“To put the above another way – imagine if the exact same evidence suggesting illegitimacy and divorce are bad for kids instead implied that, say, chlorine in swimming pools was bad for kids in the same way. That children exposed to swimming pool chlorine are much more likely fail in school, in work, to end up in prison and so on. I don’t think anyone except spokesmen for chlorine producers would bother to argue against the evidence”

What is it with right-wing commentators on this site and terrible, terrible analogies?

Suppose children were routinely exposed to conflict, put in frightening situations and perhaps abused or forced to watch someone they loved being abused? Would Conservatives then argue that it was the chlorine in the pools that was damaging the children? What about if there were children who swam in chlorine pools but weren’t exposed to the above, and they were well-adjusted? Would the Tories still insist it was chlorine in pools that was damaging kids?

I bet they would, you know.

As for:

“Did you know that if a man’s IQ rises by 16% he improves his chance of mating by 35%. If a woman’s IQ rises by 16% her chances reduce by the same amount”

I think newmania means “getting married” here by “mating”. In which case – apart from the likelihood that some men are threatened by women who don’t act dumber than them – might many intelligent women just not feel the need to marry? Might they and their loved ones be perfectly happy living just as married families do but without a piece of paper? Why would that matter? (Of course, if this statistic is accurate – and coming from Newmania the chances are he overheard it in the pub or is reproducing it from guido’s comments section – it is more likely to have something to do with the tendency of highly educated people with lofty career aspirations to wait before settling down.)

I love the implication that someone’s IQ might rise by 16% overnight, btw.

Various levels of self deception/rationalisation ensue for both children and parents (after the parting of the ways) including a fair amount of free floating anger – while children may act out or become depressed, etc, etc.

It goes without saying that children from divorced parents are far more likely to repeat this pattern of behaviour (the so called repetition compulsion).

When it’s time for bed, nobody invites the state to come with them.

Wise words. Motes & beams.

“The obscure sect, dating probably from the second century, professed to have regained Adam’s primeval innocence. Various accounts are given of their origin. Some have thought them to have been an offshoot of the Carpocratian Gnostics, who professed a sensual mysticism and a complete emancipation from the moral law. Theodoret (Haer. Fab., I, 6) held this view of them, and identified them with the licentious sects whose practices are described by Clement of Alexandria. Others, on the contrary, consider them to have been misguided ascetics, who strove to extirpate carnal desires by a return to simpler manners, and by the abolition of marriage.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adamites

Right-hand, or Left-hand: either way they are a bloody nuisance!

And what’s this?:

“The nuclear family, sustained by the middle-class myth of everlasting love and marriage, is an incredibly efficient way of dividing labour in the context of industrial capitalism, as observed by nearly every brave leftist writer from Engels to Betty Friedan.”

Wow! I haven’t heard this kind of shit for 25 years. I feel quite sorry for British conservatives: its 2009 and they still have to argue against this self refuting rubbish. I’d advise them not to bother. You cannot argue with minds so disabled by ideological fanaticism. You should expend your energies arguing with socially liberal conservatives. You must accept that some people are just imbeciles and will never change their position on certain things because they are impervious to factual argument.

Elite opinion will change eventually simply because 1000s of years of human experience, across civilizations and cultures cannot be denied indefinitely. Unfortunately it will probably only change when the problem of an unsocialized underclass grows so large that it can no longer be ignored.

I say -This is as banale a vision of “happiness” as I would expect . Happiness is not an end , a cow is happy and epsilon more so , we crave more than this. One of the reasons for revering monogamy or marriage is that it is an institution that celebrates truly knowing and devoting yourself another person. Naturally this heroic feat is fraught with danger , unhappiness , failure.It is not for everyone . Nonetheless it is a noble endeavour in itself and one far superior than the vain silly quest for happiness.
I would rather suffer the miseries of a poet than endure the happiness of a pet rabbit even if John B does think it is a “Nice thing “

Category error.

‘Personal happiness’ is an end – it’s a nice thing that everyone, unless they’re really really evil, would like to see happen for everyone in an ideal world. But ‘family responsibility’ is a means – it has no value beyond the extent that it leads to greater personal happiness for everyone. Which it sometimes does, and sometimes doesn’t.

So preferring personal happiness to family responsibility is definitionally the right thing to do, unless you actually believe family responsibility is the /only/ way to achieve personal happiness.

(great original piece BTW)

A single parent having to survive off of handouts. I actually agree with your point re the extended family though.

“You have laid out with clarity and honesty what every conservative suspects lefties of thinking, but doesn’t actually believe they are capable of thinking. From the upfront admission that you prefer personal happiness to family responsibility, to the contempt for ‘middle-class’ values, it is word-perfect left-wing writing.”

To be fair I think this is more redolent of the loonly left than the moderate left, although there may well be traces of the thinking of the former in the latter.

Some men would pay good money for that.

Cool. ^.^

That’s what’s wrong with Conservatives.

“My god I put up with plenty of lies in empirical clothing from New Labour .”

That’s what’s wrong with New Labour.

Cicero – I also drink the blood of Christian babies. Om nom nom.

Those are some fascinating statistics, if they’re true – although perhaps they also indicate that women are more likely to look for intelligence in a mate?

‘Men however refuse to become house husbands , women refuse to support men and so we have a large loose end to the feminist revolution.’
Well, yep, this is part of the point I’m making here. The revolution has come to a standstill: more cannot be acheived until the system changes such that one partner is not forced to become a ‘house’ anything, and so that domestic labour and the labour of childcare is both valued and shared equally. My idea of heaven is not, believe it or not, a nubile and greased effeminate young man chained to the sink!

I have a lot of thoughts about masculinity and what’s good about it, some of which I’ve shared on here, some of which I haven’t. If anyone else would be interested, I might write a separate post in the near future?

You have laid out with clarity and honesty what every conservative suspects lefties of thinking, but doesn’t actually believe they are capable of thinking. From the upfront admission that you prefer personal happiness to family responsibility, to the contempt for ‘middle-class’ values, it is word-perfect left-wing writing.

The bile and hatred that bubbles beneath your piece is breathtaking. Conservatives often wonder if they have invented a false enemy in the angry lefty, but here you show that such anti-conformist fury, such passionate ill-feeling towards those who subscribe to ‘heteronormative’ views, is very real.

Thank you, genuinely, for making crystal clear who the enemy is for conservatives.

When it comes to economic matters he wants the state to stay away as much as possible. When it comes to social issues he would like the state to interfere so everyone can be pushed in the direction he would like.

Sunny
That is not what I said is it ? I said would like the state to get out of marriage by removing the fiscal impediments it has erected . I am , also far less of an economic liberal than many “Liberals “ that comment here anyway. By your standards I may have a traditional fondness for free enterprise but its not an ideological necessity . Goodness that was hard. (yawn)
On the stats Polly Toynbee mounted a contextualising counter argument to this and much more of the same that would provide some balance it could be easily googled if you want some ammo .Both time scale and class differentials are good points of attack . I feel the Conservative case is overall a good one (if less eye catching than the one I have presented ) but it is only asking for less interference and so quite modest. No Conservatives would countenance more than encouragement by the state which being the ritual expression of an organic society is not conceived as the main player except by unfortunate necessity . If people had to be forced to get married there would truly be no point .I , like most Conservatives , usually ignore statistics , and I approve of the scepticism shown here in general .My god I put up with plenty of lies in empirical clothing from New Labour .These were taken from right wing commentators in the national Press. They are what they are

Laurie I approve of emotion and distrust reason . I like the way you wear your heart on your sleeve which makes for invigorating reading .I am far from sure that as a woman you can go on pretending to be a subordinated group though. Did you know that if a man’s IQ rises by 16% he improves his chance of mating by 35%. If a woman’s IQ rises by 16% her chances reduce by the same amount ( The amount of childless graduate women is staggering ). Why because women refuse to marry “beneath them”.
Women are surging through our elite institutions and the scale of change before us is as yet unnoticed . Men however refuse to become house husbands , women refuse to support men and so we have a large loose end to the feminist revolution. Are you sure you are not fighting a battle that has already been won and “losing the peace “. Just as devolution eventually lead us to the unnoticed English problem Feminism has reached a point where we have a “Male “, problem. My feeling is there is altogether to little discussion of men in the context of feminism and what women really want from them .I would be fascinated to know what someone like you admires in a man ..( his feminine side ?)

Conservatives as ever take a pragmatic view and watch a new ‘team’ marriage evolve with approval even if it includes numerous elements that would make the old style man hater pull her underarm hair out . Just let us get on with it .

That ios precisely not wqhat i have said isn1

I’d argue that in the real world the greater contradiction is supporting minimal government in theory while in practice supporting the social liberalism and family breakdown that inevitably create the demand for ever more government and welfare to pick up the pieces.