Ah, thank you for this kindly blessing! As it so happens I was led into deep prayerful thoughts on Anna the Prophetess earlier this year, in my Notes on Scripture. Amazing what you are led to see in the few verses that tell of her.
You sister in Christ, looking forward to the great Communio Personarum!
Thank you, Dr. Farrow. The paragraph that begins with "coercion is increasingly necessary" is a succinct description of a very large facet of our multi-faceted "incomprehensible society" (as Anna the Just calls it). You named another facet in your 2005 speech, referring to children becoming chattel of the State. It's true that changing our society's view of "natural parent" and "natural child" into "legal parent" and "legal child" has, in the last twenty years, effected the outcomes you indicated were inevitable. And now, faced with a real prospect of war and having to build a real army, our society finds itself lacking young men and women who have put away childish things and identify with the nation we call Canada and who would be willing to fight evil: there are simply not enough of them, and first- and second-generation immigrants who fled war-torn homelands are not about to fight again. Who then will fight for Canada on the land, on and in the sea, and in the air? Thus the next step for our society is to implement the technologies of The Brave New World, to make legal babies and legal children and legal workers and legal soldiers. And, why not, legal priests who pray for peace.
A real army. We used to have one, an admirable one. With lots and lots of money we could still have an army of robots, quite lethal robots, no doubt. Or an army of viruses, also quite lethal, if more difficult to command. But we haven't the money and who (beside the sort of people I wrote about in America's War) wants all that anyway? It's a terrible prospect! And you are right, we cannot have a real army now either: an army of men defending what is proper to men. We no longer know what a man is or what is proper to a man, or if it is proper for there to be men. As for "legal priests who pray for peace," that sounds very like our politicians, who themselves look and sound a bit like that fellow pictured (from Popular Mechanics) in "The Pope and his Prefect."
My family member was there and commented that she learned to never trust the media after they didn’t show the protestors on the news and only showed a few counter-protesters. So at least it was educational!
I have children in the so-called Catholic school system and it certainly seems like education is an afterthought, with all their assemblies, campaigns, announcements, and theme days and months. We have to carefully check the calendars and emails to sniff out objectionable content. Things only became worse after Doug Ford was elected, and our local Tory MPP had the nerve to tell us the school system is going back to basics.
I agree with your point about children being the object of resentment and covetousness. It certainly feels like parents are seen by the medical and educational professions as an inconvenience and an obstacle, and parents have to be prepared to tussle for their children, while avoiding full out fights where possible.
Some of this attitude was apparent when we noted in our child’s medical files that the parents had not taken the COVID vaccine. We have also had unmarried teachers a year out of teacher’s college talking to us like we are morons.
The ease with which Catholics were swept away by "Charter values" inimical to the Catholic faith is truly remarkable. They received their reward in the person of Trudeau fils. But that was just a down-payment.
The piece is thought provoking. I am largely in disagreement with the conclusions you are coming to but am here as a student if you have the time to clarify my doubts:
Please correct me if I misinterpret your thesis; I read it as you stating that the widening of the category of marriage (and the respective cultural/spiritual streams of thought that led to this widening) is having a significant (in my mind, a greater than 2-3% correlative effect) on cultural and institutional outcomes. Importantly- if it was to be compared to any other possible factor (such as technological advancement, both in a literal and cultural sense) that has significantly changed in the last 50 years could it be proven to take sole or even majority responsibility for lower birth rates, fewer atomic families, less traditions being passed down and followed, rising depression and feelings of existential worry, etc. . ?
I would guess that what you claim does hold true in some places and for some people- marriage was a vessel through which a family's projected image of theology was passed down via the archetype of man and woman- which itself is a necessary requirement for those particular values and not as some shallow aesthetic for tradition. Marriage was the embodiment of what would be required for those very values (and the spiritual / theological ties from which they have been excavated) to exist and continue existing.
The category was changed to become wider- a contract with the state that allows any two people to be recognized by said state as sharing tax responsibilities and having custody rights of whatever children they raise.
This will impact the way that tradition is passed down in families as it broadens the requirements and archetypes required to do so- it alters the detail and fabric of the theology marriage was originally created to maintain and nourish.
But I don't see any explicit removal (as a man and a woman may still enact the exact same traditions as they had before) but rather that single set of value now placed beside a broader definition which includes values better reflecting the desires (and perceived needs) of the voting populace at the time.
So assuming I have understood your points and proven as such with my statements previous, please help me understand:
How large of an effect do you believe this re-categorization of marriage has on the negative outcomes you are indicating arose because of it? Is it more than 50% of the cause? Less than 2%?
Furthermore, what other technological, cultural, and global circumstances have contributed- and by how much? Surely such a huge shift in the behavior of younger folks with regard to reproduction, tradition, and trust in the state itself could be caused by a number of factors, many of which are largely unrelated to marriage and reproductive traditions?
Are there states or countries you can point to that did not implement such widening of category in the last 50 years and that also have undergone the technological transformations the west has, but do not observe the list of ailments you point out that have started cropping up in our societies? Singapore comes to mind for me, but I would draw from that example a different conclusion about the reasons for its apparent cultural robustness than yourself, I am sure.
Thank you for your questions, albeit on matters too large to treat here. The link that sends you to 'a very much longer essay' provides one place where I treat a few of the many factors that produced the social phenomena in question, but I do not profess to offer a statistical analysis of their causes and effects. I very much doubt that's possible. A multidisciplinary approach is necessary and such an approach will never reduce to statistics and percentages, even where it can benefit from sort of work.
In any event, you are working here with a premise I rejected already in Divorcing Marriage (2004). Marriage was not widened. One can't widen what is already universal. Per the UDHR everyone has a right "to marry and found a family." Many are unable to realize that right, of course, and many others choose not to exercise it. One reason for not exercising it (only one, and not the most common) is being attracted to others of the same sex rather than of the opposite sex. What was done with the invention of SSM was to create a new institution for such people, of which they again might or might not take advantage.
Whatever the merits or demerits of that new institution, the fact is that it was substituted at law for the old one, usurping its place. It did not open up marriage but changed its meaning. It did not extend its effects but undermined its functions. Most notably, as I said in the recorded speech, it set procreation and the rearing of children by their natural parents to one side and, insofar as it retained reference to them, changed them from natural to legal relationships. This altered the relation of every citizen to the state, which assumed an authority it does have. Do read Nation of Bastards and Desiring a Better Country for a fuller explanation, or look at my essays in Touchstone, for example, if you need further help with that.
We have progressed already, in two decades, so far down the trajectory I indicated that we have come, for example, to the point where we pretend that a boy can become a girl or a man become pregnant. Which is a deliberate break with reality, an attack on sanity, and an assault on women and children, whom the institutionof marriage is meant to defend. Are we ready now, having seen some of the consequences, to discuss the moral perversion that led us down this path? In "No More Lies: The Measure of the Beast," I suggest that we ought to be. And by "us" and "we" I intend (as its reader will learn) a very wide and inclusive sense.
Just Anna Silvas here, from Australia. How much I do chime with your occasional send-outs. What a wonder that we had that meal together years ago in Rome. I hardly knew the eminence of the intellect I had had the chance to meet.
Pray for this struggler, aging now, and largely living a hidden life these days, in an incomprehensible world, and in an incomprehensible church.
Dear Douglas,
Ah, thank you for this kindly blessing! As it so happens I was led into deep prayerful thoughts on Anna the Prophetess earlier this year, in my Notes on Scripture. Amazing what you are led to see in the few verses that tell of her.
You sister in Christ, looking forward to the great Communio Personarum!
Anna
A little slow on the uptake? Families are families no matter how they're formed:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/multi-parent-families-rights-children-quebec-civil-code. Which is another way of saying that we can't say what a family is any more.
Who owns the children? In Massachusetts they are debating whether to fortify the answer, the State and its Pharma partners do: https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/massachusetts-laws-remove-vaccine-religious-exemptions-parental-consent/
Thank you, Dr. Farrow. The paragraph that begins with "coercion is increasingly necessary" is a succinct description of a very large facet of our multi-faceted "incomprehensible society" (as Anna the Just calls it). You named another facet in your 2005 speech, referring to children becoming chattel of the State. It's true that changing our society's view of "natural parent" and "natural child" into "legal parent" and "legal child" has, in the last twenty years, effected the outcomes you indicated were inevitable. And now, faced with a real prospect of war and having to build a real army, our society finds itself lacking young men and women who have put away childish things and identify with the nation we call Canada and who would be willing to fight evil: there are simply not enough of them, and first- and second-generation immigrants who fled war-torn homelands are not about to fight again. Who then will fight for Canada on the land, on and in the sea, and in the air? Thus the next step for our society is to implement the technologies of The Brave New World, to make legal babies and legal children and legal workers and legal soldiers. And, why not, legal priests who pray for peace.
A real army. We used to have one, an admirable one. With lots and lots of money we could still have an army of robots, quite lethal robots, no doubt. Or an army of viruses, also quite lethal, if more difficult to command. But we haven't the money and who (beside the sort of people I wrote about in America's War) wants all that anyway? It's a terrible prospect! And you are right, we cannot have a real army now either: an army of men defending what is proper to men. We no longer know what a man is or what is proper to a man, or if it is proper for there to be men. As for "legal priests who pray for peace," that sounds very like our politicians, who themselves look and sound a bit like that fellow pictured (from Popular Mechanics) in "The Pope and his Prefect."
What would you be fighting for anyway? Freedom? Safety? Your home and culture as it was? Sounds like you need to choose the right enemy first.
My family member was there and commented that she learned to never trust the media after they didn’t show the protestors on the news and only showed a few counter-protesters. So at least it was educational!
I have children in the so-called Catholic school system and it certainly seems like education is an afterthought, with all their assemblies, campaigns, announcements, and theme days and months. We have to carefully check the calendars and emails to sniff out objectionable content. Things only became worse after Doug Ford was elected, and our local Tory MPP had the nerve to tell us the school system is going back to basics.
I agree with your point about children being the object of resentment and covetousness. It certainly feels like parents are seen by the medical and educational professions as an inconvenience and an obstacle, and parents have to be prepared to tussle for their children, while avoiding full out fights where possible.
Some of this attitude was apparent when we noted in our child’s medical files that the parents had not taken the COVID vaccine. We have also had unmarried teachers a year out of teacher’s college talking to us like we are morons.
The ease with which Catholics were swept away by "Charter values" inimical to the Catholic faith is truly remarkable. They received their reward in the person of Trudeau fils. But that was just a down-payment.
The piece is thought provoking. I am largely in disagreement with the conclusions you are coming to but am here as a student if you have the time to clarify my doubts:
Please correct me if I misinterpret your thesis; I read it as you stating that the widening of the category of marriage (and the respective cultural/spiritual streams of thought that led to this widening) is having a significant (in my mind, a greater than 2-3% correlative effect) on cultural and institutional outcomes. Importantly- if it was to be compared to any other possible factor (such as technological advancement, both in a literal and cultural sense) that has significantly changed in the last 50 years could it be proven to take sole or even majority responsibility for lower birth rates, fewer atomic families, less traditions being passed down and followed, rising depression and feelings of existential worry, etc. . ?
I would guess that what you claim does hold true in some places and for some people- marriage was a vessel through which a family's projected image of theology was passed down via the archetype of man and woman- which itself is a necessary requirement for those particular values and not as some shallow aesthetic for tradition. Marriage was the embodiment of what would be required for those very values (and the spiritual / theological ties from which they have been excavated) to exist and continue existing.
The category was changed to become wider- a contract with the state that allows any two people to be recognized by said state as sharing tax responsibilities and having custody rights of whatever children they raise.
This will impact the way that tradition is passed down in families as it broadens the requirements and archetypes required to do so- it alters the detail and fabric of the theology marriage was originally created to maintain and nourish.
But I don't see any explicit removal (as a man and a woman may still enact the exact same traditions as they had before) but rather that single set of value now placed beside a broader definition which includes values better reflecting the desires (and perceived needs) of the voting populace at the time.
So assuming I have understood your points and proven as such with my statements previous, please help me understand:
How large of an effect do you believe this re-categorization of marriage has on the negative outcomes you are indicating arose because of it? Is it more than 50% of the cause? Less than 2%?
Furthermore, what other technological, cultural, and global circumstances have contributed- and by how much? Surely such a huge shift in the behavior of younger folks with regard to reproduction, tradition, and trust in the state itself could be caused by a number of factors, many of which are largely unrelated to marriage and reproductive traditions?
Are there states or countries you can point to that did not implement such widening of category in the last 50 years and that also have undergone the technological transformations the west has, but do not observe the list of ailments you point out that have started cropping up in our societies? Singapore comes to mind for me, but I would draw from that example a different conclusion about the reasons for its apparent cultural robustness than yourself, I am sure.
I look forward to your response.
Thank you for your questions, albeit on matters too large to treat here. The link that sends you to 'a very much longer essay' provides one place where I treat a few of the many factors that produced the social phenomena in question, but I do not profess to offer a statistical analysis of their causes and effects. I very much doubt that's possible. A multidisciplinary approach is necessary and such an approach will never reduce to statistics and percentages, even where it can benefit from sort of work.
In any event, you are working here with a premise I rejected already in Divorcing Marriage (2004). Marriage was not widened. One can't widen what is already universal. Per the UDHR everyone has a right "to marry and found a family." Many are unable to realize that right, of course, and many others choose not to exercise it. One reason for not exercising it (only one, and not the most common) is being attracted to others of the same sex rather than of the opposite sex. What was done with the invention of SSM was to create a new institution for such people, of which they again might or might not take advantage.
Whatever the merits or demerits of that new institution, the fact is that it was substituted at law for the old one, usurping its place. It did not open up marriage but changed its meaning. It did not extend its effects but undermined its functions. Most notably, as I said in the recorded speech, it set procreation and the rearing of children by their natural parents to one side and, insofar as it retained reference to them, changed them from natural to legal relationships. This altered the relation of every citizen to the state, which assumed an authority it does have. Do read Nation of Bastards and Desiring a Better Country for a fuller explanation, or look at my essays in Touchstone, for example, if you need further help with that.
We have progressed already, in two decades, so far down the trajectory I indicated that we have come, for example, to the point where we pretend that a boy can become a girl or a man become pregnant. Which is a deliberate break with reality, an attack on sanity, and an assault on women and children, whom the institutionof marriage is meant to defend. Are we ready now, having seen some of the consequences, to discuss the moral perversion that led us down this path? In "No More Lies: The Measure of the Beast," I suggest that we ought to be. And by "us" and "we" I intend (as its reader will learn) a very wide and inclusive sense.
20 years later and your words still ring true.
Dear Douglas,
Just Anna Silvas here, from Australia. How much I do chime with your occasional send-outs. What a wonder that we had that meal together years ago in Rome. I hardly knew the eminence of the intellect I had had the chance to meet.
Pray for this struggler, aging now, and largely living a hidden life these days, in an incomprehensible world, and in an incomprehensible church.
with love, Anna
Good to hear from you, Anna the Just. You are now, in your way, like Anna of the tribe of Asher, whose Great Expectation was not disappointed.