I see what you're saying, and to me, yeah, this is one of the fascinating things about Card's position. It's not so much homosexuality that bothers him, it's the entire modern (as in, within the last century or two) project of redefining marriage. The vast majority of us in the West now believe that it makes perfect sense and is only right and proper that people enter only into marriages that make them subjectively happy. That's a pretty new project, so his ultimate point is somewhat valid: Civilization was not built on companionate marriage. It's not a proven commodity yet, on the historical scale.
However, he's way out of the mainstream on this one. We've been increasingly, *rapidly,* moving toward a model of marriage that favors personal satisfaction over social interests, and by now it's essentially a done deal. Marriage SIMPLY DOES NOT mean what he thinks it ought to mean in this culture anymore. That's why it makes no sense to most of us when he says that homosexuality is natural, but that civilization depends on people doing what is unnatural for the greater good, ergo gay people ought to marry heterosexually for the good of us all. Under the currently dominant meaning, our culture identifies those as *fake* marriages, as *shams.* Only Card's preferred meaning makes that a viable option, and even most people who don't care for the idea of gay marriage generally agree that the "fake" loveless self-sacrificing marriage is a terrible idea as well.
He's just plain lost the battle to define marriage as he pleases. Our expectations of marriage are generally not the ones on which civilization was founded. Will this be the end of us all? Well, it's only been a hundred years or so since companionate marriage became a dominant cultural standard, so it could be too early to tell. But I don't think it looks like the end of us all just yet, in spite of Card's belief that enforced heterosexual marriage is the only thing that staves off complete social breakdown and mayhem.
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Date: 2008-08-12 04:33 pm (UTC)From:However, he's way out of the mainstream on this one. We've been increasingly, *rapidly,* moving toward a model of marriage that favors personal satisfaction over social interests, and by now it's essentially a done deal. Marriage SIMPLY DOES NOT mean what he thinks it ought to mean in this culture anymore. That's why it makes no sense to most of us when he says that homosexuality is natural, but that civilization depends on people doing what is unnatural for the greater good, ergo gay people ought to marry heterosexually for the good of us all. Under the currently dominant meaning, our culture identifies those as *fake* marriages, as *shams.* Only Card's preferred meaning makes that a viable option, and even most people who don't care for the idea of gay marriage generally agree that the "fake" loveless self-sacrificing marriage is a terrible idea as well.
He's just plain lost the battle to define marriage as he pleases. Our expectations of marriage are generally not the ones on which civilization was founded. Will this be the end of us all? Well, it's only been a hundred years or so since companionate marriage became a dominant cultural standard, so it could be too early to tell. But I don't think it looks like the end of us all just yet, in spite of Card's belief that enforced heterosexual marriage is the only thing that staves off complete social breakdown and mayhem.