How to See Real Magic

This is as much as what Tumblrites call a "signal boost" as it is a commentary. I'm really enjoying Henry Dampier's Quick Reactions blog. He's approaching neoreactionary thought in a similar manner as myself, with an eye towards the moral and the non-rational.

From his post, Magic: More Real Than You Think:

If magic is a way of perceiving the world, then it may be more ‘real’ than the enlightenment-rationalist method of pretending as if the many things that we don’t understand accord to natural laws that we only pretend to be familiar with.

I didn't realize it at the time but Chesterton's Orthodoxy had a profound effect on me. On the first reading, I recognized the feeling of searching the world for a philosophy that made sense to me and then arriving upon the Christianity I was raised with. The rest made sense only on the surface.

The second reading jimmied some cracks in my mind. Chesterton presents the point that faith allows us to see the world as being as magical as it is. It took some time for it to sink in.

I was already down that path. I realized that the best way to approach the world is to picture oneself smaller and smaller within it--that is, that the world was getting increasingly bigger around me.

It started as a response to the artistic-types with whom I had surrounded myself. Most of them came from comfortable backgrounds and the rest had recklessly charged into the world, unconcerned with consequences--they had experiences that I envied. But as I heard them talk, I realized that their experiences were badges that they wore, not events that shaped and changed them.

I can explain it this way:  I imagine myself and the individuals I envied sitting in a Roman piazza, sipping espresso. My eyes would be wide, trying to take everything in, trying to imagine it hundreds of years before, trying to incorporate all the historical figures who'd been there, trying to understand the architecture, the people, the atmosphere and my reaction to it. I'd be a tiny child on an enormous playground. The people I met--who had been able to make these kinds of trips--sat there thinking, basically, "Hey, check me out. It's me, in Rome."

(Lest you think that I'm just guessing at my reaction, I was lucky enough to travel to India for a couple of months at the end of the last century. This is an accurate description of how I felt, with the addition that everything was a mystery to me, having no grounding in Indian history.)

But the entire world is this way, even the path from your door to your car. I wrote a bit in this direction in my piece about polyamory. Traditional marriage is one of those magical phenomena in the world. Even the concept--it's a human discovery rather than a human invention. It seems to exist in our collective psyches without anyone making it up; after all, nearly every culture has some variation on the union.

Our world is filled with these. The novel, for example--was it invented? Or is it an outgrowth of our natures, a knotting of language, imagination, our need for narrative and our ability to manage complexity? Wasn't it inevitable, not the creation of one individual but a diamond that only needed to be unearthed?

When one looks at the world with an understanding that it is more strange and wonderful and complicated than you can know, that it all exists outside of you, when one understands that there are dynamics at play of which one only sees shadows--well, it's a lot happier place to be.

That's why the post-Enlightenment, pseudo-rationalist progressive worldview is repugnant. It's not a matter of maintaining ignorance, like one burning astronomy books because one wants to believe that stars are the candles of angels, but a matter of knowing that our struggle to understand is like emptying the ocean with a teacup. The progressive tells us that the ocean is only an inch deep and a mammoth teacup will be here any day.

Take, again, Diana Adams' relationship philosophy. Her perspective was that humans have some finite number of needs/desires that need to be checked off to become happy or satisfied. Her particular set of needs could not be satisfied in a relationship with one partner, so she expanded.

Adams and her Yale-educated brain were bigger than the human phenomenon of relationships--she could map and diagram all the gears and controls and engineer a relationship(s) that fulfilled her needs.

That's not what relationships are and that's not how the world works. So much is unknowable--and if we do learn something, you can bet that there's another mystery right behind it.

Western Civilization has struggled with male-female relationships its entire existence--Adams and her comrades believe that the problem is that there weren't clear rules. Not only that, they believe that clear rules are possible and that they will cover every eventuality. I say that's madness.

Tradition, not speculative logic, is the method of handling the mysteries of the world. We can map the path through the forest, but only once we've gotten through it.

Polyamory in The Atlantic Part Two-The Politics

From The Atlantic's interview with polyamorous lawyer Diana Adams (also discussed here and here):

I'm working to create alternatives to marriage, because I think that if we could choose marriage affirmatively instead of it being a default, it would make relationships stronger.

Ah, the old "I'm trying to protect tradition" argument. This is the old progressive habit of attacking the consequences of their reforms. The problem with marriage, you see, is that people get married as if it's something that should be done, instead of looking at it as simply one possibility in a smorgasbord of choices.

Progressives believe that our traditions were handed down to us by a handful of frightened, violent old men who enforced their prejudices upon pain of death. Old fashioned marriage--that may be fine for some people but, you know, most people do it just because they think they're supposed to.

The high rate of divorce is offered as proof that traditional marriage isn't a very good option for a lot of people. So, let's add more options! That way, the people who choose traditional marriage are doing so because that's the romantic relationship they want--thus, all traditional marriages will be successful.

Progressives simply don't believe in the concept of sin. They don't believe that people want to do things that are wrong and that those urges need to be managed and suppressed. No, instead, they believe that those urges are right and that restrictions against them are what's wrong.

Traditional marriage is not a cakewalk and is always imperfect. But, historically, it's been effective in minimizing the damage caused by giving in to traditionally-sinful desires. Polyamory represents the effort to create institutions around our desires and not what works best. The political agenda is to make the arrangements of self-indulgence legitimate,  as legitimate as the self-sacrificing arrangement of traditional marriage.

Marriage is an incredibly intense contract. It's a legal-financial contract that you're making, declaring that you're going to be the other person's social welfare state and safety net if they screw up. I mean, you’re signing the most important document you’ll sign in your life and people read it less carefully than a cell phone contract. People have no idea what they’re actually committing to and are horrified a lot of times when they find out.

"I always cry at the signings-of-the-most-important-document."

This is an example of the progressive's materialist view of the world. Traditional marriage is a declaration of oaths, not a legal matter. A man and a woman declare that they are linking their lives together (as the beginning of a family) until their deaths. They are affirming their responsibilities to one another. Should they fail in their attempts, their behavior is considered a reflection of their character--it is dishonorable to backslide on one's oath.

No, to a progressive a marriage is a little government, a personal "social welfare state and safety net."

But we see that, for all of Adams' paradigm-shattering rhetoric, her real work is--like all lawyers--manipulating the legal system to get what her clients want.

Domestic partnership, for example, has tremendous possibility to create a more expansive version of what a relationship can look like. Domestic partnership was originally created as an alternative for gay couples who couldn’t legally get married. But then, all these surprising things started happening where these other kinds of people started using it for their own purposes. For instance, many elderly widow friends have entered into platonic domestic partnerships. It’s a situation like the Golden Girls. These are friends saying, “I live with her, and we watch out for each other, and I want her to be the person I can share my health insurance with.”

This, I like. It's a separate, secular arrangement that establishes non-marital households for legal and tax purposes. I'm curious as to what the limits are--certainly all the adult residents of an apartment building can't register as partners--but it makes sense that we have different versions of household arrangements, much like business are arranged differently.

However, it would be wise for social conservatives--who have been largely silent on America's health care situation--to consider how often health coverage has been used as a wedge for attacking traditional institutions.

I’m helping one polyamorous triad right now set up an LLC so they can share their finances. We’re making them employees of their own three person corporation so that they can be covered under an employee health plan.

Well, that's interesting. Would this kind of maneuvering even be necessary if our health care system was less Byzantine?

There are a lot of things we can do with co-parenting. With the busy lives that we lead, I think that three adults per child is actually a great ratio. So many parents are overburdened. I work a lot with lesbian couples and sperm donors in a three-parent model. They’re basing their relationship around a child. That’s a model that many courts and policymakers can wrap their heads around better than a polyamorous triad. If one woman contributes an egg, the man contributes sperm, and the other woman acts as a gestational surrogate, then all three of them are biologically a parent. We can do a three-parent adoption.

I suppose it's nice that it's all child-centered--Oh, wait. That's just to convince the squares, I guess.

I like how Adams makes it sound necessary that a child have three parents. I say that, if you're all so busy that you need three parents to raise your child, it's time to reexamine your priorities. The policymakers like child-centered models because they like the parents to actually be child-centered. In case you've forgotten---and I don't blame you, with the piles of rhetoric on top of the idea--marriage was always about family formation.

Polyamorist Diana Adams on MTV

Curious as to some in-the-moment behavior from The Atlantic's interviewee, polyamorist and lawyer Diana Adams, I watched her episode of MTV's True Life.

True Life, presented sporadically, is one of MTV's better shows, as least as little as I watch the network. I usually enjoy the program because it's an outpost of a diminishing genre, the cinema verite documentary. A documentary that isn't overloaded with narration and proselytizing is rare anymore.

The episode, like most of the series, revolves around two stories. In the first, a young Southern man is in a "triad," or relationship of three, with two other men. In the course of the show, he attempts to bring in a fourth member.

Diana Adams is a supporting character in the second story as the first lesbian relationship of new poly Kerry. The storyline follows Kerry as she entertains a new man in her life while remaining committed to Adams.

As it's practiced, polyamory seems to be a lot more hierarchical than the philosophy suggests. Adams is obviously the dominant partner over Kerry. Some of this is due to Kerry's youth (she's at least a half-decade younger than Adams at around 21) and being a poly neophyte.

More of it is due to Adams' skill. One short conversation is shown (Kerry reports that "a lot of brilliant feminist talk was cut") which is meant to be an example of the communication process needed. Kerry tells Adams, through giggles, that she's interested in a young man and that she wants to go on a date with him. Adams approves but she wants to meet him before they go out.

That, in itself, is oddly maternal, as it is when she inspects the boy and (half) jokingly says, "You'll have her back at midnight, right?" But she shows something more interesting when it's her turn to bring up an issue.

First she tells her that makes her feel a little jealous. It's striking that she doesn't say, "I'm feeling it but that's something that has to be overcome," or, "That's my problem but you should be aware of it." Instead, her statement sounds almost like a challenge.

It's a similar tactic to the "joke" she plays on the date. She puts something challenging on the table and then steps back to see how the person reacts. I feel this way and I feel this way because you do this. I want you to be aware of that. It's an emotional power-move--sometimes a quirk of personality but sometimes a tactic of dominance.

Adams follows the statement with a directive. Apparently, sometimes Kerry said to her that, if Adams were only a man, then their situation would be perfect. While this is understandably not a great thing to say, Adams then subtly threatens ending the relationship. She says that, since she is Kerry's first lesbian girlfriend, that she accepts that Kerry might not be ready for her. If that's the case, then she's willing to step back and just "be her friend."

It's all couched very nicely but firmly and directly. But I think that it highlights that polyamory seems to encourage a lot of polite teeth-baring. The fetish of communication creates an arena for the verbose to have a feeling-measuring contest.

For those that present their feelings the best--who have the most skill at justifying themselves--, it can be a chance to dominate others. The theory is that everyone shares and thus understands one another's feelings but the reality is that it can be a quiet argument over whose feelings are more legitimate.

Also a little disturbing is the knowledge that, while Kerry, a feminine and soft-spoken young girl, is new to the scene, Adams is not only experienced but entrenched in the poly social world, as well as having a long-term partner. The power difference is large and Adams' school-marm tone enhances this.

Watching polyamory in action reminds me that the reality is much different than the philosophy. In polyamorous thought, we can think of each individual as her own entity, making emotional connections of various intensities at will. The connections one makes need not have any bearing on any other connections--a partner needs to be aware of the others but contact is unimportant.

Over here in the real world, it's not a surprise that some are more dominant than others. But the polys seem to ignore the fact that their situations morph into a dysfunctional-family dynamic.

We see a bit of it with Kerry, but the gay triad shows the power dynamic more clearly. In that arrangement, our focus is Jim, who is frustrated because, even though all three of them live together, he is forced to sleep alone. It's not explicitly stated but Jim is the odd man out in the triad, with one man being the alpha and the other being a sort of pet, or taking a more feminine role.

It strikes me that it must be frustrating to think that one is entering this free, embracing world--a world in which you are liberated to love as many people as you want--and discover that you entering a commune as the least equal member.

Even worse, because you are the least dominant person in the group, your choices are more scrutinized and by more people than if one pursued serial monogamy. Adams insists on meeting Kerry's beau on their first date. Jim wants someone to sleep in the bed with him, so he finds a potential fourth member--over the dominant member's objections--and goes on a date with him secretly.

Bringing in another person seems to be a way for a less-dominant person to gain more power in the arrangement, at the very least by creating a crisis. He likes him better, so I'll bring in someone who likes me better and then our situation will be balanced. A case could be made that Adams attempts to dominate Kerry's date by having the group of them go to the queer club ("The She Dick") together and then join them at a tantric class (which isn't the least bit sexy). If you are interested in pursuing her, you will do it on my turf.

(We get to meet Ed Vessel, the poly-player we discussed yesterday--and, true to the emasculating nature of the philosophy, he spent some time wearing a skirt and enjoying a group hug.)

I don't think that the relationships on this show are anomalous--I think they're the norm. Feminine domination seems to be the name of the game, with their arsenal a stockpile of words and feelings and their defenses a pile of romantic options.

The episode was broadcast in 2009, reportedly after some delay. You can see Adams acting as a spokesman on The View last November. Sadly, she's hit the Wall and no longer comes off as the cool alternative chick she did five years ago. She brings up, again, her partner's relationships with hotter women in order to show how polys handle jealousy.

It seems like jealousy never stops bothering them, no matter how much they wish to "cultivate" compersion. Maybe it's all not as rational as they think...

Polyamory in The Atlantic Part One-The Emotional Life

The decline of The Atlantic continues with Up for Polyamory? Creating Alternatives to Marriage.

Three things always arise when one reads an article about polyamory:  self-regard for being different, men with no dignity and lots of talking.

This interview is no different. The subject is Diana Adams, who practices alternative family law (but really seems to be a feminist divorce lawyer) in Brooklyn.

She's a good example of the left's penchant for credentials. Adams attended Yale as a political science major and got her law degree at Cornell. She has held a hodge-podge of volunteer and pro bono positions, and

When not practicing law, Diana Adams is a self-defense instructor and nationally ranked martial artist, a relationship coach and workshop leader for individuals and couples seeking greater honesty and communication, a freelance writer working on her first book, and is involved in the New York City art community.

The writers of these polyamory articles are usually impressed with the quirky independence of their (typically female) subjects. Almost as impressed as the subjects themselves.

When I was a child...I had a doll house and a rich fantasy life...I was also an amazing mom to all my dolls, but it was always a little mysterious about where they had come from and whether they all had the same father. A little neighbor boy once said to me, "I’ll be the daddy." I thought about that for a moment. I said, "No, you can be my gay lounge singer friend. That’s much more fun." I’ve always liked boys. I just like them better in groups.

Ain't she somethin'?

For all the precociousness, there's an immature emotional interior revealed here. What's important is that the boxes on her checklist are marked off. Not gay and can't carry a tune? That's not important--put on this Hawaiian shirt and start crooning.

It's tough to compel people into the role you have for them, so it's a good thing she's an expert on asking for "what you you want boldly, clearly, and compassionately."

Humans in general have a hard time with monogamy. That’s always been the case. We used to have a sense that it was acceptable for husbands to go out and have other lovers, but with the shift to egalitarianism, rather than to say that woman could do that too, we’ve gone in the other direction.

Because people had difficulty sticking to the traditional rules and sometimes fudged them, the rules need to be thrown out altogether. What's needed is an entirely new set of rules that encompass and excuse every possible act that one can rationalize. That way, we can do whatever we want and never have to feel guilty about it.

Sexual relationships are complex and irrational. Progressives believe you can approach life rationally, that everything can be plotted out on a graph, or in law or in a narrative. They believe they can make sex rational. Good luck.

I think it's interesting to see the way that when people get into a monogamous couple dynamic, they often have to neuter their sexual desires. As the initial intensity of a relationship shifts to feelings of long-term love, you can end up in a sexless marriage, and I think that’s a huge contributor to infidelity and the breakup of a lot of families. 

Should we talk about the best ways to keep the spark alive in long-term relationships? No, we should start telling people that straying is okay.

Sexual desire is not only inherently good, it's the most important thing in the world. "Long-term love?" Worthless--unless one is getting one's rocks off. Living without sex? "That's unpossible!"

"We put so much emphasis on a partner being everything—that this person completes you—and when that doesn’t happen it creates a lot of pressure."

Ms. Adams, this isn't the message of traditional matrimony--this is the message of romantic movies.

If your romantic ideals are too much for one person, just increase the number of people working on the project. All your emotional dreams can come true, polyamorists tell us, but you're going to need a bigger staff.

What do your other lovers give you that your primary partner can’t?
Well, for example, with my female partners, I feel a different kind of power dynamic. I feel a protective impulse toward women I’m involved with. It's a different kind of love feeling. My partner Ed [Vessel] is a wonderful feminist man, though sometimes I’d really like to be out on a date with the kind of man who wants to open car doors for me and treat me like a princess. I don't want that all the time, but I might want that once a month.

Once again, it's about getting a list of things she wants. But it also shows that Adams lives in a flat, colorless world.

Theoretically, in a traditional marriage, the husband takes the hand of his wife and they go off together into the rest of their lives. What joys and pains will they share together? What changes will they undergo? At the end of their lives, how will they feel about it all?

We throw our lot in together. We know that bad things will happen. We know that good things will happen. We know that, whatever happens, we'll have to come to terms with it--what will come and how it will change us is a mystery.

Adams, in contrast, has arranged her life so she can have a man open a car door for her whenever she wants. That and regular orgasms. How rich.

The convenience of an a la carte emotional menu comes with a cost. Most dangerous to the polyamorous ideal is jealousy.

There are different versions of jealousy. One version might be a feeling of scarcity. Another can be insecurity. The way that I discover what version I’m dealing with is that I ask myself, “How old do I feel right now?” And when I'm insecure, I'm feeling like I'm 13.

No matter how many times jealousy is dissected and analyzed, it still finds a way to sneak back in. From a NYT profile of Adams' primary relationship in 2008:

[S]he was less pleased when she noticed the toothbrush that Mr. Vessel had bought for his other steady girlfriend when she slept over. 

That Mr. Vessel had a second girlfriend was not the issue.[...] The problem was that the other woman’s toothbrush was “a really fancy one that says ‘Primo’ on it, and mine is a junky one that says ‘Duane Reade,’ ” said Ms Adams, 29. For about a month, she was a little miffed every single time she brushed her teeth.

You know, it's more difficult to manage feelings of jealousy when your partner is definitely sleeping with someone else.

Jealousy is an emotion that we treat in a really blunt way. We often say somebody’s jealous and then that's an excuse for all sorts of bad behavior: throwing a drink in someone's face, or storming out, or manslaughter. In manslaughter, it's basically a defense: “I walked in on my wife having sex with another man and I killed them.” We treat jealousy almost with this reverence, but we don’t unpack what’s behind it.

Adams and her ilk have a lot of "reverence" for sexual arousal, even trying to resuscitate it when it fades, but jealousy doesn't deserve respect. In fact, her language implies that it's somehow made up, just an excuse for those that are bloodthirsty or like to toss cocktails at people.

In response to the ancient social construct of jealousy, polyamorists have invented a new emotion:  compersion. One definition at Wikipedia tells us that compersion is "the feeling of taking joy in the joy that others you love share among themselves, especially taking joy in the knowledge that your beloveds are expressing their love for one another."

You know, "I walked in on my wife having sex with another man and I just got the biggest smile on my face."

As I've discussed before, intentionally transgressing one's natural instincts is an occult practice. You're told that your sick feeling is not your conscience telling you that something's wrong but your brainwashing being overcome. Don't worry, after a while you'll get used to it.

It must have been necessary for Adams to conquer jealousy--she seems to be incapable of being alone:

I just had my birthday and my partner Ed is off doing amazing work as a scientist. As a consolation, my long-term boyfriend is staying in the house for the week. So, rather than my boyfriend saying, “Wow why's your partner going out of town when it's your birthday?” he’s asking if my partner is okay having to be away for so long, if he needs support. And my partner is saying, “Thanks for taking care of Diana since I can’t be there.”
...
[M]y dad had a massive heart attack and two of the men in my life came together to be with my family at the hospital. They’re both scientists, so they understood what was going on with his body and were able to explain everything that was happening. Both of them had busy jobs, so they actually coordinated with each other so that one of them was there at all times.

Unless her father is regularly in the hospital, she talked about the same situation in the NYT article almost six years before:

A few weekends ago, she had to rush upstate to see her ailing father. But Mr. Vessel had plans to go to the Jersey Shore with his other girlfriend. 

While both found the situation vexing, “the argument is not ‘I want to do that,’ it’s ‘How can I make you feel better about that?’ ” Mr. Vessel said. “ ‘Perhaps I can check in later that night, and give you a call.’ ” (They also arranged for friends to accompany her back home.)

Can you hear the frustration leaking out of these anecdotes?

Someone else might ask, "How can your partner--the most special man in your life--go out of town on your birthday--a very special day for 35-year-olds such as yourself?"  Someone else might ask--but not Adams. No, she knows Ed is doing "amazing work," so it's okay. Besides, she has her long-term boyfriend for "consolation."

If the two versions of the same situation are even more telling.

Adams' father has a "massive heart attack." Adams wants she and Vessel to be with her family during that difficult time. One problem:  Vessel has a sexy weekend at the beach planned with his other girlfriend. It sounds like he was really conflicted about it, being vexed and all. But polyamory prevailed and they came up with a satisfactory solution:  he'd take a break in between penetrations and "check in later that night."

Worse for Adams is the little tweak she made to the semantics of the resolution. In the original telling, she was accompanied by "friends." In the more recent version, they are "the men in my life." Both are true but the new version sounds a little sexier than the old.

Because Vessel's fine with Adams having other partners, he doesn't have to interrupt his rendezvous for a family emergency or open a car door for her or treat her like a princess. I wouldn't want to spend more than thirty seconds with the guy, but I do admire his style.

Dig deep enough into Adams primary relationship and it sounds less like a bold advance of progress than the rationalizations of a "bottom bitch." Consider this, from the NYT profile:

Partners, particularly the so-called primary partners, also carry veto power over their partners’ new prospects. Last year, Ms. Adams exercised them when Mr. Vessel saw a woman who both concluded was trying to pit one against the other. 

Mr. Vessel didn’t want to believe it. “She was hot,” Ms. Adams said in a stage-whisper, a note of jealousy in her voice.

There's one difference between Adams and the average bottom bitch, though:  She attended Yale and Cornell.

Theoretically, a lazy lothario could find a nice niche within the polyamory community. He starts a relationship with a half-dozen or more female polys, choosing only those with long-term partners. It sounds perfect for a guy who wants regular sex from multiple women but doesn't want to spend a lot of time running game.

In order to prevent these vanilla bros from getting in on the action, there's a high opportunity cost:  emasculation.

The men even have a name for themselves. They call themselves “The Man Harem.” Sometimes they’ll play with that. They’ll all show up in matching clothes – wearing all pinstripes, or all red shirts, for example.

Feeling alpha yet, player?

The NYT article points out another obstacle:

In the era of safe sex and cellphones, a life that seems to promise boundless sex in fact involves lots of talking. And talking. And talking.

That's good for Adams, at least, because she loves talking about her progressive and brave lifestyle. In fact, you can even watch her as the main subject's girlfiend in MTV's True Life I'm Polyamorous.

Of course, she leaves out the downside of being an rationalized adolescent. From The Washington Post in 2008:

"People in my generation are recognizing that they have more choices when they're deciding what they want their families to look like," says Diana Adams, 28, a polyamorous lawyer who specializes in alternative family law in New York. "This is an important historical moment because of the gay marriage conversation. We're becoming more accepting of gay parents, of single parents." She hopes to soon start a family with her two male partners.

It's almost exactly eight years since that article was published. Now 35, Adams has turned those two male partners into a "Man Harem."

No children, though.

Maybe she can dig her dolls out of storage.

Part 2--Adams' political agenda