foundationopf.blogg.se

There are any number of probably innate, genetically inherited human characteristics that are as inborn as they come, and yet the fact that they are inborn does not stop people from using those characteristics as grounds for all manner of prejudice and hatred and abuse.

But in practice it doesnt work out so well. Which on the surface seems like a good argument. And because its innate, then you cant ask us to change it. Thats why a lot of LGBT rights activists push really hard for this: to be able to say no, we are born this way, it has nothing to do with what we want. To be able to say, I dont have control over this and I dont have anything to do with this. The wonderful thing about having a material explanation is that its a way to absolve yourself. It may be that everything is biological, but if it is, I think that it is of sufficiently advanced complexity that it will stymie our attempts to discover it. So youre not a reductionist, who believes that theoretically, with big enough super-computers, we should be able to break all our thoughts and actions down to a material, chemical cause. But once you do have a name for it - and this is important some sort of collective understanding that you share with other people about what this thing is, then it develops a cultural identity.

This was the way you organized your life, but you didnt have a word for it. You would have children, you would build a family, you would do all of those things but you wouldnt call it heterosexuality. Similarly, there was a time, before we had this word heterosexual, when you could have a marriage with someone who was of a different sex from you.

You could say the Shma, you could go to shul, keep kosher, but you werent going to conceptualize yourself, and say, well because I do these things, I am an Orthodox Jew. One of the analogies that really tends to works well is this: There was a time when there was no such thing as an Orthodox or a Reform or Conservative Jew. You tell us in the book that heterosexuality as a concept only goes back to 1868.