arguing against the use of \u201creal-life stories\u201d as something opposed to principles<\/a>. In reality, our lives are lived according to principles \u2014 any moral argument that depends on narratives for its substance simply sneaks in principles through the back door. Here\u2019s what I forgot to mention:<\/span><\/em><\/p>\nWhen personal narrative takes precedence over moral principles, the morally-justified man\u00a0becomes the one with the greatest battery of relevant life-stories.<\/p>\n
This is hardly a novel concept. By now we\u2019ve all experienced the transformation of the gay couple into a hot commodity \u2014 the tenderhearted, liberal degradation of minority races into bullets for the Culture Wars. We shuffle and play our hand of friends like a perverse game of Pokemon: \u201cWell I <\/span>know<\/span><\/i> a trans man, and let me tell you, he\u2019s <\/span>never<\/span><\/i> had a problem with the bathroom setup.\u201d \u201cIf you haven\u2019t actually met someone who\u2019s had an abortion, you should just shut up.\u201d \u201cIf you don\u2019t know a Catholic priest, you\u2019ve got no right to criticize the institution of celibacy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nWe pat ourselves on the back for this newly-developed allergy towards speaking of people as types, but treating them as trump cards is a dubious promotion. In both cases, our argument relies on the violent assumption that certain human beings cannot change. In the case of types, real people assume the characteristics of an abstract ideal \u2014 the fixed, unchanging Homeless Person, Prostitute, or Conservative. In the case of weaponized narratives, real people become grenades hurled against the half-held convictions of a wishy-washy public.\u00a0Just as a grenade that loses its killing power is\u00a0only fit to be cast out, so\u00a0a Happy Gay Family will be dropped from the narrative arsenal the moment they become a Messed Up Gay Family. And so it goes.<\/span><\/p>\nThe problem with narrative is that eventually we have to admit that individual <\/span>narratives<\/span><\/i> are judged by universal principles. This becomes obvious in the following, all-too-familiar discussion:<\/span><\/p>\nPerson A: I have a gay friend who went through that Pray the Gay Away sh*t. It scarred him for life.<\/span><\/p>\nPerson B: I have a same-sex attracted friend who went through genuine therapy and is now happily married to a woman. They have three kids.<\/span><\/p>\nOur interlocutors could realize the limits of anecdotal evidence, and begin to discuss the validity or invalidity of the universal principles<\/em> by which these people understand and order their sexuality \u2014 the true or false propositions they make concerning the nature of attraction, the educability\/uneducability of the passions, and so forth. In all likelihood, however, they will stay within the dogmatic bonds of narrative.\u00a0They might, for instance, doubt the truth\u00a0of the other\u2019s narrative:<\/p>\nPerson A: Well, your gay friend is probably unhappy. <\/span><\/p>\nPerson B: Well, your gay friend is probably repressed.<\/span><\/p>\nBut this is a limit to the powers of storytelling. You can\u2019t argue for or against some secret underbelly\u00a0that may or may not sag under an otherwise peppy narrative. One could no more bring in possible repression or probable unhappiness in a war of mutually opposed narratives then one could bring in \u201cpossible data\u201d in an argument of medical research. Of course, it <\/span>is<\/span><\/i> useful to note that our suspicion that something crucial has been left out of the narrative (e.g. the tacit assumption that the no-longer-queer are hideously repressed, or the typical insinuation that happily queer aren\u2019t really happy at all) indicates that we were operating on normative principles all along \u2014 no narrative was ever going to change our minds. Why not admit it: We instantly doubt the veracity of the narrative that goes against our basic belief that the behavior in question is a-OK or not a-OK. <\/span><\/p>\nBut even if we do not assume this \u201cdark side,\u201d we \u00a0might doubt the validity of the entire narrative, as in:<\/span><\/p>\nPerson A: Do you really have any gay friends?<\/span><\/p>\nPerson B: Do <\/span>you<\/span><\/i>? It seems like everyone suddenly has an intimate relationship with a Standardized, Media-Typical, Gay Man the moment it becomes convenient for them.<\/span><\/p>\nIt\u2019s an odd world when interlocutors make moral arguments\u00a0by lying about the existence of\u00a0their friends. The myth that weaponized narratives respect \u201cthe real people behind the politics\u201d and \u201cgives a face to the controversy\u201d is undone by this <\/span>pressure to lie \u2014 to handcraft the winning argument by making up a personal narrative. It shows that the other, far from being loved in their otherness, is being used as a tool. It shows that the human person, precisely when they are being held up as \u201crespected,\u201d need not exist.<\/span><\/p>\n Donald Trump is a master of this method. Whenever he is criticized for any principle he makes up a personal relation.\u00a0When it is argued that he is being racist, he says: \u201cMexicans love me.\u201d When it is argued that his views are misogynistic, he says: \u201cI love women. I employ women.\u201d Ready-made narratives get him out of everything.\u00a0<\/span>And this arrives at the point: The turn to narrative does not indicate a cultural shift towards a personalistic ethics, but a demonic shift towards an ethics of power. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nUniversal principles are open to everyone. They do not require a special status to be comprehended, nor a privileged position to be applied. If an act is wrong, it is wrong for everyone. If adultery is wrong <\/span>on principle<\/span><\/i> then it is wrong for the rich as well as the poor. The shift towards a narrative-driven public discourse undoes the democracy of the moral law and exchanges it for a moral law of the privileged. One cannot know whether abortion is right or wrong on principle; one must have the good luck, privilege, or social grace to know someone who\u2019s had an abortion. Right and wrong is neither written on the human heart, nor available to Jew and Greek alike. It becomes a law revealed only to those purified by the right kind of personal knowledge. Ethics suffers a brutal transformation into gnosticism, and our relationships become initiations into an otherwise unavailable power \u2014 that of being morally justified. If we take this shift seriously \u2014 that one must \u201cknow person\/people X before one can believe moral principle Y\u201d \u2014 then the people of Portland must have a quantitatively better or worse insight into the moral law then the people of Savannah, simply because they are exposed to better or worse narratives. When a Miss America defends a gendered definition of marriage, it is on the basis of \u201cbeing raised\u201d to believe in it \u2014 her exposure to a certain life story justifies her belief. This is only a mask of personalism. Privilege and power rankle underneath. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nIf I get any donation<\/a>, no matter how small, I will regard it as a challenge, and post again within the next 33 hours. Follow my\u00a0Facebook page<\/a> to see if someone has already challenged me to post! \u00a0<\/em>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.paypalobjects.com\/en_US\/i\/scr\/pixel.gif\")
<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I wrote a piece arguing against the use of \u201creal-life stories\u201d as something opposed to principles. In reality, our lives are lived according to principles \u2014 any moral argument that depends on narratives for its substance simply sneaks in principles through the back door. Here\u2019s what I forgot to mention: When personal narrative takes precedence […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-exiting-the-culture-wars"],"yoast_head":"\n
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