of other blogs that are more interesting than mine and updating regularly over the next few weeks.
Stentor Danielson, 17:07,
A federal appeals court on Wednesday blocked new Bush administration changes to the Clean Air Act from going into effect, in a challenge from state attorneys general and cities that argued they would harm the environment and public health.
The Environmental Protection Agency (news - web sites) rule would have made it easier for utilities, refineries and other industrial facilities to make repairs in the name of routine maintenance without installing additional pollution controls.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (news - web sites) for the District of Columbia issued an order that blocks the rules from going into effect until the legal challenge from the states and cities is heard, a process likely to last months.
... "When it comes to environmental policy, this court decision is as big a success as we've had in stopping the Bush administration from undercutting the Clean Air Act," [New York attorney general Elliot Spitzer] said.
Environmentalists are all excited about this, and it is good news (though I wonder whether the stay will have much effect -- I would imagine most power plants would just postpone upgrades until after the decision in the hope that the EPA will win, rather than going ahead with making them, and the accompanying pollution reductions, now). But it says something about the quality of environmental protection under Bush that a court postponing a rule change while it reviews a challenge can be described as "as big a success as we've had."
Stentor Danielson, 13:47,
Conspiracy Theory
The capture of Saddam Hussein set off the latest round of conspiracy theories among some opponents of the administration. Some people wondered whether it was really Saddam, and others speculated about whether he had been located some time before and only officially captured now, when it was politically useful. There has been concern, offered in all seriousness, about whether we will "just happen" to catch Osama bin Laden this coming October. This builds on a longstanding perspective that explains every move of the administration as a political calculation, engineered by the shadowy tendrils of Karl Rove.
I think this sort of conspiratorial thinking has a particular appeal for people who feel their power threatened or lost. Liberals in America today are understandably frustrated when they see conservatism ascendant. Seeing conservatives' rule as devious and Machiavellian provides a tempting explanation for our lack of power. If the other guys work in such crafty ways, it's no wonder they've managed to get and stay in control. Further, it gives a sheen of illegitimacy to conservative power, as they're seen to hold it through less-than-forthright means despite their claims to be serving the nation's interests. This reassures liberals that their powerlessness is unfair, and hence that there's something righteous in fixing the situation.
My sense is that liberals are currently more prone to conspiratorial types of thinking than conservatives due to their lack of power. But what of the conservative conspiracy theorists? We got a good dose of such thinking when Wesley Clark's entry into the presidential race was described as a secret plot of the Clintons, and again when commentators on the right deconstructed Al Gore's complex political calculations in deciding to endorse Howard Dean. What we see here is, I think, evidence of insecurity about the power they have. Bill Clinton is a guru to the left and a bane to the right because he so effectively captured federal power. The possibility of a return to a Clintonian situation -- particularly if engineered by Slick Willy himself -- is a threatening prospect. Conventional wisdom held that Clark's entry into the race and Gore's endorsement of Dean were big victories for (parts of) the left, just as Saddam's capture was supposed to be a major coup for Bush. Such moments of victory for the other side heighten the motivation for taking a conspiratorial view. Conspiracy theories are a good indication that the theorist feels vulnerable.
My use of the term "conspiracy theory" should be read in a value-neutral way. It seems obvious that you don't get to be a politician of national note without some ability to scheme and subtly play things to your advantage. Anti-conspiratorial forms of explanation can work to mystify the real process of securing political advantage. On the other hand, too much focus on conspiracy theorizing reduces politics to a power struggle.
Stentor Danielson, 00:51,
24.12.03
Jesus Is The Question
Philocrites has an inspiring post up in which he argues that Jesus is not the Answer, but the Question -- a paradoxical figure that refuses to sit still in any of our doctrinal boxes but invites us to chase after him in how we live our lives.
The connection between uncertainty and practice got me thinking about what I see as an important contrast between liberal and conservative religion*, in terms of their outreach. Conservative religion, as I've experienced it, emphasizes evangelism over stewardship, spreading the truth over doing good. It's a self-confident mission driven by that very theological certainty that they're pushing to unbelievers.
Liberal religion lacks that certainty. At its worst, it descends into inward-looking concerns, unwilling to exhort others to believe things that it isn't righteously convinced of. In doing so, it aspires to conservatism, awaiting that sort of certainty before bothering anyone else. At best, however, liberal religion turns to a focus on stewardship. This isn't stewardship in the mode that conservative religion practices it -- service to others as an expression or epiphenomenon or proof of their doctrine. It's service as an exploration, as a test of whatever the participant provisionally takes to be true and an opportunity to engage others in figuring it out.
Last year around this time I came across a moving story about being a recipient of charity (unfortunately I don't have the first clue what blog it was on -- if anybody knows, I'd love to link it, although perhaps the actual story doesn't suit my point here as well as my recollected version does*). The writer described how, when she was a child living in poverty, a charity-giver came to her apartment and left them a box of canned goods, filled with self-confidence about what a good deed he was doing. The writer and her mother were insulted by the way the man barged into their lives, gave them a miscellany of unwanted foods, and expected their gratitude (which the mother faked to get him to leave so that she could go to work). This man is a sort of caricature of conservative stewardship, convinced it has the answers and doing good deeds as an expression of its (presumed -- and perhaps in some cases correct) righteousness. My reaction at the time was of the wimpy liberal variety. I became self-conscious about the unsupported assumptions in any good deeds I might try, embarassed into feeling that I ought to just leave well enough alone until I was sure that my good deeds were actually good, rather than bothersome and condescending. But on further reflection, I think I see a better liberal response. Certainly, I don't want to disparage thinking ahead and trying to figure things out. But rather than being paralyzed by uncertainty, a liberal distributing charity might still have gone to the door with the box of canned goods, thinking there was a good deed in the making. But he would have seen the frustration of the author's mother, and perhaps made some realizations about their life and needs. Maybe his openness would have prompted a more honest dialogue. He would have gone away with a changed view of what it means to help the poor.
*I don't want to make any assumption that the contrast necessarily has anything to do with the inherent nature of conservatism and liberalism. It's a matter of epistemological stance, which is probably at most contingently related to the actual content of the theology.
*UPDATE: Via mattH in the comments, here is the original post I was thinking of.
Stentor Danielson, 00:28,
Easements are permanent deed restrictions that limit some types of intrusive development -- such as dense subdivisions or strip mines -- while often permitting limited construction. Landowners "donate" the easements to a nonprofit land trust or a government agency that, in effect, certifies that the restrictions are meaningful and provide some public benefit, such as preserving open space or protecting wildlife. That allows the donor to seek federal income tax deductions for the reduction in the land's market value.
By taking such steps to limit construction, the owners of vacation resorts, country manors and dude ranches can seek big write-offs, too. Pennsylvania developer Kenneth C. Hellings says he restricted building on "unusable" portions of his new subdivision and took "a shocker" of a tax deduction. Luxury-home builders in North Carolina paid $10 million for a tract in the mountains, developed a third of the land, then claimed a $20 million deduction. Such tax bonanzas have become a little-noticed byproduct of the maturing environmental movement, which increasingly entwines preservation of land with preservation of wealth.
This article is long, but it goes into a lot of the problems faced by the land trust system. It treats it more as a compliance problem -- poor enforcement of the rules and agreements -- rather than a structural problem -- whether it makes sense to give monitoring authority to local, private groups while the benefits come out of the federal budget.
The paragraphs I quoted come near the beginning, and are presented in a way that suggests they're examples of the typical operation of a land trust. We learn later that the incidents described are examples of abuses, in which minimal gain for conservation led to mega-gain in profit for the owner. But the impression that this initial presentation leaves you with -- or at least this is how it struck me -- is that there's something disingenous about the whole land trust idea, and that there's something wrong with it because rich people can gain from it, as opposed to it being a pure act of charity. But that's exactly the point of the trust system -- rather than coercive regulation (as in the case of zoning), land trusts allow a mutually beneficial agreement to be made.
Stentor Danielson, 21:07,
debitage 
Habermas And Gay Marriage