Morality is about more than just sex
Apr. 18th, 2005 07:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
forsythOver the past at least twenty years, probably longer, discussions of values have utterly degraded here in the US. These days, if somebody says "moral values", they're almost certainly only talking about one of two things, sex or death.
This has happened because both of these can be powerful hot button issues, that will mobilize people to vote. And over time, the fundamentalist fragment of the public has managed to limit any discussion to just these. With full help from their supporters in the Republican party. Allegedly, in the last election, voters who were voting for "moral values" voted 2-1 for Republicans, or something like that. And by "moral values" most of them probably meant abortion and being against gay marriage. And frankly, that's bullshit.
Being "abstinence only" is a moral value, yes. But so is teaching people healthy sex-ed, which includes contraceptives. Being against gay marriage may be a value, but so is being for equal rights for gay folks. Free speech is a moral value. Tolerance is a moral value. Punishing corporate criminals is a moral value. Making companies pay for the shit they dump in everyone's water and air is a moral value. Moral values aren't limited to just sex and death. The fundamentalist factions like to focus on those, because then they can specify about a "culture of life", while doing jack shit about any of the rest. Help the poor? That's not the government's job. Regulate corporations? That's not the government's job. That's just business, just stuff that should be left to private enterprise. People are going bankrupt paying for health care? Leave it up to the free market. Those are moral choices too.
You'd never know it from listening to the US press, though. Part of the problem is that some liberals have forgotten that tolerance means you can take moral stands, and that liberals are a fractured group of interests that haven't found a few overriding themes they can all at least tolerate and articulate well, like the "conservatives". And because of this, we've let the "conservatives" claim words like "morals" and "values" and a good chunk of religion, because they've been aggressively after it for years. It's like in Starcraft, the liberals got to a place, figured it was far enough, and started arguing instead of expanding. Meanwhile, the reactionaries have been out claiming all the vespene and crystals that used to be between us, and suddenly they're on the doorstep and we're fighting desperate defense. First thing you have to do is fight back, take the fight to them. Act, not just react. We have moral values. It's not something limited to fundamentalist reactionaries. Hell, if they want to quote the bible, Jesus talked a lot more about the poor than he did about homosexuals. Got a lot angrier at salesmen in a church than he did about people having sex. I'm not even a Christian, and I know this.
The point is, you can't play with kid gloves when the other guys have brass knuckles. Reactionaries of all stripes like to make shit up about "liberals", an attack us for "not having any values". They're wrong. We need to stand up and call them on it, not just keep rolling over. Rolling over's one of the best ways to convince people that yeah, we don't stand for anything. Tolerance doesn't mean letting other people talk shit about you. Tolerance doesn't mean letting people lie about you. Truth is a moral value, after all. Tolerance means that we'll let them believe what they want, not that we'll let them put it into action. Especially when it harms other people. And yes, it means we can think our moral values are better. If they weren't, why would we believe them instead of others?
Morals, ethics, and values are not the sole property of reactionary fundamentalists. And it's long past time we quit letting them pretend it was. We can figure out where our values overlap, and where we can find common ground. And we can agree to disagree on some things. And on some things, we can fight tooth and nail. All of which are better than letting them pretend the only values that matter are theirs. And to convince everybody else of that, we have to stand up for ours. Which we should be doing anyway, if our values aren't worth fighting for, what good are they?
Tags: Politics, Mindscribbles, Language, Sex
This has happened because both of these can be powerful hot button issues, that will mobilize people to vote. And over time, the fundamentalist fragment of the public has managed to limit any discussion to just these. With full help from their supporters in the Republican party. Allegedly, in the last election, voters who were voting for "moral values" voted 2-1 for Republicans, or something like that. And by "moral values" most of them probably meant abortion and being against gay marriage. And frankly, that's bullshit.
Being "abstinence only" is a moral value, yes. But so is teaching people healthy sex-ed, which includes contraceptives. Being against gay marriage may be a value, but so is being for equal rights for gay folks. Free speech is a moral value. Tolerance is a moral value. Punishing corporate criminals is a moral value. Making companies pay for the shit they dump in everyone's water and air is a moral value. Moral values aren't limited to just sex and death. The fundamentalist factions like to focus on those, because then they can specify about a "culture of life", while doing jack shit about any of the rest. Help the poor? That's not the government's job. Regulate corporations? That's not the government's job. That's just business, just stuff that should be left to private enterprise. People are going bankrupt paying for health care? Leave it up to the free market. Those are moral choices too.
You'd never know it from listening to the US press, though. Part of the problem is that some liberals have forgotten that tolerance means you can take moral stands, and that liberals are a fractured group of interests that haven't found a few overriding themes they can all at least tolerate and articulate well, like the "conservatives". And because of this, we've let the "conservatives" claim words like "morals" and "values" and a good chunk of religion, because they've been aggressively after it for years. It's like in Starcraft, the liberals got to a place, figured it was far enough, and started arguing instead of expanding. Meanwhile, the reactionaries have been out claiming all the vespene and crystals that used to be between us, and suddenly they're on the doorstep and we're fighting desperate defense. First thing you have to do is fight back, take the fight to them. Act, not just react. We have moral values. It's not something limited to fundamentalist reactionaries. Hell, if they want to quote the bible, Jesus talked a lot more about the poor than he did about homosexuals. Got a lot angrier at salesmen in a church than he did about people having sex. I'm not even a Christian, and I know this.
The point is, you can't play with kid gloves when the other guys have brass knuckles. Reactionaries of all stripes like to make shit up about "liberals", an attack us for "not having any values". They're wrong. We need to stand up and call them on it, not just keep rolling over. Rolling over's one of the best ways to convince people that yeah, we don't stand for anything. Tolerance doesn't mean letting other people talk shit about you. Tolerance doesn't mean letting people lie about you. Truth is a moral value, after all. Tolerance means that we'll let them believe what they want, not that we'll let them put it into action. Especially when it harms other people. And yes, it means we can think our moral values are better. If they weren't, why would we believe them instead of others?
Morals, ethics, and values are not the sole property of reactionary fundamentalists. And it's long past time we quit letting them pretend it was. We can figure out where our values overlap, and where we can find common ground. And we can agree to disagree on some things. And on some things, we can fight tooth and nail. All of which are better than letting them pretend the only values that matter are theirs. And to convince everybody else of that, we have to stand up for ours. Which we should be doing anyway, if our values aren't worth fighting for, what good are they?
Tags: Politics, Mindscribbles, Language, Sex
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no subject
Date: 2005-04-19 12:14 pm (UTC)Nah, that's just good taste.
And yeah, it's not as bad as the press make out probably, I have a great deal of anger at our utterly shitty press lately. Irresponsible, lazy, ignorant...
Most people are nice, But no matter how nice, there's only so much they can do when they're ignorant, and we and the press need to do better jobs. And if the press won't, we need to do it for them, or force them to.
Oh, and thanks for reading, first time any of my forum links to my LJ have actually worked. :)
no subject
Date: 2005-04-19 01:50 pm (UTC)I wish there was some regulartory body for the TV press in Canada so I could go raise hell. Some of the stuff that's shown on the news wouldn't be allowed in a primetime TV show, so why's it okay at the dinner hour across a national show? Bfeh.