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 | Wednesday, June 24, 2009 at 14:16:11 mst
Comment ID: #1
Name: Mike Hardy
E-mail: (my last name) (at) math.umn.edu
Nixon in his public statement frequently deplored what he called "permissiveness".
Does anyone have any idea what he meant by that? I've never understood it. |
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| Wednesday, June 24, 2009 at 14:44:51 mst
Comment ID: #2
Name: Jay
I guess that depends on your moral framework. His framework is not mine, but neither would I go so far as to consider it repugnant.
Disregarding questions of morality (for a moment), I consider the question about permissivness and broken families to be empirical. Should be easy enough to measure, although isolating the variables will be difficult. |
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| Wednesday, June 24, 2009 at 15:08:47 mst
Comment ID: #3
Name: Mike Hardy
E-mail: (my last name) (at) math.umn.edu
So Jay, what do _you_ mean by "permissiveness"? |
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| Wednesday, June 24, 2009 at 15:39:40 mst
Comment ID: #4
Name: William H Stoddard
E-mail: whswhs(at)mindspring.com
URL: http://whswhs.livejournal.com/profile
Mike,
The key point of "permissiveness" for me rests in the difference between a right and a permission. Suppose, for example, that you want to pick lemons off a tree. If it's your tree on your property, you have a *right* to pick the lemons; if it's my tree on my property, you have to get my *permission*, and I have a moral right to say no. So when this is applied to sex, the implication is that someone has a moral right to tell you no. And that doesn't refer to the other person who would be involved! Rather, it's assumed that society in general has a moral right to forbid our sexual acts, or that specific people in positions of authority have a right to do so . . . parents, or teachers, or religious leaders, for example.
So then, if you engage in nonprocreative, or nonmarital, or nonheterosexual sexual acts, you are assumed to be doing so not by right but by permission. It's not that such acts are a good; it's that they are a bad, but one that the relevant authorities (a) choose to tolerate or (b) choose not to label clearly as an evil. And this attitude is fairly widespread in our society; note for example the use of expressions such as "dirty" or "naughty" for sexual matters. Think of Lillian Rearden's attitude of amused tolerance for Hank's sexual needs.
And the further implication is that the authorities really have, not just a right, but a duty, to tell you no. If they allow you to seek personal gratification, they are letting you do something to which you are not morally entitled; and they are weakening society's commitment to moral values in the process. The whole mentality is one for which morality is the enemy of human happiness, and every concession to happiness is a chink in the wall of morality that is being overlooked by the jailer whose job is to prevent us from escaping.
So I think the concept of "permissiveness" is a dangerous package deal. I don't think my view of sexual conduct is a permissive one, because I think that the pursuit of (mutually consensual) sexual pleasure is not a permission, but a right. |
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| Wednesday, June 24, 2009 at 21:01:20 mst
Comment ID: #5
Name: madmax
Nixon was expressing standard racialist sentiments with his anti-interracial statements. There were anti-intermarriage laws in some states as late as the 1960s. And these racialist/racist views are still strong among the Paleo-Conservatives. Racialists like Larry Auster, Steve Salier and others think that interracial marriage and mixed-race children are the death of the West and the white race. Racism is still alive in today's society. Its just that it is not out in the open. |
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| Thursday, June 25, 2009 at 8:14:04 mst
Comment ID: #6
Name: Mike Hardy
E-mail: (my last name) (at) math.umn.edu
It seems as if Nixon seldom spoke in public without using the word "permissiveness", referring to something bad that he thought was plaguing society, but I don't think he ever got any more specific than that. I think he was _less_ explicit, in that he took it to be understood that it was a bad thing, rather than coming out and saying it's a bad thing. |
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| Thursday, June 25, 2009 at 9:43:06 mst
Comment ID: #7
Name: William H Stoddard
E-mail: whswhs(at)mindspring.com
URL: http://whswhs.livejournal.com/profile
Mike,
"I'm the parent. I have rules for how you are supposed to behave. A permissive parent would excuse you from following those rules, or choose not to notice that you were breaking them, or forgive you for having broken them; but that would be bad for you, because it's vitally important that you learn to follow rules, and this would be teaching you that you don't have to. So because I'm a good parent, I'm going to insist that you follow the rules, and punish you if you break them or question them . . . because no one has good motives for questioning the rules. And I'll keep doing it till you learn your lesson."
This is, of course, the patriarchal model of government with the ruler as father and the subjects as children, as put forth by Filmer, which John Locke attacked in his first treatise on government, before setting forth natural rights theory in his second. Some things never go away, it seems. Including the urge to treat people as children who need God or the state as a father.
There is actually a valid philosophical point buried in there, which is that you need to be consistently ethical, and that lack of care in following ethical principles is not actually good for you. But it's messed up by the assumption that ethics can be captured by externally imposed rules and maintained by external discipline, instead of being maintained by self-discipline in the form of personal virtues. It's not so much the moral/practical dichotomy as the morality/happiness dichotomy. |
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| Friday, June 26, 2009 at 5:46:57 mst
Comment ID: #8
Name: Anthony
"Some things never go away, it seems. Including the urge to treat people as children who need God or the state as a father."
A minor can be emancipated though, by proving that he is a rational being capable of self-support. Adults can't do that in terms of the state. |
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