Belated Father's Day Post

[A good article on fatherhood was posted at First Things this month. Here's an excerpt that particularly stood out to me, having just flown halfway across the country with three children, because the article specifically references that type of experience (Laurie, look! We're not alone!):]

Most fathers-to-be suppose that their old ego-centered lives will continue more or less unabated after the child arrives. With the exception of a few more obstacles and demands on their time, their involvement with their children is envisioned as being something manageable and marginal. Nothing like a complete transformation—an abrupt end to their former life—really enters men’s minds.

But then the onslaught begins, and a man begins to realize that these people, his wife and children, are literally and perhaps even intentionally killing his old self. All around him everything is changing, without any signs of ever reverting back to the way they used to be. Into the indefinite future, nearly every hour of his days threatens to be filled with activities that, as a single-person or even a childless husband, he never would have chosen. Due to the continual interruptions of sleep, he is always mildly fatigued; due to long-term financial concerns, he is cautious in spending, forsaking old consumer habits and personal indulgences; he finds his wife equally exhausted and preoccupied with the children; connections with former friends start to slip away; traveling with his children is like traveling third class in Bulgaria, to quote H.L. Mencken; and the changes go on and on. In short, he discovers, in a terrifying realization, what Dostoevsky proclaimed long ago: “[A]ctive love is a harsh and fearful reality compared with love in dreams.” Fatherhood is just not what he bargained for.

Yet, through the exhaustion, financial stress, screaming, and general chaos, there enters in at times, mysteriously and unexpectedly, deep contentment and gratitude. It is not the pleasure or amusement of high school or college but rather the honor and nobility of sacrifice and commitment, like that felt by a soldier. What happens to his children now happens to him; his life, though awhirl with the trivial concerns of children, is more serious than it ever was before. Everything he does, from bringing home a paycheck to painting a bedroom, has a new end and, hence, a greater significance. The joys and sorrows of his children are now his joys and sorrows; the stakes of his life have risen. And if he is faithful to his calling, he might come to find that, against nearly all prior expectations, he never wants to return to the way things used to be.

[I, for one, never want to return ... and life has indeed completely changed. Old things have passed away.]

[Let me note that the best hint I got about life that is along the lines of the Dostoevsky quote is not from reading, but from music: the music of a band called The Choir, which is all about "active love" versus "the love in dreams." Should be required listening for any 20-year-old!]

Belated Valentine's Day Post: Choice Can Make You Unhappy

I just have to link to this post from Dan Ariely's blog:
http://www.predictablyirrational.com/?p=353

The best part is an ingenious experiment with photographs that shows that people are happier with the photograph they produce (in a darkroom) if they can only choose one, early on. Those who are told to choose two and "think about it" and then decide which one? They end up being less happy with the photograph they chose.

It's a bit of a jump from that to marriage, but I do think it shows that the faithfulness and "locked-in choice" required by the institution of marriage will actually make you happier than "playing the field," even if you're not "optimizing your choices." There's such a thing as too much choice: Dan Ariely's social economics research has shown this repeatedly.

Boy, even if economics has romantic implications, the language of the field sure does scour the romance out of everything ... So, however that all sounded, it was meant well, and here's to faithfulness and our 10th Valentine's Day together, Laurie!

The Seven Deadly Sins of that New York Article

To follow up on the previous post, I'm finding quite a few other references to that same New York magazine article online, on Slate.com for example. Many are written from a feminist or post-feminist perspective. It occurred to me that my previous reference to the explanation for cheating as sin may have been a little glib. And if you're going to be a little glib, might as well be a lot glib, so in that spirit, here are the Seven Deadly Sins of that article:

I. Lust: Start with the gimme.

II. Greed: He argues that the hyper-rich and powerful actually have it right with their loveless marriages and mistresses on the side.

III. Sloth: His research on the hyper-rich seems to be entirely composed of half-remembered episodes of "Melrose Place." A majority of the piece is personal anecdotes, and even the science quoted can't seem to find numbers or the possibility of a counterargument. I can find more with a single Google scholar search. Then there's the lack of thinking things through on any level from the relational (is your idea of polyamory really frictionless and costless?) to the editorial (really, this is the cover article?!).

IV. Pride: The solipsism of the personal anecdote, and the inability to truly try to imagine what it might be like to be someone else, like, say, a woman. Or a poor person. Or a theist. Or a reader.

V. Envy: "Those Europeans, they're so lucky to be enlightened about marriage." Merci!

VI. Gluttony: This may be the only one under control, because even at a restaurant he's more interested in the waitress than the food.

VII. Wrath: The general reaction this article created across the blogosphere. Hell hath no fury like a woman caricatured.

One Big Reason Why People Resist Evolution

Today in class we talked about the issues of "scientific hate" against creationists and its polar opposite, "anti-science hate" against evolutionists. I keep coming back myself to the deliberate polarization of the issue into, either God or evolution, as if they were two masters. Preachers on both sides of the issue say the two are mutually exclusive (in saying this, I classify Dawkins and co. as secular preachers on the evolution side of the issue). I just find the depth of resistance to science among the evangelical church startling, and we talked a little about why.

Then I read two articles that led me to find one big reason why evangelicals resist evolution: sex.

The first was an article by Tom Wolfe, over 10 years old now, titled "Sorry, But Your Soul Just Died..." It's about how advances in neuroscience reinforce the mechanical view of man, that there is no free will, and the solution to problems is to medicate. Wolfe isn't too happy with that, he quotes Nietzsche a lot, and his essay has a strange apocalyptic ending. It is entertaining, at least. Wolfe makes some 2006 predictions and, well, we aren't there yet, but there persists a definite cultural undercurrent that free will is an illusion and we are just machines. For Exhibit A, see article B.

This second article is from the New York Magazine titled "What Makes Married Men Want to Have Affairs?" The three-letter answer (starts with an S and ends with an in) wasn't enough so they turn to evolutionary psychology and discuss findings about how men, even when married, are genetically programmed to stray. This is the article Tom Wolfe was warning would happen 12 years ago. This one has everything: the Eliot Spitzer scandal, the "everyone does it" conspiratorial tone, the part about how advanced the Europeans are compared to us, the men vs. women conflict, and overall a depressing air of inevitability.

This is what Christians rebel against, the mechanism of it all. Since evolution is a mechanism, doesn't that mean we are just mechanisms? Only animals? That's a destructive and easy interpretation that many fall into, whether they swallow it whole or fight against it with all-too-blind faith. So Christians are against evolution because they believe it's possible to abstain from urges, that it's possible to choose to not be an animal. I've got to agree with them on that.

One huge blind spot in the New York article is the question of God. One of the main conclusions of the article is that we have a romantic myth that one person can be enough, and no one person can be enough. So after all that ink the article comes to the same conclusion where many churches start their talks about dating and marriage: no one person is enough. The disagreement comes next: the New York article says, since no one person is enough, you've got to allow men to transgress in some way with a few other people. It's only fair to the poor hardwired brutes. But the church says, since no one person is enough, the marriage has to include a relationship with God as well. No one person is enough, but God is. So the "God-shaped hole" shows up again, reading between the lines, even in The New York Magazine.

So my own creed follows these lines: I see evolution as a demonstration of the closeness of God, and I see in Jesus an example of a life lived without sex, but fully. I see no need to twist science and discount evolution in order to justify my vow to remain faithful to my wife -- both that understanding of creation and that understanding of my promise are integral to my self. And I object when someone else twists science and uses evolution to claim that no one can be monogamous. We're not that kind of animal -- we have the image of God, however defaced it may be.

Here are links to the two articles I'm talking about, although read the second one at your own risk:

http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles/WolfeSoulDied.php

http://nymag.com/relationships/sex/47055/