Kathryn Jean Lopez, who will soon be leaving the National Review Online for other, yet-to-be-named pastures, has a piece up this week about John Ensign (the latest in a long line of GOP senators whose public pronouncements proved to be wildly at odds with his private predilections) and the nature of hypocrisy.
We on the left, you see, frustrate K-Lo with our suggestion that Ensign’s infidelities undermine the case for the traditional and limited marriage franchise, a case near and dear to both the senator and the arch-conservative pundit. K-Lo wants us to know that Ensign’s inability or unwillingness to remain faithful is a private failing that ought to have no bearing on the public discussion about the meaning of marriage. She writes:
A politician’s failings do not render the beliefs to which he subscribes morally impotent. Facts remain. Marriage is a cornerstone. Under a bastardized and unfortunately widespread understanding of hypocrisy, it is “hypocritical” for someone who is not a perfect person to ever make a statement grounded in conscience, morality, or natural law. Presumably, then, all Christians should throw out their Book. The Bible is and always has been directed to sinners. And, save for the star of the show, the preaching comes from sinners, too. Christ warned Peter in Gethsemane, “Watch and pray that you may not undergo the test. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.” In Romans, Paul said: “What I do, I do not understand. For I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate.” Men (and women) believing something and falling short has a long history.
I agree with all but her third sentence in that paragraph. The history of marriage, as any scholar will tell you, is less cornerstone than constantly shifting sand. And cripes, enough already with the idolatry of marriage; calling it the “cornerstone” — a term with Christological significance — is sloppily inaccurate at best and blasphemous at worst.
K-Lo is right that a politician’s failings do not make the beliefs to which he subscribes morally impotent. For example, think of Barack Obama’s struggle with smoking. As someone who has proved supremely self-controlled in so many areas of life, it is striking — and humanizing — that he has been unable to kick the nicotine habit entirely. But his own addiction doesn’t mean that he can’t hold a strong position in favor of regulating tobacco; indeed, his sense of his own weakness gives strength to the argument that this is a dangerous substance deserving of greater regulation. He has pointedly not called for a ban on smoking either.
But while a politician’s failings do not mean he forfeits a right to speak out on issues, his failings aren’t incidental to his politics. K-Lo is wrong to suggest that Ensign’s fall from grace is completely unrelated to his views on marriage and sexual matters. It is axiomatic, after all, that we rail and splutter with the greatest indignation against those things we loathe inside ourselves. Those who combine great political power with an acute consciousness of personal sinfulness are particularly dangerous because of the overwhelming temptation to displace their own shame on to others. Private spiritual frailty is turned into an all-too-public club with which to beat those who, in the eyes of a guilt-ridden senator, live openly at odds with traditional morality; the zeal with which he wields that club is fueled by his own awareness of how far he has fallen from the mark. The flame of self-reproach kindles the fire to burn the heretics; the Inquisitor usually wears a hair-shirt.
Self-reproach is not only a right, it is a responsibility; people — especially, in our culture, men — could do with a good deal more self-examination. If we don’t like what we find, we need to go to therapy or confession or a Twelve Step program to heal and to grow. What we don’t get to do is to externalize that self-reproach into a sanctimonious defense of the traditional values we ourselves lack the capacity to follow. This doesn’t mean that the privately virtuous have more of a right to be judgmental, of course. But as most of us have come to find, those whose private virtue is deep and genuine are, as a rule, particularly disinclined to condemning others. And as the cases of Larry Craig, John Ensign, David Vitter or any in the legion of powerful men whose public commitment to biblical values was radically at odds with their intimate lives have shown, the reverse is true as well.
Self-reproach is not only a right, it is a responsibility; people — especially, in our culture, men — could do with a good deal more self-examination.
You say that “especially, in our culture, men” ought to do a lot more self-examination. I think most people, at least among the people I have met, do a lot of self-examination. Who among us does not want to know and understand themselves better? I don’t agree that people in general need to do a lot more self-examination. Perhaps they would serve themselves well by engaging in different types of self-examination, or exploring additional areas of their lives that can be easily overlooked, for whatever reasons, but I don’t think there is a problem with the quantity of self-examination itself.
Moreover, your gratuitous dissing of men may earn you some points among persons with a certain ideological bent, such as many of the regular readers of your blog, but it does nothing to strengthen your claims here; in fact, it undermines them.
And cripes, enough already with the idolatry of marriage; calling it the
“cornerstone” — a term with Christological significance — is sloppily inaccurate at best and blasphemous at worst.
I don’t see any idolatry in Ms. Lopez’s article, and certainly not in the part that you quoted. For one thing, just because she used the word, “cornerstone,” does not mean she meant it in a Christological sense, as you are reading it. Also, hurling words and expressions like “idolarty,” “sloppily inaccurate,” and “blasphemous” really does nothing to support your argument here.
It is axiomatic, after all, that we rail and splutter with the greatest indignation against those things we loathe inside ourselves.
“Axiomatic” is overstating this purported phenomenon. I don’t see how this proposition has attained the status of an axiom.
Ms. Lopez has written a reasonable article whose theme is redemption. You would do well to reread the article, perhaps a few times, to pick up on the points that you apparently missed on your first reading, in your zeal to skewer the writing of a respected conservative columnist.
How kind and thoughtful you are, Willow, to be so concerned with the quality of my argument. What a burden it must be to wade through my clumsy prose and poorly constructed strawmen — and yet you do this so that I might better present my case to the wider world. You — sir or madam or tree — are a true peach.
Bill Clinton, Juanita Brodderick, Monica Lewinsky, Paula Jones…
Oh, yeah. Different.
Actually, there may be a point there. He was only paying lip service to the notion of faith, so his fall is much less.
I believe the axiom is that the louder you are about something, the more likely you are to be a phony.
And “cornerstone” is also an architectural issue.
And, yeah, Gonz, it’s different. Just because.
Willow,
It may be the case that neither Ensign nor Lopez meant to use “cornerstone” in it’s meaning as a Christian term, but it’s still laughable that they seriously think that marriage is the foundation of American society. Never mind that none of the Founders of the United States ever suggested that it was the case, and few (if any) historians have ever suggested as such. Even throught the history of the debate on same sex marriage, it’s only been in very recent years that opponsents of same sex marriage have used the whole “marriage is such an important institution” line.So, either Lopez has a major lack of understanding of history, or is using this rhetoric as a mask for opposition to the gay rights movement. Perhaps both of these situations are true.
Willow,
It may be the case that neither Ensign nor Lopez meant to use “cornerstone” in it’s meaning as a Christian term, but it’s still laughable that they seriously think that marriage is the foundation of American society.
Hello Jaxebad,
Thanks for replying. It is a challenge to identifying the foundation of American society. I like to think that the foundation of our society is the protection of the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Of course, if we take the word “foundation” a bit further, it’s possible that many things comprise the “stones” that form the foundation. For example, one stone may be the unalienable rights I mentioned. Another stone could be our Constitution and system of laws. Still another might be our history and heritage–made up, as it is, of the influences of peoples and traditions from all over the world.
It’s worth noting that Ms. Lopez wrote, “Marriage is a cornerstone.” (emphasis mine) For that reason, I inferred that she meant marriage is one element of the foundation of our society, but certainly not the only one. One of my concerns about Hugo’s reply is that he devoted an entire paragraph to refuting something Ms. Lopez didn’t say. He was talking about marriage as “the” cornerstone, not “a” cornerstone as Ms. Lopez had written. That distinction is important because it changes the importance we place on marriage relative to other important issues of our time.
I might have overlooked it, but I don’t see where Ms. Lopez called marriage “the foundation” of American society, as you claimed.
Never mind that none of the Founders of the United States ever suggested that it was the case, and few (if any) historians have ever suggested as such.
Again, one can debate the contents of the foundation for a long time. I think it’s important not to allow our perceptions of the intentions of the Founders of the United States or historians to trump our own true, verifiable experience.
Even throught the history of the debate on same sex marriage, it’s only been in very recent years that opponsents of same sex marriage have used the whole “marriage is such an important institution” line. So, either Lopez has a major lack of understanding of history, or is using this rhetoric as a mask for opposition to the gay rights movement. Perhaps both of these situations are true.
With all due respect, I don’t see the connection to same-sex marriage here. Ms. Lopez may be for or against same-sex marriage (I suspect she is opposed to it), but that really doesn’t seem to connect with the points she’s making.
I’m way too young to remember anything about this myself, but I’ve gotten the sense that people also began emphasizing the importance of marriage around the time that no-fault divorce laws started to appear in the various states of our country. Absent any reference to same-sex marriage in this article, I believe that Ms. Lopez is talking about the importance of the institution of marriage itself and is not getting into a discussion of same-sex marriage.
Willow, in classical architecture — and in rhetoric since old testament times — a cornerstone is almost invarianly singular; it refers not to every stone placed at every corner, but instead to a single symbolic piece which cements everything else into place. No building has more than one cornerstone in this classic and universally understood sense.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_stone
Hugo,
You are limiting a definition to a very narrow meaning. I understand that very narrow meaning. However, to claim that Ms. Lopez intended to use that very narrow meaning is inappropriate for at least two reasons.
First, there is no evidence in her article that she was referring to classical architecture. Indeed, the fact that she refers to “a” cornerstone rather than “the” cornerstone suggests that she was not talking about classical architecture, in the sense that you are.
Second, your claim about “in rhetoric since old testament times” is, unfortunately, incorrect. The term, “cornerstone,” has multiple meanings, as explained in the following encyclopedia and dictionary entries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornerstone
(”A cornerstone is also a concept which provides the basic tools for understanding or manipulating a larger intellectual edifice.”)(original contains emphasis)
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cornerstone
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cornerstone
Furthermore, you refer to a “universally understood sense” of “cornerstone.” As with your earlier use in this thread of “axiomatic,” referring to a “universally understood sense” here is far too broad. Of course, if you wish to ignore the other meanings of “cornerstone” as we use the word today, you’re welcome to do that, but the result is unclear and unpersuasive.
I ought to note that in the article, Ensign himself talks of “marriage as the cornerstone”, using the definite article correctly. The paragraph I quote from K-Lo is a riff thereon.
In my school we don’t let the students cite wikipedia. Why??? Because anyone can edit the entries. ;)
You know, there is a kind of logic to the idea that those whose internal controls are too weak to live up to their own moral values are all the more invested in enforcing their own moral values via EXTERNAL controls (laws, social stigma, etc.). The problem is that they don’t say so. They don’t say “I am too weak to be faithful to my wife if the law does not make it a crime for me to have sex outside of marriage. It is only fear of legal punishment that will keep me faithful.” Rather, they suggest that OTHER people need those sanctions.
And that is really frustrating. First of all, because no, plenty of other people do NOT need the fear of those sanctions in order to live up to their individual committments, thank you very much. And second because they are advocating making their own moral values into “the law of the land” in order that they themselves may better live up to them, when those morals are not universally shared, infringe on the liberty of others to make other social arrangements, and are not required to prevent harm to other society members. I know that people like K-Lo THINK that these morals are somehow required to mitigate harm, but I don’t buy it, and a large percentage (probably a majority) of this society don’t buy it. That’s why adultery laws are no longer enforced though they are on the books in many localities (including mine). I guess I should note as a third reason for frustration that significant sanctions (such as resignation and disgrace for public officials) DON’T seem to actually be effective in preventing them from failing to live up to their moral standards, so really, they just want to impose them on the rest of us, or impose them selectively whenever they feel like shaming someone, without them serving the purpose of making them live up to their own committments. I hope none of these people self-identify as libertarians.
“Cornerstone” of what?
Yes, Ensign’s infidelity might give some insight into the motivations for his expressed views (although I’m less than convinced as to a random stranger’s ability to reliably intuit such things) but if one’s concern is with the actual argument about marriage as opposed to doing a character study of Ensign then do such motivations really matter?
There probably are some situations where an argument has significant support due to people thinking “Well, person X believes this, and they’re a thoughtful, upstanding person, so I’m inclined to agree”, in which case the argument is undermined by evidence that person X is acting out of some irrational bias. E.g. I think it’s relevant to point out if a vocal scientific opponent of the idea of anthropogenic climate change has significant funding from the oil industry, as that could create a conflict of interest and, crucially, people often do have to rely on the perceived authority of others’ opinions when it comes to complex science. But I doubt the above applies much to Ensign, in which case his infidelities do not particularly “undermine the case for the traditional and limited marriage franchise, a case near and dear to both the senator and the arch-conservative pundit.” Which says nothing about the strength of such case, just the irrelevance of Ensign’s motivations.
It seems to me one of the many factors which often degrade the quality of internet debate is the pointless attempt to divine the hidden prejudices of one’s opponents. Pointless partly because armchair psychoanalysts are probably as good at it as armchair anything else, but primarily because a good or bad argument generally remains so whether the one advancing it is motivated by careful reasoning, blind prejudice, or just a whimsical desire to go trolling.
And, yeah, Gonz, it’s different. Just because.
No just because. It’s different because we don’t expect people who hold to no principles to adhere to any.
And as for Ensign, Sanford, Clinton (Who I notice is getting thousand dollar lap-dances in Argentina now, too) - a pox on all of them.
If you’re going to bother marrying, keep the vow. Or don’t bother. And if you fail. expect scorn and shame. You deserve it. AT the very least get a separation.