Politics, Sex, and the Family

America was founded by thinkers, serious thinkers who struggled with new theories of how things ought to be, rather than resting content with how things were. They believed the old political relationships between the rulers and the ruled were falsely based on pretended rights of strength, wealth, birthright and tradition. They concluded that these connections were manmade rather than natural, and therefore were not morally binding. They decided that the only morally binding relationship between a government and its people would have to be based on consensual agreement of all the parties. These 'contracts' would have to be freely entered into by equal partners, and rationally negotiated for everyone's benefit.

Family relationships were a different matter, for it seemed evident that these relationships are based on nature. Rulers and ruled are not drawn to each other by any natural longing or love, but lovers and families are. It was therefore expected that family relationships would remain intact, and this in itself would be a good thing for the state. When loyalty and devotion to a divinely ordained king was replaced with a dispassionate political contract, there would be far less emotional force to make citizens remain loyal during times of difficulty. Instead, people would turn their passions toward their loved ones. Because the state protected families and kept them safe, however, this would provide a powerful incentive for remaining loyal.

But American history is the story of the continuing forward march of our twin goals of freedom and equality, and this dual mission has now reached deeply into our family relationships. Husbands and wives and children argue about 'freedom' and 'equality', and establish relationships based on agreements rather than nature, negotiating these agreements with due regard to individual rights and sovereignty. The issue remains on the table, however, of whether the intimate relations between men and women, parents and children, are fundamentally shaped by rational choices or natural impulses.

Personal freedom now demands the same respect as political freedom. As a result, the old tension between longing for personal freedom and longing for intimate attachment, between individuality and mutuality, once understood to be the permanent condition of human life and a source of much serious thought and creativity, no longer troubles us very much. There is hardly any tension left. Freedom won.

The complementary struggle for Equality has put an end to much injustice, but along the way it attacked all the legitimate differences amongst people as well as the illegitimate ones, and "PC" now makes it dangerous to even discuss whether there are any legitimate differences that ought to be reinstated.

This vast extension of our political project into our personal lives first appeared in two successive waves during the 1960's -- the sexual revolution and feminism. The first championed Freedom, the second championed Equality.

The sexual revolution freed us from the remaining residues of Puritanism. No longer were any obstacles in the way of the free expression of our sexuality. Making love, not war, was to become our primary activity, and this was promised as the key to true happiness. For this new project, men and women would necessarily become more emphatically men and women.

But it did not turn out that way. When sex became 'easy' it became 'no big deal'. The most striking effect of the sexual revolution turned out to be passionlessness. Making sex easy trivialized it.

It also removed the need, which in the past had been especially important to women, to invest serious emotions into sexual relationships. Soon, among the young, convenient coed 'roommate' arrangements became the norm. Everyone became comfortably unisexual, reverting to males and females only for the sex act.

After the sexual revolution liberated us from convention, feminism came along to liberate us from nature. Biology was no longer destiny, though this required a stunning assortment of new laws to help repress some apparently natural instincts that could no longer be tolerated.

While the sexual revolution had aimed at bringing men and women together bodily, feminism aimed at helping women realize that they did not need men at all. Free of male tyranny, women were free to do 'more important' things than develop deep emotional relationships with men and create and care for a stable home and family. This whole notion was contradictory to the original aim of the sexual revolution, which was to invigorate life with endless sexual passion. So the two movements parted ways, leaving conservatives paranoid about both sides, and liberals trying to figure out which side to support.

Despite the many successes of egalitarianism, nature continues to weigh more heavily on women than on men. If a woman wants children, nine months of pregnancy will continue to get in the way of her career. We can legislate paternity leaves as well as maternity leaves, but we cannot pretend that we don't notice the difference. In addition, a woman today is less likely than ever to receive help from a man. The male drive to protect women was certainly sexist and patronizing, but it did accomplish the task of encouraging many men to participate in the family, reconciling the tension between their desire for freedom and their desire for attachment. Now that this incentive has been discredited, men are given license to be irresponsible. The problem can be attacked by rational negotiations and legal procedures, but if men don't feel it these contracts will be broken.

Still aching for human attachment, we have no other recourse but to reduce our relationships into contracts: I'll do this if you'll do that, and we'll continue with this arrangement for as long as both parties find it satisfactory. Relationships are based on reciprocal benefits rather than natural inclinations, on self-protection through negotiation rather then mutual-perfection through love.

All of this has ended in dismantling the family. Child-bearing is again somewhat in vogue, but children are to be had on the mother's terms, with or without fathers. So we have reproduction without family, all of which ironically feeds into the old complaint of women that men do not want to make commitments and do not want the responsibility of a family.

The important lesson that children once learned in the family, even unhappy ones, was that there was always going to be this one unbreakable bond, for better or worse. With the decomposition of the family, children learn instead to fear relationships and to trust nothing. As they grow up, Allan Bloom noted, these children "are full of desperate platitudes about self-determination, respect for other people's rights and decisions, the need to work out one's individual values and commitments, etc. All this is a thin veneer over boundless seas of rage, doubt and fear."

But this is a two-sided fear: the fear of being alone and the fear of attachment. Either possibility arouses anxiety, with the result that enthusiasm for life is cooled, youthful confidence and hope for the future begin to fade, while self-doubt and cynicism take their place.

So we turn to therapists to help our children 'adjust', to tell them everything is all right and here is what they should think and feel rather than what they do think and feel. After all, they are better off this way than in an unhappy home, and their parents still love them. But however reasonable this sounds to adults, children don't believe any of it. They just feel the pain, indignation and fear, and are confused by always being told to feel something other than what they feel. An all-too-common way to cope with this is to learn to feel nothing.

Children have always expected to leave the family, but today it seems as if everyone, parents and kids alike, are itching to be 'free'. So children learn early on that bonds are made to be broken and love leaves. The family, once considered a constant in life, is now just temporary, so children realize at a young age that they must prepare to be alone and self-sufficient, and must not count on anyone or risk falling in love.

Past forms of relationship between men and women, filled with lies and injustice and unhappiness, are best left to die. But as these old forms have disintegrated, nothing has taken their place but confusion. Our human feelings have been dampened or re-defined to toe the line with political ideology. As a result, our souls cry out for a chance to discover what we actually feel and desire, what we actually are, before we 'correct' it.

Everyone is free, but free to do what? Everyone is equal, but there is no guiding principle to link us together, no common good to motivate us. Our paths are flat and parallel, no longer pointed toward each other, and no longer pointing upward. If something does not change, our admirable principles of freedom and equality will only be realized at the cost of everything that is noble, excellent, beautiful, and worthwhile.