The Awfulness of Elite Hypocrisy on Marriage | Hacker News Reader

The Awfulness of Elite Hypocrisy on Marriage

theatlantic.com

12 pointsvlz10 comments

How would that poll change if the question were worded something like:

"Do two engaged parents who have made formal commitments to each other benefit the child?"

As the question has two issues:

1. Answering in the affirmative requires saying that anyone who has a kid outside marriage is a bad person, worthy of societal hate or perhaps even legal punishment. That is a lot harsher than "having kids outside marriage leads to subpar outcomes." I have a lot of trouble with calling not harshly condemning a behaviour hypocrisy. I don't drink, mostly because my family does not drink. Not drinking has many benefits. I don't think people would call me a hypocrite for my disagreeing with throwing drinkers into prison or considering them morally wrong.

2. Marriage. What "marriage" means depends on how you interpret it. Within society, there is marriage as a religious event, then there is marriage as a legal contract, then there is marriage with its implied permanency. For decades, gay people couldn't legally marry. Interracial people couldn't legally marry. Is it immoral to have kids without government or a Church approving your pairing? Marriage is well beyond a family structure. It includes family structure, but a ton more is packed into the concept.

Historically speaking, the "right sort" of people quietly deciding that marriage and success are for them - and not for the "wrong sort" - is an age-old phenomenon. Often, the "wrong sort" have not been allowed to marry (or to own property, or to vote, or ...).

It'd be nice if the Atlantic knew enough history to mention this behavior pattern.

OTOH, the great majority of the Atlantic's readers are probably the "right sort". So doing a competent job of calling them, on their quietly self-serving group hypocrisy, might not the in the Atlantic's own interests...

It is very common in the liberal mindset that diversity is something good for others, but not for themselves. An extension of the marriage example would be homosexual and interracial relationships.

Ask the same people whether we should embrace same-sex marriages and they will say yes; then ask (with anonimity) whether they would like their children to be in a same-sex relationship and they will say no.

To be VERY clear I'm not arguing against any behavior or people here. I'm just pointing out the breadth of the hypocrisy.

My suspicion is more that straight people are the ones who have children and they want their children to be like them. The relationships question is downstream of that - it would be silly if your children do turn out to be homosexual to want them to enter a hetero relationship; that just seems like a recipe for more trouble.

I say this as someone who has never really "gotten" the whole having children thing, so just my take as someone who may have a bit of an outsider perspective.

> It is very common in the liberal mindset that...

True-ish. Flip-side, liberals are also stuck in an endless fight against the very common conservative mindset that it is good to denounced, degrade, and perhaps kill people who aren't just like themselves.

But "one rule for me, another rule for thee" was human SOP long before the first pyramid was built.

If liberals sought to deny rights for others while keeping them for themselves, they'd be hypocritical. Preferring not to use them is not hypocritical. I am all for accommodations for the mobility-challenged, while preferring not to be mobility-challenged. Is that hypocritical?

For hetero parents, they probably prefer that their children are hetero as well. But if their children are homosexual, the parents would still prefer their children are happy, can raise children, and enjoy full social benefits. What is hypocritical about that?

Probably most parents would prefer that their children marry within their own race. Yet they'd also not rather that anyone be denied the ability to marry someone of a different race as well.

There's a big difference between "If your child was gay, would you like them to be able to get married?" - and "Would you prefer your child to have to put up with all of the bigotry that they would near-inevitably face if they turn out to be gay?"

I don’t think accepting that people live a lifestyle different from your chosen one is hypocrisy.

But if fewer people are able to achieve the “success sequence” as the article lays out, then perhaps they should consider if there are material reasons for that.

https://archive.is/https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive...

Ah good old meritocracy, it can't be that I'm doing so well largely based on luck can it? That would be unfair. Must be mostly about me working so hard. Other people are just lazy.

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