Da Tech Guy seems surprised:
Raquel Welsh echoing Robert Stacy McCain?
Yet we should not be surprised that even a legendary bombshell would acknowledge self-evident truth:
One significant, and enduring, effect of The Pill on female sexual attitudes during the 60’s, was: “Now we can have sex anytime we want, without the consequences. Hallelujah, let’s party!”
These days, nobody seems able to “keep it in their pants” or honor a commitment! . . . [Marriage] is the cornerstone of civilization, an essential institution that stabilizes society, provides a sanctuary for children and saves us from anarchy.
In stark contrast, a lack of sexual inhibitions, or as some call it, “sexual freedom,” has taken the caution and discernment out of choosing a sexual partner, which used to be the equivalent of choosing a life partner. Without a commitment, the trust and loyalty between couples of childbearing age is missing, and obviously leads to incidents of infidelity. No one seems immune.
So she agrees with me. And other guys in funny hats, like Paul VI.
UPDATE: Of course, not everyone agrees with Raquel and me. A commenter at Hot Air, for example:
I’m married. My wife is on the pill. It beats the hell out of condoms. Cheaper too. When we want another child, she’ll stop taking it.
This article is a bunch of generalizations, loose connections, and statistical bullsht . . . which has no basis in fact or reality, but simply in emotional prejudice. . . .
Is it to make the pill illegal? Is it to ban the choice altogether based on morality, backed by the power of Government?
Or is it to spread the word and hope to educate people about something so they adjust their lifestyles to what you approve?
This type of objection — “How dare you criticize my choice!” — is a logical consequence of the very cultural shift under discussion. Welcome to the Empire of Choice. We may summarize the commenter’s implicit syllogism thus:
- You criticize Practice A.
- I engage in Practice A.
- Ergo, you are attacking me personally.
I have often encountered such emotional reactions over the years as an advocate of home schooling and critic of the public education system. Criticize public schools in general, and you will quickly discover that some people think it a sufficient refutation to say, “Well, I graduated from public school and I’m OK,” or, “My kids attend public school and it’s just peachy keen.”
Heaven forbid you should cite evidence (e.g., education majors, on average, have the lowest SAT scores of all college students) that the teaching profession is nowadays dominated by intellectual mediocrities. Then you will catch holy unshirted hell from some teacher, or a teacher’s spouse or child, accusing you of defamation.
Contrary to the commenter’s mischaracterization of my essay, what I sought to assert was that:
- The Pill is mindlessly celebrated by the media, which downplays or ignores the potential health risks;
- The advent of The Pill, and the public-relations campaign with which it was introduced, gave rise to the Contraceptive Culture;
- The Contraceptive Culture has had disastrous consequences, very much confirming the warnings of Humanae Vitae; and
- Among the consequences of the Contraceptive Culture is a greater frequency of infertility, depriving women of the opportunity for motherhood.
Nowhere did I urge that The Pill should be made illegal, nor do I suppose that my essay would compel people to “adjust their lifestyles to what [I] approve.”
My approval is as irrelevant as the commenter’s indignation. What is relevant, however, is the extent to which Americans have been indoctrinated with the beliefs of the Contraceptive Culture. If the indignant commenter had followed the link in that essay to my July 2009 post, “Big Money and the Culture of Death,” he would have seen this quote from Bill Buckley:
In the hands of a skillful indoctrinator, the average student not only thinks what the indoctrinator wants him to think . . . but is altogether positive that he has arrived at his position by independent intellectual exertion. This man is outraged by the suggestion that he is the flesh-and-blood tribute to the success of his indoctrinators . . .
No well-informed person can deny that such indoctrination has been integral to the advance of the Contraceptive Culture, and one of the central tenets of that culture is the imperative of nonjudgmentalism: “Thou Shalt Not Criticize Thy Neighbor’s Lifestyle.”
Every reader of this blog is free to engage in whatever lifestyle suits them, without regard to whether I approve. I have at various times criticized cosmetic surgery, and yet I suspect that Raquel Welch has benefitted from surgical enhancement. Am I guilty of condemning Raquel Welch? No. And it may well be that Raquel Welch disapproves of cigarette smoking. Does this imply any insult to me? Not at all.
Yet such is the nature of discourse in the Empire of Choice that many people believe that any general criticism (“Tattoos are tacky”) amounts to a personal putdown (“My mother has a tattoo! How dare you insult my mother!”).
Well, I don’t like tattoos. I also don’t like modern art or cats or rap music. It’s a free country, and if people want to waste their money on Picasso prints, pedigreed cats or hiphop CDs, I can’t stop them. But it’s not my fault that some people so crave approval that they feel personally insulted by even the most general criticism.
