which marriage do we mean?

Thanks to Lily for beginning the stack-on of some thoughts in this
jealousy discussion (stemming from Saletan's Slate column discussed
below). Lily's post, below, nails the gut reaction to Mike's
challenging thoughts: if jealousy is jealousy, all bad, and entirely
to be avoided...why do we sort-of socially accept feelings of jealousy
wherein infidelity is involved but treat it as shallow when it
involves the signif other spending time with a friend? (before i go
and repeat her post, read below)

Next, I find it important to clarify that there are (or, should I ask
whether there are) at least three "marriages," or, anyway, contexts of
marriage, and they are by no means mutually exclusive: Religious,
Social, and Legal. While Couple X might live in and regard all three as
definitional to their relationship, it seems to me that a couple might
also define the marriage/coupledom as a single one of these three.
And, beyond that, it seems we need to parse out what we are tallking
about when we talk about marriage (not to mention non-married
coupledom).

For instance, I fully appreciate Mike's position that jealousy CANNOT
define his religious definition of marriage. But is it possible that
jealousy might act as a source to one of the plethora of social
perceptions of marriage? It seems so. Maybe the legal as well.


And back to this word "jealousy."

Perhaps, that, too, can have various meanings depandant on our context. I think I'm intellectually on board with Mike, or at least understand, the attempt to reject and avoid jealousy when the word centers on possessiveness.

But what about the word as used in "I will jealously guard" such and such? The word is used in a more noblesense sometimes, and I think we can differentiate it.

I'll take a stab here: it could have a use that pulls in ideas of vulnerability. We might be jealous because the object (in this discussion, the sig other) that has some interaction with a third party is connected to us. Here, the jealousy is not a function of possessiveness; rather, it stems from something we think of as part of us, and the event that causes the jealousy brings that connectivity into doubt.

That at all clear?

More Thoughts on Jealousy

It's an interesting proposition that the emotion of jealousy/possessiveness -- in this narrow context of marriage/romantic love -- is not necessarily sinful or ethically wrong (unless it is taken to extremes! The same can be said of most emotions...) Andrew and I were working on parsing out the possessiveness aspect of jealousy yesterday, in an attempt to understand why it appears to be universally the case that the presence of a third person in the breakup of a marriage would make the whole thing much more bitter, than if the two people just fell out of love. Should there be any difference in the dumpee's emotional reaction to a break up due to infidelity, versus a break up due to the dumper's just getting tired of the relationship? What do we call that element that injects the extra bitterness in the first scenario, and, whatever it is, is it morally wrong to feel that way?

Spectacular news out of Baghdad this morning: Jill Carroll has been released!

"As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country." -- Proverbs 25: 25

let's craft a jurisprudential theory: judicial activism is ok if it concerns education.

I haven't yet read a convincing essay of why Brown v. Board was not judicially active, written, anyway, by a person that purports to ascribe to strict construction or a heavy deference to established precedent (ie- Justices Thomas and Scalia would, I assume, have to have written a dissent in the case, if they were to be intellectually honest with their judicial approaches).

North Carolina did what the federal courts have not and made a sound, basic education a constitutional right. The state Supreme Court put Judge Howard Manning in charge of overseeing that right.

Have a read of a column in my old town Greensboro's local paper.

Here's a snippet:

His actions border on exceeding his authority -- "judicial activism of the most blatant sort," John Hood of the conservative John Locke Foundation asserts -- but they may be the only way to force the state's disjointed education establishment to get its act together.

"This letter is to put you on notice," Manning wrote March 3 to State Board of Education Chairman Howard Lee and Superintendent June Atkinson. If consistently poor-performing high schools don't meet their goals on end-of-course tests this spring, they "will not be allowed to open in the fall of 2006" without significant changes.

is mac the next microsoft?

good techno-patent article in wired. give a read. here's the gist:

So it may be convenient for me to get shows on demand, but this comes at a price. My TV is tied intimately to the Comcast DVR box I rent, and I lose some of my consumer rights (saving shows, watching them on a different device) so that the entertainment industry can protect its old business models.

Enter Apple, which may soon strike deals with the TV networks and video production houses that will see hundreds of TV shows, documentaries, music videos and so on, hosted on an iTunes music and movie store -- accessed only though Apple's software or hardware, like the Mac mini.

If such a scenario comes true, Apple will become more and more powerful as the gatekeeper to this content. And it will behave like every other big, powerful global corporation -- as a predatory monopoly.

There are few Mac users prepared to argue that Microsoft's monopoly in desktop PCs has been a good thing for the technology industry; why would an Apple monopoly of digital entertainment be any different?

Is human jealousy the thing?

We've had a fun email discussion stemming from this article from today's Saletan Slate column. I've read more than a few opinion articles of late wondering aloud, if gay marriage is to be protected because of lifestyle choice and a respect for what consenting adults want in their lives, why would the reasoning not extend to polygamy (notwithstanding the line of fre exercise cases that turned down the legality of the interpretation of marriage some decades ago). Here's the thrust (quoted from Saletan's article):

My friend Charles Krauthammer makes the argument succinctly in the Washington Post. "Traditional marriage is defined as the union of (1) two people of (2) opposite gender," he observes. "If, as advocates of gay marriage insist, the gender requirement is nothing but prejudice, exclusion and an arbitrary denial of one's autonomous choices," then "on what grounds do they insist upon the traditional, arbitrary and exclusionary number of two?"

Here's the answer. The number isn't two. It's one. You commit to one person, and that person commits wholly to you. Second, the number isn't arbitrary. It's based on human nature. Specifically, on jealousy.

From my reading, the point is this: marriage is a result of human jealousy. Not (though this has been a point of email debate) necessarily physical jealousy, nor even jealousy using the sense of the word that treats the object of jealousy as an object attained and not to be let go of. Rather (and I might be reading into this some combo of my thoughts and Saletan's), we are talking about a broader, even nobler, concept of jealousy.

Jealousy can be good. To make the quick point, imagine your feelings if your favorite other did not feel jealous upon noticing your seeming intimate touch with another person...or your moment letting someone else be your confidant. Don't we want our favorite someone to want to be the one that we go to...just as we want to be their's?

Jealousy, like food, can be unhealthy and dangerous. It is as such when, like food, we let it do something to us apart from nourishment and the fullfilment of a good life.

But doesn't jealousy remind us that some things are precious? Some things, like a newborn baby, we don't want to let go of. For the betterment of us all, sure, we have to balance our weaker nature and let a person be a person. But we don't leave our baby unattended long, we don't lose some grip on what we love.

To return to marriage: Saletan's point rings something true to me. Marriage is more about a one-on-one commitment and journey together than it is about whether the two people are a boy and girl. What is important is that is is THEM, and only them. Why not them = 3, 4, 5, or however many? Jealousy.

The good side of jealousy is an ingrained nature in us that simply cannot abide with our ultimate union being with more than one other person. And dangit, that just makes common sense to me. As soon as another WIFE would be required in my life, the unavoidable implication is that one wife could not be enough. And wife one for darn sure should be jealous.

Maybe jealousy is another word for our intuition that a bond is broken. Or, that we better do something in ourselves to improve that bond. And that...knowing that we are responsible for, indeed are, that duality, is marriage, partnership, couplehood.

speech and conduct

When is conduct speech?

Brownstein and Amar step into the old debate of when/whether the first amendment protects conduct as speech. Read it here.

The column discusses the recent Solomon Amendment case dealing with whether law schools may refuse, under first amendment principles, to obey Solomon, which in turn requires the schools to provide access for military recruiters on campus.

The basic thrust of the opinion, written by the Chief Justice, is that offering access is not speech, and any association to the recruiters' message is incidental. (the objection from the schools was in not wanting to be associated with certain sex discrimination practices)

The speech/conduct divide is not a political divide, so far as I can tell. Some may want actions such as the colleges' protected, others want money donations protected.

I generally sympathize with those opposed to a strict speech line. It seems simplistic to offer the 1st amend speech protections to oral noise. But I am far from a decided line. Thoughts?

Free Jill Carroll

Free Jill Carroll!

Foreign correspondent Jill Carroll was kidnapped Saturday, January 7 in Baghdad by a group calling itself Brigades of Vengeance. At the time of her arrest, Jill was freelancing for The Christian Science Monitor. Since her disappearance, the Monitor has engaged in tireless efforts to secure her release, and recently the blogosphere has been making aggressive moves to join the rest of the international chorus calling for her safe return. In particular, as the Committee to Protect Bloggers stated on its website Saturday, "Of greatest import are Iraqi blogs and blogs in the Arabic and Muslim worlds that may be read by people in a position to do good for Jill."

We at Owens Rhetoric salute the efforts ongoing around the world to bring Jill safely home, and add our voice to those condemning the kidnapping and calling for her prompt and unconditional release.

You can get continous updates on Jill here.

Here is a link to the public service video calling for her release, which is being aired across the Arab-speaking world.

Two questions this week:

Are state tax incentives to corporations, designed to bring out-of-state business into the state, violative of the dormant commerce clause? I'm not sure why they would not be, save the everyone does it theory.

Is what Mohammed Taheri-azar did, in driving an SUV through a crowded area of Chapel Hill's campus, with the apparent (but thankfully failed) attempt to kill, "terrrorism"?

That first question we can get away with reserving for a bit later. The latter, I agree with my former professor on this one. "Terrorism" has a literal and a cultural meaning...as anything does, I reckon. The word's usage requires caution, then, lest we slip into unintentional broadification (my word) of the term. Certainly, we do not want every random act of violence being the subject of our current, still ongoing last I heard, war. (remember, war and typical crime merit different legal procedures)

In discussions thus far, I have noticed the hinge concept of differentiation between terrorism and random violence is political purpose. I'm not sure I can go confidently with this. What about the dingbat, and I am overwhelmingly confident of this, that performs some act of random violence for which a political purpose is ascribed; but for which, in reality, the only spur was the person's retardation, or some such mental problem. Say, for instance, a mentally inform person joins a cult, and then blows something else in furtherance of the cult's instruction? Political act or insanity? What if a person blows themself up, and then a group to which he had no affiliation claims the act? Terrorism or a random act?

Especially though, remembering we're in a WAR against this amorphous thing, we have a particular duty to not be fast and loose with ascribing terrorism without a great amount of caution. What if the SUV driver in Chapel Hill is a terrorist? Does he appreciate normal criminal law procedure...or do we send to Cuba and the dogs of interrogation?