Gay Marriage -Responses to Questions
Created | Updated Feb 22, 2012
Mrs Zen
As I wrote in an earlier post , traditionally I see the idea of marriage as an attempt to bring together two opposites in a universe that builds its strength and vitality upon opposites, which can either struggle or live in peace and harmony, the latter being most conducive to Life as we appreciate it. Of course it may be hard in these days for people to see themselves as individuals, couples or families as in any serious way “atomic building blocks” of reality. But we do know that the splitting of an atom can produce a “chain reaction” .
It also follows, however, from what I have written that marriage is not actually created by any religious or civil ceremony, but by the way that two people actually manage to live their lives as one. And there have been examples, particularly within artistic communities, where Gay Partnerships have been long and enduring, not because of the sex but because of a shared love and appreciation of the art that binds not just the individuals, but also the wider community.
In this respect perhaps the Bloomsbury Circle is an interesting example, for, though there was quite a lot of homosexual activity very few of them defined themselves as “Gay”, most being bi-sexual.
Now Gay-Liberation would argue that social pressures forced these people to live a lie, and deny their sexuality. In this respect “A Portrait of a Marriage” by Ben (?) Nicholson was an interesting study, for neither he nor his brother had really known about their parents open-marriage. It is revealed in Harold Nicholson’s “War Diaries” with some particularly moving exchanges when Harold and his wife Vita Sackville West face up to the very real possibility of German invasion and conquest. Though they have both had gay lovers (Vita most famously Virginia Woolf) both assert that their love for each other and all that they have shared in their love of art, culture, nature, Civilization, and their sons have been the most precious things in their lives, and they agree that they will commit suicide rather than submit to the destruction of their world by any Nazi occupation. They acknowledge too that, if Britain will survive, their world or wealth privilege and Civilization may well not. In the event it did with Harold producing a number of successful books after the war and Vita being able to keep her beloved Sissinghurst going by opening up her fabulous gardens to the paying public.
But I see modern Western Civilization as having lost its way and its sense of purpose with young people being indoctrinated with a “liberation message” that now everyone has a right to “do their own thing”, and seek pleasure and gratification where they may. The message in popular culture is very much “Sex, drugs and rock and roll” and instant gratification. But as current events are showing this disintegration into individualism leaves individuals very much at a disadvantage against the mechanisms that run our world, much as in prehistoric times individuals felt their impuissance in the face of Nature- and found ways to bind the opposites together creating order out of Chaos.
Significantly I thought J.K. Galbraith entitled his last book “The Culture of Contentment”. Americans no longer can dream of a right to “The pursuit of happiness”. This too is a Utopian dream. Only other societies seem to be able to produce expressions of human happiness and joy. The “Dismal Science” of economics and economism has created Dismal Populations that can only grab at passing excitement, and especially good sex which, from the days of Marvin Gayes “Sexual Healing” has tended to become almost a “raison d’etre”.
Peanut
It is true that the commitment of both parents to their children is vitally important, with regular contact being essential for them to understand the particular genetic and historical mix that has created them.. But it is one thing to love your flesh and blood. I still get a shock of the familiar when I hug our two (grown up) children for I recognise their inheritance from great-grandfathers who laboured for a living. But being loved by people who had no choice over what was going to come out of the womb is little consolation for teenagers growing up with the reality that no-one could choose to Love their parents in that total, ‘warts and all’, way.. “Who will chose to Love me?” Will anyone?” That Witney Houston hit. . It is another thing to Love someone who just happens to come into your world from somewhere out of the ether.
And there is nothing like success. One parent’s evening a mother raised up the question of her 14-15 year old daughter’s relations with her classmates. Being a “fools rush in” kind of person I drew a deep breath and took my courage in both hands. The fact was, I suggested, that she happened to have very attractive legs, and seemed to draw a great deal of confidence and assurance from knowing it. The mother smiled at me, and said that she had worked as a legs model in her prime. Relief. I suggested then that she herself might have experiences the envy-jealousy that other school-girls may feel in such circumstances. Another incident with hat pupils arose when she was sixteen and we were just discussing something in probably an RE lesson. At one point when we were discussing things theoretically she said “Well Sir, If we had a date..“ only to be cut off by her scandalised classmates . I noticed on Friends Reunited that this ex-pupil now works in the fashion industry..
To take another field, when I once had the opportunity to address a whole group of parents I advised them not to supply their children with a roll-model of failure.. “I don’t want you to waste your educational opportunities” etc. “I now regret that I did not pay more attention at school”… sending their children off to face the challenge of doing what their parents failed to do or are failing to do. Very few children statistically surpass what their parents did- as long as they had the opportunity. In those days I had a lovely lady who cleaned my classroom who should have been a teacher. In thirties Yorkshire she had gained entry to grammar school, but her father had told her that no-one else in the family had been to grammar school and she was not going. Every week when I knew her she got five or six books out of the Public Library.. There were serious problems with her teenage son, but I recall her pleasure and pride when, through a rather tortuous route, he got a degree-equivalent qualification in printing.
But as you have mentioned having teenagers of your own, you no doubt have you own ideas and experience about these matters.
Cass
As I wrote in an earlier post , traditionally I see the idea of marriage as an attempt to bring together two opposites in a universe that builds its strength and vitality upon opposites, which can either struggle or live in peace and harmony, the latter being most conducive to Life as we appreciate it. Of course it may be hard in these days for people to see themselves as individuals, couples or families as in any serious way “atomic building blocks” of reality. But we do know that the splitting of an atom can produce a “chain reaction” .
It also follows, however, from what I have written that marriage is not actually created by any religious or civil ceremony, but by the way that two people actually manage to live their lives as one. And there have been examples, particularly within artistic communities, where Gay Partnerships have been long and enduring, not because of the sex but because of a shared love and appreciation of the art that binds not just the individuals, but also the wider community.
In this respect perhaps the Bloomsbury Circle is an interesting example, for, though there was quite a lot of homosexual activity very few of them defined themselves as “Gay”, most being bi-sexual.
Now Gay-Liberation would argue that social pressures forced these people to live a lie, and deny their sexuality. In this respect “A Portrait of a Marriage” by Ben (?) Nicholson was an interesting study, for neither he nor his brother had really known about their parents open-marriage. It is revealed in Harold Nicholson’s “War Diaries” with some particularly moving exchanges when Harold and his wife Vita Sackville West face up to the very real possibility of German invasion and conquest. Though they have both had gay lovers (Vita most famously Virginia Woolf) both assert that their love for each other and all that they have shared in their love of art, culture, nature, Civilization, and their sons have been the most precious things in their lives, and they agree that they will commit suicide rather than submit to the destruction of their world by any Nazi occupation. They acknowledge too that, if Britain will survive, their world or wealth privilege and Civilization may well not. In the event it did with Harold producing a number of successful books after the war and Vita being able to keep her beloved Sissinghurst going by opening up her fabulous gardens to the paying public.
But I see modern Western Civilization as having lost its way and its sense of purpose with young people being indoctrinated with a “liberation message” that now everyone has a right to “do their own thing”, and seek pleasure and gratification where they may. The message in popular culture is very much “Sex, drugs and rock and roll” and instant gratification. But as current events are showing this disintegration into individualism leaves individuals very much at a disadvantage against the mechanisms that run our world, much as in prehistoric times individuals felt their impuissance in the face of Nature- and found ways to bind the opposites together creating order out of Chaos.
Significantly I thought J.K. Galbraith entitled his last book “The Culture of Contentment”. Americans no longer can dream of a right to “The pursuit of happiness”. This too is a Utopian dream. Only other societies seem to be able to produce expressions of human happiness and joy. The “Dismal Science” of economics and economism has created Dismal Populations that can only grab at passing excitement, and especially good sex which, from the days of Marvin Gayes “Sexual Healing” has tended to become almost a “raison d’etre”.
Peanut
It is true that the commitment of both parents to their children is vitally important, with regular contact being essential for them to understand the particular genetic and historical mix that has created them.. But it is one thing to love your flesh and blood. I still get a shock of the familiar when I hug our two (grown up) children for I recognise their inheritance from great-grandfathers who laboured for a living. But being loved by people who had no choice over what was going to come out of the womb is little consolation for teenagers growing up with the reality that no-one could choose to Love their parents in that total, ‘warts and all’, way.. “Who will chose to Love me?” Will anyone?” That Witney Houston hit. . It is another thing to Love someone who just happens to come into your world from somewhere out of the ether.
And there is nothing like success. One parent’s evening a mother raised up the question of her 14-15 year old daughter’s relations with her classmates. Being a “fools rush in” kind of person I drew a deep breath and took my courage in both hands. The fact was, I suggested, that she happened to have very attractive legs, and seemed to draw a great deal of confidence and assurance from knowing it. The mother smiled at me, and said that she had worked as a legs model in her prime. Relief. I suggested then that she herself might have experiences the envy-jealousy that other school-girls may feel in such circumstances. Another incident with hat pupils arose when she was sixteen and we were just discussing something in probably an RE lesson. At one point when we were discussing things theoretically she said “Well Sir, If we had a date..“ only to be cut off by her scandalised classmates . I noticed on Friends Reunited that this ex-pupil now works in the fashion industry..
To take another field, when I once had the opportunity to address a whole group of parents I advised them not to supply their children with a roll-model of failure.. “I don’t want you to waste your educational opportunities” etc. “I now regret that I did not pay more attention at school”… sending their children off to face the challenge of doing what their parents failed to do or are failing to do. Very few children statistically surpass what their parents did- as long as they had the opportunity. In those days I had a lovely lady who cleaned my classroom who should have been a teacher. In thirties Yorkshire she had gained entry to grammar school, but her father had told her that no-one else in the family had been to grammar school and she was not going. Every week when I knew her she got five or six books out of the Public Library.. There were serious problems with her teenage son, but I recall her pleasure and pride when, through a rather tortuous route, he got a degree-equivalent qualification in printing.
But as you have mentioned having teenagers of your own, you no doubt have you own ideas and experience about these matters.
Cass
