Why I use the Old Testament and The Torah

First of all, I am not Jewish, Christian, nor religious at all. 

I'm not here to convert anyone, but I will endeavor to show you something hopefully amazing, if hard to believe at first.

The Torah is not a religious work! Or rather, religion isn't the primary function of it.

The Torah is a map to "life, the universe, and everything" (with apologies to Douglas Adams)

That seems farfetched, I know. I'm not arguing the text directly contains the answers to all life's questions in encyclopedia-like form. No, it's more like an algebra textbook. It gives you a kind of formulaic way to navigate difficult situations. It gives you new perspectives on existing ideas. It gives you actually, a holistic and articulated model of reality if you know how to use it. It is also predictive of human behavior, and where I draw most of my insight into the human condition and experience.

It's a work of philosophy and sociology, but also a work intended to highlight empirical (and experience based) reality.

It can also be used to validate or reject secular ideas - within it is verificationism. 

The challenge of using it is it is very organic in how it was put together.

The Torah was not engineered/designed like most human works. It was grown, like a tree, or a cat.

How? Generational storytelling. For who knows how long, Jews told themselves folktales, that adapted and changed over time until they became highly reflective of human behavior and our experience of reality.

Finally, those were written down, but the oral tradition continues in tandem (at least for observant Jews, not for a gentile like me)

But even as I am not Jewish and will not experience the full measure of their system, there is incredible utility in the Tanakh.

The first step of using torah ("divine revelations"), is to treat them as the ultimate authority. Placing torah in this position is not an act of hubris. It is an act of wisdom, such that torah can then be used to validate other ideas and models for correctness. The supremacy of torah is not strictly a religious thing. It is simply that you cannot use it the way it operates without it being a singular authority. Just like you'd use the system of math as a singular authority to verify equations, you use the system of torah to validate ideas.

From Converting the Wisdom of Nations, part 1

The Torah is a totality. When a topic is discussed in the Torah it is seen from all possible perspectives. The Torah is described as a perfectly clarified wisdom ( חכמה ברורה ;(everything is present, nothing is missing. In contradistinction, the truths included in the wisdom of the nations are considered point‐like.

... 

Now, let us return to our distinction between Torah as a totality vs. the truth found in the wisdom of the nations inherently being in the point‐like stage. As a totality, the Torah represents not only a way of life, but a complete portrayal of reality. Whatever topic you may learn in the Torah, know that were you to invest yourself in it fully, you would come out with a full, mature, and complete understanding of it and how it relates to every other topic or issue in reality. That is what we mean by Torah being a totality. But, the wisdom of the nations can only portray fragments of reality. For this reason, the wisdom of the nations can never be treated as a complete system. Whatever true knowledge it is able to glean from reality that knowledge will always remain (on its own) incomplete.

I'd like to interject with a personal criticism of this above passage. I don't believe Torah to be perfect, and universally complete. I don't believe any human model is, and I still accept The Torah as a human work. I simply believe it's much closer in terms of a holistic model for a sort of unified "theory of everything" than anything I've ever encountered. So far, it's the best at approaching a ToE, in my experience.

What of science? Torah is compatible with the scientific method. Torah can be used to check a hypothesis and conclusion for consistency. Science can be used to verify your exegesis - or more specifically, your interpretations of the text. As Rambam, a 12th century rabbi said “We Should Accept the Truth From Whatever Source it Proceeds”

But Genesis 1, 2 and 3! Creationism! What of those? Are they not anti-science?

Pro-tip: Don't take your interpretation of this work from Christians. They don't get it.

Ask a rabbi how old the world is. Most of them would say it's ancient, far older than 6000 years, far older than the Jewish calendar, which simply started with the emergence of what I consider to be "modern man"

The other challenge with Genesis, and indeed almost all passages in this work is that it's all conveyed using allegory and metaphor. It's mythos - storytelling. Like the Brothers Grimm. Is "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" a true story? Of course it is! The point of the story is in fact valid - true, correct. The boy never actually existed. That's not the point.

Remember these are folktales.

Genesis is a true account of of the creation of our universe, inasmuch as "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" is a true story.

If you want to see the underlying creation process, derived from The Torah, you need to look to Kabbalah, specifically Lurianic Kabbalah. See here, because this is important. You can see in there, if you squint, God contracts his "self" to make room for "Other" and then dramatically, within a very short frame of time creates the universe - this is the contraction that preceded the big bang, and the big bang that followed.

It's difficult to interpret these texts, particularly as a gentile. It helps to try to dovetail your understanding of science (start with some scientific law you're certain of) with an understanding of a related passage in the text, and eventually with enough reflection, and practice with scripture you can see how it fits. This isn't apologetics. It's a crutch someone not raised with Judaism must rely on (and absent the oral tradition which fleshes out the whole system) for want of something better. But with practice, reading the texts, trying to relate them to your understanding of the world, you can get better at understanding the "mind map" of Torah - kind of the underpinning mechanics of it.

For those of you that are still wondering about how mature/complete these stories are - how refined they are, keep in mind Hebrew is a alphanumeric language. Each letter has a numeric value.

The study of gematria is the study of The Torah basically translated to numbers.

In it there are a lot of patterns to be found. You cannot do this with the New Testament. Many have tried (From Converting the Wisdom of Nations linked at the beginning):

Let us end the first part of our topic by noting a beautiful numerical relationship. We have already noted that, quoting the language of the Zohar, “Torah comes from wisdom,” implying that Torah and wisdom are not the same thing. Though the revelation of the Torah is from wisdom, the ultimate source of the Torah is above wisdom in the very essence of God (as explicitly stated in the Zohar: ʺthe Torah and the Holy One blessed be He are oneʺ). The Torah unites all three faculties of the intellect wisdom, understanding, and knowledge, which indeed can only fully develop in the mind through the study of Torah. The numerical value of these four words in Hebrew, דעת בינה חכמה תורה ,is 1225, which is a unique number; it is both a square and a triangular number: 1225 = 352 = U49. We mentioned in passing above that square numbers symbolize completeness, maturity, and inter‐inclusion, the properties of rectification. Whenever the numerical value of a number of words together equals a square number, it tells us that these words go together and complete one another.19 Elsewhere, we have dealt with the significance of numbers that are both triangles and squares. The only 2 numbers before 1225 that share this property are (the trivial) 1, and 36; 36 = 62 = U8. Because 1225 is an odd number, it shares another property with 1 that 36 does not have: it has a midpoint. The midpoint of 1225 is 613, the total number of commandments in the Torah.

I do not use gematria, which I find about as "useful" as numerology (though maybe I just don't understand it)

However, the reason I bring it up is the only way these stories could have so many interdependent and unique numbers is because they were generationally refined.

I posit that the more mature a story is - the more it has been retold, the more regular it will become if you were to translate it to an alphanumeric language like Hebrew and then start relating the numbers together. A mature text will have many interlinked relationships. A text that has not been refined through generation storytelling will not.

Why? Simply because as stories are adapted, patterns/order starts to emerge. That's it. Nothing mystical.

If any of you have ever watched the movie Pi, the premise is basically correct, if a bit overexaggerated for the purpose of the story.

When you plot enough data points of any "grown" system, patterns emerge.

These patterns are the same across different systems. All "grown" systems have common patterns. The golden spiral or golden ratio is one of them. It's even reflected in our relative limb lengths on the human body.

Torah exploits this, because it too was grown, and the patterns in it reflect the patterns in nature.

These patterns are the "wiring in the walls" of our "dollhouse of existence" - they are artifacts of the mechanisms behind the creative force of the universe. There is an order, surrounded by chaos. But there is an order, or these common patterns would not and could not exist.

As much as I'd like to deep dive into some of the texts with you and show you specifically how they relate, each requires a lot of study.

One easy (I think) story to relate is Ezekiel 16 to the arc the US finds itself on. Even the plague is there. Disclaimer: The passage is highly impolitic by modern western standards. 

I'm going to leave you with this for now, and encourage you to read the work "Converting the Wisdom of Nations" - with an open mind - if you want to understand more. I am not a rabbi. I am just a 'lil monster that saw something neat.

Reflections on faith, and a question or even a challenge.

We recently explored "The Limits of Knowledge" and it covered some very important ground that is precursor to this brief essay.

One of the things it makes clear, is that we all must hold faith based positions in order to operate.

"I think therefore I am" is a faith based position. There is no way to prove that statement without infinite regress or circular reasoning. Anything you build off of such a proposition will be in part, faith based due to it.

Same with any of Aristotle's "First Principles" - they are all faith based, which even he acknowledged.

So we all, in order to operate, must believe some things we can't know to be true. It's simply faith based.

Faith is how we navigate the problems of Munchausen's Trilemma moment to moment. We can't function without faith. We'd be completely paralyzed intellectually.

The practical problem with putting your faith in something that other people can also put their faith in is it means you've created a honeypot for manipulation. Basically, let's say millions of people put their faith in Trump's words. Whoops, Trump turned out to be a liar. Bad idea to put your faith in men and their words. Even good men fuck up, and most of us aren't all that "good" to begin with. We could put our faith in religion (another of man's creation) but we see how that turns out. We could put our faith in something material, but that creates a market for that material, and the opportunists will come knocking just as soon as soon as you hang that shingle. You can put your faith in ideas, but all ideas have an expiration date. There is nothing --- NOTHING -- of this world that is free from corruption and the forces of entropy. Not ideas, not people, not things, not places, nothing.

That is so important to understand.

So when you put your faith in worldly things, and those things eventually fall apart, get outdated, break down, or get corrupted, what then? Changing grounding assumptions is like remodeling your mind. Very few people can do that on a whim.

What about putting your faith in something deeply personal, and to a large degree unknowable even to you? Something not of this world. Something that resists comparison to anything else? Something that is always "other", and is timeless?

Could it be advantageous to construct a theoretical entity that cannot be precisely and positively described and build faith into that?

Unraveling of American society: Public health and COVID tear Americans apart

Radical, enraged, ignorant people savaging and threatening public health officials 

for crimes against humanity, imposing communist tyranny, etc., for the crime 

of trying to mitigate illness, deaths and damage from COVID

I have frequently asserted here that, for the most part, the polarization and unraveling of American society and decreased social trust reflects a fundamentally but intentionally anti-democratic effect of dark free speech (DFS).[1] This poison has been flowing copiously from America's authoritarian radical right for decades. Toxic, divisive DFS has effectively fomented extreme political polarization and massive distrust in, among other things, the MSM, government, now including the Supreme Court, democracy and fellow citizens. The New York Times writes on the loss of fact-based reason and degeneration of public trust in sincere efforts to protect public health in the face of COVID:

PORT ANGELES, Wash. — As she leaves work, Dr. Allison Berry keeps a vigilant eye on her rearview mirror, watching the vehicles around her, weighing if she needs to take a more circuitous route home. She must make sure nobody finds out where she lives.

When the pandemic first hit the northern edge of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, Dr. Berry was a popular family physician and local health officer, trained in biostatistics and epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University. She processed Covid-19 test kits in her garage and delivered supplies to people in quarantine, leading a mobilization that kept her counties with some of the fewest deaths in the nation.

But this summer, as a Delta variant wave pushed case numbers to alarming levels, Dr. Berry announced a mask mandate. In September, she ordered vaccination requirements for indoor dining.

By then, to many in the community, the enemy was not the virus. It was her.

Dr. Berry should be attacked “on sight,” one resident wrote online. Someone else suggested bringing back public hangings. “Dr. Berry, we are coming for you,” a man warned at a public meeting. An angry crowd swarmed into the courthouse during a briefing on the Covid-19 response one day, looking for her, and protesters also showed up at her house, until they learned that Dr. Berry was no longer living there.

“The places where it is most needed to put in more stringent measures, it’s the least possible to do it,” Dr. Berry said. “Either because you’re afraid you’re going to get fired, or you’re afraid you’re going to get killed. Or both.”

State and local public health departments across the country have endured not only the public’s fury, but widespread staff defections, burnout, firings, unpredictable funding and a significant erosion in their authority to impose the health orders that were critical to America’s early response to the pandemic.  

The Times interviewed more than 140 local health officials, public health experts and lawmakers, reviewed new state laws, analyzed local government documents and sent a survey to every county health department in the country. Almost 300 departments responded, discussing their concerns over long-term funding, staffing, authority and community support. The examination showed that:

• Public health agencies have seen a staggering exodus of personnel, many exhausted and demoralized, in part because of abuse and threats. Dozens of departments reported that they had not staffed up at all, but actually lost employees. About 130 said they did not have enough people to do contact tracing, one of the most important tools for limiting the spread of a virus. The Times identified more than 500 top health officials who left their jobs in the past 19 months.

• Legislators have approved more than 100 new laws — with hundreds more under consideration — that limit state and local health powers. That overhaul of public health gives governors, lawmakers and county commissioners more power to undo health decisions and undermines everything from flu vaccination campaigns to quarantine protocols for measles. 

• Large segments of the public have also turned against agencies, voting in new local government leaders who ran on pledges to rein in public health departments. In Idaho, commissioners last month appointed a new physician representative to the health board in the Boise region who advocates unapproved treatments for Covid-19 and refers to coronavirus vaccinations as “needle rape.” “We have heard from the voters,” Ryan Davidson, one of the commissioners, said.

More than 220 departments told The Times they had to temporarily or permanently abandon other public health functions to respond to the pandemic, leading to a spike in drug overdoses and a disturbing drop in reports of child abuse. Several health officials pointed to runaway infections of sexually transmitted diseases, with gonorrhea cases doubling and syphilis on pace to triple in one county in Pennsylvania. Oswego County, N.Y., recorded a surge in lead poisoning. In Texas, requests for exemptions to the usual suite of required childhood immunizations have risen sharply.  

Many, particularly in conservative circles, have increasingly embraced individual rights over collective responsibilities, a trend that Dr. Rosner said is undercutting the notion of a social contract in which people work together to achieve a greater good.

“It’s a depressing moment,” he said. “What makes a society if you can’t even get together around keeping your people healthy?” (emphasis added)

Is this really about needle rape, medical tyranny or something about like that? Most or nearly all of this crackpottery, lies, hate and threats of violence is explicitly or tacitly supported by America's toxic, fascist Republican Party, its supporters and the gigantic propaganda and lies DFS machine that keeps stupidity like this alive. 

Experts who study democracy and tyranny uniformly assert that public trust in democracy, a free press, fellow citizens, government and the like is what helps keep democracy alive and vibrant.[2] When trust significantly fades, as has happened in America, a real and significant opportunity arises for demagogic dictators, autocrats, fascists, kleptocrats, crooks, liars and the like. That is where America is today. 

In my opinion, the evidence is now overwhelming to the point that debating matters like this COVID backlash is futile. It amounts to false balancing or bothsidesism, which is arguably more detrimental than helpful to society and democracy. A significant slice of our society has degenerated to the point that reasonable debate about COVID is akin to trying to rationally debate with climate science deniers, anti-vaxx crackpots, QAnon freaks, radical fundamentalist Christian nationalist ideologues and elites, or laissez faire capitalist ideologues, elites and plutocrats. 

Rational, evidence-based debate is no longer possible. Irrational fear, rage, hate, distrust and etc., have poisoned the minds of tens of millions of deceived, manipulated and betrayed American citizens. That state of affairs is intentionally and knowingly fomented by radical right elites and their propaganda Leviathan whose main goals are building an anti-democratic authoritarian government and accumulating more power and wealth than they already have.

Questions: 

1. Is there enough evidence to argue that for a significant plurality of Americans, rational, evidence-based debate is no longer possible? For example, look at the anger and hate on the faces of the people in the image at the top of this blog post -- can they be rational? 

2. Are experts wrong to look to trust or lack thereof as a key indicator of the health or sickness of a democracy?

3. Is it unreasonable or inaccurate to argue that radical right elites rely heavily on DFS to (i) divide Americans to help them to build an anti-democratic authoritarian government, and/or (ii) accumulate more power and wealth than they already have?

Footnote: 

1. Dark free speech: Constitutionally or legally protected (1) lies and deceit to distract, misinform, confuse, polarize and/or demoralize, (2) unwarranted opacity to hide inconvenient truths, facts and corruption (lies and deceit of omission), (3) unwarranted emotional manipulation (i) to obscure the truth and blind the mind to lies and deceit, and (ii) to provoke irrational, reason-killing emotions and feelings, including fear, hate, anger, disgust, distrust, intolerance, cynicism, pessimism and all kinds of bigotry including racism, and (4) ideologically-driven motivated reasoning and other ideologically-driven biases that unreasonably distort reality and reason. (my label, my definition)

2. One expert, Timothy Snyder, wrote in 2020:

Health care is always political, but the politics can confirm or deny democratic norms and practices. A democratic country that handles a pandemic well generates trust in government, and even national pride. If care is not universal, then the political equation, especially during a pandemic, is entirely different. When citizens cannot imagine security, politics becomes the distribution of insecurity, the allocation of fears and anxieties that push us away from an idea of common citizenship and toward authoritarianism. What is lethal for Americans is also lethal for our democracy.

They stay strong unless they get infected and sick or die

Their concern for the welfare of fellow citizens is apparently low to zero

The Limits of Knowledge

The Baron lifts himself out of the muck by his own hair...

Not long ago Dcleve and myself started a conversation about the limits of knowledge which I think might be interesting to some of our readers here, and thought this might be a good place to continue it.  It began with Dcleve claiming that there can be no "justified true belief" ( JTB ).  Though this was raised in conversation with someone else, I jumped in and D. provided several interesting comments which hopefully we can expand upon.

First, what is a "justified true belief"?  In a word, knowledge.  Knowledge means broadly that we have certainty of information, that we understand facts.  Here "having" and "understand" refer to the personal conviction we hold, which is a belief, and "facts" refers to truth - to a correlation between our belief and reality.  As we all know, correlation does not imply causation, and hence it is possible to have a belief which is true but for untrue or unsupportable reasons.  A stopped clock is correct twice per day, and all that.  So the final aspect of knowledge is that it is caused by reality, that the reasons we hold that belief to be true leave no room for equally explanatory alternatives.  This justifies the truth of our belief.  A justification in this sense is equivalent to the warrant offered by premises for an argument's conclusion.  Hence, all knowledge - and thus all facts - are the products of reason, of argument and debate, not of transcendent intuition.  Well, almost.

Here's the conversation we started about that:

AN INCLUSIVE TABLE

 

History matters: The other side of the story

By: Eartha Hopkins

https://www.mahoningmatters.com/community-columns/an-inclusive-table-history-matters-the-other-side-of-the-story-4466530

The majority of what I know about history was not found in the books I read in a formal classroom.

Instead, I learned about the wide spectrum of culture, traditions, wars and victories of the world from the tender, yet brutally honest approach of my mother who earned a bachelor’s degree in African-American studies from Youngstown State University. It instilled confidence and cultural identity that I still carry with me today.

I learned early the pros and cons of accessing a comprehensive worldview which was in sharp contrast to the lessons I’d be taught in the public school system. I faced reprimands consistently from teachers who did not necessarily agree with the cultural lens that I presented. 

An example that stands out the most is in the fourth grade when my teacher initiated a lesson about Columbus discovering America. When I questioned my teacher about how a man could discover a land that was already inhabited by people, she dismissed my inquiries and described to me and my 20 classmates that they were savages. 

Webster defines "savage" as "not being domesticated or under human control, and/or a beast." This is the framework created in the minds of a group of children expected to accept and trust their teacher. Luckily for me, my mother offered a safe space to discuss a 360-degree-view of history. I can only imagine how my classmates interpreted and internalized this message, particularly my peers of color. 

Throughout my academic journey, I would never be formally introduced to the existence and contributions of Africans before the transatlantic slave trade. Worse, the story of the civil rights movement was rendered incomprehensible because it was filled with the tropes of biased myths portrayed in media.

Omissions of accurate records of my past would create a disconnect that I would fight against to keep my identity intact. If I based my worth and value solely on what was presented to me in public institutions, I would exist in a myriad of confusion, unclear of my role within society.

Education from my perspective seemed one-sided; full of only non-Black protagonists and their viewpoint minus the various multicultural groups I knew to be true. The stories I read reflected perspectives, accomplishments and discoveries of people who rarely shared my culture, or looked like me or my community for that matter.

Even as an adult, I can still see the misguided teachings of what my fourth-grade teacher displayed in the world today.

I am just as perplexed now as I was then at how certain groups of people are dehumanized, displaced and completely omitted from American reverence. This lack of appreciation and dismissal of the full spectrum of humanity can never unite, but only further disconnects communities.

To embrace the full experiences of everyone is to begin a true process of healing and reconciliation; to create a world where we all are seen, heard and validated authentically. 

Chapter review: Introduction to the 2016 edition

According to many commentators, “the root cause” of the problems Americans face as the twentieth century draws to a close  is an “epidemic of family breakdown.” [One education expert] blames the decline of American education on a “parenting deficit.” “It’s not better teachers, texts or curricula that our children need most . . . . we will never see lasting school reform until we see parent reform.” Divorce and unwed motherhood are said to be the major causes of poverty and inequality in contemporary America. In his state of the Union Address for 1992, President Bush claimed that the crisis of the cities results from “the dissolution of the family.” Kate O'Brien of the Heritage Foundation asserts that people of all political persuasions are coming to understand that America's troubles stem from the collapse of “family stability and the work ethic.” -- Stephanie Koontz, The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap, chapter 11, The Crisis Reconsidered, original 1992 edition

Introduction & some context

As one might guess, Introduction to the 2016 edition is the introduction to the 2016 edition of a book. The book in this case is The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap by Stephanie Coontz. She is a college professor and an expert on the history of families and family structures and the actual, not spun, reality and forces they operate in.

In revealing and attacking myths, lies and crackpottery, this book is a lot like James Lowen’s 2018 book, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong (chapter review here). Koontz focuses on and debunks an endless stream of lies and myths about families. She describes how political partisans and special interests use the myths to glorify and/or justify both their political beliefs and ideology, and their political, economic and social agendas. The political mythology around American families is staggering. Crackpot thinking and a combination of lies and ignorance is routine in the faux world of families and their effects on parents, children and society.

One point that jumps right out from Introduction is how well the myths from America’s radical right dovetail perfectly with the non-existent world that fundamentalist Christian nationalist dogma and mythology has created. Millions of American conservatives fully buy into the radical family mythology that Christian zealots have created at least since the 1960s. The idealized time was the 1950s, when prosperity was widespread and wealth inequality was relatively low. Myths about how families were and should be popped up and proliferated.

It is also apparent that radical right family mythology fits nicely with radical right mythology about the dominant, authoritarian role of men in government, society and the economy. That is core Christian nationalist dogma. Thus, on this point the fit between radical right religion and politics is as close to perfect as complicated human things like this can get. 

Review: Introduction to the 2016 edition

Koontz wrote the 34 page Introduction to describe what she revised or updated in her original 1992 book. She asserts that most of the 1992 edition has been left unchanged and that the facts and/or mythology she saw then has not changed much. The Introduction is thus a nice summary of the rest of the book, with some or most of the core myths mentioned and the debunking data summarized.

Regarding nostalgia as a trap, Koontz correctly points out that nostalgia is a two-edged sword. On the one hand, it leads children to forget bad or unpleasant things in their past while having better recall of good things. But in the minds adults it can be a different thing:

“As time passes, the actual complexity of our history--even of our own personal experience--gets buried under the weight of the ideal image.

Selective memory is not a bad thing when it leads children to forget [parents’] arguments in the back seat of a car and to look forward to the next vacation. But it’s a serious problem when it leads grown-ups to try to re-create a past that either never existed at all or whose seemingly attractive features were inextricably linked to injustices and restrictions on liberty that few Americans would tolerate today.”

Koontz exemplifies the mythology of family using the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court decision that made same-sex marriage a nationwide right. Judges on both sides of that 5-4 decision got the structure or role of family wrong:

“In his dissent from the majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, ‘For all . . . . millennia, across all . . . . civilizations ‘marriage’ referred to only one relationship: the union of a man and a woman.’ Its primordial purpose, Roberts asserted, was to make sure that all children would be raised ‘in the stable conditions of a lifelong relationship.’

These assertions are simply not true. The most culturally preferred form of marriage in the historical record--indeed, the type of marriage referred to most often in the five books of the Old Testament--was actually of one man to several women. Some societies also practiced polyandry, where one woman married several men, and some even sanctioned ghost marriages, where parents married off a son or daughter the the deceased child of another family with whom they wished to establish closer connections.

The most common purpose of marriage in history was not to ensure children had access to both their mother and father but to acquire advantageous in-laws and expand the family labor force. The wishes of the young people being matched up and the well-being of their offspring were frequently subordinated to those goals. That subordination was enforce through the institution of illegitimacy, which functioned to deny parental support to children born of a relationship not approved by the kin of one or both parents or by society’s rulers. In Anglo-American common law, a child born out of wedlock was a filius nullius, a child of nobody, entitled to nothing.”

So much for how the American radical right sees marriage. It is a mirage. How did the majority five justices in Obergefell see  marriage?

“Justice Anthony Kennedy, meanwhile, wrote an eloquent majority opinion in support of marriage equality. Labeling marriage a ‘union unlike any other in its importance’ to two committed persons, Kennedy argued that gays and lesbians deserved to marry because lifelong unions have ‘always promised nobility and dignity to all persons’ and ‘marriage is essential to our most profound hopes and aspirations.’

These claims are also at odds with historical reality. For thousands of years, marriage conferred nobility and dignity almost exclusively on the husband, who had a legal right to appropriate the property and earnings of his wife and children and forcibly impose his will upon them. As late as the 1970s, most states had ‘head and master’ laws, giving special decision-making rights to husbands, while the law explicitly defined rape as a man’s forcible intercourse with a woman other than his wife.”

More mirage. 

Koontz points out that such mythologizing about the historical benefits marriage has the downside of its tendency to to blame social ills on divorce and unwed motherhood. She points out that in the marriage-centric illusory good old days of the 1950s, poverty and material hardship were more common than now. Women and children bore the brunt of poverty in both traditional marriages and in households headed by women. Current worldwide research indicates that men in marriages are often economically advantaged at the expense of wives and/or children. Koontz writes:

 “In chapter 11 I discuss what’s wrong with the claim that unwed childbearing is the primary cause of poverty, economic insecurity, and inequality. Recent research bears out my argument. A 2015 study concluded that overall, between 1979 and 2013, income inequality was four times more important as family structure in explaining the growth of poverty. Another recent study concludes that since 1995, the role of single parenthood in contributing to economic instability has diminished even more.

Yet, politicians and pundits continue to recycle the myth that poverty and inequality are the result of marital arrangements rather than larger socioeconomic forces. A 2012 report for the Heritage Foundation by Robert Rector, ‘Marriage: America’s Greatest Weapon Against Child Poverty,’ insists, even after the Great Recession plunged so many married families into poverty, that ‘the principal cause [of child poverty] is the absence of married fathers in the home.’ .... And a 2014 publication of the U.S. House Budget Committee, ‘The War on Poverty: 50 Years Later,’ totally misrepresents the accomplishments of the war on poverty ...., before joining the chorus with the claim that ‘the single most important determinant of poverty is family structure.’”

In 2014, Republicans controlled the House and this narrative fits with Christian nationalist and authoritarian radical right propaganda. One can only wonder if House Democrats agreed with this nonsense. Maybe they did.

Other family myths and lies that Koontz skewers in Introduction with actual empirical data include (i) criticism of parents for not spending as much time on child rearing as in cherry picked earlier times, (ii) complaints that marriage is a dying institution (it is not), and (iii) belief in family self-reliance without help from outside the family, including from government domestic spending programs, e.g., the home mortgage interest deduction is worth tens of billions annually to the top 20% of income earners. There is a cornucopia of lies, myths and BS to be revealed and skewered with data. Maybe that is why the book is 409 pages long, 443 pages if one includes Introduction.

Questions: 

1. Is it too much of a stretch to see a close connection between American family mythology and current (i) radical right Christian nationalist fundamentalism, and/or (ii) the rise of fascism as the dominant ideology or mindset in the Republican Party? 

2. Is Koontz a propagandist or is it believable that she is right in arguing there is a great deal of mythology and lies surrounding the American family and the institution of marriage, e.g., was Supreme Court reasoning based mostly on falsehoods in the Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage?