Those who would like to see traditionalists and progressives compromise on issues should be asked how it advances us to be ruled by half- rather than fully lunatic policiesfor progressive discourse has become lunacy seasoned with childish derision.
In the wake of several new YouTube videos revealing the rampant leftist bias of the college classroom I thought a transcript of a very informal exchange in the Ivory Tower might not be taken amiss. Here follows a conversation overheard the other day in a small colleges loungebetween two men whom I shall call the Traditionalist and the Progressive.
T: Im not denying that shes a very attractive girl. Im just distressed that she doesnt seem to have a stronger moral character.
P: Because shes not married to her boyfriend yet she lives with himis that your objection?
T: Well part of it. She also appears to have had more than one boyfriend. Some of themmaybe most of themarent around much longer than a weekend. At least thats the way she tells it. And Im bothered by the way that she tells all these things out in the open where anyone can hear as if she were talking about the weather. We dont really know each other but I know all kinds of details about her personal life.
P: So honesty is something else you dont like about her?
T: You can call it honesty if you like. I could tell everybody the details of my last trip to the bathroom and that could be honesty too.
P: So you think having sex is like having a bowel movement?
T: It seems to be for some people doesnt it? Something you just have to do once a dayan involuntary behavior forced upon you by the healthy functioning of organs.
P: But you think its something dirtysomething smelly and disgusting. Dont you?
T: Why would you say that? Because I dont think it should be discussed publicly? You seem to think that honesty is as simple as sharing all of ones private life with the world. Can you not think of any reason for holding something back other than that its dirty and smelly?
P: Actually no. I wouldnt shout my credit card number to the world but… but thats another matter. A matter of self-preservation. But in matters of lifestyle I dont know why a person shouldnt be free to say what she wants. Yours is the crowd thats always screaming bloody murder over the fate of the First Amendment.
T: Im not saying she doesnt have the right to recite her catalogue of boyfriends; Im saying its in bad taste and that it doesnt show her moral character in a good light. Come to think of it yours is the crowd that doesnt want people to utter racial slursand its not just a matter of taste with you. You go as far as criminalizing speech that you find offensive. You want students expelled from campusand faculty dismissed from their positionsfor saying things like… I dont know… like Lauren is attractive." If I said that in her presence I could be fired for sexual harassment.
P: Yes if she found it offensive. You could be making her feel that shes just a piece of meat on the counterwhich is crudely put but thats exactly the way those remarks make some women feel.
T: Yet these same women in some cases chatter on and on about their latest sexual partners without any hint of binding commitment or spiritual attachment. And the rest of us have to hear which dog has most recently salivated over the meat.
P: You perceive what shes saying in that light because youre obsessed by what you feel is the dirtiness of sex. Shes actually trying to share her happiness with people she considers her friends.
T: Well maybe Im trying to share my happiness when I say Lauren how pretty you are in that blouse!" Isnt it kind of obsessive in a woman to think that such remarks are always about her boobs? Therere a lot of plain-looking people in the world. Maybe Im just trying to thank a friend for not being one of them… and then she makes a beeline for the Title IX Compliance Officer.
P: As Ive said… you have to consider how your remarks are received by the other person.
T: And as Ive told you the other person should give a little thought to how her remarks are received by me and by others who honor their wives and families and believe in monogamy and in a life dedicated to sacrifice rather than pleasure.
P: Oh please! Would you feel better if we gave you a medal?
T: No. You see people who give things up for higher alternatives dont do that for medals. Medals are just garbage. But we would feel better if you would show a little respect for the struggle. If you were a smoker and had decided to kick the habit would you appreciate my lighting up right in front of you?
P: So now youre saying that sex is a kind of addiction and that you married guys are recovering addicts?
T: As a matter of fact if you want to reduce it to those terms I wont object. Yes when youre trying to stay on the straight and narrow it doesnt help to have revelers splashing you with Champagne from both sides. Thats part of what was once called common decencya large part. I understand your position believe meprobably better than you do. People like you think that people like me are hypocrites and perverts who hate all the things that are naturally pleasant. We dont. And its really very arrogant of you to think we do. Maybe you just like belittling us for the feeling of superiority. But youre right that we do try to suppress certain pleasures in order to build things that require focus and dedication.
P: Actually only the suppress" part is what I think of you…
T: Good. Then at least you understand that suppression involves a certain effort. And its not very nice of other people to complicate the effort casually and without a thought. Common decency doesnt tell the rest of you that you cant burn the candle at both ends. It just requires that you not do so in our presence and especially in our faces.
P: No. You dont like light. I get that part. In too much light one runs the risk of seeing. Thats why you have to wear blinders.
T: As a matter of fact blinders are better than the alternative. Those clinical studies you love to cite have shown that heavy consumers of pornography just want more and more and finally want to do something besides look at pictures.
P: Oh really? Which study would that be? Id be impressed if you could come up with one… though the Organization for the Biblical Overhaul of Reality has probably published several come to think of it.
T: Well Im sure that few organizations measure up to the objective purity of the Kinsey Report. But say that I accept your snarky comment about blinders. Dont you wear blinders too? Doesnt everyone? The guy who feeds constantly on porn is precisely the guy who cant see that a strawberry blonde looks good in her green blouse. Hes just gaping at her boobshe couldnt tell you green from polka-dot. So it turns out that Title IX crusaders are trying to protect women from the very sex-crazed men that the freedom crusade created in the first place. You guys need the blindersand the curb and the tight reinof a whole new set of laws to keep your hands where they belong.
P: Whoa there Silver! Youre assuming that what you call heavy porn consumers are the friends of sexual emancipation. From where I stand its just the opposite. The guys who need a permanent drool rag in front of their video monitor are the Christian soldiers who cant break ranks publicly to go a-courting.
T: As the studies show… you forgot to add that final fantasy to your fairy tale.
P: And so they do. Thats exactly what they show.
T: Oh for crying out loud…
P: For crying out loud"… you make me think of my grandmother…
T: Yeah okay. Take language. Take venting your irritation with a few f" bombs. Im guilty sometimesbut I dont do it in public. Because other people may be trying to preserve something like civil discourse and if they hear me giving up the cause then theyre that much closer to giving it up themselves. The end of common decency…
P: May she rest in peace… in her unmarked grave.
T: And who everback to your other flimsy contentionmanaged to use fewer foul words by using more? If a revolving door of sexual partners makes a man less inclined to look at porn then letting out a blue streak of cussing should make him less apt to cuss in mixed company than a guy whos bottled it all up. Do you really believe that?
P: About as much as I believe that a guy who goes shooting every weekend is less likely to go postal than a guy who never touches a gun. That I think is your position is it not?
T: No my position is that a guy who knows how to handle deadly force is less likely to use it than a guy whos had no practice with it. A karate black-belt or whatever they call themselves is less likely to get in a deadly brawl than someone who has a lot of anger and no skill.
P: And a skilled lovera black-belt in lovemakingis less likely to glaze over in front of a porn site than somebody who never gets the real thing.
T: For the umpteenth time… its no wonder we get nowhere! You cant keep your mind fixed on the main point. Its not about never… we were talking about monogamy versus promiscuity not lifelong celibacy versus having an intimate girlfriend. Im not making a case for a celibate priesthood or something which is a whole different issue.
P: Just as well. We all know where that ends up.
T: This isnt about life without sexits about a life not dominated by sex but by real caring for ones partner and raising children and other such things.
P: Youre right Id almost forgotten. This is all about what a hard time you have being faithful to your wedding vows because Laurens a slut. Is that because her lifestyle makes you think you might have a chance with her?
T: Im not going to let you piss me off today. You have a well-worn pattern of being the last man standing in an argument because you insult your adversary until hes tongue-tied. Instead Ill just volunteer for a little more rudeness by telling you this. When I was single I could never get interested in a girl who was tumbling around with a different guy every month. She just wasnt even a possibility to me because I could see clearly that she wasnt after what I was after.
P: A mother for your children and a maid for your kitchen. Right. Its a shame to imagine how many girls must have missed out on that grand prize.
T: Are you or are you not capable of being civil? And to think that youre the big defender of campus speech codes the enemy of offensive language…
P: I hadnt realized I had turned you into a victimwhite male and empowered though you are. Perhaps you should be included in a legally protected class… but oh I forgot! You dont believe in protected classes.
T: And Im not asking for yet another one…
P: Good because Im damned if I see what right you would have to it.
T: Im only claiming that I should have the rightsince you mention rightsto believe that Laurens conduct is immoral.
P: Oh you can cuddle that little right and take her to bed with you as far as Im concerned.
T: No thats really not true. If I want to rear my children to believe as I do I cant since you guys have taken my right away. The right to a belief isnt simply the right to think privately because a belief isnt just a thought hidden away secretly in your heart. Its something you impart to your children. The privacy of thought isnt a right but a fact. Thoughts are private by definitionthough your utopian technicians are laboring to change that. The right to a belief is the right of parents to transmit a view of reality to their children. And your bunch refuses to let me teach my children my way rather than your way.
P: I really dont know what youre talking aboutsounds like more neo-Nazi paranoia. Nobody controls what you teach your kids. But you dont control what trained professionals teach your kids either. You cant blame the Establishment for raising children to be socially integrated and considerate of others. Just because your beliefs as you call them divide people and create dissension doesnt mean that society has an obligation to stop teaching harmony and cooperation to its young.
T: Theres no arguing with double-talk. I only wish you could hear just how sinister those sanitized abstractions of yours sound.
P: Im too far gone though… no point in talking to me!
T: Not much. So let me put it this way instead. Say that Im a Muslim. If my daughter ran off with a boy for even one weekend I would smack her silly and lock her in her room for a year. Thats assuming that I didnt kill her. Lets say Im a moderate Muslim so I only take away all my teenage daughters privileges and never let her leave home except to go to school. Would you say that I was… ah what was it now? That I was dividing people and creating dissension? Would you?
P: I wouldnt like what you were doing… but thats your culture.
T: Which is to say those are my beliefs. So why does the game suddenly change if Im a traditional Christian rather than a moderate Muslim?
P: Because… because youre part of OUR culturethe broader dominant culture you see in our movies and TV shows. American culture.
T: No Im not! Thats exactly what Im telling you. Believe me Im not. Your ways are not my ways.
P: But they should be. Youve lagged behind. Our forefathers were all Christians of your Neanderthal stamp… but some of us came out of the caves at last. Most of us. That culture is now this culture. Its the same culture but youve refused to be a part of it.
T: Are you really arguing that because our great-great-grandfathers were all Christian therefore our generation today is required to be post-Christian?
P: Why do you make it sound so ridiculous? Of course thats what Im arguing! That was then and this is now. We all once believedor our forefathers didthat the earth was the center of the universe. That was okay for then; but if you now say that the sun orbits the earth then people will look at you like youre crazyand theyll be right. Our culture moved and you should have moved with it.
T: But the Muslim is excused from moving because…
P: Because Western science was not part of his heritage. Hell come along later.
T: Oh I dont think hed like that formula! But what interests me is you. The Muslim is allowed to lord it over his daughter because… because his culture is inferior and he has to be treated like a little child or someone with Down Syndrome.
P: I didnt say that.
T: What in hell do you think you said?
P: I didnt say he was stupid. I said he was…
T: Backward.
P: His culture is backward.
T: So youre judging his culture now? Because his values are not your values youre going to tolerate him in this condescending way until he learns to exchange God for progress?
P: Youre right. Its completely impossible to carry on a conversation with anyone who speaks in double-talk. Anybody else would get it and I think even you get itbut you enjoy not getting it. You always have to be the caveman. Well enjoy your cold rocks and your wet fire.
I admit that I supplied most of this exchange from imagination rather than memory. In fact I feel that there may be a one-act play looming in the shadows. For brevitys sake though I would just say to those who dream of compromise… forget it. Wake up. I could extend this dialogue for a hundred pages and the two sides would never agree on anything fundamental. Compromise would require the traditionalist to pull the central floor beam out from under his houseand the progressive would rest content with no compromise short of the houses collapse. The middle ground between the Grand Canyons two sides is a fatal plunge into the abyss; and only one sides residents I might add ever seem tempted to take that terminally naive step.