Tensions as a result of the sexual revolution and relaxed standards in educational and religious institutions surprised the good-hearted liberals of the 1960's who first supported these innovations.
The good-hearted liberals thought the above social changes were supposed to make people more open and accepting, and thus happy.
However, many were suddenly confronted by strong emotional undertows of intense discomfort in response to these social changes.
Were these undertows "bigotry" and "sexual repression" and "subconscious bias" which must be rooted out?
Or were these undertows a reflection of basic human psychology that should be respected?
In addition, the value in being happy was replaced by a value in being bitter so that you will remain in a state of waging social revolutions.
If you feel that the negative feelings in response to the sexual revolution and relaxed standards reflect essential human needs, you will probably swing to the more traditional and conservative.
If you interpret those undertows as this new "subconscious bias" invention and "sexual repression", then you are likely to follow an activist path and seek to "smash the system", as they said in the 1960's.
In the "smash the system" camp, it is assumed that whatever is more free and liberated is bound to
make you happier. Should one be surprised by that undertow of strong emotion that does not feel comfortable with sexual freedom or relaxed academic and religious standards, just label those feelings as bigotry and root them out by continuing one's limitless behavior. Then, almost imperceptibly, the value on being happy gave way to the value of being bitter so you will wage social revolutions.
Let's back up a bit to the time in which people were not fully admitting their differing fine prints.
You see, the fine print among the more activist camp meant that you follow your feelings as long as they lead away from limitations, as long as they are in line with liberal agendas.
The sexual revolution was supposed to free up peoples’ ability to express affection. It was considered important for people to undo the shackles of sexual repression, and once we were all free, we were supposed to realize that sex was no big deal. (Wait, that is a bit of a contradiction but let’s put that aside for now.)
The relaxing of mores regarding group belonging in educational and religious institutions would lead to a more inclusive society:
- Regarding education, affirmative action meant that minority students could get into competitive colleges despite lower grades. Busing inner city children would make those populations more open minded and accepting.
- Regarding religion, some churches relaxed their belief that only the baptized receive communion. Ministers and Rabbis performed joint wedding ceremonies in order to be more welcoming, though such ceremonies did not follow the respective mores that these clergy were representing, such as: only the baptized should take vows and receive communion, a Jew should marry another Jew, and traditional ceremonies reflect these assumptions.
“Who is a Jew”? became headline news in the late 1980’s as relaxed conversion standards in the United States finally confronted the Israeli Law of Return - are converts to Reform Judaism Jewish enough to claim rights under the Israeli Law of Return? Are those with a Jewish father and non-Jewish mother likewise entitled to be regarded as Jews by the Jewish state? It turned out that the Reform did not have the groundswell of support from the global Jewish community that they had anticipated.
Social changes were expected to cause some chagrin to the old-fashioned, but this was a new society and things would soon be better.
Then came the undertow. Strong emotion was bubbling up in response to these social changes, and such emotion was not expressed just by the old-fashioned who were looking on disapprovingly; strong emotion was expressed by the very people who were taking part in these social revolutions, who were supposed to be proving that the shackles of the past were easily jettisoned.
The liberals themselves were hurting, and had no where to go, because they were told that any other option was "repressed" or "bigoted". The liberals were were thus intellectually trapped.
Here is what I witnessed:
- Break ups after a sexual relationship were taking an unanticipated and even long-term emotional toll.
- Abortion was more frequent than the liberals who supported it ever would have imagined, and it was hurting women and men in ways never predicted.
- Suspicion on the college campus that minority students had usurped a seat from a deserving white student caused friction and tore at the community fabric. Boston public schools are known for their low standards of education, might busing, with its associated lack of community cohesion, be a factor? I liked the neighborhood feeling of Brookline Massachusetts in the 1970's and 1980's, we walked to school, walked to friends' homes in the afternoon, why shouldn't kids in the inner city have that too?
- Members of liberal churches started having internal strife as their relaxed standards of what constitutes a Christian began to frustrate even those who had originally pushed inclusivity. I was privy to a blow up in the Immanuel Episcopalian church in Boston in the early 1990’s in which a new minister was hired who was going to buckle down on inclusion - I think it was going to be based on baptism or acceptance of creeds, I do not know, but friction was growing. The more liberal Episcopalians protested this swing to the right, but some were glad he was going to set some needed limits.
- Jewish people started showing up at orthodox synagogues not looking for more observance, but, and they would say this, looking to date another Jew. “At my Reform synagogue you do not know who is Jewish anymore, I want to marry a Jew and even though I am not a believer I realized I had to network here.” That told me that in those liberal Jewish communities, even other liberals are looking sideways at their co-congregants.
- Intermarried Christian-Jewish couples were showing more intra-family friction than they had anticipated.
If liberals had been comfortable with liberal innovations, you would have expected them to continue being comfortable with the outcomes of those innovations, right? But that did not happen.
Again, on
one side of the liberal camp, the fine print was:
I. Lowered standards will not change relationships, academic quality, or authentic religious expression:
- Education standards would never be compromised. Once a minority student gets into a competitive college, even with a weaker academic background, she would just acclimate to the new environment and improve academically. Even the vocal Yolande Smallwood, of blessed memory, spoke out and said that this was a sink or swim attitude on the part of the Middlebury college administration.
- More open sexual activity would not trigger deep emotions nor would it interfere with the institution of the family.
- More open religious communities would help people get accepted, but religious observance would not be lowered.
For this camp, the above social stability did not happen. Inclusiveness was damaging institutions. This was very difficult for people to admit openly, because they hazarded being labeled, "bigot!"
And on the other more activist side, the fine print was:
II. These innovations are social revolutions:
- Liberation from the shackles of the traditional family.
- Academic curricula to reflect "consensus" and not external Truths.
- A realization that religion is invented and can be easily changed.
You cannot lie to yourself for long.
The fine prints were clashing.
If
you are supposed to follow your feelings, well, if confronted with
negative feelings, then it would be natural to change course and try
something new.
Something new could have been - looks like sexual activity really does need some limits, abortion should be rare, and offered as an option right along with adoption and foster care; busing was a fine social experiment but in light of the educational level of Boston public schools maybe we can think of something new, like integrated living; Affirmative Action has reached its limit so let’s go back to educational standards and color-blind admissions, religious organizations need to be a bit more up front with the traditions that they are built upon so people can make wiser choices.
But this did not happen. Because buried in the fine print of “follow your bliss” was, on the activist side - your bliss better be in line with liberal agendas. If you wake up out of them, then you are sexually repressed, a racist, a bigot. People were not becoming happier, they were becoming bitter, and this gave way to a new value: Cynicism became a good thing.
And the more activist side was louder, better funded, could threaten "you are a bigot!" and shut out the more conservative liberal voices who possessed a very different fine print.
So we were not allowed to think. We had no where to go. And that causes social backlash.
And there is yet a deeper side to this. Those who said, "follow your bliss as long as you do not hurt anyone", gave way to:
"You should be bitter in order to wage social revolutions and undo old fashioned shackles. The personal is the political, it is good to confront and provoke conservatives and traditionalists, to make them feel discomfort to wean them off their old fashioned narrow mindedness. Offend. Confront. You have friction in your family as a result of your interfaith marriage? Good! That means you are intelligent and have a complicated life. "
This second approach, the, actually you should be bitter, explains why any so-called feminists scorned Amy Coney Barrett's adoption of two black children and her cherishing of her son with Down's syndrome. She was scorned by liberals because they want people to be in a state of bitterness in order to wage social revolutions, they could not relate to the happiness of the Barrett family. It explains the cynicism and ruination of relationships in the liberal world.
All of the above benefits the Left, because they seek social change though social instability. They are fine with your bitterness, because it leads to backlash, and your backlash is their paycheck.
If you are a lawyer, journalist, paid activist, politician, or professor, the above activist paradigms may work for you, but you better not have much of a conscience.
As individualist feminist journalist Helen Lewis admitted in her interview with Jordan Petersen concerning the paradigms she pushes, “it’s a living”. She cheated on her husband, divorced, and admitted to struggling financially afterwards. Petersen had warned her that her ideas ruin relationships.
He was right.
Those who are not attached to the purse strings of activism may just find that these liberal innovations blow up, and they are the ones holding the bag.
The activists that promoted destructive social revolutions will not be there to help you out of the mess they made for you.
And here is why - the activists made their salary and left.
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Post script on Jewish ritual - there are liberal movements declaring that Jewish women should perform rituals that are traditionally the domain of Jewish men. There is also a "Women of the Wall" movement and a breakaway "Other Women of the Wall" movement.
Look carefully at those for whom this call for ritual equality seems to work. The couples in which both husband and wife are both wearing talleisim (prayer shawls) and donning tefilin (used in prayer) and praying in synagogues with no divider between men and women - the few for whom this seems to work tend to be in influential positions and strategically placed in activist platforms. Question the source of their funding.
They are dishonest because they know that most Jewish women will not don traditionally male religious attire, this keeps the activists in a state of endless war, Marxist style. Some have said to take down the divider between women and men at the Western Wall for most of the day in order to "share time". They do not really want it to be taken down, they want to say it in order to provoke a response from the traditional camp. "I provoke, therefore I am" is their calling card.
There is no spiritual tradition that calls for living in strategic opposition to another, looking over one's shoulder, asking, "did I offend? Yes? Great!" None.
What if men need to feel needed? What if, should their wives be able to do it all, that men feel superfluous? Maybe men need to feel special.
(Those Haredi - ultra orthodox - women who do don tefilin and wear talleisim would never dream of using this as a political prop to start a movement. They do so out of fear of Heaven, not an urge to be on camera.)
"There is a trend of Jewish college boys dating Asian women." Quote from a Jewish friend, mid 1990's. I have no idea if this observation was borne out by any study, but could it be that if men feel superfluous, they may seek affection from women from societies that expect women to be more subservient?
Think this through, take note, because those pushing ritual equality just might have made their salary and left.
