What is Marriage? Question 2

Wolfson deliberately explains marriage in an extended fashion to show the great power it truly holds. He uses this time to demonstrate, not only the social bond marriage holds in that people automatically understand what marriage means and don’t question what marriage truly means, but also the extending government benefits that go with the idea of marriage. He uses the definition that it is primarily a union between two people symbolizing their love for each other and their hope that the love will last. I find that his definition and summary of its benefits its fairly accurate, but he doesn’t include the definition anti-gay groups have given. While I don’t agree with the religious argument anti-gay groups often present and I am relatively sure he doesn’t as well, it should still have been presented in the argument to make a more balanced passage. Overall, his definition of marriage greatly aided his argument and seemed to be a decently fair and balanced representation of marriage.

It Takes a Family

In “It Takes a Family,” Rick Santorum uses the analogy of a plane to help reinforce his idea that a traditional marriage (meaning the union of a man and a woman) was superior to that of a “liberal” homosexual marriage. To this end he describes the traditional marriage as the perfect airplane, which always gets you to the correct destination. It is here that he stresses the idea of always in that the plane is reliable and will always do the best thing for its family. He then described a non-traditional family as a plane, which would sometimes get its family to the correct destination. He used the term sometimes to allow for what he would call anomalies, which better suits his tunnel-vision idea that only a traditional family can consistently turn out a good family. I believe this is a false assumption because every type of family will have its anomalies. Just because a family is headed by only one parent or by a gay couple doesn’t mean it will automatically fail, because they are just as capable of raising families as everyone else, however, many incorrect assumptions still prevent this truth from being common knowledge. It is also due to many of these misconceptions that the injustice of a ban on gay marriage has continued to permeate this country and prevent homosexual couples from reaching true equality. Thus, I find his analogy of planes to be an ill begotten and flawed argument, which did not help to prove his case of the “evils of gay marriage.”

Appearances

In the passage “Appearances,” the author delays revealing the fact that Brian and Mickey for very specific reasons. It allows the reader to develop the idea that “Oh that only happens to gay people,” which is then shattered with the revelation that these two men were in fact heterosexual. This disclosure and the timing of the disclosure are designed to help the reader realize that this is not just a problem for a small sect of people, but rather for everyone. This revelation changed the issue in that, not only did the issue now effect everyone, but the blatant categorization people apply to homosexuals. They assumed because of the dress of Brian and Mickey that they were gay and thus were beaten. This showed the mass ignorance of the people who attack them. The way the author was belatedly revealed the sexual orientation of the victims helped to show how widespread and bad the problem truly is and aided his argument greatly.

Gender Roles

From what I can remember, there has never been a time in my life where someone specifically outlined my role as a male, without it being part of the myriad of jokes I’ve heard on the matter. Instead, I think kids are slowly led to believe a certain way because of their surrounding environment growing up. When growing up you are never told, but you quickly learn the distinction between a guy playing with an action figure and a guy playing with a doll. Between a guys taking karate and a guy taking dancing. Aside from these more subtle lessons in gender roles the only outright mention I had ever heard of specified roles was in the jokes I’ve heard and that, truthfully, I’ve told. I don’t believe that these actually are sexist in the way I’ve heard them though. If someone had truly meant the joke then yes, it would be sexist but the way in which I have heard them tossed around and the way in which they are funny is because they are so flat out ridiculous that no one takes them seriously. These jokes maintain their humor because my friends and I don’t take them seriously and hold a certain measure of contempt for those who actually believe in the legitimacy of what the jokes say. Within my life, I have never been told what my specific role was in a truly serious manner, and I don’t think I’d be able to take someone seriously who tried to prescribe such roles to me based off my gender.

Eustace- Transcendentalism

I believe that Eustace is in some ways a Transcendentalist but he does not actively seek to be one. He shares many of the ideas of Transcendentalism, including the desire to understand nature and do hard work, and he also generally avoids religion, but he never preached nor actively sought to be a Transcendentalist. Some of these tenets of Transcendentalism, rather, came naturally with his own desire to be a true mountain man. His interest in surviving in the woods on his own, and his interest in Indians and their culture helped to give him the ideas he shared with Transcendentalists. His study of Indian culture and the reverence they showed the Earth along with his good-natured attitude are what led to him not only respecting the Earth but trying to understand Nature, one of the prime tenets of the Transcendentalists. Further, he forsook religion, however it was not for the reasons that the Transcendentalists did. He merely didn’t attend because he knew his beliefs already and felt no need to waste his time going to Sunday morning mass. Though he may have shared many basic tenets with a lot of Transcendentalists, I don’t believe that Eustace was ever actually an active seeker of their ideas.

Nature

Emerson presents many ideas on what nature truly is and what it means to be in tune with nature. One of the passages I like the most was when he stated, “The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible; but all natural objects make a kindred impression, when the mind is open to their influence.” I found this passage to be very interesting because it used something that they knew relatively little about but people held great admiration for to help get his point across. No matter your age, when you look up at the stars you feel awe that something so powerful exists and that it is so far away but still visible and bright. As he said they inspire a certain level of respect in people, but he believes this should be the same for all parts of nature, not just something as distant and high up as stars. Though there are certain objects in nature that can be more awe-inspiring than others, all facets of nature influence the mind in different ways and can be interesting.

Elizabeth Gilbert's Message

Elizabeth Gilbert wrote this book, not only to help Eustace’s cause and show people that they can live a more simple life as Eustace did, but also to show people the side of Eustace they never see: the flawed human. People who only got a brief taste of Eustace would think of him as nearly superhuman, a person who would lead them into a better way of life, however, once they came to work for him they would see that he was demanding, controlling and that the life at Turtle Island was very strenuous. As she said “After such a glorified introduction, it can be mortifying to learn that life at Turtle Island is grueling and that Eustace is another flawed human being, with his own teeming brew of unanswered questions. Not many seeker survive this shock, a shock I’ve come to refer to as the Eustace Conway Whiplash Effect. (206)” This shows the extent to which, though initially pleasing, Eustace is able to piss people off. Elizabeth Gilbert wrote this book to not only spread Eustace’s ideology, but to enlighten people so that they would not naively run off to a camp where they would quickly become disillusioned.