Oh, Canada - Chapter 6 - Pretension or Piety
Pretension or Piety
“Now the family is an institution of which nearly everyone speaks well; but it is advisable to remember that this is a term that may vary in extension. In the present age it means little more than the living members. Even of living members, it is a rare exception when an advertisement depicts a large family or three generations; the usual family on the hoardings consists of two parents and one or two young children. What is held up for admiration is not devotion to family, but personal affection between the members of it; and the smaller the family, the more easily can this personal affection be sentimentalized.
But when I speak of the family, I have in mind a bond which embraces a longer period of time than this; a piety towards the dead, however obscure, and a solicitude for the unborn, however remote. Unless this reverence for the past and future is cultivated in the home, it can never be more than a verbal convention in the community. Such an interest in the past is different from the vanities and pretensions of genealogy; such a responsibility for the future is different from that of the builder of social programmes.” - Notes Toward the Definition of Culture p.44-45, T.S. Eliot
Proponents of same sex marriage express shock that defenders of traditional marriage should fear anything bad could possibly result from permitting same sex persons to be married. Hundreds of same sex marriages have been performed since the courts ruled in favour of such unions and the “sky hasn’t fallen” is the standard response.
It is a matter of fundamental human rights says our Prime Minister. Objectors are labeled as narrow-minded, intolerant or excessively religious.
Since there are so many supporters of same sex marriage who in every respect seem to be honest, decent, thoughtful people; it occurred to me there must be something much deeper than intellectual disagreement at work here.
I found some important clues in T.S. Eliot’s work from which I selected the epigram. Defenders of traditional marriage are talking about the need to preserve the family in the sense of that word used by Eliot – as an enduring bond linking past, present and future; while the supporters of same sex marriage are focused on the “vanities and pretensions” of the personal affections contained within families.
If family has become no more than a verbal convention to describe a level of love and commitment between two persons, then surely anyone should be able to marry. In such a society marriage and family are merely social programmes administered and regulated by governments. The fact children of same sex parents in many instances will be unable to trace their origins back even one generation will be of no concern to a society focused on the immediacy of affection.
The rights being sought by gays and lesbians are not for access to the institution of marriage and its link to family, but rather the right to fundamentally change the definition of marriage and thus strip it of is inherent value and worth.
A society which abandons a fundamental link between its past and future seems doomed to take on continually increasing risk of not learning from its mistakes.
“Now the family is an institution of which nearly everyone speaks well; but it is advisable to remember that this is a term that may vary in extension. In the present age it means little more than the living members. Even of living members, it is a rare exception when an advertisement depicts a large family or three generations; the usual family on the hoardings consists of two parents and one or two young children. What is held up for admiration is not devotion to family, but personal affection between the members of it; and the smaller the family, the more easily can this personal affection be sentimentalized.
But when I speak of the family, I have in mind a bond which embraces a longer period of time than this; a piety towards the dead, however obscure, and a solicitude for the unborn, however remote. Unless this reverence for the past and future is cultivated in the home, it can never be more than a verbal convention in the community. Such an interest in the past is different from the vanities and pretensions of genealogy; such a responsibility for the future is different from that of the builder of social programmes.” - Notes Toward the Definition of Culture p.44-45, T.S. Eliot
Proponents of same sex marriage express shock that defenders of traditional marriage should fear anything bad could possibly result from permitting same sex persons to be married. Hundreds of same sex marriages have been performed since the courts ruled in favour of such unions and the “sky hasn’t fallen” is the standard response.
It is a matter of fundamental human rights says our Prime Minister. Objectors are labeled as narrow-minded, intolerant or excessively religious.
Since there are so many supporters of same sex marriage who in every respect seem to be honest, decent, thoughtful people; it occurred to me there must be something much deeper than intellectual disagreement at work here.
I found some important clues in T.S. Eliot’s work from which I selected the epigram. Defenders of traditional marriage are talking about the need to preserve the family in the sense of that word used by Eliot – as an enduring bond linking past, present and future; while the supporters of same sex marriage are focused on the “vanities and pretensions” of the personal affections contained within families.
If family has become no more than a verbal convention to describe a level of love and commitment between two persons, then surely anyone should be able to marry. In such a society marriage and family are merely social programmes administered and regulated by governments. The fact children of same sex parents in many instances will be unable to trace their origins back even one generation will be of no concern to a society focused on the immediacy of affection.
The rights being sought by gays and lesbians are not for access to the institution of marriage and its link to family, but rather the right to fundamentally change the definition of marriage and thus strip it of is inherent value and worth.
A society which abandons a fundamental link between its past and future seems doomed to take on continually increasing risk of not learning from its mistakes.
posted by Ben Buan | 10:21 a.m.
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