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Arguing Equality Chapter 8: Gay Marriage & Religion

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This is a nine-part installment designed to help everyone understand marriage equality.  For some, it will be an education, for others, it will be helpful when discussing the subject.  I have included links to each chapter at the end, as well as information about the author.

CHAPTER 8: 

RELIGION

 For many, this is the be all and end all of the debate. Countless books have been written on the subject, and scholars on both sides have wrestled with the subject. Ready? Here we go…

GAY MARRIAGE IS PROHIBITED BY MY RELIGION

The argument is simple, and doesn’t require a whole lot of explaining. It is the single most frequently cited rationale for opposing the legalization of gay marriage.35 For many if not most Americans, marriage is thought to be a religious institution inextricably linked with the Judeo-Christian moral ethic. Since the grand majority of Jewish and Christian sects oppose gay marriage, many contend that it should remain illegal period.

The very definition of democracy.

A) America is a Secular State

The problem with utilizing personal religious beliefs to oppose state sanctification of gay marriage is that legally speaking, religious and civil marriages are completely separate institutions. Though many faiths currently perform same-sex marriage “ceremonies,” these ceremonies have no legal recognition as civil marriages. A heterosexual couple similarly can have a religious marriage ceremony, but unless they file papers with the state that ceremony has no legal significance. Conversely, a couple does not need the blessing of a religious institution to marry – atheists and others who choose not to have a religious ceremony need only fill out a marriage license at City Hall to legally wed.

Just as the state does not dictate which ceremonies a religion can perform or recognize, religious sects should not be able to dictate who receives a civil marriage license. Even if most Americans have a profound religious objection to same-sex marriage, denying even one gay couple the right to wed on religious grounds is a gross violation of our country’s commitment to the separation of church and state.

Not convinced by argument A? How about the opposite end of the spectrum?

B) Freedom of Religion

On the other hand, if one fails to note a disjunction between the religious institution of marriage and its secular counterpart, arguing the alternative — that the religious and secular components of marriage are inherently and inextricably linked — proves equally effective on religious freedom grounds.

At present, the Unitarian/Universalist Church, the United Church of Christ, the Metropolitan Community Church, Reform and Reconstructionist Judaism all recognize same-sex marriage as an intricate part of their religion. If the religious and secular components of marriage are truly linked, then a strong case could be made that the government’s failure to sanction gay marriage is a violation of our constitution’s guarantee of freedom of religion. Moreover, the government, by not legalizing gay marriage, is valuing some religious ceremonies over others (for instance, a marriage ceremony performed by the Methodist Church rather than the United Church of Christ), an example of government favoritism clearly forbidden by the Establishment Clause of the Constitution.

Below is a little history lesson. Christianity, historically, has valued neither procreation nor marriage all that much for most of its existence.

C) Marriage and Christianity

Finally, those who claim that marriage is a vital, fundamental and immutable facet of the Christian religion should be greeted with a healthy dose of historical skepticism. Despite its import in recent times, Christianity has been most notable for its insistence on the preferability of lifestyles other than family units – priestly celibacy, voluntary virginity (even for the married), and monastic community life. While it may seem like the biological family has always been the central unit of Christian life, this is simply not the case. As John Boswell noted above, Christianity was, for the most part, ambivalent about marriage for much of its history.

But even if in recent times marriage has come to play a vital role in the Christian religion, the idiosyncrasies and inconsistencies of the church’s position certainly work to undermine its credibility. Bishop John Shelby Spong of the Episcopal Church, for instance, notes that the church regularly blesses fox hunts, homes, and even warships: “The church has no problem blessing a vehicle whose sole function is to reign nothing but death and destruction, yet refuses to bless the union of two people who are in love.”

As an institution, Christianity remained overwhelmingly ambivalent about most forms of heterosexual marriage during the first millennium of its existence. This is hardly surprising for a religion whose founder was supposed to have had no biological father, whose parents were not married at the time of His conception, who was believed to have had no siblings, who Himself never married, and whose followers — in direct opposition to those of Judaism and most pagan religions — considered celibacy the most virtuous lifestyle. – John Boswell, Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe

THE GOOD BOOK

LEVITICUS 18:22 “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.”

When addressing homosexuality and religion, biblical arguments inevitably come into play. As Peter J. Gomes explains: “Nearly every such person who acknowledges an aversion to homosexuality does so on the basis of what he or she believes the Bible to say, and in their minds there is no doubt whatsoever about what the Bible says, and what the Bible means.” Of course, nothing could be further from the truth; what the Bible actually says and means about homosexuality is wildly disputed in both academic and religious circles. For a good read on the subject, I highly recommend my good friend Daniel Helminiak’s “What The Bible Really Says About Homosexuality, and John Boswell’s Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality.”

via Gay Marriage & Religion.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Seth Persily is a member of the Georgia Bar and a cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School. While at Harvard, Mr. Persily served as Publisher of the Harvard Law Record and co-President of the Lambda Law Association. Mr. Persily obtained his undergraduate degree from Duke University, where he served as President of the Duke Gay, Bisexual & Lesbian Association. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa, with a B.A. in Religion and a minor in Gay & Lesbian Studies.

Mr. Persily worked at the Atlanta law firm of Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan before opening his own practice, Persily & Associates, which concentrates on employment discrimination and real estate law. He serves on the Board of Directors for Georgia Equality as well as YouthPride.

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Arguing Equality Chapter 7: Gay Marriage Destroy Marriage

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This is a nine-part installment designed to help everyone understand marriage equality.  For some, it will be an education, for others, it will be helpful when discussing the subject.  I have included links to each chapter at the end, as well as information about the author.

CHAPTER 7: 

THE SANCTITY OF THE INSTITUTION

PROTECTING MARRIAGE

Inherently related yet subtly distinct from the slippery slope argument is the notion that same-sex unions would somehow undermine the institution of marriage. Proponents of this viewpoint can be expected to make the following empirical observations: Marriage is already in a weakened and precarious state; At present, over 50% of marriages end in divorce; An almost epidemic number of children are being born out of wedlock; Marriage is the “bedrock of ourculture”; It must be protected at any cost.

Gay marriage opponents go on to conclude their points with apocalyptic visions of the moral decay of our nation – legalizing gay marriage would threaten the sanctity of the institution upon which our very society rests. The editors of the Catholic magazine Commonweal, for instance, argued that: “[E]levating same-sex unions to the same moral and legal status as marriage will further throw into doubt marriage’s fundamental purposes and put at risk a social practice and moral ideal vital to all.”

[W]e are not predicting that there is going to be an erosion of marriage, but I think the melancholy point is this, that the notion of marriage may not be extended to take in, to accommodate the concern for gay marriage without setting off many other kinds of changes, and as a result of those changes, I think we would find that marriage would not have that special kind of significance that makes it an object right now of such craving.

A) Confronting the Stereotype

Unfortunately, a great deal of erroneous information has been disseminated in recent years involving stereotypical portrayals of gay people, the gay rights movement, and a so-called “homosexual agenda” to undermine American cultural standards. With respect to marriage specifically, these misconceptions often translate into a fear that once permitted to wed, gays and lesbians will make a mockery of the institution by treating the marital bond as less than sacrosanct, or, worse yet, will threaten the institution of marriage by deliberately sabotaging it from within.

Of course, these fears lie wholly unsupported in fact. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender citizens who want to marry want to do so for much the same reasons heterosexuals do – ideas of mutual love, support, and commitment. Indeed, gay people would likely be the institution’s most “enthusiastic recruits,” seeking not to destroy the institution, but rather to take part in it, and thereby strengthen it.22 In the words of Rabbi Yoel H. Kahn: “I do not believe that encouraging commitment, stability, and openness undermines the institution of family — it enhances it.”

B) The Hypocrisy of the Argument

If conservatives are truly worried about the demise of marriage, why not target Las Vegas-style weddings, or no-fault divorce laws, or adultery? Why the fixation on the one group of people excluded from the institution, the one group of people who could not possibly be responsible for its decline? The answer is clear. As Stephen Chapman put it: “Conservatives say they abhor gay marriage because they value marriage. The truth is they abhor gay marriage because they abhor gays.”

C) The Cross-Cultural Analogy

It seems strange, if not hypocritical, that the same people who proclaim the institution of marriage to be “the bedrock of our civilization” also argue that it is so fragile that allowing gays access to it will endanger it forever. Countries such as Denmark, Sweden, Canada and the Netherlands, which have all legalized gay marriage and are hardly racked by moral decay, provide concrete evidence that this fear is grounded in neither fact nor reason.

D) Strengthening the Institution

In some ways, one might expect that gay marriages would not mirror their heterosexual counterparts, an inevitable byproduct of gender differences between same-sex and opposite-sex unions. While some have theorized that this alteration in traditional marital structures would destroy the institution, a better argument would be that it would actually strengthen the institution by pushing marriage in its evolution towards being a partnership of equals.

Professor Nan Hunter, for instance, theorizes that the traditional notion of marriage, with man as head of the household and wage-earner and woman as housekeeper and childrearer, would necessarily be challenged by examples of same-sex households where a woman is the wage-earner, a man is the housekeeper, or, ultimately, the partners share the roles.25 Recognition of same-sex marriages, she notes, “would radically strengthen and dramatically illuminate the claim that marriage partners are presumptively equal.” In this vein, Hunter and others theorize that heterosexual women could benefit from the legalization of gay marriage almost as much as gays and lesbians.

Lets put this all in perspective. What is this all really about?

E) A Note On Change

Finally, it would be wise to note that arguments which employ slippery slopes or refer to the “sanctity of the institution” are for the most part simply arguments of fear. People are always wary of change, and for many, gay marriage represents change of a particularly powerful kind. In this vein, as we explored with respect to slippery slope arguments, it might help to note that the institution of marriage has undergone tremendous transformations over the past few centuries; recognition of same-sex unions would not be the first, nor the most drastic, step in the evolution.

Here’s a brief history lesson: To begin with, African-American slaves at one time had no family rights and were not permitted to marry. As a nineteenth-century jurist put it, “whether [slaves] ‘take up’ with each other by express permission of their owners or from a mere impulse of nature, [their marriages] cannot in the contemplation of the law make any sort of difference.”

While African-Americans were later extended the right to marry, miscegenation laws remained on the books. Virginia’s antimiscegenation law, for instance, was first adopted in 1691 to prevent “abominable mixture and spurious issue,” and was not declared unconstitutional until 1967.

The institution of marriage has evolved in other ways as well. At one point, marriage was essentially a business deal which had little to do with love. Marriages cemented family ties, prevented feuding between rival clans or countries, and provided social status for men and economic support for women. Marriages were typically arranged, and bride-prices were bargained between the father of the bride and her future husband.

Vestiges of these business transaction functions of marriage remained a part of the marital institution until recent times, including those which treated women as the “property” of their husbands. In 1967, for instance, every state exempted from its criminal laws a rape by a husband of his wife – a woman was seen as the “property” of her husband and had a “duty” to provide him with sexual gratification. Ultimately, women succeeded in convincing legislators that the entitlements of marriage did not include a husband’s free reign over his wife’s body, and every state either curtailed or repealed its marital rape exemption by 1993.

Indeed, if one takes a broad look at the institution, very few aspects of marriage have stayed the same: Marriage is not “traditionally” monogamous (in the Old Testament, Jacob’s two wives and two concubines produced the head of the twelve tribes, and King Solomon is said to have had 10,000 wives); Does not “traditionally” involve a religious blessing (in early Christian unions, marriage was not yet a sacrament); and was not “traditionally” recognized by law (centuries of European “parole” marriages were conducted outside the law). As scholar E.J. Graff notes: “Each era’s marriage institutionalizes the sexual bond in a way that makes sense for that society, that economy, that class.… Marriage is – marriage has always been – variations on a theme.”

I talk, obviously as others do, to people in my district, and I have people tell me:.

  • “I am worried about losing my Medicare.”
  • “I am worried about losing my job.”
  • “I am worried about the lack of safety on the streets.”
  • “I am worried that there is not enough money now to continue with toxic waste cleanup.”

Never yet has someone come to me and said, “Congressman, I am terribly threatened. There are two women who are deeply in love a couple of miles away from me. And if you do not prevent them from formalizing their union, this will be terrible for me, and, in fact, will threaten my marriage.” I know of no heterosexual marriage, the form of marriage that we have that has sustained us, that is threatened by this.  – Congressman Barney Frank, during Congressional hearings on the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act.

via Gay Marriage Destroy Marriage.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Seth Persily is a member of the Georgia Bar and a cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School. While at Harvard, Mr. Persily served as Publisher of the Harvard Law Record and co-President of the Lambda Law Association. Mr. Persily obtained his undergraduate degree from Duke University, where he served as President of the Duke Gay, Bisexual & Lesbian Association. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa, with a B.A. in Religion and a minor in Gay & Lesbian Studies.

Mr. Persily worked at the Atlanta law firm of Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan before opening his own practice, Persily & Associates, which concentrates on employment discrimination and real estate law. He serves on the Board of Directors for Georgia Equality as well as YouthPride.

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Arguing Equality Chapter 5: Gay Couples and Children

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This is a nine-part installment designed to help everyone understand marriage equality.  For some, it will be an education, for others, it will be helpful when discussing the subject.  I have included links to each chapter at the end, as well as information about the author.

CHAPTER 5:

GAY MARRIAGE AND PROCREATION

BUT GAYS CANNOT REPRODUCE

What purpose does marriage serve? Why should the government sanction it? Gay marriage opponents often utilize questions such as these to probe the heart of the marital institution, analyzing its essential form and function to demonstrate that marriage is – and ought to be – an inherently heterosexual institution.

Marriage, as the argument goes, is an institution created and celebrated for one all-important purpose — to sustain a healthy environment for raising children. As James Q. Wilson, author of The Moral Sense, puts it: “A family is not an association of independent people; it is a human commitment designed to make possible the rearing of moral and healthy children. Governments care — or ought to care — about families for this reason, and scarcely for any other.”

If the purpose of marriage is to raise children, then the question of same-sex marriage comes down to the biology of the sex organs. A man and a woman can have a child, but a woman and a woman, or a man and a man, cannot. Since same-sex couples cannot procreate, they cannot fulfill this basic function of marriage.

To put the argument simply, the purpose of marriage is to foster procreation. Gays cannot procreate. Therefore, gays cannot marry. This is not a matter of discrimination, it is simple human biology.

Below you will find the most popular ways of countering this supposition, and depending on your social and political outlook, you can choose ay one of them, or all. Click below to learn some of the basic arguments.

A) Gay People Do Have Children

The first flaw in this reasoning is that — contrary to popular opinion — gay people can, and do, raise children. Some gays and lesbians have children born from a prior heterosexual relationship, others adopt children, many go the route of artificial insemination or surrogate parenting. Indeed, what many refer to as the “gayby boom” is no small phenomenon — figures place the number of lesbian mothers in the United States at 1 to 5 million and the number of gay fathers at 1 to 3 million.

B) The Infertile Couple Analogy

There are far more sterile heterosexual unions in America than homosexual ones. The “anatomical possibility” crowd cannot have it both ways. If the possibility of children is what gives meaning to marriage, then a post-menopausal woman who applies for a marriage license should be turned away at the courthouse door. What’s more, she should be hooted at and condemned for stretching the meaning of marriage beyond its natural basis and so reducing the institution to frivolity. People at the Family Research Council or Concerned Women for America should point at her and say, “If she can marry, why not polygamy?” –Jonathan Rauch, For Better or Worse?

Procreativity speaking, there is no difference between a sterile heterosexual couple, a heterosexual couple who chooses not to have children, and a homosexual couple. Thus as a matter of logical consistency, if the government is to deny gays and lesbians the right to marry because they cannot procreate, then it must necessarily deny post-menopausal women and impotent couples that right as well.

As Mark Strasser notes:

It is at best disingenuous to hold that an essential precondition of marriage is that the couple plans to have children, but that the state’s requiring only certain people to meet that condition is a mere theoretical imperfection. In any case, no responsible legal authority believes that the desire and willingness to have children is an essential precondition of marriage except in the context of attempting to show why there can be no homosexual marriages.

Indeed, any argument that justifies an impotent heterosexual marriage also justifies a homosexual one, and thus if sterile or elderly couples cannot be denied the right to marry on procreative possibility grounds, than neither can gays or lesbians.

The argument laid forth below is for the conservative-minded. Quit simply, marriage, gay or straight, is good for society, and should therefore be encouraged. Many straight and gay single individuals would question why couples receive any benefits at all versus married or coupled individuals.

C) Insurance and Companionship

Of course sterile heterosexual couples can get married, a fact not likely to change any time soon. And for good reason. Despite the rhetoric of gay marriage opponents, marriage is widely considered to be “the bedrock of our civilization” for reasons as important, if not more important, than the rearing of children.

Marriage as Social Insurance

One of the biggest problems any society faces is how to care for an individual when they can no longer care for themselves. If single, an individual with Alzheimer’s or cancer might be fortunate enough to rely on friends or family. But then, again, they might not, in which case they will fall under the responsibility of the state – often at substantial cost.

The benefit of a marital “partner,” for both the individual and society, is to help guarantee that one will not have to rely on the government during times of need. As Jonathan Rauch notes: “If marriage has any meaning at all, it is that when you collapse from a stroke, there will be at least one other person whose ‘job’ is to drop everything and come to your aid.

From a purely economic perspective, marriage serves as a form of social insurance. Its participants are provided with a reliable partner “for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health.” It is for this reason that elderly and sterile couples are permitted, indeed encouraged, to marry – not because they will bear children, but rather because marriage promotes individual and societal stability.

Marriage as Companionship

Of course marriage is more than just a machinization of social insurance; it is an expression of love. When men and women decide to wed, it is not usually because they are contemplating the insurance features of marriage, but rather because they are in love and want to make a binding commitment to be together for life.

From a religious perspective, this “companionship” function of marriage was present from the very first couple onward. Indeed, according to the Bible, God created a partner for Adam not for procreative purposes, but rather because: “God said, ‘It is not good for man to be alone’ (Genesis 2:18).” Jeffrey John notes:

“Complementarity and companionship are at least as much a part of God’s plan in creation as childbirth. Indeed it is remarkable that in the Genesis account childbirth emerges only as an afterthought, and in the rather negative context of God’s punishment of Eve (3:16). It is highly significant that Jesus and Paul, while both referring to the creation story, never once mention procreation or physical sexual difference in their teaching about marriage. On the contrary, their stress is entirely on the quality of the relationship, and in particular that it should be a covenant of total sexual fidelity and indissoluble union.”

Marriage is not just about procreation and child-rearing. It is a system of insurance and a guarantee of stability, an expression of love and a promise of lifelong companionship. To argue that gays and lesbians should be denied the right to marry because they cannot produce children or have the “wrong sexual organs,” then, fails to take the entire picture into account.

Point/ Counterpoint

While most would no doubt agree that companionship is a noteworthy goal of marriage, many opponents would add that gender differentiation is a material component of that companionship. A man is meant to complete a woman, it is argued, and a woman to complete a man – a theory known among Christian scholars as “complementarity.”

However, lifelong gay and lesbian couples provide demonstrative evidence that one’s companion need not be someone of the opposite sex. Indeed, a vast array of sociological and psychological literature reveals that the bond between same-sex couples can be as emotional and powerful as that between opposite-sex couples. Psychologist C.A. Tripp, for instance, reports that:

[T]he settled qualities of the homosexual couple tend to be precisely those which characterize the stable heterosexual relationship. The similarities evidenced in daily life are especially noticeable. The way the partners interact as they engage in conversation, the way casual affection is expressed and minor irritations are dealt with, as well as how visitors are treated, or dinner is served, and myriad other details of everyday life are all more or less indistinguishable.

“The heterosexuality of marriage is civilly intrinsic only if it is understood to be inherently procreative. And that definition has long been abandoned in civil society. In contemporary America, marriage has become a way in which the state recognizes an emotional and economic commitment between two people to each other for life.” – Andrew Sullivan, The Politics of Homosexuality

via Gay Couples and Children.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Seth Persily is a member of the Georgia Bar and a cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School. While at Harvard, Mr. Persily served as Publisher of the Harvard Law Record and co-President of the Lambda Law Association. Mr. Persily obtained his undergraduate degree from Duke University, where he served as President of the Duke Gay, Bisexual & Lesbian Association. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa, with a B.A. in Religion and a minor in Gay & Lesbian Studies.

Mr. Persily worked at the Atlanta law firm of Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan before opening his own practice, Persily & Associates, which concentrates on employment discrimination and real estate law. He serves on the Board of Directors for Georgia Equality as well as YouthPride.

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Arguing Equality Chapter 3: Sexism and Gay Marriage

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This is a nine-part installment designed to help everyone understand marriage equality.  For some, it will be an education, for others, it will be helpful when discussing the subject.  I have included links to each chapter at the end, as well as information about the author.

CHAPTER 3:

SEXISM AND GAY MARRIAGE

In recent years, feminist scholars and gay theorists have developed a body of thought which explores homophobia as a manifestation of sexism. One basic tenet of this line of thought is that strict gender roles, hierarchically constructed, serve to subordinate women to men — economically, culturally, and politically.

In order to maintain the status quo, these gender roles must be strictly adhered to, an adhesion which is maintained by punishing gender non-conformity (effeminacy in men, tomboyish qualities in women) by labeling that non-conformity, stigmatizing it, as “queer.”

Sound confusing? Let’s break it down: Those who have ever watched adolescents on a playground will attest that the boy who wants to play hopscotch rather than baseball will be strictly, and often relentlessly, teased as a “faggot.” Homophobia thus promotes sexism — a fear of being labeled homosexual enforces strict adherence to gender roles, which in turn solidifies male dominance over women.

Deriving from this interplay between sexism and homophobia is a line of argumentation which attacks the ban on same-sex marriage not because it is homophobic, but rather because it is sexist. The Supreme Court of Hawaii illustrated this argument utilizing a simple analogy between a same-sex couple in Baehr v. Mike and a mixed-race couple in Loving v. Virginia.

In Loving, the court argued, a black woman could marry a black man, but not a white man. The difference was race — indisputable racism. In Baehr, a woman could marry a man, but not a woman. The difference was sex — indisputable sexism.

On this basis, just as bans on miscegenation were outlawed as racist, the court argued that bans on gay marriage should be outlawed as sexist. Especially in those states which have adopted the Equal Rights Amendment and subject gender bias to the highest levels of scrutiny, reasoning which exposes the ban on gay marriage as a form of sex discrimination may bear great weight in convincing legislators or judges that same-sex marriage should be declared unconstitutional.

via Sexism and Gay Marriage.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Seth Persily is a member of the Georgia Bar and a cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School. While at Harvard, Mr. Persily served as Publisher of the Harvard Law Record and co-President of the Lambda Law Association. Mr. Persily obtained his undergraduate degree from Duke University, where he served as President of the Duke Gay, Bisexual & Lesbian Association. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa, with a B.A. in Religion and a minor in Gay & Lesbian Studies.

Mr. Persily worked at the Atlanta law firm of Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan before opening his own practice, Persily & Associates, which concentrates on employment discrimination and real estate law. He serves on the Board of Directors for Georgia Equality as well as YouthPride.

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1984 v. Brave New World

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1984 v. Brave New World

In October of 1949, a few months after the release of George Orwell‘s dystopian masterpiece, Nineteen Eighty-Four, he received a fascinating letter from fellow author Aldous Huxley — a man who, 17 years previous, had seen his own nightmarish vision of society published, in the form of Brave New World. What begins as a letter of praise soon becomes a brief comparison of the two novels, and an explanation as to why Huxley believes his own, earlier work to be a more realistic prediction.

Fantastic.

Trivia: In 1917, long before he wrote this letter, Aldous Huxley briefly taught Orwell French at Eton.

Wrightwood. Cal.

21 October, 1949

Dear Mr. Orwell,

It was very kind of you to tell your publishers to send me a copy of your book. It arrived as I was in the midst of a piece of work that required much reading and consulting of references; and since poor sight makes it necessary for me to ration my reading, I had to wait a long time before being able to embark on Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Agreeing with all that the critics have written of it, I need not tell you, yet once more, how fine and how profoundly important the book is. May I speak instead of the thing with which the book deals — the ultimate revolution? The first hints of a philosophy of the ultimate revolution — the revolution which lies beyond politics and economics, and which aims at total subversion of the individual’s psychology and physiology — are to be found in the Marquis de Sade, who regarded himself as the continuator, the consummator, of Robespierre and Babeuf. The philosophy of the ruling minority in Nineteen Eighty-Four is a sadism which has been carried to its logical conclusion by going beyond sex and denying it. Whether in actual fact the policy of the boot-on-the-face can go on indefinitely seems doubtful. My own belief is that the ruling oligarchy will find less arduous and wasteful ways of governing and of satisfying its lust for power, and these ways will resemble those which I described in Brave New World. I have had occasion recently to look into the history of animal magnetism and hypnotism, and have been greatly struck by the way in which, for a hundred and fifty years, the world has refused to take serious cognizance of the discoveries of Mesmer, Braid, Esdaile, and the rest.

Partly because of the prevailing materialism and partly because of prevailing respectability, nineteenth-century philosophers and men of science were not willing to investigate the odder facts of psychology for practical men, such as politicians, soldiers and policemen, to apply in the field of government. Thanks to the voluntary ignorance of our fathers, the advent of the ultimate revolution was delayed for five or six generations. Another lucky accident was Freud’s inability to hypnotize successfully and his consequent disparagement of hypnotism. This delayed the general application of hypnotism to psychiatry for at least forty years. But now psycho-analysis is being combined with hypnosis; and hypnosis has been made easy and indefinitely extensible through the use of barbiturates, which induce a hypnoid and suggestible state in even the most recalcitrant subjects.

Within the next generation I believe that the world’s rulers will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging and kicking them into obedience. In other words, I feel that the nightmare of Nineteen Eighty-Four is destined to modulate into the nightmare of a world having more resemblance to that which I imagined in Brave New World. The change will be brought about as a result of a felt need for increased efficiency. Meanwhile, of course, there may be a large scale biological and atomic war — in which case we shall have nightmares of other and scarcely imaginable kinds.

Thank you once again for the book.

Yours sincerely,

Aldous Huxley

via Letters of Note: 1984 v. Brave New World.

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