The potential quasi-incest of “blended” families
(Note: Be sure to see Philip M.’s comment following the main entry.)
Walter D. writes:
I have regularly read VFR for some months now and greatly enjoy the sanity and reason that prevail. It is a welcome change from the craziness and Alice in Wonderland view of most of the media.
I’d like to bring up a topic about which I have read virtually nothing.
A year or so ago there was a TV show called “Downsizing” about the trials (relatively minor) that a “blended” family (a word espoused by the liberal press) experienced after losing some portion of their income through the reduction in contract work offered to the husband. Each spouse had young children by former spouses that they brought into the new relationship.
During one episode the teenaged son of the husband commented to his natural brother that the similarly aged daughter of the stepmother with whom they now lived was “hot.” It immediately flashed into my mind the perils of the situation; what teenaged boy wouldn’t want a “hot” new girl living in the room down the hall? Teenage nirvana! How does a parent avoid disaster in this situation?
Now strictly speaking this wouldn’t be incest but it’s certainly not ideal and the problems it presents are legion. Up until this point I had never thought about such an issue but it surely isn’t new and it’s certainly not unique to this family. Has anyone ever written about or discussed this issue?
Thank you once again for your great site and best wishes for the future.
- end of initial entry -
Philip M. writes from England:
Never mind quasi-incest, what about the real thing? When I look at British council estates and the endless bed-hopping that goes on in them, resulting in countless numbers of children of uncertain paternity, I have often wondered how much unintentional incest must go on as children grow up in communities in which they are completely unaware of who their, or other people’s father’s are. It’s almost enough to make one wonder whether patriarchy had a point after all.
Incest is an interesting subject to bring up with liberals. Beyond the “yuck factor” they have very little in the way of reasoned arguments as to why they think it is wrong. And the one reason they do have—namely that children born of incestuous relationships are more likely to have birth defects, is (as I have great pleasure pointing out) an argument based on eugenics, which they do not agree with. For this reason, and because of the increased scope for incestuous relationships in liberal societies being pointed out here, it is much simpler for them to mentally capitulate and just agree with incest. This process of internal contradiction followed by internal capitulation is at the heart of both the liberal and the subsequent conservative acceptance of each further liberal advance. Liberals are often just ahead of the curve in that they have to face these mental dilemmas first. That they have themselves caved in to a revolting idea probably explains some of the animus that they then display towards conservatives who have not yet “swallowed the Kool-Aid.” They recognise their former selves in their adversaries, and feel that if they have had to take this unpleasant medicine, everyone should have to damn well take it.
I fully expect my left wing friends and acquaintances to be fully signed up to the idea of incest within a few years, and then when they talk about conservatives who believe otherwise, it will be as if they themselves have always felt the way they will. Presumably the slanderous and prejudiced jokes about hillbillies and rednecks sleeping with their cousins and siblings will be replaced by heart-rending stories of the incestophobia that still exists in certain rural areas of intolerant Christian white America, making the liberals’ 180 degree journey complete.
Ken Hechtman writes:
Philip M. writes:
And the one reason they do have—namely that children born of incestuous relationships are more likely to have birth defects, is (as I have great pleasure pointing out) an argument based on eugenics, which they do not agree with.
Of course liberals believe in eugenics. They just don’t call it that. They call it “genetic counseling.”
December 3
Philip M. writes:
Ken Hechtman wrote:
“Of course liberals believe in eugenics. They just don’t call it that. They call it “genetic counselling”
Although genetic counselling is not itself eugenics, merely explaining all the options and the consequences of those options in the usual non-judgemental liberal style, I can see what I assume is Ken’s point; in practice this genetic counselling is a kind of arm-twisting to try and bring people to the ‘correct’ answer without ever actually saying so. But then, if liberals are so keen on eugenics, why would they need to go about this in such a euphemistic and underhand fashion?
I certainly do not see it as being obvious that liberals believe in eugenics, as Ken does. Liberalism is about the sanctity of personal choice, no course of action or outcome being intrinsically better than another. They view intelligence and disability as social problems rather than genetic ones—the disabled are ‘differently abled’ and it is society itself that makes them disabled through prejudice and by failing to accommodate their particular physical requirements.You will never hear a liberal talking about using the state to produce physically and mentally superior people. Such language is anathema to them. Having said that, I do agree with Ken that many liberals actually desire these outcomes in their hearts, and I think my earlier comment bears that out—I have heard liberals say that they do not agree with incest for eugenic reasons. But, as I said, once you point out to them that they are actually advocating a eugenic stance, they will abandon this position in haste.
Perhaps what I should have said is that liberalism does not countenance eugenics, but that many liberals, who are, as I said, often contradictory beings who have not fully worked through their own revolution in their own minds, have not yet attained a fully matching set of personal desires and beliefs. They would certainly like to live in a society of physically and mentally capable people—liberalism being partly a freeing oneself from social responsibilities and obligations, and the sight of a disabled person induces such feelings in spades—but their own belief system does not allow for these ends. Crucially, when they are forced to make a choice, they will ditch their own preference and conform to the liberal standard. The contradiction in my experience always ends in personal capitulation. I find it hard to imagine the liberal who would ever say ‘you are right, my eugenic stance on incest does not fit my liberal worldview. I guess my worldview must be wrong.’
Benefits for the poor and single mothers are far from being eugenic measures—they are in fact dysgenic, if anything. What does Ken think a liberal would say if you told him that you did not agree with them for this reason—that paying the feckless and incapable to breed in large numbers is a bad idea? Of course they would say you are not fit to debate with. Yet as Ken points out, even as they adopt dysgenic policies, they personally desire eugenic outcomes. As I say, they are conflicted beings. But when the two opposing forces collide in their own minds, it has to be their own preference that gives way. Because if it was their liberalism that gave way, what would they find lying behind its remains?
Such constant capitulation in their own minds leads me to the following definition of a liberal—a person who is constantly being defeated by their own beliefs.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 01, 2012 11:30 AM | Send