Black and White, and All the Shades of Grey

I'm going to go there and bring up this story, and I pray as I write this to express myself with charity. I feel that I ought to have some element of surprise when these pop up in the news, and I'm a little disturbed at the decreasing sensitivity in my reactions. I think it is because it follows so well with the ways that post-modern culture has re-defined Truth, Freedom, and generally what is Acceptable and Good decision-making. I could go in about a hundred different directions with this (and invoke a hundred different angry responses from the relativist' crowd). I think what is ultimately highlighted here is how abiding to one's feelings as Dogma, Morality begins to unravel, forcing us into another realm of 'What now?' where society places its efforts in assuaging the situation ex post facto, Ie, 'What's the most ethical and compassionate way to introduce your [alreadydeterminedtobehealthyandgood]'Open marriage' to your children? What are the methods of choice these days?' The solution from a psychologist: "I might say something like, 'Mom and Dad still love each other very much... but we have a need to be close to other people. Some people have relationship where it's okay to live with someone and also be close to other people." After all, the "...relationship can be different from everyone else's, and if it works for you in your heart, that's what you do." Or how 'bout "Even if you have an open marriage, and you go out swinging, it's not something you necessarily tell your children." Is it just me or is someone missing the pink elephant in the room here?! So what do they want us to conclude? I'm hearing this: 'By all means give yourselves the option to explore new realms [swing] if you must follow [Serve the God of] your heart [carnal desire], but don't tell your kids about it, it might be psychological damaging.....they're not ready to understand such 'nuances' of Adult relationships...give them time, and they will surely understand what love means eventually..."

Suppose now I said: The institution of marriage and family life is being shaken at its foundation!

[What a narrow-minded, backwards-thinking, religiously-righteous, itolerant and judgmental thing to say! How dare you! ]


The "Both of us are free to do whatever we choose" phenomenon of mixed-orientation marriages is effectively stripping the essence of the marital vow (Fidelity anyone? Is there going to be paperwork for the option of this - after Compromise was discussed? Maybe after the prenuptial agreement???????). What if in a mixed-orientation marriage, one individual wants to have children and the other doesn't ? Should she pursue IVF - or perhaps, given the stipulations of an Open relationship, another relationship in which to have a child? What role would the father have in the 'marriage' ? Should the spouse have any say in whether his partner can pursue having children 'outside of the marriage' ? What of the relationship of current children with new people their parents get involved with? Should this all happen only if they are getting serious about it? How serious can extraneous relationships outside the real marriage get? Should these issues be discussed up front or as they come along? ......Is it not curious that there always seems to be a backlash of about 1,000 "WHAT NOW" questions to address, leaving some with Deer in the Headlights looks -but proponents of any and all Acclaimed Expression of Freedoms will not be shaken by it.

Then the relativist brandishes his most prized weapon - the now fashionably quotable biblical verse from Matthew 7:1, "Judge not that ye be not judged!" It comes out almost as a reflex, as if it is the Shield Against Everything that is in disaccord with their personal lives. The commonplace misuse of this passage certainly doesn't match up in Matthew 7:6, 1 Cor 2:15, or Prov 31:9. And that's just to mention a few.

I digress for a moment to contemplate on a World Without Judgement:
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Criminals of any kind - murderers, drug traffickers, rapists - all would wander about freely doing as they please.

No discipline of children, no guidelines for how to make decisions - apart from saying they should follow whatever they think is right.

Education systems could not be standardized or structured in any way. No one could be forced to be educated formally or at all. There would be no way to account for satisfactory performance.
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How does this make sense if I am a believer in freedom of thought, speech, and religion?

I am simply challenging what freedom really means to society today, in our culture and around the world. Is it really doing anything and everything we want without regard for the consequences to ourselves or others? What are our judgements based on? Our feelings? Collective experience? Or something more than that? Are we all not seeking some fundamental element of purpose that connects all of humanity? Why do we even talk of 'humanity' or the 'human family' if there is not in fact something that unifies us?

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What we need not is a cold acceptance of the world as a compromise, but some way in which we can heartily hate and heartily love it. We do not want joy and anger to neutralize each other and produce a surly contentment; we want a fiercer delight and fiercer discontent. We have to feel the universe at once as an ogre's castle, to be stormed, and yet as out own cottage , to which we can return at evening.
No one doubts that an ordinary man can get on with this world...[But] can he hate it enough to change it, and yet love it enough to think it worth changing?
-G.K. Chesterton
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