My Absolutes (Having a Takei Old Time)

I should probably write a paragraph about apologies for not posting. Fuck it. You know.

I once wrote a post about how uncertain I felt about certain beliefs, mostly political ones. (Also, philosophical issues that get sufficiently abstract, because I find philosophical reasoning very weird and easy to agree with, because it has a tendency toward good-sounding generalizations. Anyway!) I'm a very liberal person, but I do engage sometimes in quick dips into a more libertarian bent, and I sometimes worry that the fact that I always come back to my viewpoint is more born of intellectual stubbornness than it is my own accuracy.

Another, weirder instance comes when I read conspiracy theorists and the like. Here it's usually a matter of sources. For the most part, I trust the mainstream media, in that I don't expect them to deliberately lie, although I suspect that they are often incomplete and probably mildly slanted. The point is that I wouldn't suspect them of a cover-up, or accuse them of selectively burying stories about UFOs or whatever. When I see people claim that there's any sort of widespread attempts to hide a truth, I usually dismiss, but I can't help but wonder if that's just making me part of the whole cover-up, whether I'm just falling for it. (In reality this doesn't happen with UFOs because, dude, UFOs. I have an emotional "yes" reaction to "drug companies are covering up..."-type statements, though.)

That said, there are a few issues that I feel totally sure on, such that when I'm exposed to the opposite viewpoint I have to stop and remind myself that people do, in fact, think that way. I was a debater in high school, so I'm used to recognizing the logical trains of thought that lead to positions opposed to mind. The systems of thought that seem to lead to those positions are so alien to me that I can't do that.

The main one I can think of is GLBT rights. To me, calling them rights seems natural because I'm so fully in agreement with the idea that these rights--from gay marriage to adoption--are, in fact, basic rights. I could rattle off some reasoning if I needed. It doesn't hurt anyone, who are we to legislate the rights and wrongs of love, everyone has the freedom to choose these things...you get the idea. But I think it's fair to say that in most of my actual thoughts I'm willing to accept the validity and worth of GLBT people and couples axiomatically.

Of course, when you actually believe these things and express them, you occasionally find yourself encountering the opposing viewpoint. When I encounter homophobia and the like, I get a little shaken up. It's actually intellectually disturbing to me that those views still exist. (Please understand that I recognize that this reaction is a flaw, and I ought to be better-equipped to handle opposing viewpoints.) I try to break down the series of premises that I'm breaking down in understanding. In this, I'm dealing mostly with religious-based homophobia. I'm not aware of much in the way of purely secular homophobia that doesn't derive from the religious variation.

1) The belief that there exists a universal moral order independent of causes or reason.
-Divine command theory. I made one of the first posts on this blog about how incompatible it is with humanist ethics. To me, I look at LGBT issues and see only harm in our current policy, with nothing in the way of benefit. But someone with this premise can see a moral benefit in anti-LGBT policy where I can't, and see a harm in pro-LGBT policy that I can't.

2)The belief that the order in premise #1 is known to us. (Or at least to a small group.)
-Even presupposing the existence of #1, we have to proceed to wonder whether or not we know the universal moral order. I'm not aware of any moral order that isn't derived from assumptions required to keep society together--that is, everyone agrees that there exists such a thing as a right not to be murdered for no good reason, and most societies have some idea of property. But I recognize that these are concepts inherent in a society, for without them no society can function. Natural selection is at work here, and it's interesting to note that throughout history many cultures have seen that moral protection end at their own borders. Outsiders and victims of conquest were fair game. Past those basics, cultures vary so much that I have a hard time believing mankind is aware of that order outside of specific religious revelation--that is, outside of the point where anti-LGBT groups start quoting Leviticus. Since I don't believe in the source of that morality, and looking at that general moral system I find it unsuitable, I can't respect this idea.

3)The belief that possessing a particular vision of the order in premise #1 entitles one to legislate it.
-So you have a particular vision of morality. Of course, you also have to recognize that there exist thousands of different visions. In our pluralistic democracy, you would expect to recognize that none of these can claim total dominance, as we have no real way to judge among these systems of morality. Anti-LGBT action, however, is founded deep down on the idea that, possessing a claimed universal system of morality, certain groups have a right to legislate it.

You might think there's another premise here--that the universal morality contains commandments against LGBT behavior. But, actually, I can understand that, granted the other premises. I don't agree with it, but the thought of a divinely revealed universal morality is so ridiculous to me that the details are irrelevant to its credibility.

This extends beyond legislation, really. I was eating with a few friends once, discussing something--I don't remember what, possibly homosexual adoption--when one of them said something like "Kids shouldn't be learning about gay people and lesbians that early." That was the sort of thought I wasn't really able to properly process. Why shouldn't they? Is there something wrong about gays and lesbians that we ought to keep secret? How is introducing a child to the concept of a homosexual couple worse than introducing them to the concept of a heterosexual couple? I was so far off of the premises my friend was speaking from that I couldn't relate to what he said.

I see a lot of this accommodationist-style rhetoric here in Oklahoma among even the more liberal sections. It manifests itself mainly in the general format of "I support X, but Y..." "I support civil unions, but they shouldn't be called marriage" "I'm not a homophobe, but gay people shouldn't be holding hands in public." etc. Many of them accept on some intellectual level that they ought to support LGBT rights, but their system of thought is still thoroughly tied down in the premises of anti-LGBT ideas. We have a long way to go.

Addendum, explaining the title: This post was inspired by a post by George Takei, lately one of my favorite people. Explanations can be found in the following video.