Social Conservatism and Family Violence

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When I stated my opposition to social conservatism, someone started to claim that I was against the establishment. I am not. There are people in different establishments, whether these deal with military, media, business or science, who are good enough individuals; and there are plenty of people unaffiliated with any establishment who are total scumbags. Rather I am against coercive social conservatism that wants to force everyone to live the same way and uses the name of tradition and the name of family to get away with horrendous abuses against their children and their wives.

There is a reason why this way of life has been challenged, and the reason is nobody's"generational narcissism." The real reason is that the elevation of nuclear family above reason and reality has been nothing but an excuse for barbaric abuses of power, with those at the end of these barbaric abuses having no way out. When anything human - whether it be monarchy, family or the Roman Catholic Church - is seen as sacred, it provides a cover for most egregious violations by people who are a part of these entities. Violations that, seen as they are to be sacred, are prevented from being confronted and redressed.

Nuclear family works when it is based on mutual goodwill between the partners. When this is not present, the nuclear family becomes a war zone - a war zone from which people escape with great difficulty or not at all. Seeing the nuclear family as sacrosanct enshrines and perpetuates the worst practices by people who are at the head of the nuclear families. And this venal behavior profanes the institution of family as much as it profanes Christianity and "traditional values."

There have been Republican politicians claiming that Christian institutions that preceded America, such as the nuclear family, must be preserved. How do they distinguish between the institutions they want to preserve and institutions they don't? Like the divine right of kings, the divine right of fathers gives mere mortals absolute power in the name of God - an absolute power that many abuse just as much as did the European monarchs.

I am a father, but I do not seek protection of such institutions. If one is a good father and husband, one doesn't need them; and those who do need them are bad husbands and bad fathers. Social conservatism thus serves only the worst apples in the bunch: The men who want to knock around their wives and children and for their wives and their children to have no way to get away from them. And this makes it a destructive and wrongful agenda.

Nuclear family can be done right, but it can also go very badly wrong. And if it does, there needs to be an incentive on parties involved to conduct themselves in rightful manner. This is why there is such a thing as divorce: So that people who are at the receiving end of abusive behavior do not have to stay in the situation. Divorce of course can be misused as well; but the potentials for abuses are much greater when those at the receiving end of venal behavior do not have a way to escape from it than when they do.

This is what we see in the Middle East. This is what we see in rural India. And yes, this is what we see in socially conservative parts of America and other Western countries.

For this reason I posit that social conservatism serves only the worst men. A good father, and a good husband, will have no need for social conservatism; his children will love him and would not want to get away from him. The only fathers and husbands who do need such things are the abusers, as it is these that the wives and the children most want to escape.

It is time that things be known by their proper name. The agenda that calls itself pro-family is really the agenda that is pro-abuse. Good families are not touched by this agenda one way or another, as nobody wants to leave good families. Rather the issue only becomes an issue in the case of wrongdoing.

For this reason it is only the wrongdoers that this agenda serves.

Nobody is keeping people from forming nuclear families, and those who want nuclear families have every right to have nuclear families. The problem is with the people who want to force this on everyone else. Far from representing any kind of righteousness, these people instead pander to the worst elements in manhood and do everything in their power to beat down and further oppress those that come at the receiving end of their ugliness and their barbarism.

The "pro-family" agenda is therefore nothing more than an excuse for abusive types to remain abusive.

And not families, not America, not God, are benefited by politics of this sort.