Cultures Monogamous and Polyamorous

[Bubba_Switzler]

The culture of the traditional family is now in intense competition with a very different culture. The defining difference between the two is the sexual ideal each embraces. The traditional family of Western civilization is based on lifelong monogamy. The competing culture is “polyamorous,” normally a serial polygamy, but also increasingly polymorphous in its different sexual expressions. (Dr. Patrick F. Fagan)

spectator.org/archives/2010/01/08/cultures-monogamous-and-polyam

touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=23-01-042-c

downloads.frc.org/EF/EF09H36.pdf

 

[NHInsider]

Did you wish to propose a question or prompt a discussion?

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

Did you wish to propose a question or prompt a discussion?

Prompt a discussion. The authors’ views are not orthodox cathology but they certainly point to issues that Catholics have emphasized lately. What I found most interesting was the organization of the argument, namely that these seemingly seperate points were actually better understood as a whole. Oftentimes, organization of facts can facilitate understanding and even action.

 

[thistle]

The culture of the traditional family is now in intense competition with a very different culture. The defining difference between the two is the sexual ideal each embraces. The traditional family of Western civilization is based on lifelong monogamy. The competing culture is “polyamorous,” normally a serial polygamy, but also increasingly polymorphous in its different sexual expressions. (Dr. Patrick F. Fagan)

spectator.org/archives/2010/01/08/cultures-monogamous-and-polyam

touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=23-01-042-c

downloads.frc.org/EF/EF09H36.pdf

Isn’t it about time you changed your profile?
Zen and Catholicism are incompatible. You cannot be both.

 

[CentralFLJames]

This is just more evidence that the west is reverting to paganism and hedonism and various other variant disorders.

Is there a doctrinal question here?

If not - we need to close this thread as irrelevant to apologetics and questions about Catholic morality. The Church’s position is clear - we are all called to holiness in living in a chaste relationship whether single or married and marriage is only between a single male and female.

James

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

Is there a doctrinal question here? If not - we need to close this thread as irrelevant to apologetics and questions about Catholic morality.

Not really, but I’d rather see the thread moved where appropriate (I couldn’t figure out where that was.)

This is just more evidence that the west is reverting to paganism and hedonism and various other variant disorders.

This is really the issue that I was more interested in discussing. The Church often speaks of a “culture of death” and this seems to fit with that.

 

[rwoehmke]

If the connection between social intervention and monogamy v. polyandry were a correct one Victorian England would have been a socialogical heaven on earth for the lower classes and the poor. As history teaches this was a time of degradation for those who weren’t noble and elite. Ship ya off, mate, to Australia for stealing a loaf of bread.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

If the connection between social intervention and monogamy v. polyandry were a correct one Victorian England would have been a socialogical heaven on earth for the lower classes and the poor.

What is the supposed connection “between social intervention and monogamy v. polyandry”?

 

[rwoehmke]

What is the supposed connection “between social intervention and monogamy v. polyandry”?

Every other paragraph in your second citation indicated that some social intervention, rules, laws, support, etc, accompanied changing societal rules increasing tolerance of polyandry and polymorphism or did I read it incorrectly?.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

Every other paragraph in your second citation indicated that some social intervention, rules, laws, support, etc, accompanied changing societal rules increasing tolerance of polyandry and polymorphism or did I read it incorrectly?.

I’m not sure where you saw it in “every other paragraph in [the] second citation” but there is a section titled “State Support” which argues that contemporary law “are almost universally polyamory-friendly and monogamy-hostile.”

I think it’s reasonable to infer that this changed at some point in time.

The first article makes an even more interesting observation along those lines:

The late Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously said that “The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself.” But even the wily Moynihan learned that criticizing the unintended consequences of welfare-state politics, which undermine families and communities, can bring down the wrath of its “operational bureaucracy” (to use one of Fagan’s terms) on anyone so bold as to challenge its actual effects as opposed to its intended results.

Perhaps this is closer to the issue you were raising: how does one measure and evaluate the consequences of modern social policy on the poor? Are the poor better off, because they are taken care of, or worse off, because they are trapped in a cycle of culture that destroys families and communities?

For me, what was most interesting is that Fagan’s conceptualization of the culture war closely mirrors the Catholic view of the “culture of death”. I’d always found that term to be harsh and heavy handed but Fagan does a good job of integrating the various cultural issues into a whole.